Yes, this blogpost is longer than normal but I wanted to create one holistic view. If you are not a big reader just scan the nice bits or go to the end

The Lift

The past week I was in Geneva, the city where HTTP/HTML or in other words the internet was invented. I visited Lift 08, a three day event to explore the social impact of new technologies. Together with Martin Kuipers I just let everything around me flood into my brain.

Lift 07 was a special event for us. Although I was not there, Martin’s enthusiasm triggered a whole process towards Lable. The ideas he brought back gave us the tools to finally knit together some thoughts of the past years. I had to go and see this Lift where foresighters came together.

Lift 08

This year was a 3 day event with 700 visitors from all over the world. The first day was full of community driven workshops at Geneva University with a Venture Night at the end. The second two days where full with talks on different subjects. Both days had also nice closures in the form of a cheese fondue and a nice party in the center of town.

There were many interesting people and I felt great having met some. Although looking around the conference room I felt many were addicted to being connected.

I chose to only open a dummy book and set myself in information absorb mode and tried to see a larger pattern. With everything around me you could smell the future, you just needed to look below the surface.

Online Environments

A big topic which was present in almost all talks where the online environments that are part of the latest technological hype. What are the implications of these environments and how could you make them succeed? How you could use them to teach people, and how to use them to change them?

We got for example an insight into the South Korean world of Cyworld. On how Koreans organized themselves online and how they depend on their mobile phone. Attention was the main currency and self branding the key. How almost-sync was the latest development towards real time intimacy. How Twitter was the western equivalent. South Korea is just miles ahead of these social communities. 98% of the 20s are on CyWorld.

The most interesting talk on this subject was by Pierre Belanger, owner of SkyRock. Although SkyRock is just another social network he described a future of social messengers. Where the social network became the new digital id of the future. He described a netamorphosis towards a net not centered around bandwidth but around code. A net that is not centered around one site but a multiform platform that could run on phones, instant messengers etc. E-mail is dead.

I immediately connected it to some other movements of people talking about Jabber as the next http. And he basically described the new backbone of the internet as a Social Operating System. Everything will center on chat. Two-way instead of one-way communication.

Connecting tech with people

There were also great talks about open social by Kevin Marks of Google and Grid Computing by François Grey of CERN. They both have methods of connecting the people and computers with information.

Open social is the glue for anything social centering around people/friends, activities and events and seems to also be the glue for the next generation of people.

The grid computing talk had some great insights on how to use people and their computers for science. How normal people became an important part by letting them be involved. This by being transparant and fun. A whole @home platform was born out of it that has much bigger cimputing power than any supercomputer in the world.

In everything you could feel online environments are on the verge of change. The current form is just a carriage without horses and we still need to evolve to the definite form.

Mobile phones

Most people in developing countries don’t have computers but they do have mobile phones. They share them, they connect with them. In China for example there are 4 people born per second, but 20 new subscribers of mobile providers per second.

The mobile is the most important connected device and it was interesting how Younghee Jung went out to those countries to let the people design the best mobile phone for themselves. It was very interesting to see the specific specific solutions for problems they live with. Like multi-simcard support, multiple address books, heart shaped phones, ultimate everything phone etc.

We also heard some insights on the future of the phone. How it would evolve to a simpler gateway to the world and that the phone contained the answer to future payment. How the iphone revolutionizes and by someone of Nokia how the iPhone is not the ultimate answer.

User Experience & Stories

A lot of talk was also about what story the technology is telling and the user relates towards it. The perception of a user completely relies on the story as they create context.

The most interesting was by Rafi Haladjian, one of the inventors of the wifi Rabbit Nabaztag. He told about setting up a platform called Violet built with ambient technology. A plarform with which you are informed non intrusively.

Why the rabbit:

If you can connect a rabbit you can connect anything.

He showed some great stuff like a future product of RFID stamps that a rabbit(or some other object) can sniff and after the object will react with something relevant. He saw only 2 or 3 objects connected to the rest of the world and saw a future we will connect the rest of the stuff in our homes.

It was also nice to have visited the discussion on the failures of ubiquitous computing the previous day. It seems that we are on the verge of creating smart houses, we only should make them start out dumb and grow their smartness for a more satisfying experience. It is all about making a growing emotional connection by growing an evolving story.

