We are holding a Boyd Conference (Details here) on the weekend of December 6-7 at the University of Prince Edward Island, Charlottetown, PEI. Canada!
Here is the Draft Agenda
Chet and I waited the summer out before getting back to you with an agenda for the December Boyd Conference on PEI because we wanted to see if the best kind of agenda might emerge from events.
We think that a number of things have become more likely than we would have predicted, even back in June. Like tracking Hurricanes, we cannot really predict the future with precision, so we offer these observations as a possible stimulus for our conversation. Our premise is - Solutions can only be found in a better kind of thinking.
- Energy - Peak Oil and its effect on our economy and our way of life is now a reality. The end of the big car, of suburbia, of cheap food, of maybe global trade, of how cities are designed are all on the table now. We can also see that paying for oil has also led to a shift of power from the US to other places. We are at full fiscal and financial stretch and it is going to get worse so long as we depend on oil and we do nothing to change how we live.
- Credit - We can now see that the Mortgage Crisis is not a "normal" correction but may include a complete shut down of the other mainstay of our way of life cheap and easy credit. Our financial system is on life support. Again, we are at full fiscal, financial and social stretch. The credit of our country is in question.
- Food - Food across the world seems finally to have hit some Malthusian limit perhaps affected by the end of Cheap Oil and by unstable weather - Not only is energy rising in costs but so is food. Both are also subject to shortages or even to being not available at all - much of the world is becoming a tinder box. Imbalances in water will increase the tension.
- Weather - It's not just the hurricanes but too much rain or not enough is stretching communities to the limit.
- Conflict - With these forces building, so is the potential and the reality of conflict. This is the time for adventures such as Georgia or possibly Taiwan? This is the time for finding another to blame for domestic failure Pakistan/India? This is also a time when the US is at full system overstretch where its capacity to intervene or help is now in question.
- A transition in business models - The end of the "Ford Model" of get big and get central as the main value creator in business or in services - All who operate this model seem terminally ill. Millions are going to become unemployed as the shift to a more networked model takes place.
- Vulnerability in key infrastructure - Our oil/gas systems are a hurricane away from failure. The grid, a bad storm away. Our food delivery systems depend on a just in time system that also depends on nothing going wrong. The chances of being without food and power for a long period of time are now very high. There is no resiliency in these key areas.
- The end of the state - An aware person can see that the state can do little to help in any of these areas of tension. Not only is the larger state helpless or even worse, but so are the smaller states. Looking to the "father" used to work but post Katrina seems not to. So as we go to the polls this fall, many of us wonder if there are any ways at all that we can influence our destiny.
- The power of the legacy systems - The systems that are failing still have the power and the means to fight off a direct attack. They have the money and they have co-opted the political machinery. This includes the Pentagon, Big Oil, Big Auto, Big Food etc. Merely having the right ideas will not be enough.
This is what we see ... what about you guys? Are we too alarmist? Too optimistic?
If we are close, then these factors make up the forces that are the real threats to our security and well being. If we are close, the we might be a Black Swan away from disaster.
This then is our agenda:
Is this the context that we face and if so what does this mean?
How can our understanding of the work of Boyd - of a 4GW context for conflict - of the value of local resiliency help us get through this time?
How can we use this way of thinking to get inside the OODA loop of the status quo so that we can start to build the alternative?
Where could we start? What could we design and build that would take us beyond the appeal of ideas into the power of story?
Here is the link to the Conference Registration site.
Here is the link to the Boyd Ning Site where the debate has already begun.
Registration and Costs -$250 + 5% ($12.50) Tax Canadian
(Converted by Pay Pal) to cover the direct costs of the conference
itself - Meeting Room, Food etc. You can register and pay here on this link. (Lodging is for you to arrange)
Travel and Lodging - Here is a link to more information
on where we are and how to get there and where to stay. Rob Paterson
(robert dot paterson at gmail dot com) can help there too as your
travel guide
