Change Agents

Too Late and Too Soon

Every day there are moments of the human digital presence that are indistinguishable from the ordinary senses of life. Investments in this capacity measure growth by producing and sharing data to reveal locations and percentages of people who purchase goods and data services and also bank their information to facilitate exchanges in everything that can be digital. In addition, establishing data connectivity with everything people do suggests a nonorganic capacity for replicating self, community, or company with this new form of existence.

The Report

What is Owned?

As a proprietary issue, the business strategy is to prevent exposure of the power to own a person’s digital existence. Far-fetched, right? Maybe not. The essential sources of old and new uses of money in data streams are, at best, marginally secure and, therefore, unmanageable. Most importantly, the structures of this ownership (list here) have yet to coalesce or dare think of the unification of this power. It is a trend in itself. As a form of shadow ownership, it’s good/evil potential will continue to be exposed and debated. Still, the points made to date have yet to change consumer protection, privacy, and intellectual property.

The central question is how to defragment the intensity of political questions about two issues – the unstructured convergence of individual privacy into cyberspace and the value of data stream participation in forming metadata. But first, what are the stakes in this state of ownership?

Ownership Stakes

Reliable data from trends identified by trading-in unfathomable numbers occur in the digital realm; it is packaged and escapes as feedback. As a machine, it can record every possible action and potential intent. Given that this condition is an exponential process with significant unknowns, the following knowledge steps are necessary:

  1. Recognize the process as unstoppable
    • A matter of data, proof, and variables
  2. Determine High-Priority Data Streams
    • Examples: water use per capita, illness reporting, and the chemistry of life at ppm 10-15
  3. Build High Priority Transparency on each selection.
    • Establish penalties for share non-compliance
  4. Determine Central Agency Authority and Accountability
    • National legislation
  5. Determine Global Agency Authority and Accountability
    • Global legislation

Vast data management companies focus client organizations on global data on a per-issue basis. Examples are determining what drives human curiosity (media), encourages innovation (science), and develops trust (politics). With proof, the service yields essential capital for investment with risk assessments. On the other hand, it remains ungrounded by public policies with a sense of priority for adequate consumer protection. You know, the kind that doesn’t get people killed.

Tipping Points

The word “singularity” describes an enormous oneness of something converging. Anything can be stuffed into it, making the word obscure and useless. Nevertheless, impending “tipping point” transformations are available to observe potential convergences. One focuses on “terms of use” and “privacy policy,” and the other is on the value of data stream participation. The significance of “the individual” in the United States is a force that continuously seeks common-law principles to secure personal, civil, and human rights. However, as a digital participant in multiple data streams continues to intensify, the individual is not a priority in the current practice of corporations and other entities. As a result, there are thousands of “terms of use and privacy agreements” to which participants agree with a click with little regard for content. The irony of this condition is that it may take an AI to produce a common-sense summary of implications. Please review and comment on five digital consumption activities with tipping point implications.

Tip(1): Spatial Construction

The routine use of digital methods to imagine architectural space is an active tool for envisioning futures in new ways. The area and mass of an entire city or the furniture layout in a living room can be displayed and explored in detail. The purpose is to envision new spatial opportunities as an experience comparable to a walk around, an apartment, a home, an urban block, or through a park.

The complexity of interpersonal dynamics in a virtual space is equally buildable in the digital realm and recordable for adaptations to avatars. Adding these choices for re-entry into a personal future logically includes the community in which participants share in creating an end experience from which new things begin. In 2020, the Forbes Technology Council imagined the creation of a digital twin, “…a real-time virtual model of our physical selves that constantly acts on our behalf without ever needing to rest or refuel.”

    Please enter an email address for communication should this grand endeavor get legs. New academic participants via Coursera or other sources are welcome as usual.




    Tip(2): Control Standards

    As a participant in this new realm, the quality of ownership over individual behavior as it becomes recorded and reusable requires as much attention as the concept of fee simple has in law today. The absolute tenure of land with the freedom to dispose of it will continue to include human behavior. How soon will people discover it is ongoing with the assurance that the rules of the road are written well and assure safety, freedom from fear, and accountability?

      Please enter an email address for communication should this grand endeavor get legs. New academic participants via Coursera or other sources are welcome as usual.




      Tip(3): Intellectual Property

      What is intellectual property? Is it the result of all actions taken? Is it limited to the products created in implementation and use? Individuals legally own their behavior. They can be punished if bad or rewarded as people, contractual teams, small businesses, giant corporations, and government entities. The accountability of representatives from the smallest district or industry to the presidency of national governments or multinational corporations is governed by statute. To define these actions in the digital realm, first ask, what belongs freely and without restraints to the world?

        Please enter an email address for communication should this grand endeavor get legs. New academic participants via Coursera or other sources are welcome as usual.




        Tip(4): Deconstruction (ism)

        Ambiguities inherent in the themes of control and property reveal contradictions as they occur in a prepared digital space. In Being and Time, Heidegger describes deconstruction as a way to “arrive at those primordial experiences in which we achieved our first ways of determining the nature of Being—the ways which have guided us ever since.” To the architect, the design for an absence of visually evident continuity or symmetry as deconstruction is similar to Heidegger’s observation. The architect reveals the absolute power to manipulate the physical world in every way imaginable. Deconstruction into Heidegger’s primordial world shows every gram of matter as in use forever. Add environmental sensitivity to this modern practice, and every gram of new and old construction would be composed of materials that could do the same.

          Please enter an email address for communication should this grand endeavor get legs. New academic participants via Coursera or other sources are welcome as usual.




          Tip(5): Berra McLuhan (ism)

          “Only the small secrets need to be protected. The big ones are kept secret by public incredulity.”

          “You have to be careful if you don’t know where you’re going because you might not get there.”

          Marshal McLuhan and Yogi Berra

          Taking a slow ride to nowhere specific is supported by human curiosity, a love of uncertainty and adventure, or simply going for the ride despite trepidation. The positions taken by Berra and McLuhan on the human condition have a strange similarity. On the one hand, the trend toward cognitive dissonance or confirmation bias is growing, but the causes are elusive. One element is how personal location matters little if you have a state of existence that cannot be described as having a place.

            Please enter an email address for communication should this grand endeavor get legs. New academic participants via Coursera or other sources are welcome as usual.




            Too Late and Too Soon

            Thank you for the comments. They have to lead to the following summary.

            The ability to digitally construct a fully detailed three-dimensional space offers unlimited choice. This capacity not only makes standards possible but also essential. As tipping points of human transformational capability, the offer of making mistakes in the digital realm at the ppm level leaves the problem of standard setting much like an open battle wound. Its healing will require refinement of what is owned from the human mind outward to what all of humanity holds in common. A deconstruction approach to this standard could solve problems that threaten life-support ecosystems. One result would be to reshape cities as a national security policy.

            Has human self-awareness occurred too late to alter its use of Earth’s resources to mutual benefit? Is the damage endangering life support systems occurring too soon for this action? Efforts to mitigate failure involve multiple interdependencies that are frighteningly disjointed. incremental and unrecognized.

            The revisions toward success that veers away from cascading collapse include exploring the universe for exoplanets with water. Such a search is reasonable when taking a viewpoint of usefulness over the next millennium. After all, the first exoplanet, discovered by TESS and documented by the Webb telescope (LHS 475 b) in 2123 is forty-one light years from earth. Not exactly a day trip. NASA is also hoping to build a second telescope for deployment (2040) with another salve of hope, calling it Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO). The far more practical challenge to science in this early part of the 21st Millennium is understanding the new and rapidly changing domain of the Earth’s Anthropocene water cycle. Not as interesting as the wonder offered by the HWO, but a billion times more practical.

            Floods are Fast Droughts are Slow

            Strong indicators of system collapse include ongoing climate change events associated with extreme weather. For example, in the winter of 2023, more than 34 million people in the southwestern US fell under flood watch. Storms brought chaotic downpours described as an insistent parade of atmospheric rivers, also deemed incapable of reversing the southwest region’s severe decade-long drought. That floods are fast, and droughts are prolonged reveals a disunity of systems that demand recalibration, but how?

            Environmental assessments of climate event damage tend to state the post-trauma costs in which the policy is to rebuild with improvements. The alternative is to change urban development to offer higher levels of resilience sufficient to survive threats to life support systems over the next century. Here too, development policy is driven by market demand for change that rests with the vision and intent of private investors. The argument yet to be defeated is that a tight urban development approach will transform life in a way similar to the feudal estates of the clergy and nobility as of the 10th c. (901 to 1000). Inside the walls, safety and water, protection, and livelihood.

            The second millennium (1001 to 2000), produces the thrusting emergence of the Anthropocene with horrifying displays of nasty little wars to reveal the likelihood of a repeat global performance. Here too, the argument is to mitigate damage by spreading the assets thinly or building iron domes to ward off threats and attacks. Both are strongly in play as policy.

            Timeline: Earth’s Development Timeline

            World history is documented with an increased understanding of events (here) and the threads of common human behavior each exhibit. Part of that knowledge includes curiosity about the universe. Today it is known to be filled with the light of billions of galaxies that teach about time and, more recently, how planetary systems are built. For example, just before midnight on Jan. 12, 2023, a green comet sped by the Earth (C/2022 E3) for the first time in 50,000 years. Homo sapiens were dancing with Neanderthals at its last appearance. Today, the movement and location of objects in the universe is an exquisitely sophisticated computational power of space science. Earth science is far more difficult. Here is one example.

            An extensive collection of habitable zone planets has just begun to take shape. In 2017, space scientists described the TRAPPIST-1 system and its seven Earth-sized planets 40 million light years outside the Milkyway (here). This new ability includes exploring the process of planet formation involving billions of years. The one planet that supports this capacity for curiosity does not have the same quality of science capable of producing a policy that begins with a timeline for successful Earth Development.

            Explicit expressions and definitions of success are readily available (list). Knowing what to do is pointless without the persuasion required to produce consequences. An action occurs as a result of chaos or a plan. The work required to succeed beyond catastrophic resolution will require global performance measures that are outcome-driven locally and established using evidence based on interests ranging from knowing the parts per million of a molecular element to the cultural psychology of happiness. That is the challenge of this century and perhaps the Millennium.

            Climate Change of Mind

            The term “climate” defines emotional and psychological conditions in group settings. The climate also describes variations in the Earth’s atmosphere. The word “viral” describes a disease-causing condition and an effort to capitalize on the influence of ads within marketing strategies. The duality of language is an excellent place to examine the “climate change of mind” problem.

            In a diverse culture, growth in the depth of shared principles is an excellent place to explore opportunities and draw a line in the sand. Journalism may be the best place to call wide attention to them as separate from values, but what steps would be needed to draw that line? The argument here is to take the opportunity to review “climate change” and “information” in tandem. Communication in this context is the first rung on a ladder of indeterminate height but getting up the first step makes it shorter.

            “What if all major newspapers in the USA took one day or several weeks to state American principles unanimously?”

            A rule of journalism is not to become the story. However, today’s news business needs to grab the stage on this issue and produce some valuable viral content. Climate change is an excellent place to examine the climate of American principles in response to problems before entering the murky world of values.

            • values are internal, and therefore subjective, and may change over time, whereas
            • principles are external rules that are permanent and unchanging
            Why doesn’t everyone know this?

            Why Five Times

            Asking “why” five times, such as “Is climate change dangerous, and how will it affect us?” is an exercise for defining issues with a group of people in problem-finding/solving situations. For instance, a Pourquoi story would produce an essential etiological diagnosis of papers by climate scientists and speeches by political leaders solely for their viral potential for solving climate change problems. Likewise, it could be beneficial to root out how the climate for discourse leads to confusion and violence or positive action with practical results.  

            Why(1) is climate change dangerous?

            The “affect us” question has infinite climate change locations and well-known impact zones. Floods, forest fires, and a rising sea have likely geographies; to a lesser degree, high winds and drought severity are also shared concerns. The conditions for a direct “affect us” situation then falls to historical odds and the number of potential participants in a tragedy. Climate scientists recognize this as a Game of Roulette over which they have little influence. Wondering if that ball (or bullet) can affect “me, my family, and community” creates a complex social climate of “them and not me” and leads to the illusion of location security.

            Why(2) is climate change dangerous?

            When a dangerous weather event occurs, services involving the city, state, and federal government, charitable organizations, and the help of family and neighbors provide recovery efforts. Without a robust response, the number of economically and physically displaced households increases, and local private and public institutions struggle to provide safety net services. The term resilience describes all types of defensive actions to increase security; however, post-trauma assistance in the name of resilience does not contribute, nor does it prevent, ongoing damage to future generations. The alternatives are vague renewable energy concepts and lifestyle changes. None of these choices feel essential and leads to the “out of our hands” rationalization for the ordinary observer. 

            Why(3) is climate change dangerous?

            The first two examinations of ‘why’ involve the emotional climate of a scientifically predicted change in the Earth’s atmosphere. Using the term existential threat is accurate but unhelpful. The news business examines threat conditions as a “daily history” written to describe events using the other journalistic questions — who, when, what, and how. News of the energy production business, GHGs in the air, and the complexity of that air’s relationship with the star we call our sun are abstract. Some of this news leads to factual information. Examples are the assignment of a personal climate/carbon footprint for households, communities, cities, and nations. The physics of GHGs is well understood, while the demand for scientific authority in governance remains ineffectual. There is no airbag for the planet.

            “Information disorder is a crisis that exacerbates all other crises. When bad information becomes as prevalent, persuasive, and persistent as good information, it creates a chain reaction of harm.”

            Aspen Institute on Information Disorder

            The focus on American principles is disappointing for its sole focus on the U.S. Constitution. But, quickly, they are the rule of law, civil and human rights, free speech, privacy, a procedure for accurate information, and the responsibility to think critically in the public interest through democratic action. As standards of civil society, they allow all people to learn and become their “better selves.”

