I went to a social networking thingy tonight. It was titled "Transforming the world: a network centric approach to transforming systems." and was run by a group that is about effecting change through social networking. I'm not sure what triggered me to join this group but tonight's meeting caught my eye so I went.
The meeting was a discussion with a retired RAAF deputy chief who basically talked about effecting change by strategic collaboration and I will blog about that on my KM blog.
The things of most interest tonight was John's insights into some of the more stressing social and environmental issues he has discovered through his history and research.
John was suggesting that greater social change cannot happen if we only tackle one part of the community, industry, government triangle.
John stated that we should understood all factors that affect our intended change. Eg did we understand what are the consequences of supply chain interruptions such as if we could not get fuel imported then Australia only has reserves for 3 weeks. Or we import all our yeast so if that supply was disrupted, major food manufacturing would be affected within a week! How many things do we eat that contain yeast?
How about we already consume as a planet, and have done so since mid 90s, more than can be sustained and in fact we currently use up 1.4 times our resources annually.
Or currently in Australia we are riding on the coattails of economic reforms from previous governments and national productivity is actually dropping so that we will cease being productive within 40-50 years if we don't change!
I don't know if this is all true, though John sounded pretty convincing and knowledgeable so I'm guessing he knows his stuff so it's kind of scary and calamitous.
Change is needed. I haven't quite worked out what yet or how I can help but I obviously need to think about it and do something.
More lefty musings to come!
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