Changing to a Culture of Mutual Fulfillment

We are all heavily influenced by the various cultures we move within and perpetuate: corporate culture, industrial  culture, popular culture, media culture, school culture - you name it.  Cultural activity is ongoing at the office, in factories, homes, and schools.  This activity reinforces what we believe, think, do - and ultimately, what we have been taught to value.

There is a crisis in society currently.  So many of the things we have been programmed to like and want can be immediately satisfying but we soon find that these things do not fulfill our longings.  This crisis can be addressed as we change the culture.

In the same year as the first moon landing, Swiss philosopher and child psychologist, Jean Piaget said -

"The principle goal of education is to create men (sic) who are capable of doing new things, not simply repeating what other generations have done."  

So education is key to breaking from our programmed behaviour instilled in us by the dominant cultures.  The goal of education can be to get us outside or 'see beyond' our cultural conditioning.

The tendency in institutions when changing a culture is to focus on, or emphasize instilling new values in people.  People are instructed on 'how to place more value' on things that were less important to the institution in the past.

However, different values are somehow registered in the heart of each individual.  We formulate our values, perhaps based on individual life experiences or heart-felt longings from childhood.

No-one can dictate what we value and the longings that we strive to fulfill.  We can only agree to promote or espouse values that we may not actually hold deep within us.  We can talk in terms of values we don;t necessarily hold if we want to justify establishing new goals and strategies.

There is little evidence of education fulfilling the goal of changing the industrial culture of the 20th century.  Offices and schools are still run like factories within an industrial production line culture.

Offices and schools are still laid out with separate facilities depending in what someone decides should be produced there - a product, service, or a young mind.  Each facility is run based on different standards of what is acceptable not what is going on in our hearts.

To make a shift in a culture we change our habits of thinking and our observable habits in terms of how we interact with others.  We also positively influence the effects that a prevailing culture has on us by changing the physical surroundings where we learn and do things. 

Within effective approaches to cultural change we observe a cycle of steps (a, b, c, d, a, b...):

b. Beliefs

                                                 a. Habits                            c. Heart-felt values

d. Physical
surroundings

This goes against the traditional approach of starting with c, focusing on changing other people's values.  This is instruction, literally 'to strike', 'build with' or in order to impose or leave a deep impression.  It comes from Middle English, and from Latin in- + struere to build.

We influence or change a culture when we begin to focus on our habits.  This means looking at beliefs that we take for granted.  Hence the important role of eduction which literally means to educe or draw from within, or from 'our hearts'.

The more we focus on our habits the more likely we are to examine our beliefs.

To change our habits, first we examine why we are doing things.  For example, in education, endless attention is given to deciding how we educate ourselves.  Little if any time is spent on time questioning why we educate ourselves.

Are we educating ourselves to prepare for fully benefiting from today's economies, or are we still caught up in the old manufacturing economy?  Is education meant to promote making healthful food choices and well being?  Is it to make ourselves resourceful and imaginative people?

d. What kind of physical surroundings would contribute to questioning our habits in terms of why we do the things we do?

a. What kind of new habits in education can draw out our current beliefs?

b. What new understanding can support getting in touch with our heart-felt values?

c. How can we find people who share individual values and express them within our surroundings in ways that remind us to adopt new heart-felt habits.

Is this how we develop a culture of mutual fulfillment in our lives rather than short-term satisfaction.

How we tackle Cancer

'Speed Futuring' is like speed dating.  Choose a future.  Spend some time with it and see if you want it in your life.

June 3rd marks our fourth 'no-charge' Social Creator event of 2014 before our usual summer break.   

Mark your calender for Tuesday June 3, 7 - 9.30p.m.  We will be in the Columbus Room on the Columbus Centre main floor, to the right of the restaurant.

We are featuring a presentation by world-renown cancer researcher and geneticist, 
Dr. Andrew Hessel from the University of Ottawa Institute for Science, Society, and Policy, and former co- chair of bioinformatics and biotechnology at Singularity University. He is trained in both microbiology and genetics. 