New ways of working

The Zentrale Intelligenze Agentur was a wow presentation for me and Martin. They described the way of working we as Lable were philosophizing about for the last year. I really feel that we are on the beginning of a new hierarchy less way of working. That people begin to see that hierarchy kills passion and creative/innovation efficiency. And now we were confirmed it is a global feeling.

Games are fun.

The game track was really fun. You should just see the entertaining Paul Barnett video if you have the time. He describes we shouldn’t build games anymore Vegas style by reproducing successes bigger, better, faster & stronger. Online games are just beginning and we don’t know yet what the rules are for them. We learn along the way and creating experience on how to set out a great story.

There was also a lot of talk about casual and more accessible games. People want more and more micro-sized content for quick experiences. How Facebook is also a game as it has a repeat until reward structure. Games should be a balance of Mechanics (rules of play), Dynamics (human interaction with rules) en Aesthetics (feel, design, emotion). Those last three just connected too good with our Lable vision of creating balance between Technology (structure), Human and Feeling. Those should be the main design rules of the future!

New view on location

Paul Dourish had some nice insights from aboriginals. How they looked very different to locations, territory, objects. Everything was defined by stories and their influence zones. This kind of thinking could make us very differently to navigation and location based information. He wanted to propose a new vocabulary for this tech: Nomad, pilgrimage, home, colony, asylum, diaspora, migrator etc.

Clash of Nature and Technology

Kevin Warwick, the human cyborg, was a show stealer. He described how he connected a ultra sound sensor to his arm neural system and how he gained a 6th sense of distance. That a human could just learn a sensor so fast. He also connected his neural system to his wive to create the first two brains in one neural system. How they shared the sense of moving hands. His brain was even connected to the internet to control a simple robotic arm thousands of miles away… Cyborgs are getting real… And it sounded like a real enhancement that did not sound scary anymore… But what about the spam you will get

We heard from Mieke Gerritzen how we should accept tech and how we should make it a part of nature. How everything is set to intertwine. How manipulating nature will become the next nature. I did not entirely agree because I think there is still lots to learn from current nature before we declare a next one. We should accept the golden ratio as the main ratio for growth and design.

Sustainability

We can’t continue to consume the way we are. A whole separate track was focused on the environment with key speaker Nobel Prize winner Andy Reisinger. The most head shifting tech featured was a space based solar array with power beaming to the earth as a way to solve future power problems. Also features were technologies to convert people to more sustainable ways of working by peer pressured social networks.

Foresight

We ended with some views on how to see the road ahead but where also warned to look at a higher level to see what other roads will cross this road. William Cockayne and Scott Smith took us on a ride on what a foresighter, like the main audience of Lift, should do to make good foresights.

A foresighter:

• Should be aware
• Scan Collect and Organize Patterns and deep currents and roles
  • Get out on the street
• Have a view but not ideologize
• Stay Grounded
  • Leave behind artefacts

These talks made me aware I am such foresighter. Not focusing on the now but the future by talking around and collecting information and feelings.

The Future

Scott left us with a quote of William Gibson:

The future has already arrived. It’s just not evenly distributed yet.

I think Lift changed that and created a place of were foresights are made visible. Foresights of a future where humans will live in balance with technology and feelings. A future where they would connect with each other and everything around them to create a more sustainable and efficient balance. We just need to digest everything around us to see how it should be done.

I recognized many pieces of my past journey and was confirmed I am on the right road. It is just about meeting the right people and making it possible.

Yes, it is all just about people.

Visit Lift site for more information. All talks can be viewed on tsr site.

Photo by mrtnk who was sitting besides me while taking photo. It shows the shoes of Lift organizer Laurent Haug opening Lift 08.

A passion seems to grow stronger in me the last few months. 2007 was a year of finding purpose and combining all the puzzle pieces. Most while sharing thoughts with people and doing so I learned to appreciate a lot of valuable things more and more. Things that did not even seem to be new but most of the time old and forgotten.

It is all about People

Yeah really! We almost forget that everything we do is because of people. That everything is about meeting and connecting to those people. The real good connections are the ones who are loved.

Passion

The real engine for everything is passion. Without passion you need hierarchy or money to force actions. How to trigger the passion is the real question.

