Robert Paterson

This year's reboot (reboot11) may be the last reboot. I get the sense that Thomas feels that this may be the swansong. The topic for reboot11 is action. He asked me to offer up my 10 point list of what I thought this may mean.

With all action - there has to be a context. So here is my context (Heavily influenced by Jordan McLeod - whose book on Money I will review this week)

Context - THE WORK is to change our paradigm from Narcissism (The world is all about me - I am separate from it and from all things and all people - I get my kicks from the use of power and getting stuff) to Integration (I am one with the world and all things and people - I am made whole by participating fully in the wonder of the life of all things)

Why do we have to do this? Becuase as we can see, living as Narcissists is unsustainable. We are imploding.

None of the tools of the Narcissistic world can help heal it. There is no mechanistic reform that can work. No new regulation of the old system can work. Look at the mess in Washington. Acting in the old way will in the end only make things worse for the action is all based on the premise that we can and should continue to act in a self centred way where our connection and reliance on nature and others does not matter.

We have to be the new to make the change.

We have to build the new to make the change. We have to tell the story of the new in the new way to make the change. When enough us of live it, do it and have told the story, the world will change.

We know how to do this.

1. Know that our goal is that we have to change the prevailing story from "its all about me" to "it's all about us"
2. First step is that each of us has to take is to start to live this new story. We cannot lecture. We cannot explain. We have to live it.
3. You might start with your family and your close friends - start to see them as one with you and start to act in such a way as to make that real
4. Start to do this in your work. If you work in a traditional "Me" organization - be "Us". If you are a freelancer, go to the "Us" work. If "they" throw you out - all the better. If you are poor because there is not much "us" work - all the better - you influence
5. Look for "Us" work - Find a local issue that is all about "Us" - Local Food is a good example and get behind it. Connect and showcase others who can be part of this. It does not have to be local food - but it has to be a vital issue for where you live. Local energy - what is happening to Kids - health. It will be work that gives power back to people and takes power away from institutions. So this work has to be dangerous. It must offend "them" If you are not taking risk, you are not doing the right work.
6. Use social media to connect to others who are doing this work all over the world and so make what you are doing locally part of the world work. Find your support and strength from the millions of people out there who are doing this work. Make "Us" a huge group.
7. Use Social Media to tell your local story with authentic power. Look at Iran! The objective is to create a huge collective story. Once the collective story about real things making a difference in the "Us" world become big enough - we will find ourselves at the edge of a Tipping Point - we need about 15% of the population to get there - it's not impossible
8. Be brave. "They" will fight back. Again look at Iran. The irony is that when "They" go too far, "They" push many who had been on the fence to shift too. Expect to be attacked. It is a sign of their impending defeat
9. Meet your allies face to face - locally and globally. You will draw energy from them - they will inspire you - reboot itself has been a social incubator of this fellowship. But also be sympathetic with those that oppose you. For they are "Us" too. The British left India when India was ready. Martin Luther King's non violent approach has lead to President Obama. Mandela's compassion enabled the Whites to give him power
10. Bring your children into this. We like Moses and the children of Israel are in reality all ex princes or slaves of the system. It will be Jonathan and the children who cross over into Jordan - Don't expect a quick result but be certain that if enough of us act, that our children will inherit a legacy beyond price.

Bless you Thomas (@mygdal) for bringing so many of us together over the last decade and for planting the seed of renewal
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Here is my 2009 Piece below

I believe that we live at a time when the principal metaphor that shapes awareness, relationships, power, institutions and action is shifting from machine back to nature itself.

Those that are making this shift, organizations such as Google, Amazon, eBay and Southwest, are pulling ahead of all their competitors. It now is clear that every part of organized life will be confronted with the choice of adapt or die when confronterd with this new model.

So, positioning ourselves as individuals and organizations in this new context is the hard work that all of us face.

Central to this new way, is to understand how best to use nature's rules to grow an organization. I have spent that last 20 years working to get clarity on what this may mean.

It appears that the new organizational work is to set up and maintain a healthy ecology rather than an efficient machine. It's really a game of Sims rather than an engineering project.

The live web is this metaphor in action. It is giving people the experience of living inside this new metaphor. This is I believe the power of blogging and social web tools. 70 million people are going to a new world not by boat but by their computer or their mobile phone.

All of our relationships are being changed - back from machine and utilitarian relationships - to being natural and human again. The paradox is that it is a tool that is supporting this change.

All power in the world will change as a result.

So the new organization is in effect a living organism that is largely self sufficient and needs very small resources to grow to huge size. The most important part of setting up such an organism, is how well the intitial conditions are designed. The optimal conditions, I call Trusted Space, will drive the optimal trajectory for growth. If you start right, you will set up a trajectory that will scale and that will need less and less effort as scale builds.

This is a heretical idea to most. Most of us are so captured by the rules of the machine, that nature's rules seem invisible or stupid. This inability to see the new, is therefore the new competitive barrier.

As the new gains strength, the old will fight back. We are seeing clear signs of the reaction. I fear that the struggle may be like the religious wars of the 16th century as rival idealogies have to clash.

My hope is that the more democratic and the more flexible natural and more human will truimph. But as in Lord of the Rings, the struggle will likely be harder that we might imagine.

I do my best to act as a guide for the perplexed. I do my best to help you see the future of using nature's rules. I do my best to help you use them. I do my best to set you on a course to find your place in this new world.