Doctor Hessel is a catalyst in biological technologies helping industry academics and authorities better understand the changes happening in life science. He is also the co-founder of the Pink Army Cooperative, the world's first cooperative biotechnology company aimed at making viral therapies for cancer 'open source' i.e. available to everyone. Since the cooperative was founded in 2009, the cost and time needed to make a new biotechnology therapy for one person (which skips over the most expensive and slow parts, like big clinical trials) has fallen by 50% (and continues to fall). Source: http://andrewhessel.com/?page_id=141

'Open source' is a powerful, relatively new model of development that promotes a) universal access to a product or service's design, and b) universal redistribution of that design, including subsequent improvements to it by anyone.


The Columbus Centre is an Italian cultural centre just west of Dufferin on the south side of Lawrence.  (Use the Allen Expressway or get the subway to Lawrence west and take a bus a few blocks east.)

We will serve refreshments and have our exceptional free dessert table catered by Mama D'Aleandro!

At 7.10 p.m there will be a 20 minute introduction to Social Creator network for people attending for the first time. 

Speed Futuring: Applying what we've seen and heard earlier in the evening

After a presentation on Organizing in Neighbourhoods to end our use of Toxins by Andrew Owens we will break into smaller groups to share ideas about assessing new innovations based on a big picture, international approach.

This promises to be another busy, fun and delicious evening.  Bring a friend.

Please confirm with Nick D'Aleandro or Andrew Owens if you plan to attend.

Organizing for Understanding Freedom and Sustainability

We had a spirited session at the Intro Evening on Tuesday, October 29, 2013. 
 
Thanks to those of you who came to one or both meetings in October, and for your interest.

We have since launched a website for an agency where members of our association will represent us and our projects.  Our sponsored ad for the Intro Evenings ran in the first issue of Rapture - a newspaper dedicated to bridging spirituality, science and art.

Starting on November 11 at noon we will have the first Interim Meeting at the same location, (25 Sandale Gardens in Toronto near Sheppard and Bathurst - see Googlemaps for detailed directions ) and will begin identifying the best means to become an association that takes advantage of opportunities for –

1. moving the world agenda forward based on members’ existing projects and spheres of influence,
2. determining a self-sustaining and integrative direction for humanity where all can contribute and no-one is left behind,
3. promoting innovation in terms of how society adopts new learning and insights,
4. revealing convincing means for society to understand the consequences of actions taken,

At this Interim Meeting November 11, I am looking forward to showing you and discussing the actual business model - as developed to date - on how we organize as a self-organizing system.

Some of us have contacts in other parts of the world that are working on great projects and who could benefit from collaboration.  Consider bringing an outline of these projects on November 11.

At the moment we are -

a mutual support network that looks at areas of overlap amongst what we are already doing to advance scientific, spiritual, business, and psychological understanding.

I hope you can make it out for part of the day on November 11.  Let me know if this works for you by emailing ucitytoronto @ gmail.com.

There will be two further Intro Nights on Wednesday November 13, and Thursday Nov 28 to which you are free to invite friends with projects for a society that works  for everyone.

Leadership for Innovation in Society

For the first time in a Social Creator network event the discussion focused mostly on developments in neighbourhoods, on June 12, 2012.

The Toronto neighbourhood of Roncesvalles has become a great example of, "If the grassroots leads, then organizations will follow." 

A simple thing, like dealing with cigarette butts left on the sidewalk outside of bars, can be too controversial for a local business organization to handle. 

Perhaps it is the diverse membership of organizations that makes directors more conservative, not wanting to do things that may conceivably upset the membership.  Sometimes directors have to get member consensus.  

Hence we see little in the way of innovation coming from organizations.

The subject of this post is not ciggy butts.  It's about organizations holding up innovation.  It's also about no-one's vision being too big or too small to be taken into account and acted on.

Don't think that big visions are all that count in this world. 

If one person has a vision of a butt-free neighbourhood, then let's support them in that.
A grassroots group put in place a solution for the cigarette butts situation in Roncesvalles. Next they will be conducting a questionnaire about the solution, listening to the business owners in the area, anticipating a positive response.  This grassroots action will 'make it safe' for the local business organizations in the area to act, without 'ruffling feathers'.

