How to Save the World

Good Working Models of Social Networking: The other day I prescribed a methodology for introducing Web 2.0 social networking applications into your organization. But what's missing are good working models, 'templates' that we can use to sell the concept and to illustrate to the unfamiliar what is possible with these tools and methods. So, for example, is there a way to 'pre-structure' a wiki for a particular purpose (say, to enable virtual collaboration on an intractable organizational problem) so that it will be more likely to succeed in that purpose? Is there an ideal layout or template for a group blog for a particular purpose (say, to integrate and leverage the work of a disparate community of practice) so that it will be more likely to succeed in that purpose?

Telling the Politicians What's Possible: Much of the rancorous debate on environmental issues is directed at appealing to ideological audiences -- getting elected (or re-elected) rather than getting anything done. What we need are groups outside of the political process to produce policies and laws that offer a practical alternative to what we have (and don't have) today. Example: Big Oil and US conservatives recently provided the ultra-conservative Canadian minority government of Stephen 'mini-Bush' Harper with a blueprint for appearing concerned about the environment while actually doing nothing. Not surprisingly, the opposition parties, and Canadian environmentalists (David Suzuki) and US environmentalists (Al Gore) have all denounced it. But now the debate is all about what is wrong with this (non-)policy, when it should be about what policy, programs, and immediate actions to take instead. What we need is for non-politicians like Suzuki and Gore to actually draft a national policy with specific, year-by-year targets, laws and penalties that would enable Canada (and then, perhaps, the US) to surpass our Kyoto targets, and meet the more stringent, urgently needed targets set out in George Monbiot's Heat. In other words we need to reframe the debate about what's possible, rather than what the corrupt, inept, out-of-touch politicians indebted to corporatist funders table as party policy. Then we can get people talking openly about real actions instead of obfuscations, and challenge the political parties to adopt these scientifically-based (not politically-based) policies as is, without compromise or back-room deals. And then instead of Tweedledum or Tweedledee, on election day we can choose between parties that have the courage to commit to specific actions, and parties that don't. And if no party shows that courage, we can start creating new parties that will.

I think it is necessary to strike a balance between closing yourself off to contrary points of view too early (which I think we are by nature predisposed to do) and getting so 'rapt up' in the debate that it becomes an end in itself and an excuse for permanently deferring action. I also think many debaters, and listeners to debates, are dishonest -- the debaters too often are really seeking to reassure themselves, and the listeners too often selective in their listening to only hear what agrees with their preconceptions. And to me a dishonest debate is a waste of time and worse than no debate at all. And finally, debate can only put what we think we know and believe intellectually up to scrutiny -- much of what we know and believe is emotional or sensory or intuitive, and our languages are just inadequate to debate these, and so debates tend to belittle non-intellectual knowledge, which biases us against this important knowledge and renders much debate merely academic. [PS: there's a fascinating story in today's NYT about the "curious" debate - "more like a dialogue" between French leftist candidate for President Ségolène Royal and the third-place finisher in the first round François Bayrou]