Theory of Change: A Collaborative Tool?

I have found that like program evaluation, and any logic mapping exercise, and by extension, any planning exercise, the end result has a lot more to do with communication than the method used to plan. It seems everyone is excited about Theory of Change right now, but I am not clear how the methodology is presenting anything new.

I would be a lot more excited about a dynamic way for people to be engaged in the planning process. It seems something like Agile has gone a lot further to influencing human behavior as it pertains to planning than any logic mapping methodology has.

But again, maybe I am missing the point...

:)

-Scott

Hi Scot:

You say, "the end result has a lot more to do with communication than the method used to plan" and that may well be true. The question then becomes, are there some planning processes which surface more or better questions in ways which enhance the communication?

I don't think you are missing the point, but perhaps raising a related one? If so, that's all to the good IMO.

Okay, I am a former academic who lived and breathed theories. But even I would ask fellow do-gooders to stop theorizing too much about the natural process of idea selection and implementation. Enough.

I stumbled on a revolutionary management method by first practicing it, then realizing the extraordinary nature of it and only later theorizing about it. And the more I plugged it in different situations, the more applications I saw for it. As you see, the order of idea development was just the opposite to "The" Change Theory.

Churchill once quipped that men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened.
So, how's this for a "theory": just look under your feet (or your nose, if you have a desk job.:) If you need an authority justification for that, read Taleb's "The Black Swan" and become an empiricist (a practitioner who actually finds things by doing, not simply theorizing about them.) If you get your hands dirty while actually changing the world, you and the world will get served just splendidly.

Then write me a note what a nice chap I am.;)

Andrei Vorobiev
www.CorruptionManagement.com

Hi, Andrei:

You write "I would ask fellow do-gooders to stop theorizing too much about the natural process of idea selection and implementation. Enough." It depends on the individual's skill-set, surely? Some people will find that having a comprehensive, ready-made planning procedure helps them enormously, some will generate their known because they're built that way.

I'm constantly reminded that we humans have different styles and aptitudes, weaknesses and strengths.

So from my POV, knowing those weaknesses and strengths (at the individual or organizational level) may be key -- and those who know they need an outside structure may find The Theory of Change fits their needs.

Or not, perhaps... Some people simply generate their own heuristics.

You sound like a nice chap Andrei, I suspect you don't need any confirmation of that. Winston Churchill also once quipped 'a fanatic is one who can't change his mind or won't change the subject' - fanatics and theorists probably have a lot in common.

Even with an ounce of action worth a ton of theory, I agree with Scott Charles, the end result 'has a lot more to do with communication' (in planning and evaluation) than any other form of methodology or strategy, especially in the articulation of assumptions with 'dozens of opinions and points of view' in interventions, outcomes and expectations.

With what is used to measure progress - in collaboration, and understanding the complex web that brings about change - like your music metaphor, communication in collaboration 'works best as an underlying structure with flexibility along the way' ie with innovation. As connecting the dots is always a process in innovation, as well as in backwards mapping, (in looking backwards with underlying assumptions tested and measured whatever the pathway frameworks) it's in finding ways to capture new information for the knowledge base, that's the platform/building block to progress.

In measuring change, moving forward I see the ultimate theory, as a graphic representation of how communication works (whatever the medium/enterprise) in raising the collective vibration to a higher level, that's if the goal is a roadmap for humanity and the planet to get from here to there, together.

Hi again, Jo:

It seems to me that your "ultimate theory" bears some similarity to Ravi's point about up-stream causes (see below), and I wonder whether Ravi's post and/or my response connect with your concerns, albeit expressed in somewhat different terms?

You also remind me of my old love for and one time major project on the Glass Bead Game of Hermann Hesse. And Teilhard's "noosphere". And the Hua-yen "net of Indra".

No, Jo, I often need people's confirmation that I am a nice chap. And keep in mind that I frequently change my mind in view of hard evidence. But mostly of hard evidence, not the poetry of some scientifically-sounding gobbledygook.

Besides, and now I am speaking to the entire crew of commenters here, not Jo, can't we write less in the symbolic code and more in college grade prose? But no higher - English isn't my first language and I suspect it is nor the first language of the majority of those who are supposed to benefit from this discussion. They, like I, might get lost in the verbiage of our shmeories - darn, I used this word again - that are being evaluated, communicated, and otherwise talked to death while Port-au-Prince is burning.

Again, I am not against theories - they can be very useful (read my earlier point more carefully) I am simply against too much of them as well as the legions of "development specialists" populating countless bureaucracies just like my former University that, in the end, produce so little, if anything useful at all...

NOW I could really benefit from "You are a nice chap, Andrei" note!

I'll give you a "You are a nice chap, Andrei" note, then.

It's fairly well known that different people have different ways of talking, that some people tend towards covering all the details and some like the crisp executive summary, for instance. The details ate important, the ability to synthesize a mass of information into short, communicable form is also important -- so both types of speech serve their purposes -- and likewise, some people (Bucky Fuller would be a good example) have to more or less create their own language as they go, and some can lay out their ideas more simply and directly,

What I'm suggesting is that (i) we should bear in mind your comment that not everyone by any means has English as a first language, thus trying to keep things simple, but also (ii) recognize that sometimes the nuances and necessities require their own manner of speech to be accurate ton the ideas expressed.

Theories are part of the entire process of social entrepreneurship, and an online event like this i bound to be the places where ideas, theories, pointers to useful resources etc all take place. Most of the people who post here are already working in the field, and this is the place they come for both theoretical and practical information and conversation -- even community building.

So i don't think this is really a place where theory is being "talked to death while Port-au-Prince is burning"...

And I'll still give you that "nice fellow" note.

I'm totally impressed that english is your second language Andrei. Bravo to all the practitioners here, also. The fact that I suspected you were a nice chap, whether you said so or not, was because your work preempts you to be one.

Jo - you've totally corrupted me with your praise. And I know that it is totally due to my own asking :)

Charles,

Sorry for my absence - I had a few weeks of tough luck chasing a bunch of executive crooks in the least effective way possible: by appealing to the civic duty of prosecutors. Yes, here, in the States.

In any case, when it comes to the discussion at hand, what I find cute is that something awfully resembling "the change theory" is described in nearly every self-improvement text since... well, since Dale Carnegie, I guess. And the same process is taught in any decision-science business class and by any half-decent text book since WWII. But, obviously, there should be people out there who have access to the Internet, yet no access to that very knowledge... And I find your community building argument is very valid. Finally, who could disagree that our ability to write clearer could be improved (and that I am the "nice fellow"? Huh?:).

Best, Andrei

Working with theory of change can apply to any effort related to creating change for social good, not just social entrepreneurship. While I have worked with social entrepreneurs, my experience with using TOC is to plan and assess projects working to promote civil society and community development. I have found it extremely useful. In one instance, where a project did not have it’s TOC articulated, we mapped it out and then looked at a year’s worth of results. The TOC helped us identify how changes in some key underlying assumptions about the political context impacted the execution of the project and underscored the need for a new strategy. It also helped us see that there were some activities which extensive effort was being spent on which did not connect with the desired change. Conversely, many projects do a lot a good activity, but don’t lead to systemic change.

Are projects for the social good different from social enterprises in application of TOC? I would think that TOC could be equally useful in helping social entrepreneurs develop and execute their business plans, which have change as a key goal. I am interested in what those who practice more in this space have to say.

Hello,Barbara:

Interesting: "In one instance, where a project did not have it’s TOC articulated, we mapped it out and then looked at a year’s worth of results."

I think *any* process of articulation can help a great deal.

I remember writing a brochure for a pain management center once, and getting the paragraph structure for the pamphlet right involved a clear articulation of how the psychological side of the program "fitted" with the other component departments -- as a thread running through each of them, or as a separate department of its own.

So the brochure writing process "gave" the physician in charge of the clinic what was effectively his organizational flow chart -- as a side effect.

Clarity may be the big "win" in any well-thought-out system.

*

I hope others will respond to your implied question, "I would think that TOC could be equally useful in helping social entrepreneurs develop and execute their business plans, which have change as a key goal. I am interested in what those who practice more in this space have to say.”

