Something is Rising

The first time I recall someone speaking truth to power because of conviction was Kai Nagata.

Since then, we've had Greg Smiths, Andrew Coynes and Dan Gardners.  They're all still finding success; speaking truth to convention has perhaps redirected their trajectory, but it hasn't killed them.  In fact, by stripping away the false pretenses that have probably chafed, their honesty has probably empowered them.  The very notion of bluntly, plainly speaking truth to convention has even taken root in popular culture.

Of course, all of this comes with caveats - there's a difference between calling a spade a spade and going on an emotion-fueled rant.  One could very well put Rob Ford's "run 'em out of town" comment in this category, where it doesn't belong.  There's a big difference between defining authentic problems and finding comprehensive, structural solutions.

Those are only found through conversation, which can only be conducted in an atmosphere of open and mutual respect.  In any conversation where are buttons are consciously or unconsciously being pushed, the instinct to react instead of internalize and understand is hard to fight and ever harder to recognize.  But that's the challenge we face if we're to get past this period of stagnation and keep moving forward.

This is the challenge of the 21st Century; the realization of a consciously, strategically collaborative society.  To bridge this gap takes a different kind of leader than we're used to; rhetoric and positioning aren't enough.  What's required today are integrity, honour, and foresight.

It's a good time to be alive.

The Carly Rae Jepsen "Call Me Maybe" Meme: This is What Innovation Looks Like

Life creates it, makes it grow. Its energy surrounds us and binds us. Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter. You must feel the Force around you; here, between you, me, the tree, the rock, everywhere, yes.

Who takes the time to make a Star Wars clip-collection to add to the Call Me Maybe meme? 

For that matter, who takes the time to crowd-source clips recreating the Star Wars movie?

What makes a person go to those whimsical lengths?  How many internal memory files, how much cognitive capacity to connect dots do you need to devise and follow through on something like this?  More to the point, what is it that makes Star Wars a social phenomenon that people want to be a part of?  Boiled down - what's the connection between creativity and society?

There are those who will say it's profit that drives us.  Seriously, though, are there not easier ways to make money?  Are initiatives like streetpianos.com really about making individual profit, or are they about something a bit more inclusive?  We human beings are hard-wired to feel part of something larger than ourselves.  At some level, we all have an inkling there's some force that penetrates us, binds the galaxy together.  We want skin in that game; we want legacy.  We want to consciously be part of the whole. 

Live theatre builds an audience of experience out of a group of individuals.  Movie theatres, concerts, political rallies or religious and social ceremonies do the same thing.  Social media is the latest, broadest conduit, a social neural net that's connecting us and our collective lineages in ways never experienced before.  There is conflict from this clash, a hormonal reaction to challenge - but there is unparalleled neuro-synaptic creativity as well.  IDIC - the more diversity we're exposed to, the more tools we have to select from. 

The very process of wrapping our heads around the impacts of this diversity results in us connecting what we know to what we learn, bridging new gaps and expanding our cognitive puzzles a bit further.  That puzzle is what Don Tapscott would call Networked Intelligence - not the creation of a uniform culture under a one-world government, but an active harnessing of the fullness of human collective potential.  The whole, the social organism, is more than the sum of its individual parts.

We don't need to be afraid.  We don't have to get angry.  There is good in this world, and it's worth collaborating for.  When we work together, there's nothing we can't accomplish - we can even move mountains.  We just have to believe it.

Conscious Leadership

"...they have no sense that they are guardians for an institution the world depends on; they have no consciousness of their larger social role."

I have worked with a great many people in positions of power - political, private-sector, union, etc.   Too many of them put their tribal interests before the good of their industry.  Some of them don't even care about their own partisan interests; they're in it for themselves.  I am seeing an increasing number of these folk either suffer internal strains caused by the dog-eat-dog climate they foster or having their brand tarnished in the grand arena that is social media.

There are others, though, people who do what they do for the right reasons and often take on the narrower objectives of partisanship reluctantly, out of loyalty.  Some have gone so far as to internally speak truth to power, only to be censored for doing so by the first bunch.  The bravest accept this risk going in, but do what they believe is right regardless.  These are the folk that give me hope.

Then, there's us, those that don't sit in the orbit of power.  We might be voters, but our votes come only every four years; our capacity to influence is limited.  We might be shareholders, but shareholder meetings have limited ability to effect substantial change.  We might be union members, but when we're offered limited choices, we can only decide on limited outcomes.

In a recent column, Dan Gardner wrote about the power of social media to connect people.  I'll take his direction a bit further down the road; social media doesn't just connect people, it creates stronger, crowd-sourced voices.  These voices cannot be ignored by those at the top; they have the power to condemn, praise - and offer alternatives.

Like every layer of socialization that has come before it, social media will also be manipulated and nurture corruption, but those pulling the strings will have to think through the potential consequences of getting caught far more than any who have come before them.  As strategies weigh wider bandwidths of consequence, even the corrupt will be forced to engage through a consciously pro-social lens.

This has been the trend of history, alluded to by many a philosopher over the years.  While the leader who is feared is great, best is the leader who is loved.  The Master, however, is barely recognized at all; when their work is done, the people say "amazing, we did it all by ourselves."

How many leaders today are conscious of this?  They're going to have to be.

Welcome to the Conscious Society.

Don't Hate Harper

"But in the anti-Conservative fever swamps, there’s no discussion. There is rage."

I've said it before and, sadly, I know I'm going to be saying it again - in his attempt to play the emotion card as a way to make Canada more conservative, Stephen Harper is only succeeding in making Canadians angrier. It should really come as no surprise - when you keep hitting the fear button, you make people more reactive. You tell them their resources are being taken away, you trigger a deep-rooted gut-reaction that rails against rather than stands for.

 

 

 

It's a disconcerting trend. People are beginning to feel that discussion can't work, that militancy is the only way to make things happen. Screw the other guy, we're going to fight for what we know is right. While the trend towards reactive, emotional behaviour society-wide is not all on Harper's shoulders - we've been witnessing the rise in violent division across the Western World - his approach is adding fuel to the fire.

 

 

 

This isn't good for Harper, nor is it good for the long-term prospects of his party. It certainly isn't good for Canada, or our position in the world. The solution, though, isn't to fight fire with fire, to become that which we might stand against. The answer, as always, is to drill down to the places where we agree and engage the Other in finding shared solutions.

 

 

 

Move Forward Together is not and cannot be the property of any one given group - it has to include everyone.

 

 

 

If we can't live together, we're going to die alone.