Reframing Our Insights – Transforming Our Efforts

There are acronyms to describe the tools and systems that are used to survive in the world of business – including:

• BI – collecting business needs
• ERP – providing business solutions
• CRM – managing customers/feedback

Every new parent knows what every business owner (and everyone else) should learn – that knowledge comes from the sudden awakening that the baby needs something – and right now.

The next question is WHAT. The baby is not able to communicate so the parent has to investigate the situation and determine the options that could bring relief – or satisfaction. The next question is HOW. The parent has to decide how to address the situation and provide the solution. With any luck (and just-in-time delivery) – the needs will be met and the parent can return to business-as-usual, LISTENING And READY for the next active call of duty.

Babies don’t even have to ‘know’ what they need to create the change in the system that can force parents to listen, respond, learn (repeatedly). Somewhere along that critical path toward mutual success they come to a sustainable approach – the viable convergence of needs, and solutions, and feedback. Parents know that the baby must be fed – and then we also must eventually “burp ’em” . That final result serves as a feedback loop – assuring that the formulation was well placed – and well received (borrowing/combining “BIRPM” from those three business acronyms above suggests the same closure).

Unfortunately, that early lesson is often lost later in life. Those same babies may have all but given up yearning to get what they want – let alone what they need – by the time they mature, enter the workplace, interact in society, and share common space on this small blue planet. Their frame of reference ‘lens’ somehow seems to get broken.

a shattered view of life

So would it help to replace that ‘lens’

– to improve our own insight – to expand our shared vision ?

“Reframers” is only the latest term used to describe those who are willing to take a new look at what is – and consider what might be better – and how. That focused choice is not new and countless others have made it – on the way to a mindless job – in the throes of a hopeless marriage – on the last day of meeting payroll – on the way to an enemy prison.

Somehow at the ‘last moment’ they decide.

That decision is their first step in a better direction.

“Reframers” decide to “question prior answers”. Repeating what has always been done is only randomly effective, even given the same challenge. Only those with “status” stand to gain from protecting the “status quo”. Everyone else stands to gain from liberating everyone else.

They use the new insight to “answer current questions”. That is always the first step toward a better result. Getting current information about the real need can empower us to avoid a another failed approach – to create rather than focusing blame on ‘yesterday’.

They create “future solutions”. The symptoms of yesterday’s decisions will face us today. But our decisions today will also face us tomorrow with more unwanted symptoms – if we don’t enact meaningful change. Today we must converge insight into the initiatives that can fulfill our desired results, tomorrow.

They share the “benefits”. Some will be the customers – some will be the providers – some will be brokers of information or products – some will defend the rights of all of them to exchange and enjoy all these benefits. They all share a relatively small space on a small planet that is hurtling through space – one that ‘they’ must all sustain if WE are to all survive.

Where does your frame of reference …fit within this frame of relevance?

Are you ready to be cloud-based and crowd-sourced..?

Can we apply a little process improvement

– and even some parental skill?

RECESSION? (Because………because….!) -Recovery? (ROOT CAUSE)

RECESSION? (Because!) Nothing is more painfully obvious than the results of bad decisions – made “because” of someone’s illogical motive. Illogical motives – again painfully obvious to everyone else(“because…”) – are those based on something other than good logic. Illogical decisions (like ‘little white lies’) will not stand on their own merits and must be supported by other props (like more lying). Nor will they be corrected or relieved until evaluated – by a few incisive questions being asked.

RECOVERY? (Root Cause) The logical basis for any viable solution begins with information – obtained from the stake-holders themselves – and objectively parsed against the issues that aggregate to the visible symptoms of the problem – and its actual impacts.

It is just that obvious and just that simple and just that difficult. Making that direct connection (between cause and effect) is entirely possible and routinely avoided – “because!”.

Many may have missed the recent celebration of the event on December 16 that once helped establish and save our democracy under somewhat similar circumstances. Little was published in the (formerly unbiased?) press about how (without the aid of the collective voice of the internet) multiple citizens once stood up- and stood for- equitable treatment…at the ‘Boston Tea Party’. Perhaps we overlooked it “because” we were too busy listening to politicians tell us that we now had to bail out this one and that one (of their constituents) “because..”. Perhaps those companies could have avoided being in that situation, but were now struggling “because..”. Perhaps the workers in those companies who were intimately familiar with the issues were not asked by their leaders about their opinions for solutions “because”. Perhaps other stake-holders who were not represented at board rooms and in Congress, were now feeling the impacts…”because”.

Why do people vote for politicians? (because they want to be represented by them). Why do politicians run for office? (because they want to influence the system). Why do entities lobby for favors from politicians? (because they want (in)equitable treatment). Why does this system fail to serve the entire population? – again “because” it is not transparent and accountable to ALL those it claims to ‘equitably’ represent.

Why can this be? – “because” what gets done is not DIRECTLY visible, reviewed, overseen, or influenced by the stake-holders. Why is there no direct review or oversight? – “because” the representative are attempting to hide political motives instead of exhibiting visible statesmanship. Why? – “because; Why? – “because”; Why? – “because”, etc.

If it weren’t “politically incorrect” to challenge the status quo – we might not be ‘mis-represented’ by our politicians or in this status (recession). If that statement is at all true – we will not get out of this situation until we begin to ask the right questions and get past the “because” and find the root cause(s). Have WE had enough yet – Is anyONE else ready for true change ?

One notable individual once clarified the challenge for all times and all places and all people. One individual became “the change that he wanted to see” (Ghandhi), and issued that simple challenge for the rest of us to follow. Since then, many have realized that ‘they are the root cause’ and that until THEY take a personal stand, the situation will not get any better “because” they are still “BEing” passive (not inquiring or resisting). Passivity always ensures that the situation will be passed along – predictably going from bad to worse, “because”. History is predictable in repeating itself in that regard.

If we are to avoid repeating that history, it will demand statesmanship again – or it could (again?) ‘brew up’ some anarchy. I’d like to say that I’ve had enough of that kind of history and am ready to BE-come a part of the ‘change’. I’d like to believe that there actually is a chance for change we can BE-lieve in. We have been promised (by politicians) that change is coming. That change will demand transparency that has not been widely implemented. It will demand that the voice of the stake-holders is not silenced from their public proclamation platforms or questionably purged from those ‘public’ records just “because”.

If..we care, ALL we have to do is be willing to BE a part of ALL those who will seek the root cause of what we ALL have allowed to occur. The solution will become visible in that answer. The internet (for now) affords us the freedom to assemble virtually unencumbered to collectively inquire and influence what we individually and globally want to BE-come as citizens, communities, and countries. The answer is in the questions – all we have to do is ASK4 it – and become united in providing our individual insight and protecting our mutual interests across our
internet-enabled
U-Netted Nations.

Standing on the bridge to our collective future, that patriot that fires the ‘shot’ that can be heard around the world may now (again?)…simply be asking …”WHY?”

Want real cooperation, progress, CHANGE ? – Dare to ASK4™ it…?

What’s about YOU? – care to comment?

– dare to COOPERATE?