I believe the theory of change works well. You first determine what needs to be done within your six domains of change (systems, applications, data, organization, location, and business processes) at the enterprise level. You then break down the changes you need at the conceptual, logical, and physical level. This assures you have planned your project fully and have all the supplies you need. This is a standard process that business process re-engineers use to turn around companies so that they can become profitable and to make government agencies more effective. It could be used to make NGOs more effective also. I have used this techniques extensively to help the Coast Guard, FEMA, FAA, NASA, private companies, as well as foreign Governments. I am currently using these techniques to help the BOP in Colombia improve their agriculture.

Hi Paul:

To me, your post offers "proof of concept" for anyone who is looking for a system of planning, and wonders whether ToC should be it.

I've suggested above that different styles may fit different situations, and I think that will be particularly true of small enterprises, and that coherent, pre-developed systems such as ToC will be more important as such enterprises scale up or start to collaborate on projects with their peers.

It is very good to have confirmation that the ToC process works successfully and repeatedly in some of the larger scale enterprises you've been involved with.

Charles
My original training on this subject was a 40 hour course in which I and the other students were taught how to make a small enterprise become profitable. It was a bathroom fixtures company. The information on how to turn around a large business or Government agency was documented in 10 volumes

So it scales up from the small to the very large? Impressive.

Yes it scales from the very small to the very large. Business process re-engineering must scale. A business student would not be allowed to re-engineer a big company before he/she showed that they could re-engineer a small and medium size company first.
Many business schools, such as the Sloan school at MIT, are teaching business process re-engineering. In the past many of these schools primarily taught the basic idea and some of the results obtained. The professors did not know a lot of details about “what to do” and “how to do it”. This was because the field was developed primarily by industry and contained many “industrial secrets”. You can imagine what would happen if Ford knew “what to do” and “how to do it” while GM and Chrysler do not. You can imagine what would happen if the agriculture engineers in Colombia and India knew “what to do” and “how to do it” while the agriculture engineers in Haiti and Venezuela do not.

Yup -- that would be Not So Good.

Charles asked: “…how to get the change we are looking for. And if your theory is different -- what is your Theory of Social Change?”

First of all, "Theory of Social Change" is being used here not as the "theory about the factors that bring about social change", but as approaches toward bringing about change.

So the following will address this 'approach' sense of the term.

All cases of social “change we are looking for” are cases of replacing an existing or emerging social condition in the world with another.

The very fact that we are looking for social change means that the social condition is unacceptable enough to warrant intervention.

Most of us here seem to be oriented toward committing to changing the social conditions we each regard to be unacceptable and then getting on with it. This is the tactical approach to social change.

But there is also the strategic approach to social change. This is far less common. This approach is pursued by those who know that there is always already an integral (whole) system operating around and through us, and that every existing or emerging social condition is therefore generated and sustained by factors located causally upstream to it.

The strategic approach to social change therefore involves identifying and understanding the factor or factors that generate and sustain the particular unacceptable social condition in the first place, and reduce or eliminate these originating factors, and to do this in a way that is designed both to harness factors that might be potentially supportive to the desired change, and to reduce or avoid those that might be working against it.

For those who wish to be effective at bringing about social change, is there really a choice?

Hi Ravi:

As always, you have a wide-angle lens to bring to bear. Thanks for your post. My own sense is that the grand strategic level would therefore be the level at which the mind itself forms accurate maps of the processes or distorts them for ideological blindness, erroneous assumptions, etc, and adapts or gets stuck.

I believe that's also the place where the late great Donella Meadows would say we can best intervene in systems -- the level at which paradigms are formed, evaluated and shifted.

Yes Charles. You say:

"... the grand strategic level would therefore be the level at which the mind itself forms accurate maps of the processes or distorts them for ideological blindness, erroneous assumptions, etc, and adapts or gets stuck.

"I believe that's also the place where the late great Donella Meadows would say we can best intervene in systems -- the level at which paradigms are formed, evaluated and shifted."

Indeed. This place is the human operating system, or the identity core of the conceptual subsystem that determines the values, interpretations, and motivations of virtually all nodes of the network that is now the human species.

Although humanity appears distributed into billions of individuals, an ever-increasing flow of conceptual information across the entire species keeps integrating us ever more tightly into a single multividual. Unlike all other forms of life, already, every individual human gets the majority, if not almost all of one’s valuative, interpretive and motivating content from sources EXTERNAL to the local human form, via ever richer flows of upbringing, education, and media input.

Thus, we have already long since ceased to be ‘individuals’ in the sense all other life forms still are, and in the sense we used to be before linguistic and media technologies began integrating us toward a single, if distributed, multividuality.

Our increasing integration into a single networked multividual notwithstanding, much of our legacy conceptual information keeps perpetuating and consolidating our original, but increasingly out-of-date human operating system, the core foundational conceptual code that determines both the structure and the flow of the entire conceptual subsystem of each individual, and thereby influences our values, our interpretations, and our motivations; which in turn influences what we do, and the resulting impact upon our world.

It is therefore this increasingly outdated (false) human operating system at the core of our conceptual code that tends to make each of us defensive, acquisitive, exploitative, and now, amplified by our technological interface, also increasingly dysfunctional and destructive vis a vis one another and nature.'

Relating this to your mention of "more accurate maps", consider a map of the universally acknowledged earth-centric Solar System before Copernicus. The wrong object at the core gave rise to the wildly convoluted Ptolomeian map of the Solar System. When Copernicus restored the Sun at the center of the Solar System, we got a more accurate and simpler concentric order.

As the Sun is at the center of the Solar System, so is our identity at the center of our conceptual subsystem. As the proliferation of information input keeps intensifying, we keep becoming ever less individual in the sense of the individual being the source of one’s own information. Applying the identity as local human form is not entirely unlike adopting the Earth as the center of the Solar System.
fdsa
Accordingly, the identity correction long overdue is that of replacing the local human form as our identity with the local vantage point of the observing function intrinsic in Nature. Only then will it become second nature for us to regard one another as unique and different vantage points of oneselves, and Nature as our common larger body, and for us to begin to behave accordingly.

Identity is the human operating system of our entire conceptual subsystem, and as such, influences our values, our interpretations, and our motivations. The human operating system is thus the ultimate driver of our behaviors, dysfunctions and destructiveness. As long as the current outdated human operating system as local human form remains in place, we can only expect further dysfunction and destructiveness from us and our organizations.

When we get ourselves a human operating system upgrade from ‘local human form’ to ‘local vantage point of the observing function of Nature’, “most of the distorts them for ideological blindness, erroneous assumptions, etc,” can be expected to fall away, and we will have adapted to our emergent order.

Hi Ravi:

For the sake of those who fine "a human operating system upgrade" a metaphor from software that they can't easily imagine as it applies to humans, could I summarize your point by saying "until we think of ourselves (and our interests) more in terms of our membership of our common humanity and less as the definitive focus of all importance, we'll have a tough time tackling the problems we face -- but if we can make that shift, the rest will fall into a place a whole lot faster and more easily"?

Hipbone,
Once again, you light a great spark.
As the notion of Social Entrepreneurship continues to be refined through great forums like this, one of the things that I hope we are starting to see is that it is an extension, not a refutation, of what we have learned in commercial entrepreneurship. So, much of what we know about building a viable venture is just as applicable to a social enterprise as it is to a commercial one. In that spirit, I offer the following as a way to state that the debate over theories of change is not an either/or question.
At a very basic level, a successful enterprise needs three things: A defined and valid opportunity, a workable solution to that opportunity, and the ability to deliver that solution in a manner that is sustainable. In commercial enterprise, we call the first two the product or service, and we call the third one the business model.
In social entrepreneurship, the defined and valid opportunity is easy. There are far more human needs in this world than all of us together can ever truly address – so you can just pick the one that touches your heart most deeply. The workable solution is the method that the organization chooses to deploy to improve the social condition that is of concern. And, just like the commercial venture, the solution needs to be well developed, executable and able to solve the problem or meet the need.
The academic label for the process that is used to determine this workable solution, when applied to social issues, is the theory of change.

Thanks, Jim.

I think the question here is whether there's a specific and or generic process which, since it contains all necessary and sufficient components in the right working order, can be used to arrive at that "well developed, executable" solution while avoiding the pitfalls of other methods...

and indeed, which can also serve as the basis for collaborative thinking that aligns many such ventures with overlapping goals, for maximal positive effect...

what do you think?

