Al Etmanski

Speaking Up for the Soul of Civic Life - Cardus

An eloquent champion for civic values, community life and charities has emerged on the Canadian scene.   Cardus (see note below) is a Canadian think tank which draws, "on more than 2000 years of Christian social thought, and works to enrich and challenge public debate through research, events and publications, for the common good."

I've been wanting to write about them for some time. I've been a guest and co-sponsor at some of their forums and focus groups. I'm impressed with their intellectual curiosity and their willingness to tackle some of our toughest challenges with both discipline and an open mind. While they are inspired and informed by the essence of Christian values they seek to understand and apply them to issues faced by the charitable sector, our education system, cities, employment and the economy.

Their opinions are frank and clearly articulated. They don't shy away from contrary opinions including publishing vigorous criticisms of each other. And contrary to what some might assume about an organization that declares its Christian values, they have not hesitated to be among the first to criticize our federal government.

Here, for example, is an excerpt from an editorial which urged the federal government to do more than bail out the banks and invest in bridges and highways to stimulate the economy, "...nothing is as vital to a nation in the long run as its social architecture. Charities are not vehicles for greed, excess or profit. They are the products of our generosity, kindness and creativity - vital components of a healthy society without which financial economies cannot thrive." 

Change and transformation occurs in society not just by passing laws and setting priorities for funding. Civic, social, cultural, and economic flourishing also requires an ongoing reconsideration of how our numerous social institutions relate to each other. This in turn requires a realistic understanding of how culture changes and an openness to public exchange about our most deeply held convictions.

Clayton Christensen the world's authority on disruptive innovations, suggests that all innovation is ultimately cultural. Cardus has entered into the public square of cultural renewal by illuminating the soul of our work. I predict more and more civic organizations will follow as they realize values and beliefs are integral to changing those habits and behaviors that keep us from ending inequity and environmental degradation. They can have no better example than Cardus.

Cardus publishes a number of journals and a pod cast. You may want to start by subscribing to their free monthly digest of news, publications and policy updates.

Speaking of which, their current digest contains links to recent two pod cast interviews. One is with me on the topic: The World Can Be Changed. Their Director of Operations Milton Friesen. got me to reveal opinions I haven't shared in public before.

The other is with the talented Richard Bridge one of the very few lawyers in Canada specializing in charity law. His topic: A Thriving Charitable Sector is Vital to Canada.

NOTE: In Roman times the cardus was a kind of marketplace or public square that took the form of a street. Typically, it was the north-south road that connected people in Roman cities to their major public spaces. On the cardus, government, markets, temples, and other social groups met to establish a common life for the good of society. Many interests were represented in this square making it necessary to balance individual needs with common needs. 

 

 

 

 

Who Invented the Blue Box? Jack McGinnis did.

I was saddened to learn that Jack McGinnis, inventor of the ubiquitous curbside recycling, blue box, died earlier this year.  Sad at the death of someone who touched all our lives in such a positive way.  Sad because such an important social inventor should have been publicly eulogized.  Sad because I always wanted to know why they were painted blue and not green but never knew who to ask!

Most of us take curbside recycling for granted and forget someone or some group had to invent a practical alternative to mounting tons of garbage, much of which could be recycled.  We forget the limited awareness and limited means that used to be available for recycling less than 30 years ago.

McGinnis conceived of the blue box and the "We Recycle" slogan in 1977.  The first wide spread implementation was in Waterloo Ontario in 1983. It received the first ever UN Environmental Award for its unique contribution to fighting pollution.  The full story of the multiple players and initiatives that led to the convenience of curbside recycling can be accessed here. Another glorious example of the power of passionate amateurs!

Blue boxes are what I like to call an 'in the water supply' social innovation.  They have become a cultural habit.  Millions of households in hundreds of cities around the world use them.  They are as commonplace as brushing your teeth or ... taking out the garbage.  They provide a simple and elegant solution to the complex problem of our declining natural resources and a practical means for people to recycle and to pressure their neighbours to do the same.  They encourage people to think about wasteful packaging.  They enable us to pressure manufacturers, grocery stores to reduce unnecessary packaging. 