There are all kinds of means to get quick satisfaction but not for passion. We have studied satisfaction enough. What about real studies to what creates real passion?

The coach is too undervalued these days where knowledge, money, property, value are often regarded above passion.

Values

Passion can be misused and misinterpreted. People are able to have passion for the wrong values. But what are the right values?

I really believe in the holistic approach: the whole is bigger than the sum of its parts. All values that contribute to a bigger whole are the right values and any value that creates separate wholes are wrong.

Balance

We need to be able to sustain what we are doing indefinitely and get more out of ourselves along the road. The only way to do this is to create balance. This means we have to do everything in proportion to the rest and it is critical to look at everything: environment, money, people, goods, eating, loving, communication etc. If one thing is totally over/under-powered/used/connected/valued/flavored/loved something is lost.
That what is lost will be forever lost for the bigger holistic whole.

So we don’t need more of what we do not have. We need to get more out of what we do have. We even need to try to have less so the remains can contribute to other parts.
The more you give away to have less, the more you gain. But only if you give it away wisely. So it is still a growth economy of everything, but by spending less in it’s total. Efficiency by sharing.

Imbalance

For a real good balance, imbalance is always needed. We need chaos to find new better balances. We need storms to see if we are built on the right foundations. We can’t stand still, a balance is a time to find a new better holistic approach. To have a bigger more robust whole with less parts.

Open

Passion needs a safe and open environment totally driven by passion. If one person is powered by hierarchy (s)he can grind the whole process down. Passion needs to be able to make errors, passion cannot be broken by safe consensuses. Passion needs trust, and if you look around trust is the main thing that is missing. Because there is no trust there are hierarchies and little passion.

Leaders

People need leaders. Leaders who have the vision. Who see the whole. Leaders who are not above the ones they lead. Leaders that are also followers, because no one can see the whole whole. We need to look at leadership in a more dynamic approach. Trust leadership to the whole of the community. Like in swarms of birds.

Information

All the above depends on information. You can only create a larger whole if all the parts are aware of the whole. Reliable and honest information gets much more important.
The better the information flows,
the better we find optimal balances,
the less we need structured channels like hierarchies,
the more we are aware of each other,
the less we need to depend on one.

Connect

My mission is to connect. To connect ideas, inspiration, information and people to grow passion to grow a larger whole.
Whoever wants to join on this quest is welcome. 2008 is only the beginning of the real ride now the pieces fit. And many seem to even have found these roads earlier.
Ah well, it is all about people and thus connecting them to one us

Beautifull Passion flower by Davideg, Creative Commons.

What I wrote earlier on these subjects:

• Us religion

This week I was a member of a jury of an international contest named Frisian Design about innovation and sustainability. It was a contest organized by the Cartesius Institute and had entries from Portugal, Latvia, UK, Australia, Turkey, Italy, the Netherlands etc.

The quality of the entries struck me. I saw a complete sustainable Island for in the Frisian lakes. A durable World Sustainability Expo that travels the Frisian cities. A project for igniting new young entrepreneurs as firestarters. A project about recycling furniture and other stuff in a design and social way. The magical nano bubbles that would enrich Ameland. The sustainable Escher House etc.

Sustain

Two years ago I would have thought sustainability is all about the environment but these days I know it is more about a kind of mindset and most about people. It is about connecting, about keeping it to proportions. Ones waste is one others gold. The network is the main principle today in sustainability. To create something sustainable you need 3 things: People, Planet and Profit all 3 balanced in proportions. And the best project is combining all 3 of them.

And the winner is

We almost all immediately loved Cocoon Village by Margarida de Barros from Loughborough University Portugal. She created a project that aimed to get back to basics with a low tech approach with the cosy cocoons. With cocoons that would travel through the frisian land with a mobile unit built from recycled sea containers that would contain all the facilities. It travels to new areas where an underground system and sustainable tech would take care of water and energy.

I loved the idea of getting back to basics and travel through the Frisian country and setting up a mini community. This back to basics approach is a big contrast to the tourism focussed on the masses. It is getting back to realistic scales. And the cocoons are also a nice visual contrast to the vast and rough Frisian Country.

This project reminds the people they are humble small beings in a vast landscape. It would create awareness of what makes Fryslân great and that is why I think she is the deserved winner! I hope I can take a sleep in a cocoon in the near future.