Hi Charles,

I first came across the term "Backward Mapping" about 15 years ago when I read a paper on this subject by a Dr. Elmore who is at Harvard. He described backward mapping in the way you did, but used the term to compare to typical "forward mapping" where the people with the money set the rules for how the money is to be spent so tightly that the people who are on the ground working directly with the problem have little flexibility for innovation or ownership.

I've looked on the internet for more articles like this and while I find articles related to structuring class assignments, I've not found many that expand on what Elmore was writing. I've tried to contact him directly but can't get into the conversation. Thus, my first comment is to see if anyone on Social Edge can get him into this forum.

While I did not know of "backward mapping" or "theory of change" or "knowledge management" when I launched the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993, I've learned over the years that I was applying those concepts.

In articles I've posted at http://www.tutormentorexchange.net I ask over and over "what are all the things we need to do if every youth born in poverty today is to be starting a job/career by age 25?" I can't think of any question that has a greater potential to involve people from all parts of the world, and from business, philanthropy, social sector, etc.

Furthermore, I started my quest saying "I don't know anything" so let me see if I can find out what other people already know, and post that in a library, that I can use to innovate my own solutions, while others innovate what they do. This library is now on the www.tutormentorconnection.org site and is constantly expanding. We use concept maps to show how ideas and information are related and we use GIS maps to show places where people can connect.

Based on what I've read from Elmore, and others, and my own experiences, I've created my own Theory of Change, which you can read at http://www.tutormentorexchange.net/[…]/theoryofchange.pdf

In this TOC there is a huge emphasis on communications and network building. If you and I are the only people looking at what I'm writing about, it has almost no impact on changing the world. However, if each of us reaches out to a few other people, and they do the same, we increase the chances that these ideas can lead to the change we want. If we can get high profile leaders in business, government, media, entertainment to look at this information, and point people in their own networks to look at it, we would have a "super bowl" of people using this information every day to support their own decisions, and their own actions, in their own zip code.

The internet makes this a constantly changing process, yet the backward map and the geographic map, keeps us all focused on the same goal. "What are all of the things that need to happen in many places, for many years, by many people, to assure that any child born in poverty today is starting a job/career by age 25?"

Thanks a lot for this inspiring post. We have been thinking along the same lines for the last year and we have come up with the same conclusions. As a result, we have developed a simple meta-theory, a metaphor and a tool that fits well with your philosophy: The Change Journey (http://www.changejourney.org)

The Change Journey is a radical approach to change. It is based on the paradigm that change in organizations is not a linear path from A to B. As many of us experience, what happens in a change process is largely unpredictable. Our Change Journey Map then helps you to navigate through uncertainty.

Principles of the Change Journey
1. Change has its borders: Change is partly given to us.
2. The journey will teach us: Problems become our friends.
3. Widen the circle of involvement as much as possible and necessary.
4. Connect people to the content of the change and to each other.
5. Identify or create containers where new thinking can happen.
6. People do not resist change: All people have concerns, purposes and circumstances.

We will use the next months to promote the idea and to build practices around the Change Journey Map. In June and July we will do a world tour. You are all invited to join our cause.

I signed up for your Ning group. I encourage you to add your link into the concept mapping section of my links library at http://tinyurl.com/TMC-innovation-links

I've followed journey mapping concepts since the late 1990s and created two documentation systems based on this. You can view one version at (T/MC OHATS) at http://www.tutormentorexchange.net/ohats . The second version documents the journey from 7th grade through high school of students in our Cabrini Connections program, but is not publicly available due to the content.

The OHATS is an accountability system. In a collaboration, or any other form of agreement to work together, everyone does not always do what they say they will do, or do all they can do to achieve the collective goals of the group. In an on-line documentation, or journey mapping system, the goals of the group can be determined, then an input document can be created, so that anyone doing an action can document it, and show what organizational goal it was intended to achieve. By sorting the actions by recorder and goal, everyone can see what impact each member is having on the long-term journey of the group. Here's a section on our Ning page where we explain this more and ask for help. http://tutormentorconnection.ning.com/[…]/tutormentor-connection

Charles, collaboration without a set of goals, and a tool for documenting actions of members, is just wishful thinking. Over time it's almost impossible to know what really happened, and who was responsible. Journey mapping can help people see the destination, and the different paths they might take to get there.

Thank you both for your contributions.

I particularly liked Holger's "This is a journey - not a blueprint" (from your website) because it encapsulates far better what I was trying to say about improvisation. I'm a bit wary of "The" theory of change because I think we should have a variety of toolsets (and skillsets), not just one -- and your approach (Holger) seems to me to *welcome* change in a way that takes unexpected obstacles in its stride. I like that.

As usual, Daniel, thanks.

First, thanks Charles for the reference to www.theoryofchange.org for background info. It is, in fact, necessary for development of any social theory for it to be done collaboratively, as it is unlikely to be robust if it represents the perspective of only one person or segment.

Secondarily, it is often called a "blueprint" (I have myself), but it is not, because it is a HYPOTHESIS - the best path to change the best concerned minds can devise, and then test through implementation.

There is more discussion on TOC on the "Theory of Change for Planning and Evaluation" page on Facebook. Anyone interested in this topic should join.

Helene Clark

I should have noted that the Theory of Change website is ours (ActKnowledge), so my thanks was for pointing people to it.

Also, if you visit it you will note we have developed on online application for developing and sharing TOCs virtually.

Helene

Thanks so much, Helene.

I very much appreciate your posting here, and clarifying that the ToC is an hypothesis (hence, evolutionarily developing) rather than a blueprint (hence a once for all "pre-set" structure -- am I getting that right?

Thanks again.

Charles, you say:

“For the sake of those who fine "a human operating system upgrade" a metaphor from software that they can't easily imagine as it applies to humans,”

and ask:

“could I summarize your point by saying:

"until we think of ourselves (and our interests) more in terms of our membership of our common humanity and less as the definitive focus of all importance, we'll have a tough time tackling the problems we face -- but if we can make that shift, the rest will fall into a place a whole lot faster and more easily"

?”
Yes, that would be an accurate, if very general, simplification of my point. However, if I were to attempt to make the same point more sharply without the metaphor from software, here’s what it would look like:

“until we define ourselves MORE in terms of our common and systemic interface, namely, reflective (awareness), affective (feelings), interpretive (assumptions), motivative (intentions), and operative (actions) functionalities vis a vis the rest of the physical universe we all share, and LESS in terms of the attributes that are accidental to the genetic codes, geographical locations and cultural ethoses and appearance of our respective human organisms (race, color, ethnicity, nationality, religions, political/economic ideologies, vulnerability vis a vis the rest of Nature), which accidental attributes render similarly configured groups of us antagonistic toward others, and toward the rest of Nature), we are more likely to keep on GENERATING the problems we face – but if we can make that self-definition shift, we would at minimum begin to cease generating these problems, and more likely, become more able to cooperate on reversing the problems we have already generated.”

This is because our common humanity arises MORE from the interoperations of those functionalities of our systemic and common interface vis a vis our common world, and LESS from the accidental (unchosen) genetic codes, geographic origins and cultural ethoses and appearances of our respective human organisms.

In drawing out the underlying assumptions, I know you probably didn't want to get into "the argument as to how change happens" Charles, (I suppose it's a quant/qualit dilemma, among other things) so take "embedded giving" - building gifts into one another - as a starting point for Ravi's idea of 'systematic interface' in thinking of ourselves first in terms of our common humanity.

When we take the shift in giving, the accompanying worldview shifts too, along with the 'interoperations of the functionalities' right Ravi, I guess you mean how we interpret the world and act, yeah?. And embedding doesn't have to be just financial transactions too, (there's a million ways change is enacted in the world) but it's a good start, right.

I like the idea of what you are saying about where the shift lies Ravi, outside of seeing ourselves separately. I agree, humanity is in desperate need of a 'human operating system upgrade.' I think we need to stage an intervention. And I have a feeling it will be when it's universally understood that, the "I" in us, is more a field of consciousness, than an autonomous separate being, required to be judged and measured in material success, by others. Also, if 'the other' has a different focus as well - with people not so antagonistic towards each other - the floodgates for giving could open, bringing humanity closer together. I guess after that, it's up to institutions to embed it. Either way, giving is the way to overcome divisions. And 'embedded giving' has the right idea too, that is, making giving easy for individuals.