NOTE: While this website is my personal initiative, the ASK4™ approach is a participant-managed collaboration platform and the U-Netted Nations™ is the result of our ‘Collaboration On Purpose’. My voice becomes one in a million – immediately.

ASK4™ CAN BE…

(THE QUESTIONS THAT FIND…)

THE ANSWERS you need

How RELEVANT is Context?

That depends! Relevance is: pertinent, applicable, important, germane, appropriate, and significant. Context is: background, circumstance, environment, perspective, or framework. Already you may notice the difference and again you may ask: so what?

These two co-dependent attributes bear heavily on our past, and our current, and our future life and lifestyles. Depending on what has already happened, we may have to adjust our framework or perspective to be more applicable or appropriate. Depending on what is happening, it may be significant or just a passing circumstance. Depending on what happens next, we may be empowered or severely impacted.

And now even most of the items we interact with and the environments that we interact within are sensing and sensitive to whatever we are doing, giving us and others real-time factual (data) and visual (video) feedback.

Whatever we do and whoever we do it with can become known by anyone else in less than one second. Our reality is now being echoed in the virtual dimensions of the web.

Our existence is being captured and cataloged, represented and researched, interpreted and evaluated in real time by a universe of collecting devices and assessment processes – and by ‘those’ people. We are ‘those people’ – both evaluating and being evaluated.

In this new virtual world, we are no longer just passive recipients of online information. We are now the active expositors and engaged participants, forced into a new type ‘global conversation’ and virtual interaction that demands a new approach.

It requires that we find a new common framework in which to collect our diverse perspectives and through which to derive an equitable consensus – each within the local context of our somewhat unique needs – while collectively maintaining the relevance of a global perspective.

Relevance has changed little – what was important to us still is. What has changed more is context. As we get together virtually, no one has established the framework for our new form of conversation – or the rules within that new interaction process. Memberships and attendance and locations and parliamentary procedures no longer dictate the house rules of our orderly conduct. Borders and nationality and treaties no longer establish preference or privilege across this expanded network. We are all one and the same virtual community in this new ‘flat earth society’ where transparency is the value behind its information currency – in an online (and off-line) relationship economy.

Your value to me and mine to you – now depends on how well we interact and support our mutual benefits… one-to-one-to-many. Diversity of opinion is expected, necessary, and must be equitably considered by all. And the system itself must require and then enforce this approach.

• Only a self-governance approach can now represent everyone.
• Only a self-correcting approach can adjust to the constant change.
• Only a self-policing system can prevent decisions that could deny us these intended results.

A simple way to ensure this is by formalizing a familiar way of thinking; and adopting it as our consistent way of collaborating – around the world. Rather than amend to exhaustive rules, we can engage a sequence of ubiquitous questions that dynamically:
• 1) capture our issues and
• 2) dissect our challenges and
• 3) extract our options – objectively.
Only transparency OF the participants can ensure that this system remains accountable TO them. To-date, not even the United Nations has a methodology to accomplish that. Tyranny is the unfortunate alternative.

Any anarchy that is identified becomes the immediate challenge to be resolved by all within this new framework. By merely agreeing to use this self-managing approach at each of our interactions, we can all then enjoy its shared benefits.

We all have needs and we all want solutions. We all need to be heard and we all want to be appreciated. That’s the reason that people join groups like MySpace, and post their presence on Facebook, and pontificate on their own blogs. By syndicating its structured approach across these diverse platforms, this uniform framework can convert unraveled ‘threaded’ discourse into ‘collaboration on purpose’ and change meaningless chat into meaningful conversations. No issue can occur that cannot be equitably addressed by the ASK4 process and resolved by our self-managed cooperation across its U-Netted Nations.

That suggests that it can be beneficial in personal relationships, business decisions, or international détente. These are the arenas in which we all participate.

• That is the universal CONTEXT in which this can become RELEVANT
– to each of us.

• It is perhaps also the way we can become RELEVANT to each other
– within this new CONTEXT.

Want real cooperation, progress, CHANGE ? – Dare to ASK4™ it…?

What’s about YOU? – care to comment?

– dare to COOPERATE?

NOTE: While this website is my personal initiative, the ASK4™ approach is a participant-managed collaboration platform and the U-Netted Nations™ is the result of our ‘Collaboration On Purpose’. My voice becomes one in a million – immediately.

ASK4™ CAN BE…

(THE QUESTIONS THAT FIND…)

THE ANSWERS you need

6 Questions About CHANGE

• NOTHING is perfect!

• NO ONE has the answer!

• EVERYONE wants CHANGE!

Perhaps that is why marriages don’t last, churches are biligerently different, businesses aren’t profitable, cities aren’t hospitable, politics have replaced statesmanship. and governments aren’t friendly.

If we all seek ‘answers’ – then there must be ‘questions’ from which answers would of course result. Instead, we are often busy seeking ways to be heard – rather than listening. And if listening for the best answers is the better approach, shouldn’t we be seeking the BEST ‘questions’ (like that one for instance)?. For anything to change, some things have to be decided first:

• Who gets to decide (representation)
• How will they(we) decide (objectivity)
• Who gets the benefits of the change (impacts)
• When will the changes take effect (priority)
• And, there are certainly more questions…

In their recent book ‘How The Wise Decide‘, authors Aaron Sandoski and Bryn Zeckhauser provide six fundamental principles that are consistently used by the successful leaders whom they studied. Their observations confirmed that these six concepts are both true and useful for anyone, universally:

• Go to the Source
• Fill a Room with Barbarians
• Conquer the Fear of Risk
• Make Vision Your Daily Guide
• Listen with Purpose
• Be Transparent

If those are true for business, how would they work for government, city councils, non-profits, fraternal or religious groups, or even our individual thought patterns? That is another good question. How would our relationships, communities, or nations work if we were consistently guided in those principals, in that process, and toward the proven benefit of ‘success’? What core questions can give us those answers, those results?.

The conviction to find those questions is a challenge I embraced after reflecting on broken conversations, broken relationships, broken processes, broken companies, broken churches, broken governance, and the broken lives that lay in the wake of all those patterns of broken thinking. Again, I do not wish to lay claim, just reflect that in my own parallel experience I too am a believer, witness, and recipient of the missed opportunities of the past.

However, I am also now aware of the unlimited power that is possible in the future by these truths and the ‘profound’ questions that could change our way of thinking – about our beliefs, about each other, about our world.

Turns out that it may take only six simple and familiar questions to change our way of thinking – for good. Since four questions form the core process, I have called it ASK4™ – for now. The other two questions relate to us as people – on which the process depends and for whom the benefits accrue. The questions can be used as a way to:

• Make Vision My Daily Guide – goal-focused (hurdle-aware)
• Fill a Room with Barbarians – relish others’ opinions
• Conquer the Fear of Risk – allow for unlimited outcomes
• Go to the Source – drop my ‘because’/get to the root cause
• Listen with Purpose – retain vision while allowing for options
• Be Transparent – accept my limits and seek the highest good

By viewing the world through the simple 6-question lens, it is possible to easily and consistently engage these principles in any situation to:

• Normalize the perspective – to enable any participant at any level in any culture/language to describe THEIR situation/need/or offer
• Formalize the process – for collecting everyone’s feedback so that forward progress can be initiated/tracked/completed/measured
• Legitimize participants – by evaluating and then endorsing those thought leaders who cooperate to craft viable solutions
• Recognize the contributors – reward champions for their support
• Optimize performance – engage, manage, and enhance a continuous improvement process and monitor its pertinent results
• Organize involvement– so that everyone can share in the creation of viable solutions

– so that we all can…

• Realize – these same cooperative benefits, globally

As now defined ASK4™ is useful as a tool for process improvement. It can also become a powerful online tool for ‘crowd-sourcing’. It does change our conversations, it will change our collaboration, it can change our consensus, or even CHANGE – our world.

