STORIES
Contents
- 1 Federation through Stories
- 1.1 How does one lift up an insight of a giant out of undeserved anonymity?
- 1.2 – Digital technology could help make this a better world. But we've also got to change our way of thinking.
- 1.3 – The task is nothing less than to build a new society and new institutions for it.
- 1.4 And then there's the invisible elephant!
Federation through Stories
How does one lift up an insight of a giant out of undeserved anonymity?
Here we use vignettes – engaging, sticky... people and situation anecdotes. By combining them into threads, and threads into patterns, we condense the giants' key insights into a general idea that provides meaning and orientation.
– Digital technology could help make this a better world. But we've also got to change our way of thinking.
We like to begin by telling the story of Douglas Engelbart's Unfinished Revolution, because this story is emblematic of knowledge federation. The story is about how the Silicon Valley and the Stanford University failed to understand or even hear their genius in residence – even after having recognized him as such! Knowledge federation may be understood as an initiative to continue and complete this "unfinished revolution".
There are a number of reason why this story is important – and when you begin to see them, you'll rush to click the above link and then take all the time it takes to process it slowly. Here is one of them: By showing just how much the current-paradigm or (allow me to say) old-paradigm leaders are stuck in the paradigm and unable to see beyond it, this story points to an opportunity for smaller yet braver protagonists to take the lead.
So what was Doug's not yet understood point? In what way should we "change our way of thinking" to be able to use the digital technology to "make this a better world"?
Cybernetics. The story of governance. NOBODY has control!
– The task is nothing less than to build a new society and new institutions for it.
We obtain the larger picture when we place this into the history of the environmental movement (let's call it that). What is it that we the people REALLY need to do? Interestingly, this is
"The task is nothing less than to build a new society and new institutions for it. With technology having become the most powerful change agent in our society, decisive battles will be won or lost by the measure of how seriously we take the challenge of restructuring the “joint systems” of society and technology."
And then there's the invisible elephant!
Perhaps the main reason why the best ideas of our best minds are still waiting to be discovered by us others is – paradoxically – that they do truly make a difference! To make sense, an idea must fit in snuggly with our other ideas, or into our shared paradigm. But as we mentioned – the best ideas of our best minds compose together an altogether different paradigm! And hence our giants appear to us as those proverbial blind men touching an elephant, each speaking excitedly about its different part.
We undertake to make a difference by describing the whole thing – and then showing how the pieces fit in and compose its different parts. As the organs of an elephant will only be truly understood when seen as functional parts of the whole big animal, so can the visions and contributions of our giants only be understood when seen in the context of the new order of things to which they are intended to contribute.
By connecting the dots, we provide the context in which the best ideas of our best minds can be understood and appreciated. And what a sight it is!