Jo, you say:

"I think we need to stage an intervention. And I have a feeling it will be when it's universally understood that, the "I" in us, is more a field of consciousness, than an autonomous separate being".

Yes. Whatever any of us might regard oneself to be, we are each already merely a different vantage point of the selfsame being - Ourself.

Jo, you say:

"Also, if 'the other' has a different focus as well - with people not so antagonistic towards each other - the floodgates for giving could open, bringing humanity closer together."

Yes. When we all know we are all already and always one, where can there be room for either otherness or antagonism?

Hi Jo -- Ravi:

As a point of reference, have either or both of you read the neuroanatomist Dr Jill Bolte Taylor's book about her severe stroke and recovery?

I haven't read her book Charles, but I've seen her TED talk, and I agree - when we experience life on the right side of our brains, we indeed are all one. And how magnificent that she could be inside the experience as well as outside of it, at the same time while undergoing such a trauma, and able to tell us about it, to uncover the truth of our being.

How does this impact the theory of change in general? Is it, in operating in and interpreting the world, if we collectively shift to living inside the right side of the brains, change becomes easy?

Well, I think there's a sort of marriage possible between a systems-theoretic approach (which is what i think Ravi proposes) and a spiritual approach (which recognizes that at some "real" level we are all one) and what Jill Bolte Taylor is getting at at a neurological level. But I'm not sure yet as to how they mesh or merge -- they just seem to point in a similar direction.

Also known to me under the Lakota Sioux term, Mitakuye Oyasin -- "we are all related".

Yes, Charles. Becoming able to live from the right side of the brain on a continuous basis cannot be expected to be easy as long as the systemic conceptual-linguistic errors continue to distort and divert knowledge flows in the left side of our brain.

The marriage you propose is between the right side of the brain with the left side of the brain.

While it is easy to feel Oneness when living from the right side of the brain, the preceding step, that of getting to live from the right side of the brain has not been easy.

This is why we also need to get at the conceptual-linguistic errors in the right side of our brains, that distort the knowledge flows within it and among us, so that, at minimum, it's current operations below its potential no longer keep us dysfunctional and destructive, making us generate bad changes that keep us striving to effect these 'good' changes.

The side of the brain referred to in the last paragraph is the LEFT, not the right, as I have mistakenly written.

Jo, like you, I have not read Jill Bolte's book, but have seen her TED talk.

While I too agree with the thrust of Jill's talk demonstrating neurologically that we are all One, there appear to be at least two implications of this thrust vis a vis approaches to change.

Tactical: As we are all already One as evinced by Jill's experiences of operating from the right side of her brain, an easy way to effect sound change might be for all of us to shift to operating more from the right side of our brains, as this would increase chances that we might operate as the One we already are.

Strategic: As we are all already systemically One from both the sub-nuclear and information network perspectives, one way to effect sound change might be to identify the systemic factors that have been preventing us from operating as the One us from operating as such, and to dismantle these factors.

I find myself compelled to favor the latter direction because ignoring or avoiding these factors that keep us from operating as who we already are, cannot be an option; if only because this would leave them able to continue to prevent us from becoming capable of operating as the One we all already are.

I agree Ravi, with a systems-theoretic approach, the shift is away from a narrow silo focus (left-brained) to a whole-brain bigger-picture focus (right-brained.) And in doing so, break down the illusion of separateness that our conceptual-linguistic diversity creates.

If individual perception is reality - meaning everyone's reality is different - change begins for everyone, with a shift in perception. So shifting (from a left-brained to a right-brained operating system right?) would only be as hard as we think or perceive it to be. You're right, a good start is to challenge and dismantle distorted thinking patterns (of separate silos/false knowledge/misinformation, etc) that resist change, and prevent us from becoming 'systematically one.'

To address Kausar's question (below) 'how is one to create a discourse that would lead to action?' By switching operating systems, in creating pathways through dialogue and discourse, (especially when dialogue reveals we are more alike than separate) individual actions automatically get integrated into the whole - rather than being parallel or duplicated efforts, isolated in a systematic way - potentially creating a fusion of oneness, of world consciousness, around our common global heritage, in unleashing the full potential of humans to put our common humanity first.

I agree with you Charles, the system upgrade we need for this lies with our software. Did you know the brain's emergent order, or deep structure, has been revealed to be essentially holographic? This holographic center is where we form maps, it's where paradigms are formed evaluated and shifted easily, as a harnessing factor of change.

In this context, the theory of change is 'proof of concept' everything is related. And in the biochemistry of oneness, consciousness is the glue that relates us - not just on a neurological level but also on the conceptual, logical and physical levels - the more conscious and aware we are of this, the more change happens by a form of spontaneous combustion or such, eg, when one sets off, others follow. Even projects which have a long-term planning and evaluation process, after a plateau, can find that change can happen very quickly. And most likely, when there's an alignment at the core, in the sense of 'as above, so below' and that's how we are all related, yeah? And just as an aside - that's my poetic side - I see it's the sun, giving us the chemical compounds to unite us, into a consciousness of one.

I think we'll see change, for real as well as theory, when everyone's a participant in knowledge flows, that's when the real mesh and merge begins, right?

Jo, you say:

"I think we'll see change, for real as well as theory, when everyone's a participant in knowledge flows, that's when the real mesh and merge begins, right?"

I could not agree more.

And this is why at least some of us who agree with this must stay focused on dismantling those invisible conceptual-linguistic structures (described earlier here) that have been preventing us from recognizing and living as the One we already are.

The dismantling of these false and outdated conceptual-linguistic structures that have been preventing us from recognizing and living as who we already are - can be expected to result in ever less distortion of knowledge flows, which is when ever more of us become participants in true knowledge flows; and the real mesh and merge can be realistically expected to keep increasing thereafter.

In a country like Pakistan, where parallel systems play havoc on the lives of the vulnerable groups, specially women, and where formal judical systems are rendered powerless, hundreds of non-government orgnaizations work for change, but without exploring and deepening their understanding of change. The change they seek is at the micro level and is simplified in terms of getting children into school, offering some health services to meet the immediate health needs, a little credit here and there to the poor, but not the poorest for they are unable to return the loan. Social sciences in Pakistan are not robust enough to challenge the community based workers to deepen their analysis of work by invoking the concept of change (structural changes that are imperative.) In this harsh reality, a few individuals and groups struggle to develop and advance the discourse on notions like change, transformation, mobilisation for change, etc. There is a growing number of persons using internet, but this is still a very samll number. In this situation, how is one to create a discourse that would lead to action ?

Dear Hipbone, A fascinating discussion, and I appreciate your nuance on language and communication, ever important. I was struck by this statement:

"If you know what you want to achieve --if you can clearly imagine and describe your wished-for end state, The Theory of Change will allow you to work your way backwards, seeing at each stage what needs to be accomplished so the next step can be begun...."

There are two items needed here: 1) Effective Planning and 2 )Effective Communication. That word "effective" needs be determined by the particular organization, culture, team who is operating the plan and communication.

I would say this for simplicity's sake. I am not sure how the above, helpful statement of Theory of Change is any different than:

"If you know what you want to achieve, research and write your business plan, state the case for market need, address how you will solve it. Then create an Ops Plan/Operations Plan to support how you will go about achieving this vision."

Sometimes I wonder if we focus on creating new language. I do not believe it matters if the structure of it is forprofit, nonprofit, government, church, PTA. And let's take it further to an 'initiative' level: The same rule in planning and communications goes for helping your kid's soccer team create more marketing awareness, figuring out the best sales strategy and resulting impact of saturating your neighborhood with girl scout cookie sales and determining how you are going to change your lifestyle and achieve a healthier state of body and mind. And to shake up our minds a bit further -- how a country determines its best strategy to defend against terrorism or to use student involvement instigating peaceful demonstrations which oust a dictatorship.