We’ll see…

What’s about YOU? – care to comment?

– dare to COOPERATE?

NOTE: While this website is my personal initiative, the ASK4™ approach is a participant-managed collaboration platform and the U-Netted Nations™ is the result of our ‘Collaboration On Purpose’. My voice becomes one in a million – immediately.

ASK4™ CAN BE…

(THE QUESTIONS THAT FIND…)

THE ANSWERS YOU NEED!

Free Press (or SupPress)

Democratic Convention or ‘Autocratic Contention”. Right-or-Left (or right-or-wrong, ‘sin’-or-‘spin’), the offset is the same:

Opinions are important – and so are outcomes!

That’s why information is so important to making critical decisions. Ask anyone and you will get an opinion – or two. Then ask for the reason behind their opinion and you will eventually uncover some vested interest, the true desire that is being leveraged ‘because..’ that need is what is REALLY wanted. We need to be on the critical path toward the actual benefit. Instead, we waste our energy on misplaced efforts based on some mis-stated intentions.

What’s the ‘carbon footprint’ of misinformation?

Why wouldn’t it be better to actually ‘state’ the real issue, identify the real cause, address that real need, and create real and lasting solutions? If information is the ‘vehicle’, then perhaps it has to do with how we’re ‘driving’.

Who is at the wheel, and where are ‘they’ taking us..?

Imagine getting on a bus marked ‘Downtown’ and arriving instead at the dead end of some country road. Recent interest in ‘The Press’ has begun to uncover the accidental if not intentional collusion of those who would ‘suppress’ or overlook important insights, invite us on board with their ‘weighted’ opinions, and then wrongfully take us to uninformed conclusions, ineffective decisions, and unintended results. What information leads us to global decisions that lead us to wars? What influences are behind the efforts to place troops in harms way – or even call them home again, perhaps before ultimate victory? How could Hillary have lost to Barrack? What insight has been ‘overlooked‘ that perhaps even now could change results – if it was uncovered, remained unbiased, and then made public to everyone’s benefit?

Whether personal, secular, religious, political, or governmental, any incremental ‘white lie’ (or mis-statement that we might overlook as just ‘spin’) always aggregates to a larger mis-perception, and eventually to some level of ‘tyranny’. Unfortunately, our personal DECISION processes, including our political systems and voting choices, ride on this broken vehicle, delivering us to unintended locations and even greater peril.

It has to stop – and today is the ONLY time we are alloted!

Tomorrow we will have already been mislead by managed news channels, today’s biased pundits (‘spin doctors’?) and their misplaced or intentional beguiling. Our destiny may already be some unintended location from which there may be no easy return.

We can’t stop some global tyranny without addressing personal responsibility – OURS (not theirs). We (each) need to know the truth and share the truth so we can each act in our individual and collective interest.

We can not collectively get to the truth by being ‘politically correct’ and agreeing to overlook those little ‘unimportant’ nuances that serve the other person ‘because…’ that’s where they want us to go – for their self-interest.

Our challenge is always ‘to challenge’..! The truth will surface.

Clearly, obviating the truth can result in lack of clarity, confusion, or even powerful propaganda to re-direct the minds and decisions of those who ‘count’ (or vote). Are you impressed, suppressed, depressed – ?

• Whose opinion shapes your decisions?
• Whose ‘bus’ are you riding -where is it REALLY going?
• Why aren’t YOU ‘driving’ your own thought processes?
• Where are you currently – need a ride back ‘downtown’..?

Maybe it’s time to ASK4™ it..

What’s about YOU? – care to comment?

– dare to COOPERATE?

NOTE: While this website is my personal initiative, the ASK4™ approach is a participant-managed collaboration platform and the U-Netted Nations™ is the result of our ‘Collaboration On Purpose’. My voice becomes one in a million – immediately.

ASK4™ CAN BE…

(THE QUESTIONS THAT FIND…)

THE ANSWERS YOU NEED!

Gold Medal!

…or DISQUALIFIED!! Olympic contenders fear that word – and so should the rest of us. “Unfit to Compete” – imagine being suspended for such a reason. Yet, according to the United States Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (www.ahrq.gov), “all US adults could be overweight in 40 years”.

While that is serious enough, there is a parallel universe of contenders, in business. Their habits of ‘excess’ have positioned them in exactly the same place where their ability to compete is diminished. They are too top-heavy in management or carrying too large a ‘spare tire’ of unproductive personnel who follow antiquated ‘training’, inefficient processes, and the like. While some struggle and defend their inability to loose this ‘poundage’, others have found ways to trim budgets and become ‘lean’ and more ‘agile’ in their practices. Most have done so by returning to a proven diet of basic ‘food groups’ of business importance. And in an interesting parallel, many of those same thought leaders have also realized the business benefits of that same healthy approach in the lifestyles of their personnel. They have all found that common basic solution. rather than giving up and quitting.

Seth Goodin in his book – ‘The DIP‘ looks (perhaps as one-of-a-kind) on the subject of ‘quitting’. Having been trained on a diet of “try-try-try”, the mere subject made me reluctant to consider its contents. What became clear after listening to his video interview – is that

true Olympians don’t practice everyone else’s sport.

They first consider their chances – and then focus on ONLY their own skill – to its excellence. Individually they can be at their best, and collectively as a team they can then rack up more ‘gold’ than competitors.

We need that Olympic reminder every four years. Somewhere along the way to life’s ‘games’, many have abandoned some of those principles – in favor of letting everyone ‘train’ everyone else to ‘eat’ whatever they want, letting anyone ‘participate’, and then giving everyone a ‘medal’. What that may be leading to is not only unhealthy individuals but also

unproductive companies and even indefensible nations.

As we enter the new relationship economy, the online global competition can uncover every possible flaw in our ‘routines’, openly, in front of the entire world, and in a matter of seconds. While we may prefer a quick fix or cosmetic surgery cover-up, the new transparency of the internet will expose how out-of-shape we truly are – individually and collectively. It will dynamically measure how we adjust to each other as team members and our global standings as well.

The challenge – and the opportunity – all lie in how we accept our individual responsibility to become ‘fit’ for this global competition.

We will all participate. We will all be judged. And…

Someone will win!

The question is:

How can we train to qualify – so we can at least compete?

ASK4™ CAN BE…

(THE QUESTIONS THAT FIND…)

THE ANSWERS YOU NEED!

