Future of Media

'Future Media' is the book title that jumped out from the shelf at me while I was sitting at the library today.  The back cover explained what to expect between the covers:

"Combining their prescient nonfiction and fiction, Future Media showcases ... innovative explorations of the mass media...  Both cautionary and optimistic, this groundbreaking anthology offers challenging, engaging predictions of a future that will not be ignored."

It sounded great except for the bit about 'mass media'.

Because of the internet, mass media will continue to disintegrate even further beyond the 1000-channel cable bundles.  Ultimately the outcome is decentralization of the power to influence and persuade.

What will be new about the media in future will be a YouTube channel for every neighbourhood featuring the work, aspirations and needs of entrepreneurs.  You will check out interviews with local entrepreneurs and know who you want to connect with and help in some way.

We have seen the rise of social entrepreneurs who have missions of supporting a new kind of society.  People are making money out of entrepreneurs who deeply want to support neighbourhoods.  Centres or hubs for social entrepreneurs provide services and venues for gathering and collaborations.

City councilors and economic development departments understand and support this concept of a home for entrepreneurs to incubate projects.  It's another aspect of building management.

There are other trends in business besides social missions. Entrepreneurs have started to get into energy supply, ecological clean-up / recycling, re-purposing of material that would otherwise go to landfill, education, and community animation. 

What has been missing in all this innovation is ways for neighbourhoods to support entrepreneurs.  That's where neighbourhood YouTube channels come in, that link video interviews to wish-lists.  Neighbours can find ways to support the local start-ups instead of waiting for the start-ups to support them during times of increasing instability.

Changing the world will continue to involve a massive number of new initiatives.  It is not a mega project.

We can create a future that benefits everyone when we help business start-ups that we feel warrant our support.  Media can help us make those decisions.  

We need building managers for entrepreneurs.  Help for entrepreneurs in other forms are also necessary.  To find out more - here is a link to the QUEEN EAST Agency website.  I hope you will recognize that the future of media is partly local, and partly a means for us to help create a new kind of world. 

Inclusive Capitalism

In May, 2014 , Prince Charles said in a speech at the Inclusive Capitalism conference:

"We can choose to act now before it is finally too late, using all of the power and influence that each of you can bring to bear to create an inclusive, sustainable and resilient society”. 
 
The Prince was addressing an audience of 200 business leaders including Christine Lagarde, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, and chief executives of multinational companies such as UBS, GlaxoSmithKline and Unilever. 

Here are more quotes from the article appearing in the UK's Telegraph newspaper.

“I remember when the Iron Curtain came down there was a certain amount of shouting about the triumph of capitalism over communism. Being somewhat contrary, I didn't think it was quite as simple as that. I felt that unless the business world considered the social, community and environmental dimensions, we might end up coming full circle.” 

He called on businesses to focus on the long-term and make “an authentic moral commitment to acting as true custodians of the Earth and architects of the well-being of current and future generations”. 

“It is only by adopting a broader sense of value that our finances will be sustained and we can find new sources of profit,” he said. 

The Prince suggested that companies must do more to put “young people properly at the heart of companies' employment practices and planning strategies, in order to tackle more effectively the world's growing youth unemployment crisis”. 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/prince-charles/10859230/Prince-Charles-reform-capitalism-to-save-the-planet.html 

Ed Miliband, UK's Labour leader, has also called for “responsible capitalism”. 

Newly Elected Premier of Ontario

This past week Kathleen Wynne was voted the first woman, and openly gay leader of the fair province of Ontario.

Taking from Occupy messages she said she is committed to creating an Ontario that works for everyone.  We probably haven't had that spirit here since the European settlers arrived.

When Occupy started there was talk of 'the 99%'.  This message was something the media could get their teeth into.  The message successfully changed the worldwide conversation on mainstream media and strongly influenced the agenda at the annual Davos Summit.  All with very little budget.  That was impressive.

Then Occupiers talked about 'a society that worked for everyone - 100%'.

Interestingly it was about that time that national leaders called the various Occupy groups terrorist organizations.

Now we have seen an acceptance speech where a major politician adopts the same, later, more refined message. It is an approach towards working smarter.  It has a stabilizing influence on society.  It is an enlightened approach that encourages greater participation in the social sphere.

We can recall how things progressed over the last forty years.  Conscientious citizens became known as engaged citizens that in turn became known as peaceful activists, only to be more recently branded as threats to security.  People who want to build a world that works for everyone were and probably never will be a threat.  Now again it is something to celebrate and be open about.