Photos are from jury dossier, sorry for the bad quality…

Lately I keep my eye on the Dollar. It keeps on falling compared to other currencies. Today it seems to near a psychologically boundary of 80 on its index comparing it to multiple currencies. It makes many investors nervous because breaking 80 can cause a panic.

Screenshot of RTL Z (Dutch business program) – Dollar under extreme high pressure

I keep on remembering a great documentary 2 years ago: The day the dollar falls (Dutch but some English interviews) of the Tegenlicht series. It describes the events that lead up to the moment the Dollar is worth nothing and a Dutch woman has to pay her cab with some cigarettes. (But those also seem to be worthless lately with so many quitters) Bush closes the whole country for all foreign trade and the US has to live through a recession. In the documentary you hear some opinions of dutch and foreign traders,investors and millionaires that underline the message: It is unavoidable, the only question is how and when.

Stranded on an Island

The most striking metaphor was made by investor Peter Schiff. On an island are 7 people stranded, 6 Asians and 1 American. The tasks for survival are devided among them. One Asian fishes, one collects wood, one collects water, one does the cooking etc. And the American gets the most important task: He gets to consume all that is collected. The Asians only get the crumbs the American drops to survive so they can collect again the next day. The American keeps on saying he is the most important in this task, because he is the end in the line: He eats what is collected and without him the Asians task is nonsense. They work for him. But when do the Asians see that they get more when they get rid of the American and also have some free time to sun after collecting?

Debt is climbing

To keep their consumption in check the Americans have to borrow money every day. Currently that amount is 1.3 billion a day… And that money is borrowed from Asian countries like China so Americans can keep buying stuff from them so these Chinese can maintain the growth. On the point of writing this article the US debt is: $ 8,902,643,994,113.96 (Debt clock) . To see it grow I include the graphic that was made by the documentary makers 2 years ago when it was 1 trillion less debt. (Nice to see the effects of different political leaderships)

Well the scenario of the documentary is playing out much slower than in one day. We are still on 7 am on this episode of 24. (1.38 Dollar vs 1 euro) But the last pillar of the American economy is currently crumbling: the house market. The prices and rents are climbing and the stability of the obligations are slightly crumbling. The first time this kind of trusted funds shows instability.

The effect for the rest of the world

Well with a strong Euro nobody wants to buy European products. And many European funds have invested in dollar funds. So a sudden collapse is not attractive for the Europeans. (the cigarette scenario in which some banks may become broke) Also the Asian countries are not interested in a collapse because it would hurt their Dollar reserve they got when they loaned US money. China is slowly using the money reserves to bid for stuff like helping out Barcleys (a UK bank) to get ABN AMRO. One of our Dutch world wide operating banks which has been in our headlines the past few weeks. China slowly wants to get rid of these I Owe US.

But what about the US?

If you are a US citizen I would save something in a stronger currency like the Euro. Because the financial world is sure about it: a Dollar collapse is unavoidable. While a president is busy distracting it’s people with a costly war, the country is on it’s way to a collapse where it has to finally give up its high standards of living. What if the US can’t pay anymore for its 50% consumption of oil in the world and that is freed up for consumption by the rest. Currently the dollar is deflated slowly to avoid damage. But how does the world look like with one less economic powerhouse to manage the rest of the world? I think the world will become a better place with more balance in the forces. But we will see how this will play out.

Images and inspiration by the earlier mentioned documentary makers: The day the dollar falls

Lately I’m involved in many projects in which I touch many sides of society around me. By talking with many people I am learning about the common problems but also difference in thinking and kind of people that are working in that branch. It is nice to seek for connections and while talking it is easy to come up with all kind of products to make life easier.

Some areas I talked to are elderly healthcare, disaster management (army/firefighters), maritime sector (visiting boats), education (many types outside and inside the institution I work part time for), Traffic safety, charity, historic institutions, shopkeepers, durability/environment, business people, mortage brokers etc etc.
By talking you begin to see a bigger picture of society and how things work. It is all about people and knowing each other, about trust but also about fear for the unknown. About getting things done while not costing too much money and time.

Durable connections

It is also inspiring to meet people that can get anything done just by finding the right connections. One his waste could be the others cost/life saver. So many durable connections are available but so little people see them because they don’t look outside their own box… They tend to talk to the same kind of people around them. People that are doing the same kind of stuff and form the same mindset.