            Institutions that herald these principles can never know the “truth,” only the joy of searching for it with sufficient vigor toward good decisions. The alternative is to accept an authoritarian power over what can be learned. All forms of communication combine mis- and disinformation. False or misleading information that is not necessarily intentional has the prefix “mis” to express the message from the Latin root – wrong. The prefix “dis” means “not.” It is information suggesting that it is something else. The motive of disinformation is to persuade with a purpose. It is a symptom of complex inequalities composed of anger, fear, and distrust. Climate change is dangerous because the information is a product of ineffective, short-term experience and slow scientific methods.

            Why(5) is climate change dangerous?

            Distressing the Earth’s entire system allows direct actions for change. However, this includes factions in science and public dialogue with the capacity for suppression that narrows characteristics of a problem by furthering a reductive narrative. As a result, the climate of political discourse tends to overlook or underplay the need to respond. For example, the “thoughts and prayers” emotion with low-cost recovery loans are reactions that cannot be rejected, but it diminishes the debate on alternatives. Modern science also contributes to this response by narrowing the evidence needed for selecting solutions with merit and efficacy[1]. The combination of these behaviors limits a vision of new ways to live and how to achieve them.

            In this climate of interaction, a realignment of values is needed. The demands of children openly complain about the lack of action, knowing full well that the scientific solutions to eliminate atmospheric GHGs are simple. They are born in the Age of Information, and for them, the answer is simple, end the use of fossil fuels. They know this is a threat to everyone everywhere, and it is on a schedule composed of atmospheric tipping points and geographic disruptions. Yet, the instructions for a radical pivot in alternative energy are wrapped up in its cost.  

            Once Again, Together or Separately

            “What if all major newspapers in the USA took one day or several weeks to state American principles unanimously?”

            The Report

            If that idea is to get legs, it must confront the values as separate from principles so that both can be openly expressed and held throughout the USA, perhaps the world. The climate state of mind today exacerbates the actions needed now. Traditional American values and principles conflict with the illusion of location security by accepting “odds” coupled with out-of-our-hand rationalization. These beliefs automatically accept catastrophic outcomes in preference to authoritarian controls. The failure to fully understand the “slowness” of established scientific methods contributes to ineffective, short-term mitigation experiences—finally, these points limit a vision of new ways to live and how to achieve them.

            The science of predicting what goes “viral” in communications across the new media sphere is impressive, and studies are developing. Terms such as “web-crawling” for critical words offer major media providers an opportunity to produce viral messages using search engine optimization (SEO).

            These words establish emotionality, positivity, awe, anger, anxiety, and sadness. Other predictors are messages with practical utility, general interest, and surprise. Related factors involve fame, gender, a missing source, or a byline. Tweet/click counts are aggregated by the time of day, then correlated with related events. In addition, information is developing on the difference between reading a digitally presented text and using a typical book or newspaper. The “Journal of Research in Reading” made such a comparison (here) to find that paper pages offered an advantage in reading nonfiction. At the same time, the benefit of digital services (word definitions, comprehension quizzes) opened up rabbit holes. While useful, they distract from what the whole newspaper page offers in synthesizing the facts.

            [1] An example of climate change reductivism is in the title of this article:: Demystifying the roles of single metal site and cluster in CO2 reduction via light and electric dual-responsive polyoxometalate-based metal-organic frameworks. Mitch McConnell, Senate Majority Leader ( 1/2015 – 1/2021), is equally reductive as a consistent climate change denier with statements such as, “For everybody who thinks it’s warming, I can find somebody who thinks it isn’t.”

            The Rubber Ball Problem

            Table Of Contents
            1. Solving for X
            2. The Location X3
            3. The Continuum X2
            4. The Sentient X1

            The following post is due to a Twitter account where its owner frequently visited national maps exhibiting extreme weather events and gun violence. An ad aimed at that Twitter account exhibited a series of maps (with uber ads) that web editors thought would interest those who like “facts with maps.” It stimulated a query for The Report.

            How should people feel about the lack of protection from injury, harm, or evil? How are the emotions represented? Imagine three factors that support protection: “location-x3, continuum -x2, and sentience-x1?”

            Solving for X

            Here is our example of the protection problem. A corporation could make 101 quintillion balls and bounce them into the world because of a want to do so without profit, effortless access to resources, and the fun perceived by its deranged leadership. It is logical to think that could never happen.

            The cunning language of market growth economists bounces the algorithms of “resources, profit, want/need.” Economists remain confident that this bouncing ball problem could never occur until you think of each ball as a gun or a liter of gas, a barrel of oil, or tons of GHGs exiting as waste into the atmosphere from the vast tracts of human activity, all of it in the context of general militarization. So, it is logical that the dystopian “rubber ball problem” appears routinely. On the other hand, admiring the innovation required to create 101 quintillion balls for its ingenuity leads The Report to discuss and redefine problem solving.

            First, “Location 3X” exists as a result of product-making. Saying location three times is a mantra that emphasizes the relative value of land in the world but disregards the earth as the only land of present value in the solar system. These economies remain unregulated until one of their creations endangers a place and its people, and a post-trauma regulatory economy is activated.

            Continuum X2 is the second portion of the desire for protection triggering the need to quantify in exquisite detail. Numbers such as the well-known parts per million becoming a quintillion or a sextillion is incomprehensible. Still, within the continuum framework, the power to pre-identify threats and provide methods for managing damage and deterrence is possible.

            Sentient X1 is an emerging area. It considers the uniquely human power to quantify all things in a repository. The resources offered by locations and the continuous demand for economic growth suggest an opportunity to open new ways to avert damage and protect the quality of life.

            The Report hopes you enjoy exploring the opportunities and dangers of location, continuum, and sentience. Thanks for the comments. You have seen them in the past, present, and future. Authoritative examples provided are greatly appreciated.

            The Location X3

            “80% of data generated has a location component, yet only 10% of spatial data is actually used by organizations”

            Carto

            Human history is a process that demonstrates a range of powerful extensions of physical existence. The technology used to deliver messages continues to stimulate and reveal changes in society, the family, work, and play. The transition from oral culture to the printed word, film, and TV, moved the cultural emphasis from hearing stories in small groups to seeing and hearing them in much larger groups. Human history also demonstrates the demand for protecting physical existence. What is communicated in these billions of extensions connects to the specifics of the medium used. Technical extensions of culture reveal an attribution problem. The red ball narrative becomes one with multiple layers. Here is an example using maps.

            Carto‘s locational data and imaging permit thousands of mapping resource ideas. For example, if a company wanted to reach half of the nation’s population with a message, the red area (map below) would produce that number of people in the smallest space. With global interest in getting this message to half the world’s population, the map on the right illustrates the area that would produce that number. Is that a good strategy? It depends on the distinction between the medium used to offer data and the information selected.

            The Internet offers multiple attributions to sources in the small-to-large group formation. For example, the political behavior of businesses in market economies deploys multiple websites to produce something of interest to people. In the map example below, the purpose of displaying them on a Twitter account is to sell ad banners, followed by an enormous array of location-based interpolations and acquisitions (from click counts to sales) for injection into a network. These industry-driven frameworks are gradually attempting to discover what people want and need in compelling detail by location. Of course, this includes the assumption of an invasion of privacy. How dare investors or governments seek that information?

            The maps selected above interested The Report in choosing the second layer of attribution — the name of the map producers. The third layer, at this point, becomes entrepreneurial. It is no longer “free to edge” and offered at a price. It is a visualizing service to educate or to enhance the market positions. Product launches by known locations or new options represent enhancements. The data result in direct sales, “in places” and “from places.” is a way to introduce these third-layer offerings.

            The data contains click-throughs for what Factable calls “new perspectives.” Their owner, the Hive Media Group, was acquired in January 2022 by OpenWeb for $60M. Given the function, as mentioned earlier, of new forms of digital ownership as continuous in a network, the sources for attribution also change.

            The producers present blurry, endless parades of perspectives (mosaic left) that become outsourceable without a concerned, dedicated effort. At this point, everything is reversed, like an upside-down world. Take a brief look at the data providers (using the links above). You will recognize a vast array of tiles and captions designed to identify specific groups of individuals by location and interests.

            Several investors in the Gig economy include a “fact-source-check” service to interested viewers and media centers. The purpose is to praise the rules of ethical journalism or the providers of data and products. Expose misinformation in a caveat emptor world, and we enter Continuum 2X.

            The Report’s Tweet-O-Rama is a drill down to these highly concerned people. It is not without a sense of irony that all these services are located in the urbanized portions of the nation and the most highly populated areas of the earth. However, the facts produced by those most concerned are based on data that exposes patterns and relationships in the “buyer beware” consequence of regulation. That leads us to our second query, will the array of small groups of the internet medium produce sufficient data to regress toward a mean of greater importance?

            The Continuum X2

            The earliest tokens (ownership symbols) date to almost 10,000 years ago, known today as places such as Mesopotamia, Mesoamerica, China, and Egypt. Tokens today provide a way to represent resources such as raw materials and processed goods. Around 5,000 years ago, a bulla (like a data packet) also held receipts. When sealed, they were capable of tracking multiple items. In today’s terms, they are encrypted until the exchange language is learned. Computer language systems and machine learning capabilities have become best known as artificial intelligence (AI) or the ability to discover patterns and relationships in data like the kind that defeats Chess Masters. Other AI demonstrations win on minutia question game shows. These data-holding systems are entering their third practical decade and closing in on a century since their concept, inception, and implementation. Current AI use is Cyc (encyclopedia) using symbolic programming. These systems require unique “builds” for specific disciplines such as epidemiology. A continuum theme is embedded in another give/take and push-in/pull-out framework based on the neural network design. In this system (e.g. ChatGDP) truth and reason cannot be checked for accuracy within the system. It is left to the judgment of users.

            A practical theologian described evolution as beginning in a void until temperature and inorganic material combined to produce organic entities over billions of years with an ability to replicate and continue by surviving (adapting) during changing conditions with the fate of a good “fit.” All organic life entities carry the DNA polymer with instructions for physical development that gave organic entities billions of specializations to become biological, leading to the neurological condition of the human mind. The theologian sees this as a trend that moved from inorganic to organic to biological toward a continuum of self-awareness that leads to the spiritual. One can only hope.

            The practical concept of the spiritual idea recognizes the intellectuality possible in a society that can sense and create totalities outside of individual experience. The primary examples are machines that extend sensory power. More recently, these devices generate natural dialogue that is undetectable from a person. After that, the human/machine relationship suggests an evaluation of character that would require evidence of independent thought, leading to perceptions, such as an original idea and the ability to feel. Of course, regardless of the source, when the appearance of thinking and feeling occurs so well, telling the difference doesn’t matter, but this poses the most challenging query of the red ball problem.

            The Sentient X1

            The software to produce the well-known sounds of Siri (Apple), Alexa (Amazon), Cortana (Microsoft), and Google Assistant is drawn on the idea of continuity. The software Language Model for Dialog Applications (LMDA) is continuously improving due to the growing percentage of people with the resources to use it in their daily routines.

            Nevertheless, it is possible to visualize these machines answering billions of questions simultaneously for hundreds of thousands of interested individuals every second. Sentient or not, whether it matters or not, the idea of location, combined with data stored in a continuum, leads to a global media-forming society. Its place in the universe of billions of galaxies suddenly becomes location relevant. The example given here is the Earth’s most popular asteroid, which forces this question:

            What would be necessary to make everyone on Earth ready to be financially secure?

            The images below focus on an Asteroid with an orbit around the Sun between Mars and Jupiter. The interest in this object is due to knowing it exists and the presumed content of this rock as “new land” in our solar system. Its discovery challenges the definition of wealth or value. If mined for its mineral deposits, it could make everyone $93 billion richer if sold today. Overall the total value is estimated in the quintillions. That is any number followed by eighteen zeros. 18 — 000,000,000,000,000,000.

            Search: 16 Psyche

            Exploring this idea is in the following discussion. Still, our goals take us back to the beginning. Determine the quality of shift from Location 3x away from the dynamics of growth in local markets toward the Earth in a solar system market. So the next set of posts will go back to the beginning under the heading Localism.

            Note:

            In the 1950s, Rosenblatt’s perceptrons and in 1960 Kelley’s Backward Propagation model, used the term “machine learning” (1959) to imagine the creation of an Artificial General Intelligence. 

            Not a Time to be Complacent

            The leader of this simple blog is 79 years of age. Don’t tell him or any of us that we can’t work hard for the next four years. Just don’t.

            Go to JoeBiden.com

            Ten, twenty-five bucks would be fine, but in case you are wondering, the limits on contributions made by persons to candidates (increased to $3,300 per election, per candidate) (52 U.S.C. § 30116(a)(1)(A)); The limits on contributions made by persons to national party committees (increased to $41,300 per calendar year) (52 U.S.C. Feb 2, 2023. (FEC deep-end rules)

            So what about the “money is speech” PACs out there? All we have to say is this is no time to be complacent about the jar-shaking.

            https://youtu.be/KIF5Cfg4Z9Q

            Clever Meat?

            Climate Central evaluated future potential flood exposure to the tax base of every county in the United States. For example, the flood zone analysis for Kings County, NY, identified 276,299 land parcels totaling 32,461 acres [? Walt Disney World] assessed at $17.14 billion sea level rise in your county or the national report.

            Over thousands of years of recorded human history, people’s organizations continue to prove that all other life forms are weak. That job is done, and with it, a new task. Suspend layers of evolutionary Earth thinking that shape views of the future. The information is available to take a new path.

            Evolution as we know it is displayed in the voracious history of our naturally lethal world. The Anthropocene is responsible for all things deadly today. Given the condition of everyone doing everything imaginable to the Earth, all the time requires two pieces of information to proceed. First, it is irreversible; second, everyone means everyone and everything. Therefore, an assessment is necessary to manage the data is now possible.

            Vast quantities of raw material are processed from the Earth’s crust to become an endless stream of made-things seen by everyone from the threshold of every shelter outward to the horizon. Today, the vision of a wasteland of discarded material across a dystopian landscape is countered by the ability to catalog all living entities with regenerative communication capacities.

