Robert Paterson's Weblog

Bitter? - An Explanation - A Values Perspective of the 2008 Election

What happens to you if you have no power? When others control whether you have a job or not. Would you be "Bitter" - would you default into religion and hunting?

Dr Brian Hall's lifetime exploration of values and how they affect us tells us that you would.

Let me explain this chart. As I went back to it , many aspects of the 2008 election became clear to me. It is a new kind of landscape for what is happening in America today.

As you go through the map - fit the candidates and the issues into it and see what happens. Now it all makes sense.

Many who have become helpless and dependent on what others can do for them, have either regressed are got stuck in Phase I. A world view where the world "Is a mystery over which I have no control" Here, the self is the centre of an alien and oppressive environment.

Phase I is a place where the emotions not reason dominate. If you want to reach this group, a point by point rationale will always fail. Fear is always just beneath the surface. They do not want to be told that they have to do the work - they want to be looked after.

This is a world view where people seek out an Autocrat. It is a world where people have been hurt.

Russia is always like this. Putin is a natural. Yeltsin made people feel afraid. Germany regressed to this after WWI and the Inflation of the Weimar. In this context, Germany looked for an autocrat and got what they wanted. Japan in 1945 saw MacArthur as the right kind of safe Shogun. The Iraqis hoped for a MacArthur and got Mr Bremer instead!

In this kind of world, you look for the leader who is going to look after you. The leader who will make it simple - where problems are an outsider's fault. This is a black and white world of "Good & Evil", Right or Wrong, of Them or Us. Here it is vital to have scapegoats. Big daddy will make it all right.

When life on Earth is so uncertain, having faith in a certain after life has a deep appeal.

So the Gods that appeal the most are stern father like figures. Wahabism has done well in this area but so have Baptists. There are no grey areas in this type of religion. The church has a lot of authority. In ideal conditions, men can at least have power over their family. Women and children know their place. Here, men have power over animals. People respect nature but know that they have dominion over it. People who look different are to be feared and blamed. Success might come from the lottery like Manna from heaven but never from one's own action.

Phase I is the natural early stage of all humans where as infants we are dependent on our families. If we are pushed enough, most of us will go there. It is both situational as it was in Germany in the 1930's but it can also be inherited as it is in Russia. It is also the cultural state of feudal societies. It is all about family. You can only really trust your kin. Heritage is essential as a belief. You are who you are born. It was the culture of the South before the Civil War.

Phase II is much of the corporate world. Here the world is "A problem with which I must cope". It was the culture of the North. This is the American Dream of the 19th Century where the self "seeks to belong by approval of significant others and by succeeding". It is how the corporate world is set up. Success is seen in material things.  Bureaucracy, rules, mechanical solutions are all aspects of this world view. Here you can break away from your blood and heritage. You can be the dream. Hard work will get you to your reward.

In a human life Phase II are teen values where fitting in is so important. In society Phase II is a transition state between childhood and real maturity.

In America Phase II values triumphed as a result of the civil war. Most adopted them. But the extreme version of Phase II, the Market State, has pushed millions out of Phase II back into Phase I. The market state has pulled away the support that phase I people seek. Many are not just bitter, they are desperate.

Phase III values represent a phase shift in values from phases I and II. Here the world view shifts from one where the locus of control is external to one that is internal. If there is a gap between phases I and II, there is a chasm between phase II and III.

In phase III, it is a participatory world. Here the world is a "Project in which I must participate". This is the new media world. TV as we know it is Phase I and II. Here the self acts and initiates creatively, independently and with conscience. Here the leadership vision is collaborative. Phase III are the values of a mature adult. Self knowledge is the point. Rewards are intrinsic. There is no need to use stuff as a proxy. They should be the next phase of societal values.

See how this set of values fits into the Web 2.0 world?

There have always been a few people like this. But something is going on and what was a tiny group is now a large one. I suspect that affluence has had something to do with its birth. But I am sure that the web is the energy behind this.

Just as the steam ship gave the Phase I masses of Europe the chance to get to Phase II life in America, so the web is the ticket to a phase III life for many of the Phase II world.