Check out: Butting in to butt out

Often business owners do not live in the neighbourhoods where their stores are located.  They worry about anything that may interfere with sales during the times when their stores are open.  Once the store closes for the evening the owners can be in another part of town or another part of the world.

Local business organizations tend to focus on their main street.  There is much less interest in residential side streets, or the rest of the neighbourhood.

We really need innovation in society.  We need to respond to huge changes in the economy.  I believe it probably won't come from existing institutions.  It usually comes as a result of collaboration at the grassroots, and coordination with existing organizations.

As we look after the smaller changes, the bigger changes will also eventually come about.

Have you Organized as a Collaborative Village yet?

Today I attended the first in a new round of meetings about noise in our neighbourhood.  We live in a relatively quiet residential neighbourhood and found it alarming that an office space leasing business that encourages collaborations among companies with a 'social mission' would be so noisy.  Everything looked good when we heard that they were all about turning everyday challenges into opportunities to improve our communities and our planet.

However, business is business, and no doubt part of the plan was making money by renting out the main floor for parties.  Hey why not loud parties, as they can be more fun?  And what if these go on until 2 a.m.?  What about cars parked in the lane-way in-front of neighbour's garage doors?

Special occasion permits and liquor licenses are secured from the City.  And it's 'Party on!' with scant regard for people trying to get some shut eye.  It's all about that bottom line, improving communities, staying alive, and being socially innovative.   

At today's meeting we recognized this was no-longer about explaining our concerns to the new business in our midst.  This was going to be about ensuring they were denied permits.  We simply want to shut those noisy parties down.

It was not until schmoozing around the cheese platters after the meeting that I realized we could have been creative.   

Doh!  We could have been proactive!  

Why be constantly reactive, on the defensive or offensive for whenever a new crisis arises?  In addition to gearing up for another confrontation, we could also be looking to partner with this, and other businesses in the neighbourhood.

They need us on their side.  And in a transition to a creative economy, maybe we need them to be on our side too.  Maybe not the retirees in the group, but the kids, youth and self-employed people could benefit from help in becoming arts-based professionals.  (See previous blog for more on how economies evolve.)

  

The challenge for a group of neighbours to partner with businesses is that we need a creative and aspirational vision for the area.  (What could the neighbourhood be like with more beauty, enrichment and convenience at our doorsteps?  How do we attract more grace into our lives?)

Out of the vision comes a mission, or how to we make the vision real.  Tumbling out of the mission will come a series of major objectives, or the main aspects of how we are going to be pro-active in helping ourselves and others.

Businesses are clear on what they are working to achieve.  Ask the company chiefs what their objectives are and they will have an up-to-date list of reasons why all their people came together and get paid each month. 

So in preparing to partner, we address the challenges of coming up with a neighbourhood vision.  We would not be the first neighbourhood around here to do such a thing.  In fact you could say we have been lagging behind.  See http://glenmurray.onmpp.ca/pages.aspx?id=community_planning 

A new way to get things done

Either before or after our little rumble with the new business in the area, I will propose a Collaborative Village model of organizing.  This generates income and support for people willing to contribute to improving society.  In fact, I'm blogging right now, so why don't I suggest it here, and email a few of the neighbours?

A Collaborative Village secures suitable, under-utilized space for various aspects of a neighbourhood campus.  This is for education that prepares youth and entrepreneurs for the transition to a creative economy.  Studies will be within areas like creativity, community, compassion, and entrepreneurship.

And there's a big role for semi-retired elders to play.  They can help younger people start initiatives, becoming more practical and realistic.  And neighbourhood elders stand to learn a lot from today's youth.

A Collaborative Village looks at local TV and internet sites for production and support for our neighbourhood campus.  Let's face it.  The various levels of government are not going to be building large numbers of new universities and colleges.  So we can guarantee that people who need the necessary re-education won't get it unless the whole neighbouhood understands how it stands to benefit from working together.

A Collaborative Village sets up local collaborative hubs for self-employed people who can benefit from working together.  And we all need a break from all this commuting that chokes our lungs and stresses the ecology.