            “What should everyone know? How much of it is known? And most importantly, how will everyone obtain trust in what they need to know to do what they need to do? It is becoming necessary to provide the human mind with a new place in the universe.”

            Creating new places for the human mind occurs routinely, and the emerging idea of what a machine singularity might be, whether actual or artificial, cannot be ignored. Should it be proprietary? If so, what is exclusive to ownership and inclusive for the public? Establishing a fully transparent public repository is a way to force that decision. But, of course, that depends on the tasks required to make that an idea in the first place. There are obstacles.

            People will confuse this effort with Playing God or a vain attempt at omnipotence or omnipresence. But, less ambiguously, the fear of being under the control of an authoritarian system is challenging to measure and consistently disruptive. On the other hand, if AI governing systems occur in a democracy, the additional complexity and the challenge of increased social sensitivity require a plan.

            So how will it be possible to recognize the responsibility of artificial intelligence? What role will it play in identifying priorities? Could such entities get the world to “yes?” on any question requiring herculean coordinated action? The United Nations, the signers of the Paris Accord, and every hot and cold war from the beginning of history continue as attempts to control a future. Yet, these failing efforts at control also establish trends worthy of intense focus. Resolution by catastrophe and limited mitigation success amid long-term failure is reversible. Yet, the potential for predictive analysis leading to long-term success is only possible by accepting the massive addition of artificial foresight. Here is an example:

            The Milky Way is just one of the billions of galaxies in the universe. The illustration of 100,000 or more galaxies detected near the Milky Way is named Laniakea. The Earth is amidst supercluster networks linked by voids. Nature Video, based on Tully et al. 2014) Nature Video, based on Tully et. al. 2014 Also see: Vox Space Maps.

            The Report sees the implementation of global action capable of producing solid, broadly acceptable answers to problems Resources to implement tests with trusted procedures are in constant development. There are well-schooled day-to-day process actors on the national and international stage (developing here). The books and papers on the economics of globalization reveal extreme poverty further complicated by violent climate change, drought, famine, violence, flood, and fire. To believe natural forces create these horrors is a grave error for one reason – the significant places of impact are well-known, and the trends are clear. What trends will reduce these impacts and be helpful for people, their communities, the nation, and the world?

            Without the math to sort trends independently, the data provider must be trusted, and its users should be capable of empirical confirmation. Another aspect is the geography of the search location. For example, using the search term “Market Share,” Washington D.C. claims search levels higher than Wall Street. Search one word such as “Energy” in 2021 and reveal Texas and the fracking states on top of the list geographically.

            Today’s trends are data-rich catalogs of words and numbers, graphics, and near real-time images. Deconstruction is available in segments of action measured from microseconds to decades and from clicks to buys. To look at how trends are handled, visit Exploding Topics or go to the source of much of it in Google Trends to see top search queries neatly organized in daily search trends. Google offers Year in Search 2021 with a video recap of global searches. For “things,” they offer 2022 Shopping Trends. Quintillions of inquiries packed digitally lead to refreshing questions such as:

            “What is the transparency level needed from (the AI search engine company) to claim meaningful trends? Are they accurate to the period, durable as values, resilient in the face of crisis, and adaptable to the prospect of peace or the prevention of violence in a world of unrelenting change?”

            RLC

            There is a significant probability that transparency will not occur. It can, however, be signaled in the investments made to acquire market positions related to AI development. Other trend-specific investments and capitalization activities are more challenging to identify as products that signal the ability of an AI to create and control. Measuring the rate of acceleration in thought cannot be measured by distance per time period squared for the lack of a worldwide idea of thought governing the signals of change below. In this area, the sixth priority will move upward.

            Seven Signals of Change

            The Report offers seven signals of global; change introduced below from low to high priority.

              IssueDescription
              1Climate changeparts per million per day everywhere
              2Urbanizationcoverage per capita/cost per capita
              3Demographic variationssocial characteristics, location cohorts
              4Economic disparities  competitive dollar/held equity indicators
              5Health conditionsvital statistics by sensitivity, age, sex
              6Purpose of artificial intelligencetrust in response to questions
              7The threat of high-impact asteroidsfind them, have a moving truck strategy
               

            Priority Seven: What is space for other than long-term thinking?

            The design of the Double Asteroid Redirection Test revealed several changes in astrophysics. First, the schematic idea was to hit an asteroid 6.7 million miles from Earth with a spacecraft the length of a school bus and around the mass of a dairy cow (570 kilograms). Instead, the impact changed the asteroid’s orbit by 32 minutes. That means they pushed the small asteroid moon Dimorphos away from the large one, Didymos, on September 26, 2022.

            The DART project included SMART and DRACO, LUKE, and LEIA. All are extraordinary accomplishments. The project cost was just $324.5 million. Ninety-five percent of that was for spacecraft development. The remaining expense is the Falcon 9 and a year of mission operations. 

            Implementation begins with: we can do this but should we, and if yes, where does it fit as a national priority? An act designed to protect all of humanity from an extinction event by intentionally changing the motion of a celestial object was more than a mathematical prediction. See the entire mission as far more than a spatial deflection project in the NASA explainer (here). The integration of endeavors like this will become more holistic.

            Priority Six: The Emergence of Artificial Intelligence.

            The rollout of AI is the most crucial issue for sustaining investment representative of the needs of humankind. Much of the world may recognize the capacity of an AI to beat a Chess Master or win on the Jeopardy TV show. However, it has progressed further than games and is progressively more competitive in all fields. Public administrations and private companies will also produce trends in gaining or losing trust as these systems develop.

            The AI subject remains exhaustive, complicated, and undecided. It is much like the mysteries that DNA offers the future of all life. Investors in the cloud believe it to be the ultimate tool. The uses and purposes of these machines are without regulations governing issues specific to the needs of people, organizations, and national and international organizations.

            Priority Five: Human Status and Well-being

            Human health and well-being require no greater purpose than a sustained investment in reporting. Given the academic and scientific rigor of the health professions, complemented by health data, reporting systems have gained trust given the “all alert” priority driven by the crisis response to the COVID-19 virus and its mutations. However, the focus on determining cause and establishing prevention protocols remains an exhibit of economic and political disparities.

            The Budget for 2022-2023 of the World Health Organization is $6.72 billion [? San Francisco Bay Bridge span replacement, 2002-2013] and spread thinly (here). On the other hand, the Department of Health in New York State is $204.3 billion here).

            Priority Four: Social and Economic Disparities

            Public policy, with few exceptions, is limited to keeping the economic stress on a population to a known minimum using various social cohorts and locations. The widening wealth gap is nonempirical and tends to become conspiratorial. Conspiracies “fill in”  unknowns based on the joys of imagination and social position. For example, the persistence of poverty is described as a natural occurrence. It is not. Poverty can be ended. How to do so is the unanswered question.

            The data required to end poverty is available, but the resource argument remains with evolutionary thinking. A region’s people will flee from sources of degradation they alone cannot stop. Economic hardship, corruption, war, flood, fire, drought, and starvation rise on a well-known global landscape without a hint of an effective long-term resolution.

            Comment

            Issue Three: Diversity and Life’s Structure

            Diversity is an unknown “want” in the economic sense. As the population becomes increasingly urbanized, social diversity increases and the natural environment changes radically toward safety. Few are sensitive to the enormous importance of want in “a wilderness.” For most people, other than understanding that the primate species of the early Earth became modern humans, the diversity required for that to happen is a vague notion. A debate on the function of diversity in life’s structure is (here).

            Priority Two: The Urbanized Earth

            The formation of cities and megaregions defines the Anthropocene with a vast array of uses for land and sea. Yet, it has occurred without a deep understanding of the consequences caused by various levels of dominance.

            Priority One: Climate Change

            Definitively proving that human activity can change the weather is the first injection of fear at a global scale. The term “existential drift” is prevalent among those monitoring extremes with measures of human cost. It is an “existential crisis” among those attempting to measure the cost. It is a “hoax” to those grasping to retain a lifestyle connection with seas and rivers, coupled with high investments in land value and policies to retain tax revenue.as long as possible.

            Sixty million people live in the shadow of volcanoes worldwide, and another billion will face sea level rise in every coming decade and continue until the remaining gods of the unknown dispense suffering to billions. Fear is a cruel emotion; however, it is the beginning of finding wisdom before blood.

            The following section will assume a growing understanding of AI’s role in society, given this entity’s impact on the seven issues above as a filter.

            Good Doomed or Bad Doomed?

            Source: Google Earth on One Day
            The Report finds two ways to look at the future of individual lives today and all those that follow in the Twenty-First Century. It concerns the happiness of those living now and in the future. The despair starvation and death embedded in climate change will destroy millions of people. Many others will escape the chaos with resources to assure personal safety. With these two views, The Report is unable to decide which will be more impoverished by these events.

            A Thought Experiment

            The irony of the architectural fascination with the zero-sum city is that it includes the option of never leaving the building, leading to one question.  Is it really an option?  Answer (1): It depends on what’s outside. Answer (2) If you are prepared, you have that choice. Answer (3) As the third answer to every question is one: What are the necessary preparations? Answers (1) and (2). Come up with a variety of worst cases and prepare for them and hope for precision or develop best cases and prepare for them. Leading to the question: Why is it so difficult to prepare for the future? Answer (1) It is difficult (not impossible) to design for unknowns as it includes the fear of them. Answer (2) The resources to create best cases are highly dependent on what is known and considered incomplete and inefficient. That answer of course always leads to that final unacceptable answer that is not a question. Building the most promising future can occur (3): when humans escape evolution, stop being animals of instinct, and free the mind from the substrate of cognition. The sense of insufficiency and inefficiency is a falsehood of that mind.

            The Doom Loop

            Dense urban environments offer high levels of collaboration that support quality micro-changes within firm boundaries and flexible economic regions. When contained, cities reduce latency in the acquisition of complex social and physical change. Fueled by diversity and interdependence, this creates a unique urban intelligence in the abiotic and human world of urban life, and there is one prime rule. First, do not cause harm.

            The charts are from “Hunger and Blackouts Are Just the Start of an Emerging Economy Crisis” April 20, 2022, Source: UNFAO, Bloomberg. The article refers to the latest World Economic Outlook. The IMF likened the impact of the war in Ukraine to “seismic waves” rolling over the global economy. In addition, pandemic debt could produce a deluge of defaults among developing nations. However, behind war and pandemics lies the financial assessment of risk associated with climate change. The two photographs below illustrate a very different use of capital when a rising sea includes the risk of extreme and unpredictable weather.

            Enclosing space for a preferred climate (left) is “a place to hide strategy,” Building islands for a rising sea is the leading A&E response to “finding a place to watch” climate change.

            The Little Island Park officially (image right) opened on May 21, 2021, and cost $260 million [? cost of Airbus A380, the largest passenger airplane]. The public funds could have purchased an Airbus A380, the largest passenger airplane, for a cost comparison. However, the original Olmstead argument produced the cash for this 2.5-acre recreational facility. The public’s investment in this unusual amenity will continue business growth and new housing development along Manhattan’s Hudson Waterfront. These images can be found in Arup’s Journal (here) to exhibit the skills of this A&E giant in addressing climate change issues.

            The Cascading Doom Loop

            Capital is moving intensely in the interest of resilience experimentation. The investment in NYC’s Little Island at over $100 million [= Large city office buildings] per acre and the exploration of encapsulating cities are notable examples. The cascade possibilities have a global capital structure. The top ten are spread across the Earth.

            All cities are affected by nations seeking geopolitical advantages. On the other hand, the “we are doomed” feeling is best known by NGOs acting as muted partners in mitigating the problems caused by wars, pandemics, climate change, fire, and flood events combining natural and capital impacts. Isolated disruption events cascade across a landscape, reduce shelter quality, destroy regional economies, and crush hope in their capacity to produce essential goods and services. The global NGO network in the nations listed above needs a comprehensive insurance policy.

            The insurance economy is recognized as a necessary precondition for many activities in today’s global markets. The insurance pool is a critical component of recovery in response to a crisis event. Building a public/private policy for the Earth can produce the discipline essential to answering one question over the next fifteen to twenty years. That question is, “recover from what?” (See Declarations (here).

            As cities adapt to climate change on the geopolitical stage, they face unprecedented competition for resources and investment in producing an effective system of urbanization. A new and revolutionary transformational infrastructure is needed to respond to the demand for renewable energy—stability before a rising sea and a path to a sustainable economy. Replacing capital investment in individual resilience projects by nations with a commonwealth vehicle is needed to encompass the Earth.

            Eames for IBM

            The legendary design team Charles and Ray Eames made films, houses, books, and classic midcentury modern furniture. Eames Demetrios, their grandson, shows rarely seen films and archival footage in a lively, loving tribute to their creative process.

            Liz Cheney

            C-Span is the only place with Liz Cheney’s whole concession in Wyoming. Watch it and make a decision. (here) 

            “No citizen of this republic is a bystander. All of us have an obligation to understand what actually hapened.

            We cannot abandon the truth…”

            Rep. Liz Cheney

            Her mission is to end the Trump provocation and put an end to supporters willing to pander to lies throughout the United States. She should not, and will not stand alone. In the most minimal sense that is a call to pay attention, and over the next few months it is a call for a maximum effort against an impending crisis of lawlessness and violence provoked by an unhealthy one-term president. Wyoming is in big trouble environmentally (water/fire/poverty). The hesitation to pull billions of investment out of that state remains valid, but only through the next two elections.

            Her district is “at large,” thus the massive loss to the lies of Trump and his allies in their authoritarian reaction to losing an election and willingness to promote and embrace dangerous conspiracies.  Watch a person “disappeared” by the GOP’s Russian-style politics. Most important watch what she does next. Again, the challenge, onslaught, test, ordeal, gantlet, and sword is thrown. (here)

            The Creative Democracy

            Political leaders panel
            Search “political leaders” for images – the public sphere is vast.

