[tt] [SALT] Principles against panic (Kanter talk)

[Eugen Leitl]

----- Forwarded message from Stewart Brand <sb at gbn.org> -----

From: Stewart Brand <sb at gbn.org>
Date: Sat, 10 Nov 2007 09:40:04 -0800
To: salt at list.longnow.org
Subject: [SALT] Principles against panic (Kanter talk)
Reply-To: services at longnow.org


   "Everything looks like a failure in the middle."  Any new enterprise,
   Kanter explained, encounters roadblocks.  As the obstacles multiply,
   the situation looks hopeless.  That's when deeply held principles and
   and the long view are most needed to get you past the panic.

   To characterize America's current winter of discontent she quoted
   Woody Allen: "One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The
   other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose
   correctly."  Panic leads to abandoning principles, and that is how
   successes end.

   Kanter commends three principles in particular for renewal of the
   faltering American enterprise...

     * Open minds.  In the clash between orthodoxy and creativity, opt
       for the spirit of discovery and progress.



     * Higher purpose and sense of meaning.

   Kanter noted the emergence of "values-based capitalism."  One example
   she knows from her own consulting work is IBM.  Shortly after the new
   CEO Sam Palmisano took over in 2002, he instituted an online
   "ValuesJam" with 300,000 employees.  The result was a declaration that
   IBM stands for "Innovation that matters--- for our company and for the
   world."  She has seen that value played out in IBM public service
   activities such as the World Community Grid, which engages idle CPU
   time on computers connected to the Internet (740,000 so far) to solve
   scientific problems in HIV-AIDS, cancer, muscular dystrophy, and human
   genomics.

     * Common ground.  Inclusiveness and shared responsibility is a
       particularly American principle first noted and celebrated by
       Alexis de Tocqueville.  It is reflected in Bill Clinton's
       observation, "Big government is being replaced by big citizens."

   There's been enough panic and winter in America, Kanter concluded.
   It's time for some endless summer.  Get out and connect with the
   street, with nature, with the world.

                                   --Stewart Brand

-- 

   Stewart Brand -- sb at gbn.org
   The Long Now Foundation - http://www.longnow.org
   Seminars & downloads: http://www.longnow.org/projects/seminars/

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Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
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