OK, after a brief work/illness/work interlude, back to some TED thoughts.
Howard Rheingold's TED talk focused on what he called the, "need to re-shape the story of how humans get things done." We so enamored with what gets done, that we don't often focus on how things get done. It's that "process stuff" (we just love that either/or thinking, don't we?) that we frequently dismiss as an indulgence. And yet, we're seeing a dramatic shift in the ways in which people are accomplishing things. Distributed, open-sourced, self-organizing creativity is popping up just about everywhere we look.
Rheingold pointed out that we've gone from the relatively simple hunter-gatherer model, in which individuals or very small groups could effectively accomplish their goals (e.g., lunch or dinner!), to the need for large group cooperation and collaboration that are required to achieve the kinds of outcomes we're trying to accomplish today (e.g., software or underwear!). But we're still shaky on how to encourage, develop and sustain the kind of cooperation these outcomes require. Unfortunately, we too often still resort to command-focused methods for creating those collaborations, methods that are almost certainly doomed to failure.
So, how do we get people to collaborate and cooperate? Well, Rheingold says we need an "Apollo project" to map the cooperative landscape. I agree, but don't think we can wait that long. I believe we need to make the concept of collaboration a national educational priority, both in schools and in the workplace. We need to help every individual to appreciate the deep interdependencies that exist between us, and the individual and collective benefits that grow from maximizing those interdependencies. We need to demonstrate that self-interest and social interest are not conflicting values. And we need to make it clear that collaboration and cooperation are not a function of "being nice" to one another, but absolute requirements if we are to accomplish the kinds of complex things we're trying to accomplish today.
People only change if change is in their own best interest. That makes showing how collaboration and cooperation are in our own best interest one of the most important demonstration projects we've ever faced. Rheingold ended his talk by highlighting the benefits of cooperative collaboration:
What forms of suffering could be alleviated?
What forms of wealth could be created?
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