Any good action, initiative, organization designed to change society and change thinking, would merit some type of planning and communication for optimum effectiveness. I would like to believe that, and, I think that the process itself is so helpful for team members to see, create and understand priorities as they create this plan together. It opens up our minds to the best execution possible. That's my hope. It's not just the theory or the plan. And it's not just the communication.

So here's my final wrench I am throwing in: I have a very successful funder who built a $100 million accounting firm. "I don't believe in plans, Pamela," he told me. "I just focused on listening and serving my customers. To this day, that's what I do every day: Call dozens of customers."

I have to ask myself, too: Did Ghandi have a plan? I read his biography. He had a structure. He had a vision. He had a plan, but I am not sure a written plan. We'd do well to learn from his movement as well: He focused on people. He focused on communication. He focused on a movement for change.

A good lesson for us all, I would think. :) I very much look forward to people's feedback.

Thank you again, Hipbone, for successfully guiding us through a most interesting discussion!

Warmly, Pamela

Pamela,

Looking at the timing of posts I guess the majority of the crowd has moved on (except for Charles who owns the string, and the humble me who was belatedly responding to him and Jo.) But let me agree with you on the value of planning and point you and others towards the work of "lazy" self-made Brazilian billionaire Ricardo Semler. His group of companies (about 7000 people altogether) doesn't plan ahead further than 6 months, and even that plan is rarely committed to paper. To you and everyone still reading this string, I can only recommend his books on how to make an "plan-less employee paradise" in un-apologetically capitalist company and country. He is an inspiration to many people, and I once I nicknamed him a "Gandhi with the Midas touch". Unfortunately he gave up on promotion of workplace democracy due to futility of his own approach of appealing to managers. I had a solution to his problem but came too late to sway him to resume that work.

Both of his books are a true delight to read - witty, intelligent and honest. Indeed, I gave up on writing mine after seeing that he wrote 3/4 of my book better than I could ever do. Hence, I now promote his creations and, apparently embittered by that, throw wrenches around here and force Charles and others to still call me back a "nice fellow." :)

Best, Andrei

Andrei, thank you for such an interesting note on the 6 month planning. I think another discussion could branch out here on the simple (or complex) subject of daily, weekly, monthly, annual and three-year planning scenarios. A helpful discussion for any team or leader!

All my best,
Pamela

Pamela Hawley
Founder and CEO
UniversalGiving™

phawley@universalgiving.org
www.universalgiving.org

Living and Giving blog
www.pamelahawley.wordpress.com

Pamela,

It is exciting and refreshing to read what you've written. I'm glad I come back to visit these older discussions. I have a plan, and it's really quite focused. Yet it encompasses all of my 35 years of experience, and is expressed in the many different sections of information hosted on my web sites.

The world we work in in constantly changing, so keeping a "written, cohesive plan" up to date is difficult, time consuming, and for the most part, not used by many people.

On the other hand, someone told me once "if you don't write it down, you don't have a plan". So I've made an effort from year to year to keep something in writing, even if it just focuses myself on what it is I'm trying to do.

Here's the real challenge. How do we connect the leader of the $100 million accounting firm and the self-made Brazilian billionaire with innovators who have great ideas, and who could be the next Ghandi, so they have the resources they need to bring their ideas to the world?

Where is that meeting taking place? Are they reading these discussions, but just not commenting? It could be another discussion.

About ten days ago I was near Santa Rosa, California, now -- 2000 some miles later -- I'm in Chicago. Which means, Daniel, you can expect a visit one of these days.

My apologies for not responding more regularly -- Andrei, nice guy that you (still) are, thanks for keeping things flowing -- Pamela, always encouraging to read you!

I don't have much to say, my head is still spinning from the move, but I wanted to thank each of you for your contributions, even if I can;t find words to take things further.

And now I want a word with Ravi, if he's still around...

Charles,

You continue to overwhelm me with your kindness. So, instead of throwing another wrench into your discussion thread, let me kindly ask you to read my post addressed to Daniel. Am I missing something? Is there such a service that I suggest at Skoll or elsewhere?

Charles, I had mistakenly thought this conversation had ended.

I have since found your comments and questions below, and have responded to them. I very much appreciate your openness and interest in the strategic/systems approach.

Daniel,

You are onto something very important. Those who have the resources that you, Pamela and thousands of social entrepreneurs out there need, most likely don't read these pages. They have what they need, including great ideas they throw money and clout at. I am almost sure that even Jeff Skoll, whose money pays for this blog, doesn't peek at these postings.

BUT this forum perhaps gives us an opportunity to help each other. Say, I don't necessarily need money - I am sitting on a gold mine - but to make that mine produce actual gold (dollars) I need some passionate and dedicated collaborators and some clout. What do you need? What does Pamela need? What our need Charlie Cameron has? And so on... It all might be very complimentary, and by helping each other we may greatly help each other causes.

Say, my social enterprise, if kick-started for real, would pay for many worthy initiatives of the people blogging here, yet I am tearing myself apart with only sporadic support from my very part-time partners, and my venture may not take off the ground for a year or more. Even to re-write the website and start a blog takes so much bloody time... Maybe collectively we can combine our forces in such a way that will benefit our causes?

BTW, Charles - do you have any clout with the Skoll's big wigs? Can't they start a skill exchange and/or a partner matching service? The idea for such a thing is clearly in the air... or maybe it exists somewhere but I don't know about it?

Andrei andrei@CorruptionManagement.com

This conversation just keeps on giving reasons to come back and re-read the messages. I encourage you to read a post I wrote this morning at http://tutormentor.blogspot[…]d-go-find-another-home.html

I spend time every day reaching out on many forums while also updating the information and coaching/mentoring people who come to forums I host, such as http://tutormentorconnection.ning.com

In almost every case, I'm trying to motivate others to reach out to their own networks to try to draw people from diverse backgrounds, and different levels of influence and wealth, to some of the places where we share ideas and where they can become directly involved with anyone they feel offers value, based on what they say, and what they show on their web sites.

So far, I don't know that many people do this, thus, we're still all trying to fish in a pretty small pond that has few really big fish.

I don't think that a "generic" meeting place is the answer, because it would be too crowded, too cluttered, and hard to get attention. I point to the Boston Innovation Hub often, as a navigation tool with lots of potential, but it seems under utilized. http://www.bostonindicators.org/Indicators2008/

It's a pie chart, with the slices representing issues important to Boston. If someone creates a pie chart, and if each slice drills down to organizations who are working in that issue area, then forums like this could possibly attract more of the people we want, to the different causes where we have some credibility and some opportunity to ask for help, or to offer help.

The key is that the owners of the pie see their role as network builders, connecting people in the greater Boston area (or the world) to the pie chart, and to the organizations in each sector. Anyone know where this is happening?

Hi Ravi (again) -- and thanks:

You have a very consistent way of expressing a coherent and continuing sense that we are not isolated individuals in reality, whatever we may think we are, but "viewpoints" within a single organism. And that our unwillingness to accept this simple fact frames the current human situation -- and that if we did accept it, the problematic issues that now face us would begin to resolve themselves as a direct result. I'm hoping I got that right...

What I would like to ask you is how that understanding plays out for you, as someone who was at one time a senior director in a major advertising agency, and so on. Are you still doing consulting work? Is the "single organism" the main theme of your consultancy these days? Or have you moved from some other form of business consulting into a single focus, and decided to write a book, or promote the idea through a software design, or some other means?

I guess I'm wondering how the insight "gets access" to existing systems at the personal and organizational levels... as an insight? a program? a practice? a ruleset? a meditation?

I hope I'm not being too forward in asking this -- if I am, please excuse me and pay no attention.

But if this is a question you'd like to answer, In think your response might throw valuable light on your ideas, and the nature of the systemic involvement that we are all, at this moment, entangled in.

Dear Charles, I only just discovered this important (for me) post from you. It deserves a substantial response. I will develop it and post it here soon.

Charles, Thank you for the above post. It shows that the focus and consistency of my position in these discussions might finally be penetrating the otherwise total lack of interest in such fora - toward a deep-systems approach to the development of solutions for the great challenges we face as a species.

You say:

“You have a very consistent way of expressing a coherent and continuing sense that we are not isolated individuals in reality, whatever we may think we are, but "viewpoints" within a single organism. And that our unwillingness to accept this simple fact frames the current human situation -- and that if we did accept it, the problematic issues that now face us would begin to resolve themselves as a direct result. I'm hoping I got that right...”

