I started to wipe the sweat from my brow. I don’t have to do this “Save the World” thing. Someone else is about to do it. Not only that, it’s  Bill Gates. He has a track record of performing miracles.  He has more resources at his disposal than any other individual on the planet. This will get done.

Then again, if you take note of what Bill has to say 15:20 -> 17:00 into his talk about the 2020 report card. He realises his punt on a miracle may be wrong. To reduce risk, others must also take a punt. We must accelerate innovation in all realms and even he doesn’t have the resources to back all of it.

His releasing fireflies into the audience indicated that we need to think about all ideas as it’s ideas where innovation comes from.

Only a small proportion of the global population regard their individual role as one of Research and Development, yet it’s Research and Development that we hold responsible for innovation. Bill Gates pleads for Government direct investment and incentives for R & D and yet delivery mechanisms will only deliver investment to a small portion of potential innovators.  This is conventional wisdom and doesn’t look outside the box.

Perhaps changing the system of innovation to increase individual participation is the way of meeting our new world goals. Not surprisingly, this smacks of Open Source Philosophy and hence not mentioned in his speech.  What is mentioned in the Question and Answer session at he end of the Talk with Chris Anderson is Bills inability to share detail due to the conventional wisdom of non-disclosure agreements.

At this point I remember that Kahatika is a way of having your cake and eating it too.

• David Cameron suggests the wisdom of yesteryear can be brought to fruition through modern technological tools.
• “The gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play; it does not include the beauty of our poetry of the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate for the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country it measures everything in short except that which makes life worth while.” ~ Robert F Kennedy 1968
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• “Of the 100 largest economies in the world, 51 are corporations; only 49 are countries (based on a comparison of corporate sales and country GDPs).“  ~ Institute of Policy Studies 2001
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• “I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country; corporations have been enthroned, an era of corruption in High Places will follow, and the Money Power of the Country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the People, until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands, and the Republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before, even in the midst of war” ~ Abraham Lincoln 1864
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• In 2007, the wealth disparity grew to its highest number on record, based on US tax data going back to 1917. ~ University of California-Berkeley economist Emanuel Saez 2007

If management of corporations is just as influential if not more influential than management of our countries then systems of corporate management are to be scrutinized and upgraded in the next wave of global change.

Since the end of WW2 democratic systems have broken out the world over.

If devolution of power to citizenry for our countries is so popular, could some additional devolution of power to individual employees work in corporations?

The case could be made that poor internal communications are responsible for this interesting statistic. The employees just don’t know what is in the heart of their power brokers?
A more probable answer is that the employees are in fact the most reliable source of true understanding of the heart and mind of an organisation.

Either way, a method of measuring that heart and mind that doesn’t require expensive surveys by tiresome consultants but still ties into existing philosophies and systems of improvement would seem sensible.

I’d better get on with this Kahatika thing. I’m falling well behind the aspirations of this youngster. On the other hand, I hope I’d be just as happy if someone else was to “Save the World”.  To be happy that I go to my death knowing I did my best, recognised or not.

Interesting enough his words inspired me to make contact via his Company’s Web Contact form. No reply after over a week. I tried again and still no contact.
Whilst I am still inspired by the words I am at present a little underwhelmed by it’s approach to potential partners seeking to pursue significance.

Interestingly enough Dov is in good company. I also tried contacting the Case Foundation through their web contact form with no response.

There are a couple of other contact point’s in the world of  “I really want to make a difference” whose contact systems I’ve tried that are such that they are the equivalent of ignoring someone at a party who had just said “Hello, I’d like to help”, to you. Earning respect and building reputation also needs to be built into the systems you present to your community.  You will never know if the person who has just said “Hello”  has the capacity to save the world unless you engage. “Thanks, but no thanks”, is better than no engagement at all.

Perhaps Kahatika could be integrated into their systems to provide consistency between rhetoric and action?