            Critical :: Reflective :: Creative

            Critical thinking shows that the characteristics of foolishness can be for good or ill. A critical thought such as a laugh of joy or scream of horror functions in the short term. The product of policy in a Democracy is therefore politically incremental and expedient because Democracy responds well to the demands of a presumed representative majority or an established, passionate minority. The short-term response is well-tempered by using day-to-day data to reveal the lack of fairness, equality, and justice.

            On the other hand, reflective thinking will reveal the small steps that introduced critical items such as impact restraints to help people in automobiles. The occurrence of resistance to this introduction fell to respect for life at a level higher than individual freedom. Various pragmatic responses to problems, such as vehicular safety technology, separate the knowledgable from those willing to be unknowing as a form of trust. One can understand how the life-first argument can win as an emotional appeal in the arc of creative talk in a Democracy.

            At the national level, reflective and creative thought is dying. It was possible to illustrate the horror of impalement by a steering wheel but not exhibit children’s bodies ripped apart by assault rifles. A reason for the loss of reflection and creativity is how Democracy relies on statistics selected to measure the population’s overall well-being, parsed geographically with indicators that reveal distress capable of opening a rift. The data is an aid in identifying foolishness that allows the potential for violence at the critical scale of change yet retains enough shared, well-validated content to encourage a social movement. Here is an example.

            Today one can place “an app” into your computer’s operating system. I have two that illustrate the difference between creatively reflective and foolish. Whenever a dollar amount shows up in an online document, the app provides an equivalent of a whole public education budget of a city with “the cost of a Raptor Jet in 2018.” On the other hand, an app is available that will replace the word “millennials” with the term “snake people” on a webpage. The former is useful and verifiable, the other is nothing more than an ostensibly benign violation. The line is blurred here by political leaders. How will it be possible to reveal its dangers to Democracy?

            Implementing creative thought encourages influential events at the local level. As “actions,” each step requires the selection of stepping stones for crossing thousands of the data-rich creeks, rivulets, brooks, and burns that feed the rivers that establish boundaries and the commerce of ideas that build the big communication bridges. Unfortunately, the creative Democracy is slipping away for failing to understand a core change agent. When questions of “ends” become questions of values, the question of promoting an issue without reason makes good listening problematic. After that, the natural bullheadedness of non-compliance and lack of compromise between rival values becomes challenging to resolve. Steps to strengthen reason are not used by political leaders.

            Therefore, the next and final post regarding the need to improve political reasoning calls for a review of Methods

            The Brutality of Change

            The brutality in the life and death of rebellious Luke in the 1967 film “Cool Hand Luke” was far less than known to exist in the South if he were Black and where “noth’n can be a real cool hand.” Black history writers must have made the connection as prison segregation ended with the 1964 Civil Rights Act. However, a reference linking Black History and “Cool Hand Luke” occurred in a New York Magazine Feb 25, 1991 TV listing where Black History 1990 was on at 9 AM, and the film was at noon on Monday. The dire potential of chaos by Lazard is accompanied in the arc of metaphores possible in this film. The sense of strange connection reveals a dangerous cognitive gap in the rawness of it.

            RLC
            Table Of Contents
            1. Blind Spots as Control Leaders
            2. The Daily Crisis
            NYM TV Guide Page
            New York Magazine Feb 25, 1991

            Luke concluded that he was doomed and acted according to that view. Similarly, those “in the house” that proved a global warming problem in 1896 represent a similar communication failure. However, the terrifying issue is acting according to that outlook. Over the next century, the fire in the engine of cheap energy could accept the facts as accurate yet still treat them as intolerable. The Earth can become that unjust prison experienced by Luke or, as Lazard forwarns.

            Historically these actions begin as a group of advocates small enough to fit in one house. On the other hand, the global structure of these actions in the digital energy regime begins in thousands of “houses” simultaneously. The world will continue to change “the only way it ever has,” as Margaret Mead notes, but today change for good or bad is possible exponentially in the world.

            The Lazard proposition presents a set of facts that describe an entirely new set of fires in the engines of commerce with an equally frightening set of systemic waves of unintended economic and environmental consequences. So, again, I urge you to listen carefully to Olivia Lazard before proceeding. Promoting critical, reflective, and creative thought imagines actions and demands a record of how well they are known as good or bad worldwide.

            Defined narrowly, Democracy is “the vote,” and that is all people require if they are safe. It becomes essential if they are fearful. For two centuries, the trust behavior in a Democracy functioned well with cheap energy and labor with little thought of consequences, unintended or not. The brutality on the new energy front will be similar without a very different structure for evaluating change. The failure to communicate or recognize choices that must be made produces the lack of foresight that got Luke shot, and the inability to act preventatively as Lazard encourages.

            Blind Spots as Control Leaders

            The idea of the Lazard Proposition is to expose blind spots with an aggressive information campaign on global issues. Each of these “spots” carries unique local experiences connecting GHGs with Climate Change. Confirmed in math and science, the laboratory for proof is now the Planet Earth, but like an unjust prison from which one cannot escape, the campaign will not argue causality. Instead, each event floats in the high cost of failing to communicate the importance of one as a member of them all.

            The transition to blind spots as control leaders encounters the problem of conflict. First, however, Lazard points to the need for violence reduction measures spread across thousands of political jurisdictions. The minerals listed on the Green Minerals Conflict map below offer a clean-energy future. However, getting them will require massive mineral extraction to get the equivalent of that ball in the mine (left). The International Energy Agency (IEA) predicts intense mining due to increased demand. For example, the electric car requires six times more mineral inputs today than a conventional vehicle.

            According to The World Bank, a 500 percent increase in mining will occur by 2050 for minerals such as graphite and cobalt. Unfortunately, the impact and effect of these new mining activities have multiple blind spots, all associated with the urgency of demand, leading to violence.

            The International Institute for Sustainable Development produced this map in 2018

            Mineral extraction processes have a regulatory place within a Democracy similar to oil and gas extraction and processing. The framework for this builds on the quality of transparency in government needed to correct past errors. In business and government, the common denominator is to reduce the occurrence of violence. Two methods are in play at all times to do that. The first is building a manageable capacity for collective knowledge in the common interest; the second is the raw military power to acquire land as a power of the state and wealth to buy expertise.

            Locally, Eminent domain serves a combination of public/private economic development ideals. Hundreds of trillions of transactions occur from routine urban improvements to the expansion of Russia into Ukraine. Each one produces “dots” along multiple pathways. On the other hand, the placement of these dots recently became a dangerous force. In addition, and only lately has it been possible to record these dots as exhibits in sets of enduring serial data, proving trends as regressions to the mean and, in some cases, probabilistic timelines.

            The Daily Crisis

            The following deals with global climate health using two components. The first is the power of machine learning systems, called Artificial Intelligence (AI), and the second is the human capacity to manage. The critical question about AI was when Kevin Kelly asked, “what does technology want? It was then that AI separated from its human counterparts. Imagining all aspects of AI entities and observation systems is due to a robust and durable memory that links laptops to quantum panels. The AI design replicates in ways similar to Richard Dawkins’ description in The Selfish Gene. How the miasma of personal experience becomes part of our consciousness aids in automatic responses, most of which are genetic and shared by everyone and every living thing.

            Given this bifurcation of information processing, the second component would be composed of leaders capable of standing on facts with enough charisma to produce trust and say, “mining here is OK, there it is not.” The power of enforcement is the blind spot. Here we will find many social groups attempting a system change. The practice presents multiple implications for governance in a Democracy as its leaders confront a series of relentless crises.

            Using blind spots as control leaders will define a genuinely systemic, peaceful, and nonviolent foundation for building bridges to a safe future. Not doing so produces intolerable indifference to human suffering. The example all can imagine is how national policy responds in today’s communication economy. Imagine the difference in the policy response if events such as the demonstrations in Ferguson, MO, occurred in fourteen cities during the same week in defiance of local authorities outfitted with surplus military equipment and a large vaguely regulated group of “militias” joining in the proceedings. The policy shifts from a local issue to a national unease in the global shadows of civil war and outright aggression.

            What to Do, What to Do

            First, create a trusted regime of science. Second, use that trust to build a public-good system with a global decarbonization agenda as a matter of healthy human survival and mitigate inevitable conflicts by location during planetary breakdown events. Third, to do this, it will be necessary to change business economics radically, and fourth, with these in play, promote specific innovations supporting three actions during the reversal of the oil/gas extraction industry:

            1. a steady decarbonization system to assure global environmental integrity with some
            2. big advances in ecological diplomacy and unique new law with a variety of
            3. corruption elimination services with powers dedicated to protecting habitat.

            Your sense of hopelessness in Lazard’s recommendations is real.

            Total prevention of geopolitical competition is possible with a new foundation of human security in the era of globalization. Exposure to blind spots in responding to this obligation can reveal the pathways that prevent climate-disrupted futures as cascading events. Identifying these ” blind spots” are those that remain aimed at the darkness of failure and lack of transparency.

            Yes, it does seem impossible. However, supporting the individual as a member of a change agent group can have powerful consequences in the ongoing globalization process. What is needed is a “so say we all” moment. The means to that end may begin with a few language specialists and the focus of our next post — The Creative Democracy

            Unspecified to Self, Unexplored by Others

            The key to effectively using a stepping stone such as voting to get across a data stream is recognizing the necessity of balance, which leads to other conflict-reducing efforts.

            How does a Democracy successfully serve the structures of social membership in forming a national identity while sustaining the right of difference?

            A broadening sense of “existential crisis” occurs among the knowing people. Data gives them proof based on global-to-local factors such as climate extremes and the equally local-to-global experience of winner and loser economics. To succeed, American Democracy needs a new bridge-building system. The one explored here produces the following mandala for us to enjoy. Geometric presentations of thought and meaning present the psychological work of humans unknowing. Those with words tend to say “follow us, we know the way” to focus their attention and form groups.

            Regenerataive Mandala

            Here is an excellent example of the thinking required regarding the unknown to self and unknown to others often referred to as the Johari Window situation that Lazard calls blind spots.

            Getting Luke

            Hundreds of maps using remote sensing satellites and streaming data on the ground put observers such as Olivia Lazard into a global orbit, able to see graphic representations of a warming ocean and the growing incidence of damaging events coupled with a profound recognition of multiple layers of international power structures. All of the measures of all things physical that one can imagine are possible with these observation tools. The stones offered by Lazard set a path toward establishing a new goal for Democracy.

            Routine reference to “reduce consumption and maximize well-being” is met with “we ain’t doing that” for the lack of viable demonstrations outside a monastery. Thousands of people such as Ms. Lazard present the grist for developing a new participants pool for producing additional proof. The examples presented below remain lost in the din associated with lies and gross assumptions that create objective proof, such as unjust prisons. If one of those prisons becomes the Earth, the problem has a name: Getting Luke.

            The twenty-first century is faced with changing the structure of trust due to the construction of bridges to a new energy regime and decoupling the engines of economic growth from GHGs toward new sources. However, the confidence promised by technology is not hopeful. It is evolving into a terrifying repetition of history. Therefore, I urge, insist, implore and beg readers to examine this issue for an eighteen-minute talk on TED. Then, please follow that experience with four minutes of a scene from the Cool Hand Luke movie.

            The next post examines these two media experiences. The analysis sought asks how many “Cool Hands” are out there exploring the blind spots of the global order. Next, The Brutality of Change recognizes the foolishness of catastrophic resolution policy.

            MacArthur

            The MacArthur Foundation

            MacArthur Fellows Program

            The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation support creative people, effective institutions, and influential networks, building a more just, verdant, and peaceful world. MacArthur is placing a few big bets that truly significant progress is possible on some of the world’s most pressing social challenges, including over-incarceration, global climate change, nuclear risk, and significantly increasing financial capital for the social sector.

            President John Palfrey defines the values that drive the Foundation and remain accountable to the community. It is also the approach every narrative in search of resources should include. 

            Creativity encompasses innovative, imaginative, and ground-breaking ideas, thinking, and strategies that will have a meaningful impact on large and complex challenges. Bring them inventive ideas that support the creativity of individuals and organizations.

            Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion The Foundation sees Diversity as the characteristics that make people distinct. Equity as treatment, access, opportunity, and advancement while eliminating barriers that have prevented the full participation of some individuals. Inclusion is an environment where all individuals feel welcomed, respected, valued, and feel a sense of belonging.

            Compassion is central to respectful and compassionate interpersonal interactions with kindness and caring, reflecting the foundation’s recognition and understanding of integrity as the act of behaving honorably. It is a commitment to sound judgment, honesty, dependability, and accountability. Finally, life-long learning is the practice of seeking new understanding, knowledge, and skill with values acknowledging continuous lessons from staff, grantees, partners, peers, and communities.

            Environmental Works

            Environmental Works is a nonprofit Community Design Center directed founded in Seattle, Washington (1997). EW’s long track record has proven to be pivotal in all areas of need in the Seattle area. For example, the design-resource library for sustainable, affordable communities developed by EW was instrumental in reducing the stormwater impacts and increasing overall energy conservation practices in vulnerable communities.

            EW is organized into four studios: housing, community facilities, landscape, and special projects. Each studio is headed by an experienced architect with more than twenty years of experience. It is a nonprofit full-service landscape, and architectural firm that responds to projects that the for-profit architectural community agrees would be unprofitable. This community also recognizes that a substantial record of sustainable practice, material use, and cost impacts of this public service-based agency has been of value to community needs throughout Seattle.

            Good Listening

            The practice of making logical arguments in Latin began well over 2,000 years ago. Latin arguments used to persuade toward the negative are as follows. Please avoid their use.

