Don Tapscott Thinking Big - Macrowikinomics: Social Sciences and Social Change in the Age of Social Media

Posting this in its entirety.  If you read my blog you know why I'm jazzed about the subject matter.

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Don Tapscott

Macrowikinomics: Social Sciences and Social Change in the Age of Social Media

Tuesday, May 29, 19:00 to 20:00
Modern Languages (UW), Theatre of the Arts

In partnership with the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council

The current global economic crisis is not just cyclical, but rather symptomatic of a deeper secular change. There is growing evidence that we need to rethink and rebuild many of the organizations and institutions that have served us well for decades, but now have come to the end of their life cycle.

At the same time the contours of new enterprises and industries are becoming clear. With the Internet, society has at its disposal the most powerful platform ever for bringing together the people, skills and knowledge we need to ensure growth, social development and a just and sustainable world. And all around the world there is the first generation to “grown up digital” are entering the workforce and becoming citizens. These “digital natives” are a powerful force for change.

People everywhere are collaborating like never before. From education, science and the humanities to new approaches to citizen engagement and democracy, sparkling new initiatives are underway, embracing a new set of principles for the 21st century — collaboration, openness, sharing, interdependence and integrity.

Don Tapscott, for 3 decades arguably the world’s leading thinker about the impact of the digital revolution on business and society, argues that this is an age of participation where the humanities and social sciences have a central role to play.

Why Mitt Romney Should Listen to Colin Powell (But Won't)

"Look at the world. There is no pure competitor of the United States of America," he said. "All the problems we talk about in Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran ... they count about 700 million people in a world of seven billion. What are the rest of them doing? They're increasing their economies, they're building wealth, they're educating their kids, they're building their infrastructure. That's what we need to be doing."

Colin Powell is a brilliant military strategist - the Sun-tzu kind that sees conflict as costly and inefficient.  For him, success isn't defined as being the last man standing, but rather in terms of security, stability, economic growth and quality of life.

Powell does a brilliant presentation on leadership that should be mandatory reading for anyone who aspires to lead others.  He gets this command stuff, which is why it behooves folks like Mitt Romney to listen.

So why doesn't he?

Romney's track record suggests he defines success as quashing everyone he sees as different from himself.  His business history of slashing and burning teams - the people he theoretically led - fits within the same hawkish approach he's taking to foreign policy.  Romney's not about leadership - he's about dominance.  He probably embraces the "with us or against us" mentality.  For him, America isn't defined by what it stands for so much as what it stands against.

So, the Soviet Union, er sorry, Russia - is the black hat to the US' crusading gunslinger.  Gay marriage isn't just another way of building a family - it's a threat to decency.  It goes on and on.  Leadership is proactive - Romney is reactive.

I'm not so much about winning as I am about success.  I'd love to see a decent competitor for Obama, because that's how you generate new, well thought-out ideas - not by attempting to eliminate competition, but by challenging yourself to do better.  Romney decidedly fails to meet that standard.

We're all better off when we raise the bar - not lower it, as Romney seems determined to do.  Just think what the tenure would be if the match-up was Powell vs. Obama.  We'd all be benefit from genuine police discussion that would result from that race.

Mental Fitness - Support your Talent for Success

"How aware are we of the invisible forces of brain chemistry, social cues and temperament that determine how we think and act?"

React to This

Vic Toews.  Chris Mazza.  Adam Carroll.  Or Allan Hunsperger, Mitt Romney, Silvio Berlusconi.

What these folk have in common is that they have all gotten in trouble for just doing what came to mind.  They may have rationalized their action (or inaction) but never did they consider that part of their noggin was leading them to engage in activities that were long-term detrimental for them.  Their minds already had a model in place - additional facts were irrelevant.  If they thought about consequences at all, the train probably went something like this - be aggressive or righeteous enough, or just ignore what challenges you, and things will carry on.

 

All people have an inclination to react positively to what agrees with them, negatively to what doesn't and to completely ignore what doesn't appear to be relevant.  If you don't have kids, do you spend much time thinking about how stroller/wheelchair accessible buildings are?  When was the last time you thought about where, exactly, your produce comes from?  You see my point.

These inclinations are inherited instincts that have been developed over countless generations of evolution.  We all learn to control ourselves to some degree, too - not eating that extra dessert, for instance, or putting in the extra effort on a project or at the gym.  This ability to self-regulate, to pause the "react" function and think things through is an essential social tool.

This executive function is equally rooted in our biology; it's the newer part of our brain, that which sets us apart from other animals, that allows us to pause on reaction until we have thought things through.  The part of the brain that houses this funciton also allows us to connect dots - if I do A and the other person responds B, then C will result.  This conscious thought lets us plan ahead, but it also lets us create; ie, if I take this product and find a way to combine it with that service, I'll have a new offering to market.