Phase III is the world where the most important project of all is the revealing of my true self. The paradox is that as I find my true self, I find that I am also one with the "other". I am one with nature, I see all people as one. I am a citizen not only of the world but of the entire planet. I am indeed a citizen of the universe. Here God is not out there but is in here. We are all part of God. There is no separation. Here the greatest call would be to answer the call to do the great work. Integration of reason and emotion takes place here.

Phase IV is a tiny world embodied by a few individuals such as Ghandi or Mandela. These are the values of the elder who accepts their mortality and who know that they are shifting into the eternal.

Here all the values come together and the self is lost. What need of stuff when all stuff including your own body will soon be gone? What need of rewards or riches.

Mandela triumphs above all the hurt dealt to him and his people and transcends it all. All children are his children. The self is a "we" that acts to enhance the life of all.

Ironically Phase IV leaders are essential to take Phase I people out of their fear and bondage. Lincoln was a Phase IV leader. Some Phase II people cannot tolerate Phase IV. Think of how many have been assassinated. Phase II leaders know the risk that Phase IV leaders pose for they take away the political currency of Phase I, fear.

So what does this mean for election 2008 and beyond.

The great worry and also the great opportunity that I see for America is that Phase III has reached critical mass and is growing exponentially. The web is acting like the steam ships of the 1860's to 1900 and bringing millions to America.

The Phase I group now is also very large having been created by the Phase II leaders of the last 30 years.

So we have two America's with a small elite group of Phase II leaders whose power base is the fear of Phase I.

I think that we stand on a precipice. Without Mandela, South Africa would have collapsed into a nightmare. After his death, it still might. Fear or Hope. Self interest or Selfless?

The choice for America as I see it is this. Will there be enough votes to bring in a Phase III or even Phase IV leader like Obama who might be able to set the conditions up to heal the wounds that a Phase II system has inflicted on America and the world, or will a traditional Phase II leader like HRC win and exploit the fears of America?

The choice is clear - Hope of Fear. The chance of healing or maybe a catastrophe.

Social Media in Business - The Complete Dr Vaine - Directors Cut

Response to Dr Vaine's advice on the 'Phoric has been resounding.

For all of you that wish to get the complete wisdom of Dr Vaine - every aspect of social media and KM - please go here to his agent, Patrick Lambe's Blog - where we have the complete collection. Now there is no excuse for being equipped to keep all this touchy feely stuff in the way of getting the work done

The Mystery of Attraction on the web - Luis Suarez

What do you need to know about how to reach people on the web? Really reach them?

Earlier this week Luis Suarez and I started to chat on Skype. Luis works for IBM Netherlands and telecommutes form the Canary Islands. I telecommute everywhere and I live on Prince Edward Island. We had never "met" and had never talked with each other before. But as we both anticipated - we both hit it off in a big way. I felt immediately that Luis was someone who could become important for me and I sensed that he did too.

We both cared a lot about the other. Somehow out of the millions on the web - we had found a match!

What had happened and what does this mean? How is it that the social web not only loosely connects us with ideas, music, issues and people who share these BUT ALSO connects us with people that we have a heart connection with as well?

I am going to explore this process in more detail in my upcoming interview with Susan Meyer at WOSU who is exploring how WOSU can learn from the Columbus Blogging Community how to get connected better in Columbus. But as a taste, here are some answers that Luis and I discovered for ourselves.

We both live in human scaled communities and have a vivid daily experience of what it is like to be in a space where you have to behave well.

Both of us live in small communities where when we pass people on the street, we tend to make eye contact. Often stop and say hello. Whatever you do or say in the Canaries or on PEI - people will know. So we have to govern what we do by the social rules of our society. There is no anonymity! This feels comfortable for us. There is also a human pace to what we do. We work at home and hence we have a lot of time that is ours. We spend a lot of time outside and we are affected by the weather. Work fits easily inside our day. We are rarely rushed.