So who wants to coordinate a village?  

Self-employed people who are coaches, workshop facilitators, mediators, healing professionals, counselors and agents are always looking for new clients.  And nothing beats 'word-of-mouth' referrals! 

New and affordable opportunities for promoting services provide these kinds of entrepreneurs with real and immediate benefits.  I know I would like a neighbourhood rooting for me because of doing good work for the local community.  Why wouldn't others? 

Is coordinating a village possible?

It was not possible to have all this extra enrichment of our lives before the internet.  There were few options in terms of post-secondary education but to build a new campus.

People needed to publish expensive text books, because we had no way to learn and bring our knowledge together like we can today, using a wiki.  We had no opportunities to publish materials on-line as a neighbourhood - say on websites or blogs.

We didn't have on-line tools for business collaborations which allowed for our individual principles and values, until www.bettermeans.org was freely available to everyone.  And there were few options for local film and TV production and distribution, that is, before phones were manufactured with built-in cameras, and www.YouTube.com came along.

Now, with the Internet and on-line tools, coordination of a collaborative village has become very do-able.

What other models are there to consider?

The business investment area (BIA) model started on Bloor West Village in Toronto and is now in use in over 1,000 cities internationally.  However, people who run BIA's don't always live in the area, and often don't care what goes on in an area after their businesses close for the evening.

A BIA will react if something impacts their business, but they won't necessarily be proactive in terms of enriching the non-commercial areas of a neighbourhood, say residential streets, or other streets off the main street.  

You can also consider a resident's association model, where there is great socializing and occasional coming together around problems and opportunities. But nothing that we could consider as a response to the effects of globalization, and the subsequent economic transition we are going through.  It just seems to me that extreme change on the planet demands more than - the same ol', same ol'.

The residents` association in our area is wonderful, highly effective, and we have an innovative and fully engaged city councillor.  This may not be the case in your area.  Note that education and coordination for working a post-industrial economy is not part of their mission.

Also consider a ‘Friends of the Area’ model of volunteering, open to anyone.  You see this around parks or lane-ways that a city can no longer afford to maintain.  It can be fun in the short-term but it won't continue to bring people together unless there's some financial benefit.

As we move beyond some of the social conditioning on which we were raised, we see how we're all inherently creative.

There are many options that we can research, share and explore.  This is how people have adapted and moved forward throughout history.

Evolution within Economies

You may have noticed that all the manufacturing jobs have gone to China, Brazil, India, and other 'developing nations'.  As a result, for example, Ontario is no longer the industrial engine of Canada.  Ontario is apparently now a lowly province compared to oil-sands sucking Alberta.  However, Albertan people engage in bringing devastation of their province through oils sands exploitation, in effect reverting to large scale extraction industries as the main sources of revenue.  

Humanity came up with large scale extraction, soon after agriculture.  Extraction led to urban centres, (see the transition from a farming culture in Egypt to building cities and pyramids, about 4,500 years ago, for example).  Then look at England in the late 1800's when manufacturing factories were first introduced, when businesses made loaning of money safe, and capitalism possible.  Service businesses like banking and law made it safe for people to lend the large amounts of money necessary to build a factory.  

Its a long story.  But Ontario is now firmly post-extraction, and post-industrial.  And service industries like retail are in decline. So what do you imagine the 'developed world' is up to these days?

Some people are referring to 'what's next' as a transition into a creative economy reliant on arts-based professionals.  These are the people that provide entertainment, architecture, and run hotels, for example.  

You've read it here first, in earlier blogs, and you'll read it again:

All 'developed nations' have entered the beginning of a coordination-based economy which delivers savings on
time, money and resources through mutual fulfillment.  

Manufacturing required service businesses like advertising that conditioned us to consume more goods.  However mutual fulfillment requires that we release some of that conditioning and be in touch with 'what we stand for' or simply, our knowing our individual principles and values.