It is hard to address the multiple variables (some known, most unknown) that make up the complex terrain of most of our social and environmental challenges.  In this regard, blue boxes address some of the tangible practical variables i.e. what to do with paper, glass and cans; as well as the intangible variables like personal and market place behaviour change, cultural attitudes, political awareness.  Blue boxes are a good example of framing that cuts through thick treatises, books and studies and provide an easy way for people do the right thing.  They are also a textbook example of piggy backing on an existing distribution system (waste management) rather than creating one of your own. 

Even though they are an icon of recycling, blue boxes are not a complete or permanent solution.  Some would argue the existence of blue boxes actually make people feel less guilty about buying heavily packaged products because they know they can recycle. That's why reduce and reuse are indispensable companions to recycling.

We can learn about the nature of social innovation from the blue box example.  In a complex environment the best you can hope for is a profound change or disruptive shift. There is no such thing as a permanent solution.  There will be unintended consequences.  Constant learning is a critical companion. They will set the stage for the next set of breakthroughs. Change no matter how hard we push, and its clear Jack McGinnis was persistent, simply takes time to become common place.  He once knocked on the door of 10 Downing St. to make the case for recycling, to the UK Prime Minister.

Jack McGinnis died too young at 64.   The entrance to his memorial service was lined with blue boxes and attendees wore a button that read, "Jack McGinnis changed my life."  From the interview below McGinnis was the kind of person less concerned about personal acknowledgement and happier his invention has spread so far and wide.   As I carry my blue box out to the curb on Mondays I will pause for a moment of appreciation and think about what I can do to render blue boxes obsolete.   By then their colour won't matter.  By the way, the answer to the colour blue, is revealed in the You Tube interview below.

Related Posts:

You Tube interview with Jack McGinnis

Two Views of Social Innovation

Social Innovation - Doing More With More

Neglected Sources of Innovation: Individuals and Families

Ten Environmental Innovations

Passionate Amateurs - A Primary Source of Social Innovation

Jason Mogus - Six Principles of Transformative Digital Campaigns

Jason Mogus , founder and CEO of Communicopia, is one of the world's foremost digital strategists. He has been in the digital trenches since its infancy and sees behind and beyond the dazzle of technology and social media to design elegant campaigns for social and ecological justice.  He has won a Webby (the web equivalent of an Oscar) and a We Media "Game Changer" award.  His campaigns include:

TckTckTck an open source digital campaign which convened the largest coalition for climate change on the planet

Nothing But Nets a campaign to raise funds to purchase malaria nets which overshot its goal by 800% and led to a multi-billion dollar commitment to fight malaria

The Elders - conceived as a global on line village involving Nelson Mandela, Peter Gabriel, former President Jimmy Carter, Mary Robinson and others to support "peace building and the shared interest of humanity."

Jason is exactly the companion you want if you are interested in integrating digital into your social change strategy.  Thoughtful, involved, experienced and successful.  Here with his permission is a re-post of his most recent web essay.

Six Principles of Transformative Digital Campaigns

In the last few weeks I’ve had calls from a high profile multi-city concert to grow the global women’s movement, an international network of freedom of expression activists who need to re-invent their organization, and a big international NGO that wants to “network their whole organization” so they can do more with the same number of people.

For each of these ambitious visions, digital lies at the core of their plans. It’s a way to land the conceptual changes they want in a practical way. The challenge is to design campaigns or new organizational structures that don’t just graft new tools onto old, linear models. If you want to know how that works, tell me how well your organization collaborates internally, or point to the transformative cultural changes you’ve pulled off lately.

The best results come when your organization or company marries the top down authority of your branding, media work, event organizing, education campaigns, and celebrities with the bottom up power of distributed global networks, growing the capacity of others and supporting local leadership. Your digital campaign can be the tie that binds these dynamically opposing efforts together for maximum impact. This is the potentially game-changing role of the web.

