Public Intelligence Blog

The Days of “Manager Knows Best” Are Ending

Sujai Hajela

Harvard Business Review, 1 February 2012

EXTRACT:

As companies resolve these issues, management styles will evolve. The days when a leader can confidently say “I know best” will come to an end. Managers will no longer be able to communicate with just a small circle of trusted advisers — they’ll be expected to interact digitally with a much broader range of people both inside and outside the company.

Not every company will be pleased by this turn of events, of course, but those that embrace it will have new competitive opportunities. With knowledge flowing more freely throughout the organization and decisions being made more quickly, the company will be able to react more nimbly to the ever-increasing pace of change.

Read full article.

Phi Beta Iota:  Stewart Brand, founder of the Co-Evolution Quarterly and then Whole Earth Review, knew all this in the 1960′s and 1970′s.  Herman Daly, Paul Hawken and many others got it in the 1980′s.  What we are seeing here is a fascinating extension of the ignorance in place timeline.  It used to be that the “avant guard” was 20 years ahead of the mainstream.  Now we see them a half-century ahead o fthe mainstream.  What this really tells us is that the 1% have held off constructive change to the bitter end, and we are now about to see a clash of cultures–Epoch A top down because I said so versus Epoch B bottom up because it makes sense to all of us.  The US Government generally, and the US intelligence community specifically, have wasted a quarter-century of time–the one strategic variable that cannot be bought nor replaced–because of their refusal to abandon the secrecy paradigm for the openness paradigm.  Intelligence, not.  Integrity, not.  It’s called collective intelligence – integrity comes inside.

See Also:

1957 Quincy Wright (US) Project for a World Intelligence Center

1989 Al Gray (US) on Global Intelligence Challenges

1992 AIJ Fall ‘New Paradigm” and Avoiding Future Failures

Patrick Meier

How to Crowdsource Better Governance in Authoritarian States

I was recently asked to review this World Bank publication entitled: “The Role of Crowdsourcing for Better Governance in Fragile States Contexts.” I had been looking for just this type of research on crowdsourcing for a long time and was therefore well pleased to read this publication. This blog posts focuses more on the theoretical foundations of the report, i.e., Part 1. I highly recommend reading the full study given the real-world case studies that are included.

“[The report serves] as a primer on crowdsourcing as an information resource for development, crisis response, and post-conflict recovery, with a specific focus on governance in fragile states. Inherent in the theoretical approach is that broader, unencumbered participation in governance is an objectively positive and democratic aim, and that governments’ accountability to its citizens can be increased and poor-performance corrected, through openness and empowerment of citizens. Whether for tracking aid flows, reporting on poor government performance, or helping to organize grassroots movements, crowdsourcing has potential to change the reality of civic participation in many developing countries. The objective of this paper is to outline the theoretical justifications, key features and governance structures of crowdsourcing systems, and examine several cases in which crowdsourcing has been applied to complex issues in the developing world.”

The research is grounded in the philosophy of Open-Source Governance, “which advocates an intellectual link between the principles of open-source and open-content movements, and basic democratic principles.” The report argues that “open-source governance theoretically provides more direct means to affect change than do periodic elections,” for example. According to the authors of the study, “crowdsourcing is increasingly seen as a core mechanism of a new systemic approach of governance to address the highly complex, globally interconnected and dynamic challenges of climate change, poverty, armed conflict, and other crises, in view of the frequent failures of traditional mechanisms of democracy and international diplomacy with respect to fragile state contexts.”

Read full article.

Pierre Levy

Researchers revolt against Elsiever

Testify: The Open-Science Movement Catches Fire

David Dobbs

WIRED, 30 January 2012

For years, the open science movement has sought to light a fire about the “closed” journal-publication system. In the last few weeks their efforts seemed to have ignited a broader flame, driven mainly, it seems, by the revelation that one of the most resented publishers, Elsevier, was backing the Research Works Act — some tomfoolery I noted in Congress Considers Paywalling Science You Already Paid For, on January 6. Now, 24 days later, scientists are pledging by the hundred to not cooperate with Elsevier in any way — refusing to publish in its journals,  referee its papers, or do the editorial work that researchers have been supplying to journals without charge for decades — and the rebellion is repeatedly reaching the pages of the New York Times and Forbes.

In my feature I speculated whether librarians who would eventually lead the charge. But Jason Hoyt, then of Mendeley and now of OpenRePub, seemed to have it closer: the revolution awaited only the researchers. In what is easily the biggest surge the open-science movement has ever put on, a growing list of researchers is publicly pledging against Elsevier. At The Cost of Knowledge, a site created this purpose, there were 1400 signatories last night, and when I woke today at 5 a.m., over 1600. The thing seems to be snowballing. Some have ached to take action for years. Others are newly radicalized. Together, their stated reasons form a sort of first-person dramatization of the issues I explored in “Free Science.” A skim through their testiomony (below the jump here) is an education in why the call for open science is going mainstream:

Read full article.