But when we go to the big city - Luis Madrid me Toronto - we tend to be overwhelmed a bit. We note that most people have a lot of social armour on to protect themselves from all the social noise. With so much anonymity, people can can be rude and inconsiderate and don't even know that they are. People also seem to be very time stretched and in a rush.

We felt that this armor plating was a product not of poor character but of the scale itself and all the noise. We felt that no one would be immune. At a certain scale it was essential to have a full suit of armour on. Eyes down in the subway or elevator. iPods on as we walked in the street.

Our aha was that this natural social gradient also held up on the social web. What people really want, we think is to be back in the tribe/village that all primates feel best in. What we find is that we live in a huge mega city called the web. A place so big that most have a lot of armour on and can behave badly as if there were no consequences to being inconsiderate.

So here we are. Tribal Primates in a vast metropolis. A place were many think that they can reach us by using the same techniques as are used in the real big city.

Our aha is that if you want to reach us - find a way into my village.

Both of us have large web circles. Luis has a huge one. BUT we both noted that we both really paid attention to about 20 -30 at the most. If one person in this little village said "Hey look at this" we would. But we would rarely take the rest too seriously, especially if there was no context provided as well.

If you want to reach us, it is best to reach us by one of the village.

So how did we find each other in this huge mega city that is now the social web? A joint member of our two villages was the broker. Euan, a common friend introduced us.  He told us both that we might enjoy each other's company.

This did not mean that we became friends. It meant that we began to pay attention to each other.

The earth did not move. There was no flash of lightening. What then happened was that we observed the other form a distance. We saw how we acted on the web. We discovered that we shared other friends. We saw glimpses of the other's private lives and struggles. Over time an accurate assessment of what the other might be like as a person emerged for both of us.

Having feeds from our blogs and most importantly having a Twitter feed enabled a granular appreciation to develop. An affection grew even without any direct contact. So, when we finally spoke, it was as if we had been old friends who had been separated for a long time.

This experience is rare but not unique for Luis and I.

I am sure that many of you have had this happen. My life has been enriched beyond measure by the handful of close friends that I have made this way. An introduction by a trusted member of my village has been the starting point.

I am nearly 60. Before I ventured into the 'sphere, I had really stopped making friends as I had at university. New friends were largely situational. We were co workers. Our kids were friends. Neighbours. As I got older it got harder. This though is like being back at university. There is this huge pool and there is the time to let the frindship grow naturally. We hang out a lot as we did when we were 20.

Luis and I agreed that what we wanted more than anything was the joy of being back home in the village again. The social web seesm to be able to enable this to happen. Our bet is that learning more about how this process works will unlock the real potential of the new web.

The bottom line for Luis and I is that the social rules of tribal/village seem to apply to the social web.

We most of all wish to live in a village - in a tribe - the web enables us to find the best village and tribe possible as it offers us the choice of the whole world to find the best matches rather than having to make the best of our blood and local pool.

It means that the social gradients of real life apply. We treat strangers with caution and we treat strangers who presume with even more caution. Some chap came onto Luis' site and said that it was the ugliest that he had ever seen. Imagine if I came into your house and said that?

It means that we can be proud to have say 1,000 followers on Twitter but that the risk is that you will have so much noise as to miss your real friends.

It means that we have to rethink the whole idea of "local". My village is made up of people who live all over the world. I have closer ties to them than to most that live 10 miles away from me.

It means that community as far as My Community cannot scale beyond a small town. Otherwise there is too much noise.

It means that those who wish to design for community would be advised to follow the rules of community in real life - In real life, we scale out from those that mean the most to us to the noise.

The harsh truth of "Friends" is that we can have only a few of them. Between 8 - 35? Then up to about 80. All the rest are outside the zone where we care a lot. So again all the vanity about how many FB "Friends" we have is just that - Vanity.

So if you worked for a TV or radio station and you accepted this realty - how would you approach connecting to your city?

Nest week Susan Meyer will offer up her opinion - I think you will find her views engrossing and very helpful.

Who are we now?