So how to do it? Here are some key principals that take advantage of how the web works:

• Focused Vision: No matter how big you are, your resources are limited, the web is a crowded place, and if you have partners they are protective of their turf. Start with an analytics and research-backed process, that engages multiple internal stakeholders to gain their perspective and buy-in, but reserve the trump card for your users. This will ensure your vision meets a core need of your target audience, fills a clear gap in the marketplace, and leverages you and your partners’ strongest assets. And importantly that your site and tools have a clean experience to maximize inspiration, action and engagement

• Open Design: to grow quickly you need to become a platform for others to achieve their goals, whether that’s your partners, sponsors, customers or supporters. How will you shine the light on their work, grow their interconnections and ultimately build their confidence and capacity? By designing your organization or campaign with “web values” of listening, collaboration, and engagement you will enable distributed growth while you maintaining central control over areas where only your organization’s core competency can deliver value. Open platforms give others something to plug into. Without it you’re on your own, and you know how well that’s working

• Network Organizing: the strength of the web is in its ability to create network effects, where your supporters and partners are the ones recruiting others to join in. If you get lucky something you do might even “go viral”. Your job is to design network thinking into your model, lower the friction involved with sharing, and pour gas on small fires that catch. But thinking like a network is counter-intuitive to most organizations taught to protect, control, and always promote their brand first. Tapping into the reach and passion of supporters only happens when you give them something amazing to talk about, and that's the thing they care about - your issue - not your brand. Movements are bigger than brands

• Compelling Storytelling: we all talk about changing the world. Social scientists know the way to change our culture is by changing the stories we tell ourselves and others. Taking a story and content-driven approach to your issue will help raise awareness, shift what people think is possible, grow a sense of momentum and inevitability around the change you seek, and empower leaders and early adopters by shining the light on their efforts

• Leadership Engagement: everyone wants to reach hundreds of thousands of people, but if you don’t have a massive marketing or PR budget the way to get there is to deeply engage thousands or even hundreds of coresupporters first. Identifying, reaching, moving, and importantly directly supporting these leaders to take your campaign actions and then raise awareness in their own networks requires a sophisticated database contact (ie CRM) and leadership development strategy (ie getting on the phone, trainings, etc). It also means creating incentives to support their engagement. It’s not easy work but wouldn’t you rather have 500 highly engaged super-volunteers than 50,000 people on your list where 80% of them ignore you?

• Offline Activity Integration: the head of social media at GM said it best recently, “everything you do online, you have to do offline”. Your organization has all kinds of real-world touchpoints where attention is paid and relationships are built. It is those places where your best online moments will come from, and from where your digital strategy should grow. Make sure you maximize opportunities to capture contact information and follow up with everyone reached via your real-world activities, and use them as rallying cries for your digital engagement. Finally ensure the people leading those programs and campaigns see digital as core to their goals, not just someone else’s job

These are all pretty high level ideas, but it's very dangerous to start a new project or even a re-think of your organization driven by shiny tools or tactics. Your organization's perfect concepts, tools, content strategies, social media, mobile, engagement, and promotions strategies will be developed as the outcome of the more core digital strategy questions you explore first.

What do you think? What have I missed?

Hey There L'll Red Riding Hood - Think Like a Mountain

Only the mountain has lived long enough to listen objectively to the howl of a wolf.

So writes Aldo Leopold, an environmentalist, forester and ecologist who died in 1948.  Yet his famous essay, Thinking Like a Mountain, still offers insight.  He describes how, in his boyish enthusiasm for hunting, he jumped at every opportunity to kill wolves.  Fewer wolves meant more deer, leading to the promise of a hunter’s paradise.  He soon came to understand, the mountain did not agree with this popular and short sighted assumption.

One day while watching the ‘fierce green fire’ dying in a she- wolf’s eyes he realized something disturbing.  Something mountains have always known.  While a buck pulled down by wolves can be replaced in a few years, a mountain slope pulled  down by too many grazing deer eventually becomes a desert. 

He wrote, “The cowman who cleans his range of wolves does not realize that he is taking over the wolf’s job of trimming the herd to fit the range.  He has not learned to think like a mountain.  Hence we have dustbowls and rivers washing the future into the sea.”  

"A mountain lives in mortal fear of its deer, not its wolves," because, "only the mountain has lived long enough to listen objectively to the howl of the wolf."

So how do we 'think like a mountain' in dealing with social, economic and environmental challenges?

• What fierce green fires are extinguished by our short term interventions?
  
• What are the unintended consequences of our good intentioned actions ?
• Do we make people more helpless by helping?  Do we make the environment more vulnerable by managing?
• What faulty, popular assumptions govern our actions?
• What is the complex interrelationship between rocks, animals and human beings?  Between taking care of the environment and taking care of each other?  Between belonging and destruction?