Phi Beta Iota:  This is of course the whole point of creating the World Brain and Global Game, to achieve precisely the efficiencies and zero resistance to multinational information-sharing and sense-making that we have been advocating since 1988 in various forms, since 1995 in Smart Nation and World Brain forms.  Open Government, Open Economy, Open Society — it is all coming as a tsunami of cultural change.

See Also:

The Open Source Everything Manifesto: Transparency, Truth, & Trust (Evolver Editions, June 2012)

Perry Bezanis

Armed with a Bachelor’s in math and 4 years of GI Bill, dillettantism post-that and primarily in natural sciences, I finally got around to really trying to figure out what ‘the human condition’ forever bugging me was really all about.

Along that line then, “the happenstantial appearance of Godel’s Proof precipitated ‘possible applicability to language in general’ as an analytical tool for a more properly ‘scientific’ analysis of language itself and the evolution of words and language in general” -the deconstruction and re-evolution of ‘the human condition’, so to speak.

A few contributions:

How We Came to Democracy – Why It Is Not the Best Form of Government and Where It Is Going

Human Nature and Continuing Human Existence – the Inevitabilities of Human Deliberative Capability

The State of Affairs an Excerpt from Godel’s Proof and the Human Condition

Democracy – and Further

Breakdown – Futurology (appendix to Arms Reduction and Global Reconstruction)

Venessa Miemis

Reflection: The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge

Click on Image to Enlarge

I. The Field: Knowledge in Computerized Societies

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The nature of knowledge itself is shifting from being an end in itself to a commodity meant to be repackaged and redistributed. In order to be valuable, learning must be able to be reformatted into these packets of information in computer language, so that they can be sent through that channel of communication. Today, we increasingly hear the words “knowledge economy” and “information society” to describe the era we are entering. As was always the case, knowledge is power. Now, in an increasingly complex world, those with the ability to sort through the vast amounts of information and repackage it to give it meaning will be the winners. Technologies continue to solve problems that were formerly the source of power struggles between nations (i.e. the need for cheap labor is diminished by the mechanization of industry, the need for raw materials is reduced by advances in alternative energy solutions), and so control of information is most likely to become the 21st century’s definition of power.

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2. The Problem: Legitimation

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The definition of knowledge is determined by intertwining forces of power, authority, and government. Leotard draws a parallel between the process of legitimation in politics and of those in science: both require an authority figure or “legislator” to determine whether a statement is acceptable to enter the round of discourse for consideration. In an increasingly transparent society, this leads to new questions:

Patrick Meier

How Crisis Mapping Proved Henry Kissinger Wrong in Cambodia

Crisis Mapping can reveal insights on current crises as well as crises from decades ago. Take Dr. Jen Ziemke‘s dissertation research on crisis mapping the Angolan civil war, which revealed and explained patterns of violence against civilians. My colleague Dr. Taylor Owen recently shared with me his fascinating research, which comprises a spatio-historical analysis of the US bombardment of Cambodia. Like Jen’s research, Taylor’s clearly shows how crisis mapping can shed new light on important historical events.

. . . . . . .

In particular, Owen’s analysis shows that:

Click on Image to Enlarge

“… the total tonnage dropped on Cambodia was five times greater than previously known; the bombing inside Cambodia began nearly 4 years prior to the supposed start of the Menu Campaign, under the Johnson Administration; that, in contradiction to Henry Kissinger’s claims, and over the warning of the Joints Chiefs of Staff, Base Areas 704, 354 and 707 were all heavily bombed; the bombing intensity increased throughout the summer of 1973, after Congress barred any such increase; and, that despite claims by both Kissinger and Nixon to the contrary, there was substantial bombing within 1km of inhabited villages.”

Phi Beta Iota:  This is very exciting stuff.  The public does not read nor think well, in large part because the rote “teaching” was designed by Carnegie and Rockfeller to create obedient factory workers able to follow instructions.  Visualization–including spatio-historical analysis but also including advanced visualization as well as the simple visualization for flag officers (red, yellow, green), could be the next revolution in education.  At a minimum it will demonstrate that experts know nothing and elites cannot be trusted.

Event: 30-31 March 2012 NYC Participatory Budgeting

21st Century Network Governance – Beyond Participatory Budgeting

Participatory budgeting is a very important step in the right direction, but in the larger context of both obstacles presented by corrupt governance and what is possible enabled by the Internet, it can be taken–quickly–to a higher level.

Participatory budgeting is also somewhat ineffective in that the false assumption of the public and private sectors are accepted.  True Cost Economics is the only possible foundation for a sustainable public sector and a sustainable private sector, and most participatory budgeting projects have no idea what the difference is between the false budget and the true budget.  To discuss budget disposition without seeing, for example, that fracking creates earthquakes and that tar sands consume vast quantities of potable water, is an exercise in futility.

