follow up: Creating A Cultural Shift

Following up on a previous post, further evidence of the cultural shift within the World Economic Forum:

  • I see that they have selected "The Power of Collaborative Innovation" for the theme of their 08 Annual Meeting in Davos - a theme well outside the imagination - collaborative, collective, or otherwise - of the Forum only a couple of years ago.
  • The WorkSpace has continued to get prominent placement and widespread engagement this year, with return deployments to the Middle East and Africa, as well as inaugural trips to China (including sessions entirely in Mandarin) and India (coming in December).
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On the Other Hand...

The sign of a first rate intelligence is the ability to hold two or more opposing ideas at one time and still function. Author unknown

Last evening Matt and I enjoyed a glass of wine at the Top of the Mark in San Francisco. We watched the sun set over the Golden Gate bridge.  I loved sitting tall and able to look over the city. I enjoyed the energy of others we were sharing the space with.  Bar hoppers, after work parties, singles looking for friendship, other couples, even two young babies.  Smiles were freely given, life was good.  Indeed.  

My last Journal entry, The World Without Us, was a lamentation about all the things we humans have built while unaware of the consequences of our efforts. Cities are built and created with untold amounts of unsustainable materials... some that will last centuries into the future, continuing to transform and morph our environment into something unknown...alien to plants, animals, and humans alike.   And yet, cities are wonderful and life giving! Mankind has known this for thousands of years; always people have gathered to form community and market places. There is something utterly contagious about cities for all of their wonder and corruption.  Could they just be good without being bad? Probably not. The diversity and magic of cities is created by the inclusion of all perspectives ... prospect and refuge.

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The World Without Us

It is very easy to get a stable system, but very difficult to get the one you want." Kevin Kelley, Out of Control, 1993

I am reading The World Without Us, by Alan Weisman. Weisman does a brilliant job of de-constructing Planet Earth given the proposition that humans somehow vanished from her.  His research took him throughout the world asking questions of engineers and scientists about how long our built world would last without our care-taking.  The book is mind-blowing! Whether cities, farms, forests, oceans, or desert, man has tinkered enough for his own purposes to totally distort Earth's ecosystems.  Unintended consequences are just beginning to surface, many of them long known to those who created products and services for the benefit of mankind...

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