Getting Creative to take on Creativity

You may not know that the Canada Council for the Arts has actually set artists up against one another, in competition for increasingly limited funds.  Of course it has done some good.  However, if it were designed by artists and not bureaucrats it would not have made artists explain everything they want to do before they do it, ignoring how creativity works.  The present system actually inhibits creativity and encourages artists to spend 3 months of each year filling out forms.  It was instituted by government shortly after the October Crisis in Quebec (which may or may not be a coincidence). 


Bulgaria and Romania are countries with arts communities that actually flourish and, there`s little or no paperwork.  Their professional arts associations were set up under strict communist dictatorships.

The last time I checked the Romanian professional artists had their own factory for fine art paints, plus a large facility for pouring metal to make bronze sculpture.  There is a national network of artist-owned galleries and residences. 

There is no arts council in these countries.  The artists have actually organized and gone after clients.  Almost all the money for this expansion of services came as income from clients. 

There is nothing like this in terms of representation of artists in Canada.  One contract I heard they secured was to design and decorate a casino in an old mansion.  Costs for services ... $2 million in 1995 dollars.

Canadian artists don`t tend to dream big.  Dreaming within state guidelines and in accordance with application deadlines seems to do the job nicely, thank you very much.

Each time the Canada Council budget gets cut artists have this habit of getting excited, making some noise, throwing a low-budget stylish party in sheer defiance.  While all the time feeling powerless to do anything any differently.  

Become less dependent on this bureaucratic system.  Start something creative and more natural, that works in parallel.  

``XXXXX Does not compute!!!! XXXXX.... XXXXX Does not compute!!!! XXXXX``

It's unfortunate that the Canada Council was not set up to encourage collaboration and therefore empowerment of artists.  But, hey.  Let's get over it and face facts.  

This system has been around a long time, and it's long been time to adapt.  And don`t expect bureaucrats to take care of this.  They will not be helping us adapt so that together artists become more enterprising and self-sustaining.  It's not something that bureaucrats offer.

Pointers to Our Near-term Economic Future

'Developed nations' are rapidly leaving the manufacturing economy behind.  What can we expect from our near-term withdrawal from the old economy?  


The BDI tells you a lot about what to expect.  It is an indicator of international trade of raw materials.  Look at the graph  from the 1980's to the present on the page linked below and decide whether what has happened in the last year is 'significant':


http://www.alt-market.com/articles/540-baltic-dry-index-signals-renewed-market-collapse


And what to expect in the Eurozone.  This is dictated by the US-based banks that will continue to make themselves look as good as possible for as long as possible.  


Ellis Martin of www.EllisMartinReport.com talks about the impending undeclared default of five of the major US banks.  Whether the banks have officially run out of money all depends on the very powerful International Swaps and Derivatives Association.  This association is run by some of the same banks.  Listen to this January 30, 2012 audio interview:


http://www.jsmineset.com/2012/01/30/the-impending-undeclared-default-of-5-major-us-banks/

We don't have a say in terms of what goes on in the global economy.  It makes us feel powerless to act.  Maybe the fact that the global economy was designed and is run by un-elected officials in international banks and economic institutions suggests that it was designed to disempower... Who knows?

This is important to understanding and attempting to anticipate our near-term economic future.


The creative economy has become increasingly important.  And its rooted in your neighbourhood, where you have some say in what is goes on.  Adapt accordingly.

Don't look to Governments for a Recovery

The real and timely solutions to our problems reside within local communities.  Let's take a look at why this seems to increasingly be the case.

Governments are not well positioned to handle the details of each person’s life needs.  Challenges to providing meaningful and well paid work for educated people go unmet. 

To address issues of economic recovery we have to include community in the mix.  Perhaps this is because a local community is better positioned to supply what is necessary when people are in-between jobs, in distress, or simply wanting to be pro-active and discover a new way of being in the world. 

Why meet to address the needs of the government when we could be addressing the needs of societies where governments are increasingly powerless to effect the necessary change?  It’s relatively difficult for institutions to think and act differently so as to allow us to turn things around. It would be illegal for governments to spend tax-payers’ money, held in trust, to move towards outcomes that are not understood ahead of time. 


Money and effort must be in service to an outcome that is readily broken down into clearly defined objectives.  However those days are probably over. 