It is so easy to talk to people if you are interested in what they are doing. People light up when you just want to think with them. It is all about communication and making connections. And with those connections you can make your surroundings better. I am beginning to see the bigger picture but it is still blurry in some aspects.

Hope to be back soon with some deeper insights.

Seeking Order

We people tend to order everything. We are wired to see patterns and tend to describe them in structural language or mathematics. (the language of patterns)

We people tend to follow these rules in life:

• Better measure means better prediction means better control.
• Small causes have small consequences.
• More and better order (regularity) is healthier.

To understand the dynamics of large systems we need to know all the factors that play a role in it and we can make predictions.

Chaos everywhere: The butterfly effect

But the above is not true. When we began to study weather and economics it was impossible to find direct patterns. Scientist began to create computer simulations and began to see chaos but also underlying order in the chaos. The weather and stock market could not be predicted by looking at the larger picture. Even a small butterfly could cause a storm…

A new theory was born in the form of the chaos theory. It described that many processes are run by unpredictable factors and are determent by the initial conditions. The initial conditions set a dynamic system in motion and many small influences (butterflies) create very noticable large scale consequence (like storms) in the big system. (like weather)

Social systems

But this is also true for social systems! One person can have a huge effect on the whole organization. Organizations are thus also controlled by chaos theory systems. We people can also work as butterflies and cause huge effects. Look into our history and notice some legendary people that were some unnoticable persons at first. By coincidence they could have huge effect on our whole society and history. Their actions cannot be recreated to form the same legendary figure. It is all about timing and the initial conditions.

But why do we try to look deterministic to our social systems? A system that is ruled by a rigid top down structure can’t easily adapt for weather changes. By top down determination you dumb down all the factors that are really running the social process. It can be run by procedures but you are really ignoring a lot of factors that control a social system. Don’t kill butterflies!

Run by chaos

The process should determine the organization. Chaos should be allowed. Even in chaos there seems to be order. It is true that we need to find the right initial conditions. But once in motion it will adapt much faster by human passion and drive.

Don’t dumb down the process into easy schematic concepts! You will kill a lot of potential. We should favor adaptive organizations and design. The chaos theory could deliver some key insights in this new age.

Related:

• Leadership 2.0
• Big changes ahead for us
• Evolution – the beginning – forming order out of chaos

Related:

• Leadership 2.0
• Work 2.0 – The empty cubicle
• Big changes ahead for us

Companies are something set up by an entrepreneur with passion and most of the time run with a strict hierarchy in mind. There is one boss and several sub managers that each have their own responsibilities. As workdrone you have your own subset of tasks to work in an ‘oiled’ machine.

Top management decides which direction the company will go and what you have to do. They choose the direction that is most profitable for them and you as workdrone has to do the tasks or you can’t make a living. The whole society is run by these kind of systems of bosses and managers.

This has the side effect that work is a necessary evil. You have to spend certain hours on a task and it is governed by many strict rules. The work drone has to be controlled. Many people work towards their free hours where they can spend their well earned money and have some fun. The opposite of work is leisure.

Work 2.0 – The cages disappear

But what if work depended on passion? What if you could decide what to do and follow what you were attracted for when you first decided to do your job. Why not give the workdrone complete freedom to pursue their ambitions?

By setting up what the worker wants to work on you create a workforce that gets to work with more passion. But why let the worker work in an office on standard hours? Why couldn’t (s)he choose his/her own hours? Why don’t people trust their workforce? We want passionate thinkers, not drones….

The opposite of work should be idleness… Working should be something fun which you could combine with your personal life. What if it was fun? What would happen to our productivity? What would happen to our society

Want to know what could happen when we set loose those boundries on work? A Brazilian company Semco has done it and makes a revenue of 160 million a year.

Read more about how this company has done it in the Seven-day Weekend by Ricardo Semler.

Related:

• Leadership 2.0
• Big changes ahead for us
• Media 2.0 -The fall of Britney
• Politics 2.0
• Enemy 2.0

Media is all around us. Media informs, teaches, entertains and criticizes us. Media is our unconscious, it is omnipresent. It tells us who we are and how we need to live by stories in series or movies. Media is only the object of transport to deliver a message or feeling defined by someone.