PLEASE NOTE: While this website is my personal initiative, the ASK4™ approach is a participant-managed collaboration platform and the U-Netted Nations™ is the result of our ‘Collaboration On Purpose’. My voice becomes one in a million – immediately.

WHAT ABOUT YOU? – CARE TO COMMENT?

– DARE TO COOPERATE?

A Pattern for Progress

Piled high on the heap of human experience is the visible evidence of our misplaced effort and ineffective decisions. Perhaps forgotten are the words of prophets and sages.

Visible to those who will look closely are the patterns of information, insight, consensus, and initiative that resulted in each set of historical conditions. Taken as a model, that sequence can afford the incremental benefits that can aggregate to sustainable progress. Ignored, the results will testify to individual ignorance, global waste.

No matter what the situation or condition or issue, certain core things are common and can easily be described, evaluated, proposed, adjusted or initiated, and then considered again to ensure forward progress. Since each such structured approach creates a resulting end-point, other similarly structured components can be leveraged off that prior foundation. Repeat that consistently and your incremental insight becomes organized infrastructure, enterprise management, global value.

Let’s convert that to reality. In his book ‘Business School for People Who Like Helping People’ – Robert Kyosaki presents his tetrahedron model of the learning pyramid. It is composed of four elements of information or facets of knowledge. Ever wonder why a university was comprised of four colleges – that have attendees that also represent four personalities?  Perhaps each person (type) is a ready-made component that can assimilate well in one of four dimensions but share a convergent quest to better serve together in their aggregated world.

Do they want group consensus – help them find and share individual insight. Want them to launch large initiatives – help them manage each of their individual activities. There has to be a model and it must be effective in its smallest dimension to have integrity at its ultimate aggregated infrastructure design.

Do they want better government and (less ‘politics’) – help them to choose STATESMEN (not mere politicians). Do they want democracy and liberty for all – help them prevent individual anarchy. Anarchy ignores the model of cooperation, and its lack of ethics treads on the rights of others – at all levels.

The model itself can also become tyranny – if it is not kept true to form at the basic design element level. Each decision has to be both formalized and co-managed by ALL those it is designed to represent. Nothing can be added to or taken from its core structure or it no longer fits everyone – or works for anyone.

What is that minimal structure that can:

share divergent insight objectively

represent all stakeholders equitably

find uniform consensus on root cause

spawn initiatives that are sustainable

and above all, prevent the tyranny of excess constraint?

There are only four questions that apply to the incremental level and they can be scaled to the aggregate infrastructure level as well. Used as a way of thinking, I will gain insight. Shared as a means for our discussion, we can create a vision. As the basis of our collaboration, we can find a consensus. Mapped to our activity, it gives us focused direction. Polled against our initiatives it measures our progress. And should anything occur that is not to our individual or group liking, we can all check it against its own core design for clarification, resolution, and convergence into our co-managed decisions and self-improving results. It supports meaningful change – 24/7/365.

It’ so simple that anyone could have thought of it – and some may already have. What they may not have noticed is that it has a familiar approach. The only rules are that WE must all ‘ASK4’ it.

ASK4™ CAN BE…

(THE QUESTIONS THAT FIND…)

THE ANSWERS YOU NEED!

PLEASE NOTE: While this website is my personal initiative, the ASK4™ approach is a participant-managed collaboration platform and the U-Netted Nations™ is the result of our ‘Collaboration On Purpose’. My voice becomes one in a million – immediately.

WHAT ABOUT YOU? – CARE TO COMMENT?

– DARE TO COOPERATE?

Whose Fault?

This ‘tennis’ commercial for The Ladders (online resumes) depicts job search as a tennis match – with few if any rules, and everyone getting in on the game – ALL at once.

Imagine yourself somewhere in this picture. You are…in the game – and someone’s at fault!

This metaphor has many more applications, like showing the current state of the internet – social networking in particular. Everyone wants to be on the court – serving up their opinion or offering, standing behind the net that separates them from the ‘other side’, or trying to referee others who have served up something that is clearly out of bounds – “FAULT!!”…

Problem is (in WEB 2.0), there is no pre-qualification, no boundaries, no rules for winning, no game plan. Consider the Infosphere of the internet in which anyone can utter those words that pre-announce our fateful demise: “Here, hold my beer and watch this…”. Seen the latest idiot’s 15 seconds of infamy video?

Online I can out-shout you, can out-rant you, can out-perform you,,, ad nausea and etcetera. In the freedom that came with this self-publishing world, anyone can say anything, anytime, to anyone else – often with little positive effect. While rushing to have a say in the infinite open space of the web, we forgot to notice that total democracy can equate to total anarchy.

Who’s at fault for all that – WE are.

But ‘we’ can’t change that – unless ‘I’ choose to do so – and come to understand and appreciate and adhere to at least a few simple agreements.

How can “I” change all that? One insight at a time! One conversation at a time! One consensus at a time! One decision at a time! One initiative at a time! Then having done that, one re-consideration at a time!

Are you that ‘ONE’ ?

The realization that content is only as useful as its relevance is now at the forefront of the Semantic WEB 3.0. We are now advancing (back) to the structured approach that partitions our conversations and sequences our steps toward progress. Any database architect or project manager could have seen this dilemma coming and offered an insight if not a solution, if anyone was paying attention. Its hard to be heard as an ‘official’ when (virtually) everyone (else) is also in charge. For now there is no universally recognized approach. That will have to be one of the first things to change, and then keep changing.

It is nice to want to give everyone some playing time. But to do so at least requires a defined court, a defined manner and time to play, some means of determining official results so the next players can take the court as well.

• Who should define that? – WE should.
• Who should get to play? – WE should.
• Who should call foul? – WE should

What will that new ‘game’ look like? (in terms of WEB 3.0)

• Imagine a single portal through which you can express yourself freely
• Imagine an awareness of everyone’s ideas within a global perspective
• Imagine an economy in which your needs and expertise are valued
• Imagine a community in which your relationships are enhanced
• Imagine a self-correcting process of self-governance, globally
• Imagine everyone adhering to and benefiting from cooperation
• Imagine cooperation coming from consensus, shared insight
• Imagine shared insight coming from objective collaboration
• Imagine just enough structure to co-manage conversations
• Imagine that all you had to do was “ASK for it”…
• Imagine yourself as a U-Netted Nations citizen
• Imagine consistently getting what you need
• Imagine supplying what others desire
• Imagine who could win? – WE should!

Game On..?

ASK4™ CAN BE…

(THE QUESTIONS THAT FIND…)

THE ANSWERS YOU NEED!

PLEASE NOTE: While this website is my personal initiative, the ASK4™ approach is a participant-managed collaboration platform and the U-Netted Nations™ is the result of our ‘Collaboration On Purpose’. My voice becomes one in a million – immediately.

WHAT ABOUT YOU? – CARE TO COMMENT?

– DARE TO COOPERATE?

That’s CUIL (So What?)

R-e-l-e-v-a-n-c-e, that is ‘what’ – and good search is a good start – just ask Google …about er…ummm ‘CUIL‘. Relevant to ‘what’ – that’s the key problem – and the unlimited opportunity. All that connectivity, searching, email conversation, threaded discussion, blogging – potentially WORTHLESS.