Related Posts:

Read the complete essay, Thinking Like a Mountain.

Sockeye Slip Through a Crack in the Universe

Huffington Posts by John McKnight and Peter Block

NOTES: Wolf Totem by Jiang Rong  is an eloquent meditation on the Mongolian reverence for the wolf.  Unfortunately both wolves and Mongolians now face extinction.  Winner of the Man Asian Literary Prize, it is the best book I read in 2010.  It is a Chinese publishing sensation - the second most read book in China - second only to Quotations from Chairman Mao.  Suggest you read it rather that watch the latest Red Riding Hood movie!

Thanks to Frances Westley for introducing me to Thinking Like a Mountain.

One of the Seven Wonders in the World of Disability - Wolf Wolfensberger

The phrase doesn't roll off the tongue like: I have a Dream; or Yes We Can.  But it had a stirring impact on a generation of disability right activists, including me.

The phrase is: “the utilization of means that are culturally normative in order to establish and/or maintain personal behaviors and characteristics that are culturally normative.”

The author was Wolf Wolfensberger and he died Saturday February 27th.

It led to a conceptual breakthrough on the importance of challenging cultural stereotypes about people with disabilities if you want to make profound change.  Otherwise your change will rest on shaky ground and become merely tactical.  That's why we no longer, for the most part, call adults with disabilities, children.  If you want people to act like adult, treat them accordingly.

It spawned an assortment of rabble rousing challenges, campaigns, and law suits to end segregation, close institutions, establish community based services, critique well meaning charitable campaigns based on pity and much more.  Efforts still bearing fruit today.

He made you squirm, so relentless was his scholarship, insight, damming critique and presentations.  More old testament prophet than smooth community organizer.  In the days before multi-media, his required workshop setup was three large screens and 3 overhead projectors. All operating simultaneously - each word-dense transparency like drinking from a fire hose.

He broke all the presentation rules but you kept coming back because he talked about things you had never thought of and he was probably right about most of them.

He introduced the term normalization to North America - got it into the water supply. 

But here's Wolfenberger's genius - he realized normalization was more than an objective.  It was a means.  You can't learn to live in the community from an institution.  You can't graduate from a segregated school or classroom and expect to be treated like everyone else by your fellow citizens haven't grown up with you. 

Imagine teaching someone to knit by letting them play with the yarn, not allowing them to use the needles and permitting them to occasionally watch you knit from the other side of a glass porthole.  Would you learn to knit?  Of course not. Would the people on the other side of the glass see you as a competent knitter?  Likely not.  Yet that pedagogy and service mentality justified unimaginable deprivation, abuse and wasted lives.

You can see why he was such a threat to traditional service providers and professionals who 'knew best.'

There is an important Canadian link to Wolfensberger's influence.  The then named Canadian Association for the Mentally Retarded (now Association for Community Living) provided sanctuary for his controversial ideas in the early seventies to write his groundbreaking book:  The principle of normalization in human services. And to train a generation of activists like Tom Cain, Linda Tarrant, Michael Kendrik, Zana Lutfiyya, Diane Richler, Jacques Pelletier, Andre Blanchet, Mitch Loreth, Bruce Uditsky (and many more) whose leadership continues to shape the world of disability, globally.

We accept integration, inclusion, independent living as legitimate public policy objectives nowadays.  We close institutions, establish community based human services, try to make them responsive to each individual and their family, sign UN the Charter on Human Rights for Persons with Disabilities, and watch Hollywood movies which in their own way, profile abilities and help to erode pity and charity stereotypes.   It all started with him.  We've been arguing over the details ever since.

North America isn't perfect but it is decidedly different, post Normalization, post Wolfensberger.  British Columbia, for example, got rid of its segregated schools in the 80's and closed the last of its 3 major institutions before the millenium.  That involved a lot of hard work.  But Wolfensberger's 'dream' and 'yes we can' attitude became ours. 

In 2006 Exceptional Parent magazine named “the Work of Dr. Wolf Wolfensberger on the Principles of Normalization and Social Role Valorization” as one of the 7 Wonders of the World of Disabilities.

Now, alas, there are only six.

Related Posts:

Geraldo Rivero - Unlikely Crusader

 

The Inner Activist - A Site for Sore Eyes - Tips for Solution Based Advocacy (45)

And for flagging spirits, tired bodies, troubled minds and suffering souls.