“We somehow evolved from a culture of entrepreneurship, creativity and innovation to a culture of, in a way, mediocrity and bureaucracy,” Mr. Schultz said.

Remind you of anyone?

What if your CEO understood the new web world as well as Senator Obama?

Many observers are starting to find a pragmatic answer to those who question Senator Obama's "Experience" and Leadership.

It is to look at the shambles that is the Clinton campaign and then look at the Obama campaign.

Here Bill Ives goes into the heart of the Obama use of self organizing technology and shows us the mastery of what we are all experiencing

Working hard or being human?

It's all about me!

I think that this is bigger than the election - and that's big - It's the typical POV of most organizations. This is how they come across to us at a deep level. AND WE DON'T LIKE THIS ANYMORE.

We will reject candidates who are like this and we will reject organizations - the point is - can you do an Obama?

Harnessing the power of the invitation for people to come into your tent is not just about warm and fuzzy - it delivers the results:

The Obama campaign is not a vaporous cult; it’s a lean and mean political machine that gets the job done. The Clinton camp has been the slacker in this race, more words than action, and its candidate’s message, for all its purported high-mindedness, was and is self-immolating.

The gap in hard work between the two campaigns was clear well before Feb. 5. Mrs. Clinton threw as much as $25 million at the Iowa caucuses without ever matching Mr. Obama’s organizational strength. In South Carolina, where last fall she was up 20 percentage points in the polls, she relied on top-down endorsements and the patina of inevitability, while the Obama campaign built a landslide-winning organization from scratch at the grass roots. In Kansas, three paid Obama organizers had the field to themselves for three months; ultimately Obama staff members outnumbered Clinton staff members there 18 to 3.

In the last battleground, Wisconsin, the Clinton campaign was six days behind Mr. Obama in putting up ads and had only four campaign offices to his 11. Even as Mrs. Clinton clings to her latest firewall — the March 4 contests — she is still being outhustled. Last week she told reporters that she “had no idea” that the Texas primary system was “so bizarre” (it’s a primary-caucus hybrid), adding that she had “people trying to understand it as we speak.” Perhaps her people can borrow the road map from Obama’s people. In Vermont, another March 4 contest, The Burlington Free Press reported that there were four Obama offices and no Clinton offices as of five  days ago. For what will no doubt be the next firewall after March 4, Pennsylvania on April 22, the Clinton campaign is sufficiently disorganized that it couldn’t file a complete slate of delegates by even an extended ballot deadline.

This is the candidate who keeps telling us she’s so competent that she’ll be ready to govern from Day 1. Mrs. Clinton may be right that Mr. Obama has a thin résumé, but her disheveled campaign keeps reminding us that the biggest item on her thicker résumé is the health care task force that was as botched as her presidential bid.

Invitation will trump "Effort". Contact will trump "Communicate". You will trump "Me".

Scale and Cut - A failed Stategy? - What about "More for Less"

How do we cope in tough times?

The merger of Sears and Kmart seems to be failing - Edward Lampert's strategy - get big and cut cut cut. Those who do this in newspapers seem also to be be failing - expenses go down but so does the product and so customers leave. By getting scale by using leverage, they also get the leverage on the way down.

Most people still think about their business in a mechanical sense. Build up the structure via debt and make the structure more efficient by cutting. I don't think that this will work anymore - we see it failing all over. But as it is the only way we know how to cope in tough times, we keep trying it in hope that this time it will work.

Is there another way? Is there, in particular a way for my friends in Public TV and Radio - who never had much to start with to cope and even thrive in the tough times to come?

Let's think of "More for less".

Get scale not through using leverage but by using the power of networks. Get "More" by using the power of the network effect to bring resources into the organization from your customers and your peers.

Use the web to be the "More". Here is where you can tap into the power of the Network effect - here you have access to infinite "shelf space" and to huge customer input and resources.

I am going to follow this post up later today with a case study of how the Canadian Banks did this 20 years ago - resulting in system volume rising exponentially  - 90% of transactions occurring outside the  branches - with most of the work that supports this volume done by the customers themselves or automated.

