« The Blob Returns - YouTube is Eating the Internet | Weblog | Ten Technologies to Watch »

Emergent Change in a Networked World

After last night's Texas Two-Step (the Democratic double-punch of Primary and Caucus), I'm even more convinced that we don't get it as a society, not yet. I participated in my first-ever caucus at Precinct 345, at my kds' former elementary school gym. We waited until 8:30 (polls officially closed at 7:00 pm) to sign our names on lists for our preferred candidates. About 500 of us grown adults separated into two groups on either side of the room, based on our affinity for either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton (my wife was there to counter my vote for Obama with her vote for Hillary!).

After last night's election returns, I think that we all have our work cut out for us as we talk about CHANGE. When I lie awake at night, I fear we have little idea of the grip that the Status Quo has on all of us. That's why I've embraced the candidacy of Barack Obama - I feel that US society, so critical to the way that we all live our lives on this planet, has gone way off the rails over the past decade and we need some dramatic change to get back on track. But that's just me - obviously, there are a greater number of Democrats, at least last night, who believe that Hillary Clinton represents sufficient Change, at least as far as the pure numbers in Ohio, Texas, and Rhode Island go. Me, I'm not so sure; I think that as talented as Hillary is, as an early Baby Boomer, she still represents evolutionary change and she's still too close to many of the problems we face to represent the solution that we really need. In a way, she's compromised by the very experience that she touts to urge people to vote for her. Whether our society is really ready for the solutions that we really need is another question altogether. I'm afraid it may not be. Not yet.

Obama sketched out a different theory of social change than the one Clinton had implied earlier in the evening. Instead of relying on a president who fights for those who feel invisible, Obama, in the climactic passage of his speech, described how change bubbles from the bottom-up: "And because that somebody stood up, a few more stood up. And then a few thousand stood up. And then a few million stood up. And standing up, with courage and clear purpose, they somehow managed to change the world!"

For people raised on Jane Jacobs, who emphasized how a spontaneous dynamic order could emerge from thousands of individual decisions, this is a persuasive way of seeing the world. For young people who have grown up on Facebook, YouTube, open-source software and an array of decentralized networks, this is a compelling theory of how change happens.

Clinton had sounded like a traditional executive, as someone who gathers the experts, forges a policy, fights the opposition, bears the burdens of power, negotiates the deal and, in crisis, makes the decision at 3 o'clock in the morning.

But Obama sounded like a cross between a social activist and a flannel-shirted software C.E.O. - as a non hierarchical, collaborative leader who can inspire autonomous individuals to cooperate for the sake of common concerns.A Defining Moment - New York Times

I think the fact that I'm pulling a quote from David Brooks is noteworthy - he's not my favorite columnist, not by a long shot. But still, he makes a good point - we're seeing dramatic changes in our society, coming into focus this election year, and I can't help but conclude that our politics are lagging behind the curve of social and technological change.

Brooks captures the idea of Emergence that I've long trumpeted from this podium. Do take time to check out the Steven Johnson book titled Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software - I think it must be one of the most readable books I've read and re-read over the past five years and it absolutely influences the way I look at the meta concept of Change, with a capital C. (I can't resist a plug here for the Books section on this website for other good reads!)

And while you're at it, go ahead and check out the concepts in The Wisdom of Crowds, another key book, this one by James Surowiecki. And one more - not to leave out Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything by Don Tapscott.

If you can find the time to sit down and read these three books, I think you'll understand what I'm saying, and by extension, the point that David Brooks is trying to convey, as well as the essence of Obama's campaign - the Change we need today is different than in other election cycles, and it portends a different kind of politics. But whether the change we need is the change the public will accept remains to be seen.

OK, no time to sit down and read?

Here it is, then, in three sentences (and I welcome comments from you all who maybe can explain these abstract concepts better than I can)...

Emergence: In nature and society, change occurs more readily at the individual level and more effective solutions tend to emerge from the bottom up rather than from some wise top-down action that is based on inspired leadership - we ARE the change we crave, we ARE the leaders we seek, we ARE enough.

Wisdom: Experiments show that contrary to conventional wisdom a relatively large group of well-informed individuals (100+) consistently makes superior decisions than does a smaller group of experts (10-20 - the dream team of top advisers we are so used to) - in effect, crowds are consistently smarter than the leaders they follow! Go figure!

Collaboration: The Internet and the new Wiki software offer a tool to enable disparate individuals to come together and collaborate as never before, raising the potential of more effective social behavior that harnesses group dynamics more effectively and produces dramatically more efficient results - e.g., Wikipedia, a comprehensive, dynamic on-line encyclopedia of world knowledge that costs nothing for the user yet provides good-enough information, consistently - not perfect, but good enough for first-level analysis - if you don't like the definition, change it, and ultimately, the collection of changes combine to make for a better definition, as it finds its harmonic level.

So, my conclusion based on my recent experience these past five years and my readings, is as follows:

Our American society, and the global society as well, has been impacted by dramatic change, from geo-political change (9/11), from geo-economical change (global outsourcing), from technology change (Internet, Mobility), and from political change (Bush's Imperial Executive) and has yet to come to grips fully with the deeper meaning of all these changes.

See for instance my recent ongoing series On Structural Change, starting with this post. We have a lot further to go with this concept of Change, the theme of this year's election.

So now, for something a little lighter, here are some truly bizarre world videos that showcase how we really are one planet and one people, and that what happens in America ripples out to the rest of the world, but with widely divergent perspectives than we have here in the USA.

First, I give you Barack O'Bollywood (truly bizarre and intoxicating)...

Next, we have a Hillary of a different sort, where Hillary's Bust Bewitches with its Sexuality ... seriously...bizarre in an altogether different and not altogether pleasant way ...

And on the more conservative side - how can we really expect change from a candidate who would continue the Bush policies, after all??? - here we have Sen. McCain, as viewed from the Middle East:

and to wrap it up, here's Sen. McCain's now infamous, warped Beach Boys quote ... ah, Freud really had it down, didn't he?

Posted on March 05, 2008 at 06:58 PM

Comments


Post a comment




Remember Me?

(you may use HTML tags for style)