We must cherish her commitment.  It shows true leadership when we need it. 

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.

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

Mark your calender for Wednesday May 7, 7 - 9.30p.m. when we will get together next.  We have the Columbus Room which is at the Columbus Centre main floor, to the right of the restaurant.

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 a free dessert table!

For our the third 'no-charge' Social Creator event of 2014 we are featuring a presentation by Petri Tanninen on how the government plans for the future.  Petri is into Design Thinking, Business Analysis, and Strategy and has his own uniquely creative perspective on aspects of how the Canadian government develops and implements strategies.

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

If you are a regular attendee check out Nick D'Aleandro artwork about the convergence of art, science, medicine, engineering and technology.  This exhibit has met with rave reviews.

Some people asked to see the fascinating video on Cryogenics again.  Anyone is invited to come at 6.30 p.m to see this video on freezing your body after death until researchers find a cure for whatever illness killed you.

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

After Andrew's presentation on the Collective Unconscious we will break into smaller groups to share ideas about assessing new innovations based on a big picture approach.

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

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

Meeting with City Councillor, Mike Layton

Here is a quick update on the development of collaborative villages.  Hope you find it inspiring for what you are up to in your neighbourhood.  Let me know if you and your neighbourhood would like to collaborate with the Bathurst and Bloor area of Toronto.

Councillor Mike Layton and I met January 6, 2014, regarding the Markham Street MuSE for living in a more creative Toronto.  It is also a community-led innovation and social response to today’s creative and learning economies.  We noted the fact that the Canadian economy is now less reliant on manufacturing, and that the City of Toronto wants to encourage citizen's to be leaders in today’s economies.

Mutual Support Enterprises are proactive member-owned associations that develop and advance a neighbourhood vision of urban living, or a ‘hyper-local’ vision for a street.  A MuSE is an association and hybrid of a social agency and a business.  It makes money to reinvest in social and economic development.

It encourages fulfillment of each person’s preferred roles, values, and vision for their life.  As member-owners we become more of who we are, both individually and collectively.  We develop further understanding, creativity, and increased capacity for health, vitality and well-being.

A MuSE is also uniquely positioned to be first-in-the-marketplace for helping corporations look at the wholeness in situations so as to benefit their return on investment.

There is an opportunity for the City of Toronto to supply arts groups with reusable material such as wood, metal, ceramics, fabric, etc., that would otherwise be sold or put in landfill.  The councillor is currently looking at options, say, when contracts with existing service suppliers are up for renewal.
We live in an urban forest.  Neighbours could use felled local trees to make structures, such as gazebos and arbors, that could be sold for beautification of local gardens and parks.  This kind of logging would be more enterprising and locally advantageous compared to the noisy practice of reducing trees to wood chips.

The future of society depends to great extent on encouraging our entrepreneurs.  We had a conversation about establishing creative economy hubs, and the need for neighbours to support entrepreneurial start-ups.  Practices of supplying office space and services to entrepreneurs that support neighbourhoods (‘social innovators’) remain part of the solution.

The councillor is a board member of Artscape YOUNGplace which is an example of a new, multi-tenant arts & cultural centre in the ward – at 180 Shaw Street, just west of Trinity-Bellwoods park.

We also touched on how Waterfront renewal as an opportunity to demonstrate the advancement of larger scale creative and learning economy hubs.  Exhibition Place has always tried to showcase innovations, such as wind turbine technology.  Councillor Layton pointed out how governments are now limited in what they can responsibly invest in, in terms of supplying basic services such as sewage and drinking water, when there is no immediate return on taxpayer investment.

We discussed the possibility of making Waterfront development ‘more organic’, more responsive to community needs, more economically sustainable, and less reliant on investment through financial institutions.

China is building 1,000 new universities over ten years (source: Roger Martin, past dean of the Rotman School of Management, U of Toronto,) as a strategy for adapting to the learning economy.  However, ‘developed countries’ in North America and Europe are making little or no investment in new learning institutions.

This led to a discussion of our proposal for neighbourhood campuses and the possibility of using underutilized local spaces.  Ideas for gathering and streamlining existing learning opportunities into curriculum streams that develop new skill-sets necessary for today’s economies could have been discussed further.  However, we had talked for over an hour and it was time to adjourn.

Our appreciation goes to the councillor and his staff for their kind cooperation.

Andrew Owens.

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.