Social change can be harsh, hard, unyielding work.  It can take a toll on you, your families, your friends, your acquaintances, your adversaries...  It has on occasion turned me into the very dragon I thought I was doing battle with.

But that's the old way of thinking and behaving.

Social change doesn't have to extract such a heavy toll.  You can keep your marriage, relationships, spirit, sanity and integrity. In fact, one of the highlights of the social activists, Vickie and I met during our two year sabbatical to explore how Canadians are spreading their big ideas, was their integration of personal maturity and spirituality. 

And that's the point of The Inner Actvist a new website, approach and resource launched just a few days ago.  Its chief designers are Brad Jarvis and Ian Curtin.  After lengthy, thoughtful, reflective cocooning, they have emerged with a butterfly! A beautiful but challenging and provocative website for the inner activist. 

Here is a selecting of phrases and topics from their website:

• the inner activist - lead from within
• How I missed my own burnout on the way to Victory!
• Cracking the Lid on your unconscious Black Box!
• Inner strength - Outward change

This inner work is not for the faint of heart.  I grew up in an era when the political was kept separate from the spiritual.  I saw far too many colleagues lose their life force.  Such a reconciliation does not come easy.  Here is part of the rationale for launching the The Inner Activist:

We asked the important question: could personal growth contribute to the effectiveness of those already engaged in bringing about change in the world?  The Social Change and innovation movement has typically been a field where action is given priority. Much of this action is focused on the social system, its structure, processes, policies, practices, funding and outcomes. In our research we found compelling reasons to look closely at what’s been overlooked: the relationship between ones inner experience and actions for change in the world.

They offer two programs:

One, the Inner Activist Program - a 15 month program involving coaching and peer mentoring. 'designed to help change makers, social entrepreneurs, leaders and activists be radically more effective in their life-serving work.'

Two, the Inner Essential E- Course - 52 bite size lessons, each provided via e-mail once a week for a year.   'Easy to understand, and easy-to-practice, concrete things you can do to develop your inner strength, be productive, and have your voice, your actions - heard, felt, and seen by those that matter the most.'  ( I've already subscribed to this one.)

Ric Careless an award winning environmentalist has this to say about The Inner Activist:  I was running around trying to do all kinds of this stuff and there were patterns in me that were causing me difficulty. I would have crashed and burned. I would have been out of this work a long time ago. As a result there would be millions of fewer acres protected because I didn’t know how to deal with some of my stuff.

Knowing Ian and Brad, I am confident they can assist you, like Ric, deal with any of your dragons, external and internal.

Ask David Eaves: Is the Internet our new Parliament Buildings? (Part Three)

David Eaves is an app inventor, philosopher, negotiation specialist and one of the world’s leading proponent of Open Government.  Open Government for David consists of making government more transparent, accountable and collaborative. 

To give birth to Open Government he, like all good social entrepreneurs, works in the grey zone of ambiguity, serendipity and unpredictability.  In his case, at the intersection of open source communities, civic engagement advocates and the custodians of information systems and data sets of government.  He understands that, “ social media, web 2.0, open source software, and other social and technological developments,” are pressuring governments to evolve.  David wants to make sure they evolve in the direction of a more open democracy.  

Accordingly, he is envisaging and enabling a movement from government as hierarchy to government as a flat, enabling ‘platform.

Here's how he put it in his book chapter, After the Collapse: Open Government and the Future of the Civil Service :
“Seeking to respond to increasing citizen expectations around service delivery and effectiveness, these reformers envision governments that act as a platform: that share information (particularly raw data), are transparent in their operations and decision making, enable and leverage citizen-led projects, are effective conveners, and engage citizens’ requests, ideas, and feedback more intelligently.”
 
Not content with rhetoric, his strategic focus is the accessibility of the data government collects.  He has three objectives:

One, ensuring the data can be found in the first place i.e. can the various search engines find it?  If not, it doesn’t exist for all intents and purposes.

Two, having the data available in a useful format so it can be ‘mashed,’ with other sets of data. For example can it be merged with google maps or analysed in Excel? 

Finally, he wants to remove legal impediments to sharing the data. This means liberating the concept of Crown copyright. And clarifying ownership of government data when government uses third party providers of data management services.  These providers can control data access or claim they 'own' the data which is after all collected with taxpayer money. 