            Argumentum:

            • ad hominem – the appeal to personal prejudice
            • ad populum – an appeal to mass emotions
            • ad misericordiam – an appeal through the exploitation to pity
            • ad baculum – the application of brute forces – “to the club.”
            • ad crumenam – an appeal to money, “the purse.”
            • ad verecundiam – the playing up of prejudice
            • ad ignorantiam – stress upon ignorance
            • ad captandum vulgus – a dishonest argument to “catch the crowd.”

            Comment

            The Standard of Risk

            This is an odd post to do at this time. The thoughts of all on Eastern European theaters have only moved a bit north and west of the Middle East. There is more war-detail. No real loss of enthusiasm, but more emphasis on atrosity. I sense dread, but it is not as serious as thinking about my kids, old friends and how tired everyone seems to be. To dig into it, I began this long essay on perspectives. It is unedited. It will be a string of thoughts to come back and review, edit, remove and start again as so do we all.

            RLC – Occupy
            Table Of Contents
            1. The Process for Corruption
            2. The Mask of Persuasion
            3. Parenting
            4. Government

            Urban planning is full of socially conscientious jargon: sustainability, diversity, social action, consensus-building, anti-poverty, ecologically sound, and a recent favorite, decarbonization. Many planners think that planning should be a tool for allocating resources to eliminate the significant inequalities of wealth and power in a society. That sounds more interesting than maintaining and justifying the status quo. It is a popular approach in social science schools of grad and undergrad universities. Thus the charge of a liberal bent. Change is motivating because learning to manage it is encouraging. The motive is reasonable, and it feels right to stand before that massive billboard demanding “A Fair and Just Society.” On the other hand, a drive down a road with that notice includes another. That billboard will always say, “It Will Never Happen.” Why? Progressivism and neoliberalism function in policy as if the proponents were mortal enemies. That is not the case. They are siblings of the same parents who want to keep the kids under control and uncorrupted, especially during a divorce.

            When the public attempts to serve ordinary people, the task begins with laws governing the ability to trade freely in a “free market” and a public policy to fill gaps. Democratic solutions to problems become difficult when these two processes define the other as corrupt. For the planner, the control power builds on reforms of past errors in these markets. Buildings fall and kill people – write a safety code. Land uses poison land and lungs – legislate to protect the environment. Much can be done to either embrace or obscure failures. A property is taken by law and redeveloped by public/private partnerships to erase failures blandly defined as entropy. In all of these instances, clever T-shirts that say things like “Blight Me” or “There Is No Planet B” sell very well, along with resistance to a lawful change by lawful means. When these disruptions happen, you have met the parents attempting to distinguish lies from truth.

            The Process for Corruption

            The quick answer to the “lies” problem is that only the demand for currency and not cash alone will support intangible assets such as health, welfare, and safety. It is the demand that counts. Whether represented by T-shirt sales, or flipping property, the process creates openings during and after the push and pull of a reform movement. The intent is to capitalize on the obstacles used in resistance to “the state” and when it is “the state.” When that happens, you have watched the parents at work on practical matters of intelligence. However, the accompanying values determine likely pathways along the historical arc of questions of currency encountering parental guidance.

            Those born after 1944 and before 1965 in New York City accept and understand how truth began to disappear worldwide. For New Yorkers, the disappearance has a date. On November 9, 1965, New York City suddenly lacked electric power for twelve hours, trapping about 800,000 people 2019 now reveal to New Yorkers that these disruptions are part of a continuum. Although this example, among many others throughout the world, is given a specific tipping point, the causes remain meaningless. These many failures have one reason – the rise in the demand for power coupled with systems of organized lying. The ensuing malaise has “tells such as the inadequacy exposed in, “we are doing the best we can,” or the hypocritical “thoughts and prayers,” sentiment.

            National Archives and Records Administration 1944

            Nevertheless, the “switch-trip” part of the truth on the cause of events such as a massive power failure remains a source of assurance, if not meaning. A mere nod to the web entangling every person plunged into a sudden market failure and crisis reveals the survival instinct among those with political capital and those without it. Social scientists recognize psychotic elements in the survival instinct embedded in ordinary people can also be found in large corporations as they continue to enlarge.

            The defining measures for a reduction of sanity include lack of remorse, unassailable leaders, disturbingly globalized economic structures, and resistance to comprehend the experience of others when damaged. Even war offers this unhopeful truth. With the enforcement of laws and regulations, the public is responding to disruptive behavior only to discover the impossible task of detecting future errors. Hence, the action creates a condition of contrast and comparison necessary to publish new law. That is the parent. The next question is about the currency of that parenthood.

            The Mask of Persuasion

            The desire for control over creating something that every human on the planet would pay ten dollars to acquire is arousing. Is this feeling similar to “love thy neighbor?” Both motives are undeniably human. But sadly, The Mask of Sanity (here) is on both sides, offering cash and currency. The free-wheeling explorations of the global capital mask are brought under political control all of the time, but not for long periods. These ventures cover the demands of social justice ideas routinely. Yet, the desire to get ten dollars from everyone every day to use a widget remains inevitable.

            Despite the production of vast imbalances, recently expressed as a series of dirty little wars, ultimately just war prevails for the lack of headway on other fronts. Progress by its Latin origin would be a combination of pro and gradi and translate to for the stride. The proverb — the road is made by walking is a personal expression of that kind of need for change. The desire to get to a new place or resolve differences through negotiation and compromise unavoidably involves the reallocation of a resource. The walk is through a government willing to enforce standards. The policy examines this demand for change based on risks such as lawlessness, disparate causes, and violent methods—all events representing good reasons for being conservative.

            The analysis of Ludwig von Mises (Bureaucracy 1944) and Friedrich Hayek (The Road to Serfdom 1944) describes today’s neoliberalism. They characterize the risks associated with FDR’s New Deal as a welfare state expression of communism and ensuing totalitarian control. Hayek’s book sales and the attention of the wealthy, fearful of powerful governments tuned by war, led to the Mont Pelerin Society, an organization dedicated to neoliberalism in 1947. Under these historical conditions and compassion for the status quo, the political aim embraces the spirit of reform. It is a foil against risk factors. A modern social reform will always look to a standard for justice in this granular context of the law built on the inadequacy of measures from one group to the next. Thus, the “he said, no, I said” context believes persuasion is the priority, not fact.

            From refugees to American homeowners, the focus on distinct groups (regions) sees resourceful individuals, corporations, and governments agreeing to mitigation regulation, watchdog administration, and planning. Hence, since 1944, the advent of exquisitely refined measures with terabytes of data per issue. Each can measure system conditions in continuous change from one state to another. The first test of this new order has two words – global carbon.

            From 1939 to 1944, the spectacular industry growth in steel, rubber, aircraft, munitions, shipbuilding, and aluminum became possible due to the infusion of public capital from 1933 to 1940. During these two periods, it was possible to build a public investment argument to resolve the excesses of business practices in response to an economic collapse and include the stimulus of a massive war in Europe.

            Similar to the climax of the industrial era, the technological revolution became equally exponential. An excellent example is the number of internet users at three million people1990 became nearly two billion by 2010 and four billion in 2020, representing over 50% of the earth’s population. It has occurred before, but this was the first time it was global. The macroeconomic impact was recognized early by Nobel Prize winner Robert E. Lucas Jr. in 1995.

            “For the first time in history, the living standards of the masses of ordinary people have begun to undergo sustained growth… Nothing remotely like this economic behavior has happened before.”

            Robert E. Lucas Jr

            Parenting

            Every parent knows that when you take a kid’s stuff away, privileges, or worse, their phone, or demean their political outlook, all hell can break loose. Setting milestones provide the mitigating factor to this crisis. Examples would be grounding for a week, reduced allowance, or driving privileges for a month. Parents can be very creative when controlling the household until they fail. The parents we are talking about here are very close to losing control of the kids. Very close, but then I came across a video blog by Anderson Cooper on the entire concept of parenthood. As it turns out, his quest to be the best parent possible offers valuable insight into the metaphor used here on the meaning of liberty in a free society.

            His first thoughts involved the newness of parenting and the seriousness of doing it well. His first post introduced his desire to have conversations with other parents and people who offer advice. His first interview was with Janet Lansbury regarding her insight into parenting.

            Kids’ personalities are constantly growing, and they should be observed and related to as persons. All parents have a unique relationship with kids. In this sense, it is the most private and most public of human relationships. Lansbury quickly clarifies the importance of the differences between parents and children, all parents and children of all ages, their caregivers, educators, and scientists. 

            The rate and absorption of content in these relationships vary in these relationships. The example given is when a baby reaches for an object. A parent might seek to give it to the child. Being mindful of differences suggests other interests, such as seeing fingers, feeling arm motion, or cloth texture. From the beginning of a relationship, it is essential to not “rush” and consider combinations of perceptions.

            Cooper’s inquiry then turned to how vital talking is in this relationship. From describing individual actions to making emotions known, the brains of young children function almost exclusively on sounds. The endeavor absorbs those that are inclusive and personally engaging from other sounds that are less so. At this point in the conversation, the idea of “braving the silence” came up. Like not rushing to give an object to a child, silence in a conversation is equally important in these relationships knowing the kids are not parents. Cooper noted it was a journalism technique to wait and listen for more during an interview to gain information.

            The example was how can a new kid not change everything when parent-child becomes parent children. The silence helps to more openly welcome the unstated feelings of change that represent new levels of change, such as confirming being upset about this change in awareness.   Confirmation bias remains a confirmation confirmed in the relationship.

            As most aunts and uncles will confess, it is easy to wind up the kids with the excitement of play itself. On the other hand, stopping play confirms a unique power component. As the parents will tell the aunts and uncles that the kids are not adults, parenting represents the initial relationship model followed by many others. When it is time to stop play, recognize “the courage to confirm” balance in building a life for the kids outside of the parent relationship is preeminent.

            Cooper then turned to a parent and colleague, Clarissa Ward, on the challenges of being a working parent. This portion of the interview hinged on media communications with kids instead of the warmth of a parent’s personal space. When separated, the parents are in pain. On the other hand, the deep emotion comes from knowing the kids are not. Despite the separation, parents struggle to discover what is best for their children. Nevertheless, if the kids still feel love, are being held, appreciated, and sense stability, the parent’s comfort remains strong and perhaps survives the entire journey.

            Government

            Because it was Anderson Cooper, it felt appropriate to replace parents with governing and the kids with the people as a schema on parallel analysis to determine the number of components needed to uncover the underlying structure of a large set of variables. So the following is a drill down on finding the government and people within a parent and child metaphor.

            His first thoughts involved the newness of governing and the seriousness of handling it well. His first post introduced his desire to have conversations with other governments and people who offer governing advice. His first interview was with Janet Lansbury regarding her insight into governing.

            People are busy forming their personalities and should always be observed and related as persons. All governments have a unique relationship with the people. In this sense, it is the most private and most public of human relationships. Lansbury quickly clarifies the importance of the differences between the governments and the people, all governments and people of all ages, their caregivers, educators, and scientists. 

            The rate and absorption of content in these relationships vary in these relationships. The example given is when a baby reaches for an object. A government might seek to give it to the child. Being mindful of differences suggests the potential for other interests, such as seeing fingers, feeling arm motion, or cloth texture. From the beginning of a relationship, consider combinations of perceptions and not “rush.”

            The subject then turned to how vital talking is in this relationship. From describing individual actions to making emotions known, the brains of young children function almost exclusively on sounds. The endeavor absorbs those that are inclusive and personally engaging from other sounds that are less so while separating the parents and kids, governments and people.

            At this point in the conversation, the idea of “braving the silence” came up. Like not rushing an object into a child’s hand, silence in a conversation is equally important in the relationships between people and governments. Anderson noted that the braving silence technique of journalism, to wait and listen for more during an interview, often gains essential information.

            An example was how new people (siblings) change everything is when silence helps to openly welcome the unstated feelings of change. The unsaid parts represent new levels of change, such as confirming being upset about this change in awareness.   Confirmation bias remains a confirmation confirmed in the relationship.

            As most aunts and uncles will confess, it is easy to wind up the people with the excitement play itself. On the other hand, stopping play confirms a unique power component. The government will tell the aunts and uncles that the people are not adults, and the government represents the initial relationship model followed by many others. When it is time to stop play, recognize “the courage to confirm” balance in building a life for the people outside of your relationship as the government is preeminent.

            Cooper then turned to a parent and colleague, Clarissa Ward, on the challenges of being a working parent. The conversation hinged on the “coldness” of media communications compared to the warmth of personal space. When separated, the government will experience severe pain. But, on the other hand, a deep emotion comes from knowing that the people are not. Despite the separation, parents struggle to discover what is best for their children. Nevertheless, if the kids still feel love, are being held, appreciated, and sense stability, the government’s comfort remains strong and perhaps survives the entire journey.

            Robert Gutman

            Robert Gutman

            In an all-encompassing life of research and study of the architecture profession, Robert Gutman (1926-2007) published a continuous critique of the state of that profession in a variety of well-grounded essays. It began with a 1965 research grant from the Russel Sage Foundation to explore interactions between architecture and sociology. This inquiry remains open and unresolved.

            Architecture is driven by the “status” associated with design in an advanced capitalist society. It can be described as high or low, quality vs. the lack of it, and as a condition that expands to include entire neighborhoods, new and old, restored and gentrified, diverse or isolated, and most recently environmentally terrified.

            Proving the Negative

            Why do people demand proof, verified, and vetted facts when it comes to making changes in the quality of life in a community but do not apply similar demands to the ghosts and gods of change? Are these not the most dangerous in the world? Are these ghosts not swirling in the fossil fuel of war and terrorism? These are known forces. Why the lack of will to fill the gap between these ghostly and the general expectation that a better world is possible? Gutman saw the raw subjectivity that insists the builders are doing well and called it false. As Robert Gutman put, there is,

            “an unreality of the espoused view of the world of practice is perpetuated by the profession itself, by the schools, and to some extent by the architectural press, and these distortions make it more difficult for architects to deal creatively and constructively with the problems which the profession faces.”