You have got it almost right. It would be exactly right if we replace the phrase “unwillingness to accept” in your second sentence above with “ignorance of”.

You go on to ask:

“What I would like to ask you is how that understanding plays out for you, as someone who was at one time a senior director in a major advertising agency, and so on. Are you still doing consulting work? Is the "single organism" the main theme of your consultancy these days? Or have you moved from some other form of business consulting into a single focus, and decided to write a book, or promote the idea through a software design, or some other means?”

Yes, I am still doing some consulting work. But I do this only to support my family responsibilities and support my real work.

No, the “single organism” is not any part of my consultancy as of yet.

Yes. I have a second focus, which is my real work. I am writing a book, and have developed a program to reverse this ‘ignorance’ problem. Specifically, I have already developed a program to facilitate the systemic correction of the long-established but false local-form-centric worldview – on a global scale.

The overall objective of the project is to harness the most powerful preexisting motivations of our species toward interest and receptivity toward considering, familiarizing, and then eventually applying a wholesystem worldview, i.e., all of existence, including humans, other life forms, and the inanimate world functioning integrally as a single contiguous and continuous system.

One key delivery strategy is to have every human who graduates from high school anywhere in the world after 2050, be already familiar with one’s integrality in our common systemhood, and therefore able to interpret, evaluate, and respond to life-situations and live out one's existence via this systemic identity and understanding.

You go on with more specific inquiries:

“I guess I'm wondering how the insight "gets access" to existing systems at the personal and organizational levels... as an insight? a program? a practice? a ruleset? a meditation?”

The program I mentioned above is made up of an overall objective and a variety of strategies, each designed to address different pre-existing motivations among both individuals and organizations (including schools and universities).

You are certainly right in intuiting that it addresses both personal and organizational levels, and delivers the systemic worldview, among other implementations, also as an insight, programs, practices, rulesets, and meditations (the specific mode of each being determined by the specific motivation each is designed to address).

I hope this addresses your question as well they can be answered in this discussion. I am glad to answer in a more detailed way either in direct dialogue via email (Ravi@Arapurakal.com), or in any fora such as this one, within discussions that are launched specifically to explore the option of our systemhood as a reasonable strategy for dealing with the social challenges the respective fora seek to address.

Charles, on re-reading your post, your following question caught my attention again, and is drawing a response through me.

"What I would like to ask you is how that understanding plays out for you"?

There is an almost perpetual awareness of the dynamic unity of everything. As this Wholeness is a Oneness, there is nothing that is not this Whole or One. So we are all this selfsame One, looking into Ourself from the various vantage points where our human forms might be located in the Wholeness and Oneness. We, i.e., this Wholeness and Oneness manifests an omnipresent translucense overlaid over a contiguous and continuous etherlike unity. When anything is seen, whatever is seeing is the selfsame One, and whatever is seen is likewise also the selfsame One. Subject (what is noticing) and Object (what is noticed) are both within the One. So as 'I' see things before me, I am actually looking into Ourself, and seeing various facets of Ourself. When 'I' walk forward, I am walking into the rest of Ourself, and everyone else, is likewise located within the same Ourself as is my local human form in motion. As 'I' am the vantage point within our Wholeness and Oneness, from which the rest of our Wholeness and Oneness is experienced, I am the locally manifesting experiencing function of Ourself (Wholeness and Oneness). So for our experiencing vantage points , it is always now, it's still now, and even as this is being read, it continues to be now, in such a way that it will always be now, and never be any other when. Nothing ever happened to me when it then wasn't now, and nothing will every happen to me when it isn't then now. This is very different from the sense of time that existed when I falsely regarded myself to be my local human form. Then I was always suspended between a future and a past, and I was perpetually racing in this suspended state from the past toward the future. I could go on like this, but for now I will close with the notion that from this Ravi vantage point, both you Charles, and you Jo, are different vantage points through which our Unity, or We, is experiencing the rest of Ourself. So there is only a single subject, which is Ourself, no matter which vantage point is being experienced from. This means the end of the first person singular in the subjective case. Of course there remains the first person singular in the objective case, as in the sense of the local human forms that We use to engage, interact with, and modify the rest of Ourself.

...don't want to leave you hanging Charles, I'm sure he'll be back to explain in the meantime, I think what Ravi means by our conceptual-linguistic distortions preventing us from seeing ourselves as a single organism, is our own egos' ability to block access to the Cosmic Mind, the place we're all connected. A good place to start is to decode disinformation (i.e, information cocoons) of the mind. And what needs to happen next is, humanity needs to have a mass experience - a big song - corny I know, but it's got to be sung, especially now we know that ultimately, everything in the universe, including us, is made up of only a handful of particles - explaining why we're all one.

Charles, and Jo;

I’m responding to both of your because Jo’s post was a response to Charles’ post for me. And because my response to Jo is also relevant to Charles’ post to me.
.
Jo said:

“..don't want to leave you hanging Charles, I'm sure he'll be back to explain in the meantime, I think what Ravi means by our conceptual-linguistic distortions preventing us from seeing ourselves as a single organism, is our own egos' ability to block access to the Cosmic Mind, the place we're all connected. “

While our egos may be found upstream of our dysfunction and destructiveness, I was not referring to them, but to what causes the emergence of ego in the first place, i.e., what lies further upstream in the systemic sequence of causes and effects flowing down to our actions and behaviors in our shared physical commons.

Egos are themselves mere effects, and it is therefore not useful to regard them as the systemic cause of preventing us from seeing ourselves as a single organism.

On the other hand, what generates our egos, namely the conceptual-linguistic error identifying one’s self with the local human form, which, being vulnerable, and even mortal, generates our sense of systemic insecurity, which in turn makes us selfish, acquisitive, and exploitive, which in turn drives our adversarial attitude toward one another and the rest of nature.

Jo went on to say:

“A good place to start is to decode disinformation (i.e, information cocoons) of the mind.”

There is so much disinformation in the mind that just decoding the disinformation cannot be expected to produce systemic progress. We have to start at the core root of the disinformation, the conceptual foundation upon which all the information, both accurate and disinformation, is formed.

This core root, or foundation of the entire conceptual system of each of us, is the identity code, i.e., what is identified as the ‘I’, or ‘self’. As almost all of us suffer the false identification of self, i.e., the local human form, the rest of our conceptual structure is determined by the gender, color, race, location, blood-lines, and nationality of that form, and the disinformation that began with the false sense of self reverberates all the way to the farthest ends of each local conceptual structure.

In short, if we want effective and efficient cleansing of our respective conceptual information systems, we must begin with the crucial line of code, the core root, of those systems. We must delete the false identification, and replace it with the only true identification possible for each of us, namely, the distributed observing function of the universe, operating through each human form. After all, it is the local observing function that ‘lives’ each of our respective lives.

This observing function is the only constant in our respective lives, with everything else, changing and mutating all the time, whether, our forms, our experiences, our interpretations, our desires, our aspirations, our fears, our aversions, our intentions, our actions, or even their results in our shared physical world.

As it is each of us, who is ‘observing’ the life from the vantage point located at each local human form, it is this observing function, that is the true ‘I’ or ‘self’ in each case.

The great problem in enabling us to realize this is that the observing function, being subject, is itself inaccessible, just as the everything in the room is accessible and therefore tangible to your right index fingertip except that fingertip itself.

Fortunately, this is not an insurmountable problem. This is because these are things that we can each be brought to infer from one’s own local direct experience, with the right sequence of Socratic guidance through the process of deconstructing, first the false identity, and then the entire structure of associations compelled by the specific nature of the local human form.

Jo goes on further….

“And what needs to happen next is, humanity needs to have a mass experience - a big song - corny I know, but it's got to be sung”

I’m afraid I don’t share Jo’s confidence that any kind of song or story or explanation can be adequate to the crucial challenge of correcting the identity error at the core root of our respective conceptual systems.

We must respect the tremendous mass and power of what we are up against in dealing with this core root of our problem. Currently, the entire social, economic, political, systems around us, all tacitly affirm and project the false identity, making it difficult, even for those who might have briefly intuited one’s true identity. The very next phone call, or conversation, or appointment, will be faced with conceptual-linguistic content from all around one, that affirms the former, false identity, and diffuses and dilutes that frail moment of truth before it can begin to challenge the rest of the internal conceptual system.