Everyone has both pieces in their cognitive matrix - the reactive and proactive ones.  Confidence is supported by one; mental competence, the other.  Ideally, you want a mix of both - to acheive a mental balance between action and thought, a state of mental fitness called mushin in bushido.

What we have to ask ourselves is, what influences this mental fitness?  Part of it is biological; just as people have high or low metabolisms and varying degrees of pigmentation that impact sensitivity to light, some people are naturally more reactive than others.  They might be anxious, excitable; they might get depressed easily.  Some folk are readily creative, others need stimulation.  Some of it is external; diet, environment, our day-to-day interactions.  Just as someone smoking every day has a greater succeptibity to lung cancer or someone typing all day will be prone to develop carpal tunnel syndrome, soldiers, police officers, ERT and teachers are more likely to develop traumatic stress disorders than others.

Like physical exercise and accomodation, it isn't until we understand how these cognitive kinetics work that we can really learn how to harness the full potential of our thoughts and mitigate the things that negatively stress our brains.  Just as physical health requires us to pay attention to external factors - light and humidity levels, traffic, repetitive injury, traffic - mental fitness requires the same level of awareness and management of our external worlds. 

Chicken and Egg

Now think about this on the grand scale for a second.  A heightened focus on reacting to things that go beyond our mental models leads to stigma.  Stigma can have grave consequences, but much more common are the subtle accumulated stresses that build up leaving us with the cognitive (and social) equivalents of arthritis.  Which can be a real problem in promoting productivity in the workplace.  Which might just have something to do with the mess our global economy is in.

I couldn't begin to tell you the number of leaders I know who fall into the "we are smart, they are dumb" trap.  Experience of disagreement and a poor understanding of motivation leads to this sort of mentality, time and again - stagnating connect-the-dots opportunities and instead closing one's perspective off behind cognitive firewalls.

So, leaders, I ask you - what really comes first, poor results from employees or poor management?

Colin Powell puts it best:

In a brain based economy, your best assets are your people.  We've heard this expression so often that it's become trite.  But how many leaders really walk the talk with this stuff?  Too often, people are assumed to be empty chess pieces to be moved around by grand viziers, which may explain why so many top managers immerse their calendar time in deal making, restructuring and the latest management fad.  How many immerse themselves in the goal of creating an environment where the best, the brightest, the most creative are attracted, retained and, most importantly, unleashed?

The Train has Left the Station

Now, the decision-makers who read this will probably chuckle, pity my naivite and go back to their traditional top-down model of engagement.  To them, I offer a reminder of the names at the top.  Thanks to social media, economic woes and a young generation that grew up watching their parents have opportunities they themselves are going to have less acccess to, every Vikileak, every Goldman Sachs, every Scott Thompson can and will come to light.

Business as usual is already at it's end; the question is, how consciously are you going to be prepared for what comes next?

Canada's Youth - Unemployed Today, Leading Tomorrow

The number of young people without work in the world has grown by four million since 2007. What's more troubling? Millions more “disconnected youth” have given up the job search altogether.

This is a troubling article, to be sure.  More broadly; not only are youth giving up on the job search, but they are turning against social insitutions they feel are repressing them.

For anyone who's looking, though, there's also an incredible opportunity waiting to be seized.

“The youth unemployment crisis can be beaten but only if job creation for young people becomes a key priority in policy making and private sector investment picks up significantly,” said José Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs, executive director of the ILO employment sector.

Governments don't have the money to do this.  Many small businesses are cash-strapped as it is.  More to the point, a lot of young people are disenfranchised with work and employment in its current model.

It's not that they don't want to work - it's that they want to be respected and have ownership of their work.  They want to build something for themselves, not for a generation from whom they feel increasingly disconnected.  The thought that settled baby-boomers are going to tell them to pick up and move across the country to drive a cab, because that's what's available, is deeply offensive to them.

The solution to this?  Entrepreneurship. 

Those at the top with the financial resources need to start connecting their funding with start-up capital and mentorship opportunities.  Governments starved for new policy directions and ideas would do well to foster these connections.

Places like the MaRS discovery District and the Centre for Social Innovation are leading the way on this front.  In terms of social participation, civic engagement projects like Samara and Why Should I Care are helping to connect young people with those in power and provide them with a voice that gets heard.

And there are ideas out there - practical, sustainable, affordable ones that, with the right nurturing, can change the world for the better.

If you want to know more, drop me a line - ccarteredwards@gmail.com.

Don't Let It Happen Again

This picture jumped out at me from this morning's Toronto Star, sending a shiver up my spine.  Perhaps not the context, but the image itself struck an uncomfortable cord.  Then I dug around and came across this.

As economic tensions rise because there are those within the system who refuse to engage in a conscious, respectful manner, the list of groups and individuals feeling disenfranchised grows longer.  Tolerance is on the decline, with antagonism and isolationism increasing all around the world.  The Western World is far from immune. 