Collaboration on Purpose – PRICELESS

What’s the difference? – YOU. Unless there is something in it for me (YOU), I don’t particularly care (do you?). So the results of my search must be relevant to me – to where I live, to what I’m doing, to whether that is working, or if I’m going to become successful, or even just survive.

If I am going to make any progress in my efforts, I need to know:

• if an answer already exists (or needs to be created)
• if a solution has been tried and proven (research)
• if there is a support group to assist me (team/company/NPO)
• if I can speak to someone about it (expert/community of practice
• if what I’m about to do will be acceptable to others, or sustainable

But instantly I encounter the same old problem I have always had – it takes ‘too long’. I can search – then I have to sort through the hits- and follow a link – that leads to a WIKI that re-defines my problem – that leads me to new links that lead me back to another search engine – that leads me to a blog that belittles my ignorance on the subject – that leaves me upset and even more anxious – as I grab my cellphone and text my friend for help since he isn’t answering my call. So I dredge out the yellow pages – and look for an out-call computer tech and a local psychologist – and I read my dictionary while I await their eventual ‘treatment’ for the computerized benefits that are virtually driving me crazy.

Somehow I need to be able to make instant use of instant answers.

Somehow I expect nothing less from my new instant world on the internet – that seems to be changing my life – by the instant. If my new reality is to be ‘virtual’, then I want to have the same ‘say-so’ as virtually everyone else in its global customer suggestion box. I don’t want your dated ‘WEB 2.0 sticky note’ answer – posted somewhere in a he-said-she-said discussion thread on some blog ‘bulletin board’ – that I can’t seem to find.

I may need answers virtually anytime day or night. I don’t want to have to engage a consultant to teach me how to search-and-rescue what you have already saved – and could offer to me at fair market value. The carbon footprint of that lost time could be important – to both of us – and NOW would be none too soon for some issues that need a relevant answer – TODAY!.

My request:

• I want my own personal portal to the WORLD(-WideWeb)
• I want to search in the context of my local PROBLEM
• I want answers in the context of global CREDIBILITY
• I want to share what I NEED – and what I KNOW
• I want to be served, and be well REPRESENTED
• I want to help create sustainable SOLUTIONS
• I want to be PROACTIVE – not REACTIVE
• I want YOU in that equation with me

Perhaps now, because we are ALL relevant to each other, we can ALL realize the efficiency of scale made possible by our cooperation – and enjoy the mutual benefits of an enterprise 3.0 viewpoint – a shared perspective from ALL across our U-Netted Nations.

Perhaps within this new ‘inter-operable’ paradigm we will find that if we:

Question Prior Answers – it’s Liberating!
Answer Current Questions – it’s Empowering!
Create Future Solutions – it’s Fulfilling!
Share these Benefits – it’s SUSTAINABLE!

Now, how KOOL is that? – and how ‘relevant’ ? (- and how Priceless..?)

What’s about YOU? – care to comment?p

– dare to COOPERATE?

NOTE: While this website is my personal initiative, the ASK4™ approach is a participant-managed collaboration platform and the U-Netted Nations™ is the result of our ‘Collaboration On Purpose’. My voice becomes one in a million – immediately.

Time Capsule Reality

We live life in a time capsule that has been delivered by pioneers that came before us and who captured the essence of their experience, delivered it to our birthplace, and beckoned us to enter its current confines. We have now begun to capture our own experience and encapsulate it for future use by the succeeding generations to whom we will likewise deliver it.

F. David Peat, relates it this way, that we will have to become – “…well adapted to the quantum world, for this is a world less about objects in interaction than about transformation, superposition, flux, and the inseparability of observer and observed”

OK, so what do we do now, or prepare for next? How can we become both the observer and the one experiencing the results of our observations and decisions? In that rhetorical question lies the obvious answers: 1 – we already are. 2- we need a constant feedback loop. 3- we need a 360-degree viewpoint from multiple representatives. 4 – we must cooperate through that shared insight. Then, how can we leverage our collective past so that WE can mutually survive?

Perhaps we have finally reached a tipping point and are ready to LISTEN… between the words of poets and prophets and rappers and rebels for that thread of value that can be woven into the fabric of tomorrow. Perhaps the rank of our social positions will matter much less than the nature of our social interactions – the LEVERAGE of our ‘collaboration on purpose’. Perhaps we are ready to LIVE beyond the coercive walls of cultures, organization charts, and political boundaries in a dynamic environment of sustained progress and mutual benefit. Perhaps that will both introduce and require a quantum shift in our approach.

Indeed, that quantum shift has already begun and it is happening at the speed of light – projected through the screens of our computers, cell phones, and multiple other devices that enable and capture that experience in real time. Don Tapscott, author of ‘Wikinomics’ reminds us that our ‘smart’ appliances have already joined us in these quantum dimensions of inter-operable communication, reacting to our online prompts, or prompting us in turn.

What are we learning from our past, experiencing in our present, and encapsulating for our future – if there is one?

What data, conversations, collaboration, insight, consensus, and cooperation are now needed? What are the resulting conditions that we are creating and experiencing – and re-considering and then changing?

And who controls all that? …’WE’ do..!!

The capsule IS being loaded – what is to be YOUR contribution?

And who cares?

What’s about YOU? – care to comment?

– dare to COOPERATE?

NOTE: While this website is my personal initiative, the ASK4™ approach is a participant-managed collaboration platform and the U-Netted Nations™ is the result of our ‘Collaboration On Purpose’. My voice becomes one in a million – immediately.

Who Knows..(‘Who-Nodes’)

In any situation, any family, any team, any company, any community, any agency, any country – someone is responsible, and someone (else?) knows. The ‘custodian’ is usually the keeper of the real ‘keys’ to not just the building, but the insight to the inside, in almost any dimension you may wish to know.

In reality, that custodian may hold a degree or have experience that exceeds the person currently assigned to any given position. When it comes to getting things done – the insight usually starts at the bottom. When it comes to initiating actions, the directives usually come from the top.

What’s the Connection

That depends on the people involved, and especially those ‘in charge’. For those who assume any position of responsibility, the degree of authority they accept or control will also depend on how they accept and control the communication – to and from those that surround them. One item of note, they have very little control.

They do however have ultimate control on how they choose to benefit from all that connectivity and infinite information. Their level of insight will be proportional to their information access. Their access is controlled by those who know. Knowing who knows is crucial to individual knowledge, team interaction, cooperative initiatives, and our global survival.

How do I come to know, that you already know, what he needs to know, from them? When can that be done – to solve my urgent problem – in my relationship, my charity, my business, my community, my country – or OUR world? Who knows?…

…in the U-Netted Nations…that’s YOU!

The neural network of of the internet affords each of us an unlimited opportunity to become a ‘U-Node’, a dynamic nano-resource to an insatiable global knowledge ecosystem. The real-time connectivity currently exists in which we can offer our information to others.