There are a myriad number of ‘data sets’ or software systems inside and outside governments.  David has tracked 300 different Canadian government data sets at the federal level alone.   Large sets of data have to able to talk to each other within government, between levels of government, with business and its citizens. 

Practically, access to open data reduces transaction costs and provides us with information and knowledge we may use to make informed decisions including the development of regulations, policy and statutes.  Most important it ensures this information is not reserved for a small elite group of people.

Since most governments in Canada have not gone ‘digital’ David and colleague set up an unofficial open data portal for federal government data – datadotgc.ca – “a citizen led beta for government data.”(http://www.datadotgc.ca/data ). I described this impressive, 'do it yourself public policy' in more detail in a previous post.

David also introduced me to the term digital literacy.  Prior to the 21st century being literate meant the ability to read and write.  With the advent of the internet, new technology and its rapid iterations, a new literacy is required. Accessing the digital world is more than reading and writing.  It is understanding how digital data is developed (coding, representing information in binary, numeric form accessible only by computer etc.) If only a few people know how to code, declares David, they will become the new gatekeepers controlling what we access. 

Information is power and controlling access to it, is even more powerful.  Those of an older generation approach this new literacy like a foreign language.  Is it worth the time and effort?  How often will we use it?

Those, like David, understand this is a serious challenge to democracy and if we don’t use it we will lose it! Or if we can't google it, browse it and mash it, the gateway will close!!

NOTES:

One: This is the third in a series on the 'promise' of the internet to nurture creativity and enable collaboration toward a more just society. Part One can be accessed here. Part Two here.

Two: For more information on the movement to open standards such as the Open Government Data Initiative see: http://www.microsoft.com/industry/government/opengovdata/

Three: for Matisse Enzer's glossary on the language of the internet click here.

 

Ask Alexandra Samuel: Is the Internet our new Parliament Buildings? (Part Two)

People working in the field of social media bear a particular responsibility for imagining, interrogating and forming this new world that is just beginning, for what use is our insatiable appetite for connectivity, our constant embrace of new tools, our perpetually self-reflecting conversation, if not for the job of shaping this new world with some degree of insight and deliberateness.  – Alexandra Samuel

The insight and deliberateness Alexandra Samuel refers to includes: fostering trust, sparking creativity and nurturing civic engagement.  While not ignoring or undermining our face to face, up close and personal relationships, she envisions and realizes the internet’s potential to strengthen our communities and our democracy.  Unlike the founders of Facebook, Google, and Microsoft, business doesn’t come first  to her.  It is a subservient goal to Alexandra’s commitment to a just and equitable society.

Alex is an original, one of the few genuine pioneers you’ll likely ever meet.  Her 2004 Harvard doctoral dissertation studied on-line political engagement including the phenomenon of ‘hacktivism’ – hacking or breaking into a computer system for political, ideological and social causes.

She was Research Director for a consortium of twenty governments and businesses from around the world to create and guide an investigation into the future of government and democracy.  Previously, she researched the online version of ‘social capital’ for Robert Putnam's ground breaking book Bowling Alone a revealing perspective on the decline, rise and importance of personal connections and community life.

She uses her world -class expertise on social media and on- line participation to transform work, politics and personal relationships.  Unlike activists and advocates of the past who only played in one ‘arena,’ she takes a 'beyond borders' approach to change – the personal is political; the political is vocational; the vocational is political. 

Accordingly, she is equally comfortable blogging for Oprah.com and the Harvard Business Review.  Simultaneously she is founding Director of the Social and Interactive Media Centre at Emily Carr University and a Principal  with her husband and business partner Rob Cottingham of their Vancouver based social media agency, Social Signal.  She and Rob have been blogging since the beginning of time (for bloggers that is).  Those five years make them pioneers and Social Signal may possibly be the world’s oldest social media agency. 

To our collective benefit, Alexandra is prepared to encounter the banalities and excesses of pop culture, social media and technology.  She does that with enthusiasm, perspective, and insight.  Since most of us use computers and cell phones and their related technologies and devices, we are fortunate to have someone with her eyes wide open interpreting, brokering, advising and  coaching us.

