Taking down all the Berlin Walls

It takes the collective intelligence of the multitudes to take down all the Berlin Walls...   workplace communities, social networks, knowledge networks, communities of practice, virtual worlds, community currencies, smart mobs...         The art on the left is of Michelle Paradise.

 

"The fax machine brought down the Berlin Wall. The World-Wide Web will help us bring down all those walls and ceilings that keep us insulated from our individual and collective genius, locked up in 'command-and-control' thinking and structures." Bill Veltrop

 

The Web is helping with that but meeting the "perfect storm" of our multiple global crises and coming out on the other end victoriously, is calling for more than a technological innovation. There are also "Berlin Walls" that stop the flow co-creation in our old habits of thinking and social systems ill-adapted to the era of distributed cognition, mobile networks, and disruptive innovation.

What Time Is It in the World? Jump Time!

"The future is already here, only not evenly distributed..."   disruptive innovation, cyborgs, citizen media gift economy, peer production (wikinomics), open source, distributed cognition, We-Think, collective wisdom

 

"In evolutionary theory, Jump Time is known as the time of punctuated equilibrium -- when a species is living at the edge of its tolerance in a state of gestation and ferment and suddenly jumps into a new order of being..." -- Jump Time, by Jean Houston

 

As the poet says, "the old world is dying, and the new is yet to come..."  

 

Emergence

The arising of new unexpected structures, patterns or processes jazz groups playing live formation of snowflakes "cathedral" built by termites, the Internet, caterpillar --> butterfly

 

"In philosophy, systems theory and the sciences, emergence refers to the way complex systems and patterns arise out of a multiplicity of relatively simple interactions... Systems can have qualities not directly traceable to the system's components, but rather to how those components interact."

 

"At each level of complexity entirely new properties appear. Psychology is not applied biology, nor is biology applied chemistry. We can now see that the whole becomes not merely more, but very different from the sum of its parts." Wikipedia

Emergence - a "Metasystem Transition" Perspective

How many snowflakes does it take to break a branch? Only one, when all the others are already there.

“Consider a system S of any kind. Suppose that there is a way to make some number of copies from it, possibly with variations. Suppose that these systems are united into a new system S' which has the systems of the S type as its subsystems, and includes also an additional mechanism which controls the behavior and production of the S-subsystems. Then we call S' a metasystem with respect to S, and the creation of S' a metasystem transition... The major steps in evolution, both biological, and cultural, are nothing else but metasystem transitions of a large scale.” The Metasystem Transition, by V. Turchin and C. Joslyn

 

Networks

Developing shared meaning and purpose Facebook, LinkedIn, Wiser Earth Entrepreneurs for Sustainability Gaia Community, World Forum of Civil Society Networks NetSquared movement

 

«Coalitions, alliances and networks are forming as the means to create societal change. There are ever more networks and now, networks of networks. These networks are essential for people finding likeminded others, the first stage in the lifecycle of emergence. Networks tend to have fluid membership; people move in and out of them... »

Communities of Practice

Developing new practices together CoP in local government (UK), CoP on partnership (EU), CoP at IBM, CPsquare, WorldBank

« Networks make it possible for people to find others engaged in similar work. The second stage of emergence is the development of communities of practice (CoPs)… People share a common work and realize there is great benefit to being in relationship. They use this community to share what they know, to support one another, and to intentionally create new knowledge for their field of practice There is an intentional commitment to … share those discoveries with a wider audience. Good ideas move rapidly amongst members. New knowledge and practices are implemented quickly. The speed at which knowledge development and exchange happens is crucial, because local regions and the world need this knowledge and wisdom now. »

 

Temporary Autonomous Zones

Spreading new practices, seeding new networks and communities Burning Man, barcamps, unconferences, such as: 2gether08, Reboot, SHINE Social Innovation Camp

“The Temporary Autonomous Zone (TAZ) describes the socio-political tactic of creating temporary spaces that elude formal structures of control… The best way to create a non-hierarchical system of social relationships is to concentrate on the present and on releasing one's own mind from the controlling mechanisms that have been imposed on it.” (Wikipedia)

 

Systems of Influence

New practices become mainstream Council on Social Action (UK) Corporate Social ResponsibilityC-40 cities

« This stage in emergence can never be predicted. It is the sudden appearance of a system that has real power and influence. .... The practices developed by courageous communities become the accepted standard. People no longer hesitate about adopting these approaches and methods and they learn them easily. Policy and funding debates now include the perspectives and experiences of these pioneers. Emergence is the fundamental scientific explanation for how local changes can materialize as global systems of influence. As a change theory, it offers methods and practices to accomplish the systems-wide changes that are so needed at this time. »

 

Some Characteristics of “Power to the People” 2.0

A knowledge management perspective on Society 2.0 The source of the comparison chart and the text that follows is David Gurteen's World 2.0 newsletter:   It is still early days and there are many issues to be grappled with as we try to balance the structure and stability of the old world with the more fluid and complex nature of the new. But the "2.0 meme" is starting to affect everything. In a talk in Kuala Lumpur I was asked how you implement Enterprise 2.0 and I was talking about some of the barriers when someone spoke up and said "We will never have Enterprise 2.0 until we have Managers 2.0!" In other words it was managers and their out-dated mind sets that was a major barrier to change. And a few days later while giving another talk at the National Library in Singapore I found us talking about Libraries 2.0 and Learning 2.0.   It then hit me that “2.0” thinking was permeating everything. People were also taking about Business 2.0 and Education 2.0.

So what does this mean in its broadest sense? Well, we are no longer consumers: of goods, services or education - we are all prosumers - we all have the opportunity to create and consume. For the first time we are participants in everything and not the “victims”. Fundamentally it is about "freedom". We are moving from a world where we were told to do things and where things were structured or planned for us to one where we get to decide what works best for us. We are moving from a mono-culture to a highly diverse ecology. We are moving from a simple world to a rich, complex, diverse one. One where power is less centralized and more distributed. We are moving from a command and control world to a world where people can do as they please within the boundaries of responsibility.

Designing a Large-Scale Action Research

The evolution of an idea: Large-scale group communications at TranspacNet (1986) Designing for the Emergence of a Global-scale Collective Intelligence (2001) Jump Time Players (2008- )

Next actions:

1. Form a hosting team to discover and practice the art of hosting conscious evolution

2. Use «Theory U» as the methodological foundation for large-scale action research

3. Make the whole visible to itself and its parts through social media, Social Presencing Theatre and Evolutionary Nexus

 

Call to Cartographers of the Emergent Planetary Humanity

What could become possible?   What could become possible if we had good maps of today's world-changing movements and disciplines, and their inter-relatedness? Maps that show the parts how they are related to the emergent new whole... How would such multidimensional maps look like and be used?

Connecting the circles on the “Systems of Influence” diagram leads to the one above, where the apparently separate vortices touch, interpenetrate, and discover that they are enfolded parts of the new whole of social practices and organization. How could the new maps help increasing the connectivity in the ecosystem of evolutionary initiatives, which is a condition of the “Emergence of a Global-scale Collective Intelligence.” (Paper is downloadable from here.) Where are the cartographers of the vast ecosystem of emerging change initiatives in all areas of social life? This is a call to form our community of practice. If you feel called, contact George Pór.