This is why mass experiences such as a big song cannot be expect to be locally perceived to be true to one’s direct experience. It has to be much more personal, direct, and thorough, step by step, taking each one through direct local truth experiences repeatedly with a variety of real life examples, so that the initial conceptual structures representing these truths can take root, and be nurtured, and consolidated, protecting them from the diffusion and dilution that the entire social environment can be expected to exert against such foundational revision.

Finally, Jo adds:

“especially now we know that ultimately, everything in the universe, including us, is made up of only a handful of particles - explaining why we're all one.”

Yes, this is indeed true. But this can only work in a shared conceptual system that is NOT relative, i.e., accepting each one’s reality to be equally valid as everyone else's. If only because we all share the same physical commons, and because we all share the same kind of conceptual interface with which our respective observational vantage points interpret, integrate, and ideate responses, the process has to be direct, experiential, and rationally impeccable. Otherwise our greatest efforts cannot be expected to take root and grow in the face of the overwhelming mass and momentum of disinformation that is already dominating our species’ entire conceptual-linguistic system.

Many thanks for your several recent posts, Ravi: it may take me a while to respond, but I just wanted to say I am grateful for the posts themselves, and for the nudge by email.

I agree Ravi, so ignorance doesn't put the blinders on (like 'hypnotizing chickens or fitting square pegs into round holes) it's society that ultimately bares the cost, when ignorance takes on a destructive capacity, when misguided and misleading misinformation - becomes disinformation, absorbed by the masses. The problem is, individual perceptions can be skewed by dominant societal perceptions so ultimately, it's an individual's choice.

And it's ignorance, that gives rise to the illusion of separateness. I think it's incumbent on each of us to shatter this illusion, probably through cooperation, integration and transcendence etc.

I agree, in the interconnectedness between things, we're all linked through love, integrity, wisdom and peace, so I think, the driving message is the world is an oyster and it needs to be opened...

...hey Charles, you might be interested in Daniel Levitin's The World in Six Songs - how the musical brain created human nature - in overcoming significant blind spots.

Jo, it is less most individual's choice than it might appear. Choices are only possible from among locally available ideas. And the relevant ideas, those we have been speaking of here, are not present among the conceptual/linguistic content available at most of our human vnatage points.

This is because those human vantage points of Ourself where the local conceptual/linguistic content is either inadequate or falsely configured - cannot choose from among what they cannot locally imagine, if only because the relevant ideas to choose from are not yet available at those points.

We can choose only through those human vantage points of Ourself where the local conceptual/linguistic content allows Us to 'know' who We really are as the One and only Whole, and how we really relate to one another and to the rest of Nature within Our Unity. And we really have no choice but to use all of the creativity, intelligence and capability available at these human vantage points - to enable Ourself, also through those other 'informationally challenged' human vantage points, to obtain information and understanding that dispel the ignorance currently present at these points, and thus enable Us, also at these human vantage points, to become likewise able to make the same inevitable choice, i.e., to also work toward our fulfillment through every single human vantage point of Ourself, as the networked and integral self-reflecting and self-transforming instruments of Ourself.

Jo, you also say:

"I agree, in the interconnectedness between things, we're all linked through love, integrity, wisdom and peace."

Although we are conceptual closer than most of the rest of us, our communication approaches still represent two distinct worldviews:

1. Humans start as separate pieces, and then we link these through love, integrity, wisdom and peace.

This worldview demands that we work to link ourselves ever better by exemplifying love, integrity, wisdom and peace in our respective lives.

2. Humans are already integral with one another and with the rest of Nature. Love, integrity, wisdom and peace are mere manifestations of this integral unity.

This worldview demands that we work to dismantle the false conceptual framework that projects us as separate beings, so that we may revert to being and living as the whole we already are. It is this true sense of self that spontaneously generates love, integrity, wisdom and peace.

Ravi, is 'single multividual' less about choice and more about impulse?

By replacing 'pre-existing motivations' of an outdated systemic approach, do we then develop the 'whole person' to completion?

With our identity at the core of our conceptual subsystem, is working towards fulfillment, only taken up by those who are not informationally challenged?

Irregardless of any extra add-on candy, (in what makes us tick,) it's about being more proactive than reactive, and what we need is a collective break - in creating the circumstances for lasting change - which, because we're still evolving and nothing is set, it's naturally a core element of our human identity.

I'm interested in your worldview, what is it about 'Ourself' which allows us to open up our minds, to see humanity as One, distributed into billions of individual beings?

Jo, you ask:

“Ravi, is 'single multividual' less about choice and more about impulse?”

‘Single multividual’ is no less about choice than it is about impulse. This is because any human node in our networkhood can operate either as a self-aware node of our multividuality, Ourself, or in cases where this conceptual opportunity has not arisen at the conceptual interpretive system at another human node (what we referred to earlier as ‘ignorant’) as a discrete, separate and autonomous local human form.

Hence the issue is not about more or less choice, but about a) the conceptual attribution of selfhood (identity) at each human node, b) the very different value ecology that comes with each kind of selfhood, and c) the options for action that these value ecologies make available at each node as motivations (such as aspirations or desires, as fears or aversions).

This is because our systemhood already operates by a systemic hierarchy – identity influences value ecology, value ecology influences choices, and choices influence actions, and actions influence results in our common physical world.

You then ask:

“By replacing 'pre-existing motivations' of an outdated systemic approach, do we then develop the 'whole person' to completion?”

By replacing the pre-existing identity at as discrete, separate and autonomous human form at any node in our networkhood with our true identity as intra-contiguous (at our underlying sub-atomic scale of being), inter-related, and interdependent nodes of our larger integral specieshood, that node begins to view, interpret and evaluate developments occurring around one, as integral to one’s local vantage point (How does this affect US, the species), rather than from a self-centered or selfish acquisitive, exploitive or suppressive (How does this impact ME versus them, or how can I take advantage of them or their resources, or how can I get more control over them),
These very different, almost contrary value ecologies then determine the motivations that drive action at each kind of human node.

In short, every human node in our networkhood where the local identity code gets shifted from the outdated, fragmented, independent and physical sense of self – to the systemic, integral, interdependent, and species-wide, if not cosmic sense of self – BEGINS to avail of the systemic corrections down the hierarchy of causality mentioned in my first response in this post. Thus begins our journey at each of these nodes TOWARD completion, and with it, a systemic reduction of dysfunctional and destructive actions from these nodes, and a systemic increase of cooperative intelligence, creativity and capability being focused on issues affecting the larger, more systemic issues of the time.

You go on to ask:

“With our identity at the core of our conceptual subsystem, is working towards fulfillment, only taken up by those who are not informationally challenged?”

Not really. As we rise out of more ignorance toward less, there are There are already, unavoidably, grades of informational challenge. Our infosphere is already acknowledging the dangers facing us as a species, and the evils of poverty, ignorance, drudgery and suppression being visited upon many of us. Accordingly, some of the informationally challenged are taking up projects to address these dangers. However, as their current information is not enlightened enough to recognize a systemic order, and their integral function within it, there is much fragmentation of effort, and waste of precious resources that could have been applied more systemically to deeper causal sources in the system.

Then you say:

“Irregardless of any extra add-on candy, (in what makes us tick,) it's about being more proactive than reactive, and what we need is a collective break - in creating the circumstances for lasting change - which, because we're still evolving and nothing is set, it's naturally a core element of our human identity.”

And ask:


“I'm interested in your worldview, what is it about 'Ourself' which allows us to open up our minds, to see humanity as One, distributed into billions of individual beings?”

Integral systemhood is already the intrinsic order of the entire Universe of Cosmos. The conceptual medium with which this Cosmos copied and stored One’s experiences through various vantage points (temporary life-forms) was itself noticed long after as the interface with which the Cosmos mediates, grasps, and transforms Oneself. As human forms are those life forms with the most advanced (as yet known) in the accumulation, processing and organization of conceptual content, and as the conceptual content has already irrevocably become a global phenomenon on our local planet, we, the human species, have already become, as the species as a whole, the operating function of the now self-aware Cosmos, even though the number of human nodes through which the Cosmos has come to know this, are still but few. And this is the responsibility of these few, to facilitate the integration and liberation of the remaining human nodes, which are still yoked in bondage to narrow groupings, value ecologies and motivational compulsions still determined by the accidental attributes of the local form, race, color, gender, family, local ideological groupings such as religions and political systems, states, nationalities, and so on.