We cannot turn a blind eye to the consequences of anger and intolerance again.  Why?

Because there are no bad people; only ignorance and fear keeps us from meeting our full potential, as one richly diverse global population.  Because the world is too small.  Because the consequences are so dire.  Most importantly, it's because conflict is so inefficient.

I still believe things are going to get worse before they get better; that we are once again going to have to skirt perilously close to the unfathomable before we regain our sense and remember the simple logic;

We can live together, or we can die alone.

Premier McGuinty: The Best Consultants Are Yet to be Tapped

Nobody wants to accept the gloomy economic growth projections on which Mr. Drummond’s cost-cutting recommendations were predicated, but nobody knows exactly how to beat them.

There was more meaning to the Drummond Report than just doom and gloom.

Many of the brilliant, bold ideas that will take us through our current challenges won't come from top-dollar consultants.  They'll come from an increasingly engaged populace and an amazing group of emerging social entrepreneurs.  A heightened focus on breaking down service silos and reducing duplication, gaps and overlaps is essential.  This means culture change, always a challenge, but facilitated by people not of the system who still believe in its value.

If Premier McGuinty is really looking for new solutions to some of our most challenging problems, I would suggest he send out staff to attend Why Should I Care events (next one's on Monday May 28 at the Duke of York, starting 6:30pm) to hear some interesting conversations around what hasn't worked and what's being considered by officialdom, with lots of fresh ideas from the floor about how to make our system work.  Organizer Terri Chu always has interesting, sometimes provocative line-up of speakers that touch on their subjects in direct, powerful ways.

The Premier himself should bend the ear of Tonya Surman at the Centre for Social Innovation.  The team of social entrepreneurs who have collected there are pursuing a wealth of interesting new initiatives ranging from new training tools for employees, the use of microfluidics to make anything to do with liquid (ie, blood samples) easier, or simple stuff like turning store waste into energy and creating new aggregate models for services.  Then, there's the growing link between health care costs, mental health and productivity, say nothing of quality-of-life.  Looking at mental health proactively, rather than reactively, is going to change much of everything.

Tomorrow's solutions won't be cultivated at the top; they're being formulated right now by the social entrepreneurs working their way up from the bottom.

Response to Comments on Tammy Hart and Diversity

As a woman in poliltics, Tammy Hart should be proud of what she's done.  There was a time where women were far more marginalized in society than they are today (though we still have a long way to go).  It would be nice to see her equally support other groups in her community that have been marginalized.

My response to a letter by James' Borer about Tammy's position against support the French community, below. 

It is nice to hear that Tammy is making the time to learn French!   As she makes progress, she’s going to find that speaking a second language in no way threatens her original tongue.  It’s the same thing with New Canadians; an influx of new ideas and new traditions doesn’t diminish what came before, but enhances the mix.  Call it social genetics.

While there’s some value in representing the fears of one’s community, politicians have an obligation to balance those concerns with building the local tools needed for success in the future.  That’s why I’m glad to see Jim Brownell’s name raised here, as this is something he was a champion of.

During his time as MPP, Jim Brownell was challenged to support an important cause on behalf of a minority of Canadians – the deaf and hard of hearing – by James Borer (I know this because I was Jim’s Executive Assistant at the time).  Thanks to James’ work and Jim’s commitment, Ontario now funds cochlear implants for both ears deaf kids in Ontario, as well as providing support services.

Now, this is all at the taxpayer’s cost.  You and I, whether we’re deaf or not, are helping deaf kids to hear.  This assistance allows for kids who would otherwise exist at the margins of society to be teachers, athletes, fully-contributing members of our society.  Watch this video to see what a powerful difference your tax dollars are making: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQdz1WAtEuQ.   

As traditional manufacturing jobs leave for emerging economies like Brazil and China; places who don’t accommodate their citizens (to growing civil unrest) and the Stephen Harper government is focusing on other parts of the country to be our economic drivers, it’s up to local politicians to think big and find new ways to strengthen our communities. 

Tammy’s view of keeping diversity at bay, reducing centralized government and focusing on owning land over developing skills is not the answer.  What good is it to have no French in your community, no support for New Canadians, own a big plot of land but have to fly to Alberta every week for work?

SDSG’s growing level of diversity is what will give it an edge, if politicians like Tammy can think outside their traditional box and seize the opportunities of the emerging Knowledge Economy.  There are huge markets out there in the world that speak French.  What opportunities are they looking for?  What online services can we develop and sell to them?  Beyond that, what other emerging global opportunities can solutions be designed for right in the United Counties?

As Tammy really drills down into French, she’ll find herself blessed with not only a new way of expressing herself, but an additional world view.  This is a powerful tool to have.  Diversity, as evolution shows us, is what will keep us moving forward.