First Media 1.0

Dutch X-Factor winner 2007

The first methods of communicating a message to undefined groups had a small reach but grew larger over time. You could hang posters, put something in the news paper, publish a book, and later tell something on the radio or show something on the television. These mediums where always controlled by someone who owned the wall, publisher or television station.

To own and run such a medium costs money and people asked something in return. The medium with the largest reach costs the most and could only be cost sustaining if you tried to reach as large as possible group of people as possible. But how could you make money of media consumers?

A large reach meant a large group of consumers were watching. Adds became successfull and more viewers meant more money. The medium became about attracting large numbers of people. Media became about generating feeling. About being moved by something so you kept on following the story/feeling. You needed to be touched by some new information, a warm or familior feeling, a shock, something to laugh, someone to look up to. With the popularity TV became escapism from everyday society. People became passive consumers and on that mindset the advertisers thrived by showing stuff to consume.

The media generated our heroes and foes. Celebrities became the new aristocracy which was talked about. Their good lifes were something to look up to, their bad lives where something to reflect our humanity on. The media made a person admired, but a too large following and to grow up in the media can make you a disturbed person that turns on society and shave your hair off as ultimate action of rebellion. It is just too difficult to be perfect and please.

Media creates or destroys people. The Media has its own sets of rules. Who controls it controls the masses. Think Berlusconi. We live in a mediacracy.

Media 2.0

ZeFrank from Zefrank.com

But internet changed everything. By creating a decentralized world wide web nobody controls there was freedom. Freedom to publish, advertise and be creative. Ok, lots of the internet is still about creating masses and ad revenue. But the internet is also about connecting people with obscure knowledge. Interests that could not thrive in a small community could thrive on a place that could be accessed anywhere. Online bookshops could put obscure books in their collection. People with special interests could find each other and thrive their knowledge to other minority groups all over the world. It became about fulfilling the long tail of interests.

Internet became the medium with the largest reach which was controlled by no one. It created the largest diversity ever. The open network structure created such a large bandwidth that anything could be send to anyone for free. Even TV begins to lose watchers to youtube and online downloadable content. Information became free and regulated entertainment begins to crumble. Idols are not as worshipped these days than in earlier times. People begin to watch through their facades. The fall of britney is just one sign of media 1.0s apocalypse.

When distribution became free the material based price of things like music and stories vanished. In a world were people values stuff on their touchable presence much intellectual property devalued. People began to distribute music, movies etc for free to satisfy needs. Why pay when many of the artists/actors ride in expensive Hummers with diamond jewelery? Centralized controlled creativity begins to crumble. People begin to avoid the locking in structure of mass mediums.

The end? The beginning!

Media 2.0 is not anymore about reach but about being unique. It is about what you like and your choice. It is about diversity instead of belonging to a larger whole. We don’t want to be targeted as a target group but as a unique individual. We don’t want role models but inspirators!

It is all about personality and authenticity these days. Be yourself, do something unique and different. Contribute to the world! Passive consuming is a sin. We can make the difference!

Related:

• Big changes ahead for us
• Politics 2.0
• Leadership 2.0
• Enemy 2.0

As we move to a more social society the old politics will not work anymore. There is a new enemy 2.0 and the people 2.0 will choose differently. Hierarchies will be a thing of the past. But leadership is needed to bring order to the society. What does the next politician look like?

First Politics 1.0

Politicians are generally chosen by the people in democratic countries. Well we tend to believe so but many are still selected backdoors to be elected. (for example in the US who gets the most financial support) The parties tended to be run by an elitist top that controls everything. To succeed is all about building goodwill at the higher level. This type of politics is a fine example of leadership 1.0.

The people chose only on what reality they saw on television. Who ruled the media was the king. A mediacracy at it’s best. The media 1.0 empire created politicians like Berlusconi and Schwarzenegger.

The change

We in the Netherlands had a big shock in 2002 when a politician named Pim Fortuyn stood up to shake the system and was shot dead a week before the elections. He gained big popularity for his controversial topics on immigration and criminality. He spoke as the voice of a large group of neglected people. Existing politicians where then suddenly regarded as disconnected bureaucrats. The representatives of the biggest parties couldn’t speak to the people and where a big contrast to the charismatic Fortuyn.