Again, "What is it about 'Ourself' which allows us to open up our minds, to see humanity as One, distributed into billions of individual beings?" Jo, it's simple. We are all already this One, both at the sub-atomic substance level of existence, and at the networked informational level.

Most of us don't know this just yet. But most of us already know that something's wrong with our interpretive (conceptual), data-transfer (linguistic) and evaluative (values) systems. Most of us are hungry for greater clarity and effectiveness. The inquiry has already begun, albeit in a very fragmented and disorganized way.

Little by little more and more of us are becoming aware of the systemic nature of the Universe/Cosmos in which we exist. Many of us already, independently, seeking to make our interpretive (conceptual) and data-transferring (linguistic), and evaluative (value) systems consistent with systemic unity of what/who we already really are. Some of us are looking into how these interface infrastructures already mediate and operate within Ourself, driving human interpretation, communication and choices. The rest of us already seek solutions for the dissolution of the loneliness, opposition and conflict that roils these nodes, if only because the inherited local conceptual identities and other conceptual, linguistic and value systems prevent this recognition, let alone its adoption and application in the local lives.

Jo, I seem to have missed addressing this point you made:

"it's about being more proactive than reactive, and what we need is a collective break - in creating the circumstances for lasting change - which, because we're still evolving and nothing is set, it's naturally a core element of our human identity.”

Anyone of us, regardless of our sense of self (identity), can be more more proactive than reactive. Even the most destructive of 'terrorists' or 'patriots' can be proactive or reactive. Whether proactive or reactive, the actual action or activity will inevitably be fragmented and often counterproductive, wherever, the action or activity were not based on a systemic understanding of the causalities involved in the generation of the conditions that we addressed with our proactive or reactive attempts.

Yes, response is core to all experience, at almost any level of life-form that exists. Hence, as a life-form, it is also intrinsic to us, the human species. However, as the species that has access to an increasingly systemic understanding of the integral nature of the whole and our function within it (or One), we are advancing from ever smaller and knee-jerk responses to events or conditions as they are experienced, toward ever larger grasp of relationships, causalities, and implications of the events or conditions that call for a response, the quality of the response is becoming more important.

This increasing width, or depth of the grasp of what we are tackling - before we act, is strategy. To be proactive or reactive without strategy, can be equally useless. Hence, what is truly intrinsic to us is our evolution from mere proactions and reactions to events and conditions toward an ever higher quality of understanding of the causes, the effects, and possible side-implications of our responses.

Yes, we are evolving, but we are evolving in terms of the quality of the conceptual information with which we interpret and understand, and communicate and cooperate. But it is simply not true that "nothing is set". Our common world, our common larger body is becoming more and more transparent, as the increasing quantities of observations, the better and quicker communication of these observations, and the more effective application of hitherto accumulated understandings, are all brought to bear upon accelerating our further understanding of our common reality. It is the application of these growing verities that have, over the last two centuries, raised what was then 90% of humankind from abject poverty, ignorance, drudgery and suppression, to relative comfort, knowledge, leisure, and freedoms, as the growing middle class.

Two great discoveries of the last century, 'cybernetics' and 'systems' have given us new foundational models for our further informational evolution. These are: a) the conceptual and linguistic phenomena are the software interface between the experiencing/observing function of the Universe/Cosmos (the User), and the 'systems' integrality of everything there is, relationships and causalities among all of the apparent forms and flows within the Whole.

These foundational models are now working together, providing us with ever larger and clearer understanding of Whole, which being integral, is Ourself, and the means to focus upon the conceptual and linguistic layers of our common interface - if only to reduce the distortions that further neglect will inevitably generate among our future interpretations of our forthcoming experiences, no matter where each of us happens to be.

Jo, I'm not sure I addressed your point "nothing is set" adequately.

There's a lot that's already set.

We already have a lot to work with that we as a species have not yet come to grips with. These are:

a) The common physical world accessible to all of us via the physical interfaces of our senses, the composite of the sensory experiences from all of our observational vantage points;

b) the conceptual medium with which all of us remember, interpret, infer, know, believe, and imagine;

c) the lingusitic medium with which any of us can transfer or receive conceptual content obtained or developed at other nodes, are all extant and available to almost all of us (without any freak biologically or chemically driven challenges).

d) the emotional interface that provides positive and negative charges of varying intensities to each of our experiences, whether of sensory input, or conceptual content.

To repeat. Jo, there's a lot that's set. This is a substantial infrastructure we can all work with, and there's a lot we can do with it, that we have not yet adequately addressed, plumbed, let alone made available to the rest of us.

Ooops, Jo, speaking of "nothing is set", I missed an important common 'asset'.

e) The vast and burgeoning quantity of accumulated experiences, interpretations, extrapolations, inferences, knowledge, beliefs, and entertainments, that already exist out there in the form of mails, letters, recorded conversations, books, tapes, magazines, newspapers, CDs, DVDs, in digital media, that have a propensity to infect the next generation of human forms, wherever they happen to emerge.

All this informational content is also present and important, and has not yet been adequately addressed, let alone examined and evaluated, with regard to its tremendous contaminative power - infecting emerging minds with outdated and often false content.

Much of social innovation and social enterprise comes about through specific circumstances. It's highly personal, and in direct response to experiencing a lack or a need. We get a zap of inspiration, and can see ways in which to make a difference. It is often a murky journey, full of uncertainty and "characteristic" trial by error, getting it wrong before getting it right. Enterprise training, when available, generally concentrates on office skills, management, and bits of communication and promotion.

All this is helpful as far as it goes, but what about the most basic understandings and competencies, those which allow us to continue under adversity, or to consciously tap our creativity and ability to innovate? What about building community, creating effective collaborations, understanding the changing contexts in which we have positioned our projects and companies? What is the foundation of attitudes, policies, cultures and legacies which is creating the issues we are seeking to change?

Surely to be effective at change-making we need to develop the ability to strategically and consciously shape our efforts to deliver the best possible results. What if we could develop a "school for change makers", an ongoing series of workshops and courses in the skill sets which social entrepreneurs most need to be both balanced and effective?

I have been developing this idea for a few years now, but the economic collapse has moved it from back-burner status to the front, and I will be launching it on May 23rd with an introductory workshop in Ireland: The Entrepreneurs' Tool Belt.http://entrepreneurtoolbelt.eventbrite.com/

Theory of Social Change is important. However, talking about another theory will not meet the needs of Americans, lets take action rather than have more discussions.
America is not ready for what is now happening and even with immediate action it may be to late. I'm talking about our seniors (baby boomers) and their overwhelmed caregivers; or soon to be caregivers.
Historically, America has treated seniors with a somewhat "knee-jerk reaction." I am referring to poorly understaffed nursing homes, assisted living centers, respite and quality home healthcare. Even physicians are perplexed so they write perscriptions often not needed or without the knowledge of the patients history and/or what other prescriptions another physician may have already prescribed.
We do not value our elderly as many other countries do. THIS MUST CHANGE NOW!

When a senior complains to their doctor that they are not able to sleep a full 6 - 8 hours at night. MostBut, what many doctors do not know is that the human sleep cycle changes as we age. Similar to that, for example, of a infant. They sleep shorter periods of time BUT they nap more often. Aging seniors sleep cycles lind of go in reverse. When doctors are not educated in geriatrics, they will presc ribe sleep meds that more often then not compromise the seniors awake time.
Seniors need to know that it is normal to awake during the night and they need to give themselves permission to take naps during the day. The last thing they need is something else to worry about.point, which we can discuss at a later time is my research on "age-appropriate substance abuse treatment." Seniors are different, they may not loose a job, drive drunk, or suffer other common adult symptoms such as quantity of alcohol comsumed; they may drink less but feel the effects greater.
It's Late,
Sincerely,
Jeannine DiCristina, LCSW, CCJAS
Master of Social Work & Certificate in Gerontology - Tulane University