I Have a Theme...
Memorable conversation is the foundation of civilization.
There's a lot of tripe written and believed about blogs, but the plain truth
is that they contain a huge body of thoughtful conversations, all of them memorized
by the Googleplex and some memorable by any standard.
Any conversation conducted long enough leads to consensus; any consensus shared
long enough, to action. (The IETF's early
rallying cry:
"We reject kings, presidents and voting. We believe in rough consensus
and running code.")
Warlords and monarchies and the Industrial Age adopted more focused conversational
modes to foment action: commands, demands, exaggerated urgency and authority.
These modes are so compelling that they supplant conversation and consensus
as the required stimuli for action, substituting a superficial ritual of listening
and acquiescence for the miracle of minds meeting.
(One of 3M's many experts
on meetings has seen the perfect business meeting: the Sioux council in Dances
With Wolves: open discussion, deep thought, no conclusions jumped to
before the data's in).
With P2P global conversations re-emerging alongside broadcast and top-down
dictates, we are reclaiming rough consensus as a stimulus for action. Open source
is the most obvious expression of the consensus-action dynamic, but they really
are showing up in all sorts of places: communities forming around web sites
that organize conversations so they are memorable and leave them in place while
consensus forms out of the threads that gain the most traction.
Individual and small group actions spring from these consensus epicenters,
but they don't exhibit the focus and persistence that paycheck-based activities
enjoy. How might consensus-based action rise to that level? I believe we're
getting closer, and I'd like to help Spirit
of America take it to the next level. The reason SoA might lead the way
to more effective consensus-based action is its natural appeal to every stakeholder
in the problem-shrouded Iraqi opportunity. When people touch Spirit of America,
they usually find something they'd like to get involved in. Many of us feel
we have to get involved.
Jim Hake, Marc
Danziger and I agree that each SoA member should have the tools to engage
at any level, involve their friends and social organizations and, depending
on their political persuasion, reinforce or compensate for U.S. Iraqi policy.
I'd also like to involve the small-pieces-loosely-joined
consensus that is the blogosphere. If our shared values overwhelm our disparate
politics we might even be susceptible to a call to action – even though
our style is to rag on imperfections and disappointments. What's wrong with
that? Design is simply the flip side of disregard. Michelangelo reputedly said
that sculpture is a matter of removing the parts of the marble that don't look
like a horse.
The blogosphere's values are transparency and openness; individual, authentic
voices amplified by spontaneous feeds, supporting links and persistent reiteration.
Imagine with me that we keep an eye on the bully Spirit of America laboratory
where people overseas act as Requestors to bring to
Donors' attention the needs that seem worthy supplying.
We can think of such suggestions as blog posts and our collective response to
it as the means by which we support the request with links and buzz and dollars
and volunteer logistics.
Like any catchy idea any blogger puts out there, a school kit or a sewing machine
or an irrigation pump is a candidate meme. We blog it into reality with the
sincerity of our expression and the energy of our reinforcement.
It's all the same to me and, I hope, to you. Here's a depiction of the SoA
process to host the requests, comments, support and cash flow. Now all we have
to do is implement it in web services and maybe we'll find that what matters
most in foreign aid is the web, not the spiders.
Just like blogs.
11:19:18 PM 
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