But Fortuyn was suddenly dead and a big chaos formed for the existing parties. The government fell after several months because of fights in the disorganized Fortuyn party. The biggest loser of the 2002 elections, the PvdA, came back with a new charismatic leader: Wouter Bos. This leader made statements by not wearing ties, not standing on stages but among the people (pictured above), blogging, creating an account on Hyves (dutch myspace) The disconnect with the people seemed a thing of the past and in 2003. The PvdA regained all lost seats in parlement.

Politician 2.0

Well let’s look into a more worldwide example. The United States seems to go through a process where the people are fed up with the current government and want something different. Approval rates where never as low as for the current president. He messed up with a mess of a war that caused more problems than it solved.

A new kind of politician stands up out of nowhere. Barack Obama is the first US 2.0 politician. He grew as a politician out of helping/managing communities of people in bad neighborhoods. He has no influential father or spouse but got to senator purely with his own passion. He was someone really selected up by the people.

He announced his race for presidency on his website avoiding the controlling media 1.0. The media pointed to his website and his own directed announcement movie. He seems to have his own Obama TV channel and a blog.

Gathering passionate communities

But the most important change is how he uses existing social networks online. He is present on youtube, flickr, myspace etc. He has also founded his own social network where people can flock to gather funding, discuss ideas, set up events etc. To become presidential candidate for the democrats he is not directly reaching to the influential middle layer with the money or the controlling media layer to reach the people but he is trying to reach the people directly. With his speeches on his site he influences people to group and spread his passion to bring ‘a new united United States’.

If his mission will work in this conservative country is to be seen. But it is interesting to see the social revolution already starting in the more progressive groups of the United States. Will it awaken a new kind of campaign? A new kind of leadership? A new kind of connection between people and politicians? Will politicians be selected and work among us instead of above us?

Related:

• Leadership 2.0
• Big changes ahead for us
• Enemy 2.0

First Leadership 1.0

• Build in layers.
• Higher layers decide who is in the lower layers and what they do.
• Higher layers get more than the lower ones
• If leader is compromised the organization is at risk of crumbling.
• Reorganizations are very complex and difficult.
• Top bottom structure

Leadership 2.0

• No top and no bottom, just one fluid dynamic system
• The network is formed by common passion
• Leaders form naturally and only inspire to bind and direct group. They are among them as one of them.
• Groups are more fluid, dysfunctioning members can connect with other groups
• No way to bring down complete organization by compromizing members
• Reorganizations happen all the time and are easy.
• Network/ lava lamp structure

As you see the network of people led by leadership 2.0 is more fluid and future proof. If the leadership works it creates more solid groups and more passionate users. Organization 2.0 is more difficult to bring down.

Related:

• Big changes ahead for us
• Enemy 2.0

Enemy 1.0 was simply defined. It had a leadership, an army and territory. Countless real time strategy games and old fashioned games like Risk are based on this concept. The enemy was defeated when you overthrew the leadership and this meant or bigger armies or better technology. Who sat in the palace was king of all people around it. These were the wars until the end of the 20th century.

Enemy 2.0

At the beginning of the 21st century everything changed. A suppressed people came to revolt. People that were taken advantage of by setting puppet dictators and stolen of their resources or thrown out of their country where they lived for centuries. They never had a real government they believed in. They had only one belief to set there hopes on and set them apart from their enemies: their own Religion. To come out of their dire situation they created small factions that had a higher ideal: destroy the people that destroyed their lands, resources and believes. They had some figureheads but those were more inspirators than leaders. The people organized themselves helped by modern technologies like mobile/satellite phones and internet to spread their believes and motives.

Groups like Al Qaeda were the ultimate society 2.0 community. It is spread by passion, by a common interest. It proved to be the ultimate answer as enemy of society 1.0. Politics 1.0 and army 1.0 tried to attack it, but how do you attack something without central government and territory? They are still left clueless. Enemy 2.0 attacked were society 1.0 was the most vulnerable: it’s freedom. They terrorized and spread fear among the people. Politics 1.0 attacked the territories they believed enemy 2.0 resided but only created more passionate enemies full with hate and rage…

An answer against enemy 1.0 is not found in a 1.0 society. We need to change… We need to look at a different perspective at all this.

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• Big changes ahead for us