Watch for the Interac Story soon

Social business and business social? The dog that did not bark!

One of my favourite Sherlock Holmes stories is "The Dog that did not bark". SH solved the crime by noting that the dog did not bark - in spite of all the evidence of there being a break in - it had to have been an inside job.

Mark Earls has reminded me of the brilliant paper by Henry Mintzberg et al called Beyond Selfishness - Link Here - His insight is that many business leaders are missing the point - they are not listening for the dogs who don't bark but are transfixed by the obvious.

By only thinking of the simple view of profit they miss the underpinning of true value. By worrying about day traders, they miss who is really attached - the customer and their staff. So they miss the value that can arise from really meeting their customers needs and the value of unleashing their employees power. They miss the impact of what they really do on how their business affects the wider world.

This Mintzberg's plea for business leaders - find a more holistic understanding of value.

I would like to add to this today. NGO leaders are as distracted by the wrong evidence as their business peers. They approach their constituency with arrogance about what is "Good" for them and they take their money, in Canada, largely from the Government without considering the price of being dependent.

The price of taking your money form Government?

A man sits down in his seat on a plane. Next to him is a well dressed young woman with a very large diamond on her wedding finger. He can't take his eyes of the diamond - it is huge. Finally he has to say something. "That's the biggest diamond I have ever seen!" he gushes.

"Yes" she replies. It's 8 carats".

"Does it have a name - I mean all the really great diamonds have a name don't they?"

"Yes - It's the Klopman Diamond"

"Now all famous diamonds have a curse - does the Klopman Diamond have a curse?"

"Yes - it does" she says.

"So what's the curse?" he asks.

"Mr Klopman!"

Mr Klopman = Government Money. Government money distorts NGOs the same way that the quarterly earnings pressure distorts many business leaders. As in business it takes an exceptional leader to get above this trap.

Arrogance about the needs of the "customer" is a vice that both business and NGO's share too. Maybe NGO's have this one even worse. So many NGO's that I have known are really just providing a good living for their staff.

I think that the way out of the trap for the NGO leader is the same as the way out of the Wall Street Trap for the business leader.

Non profits and for profits that humbly seek to understand and meet the real needs of those they serve can build a system that will sustain them all.

For profit companies have to have legitimate support from their community. So too do NGO's.

In the tight times to come, NGO's that rely only on Mr Klopman will pay the price. Companies that fail to create real value for their real constituencies will also fail.

So follow Holmes advice - look beyond the obvious support of traders and bureaucrats who don't care and look to who really does care - your customers and your staff.

Evolution - Takes less time than we think - Not all progress Either

Dan has got me going! This old dog is being taught new tricks.

Domestication is a continual process that produces dumber, weaker, and friendlier creatures. Our species is undergoing domestication -- at different rates in different places and in different times. (Dan Abbott - TDAXP)

I watched a remarkable documentary on PBS' Nature last night on how Wolves became Dogs.

German Shepherds look a bit like wolves but even a glance we can tell the difference. They are highly adapted to living and working with humans. They are hard working, loyal and obedient. They love to be with the right person and can read humans better than maybe we can read ourselves.

No wonder Dogs are the second most successful large higher animal in the world and have done much better than their predecessor, the wolf.

I and many others had thought that maybe humans had brought baby wolves into the human camp and that, over hundreds of years, these pet wolves had become Dogs.

The program made a strong case for an entirely different idea. That we did not domesticate Wolves, but that they domesticated themselves and also us! Bear with me - this post is not all about Dogs but is about people.

The new theory is that, as we settled and had more garbage at our settlements, some wolves, like Foxes today, moved in for a easier life. It was easier to feed off us, than to hunt. The level of challenge and the overall risks were much lower. So what was the key? The key adaptation though was to give up being shy of humans. They had to stop being wild and become domesticated. To get easier food, they had to befriend man.

The more you as a wolf could tolerate being close to people, the more food you got. So the friendlier wolves had the advantage. As the the friendlier wolves bred with the friendly wolves, they became Dogs.