            Architectural Practice – A Critical View 1988

            What is the market for design among people who don’t believe they can afford it and have no respect for it? Are they correct? The provision of design resources is the initial architectural service and the entire built environment by extension. Do we accept that low- and moderate-income people represent an invisible segment in that market? The market exists with personal capital and credit. Others could be served, but only if serious gaps are acknowledged, and new values recognized.

            Rarely will community organizations find themselves like a paper in the top drawer of a desk where there is proof can they have the answer to the problems of their community. Instead, a nonprofit institution may find itself responsible for a combination of services meeting the needs of vulnerable families. You will often see them as accountable for producing and managing affordable housing and community facilities. Yet, you may also know them working under poor or deteriorating conditions made tragically complex by meager, sporadic assistance.

            To open that desk top, they will need built environment professionals to respond to their needs in a far less autonomous way. Unfortunately, architecture and those who study the structure and functioning of human society remain indecisive associates and silent to the indifference. Gutman, however, countered as a teacher by encouraging a significant segment of future architects to recognize that a form of architectural resistance, regardless of the disturbances caused, can help people demand a better world. These acts create a battle between design as fulfillment vs. corporate practice where the function is all that matters, leaving the work of realization to others. 

            Sustaining design as a resource for finding complex solutions to complex problems recognizes that design and architecture can lead the way. There will always be projects that have the potential to shift the status of architecture toward comprehensively better places. What is needed is a set of self-renewing political acts and the institutional continuity of a design purpose in a community.

            The technique of creating a drawing to envision a future or align intention is one of humanity’s most significant accomplishments. When done well, the design practice formulates what needs doing, and it has been so for thousands of years. In creating environments, whether raw survival or human actualization, the need is increasing among the invisible clients, and like refugees, altering the structure of demand. The entrants to the profession are undersupplied in this sector, often relegated to second-class status within the profession, yet this is the area of greatest need. It is vital to alter society’s perception of the architect as one with short-term relationships in a community. It is time make design a permanent institutional presence in underserved communities and make them as purpose-driven as a public school.

            Every urban region’s density and structural complexity are too siloed into rigid regimental structures and components to manage. However, these parts need to be recognized and defined as a whole by a local institution with the primary purpose of structurally understanding all of the connective tissues that make it part of a city. Therefore, this institution needs to be in a community as a permanent entity to ask one question until answers are produced. What is our design? How do we create and renew ourselves?

            The Opposite End

            In February 2022 an opinion article in the Chronicle of Philanthropy was offered to its readers entitled: Will More in Philanthropy Adopt the MacKenzie or Melinda Approach to Giving? The term “end of the scale” is used to describe the power expressed by dollars in trillions, because the quantity and management of these huge fortunes have produced an “opposite end” or a new extreme to examine in the world of charitable giving.

            First, the amount of cash involved is truly unfathomable but highly transparent via the Melinda Gates approach, and Mackensie Scott describes her approach to giving by saying her researchers and administrators form a constellation “attempting to give away a fortune that was enabled by systems in need of change.”

            The graphic below is a description of the Gates Foundation transparency by Wouter Aukema (here) as drawn from the foundation’s highly accessible database access (here). In Mackenzie’s blog, there is a list of nearly three hundred organizations given grants,($8.5 billion ), the suggestion that ongoing gifts may not be public, and the recipients will be trusted.

            The article closes with the “end of scale” elements that alter the traditional approach to the presumed partnership between vast wealth and the challenge of the 2010 Giving Pledge (Gates and Buffet) First, grants are made based on trust. Second, the cash is unrestricted, but the third end-of-scale element is the expectation that the funds reflect the problems the grant is addressing by directly benefiting those who experience those problems.

            The Not for Profit Architect

            Community Design

            Community Design’s institutional development history began in the 1970s (here). Its practitioners continue to bring a transformational idea to community development by investing time with people at very early stages regarding the design of everything, of all places in which they live and work, as vistas, rows of buildings, gateways, hallways, entrances, and portals through which life occurs. The result of this design approach has planners and architects on an entirely new path to advance the community development field through design — a practice through which all cultures embrace discovery.

            The philanthropic community continually improves its investment structure with resources that defend against threats and uplift the human spirit. The choices are many, improved educational opportunities and enhanced anticipation of economic shifts that leave people behind, including incentives and subsidies to level “the playing field.” These and many other investments in people are vital. But why leave the physical environment where these advances must occur to individual projects and urban landscapes defined by pre-supposed functions in poorly thought-out places? An investment in Community Design has become essential as it is greatly needed.

            One aspect of the need to take this position examines the trillions of charitable dollars flowing into the world economy. In a brief examination of two huge foundations (here), the list of recipients can be discovered to have acquired millions of these dollars. All of them expect to function in physical environments that are inadequate and crumbling around them, and not one dollar could be found in The Report aimed at the professions expected to help them build for change. The quality of the physical environment is as much a clear community design problem as it is to uplift the human spirit. The agents expected to be responsible are woefully unprepared. Community Design offers answers.

            Form Follows Feeling

            Community Design is a practice that builds visions for the future in neighborhoods. It builds confidence in the capacity for change. It is a power that shows community leaders, emerging leadership, and ordinary people how to align their interests to one modest goal that everyone can share – creating a beautiful community.

            In New York City, developers get added square footage as a supply-side incentive for affordable housing, known as mandatory inclusion. Other approaches look to demand-side subsidies to reduce economic disparities and support diversity. Unfortunately, these points of view are solely monetary decisions. As a result, there is very little design thinking beyond building height, bulk, and sky exposure.

            On the other hand, the design process provides a more vital understanding of development and control points in every imaginable aspect. When design thinking combines investment in people and places for social action, public engagement improves. Discovering a sequence of design innovations and integrations for creative use is a clear alternative to a predefined bulk with a function.

            Innovations in Community Development

            Architects interpret individual structures or combinations of places as a fabric that reveals a dimension of emotion and a capacity for insight into the human spirit and condition. Buildings transcend generations; structures decay, renew and adapt to ideas that form the design of a community many times over and for many generations. Vast physical areas are in constant physical change. Housing, schools, childcare centers, police and fire stations, shopping districts, parks, playgrounds, and places for worship fit as forms with functions along pathways. There is a design, but does the community see it, have a sense of control, and like or dislike the places surrounding them daily?

            Here are a few examples of the innovation in design thinking made possible through design as it engages a community

            More examples are needed that reflect the ideas below

            • Resources to regularly engage people in shaping strategy or discussing choices are routine and well-understood public engagement activities. However, the design effort to give shape to a place for these discussions is still haphazard.
            • Testing the viability of new program ideas or getting existing programs and services to scale for more significant impact is a common requirement of nonprofit organizations. However, community design is a valuable inclusionary testing process in determining choices and is rarely used to its potential.
            • Nonprofits are asked to evaluate new business models and earned revenue opportunities to sustain impact. Resources to examine the physical aspects of the ideas are rarely funded.
            • Design assists in aligning decisions, comparing material resource selections, and action plans based on days, months, and years to bring a strategy to life. Why do these services unexamined?

            More examples are needed that reflect the ideas above with one added thought.

            Design Democracy

            The Kettering Foundation, among several others, is a possible resource for design centers. It is a “protected” list and leads to a directory (here) of highly successful nonprofit firms. It is protected because of the attacks from for-profit firms. The Kettering Foundation, as an example of this content, expresses a singular purpose by asking, “what does it take for democracy to work as it should?” So naturally, a short question deserves a brief response from the community design point of view.

            Keep your imagination focused because we are in times that test our eyes and ears. Our imagination of the vote proves we can have expectations, but every community gets a different test. Let us explain.

            A vote is a test that fills in what we think is there but is limited by what we are expected to be in two, four, and six-year cycles. To pass or fail, yet grow, we learn to take the test of others as our own and work to become mates as if we were on a ship. Safe harbors such as your city or neighborhood offer time for preparation and a purpose, but to stay there is to fail a journey of unlimited tests that stretch from a front door to an equally fragile solar system distinguished only by the passage of time.

            Whether that ship is the earth in the cosmos or a small boat in the ocean’s current and wind, the thinking we use to define the problems does not help solve them. Democracies work as they should when they take tests of our thoughts and the validity of our ideals through action. The first test is the vote, and the second is on the value of one voice, “the committee of one,” and of the many in all forms that engage generations of thought and policy from dry runs to building something.

            Tests work as standards in the teaching/learning situation. They can be diagnostic regarding proficiency with a subject. They can be internal or external, objective or subjective but always fall to the hand of a final arbiter. In the case of a democracy, that would be the law. In matters of law, one or more legal tests help resolve the propriety of law as enacted. However, in the context of a congressional hearing, discovery, or other legal proceedings, the resolution of specific questions of fact or law now hinges on the application of valid assessments disregarded by the manipulation of rules. For democracy to work, replace the poor use of rules with final tests and an arbiter. The future of democracy is part of the American experience with oppression. This is most commonly considered a thing that happened and far too rarely as a thing made by us continuously and therefore demands Democracy.

            Design Centers

            In applications for financial support, we believe the “made by us” is an area where design and architecture skills offer enormous resources. It can advance democratic processes by establishing a community design practice as a bedrock institution. The vast physical landscape of the urbanized world is a product of planning and design professionals that do not control the outcomes envisioned by their masters, investors of capital. Establishing a community design practice in urban areas represents balance in analyzing the as-built environment, its preservation, and the impact of new build practices on what is standing. It is an evaluation through demonstrations of creating places that are beautiful for everyone in the eyes of all. This is the “behold” design challenge from the “front door” outward on the third rock from the sun.

            “Where would we be without the agitators of the world attaching the electrodes of knowledge to the nipple of ignorance?”

            John Lithgow

            Nathan Cummings

            Kavita Nandini Ramdas has departed after four months as president and CEO of the $473 million Nathan Cummings Foundation. If a social justice movement person needs help, have them look at their grant guidelines(here). The website has a “partner search” engine. I put in architecture, project, and “inclusive clean economy” from a drop-down menu to get a list of funded groups. One was the Auburn Theological Seminary. General Support $500,000 over 24 months in 2020 for its national programs that build the capacity of faith leaders, activists, and social movements.

            Updates

            Rockefeller Brothers Fund

            The program areas (here) offer several places of interest to Design Centers if they have some legs. Look at Democratic Practice and Sustainable Development and their China program, to a lesser degree, the Culpeper Arts & Culture, but worth a look.

            Rockefeller Logo

            The Chinese government has been responding to complex carbon challenges. The RBF’s grantmaking seeks to assist these efforts. For example, look at Shenzhen GoalBlue Low Carbon Development Promoting Center, a project to influence consumer behavior to promote sustainable, low-carbon consumption.

            The democracy program looks at innovative strategies for participating in governance, transparency, and accountability practices and institutions to achieve social, economic, and racial justice. Grassroots isn’t their style, so an outreach partnership with RBF-funded outfits like The Roosevelt Institute (100K) would be a good step. See RI’s video (here). Angle – what can a “think tank” do for Sunset Park?

            Same on sustainable work – practical approaches model support for a range of actions to address the threat of climate change, such as clean energy at local levels (e.g., micro-grids, other innovations). In the arts, the strategy would be to find and support local artists focused on the diversity of Sunset Park.

            No funding is anything that suggests funding individuals, only public sessions using the Pocantico Center, no youth funding, no capital expenses, lobbying, tickets, or tables.

            Resource for Community Design

            Perhaps the best way to ensure a smooth path forward with a nonprofit practice in architecture is to examine Form 990 of a similar organization with a long history. The Report recommends a short way.

            Download the latest IRS filing of Asian Neighborhood Design or a similar group with a few decades of practice. Then, ask your nonprofit tax specialist to examine and advise your offices regarding the findings of their controller in your annual fillings. A developing directory of Design Centers will be found here.

            The following resource is organized in service to the nonprofit organizations serving New York City with programs focused on the upland communities of the Brooklyn waterfront, from the Brooklyn Bridge to the Outer Bay of the Port of New York. In putting it together and managing it daily, members of The Report and its students of philanthropy have paused to consider one question. Very few resources will be found that focus on Community Design. Yet every neighborhood is a product of urban planners, architects and engineers involving decades of change. These physical environments hold the entirety of the human experience and every individuals outlook, sense of self, and security with every step. For this reason, the central task in the use of this resources is to comb these resources to find new ways in which the places in which we care for one another is recognized in new and unexpected ways regardless of economic status.

            The best place to start fresh is to get a digital subscription ($109 [? Smartphone cost per month]/yr.) for unlimited access to the website archives data with some analysis (here). In addition, the entry includes a power tool called the GrantStation (here), nonprofit adviser webinars, and newsletters. The objective is to work on a concept for each of the following and decide if it is worth anything. A pitch comes after asking why, who, and what.

            The Scherman Foundation has funds helpful to community-based organizations. The grants average $45K strengthening communities” program.

            Don Chen is the new $1 billion seven degrees. The Surdna Foundation provides “general support” to some of their long-term grantees and openly states the need to develop a long-term relationship. They carry three priority areas: Inclusive Economies, Sustainable Environments, and Thriving Cultures. The Grants Database (here) is the best way to see what attracted program officers in 2022.

            The Charles H. Revson Foundation has an Urban Affairs section (here). The grants support nonprofit organizations’ programs with “design innovations” for meeting a community’s needs. Projects that maintain and join independent cultural traditions can be seen in new civic spaces, revitalized libraries, affordable housing, and creative urban stories. Grants ranged from $45K $2M.

             The Annie E. Casey Foundation’s interests include an analysis of the merits and faults of assets in high-poverty neighborhoods that require new forms of investment reform or development in two areas of funding Community Change (Community Development). Economic Opportunity (Employment, Education, and Training)/ The average grant was $84,000 in 2017 out of $93 million [? Large city office building] to projects and activities that support children, youth, families, and communities.