When a government insists on clearly defined outcomes it does not help society.  This means that we cannot limit ourselves to project management.  Therefore creativity is difficult for a society reliant on leadership through representation.  Creativity is required when we are dealing with probabilities and do not know outcomes before we start.

Why not work together creatively as individuals, in ways that increase the possibilities of recovery?

It is only when an individual determines what is fulfilling that he or she feels motivated to act.  It is only when we ask questions we want answered that we maximize our chances of figuring out what will work and outperform, in terms of effectiveness, what is currently in place. 

The real tragedy in all this is that authoritarian forms of government distract us.  We continue to delay personal introspection and therefore our prospects of making the adaptations we need to make.  

We need to change as individuals.  We can produce items and services that contribute to whatever kind of society it is that we want to live in.  No-one has to know ahead of time what that society, or mix of societies will look like.  

Lonely at the Top - Powerful at the Bottom

The previous post was about how the Internet supports us in directing our own fulfillment with greater immediacy.  This is happening because of greater self-awareness, and the Internet bringing more people together.  This is happening at the same time that lone leadership has entered into voluntary decline.


Lone leadership is in decline.  But that does not mean our impulses to command and control others has declined in the least.


To compensate for ineffective leadership, as a society we’ve entered into an elder-ful era.  The idea of the role of elder is from indigenous cultures to distinguish anyone who voluntarily dedicates his or her life to taking care of the greater good.  These days, I’ve noticed elders 18-years of age or younger. Look at what happened to Craig Kielburger when he was 12-year old in April 1995! http://www.freethechildren.com/aboutus/history/

I have experienced aspects of the Occupy movement taking responsibility for the greater good.  This is happening with varying degrees of self-awareness.  Some of us have noted our urge to shadow-box, to thrash and strike out at aspects of life we despise.  We don`t admit that whatever we’re fighting set up camp inside us long ago.


It’s on the record that the Occupy movement and the Arab Spring were spurred on in part because of  tools for organizing made readily available on the Internet.  We conduct the details of coordination for mutual fulfillment using both on-line tools, and those potential little-spies-in-your-pocket, we lovingly call cellphones.


Thank you social media.  And thank you open source software.


Coordination for mutual fulfillment tends to be carried out locally, in and among neighbourhoods.  Public spaces are where you’ll find those soul pools and nutrient rich spawning grounds where the elders swim.  Neighbourhoods are now vessels where projects wriggle and interweave, where adaptations arise from the cross-fertilization among notions. Social adaptations hatch in local places.  These are challenged, chased around, and later dismissed before becoming strong enough to find their way into the mainstream.


There’s no way of knowing what comes next from the shallow waters where social adaptations emerge.  Some new ways of doing things have inherent capacities to grow and plunge straight down because they are designed to trawl through the depths of our collected realities.  These surpass the role of lone leadership.  Drawing on what is deep within us has always been the role of muse.

Leadership from the top! At last. And its from the bottom

Our most complex challenges can be addressed by working together in community.
Finally its evident that some folk in Washington looked into real ways in which we can adapt to the huge challenges we face.  

Leadership is coming from the bottom and needs to be encouraged.

The White House Council for Community Solutions was established by President Obama in December 2010 to share creative ideas and collaborative approaches for building healthy communities across

America.

One of its two key priorities is that, "Every American community will have the knowledge and tools at hand to create successful local "collaboratives" that are designed to catalyze large-scale change and address their most pressing community challenges."

The Council has just released three resources, the foundational one being the Community Collaboratives Whitepaper.

I don't think the word 'solutions' is the limit of what communities can provide.  Solutions are often a way to put off the inevitable need to 'adapt to reality', often referred to as 'evolving as a species'.  

Evolution requires innovation, creativity and soul searching.  Soul searching leads to aligning with higher values such as compassion.  Movements have soul or 'anima'.  Soul that animates  movements is missing from institutions.  Expressive movements that encourage self-directed action among participants are an evolutionary response we can all welcome.

Related Links:

• Download the Council's full Community Collaboratives Whitepaper
• Visit the White House Council on Community Solutions website