This did not take thousands of years but decades! Evolution does not take eons. Evolution can happen overnight. Dogs look radically different and also behave very differently from wolves. All this happened in decades.

Sounds far fetched? Well Russian Fox breeders replicated this - as is well told in the film - in a few fox  generations by selecting only friendly foxes - in less than a human lifetime - they had Dog Foxes. Dog foxes being neotonous in physical appearance, who bark, play a lot, and love being with people. For me a dog lover this story itself is wonderful.

So here is the sting in the tail.

Here is a picture of Sitting Bull

Sitting Bull looks like a Wolf to me. Tony Blair looks more like a German Shepherd. I don't mean to demean Mr Blair - I have just chosen a human leader from two different worlds. One from a wild world and the other from a domesticated world - the world that Dogs and man co-created.

It is likely that before agriculture, that lowered the challenge for man, as man had lowered the challenge for wolves, that most people looked like Sitting Bull. Many Afghans still are "Wild" men.

Agriculture is a brutally hard life but it is not the same as hunting and requires much less vigilance and much less care about the quality and size of the generation to come and how long is a good life. Just as dogs have had to upgrade their social skills, so modern man, living in much higher densities, has done the same. Politicians are maybe the exemplars of this skill set.

It is likely that as we humans settled and shifted from Hunting to herding and to agriculture, that we too, like dogs, neotonized. Not only in appearance but in nature. Like all domesticated animals, we gained in social skills but lost our vigilance and our power. We lost our connection to the natural world. So we also lost our sense of who should breed and not and when we should die - all "wild" societies take these 2 points very seriously. This has made it possible for humanity to increase outside of the bounds of the biosphere. Domesticated dogs, cows, cats etc don't care about the natural world. Aboriginals do as do wolves and foxes.

Now comes the bad part.

As we, in the west, shifted away from a life of challenge, we also began to change our relationship with dogs. Until the 19th century all dogs had a job. They guarded us, herded our sheep, killed our vermin etc. But as we ourselves shifted to a more abstract existence, we began to see our dogs as children who never grew up and who never answered us back.

We began to be fixated on dogs as status symbols and as love objects - I plead guilty too by the way. Many of us have hurt dogs tremendously by this new perspective. They are bred for looks. They live often alone in apartments - longing for company and for a role. We punish them for barking, or guarding or wanting to kill or herd when this is who they are. As real challenge is removed from our own lives - we extract it from theirs. Many dogs go nuts as a result and many become ill or have genetic weaknesses. There are 5 million dogs in shelters in the US at any one time.

Within 100 years, my fear is that many dogs in the west will be pale shadows of what they were and may be not only physically in poor shape but psychotic. The noble dog will become an arthritic, badly behaved, physically ill and mentally psychotic lap dog.

Now my point. The picture tells it all. Do I have to say much more?

As with wolves and dogs - so with us.

In the west we are also removing all real challenge from many of our kids. Like lap dogs, they are becoming status symbols and self referencing love objects. Like lap dogs, we expect nothing from them. We don't expect them to behave, to pull their weight at home. We don't allow them to take any risk. We feed them crap. We leave them in the hands of strangers all day while we have our exciting careers in Advertising, or the Government.

How will we end up and how quickly? We are learning that evolution works really fast.

As Dan reminds me. There are parts of the US and of the world, where it is clear that we are close to a threshold where being able to cope is no longer possible.

We often think that evolution takes millions of years. But for humans and for dogs - it appears that this is not so. How we live shapes us very quickly.

Home Sapiens burst onto the scene within the last 100,000 years. Some great awakening happened about 45,000 years ago. Homo Agriculture is less than 10,000 years old.

Are we devolving to Homo McDonalds in the west and Homo Hopeless in the Gap?

If we are going down this road, how long will it take for most people to be so neotonous that we cannot cope with what life and nature has in store?

More later - looking forward to Dan's thoughts - he is more considered than I.

Sex, Office Politics, Enterprise 2.0, Grooming & Twitter

Why might Twitter be so important? See why Twitter may be an evolutionary step for mankind here.