The challenge lies in how we choose to accept and control that information as our individual responsibility within this informal information grid. The manner in which we can co-manage our dynamic support of each other within this global perspective is evolving, and that evolution must also be responsive, 24/7/365. Welcome to Web 3.0 – and beyond…

The control won’t be held by the person who thinks they have the only answer. The solution won’t come by getting the right answer from the right person. The real power will come from asking the right questions of all the right people, all of the time. Want to know more, ASK4 it…

‘Who nodes’ – that may be the new title for custodians of information. And for our new elevated perspective toward these ‘lowly custodians’..

“Well, what do you know…?”

What’s about YOU? – care to comment?

– dare to COOPERATE?

NOTE: While this website is my personal initiative, the ASK4™ approach is a participant-managed collaboration platform and the U-Netted Nations™ is the result of our ‘Collaboration On Purpose’. My voice becomes one in a million – immediately.

Decisions-Decisions (Dimensions)

No wonder we often find ourselves lost on the road to success! Every step presents another choice, requires another decision. Each path takes us toward, or away from, our intended destiny.

Turns out that it’s not just about which way to ‘turn’. It’s even more complicated, but not impossible. We just need a little more elevation to see the whole picture. We need the altitude (and attitude) of an astronaut, not just the compass and telescope of a surveyor.

Life is not a ‘flat-surface event’. We have seen that our global existence is an inter-galactic shared experience. We got some of that perspective by looking back at our planet from outer space. While the search for extraterrestrial life goes on, the earthbound life we share on this globe also occurs in relation to others around us and an entire solar system of related influences. Those who sit in the sun too long or forget that the moon influences the tides may soon find themselves in another situation that demands their attention, or immediate action. How does all this relate to our decisions, our relationships, our politics, our countries, our survival?

Decisions have dimension.

Life is less like a game of checkers and more like a three-layered game of tic-tac-toe. A move that occurs in one dimension affects what happens in all others, as well as the ultimate outcome of the game. Unless we consider all dimensions of our shared existence, we can overlook some burning issue or rising tide of influence that can engulf us in a decision for which we are not mutually prepared. How can we navigate these dimensions, successfully, together?

Our ability to follow a ‘map’ will not serve us in this new ‘open space’. One-to-one dialogue on any given subject will soon seem as antiquated as a string between two tin cans. Our new many-to-many online interactions will encompass perspectives in conversations between multiple participants who share from their DIFFERENT cultures – the SAME common needs. We won’t be going to the ‘library’ – we will become a ‘living library’, available to each other as nano-resources deployed across a global neural network, in real time.

What can be- or could be- known is available for our ready review across the universe of the interconnected internet. What hasn’t been engineered (yet) is a way for us ALL to leave the mental ‘bounds of earth’ and look back in a collective global perspective – so that we can –

come to consensus and interact cooperatively.

To do so will require not only the ground crew knowledge available on the internet, but also a stellar vehicle to navigate in new dimensions of local transparency and global accountability, in the new space of untethered shared governance – and shared benefits. We will have to give everyone an equitable seat at the window of insight and then move ourselves through the inter-cranial galaxies of consensus toward our mutual goal of survival.

WE will all participate as an inter-dependent ground crew that cooperatively directs US as we co-pilot OUR own flight, and as WE adjust our OWN course, as needed – while WE are ALL in route.

Oh, and the travel WILL occur at light speed,

at the click of a mouse.

Ready for “BLAST OFF!!” ?

What’s about YOU? – care to comment?

– dare to COOPERATE?

NOTE: While this website is my personal initiative, the ASK4™ approach is a participant-managed collaboration platform and the U-Netted Nations™ is the result of our ‘Collaboration On Purpose’. My voice becomes one in a million – immediately.

Tomorrow is Yesterday..

…in internet time. Before we can ‘get a handle’ ** on what is happening, it already has. Have you heard about the internet, Web 1.0, Web 2.0, ..3.0, yet? It is not complete and won’t be completed. It is both developed and further developing, 24/7, in real-time, right before our eyes. And for the first time in our cumulative history, much of our ‘cumulative history’ can be seen and examined, real-time, 24/7, in a way that we can perhaps avoid some of our past mistakes, even those of our IMMEDIATE past, if we cooperate to do so.

However, to cooperate in a manner that reflects our shared insight and serves our mutual needs, a new form of interaction and shared governance will also have to emerge. And it will have to both emerge and then converge into the developing situation that it also serves. That’s a tall order on such short notice.

We have barely had time to reflect on our past and now we are being jettisoned into our collective future without any means of managing our interaction, our need for 24/7 re-adjustment to our changing culture – of CHANGE.

We are still accustomed to the ‘stop-and-go’ of local bureaucracy and are being asked to yield and merge into the online ‘clover-leafs’ of group interaction, and the convergence of instant analysis and instant response required to safely travel the new high-speed information highway, globally.

Overwhelmed yet? – don’t be. As with most things, the past holds the key to the future. Futurists have been envisioning and artists have been depicting what some can’t imagine. Business analysts have been identifying current needs and turning those ‘user stories’ into working models and program upgrades. Consultants have been assisting with strategic planning and just-in-time execution of chosen initiatives. Project managers have been breaking these efforts into bite-sized actions that can be resourced, executed, tracked, adjusted, and completed in initiatives that ultimately roll up to create the desired outcomes. Historians have been archiving our collective experience, much of which is now available in digital format, from virtually anywhere. Experts have been adding their expertise and novices have been stating their opinions about all of the above until we are all on information overload.

How can we translate all this ‘commentary’ into meaningful CHANGE?

The opportunity of the future only requires that we listen to these lessons from the past, and apply these learned concepts to the future. Individually they represent our desires, define the action, partition the effort, enroll our participation. Collectively they manage its completion. Systematically, they allow for us to make CHANGE our new business, and our new MUTUAL benefit – GLOBALLY.

A few ‘rules of the road’ still apply:

As we back out of our local driveway and pull onto the global highway we will need

both a ‘mirror’ (to the past) and an ‘anti-fogging agent’ for our windshield (future).

**NOTE: Just like in the past, neither you nor I can ‘drive safely’

…if WE don’t hold the steering wheel…because…

Our mutual self-interests can be mis-represented by politicians who abandon statesmanship.

Our government BY the people can become oppression OF the people…

And, we don’t need more ‘road rage’, we need more cooperation…

Now, where’s the online ‘governance system’ that allows us to:

• reflect on our collective history as we prepare for our mutual destiny

• share our collective insight as we recognize the need for change,

• aggregate our collective capacity and represent our collective interests,

• then change to survive, and repeat that cycle – again (and again)

as we reflect back…to the future”?

Who can benefit? – our families, our businesses, our cities, our neighbors, our countries, our world.

Who can co-manage that self-governing and self-correcting approach, 24/7?

– WE Can – WILL we ?

What’s about YOU? – care to comment?

– dare to COOPERATE?

NOTE: While this website is my personal initiative, the ASK4™ approach is a participant-managed collaboration platform and the U-Netted Nations™ is the result of our ‘Collaboration On Purpose’. My voice becomes one in a million – immediately.

Ambient Knowledge.?

– or “AMBIANCE…”? One is the situation in which we exist, the other is the knowledge that may exist within our situation. There is virtually no difference now that reality is so well represented in real time on virtual media. The line between virtual experience and real life is converging into one infosphere, on the internet, and in our daily lives.