            Rockefeller Brothers Fund
            The Graham Foundation
            Nathan Cummings

            Maura Pally, executive vice president of the Clinton Foundation, will be as executive director of the Foundation. Founded in 2007, the Blackstone Charitable Foundation creates programs that enhance entrepreneurial ecosystems. What that means is in 2010, the Foundation announced its Entrepreneurship Initiative, a global commitment to advance business networks (surprise?)

            One interest was the fund the Inner-City Scholarship Fund provides tuition assistance to underprivileged students attending schools in the Archdiocese of New York (see video here).

            Abelard Foundation

            Pitch

            SJSW and its director are dedicated to this cause and have a priority interest in using urban planning and architecture as a path to a more equitable society. 

            Why

            The Foundation is part of the Common Counsel Foundation and has a “grant portal” that requires a tax ID, website, etc.  (here). Have a look to see if we should develop contacts.

            Who and What

            The Foundation prioritizes projects in their first years of development with budgets less than $300,000. They must be grassroots groups and community organizers striving to establish a more equitable society.

            The constituents of Abelard East’s grantees are poor and low-income people seeking to affirm their civil or human rights. These include, among others, the disenfranchised, immigrants, workers, people of color, the disabled, and others.

            The Kettering Foundation is a nonprofit operating foundation rooted in the American tradition of cooperative research. Kettering’s primary research question is, what does it take to make democracy work as it should? 

            We have a better question.  Why have urban planners and architects been excluded from the design and implementation of a democratic process? Perhaps another way of examining the phrasing of this question would be to ask questions about foundation policy serving design interests or to determine why the architectural profession fails to seek a public no larger than a possible client? That is our insight into defining the problems of democracy, and the experience of these problems working with people on the broad physical conditions of their existence and how these components contribute to the health and well-being of every family and household of a neighborhood.

            The possibility of exploring a community design research project is explored (here) under the heading “The Not for Profit Architect” as a social enterprise in architecture.

            The Graham Foundation

            The Graham Foundation is well known for its contributions to the work of architects and designers as thought leaders. In recent grant programs, grantee projects (research), and public programs (social advocacy) The Available City program Chicago Architecture Biennial (Sept – Dec. 2021) revealed that some thinking never changes, fails to develop, and feeds on the most lasting problem of our time.

            The video below describes a recent public program initiative of the Graham Foundation. As one involved in projects exactly like those below, only a half-century ago. The shock continues to be nothing has changed. It is as if I am watching a time loop with irrevokable power.

            After watching it is easy to rationalize my experience and theirs. The vacant lot conversions of my New York past are now well-institutionalized community gardens or taken city-owned land absorbed into more extensive projects such as a head start center and housing. I wrote of one example in Brownsville, New York (here).

            Another part of the surreal time loop feeling of “now it is all happening to you” is more critical regarding the essential sadness beneath the optimism of The Available City video. It is for the lack of robust, institutional stewardship of the built and “to be demolished” environment this is capable of reforming real estate development as a process. The lack of that stewardship allows the renewal strategy to be little more than restocking a supermarket shelf with packaged and processed, nutritionally neutral foods. Or, it could be worse than that. It supports development practices that are pleased to support a vacant, lead soil lot for a modest community garden or some adventure play. Oh, and a vague hint of change.

            The sadness is that these are earnest attempts to create a new life. They reflect the possible elimination of poverty with further use. The design builds on a grand purpose, recalling the loss by considering rebirth. Yet, to this day, the despair remains. It is limited to vegetables or keeping a playground safe amidst the chaos of the vacant lot neighborhoods of Chicago or those of Brooklyn. It was not enough then, and it is still that way.

            The Theory of Change

            Combining ideas about systems of thinking needed to explain something is based on principles independent of the thing to be explained because they involve feelings and therefore values. On the other hand, direct actions seek to make someone or something different. The acts alter or modify an existing condition into a new one.

            The banners in the above graphic on the “Theory of Change” combine ideas with action applied in various institutional settings. It is a discipline worthy of routine use in achieving long-term goals. Community feelings are the vibrant heartbeats of change or the lack of it. Perhaps this is why the phrase “community design” is used by the architects and planners interested in social change to describe the creation of a successful design. It is a quesion of the relationship and the “arms length” selection of a working relationship.

            RLC

            Interventions

            The goal of philanthropic investment in supporting community vibrancy, financial sustainability, and resilience integrates three fundamental objectives:

            1. To magnify local power to address this generation’s pressing societal and environmental challenges to equitable change
            2. To implement strategies and programs to make self-sustaining organizations possible with solutions developed in partnerships with financial asset associates.
            3. To confirm new and traditional investment models that break down portfolio and grantmaking barriers to reduce the conflict of interest between short-term impact and the desired permanency of inclusion, diversity, and equity.

            Of course, these are not the only objectives, but they can be measured. The purpose of an intervention is to bring about an outcome. For example, in community design, the construction and rebuilding of physical space is an intervention in a communities life. But unfortunately, terminology can get people hung up. For example, the production of tall residential buildings in a community yields a variety of emotions. Understanding a community’s experience of this as an intervention is an excellent example. In it, the relationship between community and design becomes extant. However, another less complicated example would be helpful regarding a desire to produce change instead of reacting to one.

            “In ten years, the number of children from impoverished backgrounds that become successful students and citizens will be doubled in community-X to help meet broad citywide diversity, equity, and inclusion goals.”

            When stated as a long-term goal with implied objective components (i.e., defining “successful student,” “impoverished household.” “doubled”) establishes a base criterion. That done, a set of possible actions can become strategic.

            The next step is to provide a structure that will prove a proposed intervention is working. The desire for change lacks meaning without an empirical basis along the path to its achievement. So a tactical prototype could be “after-school programs.” The steps following this decision would be to create a managing policy and a supportive work plan involving students, faculty, space, and material resources. In addition, the spatial and project design for the program would take active shape with a sense of priority regarding implementation.

            Why a Theory of Change? (TOC)

            Kurt Lewin’s work as a psychologist initiated a strong understanding of human cognition combined with social change. His work became a significant interest of the Aspen Institute (Roundtable on Community Change). As a result, Aspen is credited with the broad dissemination of TOC and its wide acceptance. While it began under the auspices of Aspen in the 1980s, the body of work “in the field” over the last forty years has produced well-received and practical examples of TOC efficacy.

            A global leader on TOC implementation is Actknowledge – a nonprofit organization in New York City. The founder of Acknowledge, Heléne Clark, has helped expand TOC from its early beginnings to include the Center for Theory of Change to provide additional training and education resources worldwide.

            In 2007, the first web-based processes offered by the Theory of Change became available. Since then, it has drawn nearly 25,000 registered participants. The impressive list of Acknowledge TOC clients is (here) for review. In addition, a series of publications are available (here) for further reading. Also, there are a variety of spin-offs. One example points to the Theory of Change compared with the Logic Model used by ASAID (here) and more broadly (here).

            The logic method is linear. It is used to extrapolate and optimize what exists as knowable. The process is functional, but there is an alternative. Design thinking offers equally practical processes by which concepts develop through a feedback loop that includes verifying measures yet involves a wider range of participants. 

            Applications to Planning, Design and Architecture

            Since Lewin’s founding work and the investment by the Aspen Institute, the Theory of Change is recognized today as a revolutionary contribution to social change because it is counterintuitive. TOC is an alternative to the prevailing thought that following specific indicators such as prescribed functions will lead to a design program. However, the sole use of “indicators” or “outputs” are not sufficient contributors to long-term social change as a process.

            Implementing TOC is supported by the  Four W’s — asking who, when, where, and why, followed by how. The answers help define a change in the context of feelings — asking how injects that emotion into a place. As a thought experiment exercise, asking why with a minimum of five responses also produces tangible results. Working with a community to gain information specifying an experience with change (also known as the Big What?) has significant implications for the end products created by design and architecture. TOC offers an excellent pathway. Here is another example.

            The experience of travel is a helpful example to share regarding the practice of goal setting. Simply traveling is one aspect; however, it is very different when feelings and destinations allow for distinctions. For example, heading for Alaska requires significant differences in thinking compared to the Philippines. Getting to those differences and back-mapping to a present location offers many preparation planning and action choices with a place and a time.

            In social change, it is crucial to develop a similar set of specifics to produce the needed perspective — it does seem counterintuitive to work backward from the desired outcome. Social change succeeds when the practice commands a combination of qualitative and quantitative measures. A well-known New York urban planner often quotes Yogi Berra, “You have to be careful if you don’t know where you are going because you might not get there.”

            The example of the after-school program would require several specific quantities (attendance, grades, testing, grad rates) followed by results in the post-education experience of former students in the long term. Of equal importance, however, is the quality of experience. The feeling of getting to a destination. Here is one example of TOC’s impact on design. One fieldwork TOC effort sought to discover meager attendance rates in a Manhattan elementary school. It proved not to be the cause of parental or teaching behavior initially considered a function of the problem—a fully applied TOC process discovered it was the school’s adjacency to a high school with abusive students. The design solution – alter the design using time and the pathways. Initiate efforts at the HS level to effect change.

            The contribution of TOC to the practice of community design is its emphasis on “long-term” when the goal is to achieve a social change as an outcome. Even randomized surveys of human opinion ironically prove that people lie on surveys. A typical example is that many people will say they practice recycling compared to the far lower percentage of actual household recycling. The TOC message is that it is difficult to measure an attitude accurately, but it is possible to measure observed behavior correctly.

            Endnotes

            Lewin’s 3-Stage Model of Change: Unfreezing, Changing & Refreezing. (2012, September 11) is available in (here).

            In addition, two publications for downloading from Actknowldege examine goal formation and back mapping as a process for selecting short, medium, and long interventions to achieve outcomes. Theory of Change Technical Papers (Dr. Dana H. Taplin, Dr. Heléne Clark, Eoin Collins, and David C. Colby) and Basics, A Primer on Theory of Change, (Dr. Dana H. Taplin, Dr. Heléne Clark)

            Don’t Look Up

            It wasn’t mortifying George, it was liberating! www.monbiot.com

            For every concerned adult, it is the same old story and it can cause emotional collapse.

            “I was reminded of my own mortifying loss of control on Good Morning Britain in November. It was soon after the Cop26 climate conference in Glasgow, where we had seen the least serious of all governments (the UK was hosting the talks) failing to rise to the most serious of all issues. I tried, for the thousandth time, to explain what we are facing, and suddenly couldn’t hold it in any longer. I burst into tears on live TV.”

            Losing It Posted: 10 Jan 2022 02:20 AM PST. Following is what reminded him of tragic pointless action.
            The incredulous air of a planet death film. We die slow, so duh! The planet can too. ACT!

            How do you process bad news? What is your sense of urgency? Have a look at: “My Represent Us Story,” and the “Unbreaking America” video with Jennifer Lawrence and Josh Silver. Nearly two million people saw it by February 2019.

            The following 12 minutes is the answer.

            It has succeeded west coast and northeast. Our friends in Michigan, Nebraska, Arkansaw, Missouri, and all over the South are working. Are you? It is just 12 minutes. Get the verticle line answer.

            New York, NY Metro COI

            The argument for hearing out a democratic socialist will occur because we are headed there anyway. There are many reasons for this evolution of social governance in the complex urban community. After WWII, American people will remember that their parents or grandparents could purchase a new car every year; wages were strong and ahead of inflation. Their employers and unions negotiated good health insurance services, supported public schools, and helped with their children’s higher education goals. Well-supported retirement plans were common. What we do not remember is everything between WWI and WWII.  It is remembered as the Great Depression, not the hundreds of big government programs and policies that pulled ordinary people out of desperate times. Historians document this shift in America well, but it has faded from the American culture to become an unknown.

            • Francis Fukuyama (The End of History and the Last Man 1992) In this work, he does not neglect to say there will be a century or more for globalization to establish liberal democracy. Nor will this tumultuous century inject greater prosperity into the world easily. The trade and communications economy could bring the world close to peace and prosparity, but only if Reinhold Niebuhr was wrong in 1932 (Moral Man and Immoral Society).

            Social Democracy

            Jack Dangermond is the founder and president of Esri, a geographic information system software company approaching $6 billion in assets since its formation in 1969. Thanks to rapid transformation in every aspect of digital technology, it is possible for an ordinary person to examine the availability of complex data sets by location. Jack’s interests are global, yet he is one of the people that fully understand that people will think local. It is about their front door and acting accordingly for events such as the welfare of their children. Take a few minutes (here) with his presentation ongoing global to local.

            The Child Opportunity Index (COI) map is an excellent example (here) and is pictured below. It is calculated based on Education, Health & Built Environment, and Neighborhood Social & Economic Opportunity indicators. The Kirwan Institute published this research free and online because it works to create a just and inclusive society where all people and communities have the opportunity to succeed. For more information, visit their website (here).

            It is developed here as a link shared with a discussion of a large housing development project near Flushing Creek in Queens. The need for this development to recognize related community development interests (e.g. childhood opportunity) is clear. What is not evident is whether the development will displace those young people, or bring them the future.

            Point Layers

            Polygon Layers

            Housing + Transportation

            The ESRI resource brings data to people, freely and without cost. It is not a service offering answers to problems, it is an invitation to people to recognize their power. In the example below the people of Flushing, Queens, and a large section of New York City do not need an automobile. What they do need is a high-quality investment in the subway and related mass transit system to be competitive with private transit. The people of NYC are the low-carbon emitters, however, they are not well represented.

            Remote Sense

            Jack Dangermond is the founder and president of Esri, a geographic information system software company approaching $6 billion in assets since its formation in 1969.

            The technology to watch systems deteriorate and thrive at the local, regional and global level of observation is available. Jack illustrates the power of geospatial data in a mere six minutes. Still, the solution offered is frustration personified, but only if the tragedy of the commons moves from the pasture to the planet. or the alternative (here) “let’s all work together” is realistic.

            Without a doubt, he expresses a powerful sense of urgency. It is worrisome, but Jack sees how geography has a way of combining the self-interest found at every doorstep with the regional thresholds of common interest and, after that, the hope of a global capacity to manage change.

