Robert Paterson's Weblog

How many people does it take to rethink a major problem?

There is no doubt that the US Army has to rethink everything about itself. The same is true for most sectors of out world today.

The Media, Education, Healthcare - all have the same problem - the Kinetic/mechanical approach is failing.

What I find interesting about Petraeus (an old pic - now he has 4 stars but this shows his open face better than some recent pics) is that instead of having a large committee of the old guard - he invited a handful of 40 year olds who were BOTH practitioners and thinkers to help him think through what really confronted them.

In 3 years - they have made huge progress in defining the challenge and in starting to make inroads on the solution.

The two key men? Lt Col John Nagl

And Lt Col (Rtd) David Kilcullen

Isn't this a lesson for all of us struggling with how to make a breakthrough in any of these fields? It seems that progress is most easily found with a real leader who has both the Rank to carry weight in the system, the intellectual horse power to lead the debate and the character to attract the very brightest people to their side.

The team that works the best is very small and is NOT made up of the good and the great but of the brightest and the best.

So if we were to have a go at fixing our desperate educational results on PEI - I think that the Petraeus model would suit us well. A Leader with the Rank and the Character plus a few good men and women.

Blogged with Flock

Fixing the Messy World - Another Story

Here my dear friend Paul Hawken reveals another response based on another story to the Messy World.

A vast network of people from all classes and places are emerging around the story of a re-connection to the planet and to life itself.

Just as the boy in Pakistan can find the hero path in Jihadism, so another can find it in the work to restore life to our home.

I wonder - the 20th century was a conflict of conventional ideology - capitalism, socialism, communism and fascism. Now we see Corporatism and its challengers Jihadism and "Naturalism". Please Dave give it a name!

David Kilcullen on Charlie Rose

Kilcullen is one of the finest minds around - here he offers a broad and deep insight on what is going on in Iraq

Charlie Rose Interviews Erik Prince

Information in a Messy World - Genius Video by Michael Wesch

Thanks to Euan

Deborah Kerr

My favorite actress, Deborah Kerr. She represents for me a lost world, the England of my youth.

My favorite film of hers - The Life and Times of Col Blimp - her breakthrough film made in 1943 - made by the incomparable Powell and Pressburger. Kerr plays 3 women - all central to who I think she was - brave, cool and loving. The part she played again and again and so well in the King and I.

I feel very old today at the news of her passing. I think I too am a kind of Blimp who looks nostalgically back at a time when your word meant something ....

Protection in a Messy World?

This is the scene in Pakistan yesterday. Question - how do you defend yourself from this kind of attack

This is a core question in the Blackwater debate.

Hope is 30

On October 19th, my dearest daughter Hope will be 30. Oh how time flies!

30! I think that 30 today was maybe 21 40 years ago. The end of childhood in the modern age. Just as maybe 60 is the old 40? I should be so lucky.

Every parent thinks that their child is special - so please indulge a father's pride - I am a fortunate man.

So Hopey - may fortune too shine upon you for all time and may you too be blessed with children such as I have been.

What would a "new" news"paper" be ?

One thing is clear - that newspapers as we know them are dying. But what will be their new form? Jeff Jarvis and many assembled the other day to do their best to find out.

As I talked for hours with a client yesterday about this topic, I had an aha. When the dinosaurs were dying, the new life form was already in being. It was just too small to notice. Does the new newsparer form exist today as the mammals did at the time of the extinction?

I think they do and I have posted what I think they look like and how they might behave on Fast Forward.

World Cup Rugby Final - Where do I find it on TV on PEI?

I have a fanatic Rugby fan (aged 14 from the UK) staying this Sunday when the final of the Rugby World Cup is being played.

Not following sport at all - where could I find the match on TV on PEI?

If I can't find a way he will be very sad