However her work is more than just explaining the newest, hottest and juiciest.  She wants to make us shrewder and more discerning about which technology to use; to foster trust; and to deepen our personal relationships and social interactions. She and Rob’s desire for big impact change has led them to: pioneer strategies for on line engagement, dialogue, advocacy and campaigning; and to conceptualize the use of the web to strengthen our personal relationships (they were key advisors to Vickie Cammack as Tyze was being born, www.tyze.com). 

Alexandra is a charter member of an expanding group of social innovators who address issues at the structural and cultural level, yanking the agenda away from the traditional political and media elites while simultaneously broadening the base of supporters.   With that talent, experience and insight we should be grateful she is on our side.

NOTE: This is the second in a series on the 'promise' of the internet to nurture creativity and enable collaboration toward a more just society. Part One can be accessed here.

For those interested in Alexandra's comparison of the movie, The Social Network  with Singing in The Rain click here.

Is the Internet our new Parliament Buildings? (Part One)

The future is going to happen no matter what we do, writes Douglas Copeland in his latest book Player One: What is to Become of Us, reminding us of the obvious.

And that future, regardless of what we think will include the internet, social media and its related iterations and devices, present and future. 
 

This post is part of a new series exploring how the internet is changing our behaviour and what the implications are for democratic decision making. Today I will outline my premise - the promise of the internet. My next two posts will introduce you to two of the new 'clerks of the internet', Alexandra Samuels and David Eaves.  A subsequent post will examine what Canadian philosopher George Grant described as the 'despotism of technology'.

The printing press popularized both the writing and reading of books. In doing so, it broke the manacle and mirage of omnipotence enjoyed by monarchs, church and intellectual elites.
Marshal McLuhan noted that communication revolutions like the printing press, disrupt old ways of behaving and destabilize existing institutions.  Monarchs could no longer control every aspect of political life. The clergy were no longer the only source of information about science, medicine or indeed religion. 

Alternate ideas, theories and insights became accessible, ending the limited ways of thinking and knowing linked to privilege.
McLuhan also suggested new technologies affect our social organizations, perceptual habits and social interactions.  They seep into our consciousness affecting how we see the world and how we behave.   

In 2006 I attended a session on the role of technology and social innovation organized by Winnipeg consultant Martin Itzkow. We met in Ottawa so perhaps the metaphor was pre-ordained.  Martin,  Mike Gifford founder of OpenConcept Consulting Inc. and Russell McOrmond who hosts the Digital Copyright Canada forum (where all Canadian Citizens are Rights Holders) offered the following image of the ‘potential’ benefits of the internet and world wide web. 

Think of it, they suggested, as a virtual Parliament Buildings – a container for democratic decision making.  People can be attracted, (elected) to it for a variety of reasons, both noble and selfish.  The Parliament Buildings don’t make the decisions, elected parliamentarians do.  The internet can become a tool, medium or container for a more just world or it can exploit, reinforcing existing and adding new injustices.  The key are the rules of behavior (open source software) and the power and ability of people to create and cooperate, (open access to data, eliminating copyright).

These individuals are ‘web savy’ in a deep sense.  They see its tendencies to perpetuate the corporate status quo.   The new industries, and dot com billionaires don’t dazzle them.  They are not interested in creating what Charles Leadbeater in his book, We Think, laments as a, ‘capitalist cornucopia.’  Instead Leadbeater suggests, they seek to create a more democratic and just world, ‘laying the seeds for alternatives to both capitalism and the market.’

The web, internet and related technologies might be helpful for organizing our data, accessing information, facilitating communications and reducing the costs of processing.  However, the functions can be more fundamental and the potential more majestic  They point to Mozilla (the makers of Firefox); Linux and Wikipedia as examples of crowd-sourcing, creativity and democratic decision making.
To them ‘open source’ software and open government are the regulations, policies and statutes of a democratic virtual ‘Parliament’.
 
Kevin Kelly author of the new book What Technology Wants, argues that technology is not a live, conscious system.  We can hide from it, fear it, ridicule it or we can seek to grasp its significance at a meta level. He urges us to discern its long term flows in order to better understand its agenda.  Kelly wants us to 'grok' technology’s unconscious tendencies, urges, trajectories and leanings with a view to shaping and influencing it to make the world more democratic and to call forth our individual and collective creativity.

