IGNITER

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The chaos of the financial markets is a major break in conventional structures and systems of our society. The intensity of it along side the growing crises in energy, food, and water coupled and the associated geo-political instability is really shaking things up. Oh, and mother nature is giving it’s own share of kicks amounting to what I hope is one big wakeup call.

So what could we wake up to?

Robert Paterson has an interesting post positing that 2.0 world will emerge from the ashes of the Financial Capital World.

We cannot know in any detail what the future will now bring.

All we can know is that the nimble and the smart will do better than the clumsy and the unthinking. All we know is that any model based on large amounts of capital will not make it – so forget nuclear as an option for energy.

The new of course exists in proto form today as it did when the dinosaurs roamed. The new will be based on network models. It will use the network effect and it will use social capital to do big things. It will use its distributed intelligence to “see” what to do and to undersatdn the chaos that we will be living in.

The time for a world based on a model that is itself based on nature itself rather than a machine is dawning.

Understanding the “natural economy” , the “natural organization” and social capital will be the key to your survival. Not just in business but in every part of our lives.

For we as citizens of the “machine world” gave up all control to the “System”. We became isolated and helpless. We lived in the Matrix. We did not even know what we had given up.

Umair Haque also talks about the opportunity ahead of us.

Now is the time for revolutionaries to step up and build something better, something more real, and something greater.

There will probably never – at least in our lifetimes – be an opportunity for total economic reinvention this tremendous.

Or this meaningful. Because that’s what it’s really about – not shareholder value, money, or “competitive advantage”.

But doing something that means something.

I’ve also written about it before as the ‘Great Remix‘ (and here).

What’s different now than in the Great Depression for example is that we are globally at the limits of what our societies and planet can handle. We can’t get produce and consume our way out of this one. People and the planet have no more to give in that model.

What I’m focused on is helping whatever emerges to come from the common values and mindset that unite the ‘open’, sustainability, and social justice movements. Organizationally it will have profound effects – some of which I’ve posted on here and in the Open Organization exploration on the OpenEverything wiki (jump in if you are interested).

The time is now – if we don’t pay attention to this wake up call we risk falling asleep again until it’s too late – or at least we can be sure that the next call will be even more forceful. I know I don’t want to sleep anymore.