This session will present a very rapid 30 minute overview of the pioneering work done by Earth Intelligence Network, a 501c3 with 24 co-founders including Medard Gabel (co-creator with Buckminster Fuller of the analog World Game, designer of the current digital EarthGame).  Three integral foundations for effective collective intelligence will be introduced:

Robert Steele

a.  Strategic Analytic Model highlighting the ten high-level threats to humanity ignored by most governments and the twelve core policy areas from Agriculture to Water that are not harmonized by most governments

b.  Six Bubbles consisting of an Autonomous Internet connecting an Earth Intelligence (Decision-Support) Network, EarthGame, EarthPolicy, and EarthBudget, all glued together with transpartisan memetics and transitional facilitation.  Illustration

c.  M4IS2, the new craft of intelligence, no longer secret, expensive or federal–Multinational, Multiagency, Multidisciplinary, Multidomain Information Sharing and Sense Making unites the eight tribes of intelligence (academia, civil society, commerce, government, law enforcement, media, military, non-government / non-profit) to harmonize decisions, policies, budgets, and behavior across all boundaries, by using shared information to achieve shared objectives.

Following the 30 minute illustrated presentation, two discussants will expand on the possibilities, one from a government perspective and the other from a civil society perspective.

The final 30 minutes will be devoted to interactive questions and answers.

It is our hope that the entire session can be video-taped and streamed online for permanent public access.

Robert David STEELE Vivas

Robert David STEELE Vivas, CEO of Earth Intelligence Network (501c3), has spent 30 years in the intelligence (decision-support) field, and the last twenty helping ninety governments get a grip on open sources of information to create Open Source Intelligence (OSINT).  His second book, THE NEW CRAFT OF INTELLIGENCE: Personal, Public, & Political (2002, also free online) remains the primer for public intelligence in the public interest.  He is also the originator of the concept of the Smart Nation, first published in Government Information Quarterly in 1995, and then in THE SMART NATION ACT: Public Intelligence in the Public Interest (EIN, 2006).  He is a former spy, an honorary hacker associated with Hackers on Planet Earth (HOPE), the Silicon Valley Hackers Conference (as started by Stewart Brand), and Hactic / Chaos Computer Club in Europe.  He is also the #1 Amazon reviewer for non-fiction, reading in 98 categories, with all of his reviewed accessible online by category at Phi Beta Iota the Public Intelligence Blog.  In October he presented his Electoral Reform proposal to Occupy NYC, the six minute video someone else posted went viral. He is one of three candidates for the Reform Party presidential nomination, and has created a web site, We the People Reform Coalition, that represents the next level in participatory governance, integrating Electoral Reform, a Coalition Cabinet and Balanced Budget that are crowd-sourced and presented in advance of election day, and a commitment to True Cost Economics.  In June 2012 Random House / Evolver Editions is releasing his newest book, THE OPEN SOURCE EVERYTHING MANIFESTO: Transparency, Truth, & Trust.

Bojan Radej

Primitive simplicity of politics against social complexity

Bojan Radej – Slovenian Evaluation Society – Ljubljana, Slovenia, EU

January 12, 2012

Recognizing that the society has become complex suggests that the truth about social issues, public interest or common good is not a single truth, but rather that there are a variety of well-founded and equally valid truths that must co-exist and be reconciled by human deliberation. Social complexity means there are different views about the most important issues in a society. Socially complex issues share no common denominator; different views must be embraced as in relation rather than in opposition.

Recognition of social complexity—and the impoverished political simplicity no longer adequate to its charter—has important consequences for how we go about understanding of social issues.  This in turn determinates our future aspirations and approach to social struggles regarding how we want to collectively re-construct sociality. Put bluntly, Industrial-Era politics have failed, and new methods must be found to achieve political reconciliation among agonistic perspectives.  There is no more hope for complete unity and consensus in principal social concerns. But these concerns are few and abstract. Everyday life is not lived in abstract world. The matter of everyday life is hybrid, ephemeral and so of “minor importance” to everybody.

Read the rest of this entry »

John Steiner

Beyond Elections: People Power

By MARK BITTMAN

New York Times, 3 January 2012

The presidential election may be grabbing headlines, but the true rallying cry for 2012 is to struggle and organize around those issues that a president might take seriously, to stake out positions that would benefit what used to be called the working class (and now goes by “the 99 percent”) and to garner enough political will and power to pressure the president and Congress to move resolutely on the issues that matter.

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Only if there is collective action by large numbers of citizens will politicians — even principled ones — have the support they need to resist the power of corporate lobbyists. It’s not an easy process, and it’s one that’s often met by violence.

Read full article.