If you aren’t a part of the ‘Connected’ generation then your experience may be somewhat lacking in both your knowledge and your ‘ambiance’. And if some of this does not yet make sense to you, consider this virtual view of real life – see how the next graduating class gets ‘CONNECTED‘…

What does that mean to your future and mine? How will we take advantage of our real situations in life? How can we become fluent in the virtual language of the future? How can we solve our real world problems through virtual relationships and knowledge that is ‘ambient’, virtually everywhere, already?

Here’s the point, just like the real world your influence may be ‘socially’ restricting, for now. You may not (yet) be well connected. These few basics by which to measure your social ‘ambiance’ can ‘give you a clue’:

Are you connected? – the web offers connectivity to people and information

Do you have a voice? – the web offers a self-publishing platform/archive

Do you have an influence? – not unless you lead a group, have a following

Do you have a vote? – not unless you have group access and ‘permission’

Can you find ready answers to your needs? – perhaps, but with what effort

While the web may (for now) echo some of the same social and cultural hurdles that allow some to be part of the in-crowd, that probably won’t last long. Transparency is the new dimension and the walls are coming down between cultures and even countries. Knowledge has become ambient and everyone can now be ‘in the know’.

This new reality now presents a new question:

Since we are now virtually one culture, what governance can enable our ambient knowledge to serve each of us and all of us, and enable our survival in the constant change that will become the ambiance of our everyday lives?

Groups and chat and content aren’t enough. How can we transition from:

– Information to Insight,

– from Chat to Change,

– from Rant to Results?

We will have to go from conversations to ‘Collaboration-on-Purpose’. It will likely take some engineering and some re-engineering. We will have to question prior answers, and create new answers for questions that have yet to be expressed.

We will need real-time analysis and a change-management process that works for everyone virtually around the clock.

That is a simplistic but adequate statement of the problem – in which may also lie the answer. As described by that statement, such a system could:

• Enable YOU to become connected – to people and information
• Give YOU a voice -by reflecting your opinion and knowledge
• Give YOU an influence – by engaging you in one global community
• Give YOU a vote – on mutual issues and mutually beneficial answers
• So WE can find ready answers to meet OUR needs – with less effort.

That is the challenge and opportunity of being ‘connected’ – are WE ready?

What will be the ambiance…

of our ambient knowledge future?

What’s about YOU? – care to comment?

– dare to COOPERATE?

NOTE: While this website is my personal initiative, the ASK4™ approach is a participant-managed collaboration platform and the U-Netted Nations™ is the result of our ‘Collaboration On Purpose’. My voice becomes one in a million – immediately.

On the EDGE

You could be the first to decide:

– that the earth if flat, virtually (web-wise)

– that we need to learn how to get along, globally

– that we need better rules to have better conversations, amicably

– that we need to be better understood, and represented, objectively

– that websites could multiply their service value and influence, interactively

– that information silos and segregated factions of humanity could merge COOPERATIVELY

– and share the INSIGHT and BENEFITS from the purposeful conversations

– by using a NORMALIZED structure for those conversation, and

– a FORMALIZED means of access to the conversation

Wisdom comes from understanding which comes from experience and collaboration about information from conversations about thoughts held by people.

YOU can be one of those who wants to enjoy the leading edge of new and useful information shared with others around the planet.

Or you can be one of those who ‘thinks’ that the earth actually IS flat:

Either way you have to set your sails and ride the winds of change.
Either way – the EDGE is always in sight and in the future

– yours AND mine.

What’s about YOU? – care to comment?

– dare to COOPERATE?

NOTE: While this website is my personal initiative, the ASK4™ approach is a participant-managed collaboration platform and the U-Netted Nations™ is the result of our ‘Collaboration On Purpose’. My voice becomes one in a million – immediately.

Find It?

EVERYTHING YOU NEED – is probably right there – or no more than virtually six handshakes away – so they say. So why aren’t ‘they‘ there when we need an answer, to solve a problem, that matters to ‘us‘.

The answer is not hiding, it is just not directly accessible from our closest friend, our social circle, our professional colleagues – those we count on as our ‘personal information interface’ when we so desperately need them to help solve our emergency, ready to be called up by three little “9-1-1” numbers. And – your additional challenge, should you wish to accept it, is to ‘meander anxiously’ through different name lists, phone numbers, search engines, web sites and blog comments ‘groping’ to find those exact friends – who may know of groups – who may have experts – that may have YOUR answer – or know someone else – who does – GIVE UP YET?

We’re almost done (no, not ‘done in’..). In the problem statement above we have at least partially described the answer. Given a few minutes we could put our heads together, in a purposeful social conversation – ‘Collaboration on Purpose’, and not be surprised when we predictably find another ‘hidden’ solution – our ‘Socialution’. All we have to do is ASK4™ it (4-question problem-solving approach). Once online it can unite individuals and groups into a cooperative universe and create sustainable results. But for now, let’s take a shortcut:

1. What if we catalog our friends – and the groups they are in and the interests they have and the people they know who also have friends and interests (sound like social networking?).
2. Then lets catalog the issues they have, the challenges that prevail or the progress that has been made by ‘them’ toward the SAME kind of issue ‘we’ face. (sounds like a knowledge-base)
3. Then by a quick ‘ping’ on a familiar website interface we could see the ‘life-saving’ path that leads across the critical ‘SIX’ key connections to take us to the ‘ONE’ person who HAS the answer that fortunately pertains to ‘US’. (sounds like a mash-up, to show me ONLY what I need, each time)

Want your name listed as an ‘expert‘ in that list of ‘suppliers’?

Want a copy of that resource catalog?

Would that be worth a fortune?

“I Know…” is what REALLY Matters!

Ready to contribute to, and benefit from, WEB 3.0

We’re virtually there, ‘already’…and ALL our real lives can improve as well.

What’s about YOU? – care to comment?

– dare to COOPERATE?

NOTE: While this website is my personal initiative, the ASK4™ approach is a participant-managed collaboration platform and the U-Netted Nations™ is the result of our ‘Collaboration On Purpose’. My voice becomes one in a million – immediately.

Disconnected Ambiguity

No Problem! – If you “Know Problem” ** –

According to R. Buckminster Fuller, “A problem adequately stated is a problem well on its way to being solved.”

Meanwhile, we are not aware – of what they – are doing to us – or what we – have just caused – for them. The many facets of our (many) problems are hidden in local content silos and only discussed in segregated communities of practice – or of interest. That has always been true off-line, it is still true online, for now.

So the challenge is to know what the problem ACTUALLY is. Fortunately that is now VIRTUALLY possible, and will soon be the mainstream conversation structure of social networking aimed at actual benefits, when we transition to “Collaboration on Purpose”.

That will be powerfully different from merely collecting a few Facebook friends for casual chat on social platforms like Friendfeed or collecting a few articles of interest that remind us of the issue(s) on SocialMedian. Content is only information, but not always factual. Emotion may catalyze, but action must follow.