In my next posts I'll introduce you to people who are striving to capture the full gifts of these technologies and to steer them into their best roles. 

The Thousand Faces of Peter Nares - A Case Study in Solution Based Advocacy (38)

Poverty is a tough, gnarly, complex problem.  It has been resistant to countless efforts, strategies and expenditures over decades, even centuries.  It has befuddled many many sharp, smart people.  The poverty activists I pay attention to are those who start off by recognizing, what is not as obvious as it should be: poverty is a tough, gnarly, complex problem and therefore not amenable to simple solutions.  For example we now realize that simply providing people who are poor with income support (welfare) is not enough to break the cycle of poverty.  Simple solutions, on their own, don't work for complex problems. 

That's where Ontario based Peter Nares comes in.  Peter has been in the vanguard of world thinkers and activists who are addressing the thousand faces of poverty - the complex,  multi-tiered, multi - dimensional, nuanced, deeply rooted variables associated with poverty.  These include:  individual, family, and geographic differences; control over one's environment - choice and self determination; the degree of materialism in society; ignorance, oppression; varying perspectives on happiness; and the underlying policy assumptions ex: 'it's their own fault.' 

Peter invented SEDI (Social Enterprise Development Innovation) in 1986 as a vehicle to launch a continuous series of poverty fighting innovations.  In Peter's language these are more appropriately described as financial asset building innovations. Innovations that enable people to save and invest in their dreams.  

Two features of SEDI's approach will illustrate what I mean.  People remain poor because the welfare rules  prevent them from accumulating assets (savings, home ownership, investments.)  People will remain poor, even if they are allowed to accumulate financial assets, unless they become financially literate.   Not surprisingly, if you never have enough money to make ends meet, you will never think of saving what you don't have.  You, dear reader, might take life insurance or registered investments or saving for your child's education as a given.  Not so for people who have never had a chance or been exposed to these financial planning concepts.

While Peter does collaborate with the usual anti-poverty advocates (about 800 community groups over the years) he has also intentionally reached out to partner with 'unusual suspects' - governments, businesses and corporations. Typically these groups are suspected of being the problem.  For Peter they are vital to the solution.  Peter intuitively knew and pioneered what we now describe as multi-stakeholder, problem solving.  Complex problems cannot be addressed by one group or one sector - it's a job for all sectors and for everyone.  Easier said than done although in Peter's hands compelling.

Here is a sample of his steady stream of elegant, successful and continuous, asset building innovations.

• The Canadian Centre for Financial Literacy - TD Bank contributed an unprecedented $14.5 million
• The Canada Learning Bond - helping modest income Canadians save for their children's post secondary education
• The Registered Disability Savings Plan - yes, this PLAN led initiative was improved by Peter and Barb Gosse's experience with the Canada Learning Bond
• Federal Task Force on Financial Literacy - SEDI is their strategic advisor.  Have a look at the Task Force members - evidence of how Peter harnesses power for the common good
• Learn $ave and Independent Living Accounts - proving that with support and incentives low income Canadians can and do save for their future.
• TD Financial Literacy Grant Fund - focused on innovation and spreading knowledge about proven financial literacy practices.

To infuse asset building, financial literacy principles into the 'water supply' of poverty reduction, Peter has ventured into foreign territory. He creates partnerships with branches of government beyond the welfare departments and ministries - another good illustration of his sophisticated thinking. 

A simple approach is to try over and over again to convince the welfare and social service arms of government to reform or transform.  A complex approach assumes all arms of government, particularly economic development and finance must be part of the solution.  What's good for people who are poor is good for the economy and well being of all Canadians.  How majestic a reframing is that!

Peter has a Wayne Gretzky eye for knowing where the puck will be.   He doesn't seek to fix what is broken in the current welfare system.  He is creating a new structure based on people's capability to solve their own problems when given the tools and the chance.  And now the mainstream is coming his way.

Alas, Peter is retiring from SEDI at the end of this year.  His body, not his spirit nor his soul, has issued an ultimatum to slow down.   He has adroitly managed to avoid and deflect any public tribute.   A natural occasion might have been at SEDI's annual awards last week.  Peter dodged that one as well. 

Here is what we all intend to say when we get a chance Peter.  Thanks to you and your SEDI team, poverty has tens of thousands less faces in Canada.