“For it is in giving that we receive.” ~ St. Francis of Assisi

“All communication must lead to change” ~ Aristotle

“When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace.” ~ Jimi Hendrix

“Integrity is the essence of everything successful.” ~ R. Buckminster Fuller

“It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory.” ~ W.Edwards Deming

“Everything is practice.” ~ Pele

“You (never) change the existing reality by fighting it. Instead, create a new model that makes the old one obsolete.” ~  R. Buckminster Fuller

“It always seems impossible until it’s done.” ~ Nelson Mandela

“If you knew what I know about the power of giving, you would not let a single meal pass without sharing it in some way.” ~ Buddha

“When I am working on a problem, I never think about beauty but when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong.” ~ R. Buckminster Fuller

“Love is the gift of life. It’s a human need and a privilege. It’s one of the few energies in life where the more you give it the more you have!” ~ Tony Robbins

“The way we communicate with others and with ourselves ultimately determines the quality of our lives.” ~ Tony Robbins

“Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them, humanity cannot survive.” ~ Dalai Lama

The design of Kahatika embeds the essence of these words. Truely we “Stand on the Shoulders of Giants” ~ Bernard of Chartres, made famous by Issac Newton

Jonathan Zittrain offers a bunch of questions on the start of a problem in the video talk above. It caused me to ponder on the changing nature of trust relationships. I ran all concepts of Kahatika through the questions he raises and was content that in one way or another I had addressed them all. Perhaps crowd sourced problem solving techniques are more appropriate in closed networks where trust regarding true purpose can be verified and earned.

The following talk by Dr. Robert Sapolsky on, the Uniqueness of Humans, reinforced concepts within Kahatika on reward mechanisms. From a neurological perspective, it dovetails nicely into Edwards Deming’s ideas on the failings of compensation methods of western industry. Kahatika was born from ideas I gleaned from attending workshops on Deming principles. The last minute of Sapolsky’s talk provides inspiration to act. Whilst geared towards a group of successful academics, we all can take heart from his words.

So when I say I want to save the world I actually want to save our species, or more correctly I want to save our species long enough for it to evolve into it’s next revision.

In the long term there appears to be only three alternatives for that to happen.

• 1. God rewrites the physical world laws to reveal a new reality that our species can survive in.
• 2. A more advanced extra-terrestrial life-form than ourselves takes pity on us and facilitates our escape from our doomed planet.
• 3. Our science and technology develops sufficiently for us to escape.

Both 1. and 2.  I can only hope and/or pray for, and as I really don’t want the responsibility of saving the world, would be really cool alternatives.

Unfortunately in my reality, three is the only alternative that I can take action on.

OK,  now that we are all convinced that without science and technology advancements we are eventually doomed. We being us and all our plant and animal friends. We necessarily can only use conservation and sustainability measures as a means to delay premature destruction of our planet long enough for our species to get off it. It seems logical to use science and technology as a means to advance conservation and sustainability to give us that time and as a byproduct keep our hand in; High tech conservation and sustainability techniques are sure to aid our escape.

I guess that means that only some of us will have the luxury of going back to a simpler less technology driven lifestyle, and only then, for a few billion years.

Some of us will need to carry on pushing the envelope of science and technology and converting our new findings into something useful using the change agent of business. This is where Kahatika fits in.

P.S. Yes I know about the “Big Rip” Theory.  If it is real I guess I’m working to give us enough time for us to develop technologies that will enable us to pass to another universe. i.e. I’m on the road to the multiverse.

or is it only possible to continually adapt your message in such a way as to it resonates within a smaller and smaller segmentation of the population?

My interpretation of this top down vs bottom up conundrum is that you try to do both.

The adaption of your message as you progressively segment your audience will ultimately lead you to be talking to one other person in isolation and telling them exactly what they want to hear.

While on the other hand, if you truly believe in your message and you work and work on distilling your message down to the absolute essence of what you are trying to say, the last word, before your message finally disappears in the distillation process, will be, “Love”.

Logically, combining the two approaches, communication will always come from a position of Love.

At the end of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Nikita Khrushchev’s Human Spirit was what “Saved the World”. However, without the technology of Radio, the message that he was ordering the pull out of missiles from Cuba it would never have been delivered fast enough to have had any practical effect.

Without Tesla and Marconi I may not be here to write this blog. This all goes to show that we all have our part to play and communication is the key.