            The technological capacity to combine orbiting remote sensing tools and the somewhat ominous ability to predict land/ocean uses as they change is astounding. In addition, Esri’s interest in supporting open source business and pubic agency planning and development data is comforting.

            With regular programming and artificial intelligence mapping and analysis, Jack calls upon all people and organizations to the geospatial platform. He sees it as a central tool for understanding local, regional, and global conditions as one with the power to improve planning, policy- and decision-making on the ground in every “layer” imaginable.

            Do you or your organization use a GIS system for making decisions in an area of public interest? Examples are housing, public safety, air, and water quality, tenant organizing, public markets, food deserts — you get the idea.

            If you are unfamiliar with this resource, consider opening a public account where information is made freely available by ESRI with the help of local, regional, and national organizations. Have a look (here)

            An example from a member of The Report is available for review (here).

              Please Respond

              The White Chair

              Michael Wolf

              The White Chair Prompt

              The photographer’s relationship to architecture equips us with a possibility — an agreement of care for the immense impact of density on human life.

              The artist’s eye on urban density requires an exploration of beauty with the planet in mind. Michael Wolf’s favorite photograph of Hong Kong (here) may not be this landscape from his website homepage. Still, it reveals the opportunity for reflections on intensely urbanized life and the wildness of that white chair. With his help, one can explore a series of graphic landscapes (here) that force quality of life thinking with visceral effect. The sense of humanity in his pictures discovers shades of life’s transparency (here). His portraits reveal the beating heart of society.

              Imagine the white chair as an opportunity to gain perspective on the purpose of architecture. What do we reveal if the spread of these apartments became small buildings spread across the hills and valleys below? Is it possible to slip into the ground space among these structures to discover an abundant sense of warmth and protection, art and entertainment, education and training, fresh garden foods, children laughing, the soft bounce of a ball? Are the hallways, corridors, doors, and elevators equally comforting? These questions dismiss judgment of architectural mass for a higher level of contemplation on the quality of dense urban life.

              Startups

              Startups are efforts to plan and deliver a new project, program, product, or service under conditions of uncertainty. To examine the precariousness implied, pay close attention to five well-recognized organizing views   They are known to business development interests in every field. Software services dominate today’s startup business market, but these systemizations of the entrepreneurial spirit probably date to when someone imagined a potter’s wheel becoming a vehicle.

              RLC

              Here are those five views:

              Entrepreneurs are 1) everywhere 2) most have management skills 3) and they are subject to “validated learning.” (?) Therefore, the fourth and fifth views focus on 4) implementation as a “build, measure, learn” sequence but rarely are they well informed by 5) innovation accounting.

              If you hit that “? link,” you took a peek into the twilight zone of management gurus and a vast array of elegant maxims for ending uncertainty. One of those clever maxim gurus, Eric Reis, The Lean Startup made enough sense to hold a strong place on the NYT Best Seller List (roughly 5-10K sold per week to get on the list, then rising to #2). You will also find his approach transferable to the nonprofit, NGO world. The following is how we read it from that point of view.

              Deem it possible to create ventures for an idea in short precise cycles. In that case, the institution, business, or industry size is not relevant. Instead, the key to using these views for a project is to notice changes, savor them and validate what was learned. A startup can perfectly or poorly select the metrics for deciding. Some of the most common are linked below that focus on the more agile sequences.

              The startup strategy may seem obvious, but it varies significantly by the project or product sought. The traditional steps are 1) setting the requirements, 2) with specifications, to 3) begin design.  As these steps occur, they make the problem and the product solution prominent in the mind of individuals.  With this comes the confidence to 1) implement, 2) verify with modeling, and 3) test for maintenance and usability issues. Finally, the practice of fully recognizing the problem/issue leads to trusting the intended solution as understood equally. Unfortunately, these concluding steps tend to involve unsatisfactory participatory bargaining frameworks, even with oneself. To prevent these malfunctions from destroying the whole, innovation accounting is essential, especially to “startup” initiatives. There is a useful introduction to the novelty implied by this phrase from Reis (here).

              What is the Account?

              The release of a project/program into “the wild” may deploy many iterations for acceptance, rejection, and eventual dismissal into the market and a life of use destined to fail or soar. Trying to understand customers with specific consumable solutions (Joost vs. YouTube ?) share this unknown destiny. The effort to inject something into the world, even if it is a singular, unique item, hopes for approval marked by an exchange. Thereafter, the use and enjoyment, or how likely it will be dismissed or displaced by a competitor, is less concerned. Only the uncertainty seems sustainable. Nevertheless, the practices described above are reasonably successful when the solution and the problem are well known and similar to past endeavors.  Injecting the lasting practice of discovery into the “account” requires a diversified approach.

              All the iterations of a known solution from the horse and carriage to a self-driving car led to this brief tale on innovation.

              Leaving the country estate, Sir Alfred Reid passed out while driving his carriage. He awakens outside his London home, surprised he stroked his horse and stumbled off to his bed. Thereafter, he was happy to tell everyone that he had a good-pony-solution or GPS.

              Getting to transformative innovation in transportation doesn’t mean putting everyone into Sir Alfred’s carriage. Instead, this tale represents a singular feedback failure. However, even though creating systems as functional as a horse’s pathway memory appears to be today’s advanced technology, it does not. It merely presses for a known and comfortable solution. Moreover, it ignores innovation accounting disciplines in preference to the useful comforts of validated learning. Finally, it fails by not understanding the customer, only the product. The account is a practice that maintains a reckoning with customers as immediately as possible. In this century, the open-ended practice of dropping sparkling objects ere the consumer’s eye is one of the most self-destructive mistakes to social and environmental well-being ever made. Reis argues it is for the lack of revolutionary innovation. We agree.

              What is Innovation?

              Successful innovation has two sides of a coin. One moves quickly to understand conditions in short-time sequences. The other side uses data from these compact arrays that define relationships. Thus, two sides of a coin establish opportunity, but you have to move like Mario with new data. (?)

              How? First, with your product or service, create a clearly established baseline composed of a minimally sustainable/viable product (MSVP). Sustainable means undamaging to future generations, and viable, in our opinion, means “not dead yet.” Couple the MSVP with the ability to measure customer utilization and behavior as it occurs. Next, collect the short cycle data and measure each trial. Savor the metrics in these cycles, but know they must be carefully selected.  

              No matter how innovative, a point of diminishing returns occurs. If attention is only paid to the first two components of the accounting effort, trouble will brew.  The final benchmark, therefore, becomes knowing when to pivot or persevere. Despite the uncertainty of this decision, recognizing the third side of the coin is critical during this process. The pivot or persevere side is the one on which it spins. Here is one story of the “when, where, and why” of a pivot.

              In the mid-1980s, a well-known university architecture and urban planning program offered its students two studios entitled Community Design and Social Action to be taken sequentially. The courses were supported by a small administrative office that vetted requests for planning and design assistance from local community development organizations throughout the city. One prospective client approached the office with an idea for an extensive training and education center. The center would heighten the skills of volunteers from neighborhood associations and the staff of community-based development corporations.

              The Community Design course provided the planning and research for the concept. Within fifteen weeks, the idea of a training center proved positive, as confirmed by a study of community needs, availability of participants, and a line of probable funding for training people. However, capital for a new or rehabilitated physical location was not available. As a result, the client’s dream of a bustling center of social change agents faded. New questions were asked in the next fifteen-week Social Action cycle. Is space of any size available to demonstrate the training idea? Eventually, a location previously thought of as undesirable was re-identified. It was small but in a convenient location. It represented a minimal but sustainable opportunity. At this point, a clearly identified program baseline was defined. The product became the design and construction of a flexible set of inexpensive, lightweight tables and vertical surfaces adaptable for small-group workshop areas and moderately large presentations.

              Tools for Resilence

              The first distribution of sequences occurred in fifteen weeks, involving traditional steps. The project could have produced one process: presentation drawings for an extensive training center design along with a hearty handshake and a good luck smile. However, the metrics to demonstrate successes/failures would have been obscure. So instead, the Social Action component in the ensuing fifteen weeks asked to identify a minimally sustainable product. It was assigned metrics and benchmarks to sustain a record of accomplishment lasting years. In this process, multiple layers for understanding “the customer” occurred in just thirty weeks. The project selection process for access to this planning and design resource used a detailed online questionnaire. In brief, it incorporated the organization’s characteristics, the type of assistance requested, background logistical data, timeframe, names of committed participants, mission statements, and extra-investigative elements. It was the minimum sustainable product for establishing essential data to define opportunities for a close customer relationship.

              The project began with students, faculty, and a client/customer. The customer/client transformation into a training director was possible because the initial selection and interview process and research confirmed the client’s skills and experience in attracting customers. In this training center case, a modest effort was launched with volunteers and staff. Unfortunately, the process came face-to-face with the spinning side of that coin, and rather than persevere in hope. There was a pivot.

              In the decades since this example, the capacity for a deep exploration of the relationship between technical assistance needs of all kinds and the desire of leaders to improve the quality of change is available for development. It lies in a vast digital matrix for expediting the delivery of products and services with a built-in capacity for rapid change. With the thirty-week sequence, including uptake and administrative follow-up support, this customer joined a growing movement of nonprofit local development corporations, community-based organizations, businesses, and companies dedicated to mission-driven change in metropolitan areas.

              Draw Conclusions

              Feedback is best when it is unhesitating in a social setting. However, moving quickly from idea to building and measuring, gathering data, and leaning back into a conceptual idea should also be immediate. Developing a digital backbone for networks is extremely useful but demands new techniques. The links below can be explored for ideas on how to gather and share data on a platform.

              From the fine artist or artisan to the builders of the new, new thing, the content of a post-product relationship varies dramatically. These relationships are vital but can be as simple as “how is that ‘it‘ working out for you” to the millions of data queries accessible by grouping values that aggregate items using the discrete categories of mathematical functions. Functions such as arithmetic mean, median, mode, range are available to anyone that decides to count things and, with their customers, build a platform to do so. A startup can establish a relationship with all those interested in acquiring a mutually useful set of products or services with prepared resources. These systems can focus on money solely, but the metrics are available to include other views such as those expressed by the term 3BL (?).

              Whether for a social change training center or alternatives to a self-driving pod, the practice of innovation demands a careful selection of metrics. Moreover, the choice to engage in social change training or urban transportation engineering requires interacting with people and serving investors of all kinds. The following links will take you to a set of choices. Some of them may be uniquely suited to your program, project, or product development. Most will not. The options are many to choose from. They tend to focus on digital products. However, even the smallest product and service endeavor will have a digital existence. Transcending the customer-consumer model begins with the challenges of mutuality, transparency, and environmental intelligence. Understanding new and extraordinary ways to establish reciprocity in the exchange is the central provocation.

              The following needs vetting. Each link is a rabbit hole to peek into for one reason. A fast sequence could list clients to compile a customer/client archetype and possible recommendations and referrals. A fast measure could be to prepare a split test occupied with a fast build unit test. If you have a website, you have an SQL database subject to refactoring. As mentioned above, these are rabbit holes. Choosing by adding information is not.

              We are interested in personal reactions and recommendations useful for NGO B Corporation efforts. If you have some to share, please use the contact link (here). For example, becoming a Certified B Corporation® (here) does not refer to tax status at all; it describes a business with a particular mission to promote the public good in certain ways. Another post (here) examines New York City B-Certified businesses and seeks reviews.

              Fast Sequence

              Fast Measure

              Fast Build

              1. Split Tests
              2. Five Whys
              3. Customer Advisory
              4. False Hypothesis Test
              5. Archetype Customers
              6. Smoke Tests
              1. Split Test (HBR Article)
              2. Continuous Deployment
              3. Usability Test
              4. Customer Liaison Example
              5. Funnel Analysis
              6. Cohort Analysis
              1. Unit Test
              2. Continuous Integration
              3. Just in Time
              4. Refactoring
              5. Sandbox
              6. Minimum

              B Corporations

              The B Lab Company (B Lab) is a nonprofit (IRS Form 990 N.E.C. (W99) that serves a global movement of people using business as a force for good.  Located in Berwin, PA (EIN20-5958773 its mission is “to change the operating system, culture, and practice of business so that all companies compete to be best for the world.  In 2020 it self-reported about 12M in revenue and 10M in expenses (Guidestar).

              Is B Corp Certification Worth It?

              A Certified B Corporation® (here) does not refer to tax status; it describes a business with a particular mission to promote the public good in certain ways. B Corp Certification measures a company’s entire social and environmental performance. The B Impact Assessment evaluates and verifies operations and business model impact on workers, community, environment, and customers.

              Transparency and accountability requirements are used but do not prove where a company excels, however it commits a company to the long-term changes in a company’s legal structure.  A true Benefit Corporation is formed under state law. A list of NYS statute-produced corporations (here) does not include businesses with B Lab certification.

              Public authorities have the power to create subsidiary authorities without additional legislative authorization. An example is 2007, the Empire State Development Corporation, (ESDC) dissolves 13 of its subsidiaries and merged 25 others into a single holding company and still encompasses many subsidiary organizations. While major public authorities can only be created by special legislation, many local development corporations have been created under the General Not-For-Profit Corporation Law as Local Development Corporations (LDC). They function in much the same way as other public benefit corporations and public authorities, but do not need to be established by specific state legislation and like businesses seek B Corp Certification. The speculation is the surge in interest seeks to soften the negatives associated $1.5 trillion tax cut package in 2018. Even B Lab posts an apology for certification delays.

              Should a new startup seek a B Corporation Certification as a means to link other studio and production activities?  One way to find out is to look at the current group that has certification in New York. Using the B Lab directory the following selection of B Corporations based in New York City and nearby areas can be explored. The image to the right exhibits a selection from the B Corp directory. Use it (here) for individual searches not found on the list to the left. Reviews are requested and held in confidence. Use the contact link (here).

              See https://bcorporation.net/directory