For social conversation to translate to sustainable value, it will require interoperability between websites so that the true potential of their participating members can be channeled toward a particular purpose. Their collective intelligence must become objective consensus, their problem-solving activity must be tracked for actual progress, and the resulting benefits made available to be evaluated for re-use elsewhere.

True, in some cases the information will remain as local knowledge, inside the firewall for corporate leverage (IP), or inside a governing body shared only on a needs-to-know basis (secret). But much of what is already known can be made known for our mutual benefit.

Interestingly, much of what we need to know to solve our problem(s) may be known by a person we already know or can know, one handshake away, via social networking, on purpose. Integration now presents its true meaning,and offers it true benefit, globally.

Once this is realized, our social conversations and the connectivity offered by the internet can enable us to collectively ‘ASK4™‘ and then create ‘Socialution’ answers, and cooperatively distribute ‘Relationship Economy’ benefits across those ‘U-Netted Nations’.

Now that Web 2.0 has enabled Universe 2.0, six degrees of separation just went to one – and perhaps the many forms of ‘separation’ can also go away.

Perhaps some of the known problems that we all have in personal relationships, non-profit endeavors, business practice, or even governance, already have known answers, if we just knew.

** Reminds me of a familiar Christian bumper sticker “…No peace.?.Know…”

Make sense?

What’s about YOU? – care to comment?

– dare to COOPERATE?

NOTE: While this website is my personal initiative, the ASK4™ approach is a participant-managed collaboration platform and the U-Netted Nations™ is the result of our ‘Collaboration On Purpose’. My voice becomes one in a million – immediately.

Whole Elephant

You’ve probably heard:

(quotes about them)

• “…have to eat an elephant – one bite at a time..”
• “..have to see all sides of the ‘elephant’ to understand (problem)

BUT, I bet you’ve never thought about them (or PROBLEMS) from this perspective. HOW does this FUNNY VIDEO

… relate to YOUR

Situation – Problem – Job

Business (or Boss) – or Life (?)

– SHARE YOUR OWN FUNNY IMPRESSION HERE –

– ENJOY what others have said –

– and I bet YOU can Do Better – we’ll see..

Inuit (or ‘I-knew it’)

There’s something ‘magic’ about coming full circle – back to a known but forgotten concept. That was my recent experience as I moved from site to site across the web with the intent of finding graphic explanation for a developing (ASK4™) approach for local problem-solving, and cooperation within a global perspective (U-Netted Nations™).

It had occurred to me that the ASK4™ concept was similar to the eskimo blanket toss – each person first holding the edge to give lift to another, and then enjoying their own uplifting experience in turn. I only needed a picture .

That’s when I ran across not only the graphic that I desired – but the full explanation of a – ‘stylistic graphic of an Inuit blanket toss (a game often played at Inuit celebrations) and a circular path (the “Journey of Lifelong Learning”) to portray the Inuit learning journey and its connection to community well-being.’

Enlightened? – YES! Uplifted? – YES! So what’s missing – connection?

As I see it, the Inuit concept has long since been validated (and now by the reflected comparison, so has ASK4™ – as I see it). Whats their status in implementing its practice for collecting and sharing ‘tribal knowledge’? – their website says “Knowledge Exchange page – being developed’. What is my purpose for creating the ASK4™ concept? – to serve EXACTLY that type need. Connected yet? – fortunately we have the web for content sharing and email for initial contact (and, yes I did).

Can we cooperate to serve each other? – We already have, as I see it, from my needs (for ‘just’ a picture) already being met. Can ASK4™ now serve their needs in return? – I hope so. Can their intent (and mine) to cooperatively serve others be enhanced? – I think so.

Are we already ‘U-Netted’ – I KNOW so!

Inuit as they would say !!

(“I knew that” as I might say…

The rest of the story – is up to the universe, you, me, them…

What’s about YOU? – care to comment?

– dare to COOPERATE?

NOTE: While this website is my personal initiative, the ASK4™ approach is a participant-managed collaboration platform and the U-Netted Nations™ is the result of our ‘Collaboration On Purpose’. My voice becomes one in a million – immediately.

Castles and Wagons

These are two totally different constructs – like apples and oranges. They also represent the dichotomy between the agile ability to move forward and the fixed position that is guarded and static. Each has a different purpose and each offers a different benefit. Neither is more useful than the other in general, depending on the circumstance. One will get you there, simply and with little ‘baggage’. The other will enable you to stockpile and defend those holdings from a high and lofty vantage, once in position .

What is your circumstance – in life, location?

Except for a few stoic localities, civilization is on the move. Even for those few that ‘have arrived’, changes ‘outside’ create internal pressures – to change inside. The

ability to change – or react well to change is critical – to all.

In their white paper, Creation Nets: Harnessing the Potential of Open Innovation, John Hagel III and John Seely Brown introduce the concept of survival through adaptation, by engaging extended knowledge and extended resources – that comes from creating and extending one’s network of people (‘Creation Nets‘). They note that:

“While larger institutions tend to be in denial about the need
for change or view it as a threat, institutions and individuals on the
periphery see only opportunity. Necessity leads them to adopt a
bootstrapping mindset and to seek out or assemble their own creation
nets to leverage and accelerate their own efforts.
—- +++ —
Increasingly, as we have argued in greater depth in The Only Sustainable Edge, advantage resides in the institutional capacity to get better faster – it is not just about the pace of capability building but the relative pace and the ability to accelerate this pace over time. This in turn depends upon privileged access to the most promising flows of knowledge. Existing stocks of knowledge remain important in terms of earning the right to participate in these flows but…there is also a need to learn how to to leverage and accelerate their own efforts”

They have scouted the territory ahead, and reported back to the camp that “The Only Sustainable Edge, advantage resides in the …capacity to get better faster…”. Whether in personal endeavors, nonprofit initiatives, business ventures, or government oversight – we now all find ourselves on the same ‘edge’ – of vast prairies of opportunity – or vast deserts of doom. We can retreat to our secured positions and defend status quo or recognize the rivers and currents whose flow of change can take us to oceans of abundance. The choice is ours, and the results will follow.

To leverage and accelerate one’s own efforts – it becomes necessary to:

• “to evaluate available flows,
• more effectively participate in the flows and
• more rapidly integrate new knowledge acquired from these flows.”

Castles may no longer be our defense, and it

may be time to circle the wagons, for a moment.

And it’s not just about castles or wagons, it’s also about movement, speed, direction, progress, and arrival. We have to take the time to gather around campfires to exchange information. While the fire may be warm, we will need to hold conversations about what went wrong and what can be better tomorrow. Based on that new insight, we must cooperatively adapt to be ready to set out on the next segment of our continuous journey. We will be surrounded by those who while not our competition are also headed toward the same future. We may even have to encourage those who are afraid.

Our ‘moats’ will not provide momentum. So, those who choose will also saddle up and wave goodbye to those in the castles –

Wagons…Ho!

What’s about YOU? – care to comment?

– dare to COOPERATE?

NOTE: While this website is my personal initiative, the ASK4™ approach is a participant-managed collaboration platform and the U-Netted Nations™ is the result of our ‘Collaboration On Purpose’. My voice becomes one in a million – immediately.