1st_WebScope








FINS.


Federal Information News Syndicate

Communicating the emerging philosophy of the Global Information-Age
Monday July 24, 2006





Photo Image of The Enlightenment Team in World Premiere LoD WebScope Email Dialogue.
Flinders International Asia Pacific Institute, Adelaide, South Australia July 20-21, 2006.
From left to right: Back row: Jim, Rob, Penny, Jon, Mai Vu
Front row: Denise, Kim, Geoff, and Nadira



World Premiere WebScope Email Dialogue:
"Root Cause Map" Points of Failures of Democracy
By Vigdor Schreibman



Isle of Crete, July 21, 2006. World history was made in a synchronous global
interactive WebScope Dialogue commencing with lead facilitator Aleco Christakis
from Crete, Friday at 2:30 AM on July 21, 2006. We were all together with a
group of nine students of "Democracy and The Enlightenment" brought on from the
Flinders International Asia Pacific Institute (ISPI), in Adelaide, South
Australia on Friday 9:30 AM on July 21, 2006, with other members of the Knowledge
Management Team (KMT) in various locations in the United States, meeting
on Thursday 8:00 PM on July 20, 2006: Kenneth K. Bausch, an expert in systems
sciences and Marie Kane, an expert in corporate marketing, located at
Fayetteville, Georgia, Diane Conway, computer software and Internet conference
system operator, located at Paoli, Pennsylvania, and this reporter/observer from
FINS in Washington, DC. A Global Boundary-Spanning Dialogue, all together in the
world of Cyberspace, at different local times and places.


The method employed in this dialogue folows the Structured Design Process (SDP),
described in
How People Harness Their Collective Wisdom and Power
(Feb 2006), which Christakis wrote with Bausch.


The World Premiere demonstrated a WebScope Email Dialogue methodology advanced by
the advocacy of
LOVERS OF DEMOCRACY, in an effort to bring about a shift
of the global paradigm toward democratic sustainability and away from capitalist
decadence, with a strategy to make a better world happen using the SDP
invented by Christakis. With the WebScope application of
SDP LOVERS OF DEMOCRACY can link in real time a diverse collection of interested
scholars, ordinary citizens, government and business persons, and engage the
group in the revolutionary SDP developed over the past three decades to
resolve complex issue of social, cultural or political policy and evolution.


During the week of WebScope Email Dialogue, between July 14 and July 21, the
KMT guided the student participants in their asynchronous response to a triggering
question: "What factors will help significantly in rescuing the enlightenment from
its failings?" During the first six days, from Friday through Wednesday morning,
the students generated a set of 49 factors, using only their
computer pc email facilities, and these factors were carefully clarified so that
everyone had a good understanding of the meaning of each others ideas. The set
of factors generated by email were then classified into 9 clusters, and prioritized
subjectively by relative importance. The KMT organized all the information
efficiently and periodically returned pertinent
KMT Reports to the student-participants,
who were the "content-experts" of the group dialogue, so that they could concentrate
their attention on producing the content of the dialogue. Then on Thursday
morning, the seventh day, the whole group engaged in a synchronous focused and
open dialogue via the WebScope for approximately three hours. At this
session the student group at Adelaide, South Australia guided by lead acilitator
in Crete, with the KMT in Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Washington, DC produced a

"Root Cause Map" disclosing the influence tree among the
factors of higher relevant importance, which allowed the group to discover
the root causes of the failures of "Democracy and The Enlightenment" which could
guide future collective remedial action.


The
"Root Cause Map" disclosed three factors that must be
remedied before a recovery of "Democracy and The Enlightenment" which are under
intense investigation could likely be realized. These are the true drivers in
the very complex issues addressed by
the graduate student group. The first of these root causes (Factor 15), points
to the extremes of either optimism or pessimism that guides public administration
and political economy. This contrasts with research that shows the large benefits
of policy guidance, not by experts but by the common people. See e.g.,
YANKELOVICH & HARMAN, STARTING WITH THE PEOPLE 18, 13 (1988). The second
root cause (Factor 14) discloses the need for improving local governance by using
local knowledge. And the third root cause (Factor 7) discloses the need to make
room for the exercise of power by minorities. Overcomimg the three root causes are
the key to generating mutual respect and a set of factors leading to greater trust,
which are essential elements of success of any community or society.


Participating in the demonstration project, under the guidance of
Aleco Christakis, lead facilitator and past President of the International Society
for the Systems Sciences were: Rev. Geoff Boyce, Chaplain at the interfaith center
at Flinders University; Dr. Jon Deakin, member of Australian Research Council
team, studying participatory democracy; Rob Donaldson, Chief Executive Officer,
City of Holdfast Bay; Penny Moore, Governance Manager; Kim O'Donnell Research
Assistant, member of Co-operative Research Centre for Aboriginal Health; Dr. Jim
Schiller, Academic specialising in participatory democracy and decentralisation
in Indonesia; Nadira Sultana Graduate student studying gender related issues;
Dr. Denise de Vires, Member of ARC team studying informatics and engineering;
and Mai Vu Ph.D. student studying decentralisation and strategic planning in
Vietnam. The Team Leader was Janet McIntyre (not in the photo), Senior Lecturer
at The Flinders Institute of Public Policy and Management (FIPPM). She was called
away from her student group during the WebScope synchronous dialogue session to
care for her ailing mother in Cape Town, South Africa.


I asked Executive Evolution President, Marie Kane, to comment as she watched the
synchronous dialogue, concerning her vision of the global significance of this new
technology. This is what she said in an email sent to me Saturday, July 22, 2006:


It is incredibly exciting when I consider the potential of the Webscope
Email Dialogue process. Now people from all corners of the globe will have
a feasible methodology to discover the true drivers in their most complex
issues, while simultaneously clarifying their thinking and building cohesion
around that issue. When they also do Stage 2, they will create consensus
action scenarios focused where they will have the most impact, while
simultaneously educating one another about possibilities. I cannot imagine a
more practical, feasible, real world approach to tapping collective wisdom
in a way that will really make a positive difference in our world!


Future development of the method will be enhanced by a distance learning program
planned by LOVERS OF DEMOCRACY so that everyone everywhere can have an affordable
way to learn how to lead group dialogue. Check out the
Distance Learning SYLLABUS!
The global dialogue communications via telephone and Internet conferencing
was subject to local weather disturbances and power outages. These interruptions
will require careful monitoring in future applications of the method to assure
best practices. Overall, the process left little doubt about the potential
spectacular benefits that will likely result from the revolutionary Structured Design Process,
and WebScope Email Dialogue utilized in this historical test application.





This report was prepared as a public service without fee
by Federal Information News Syndicate (FINS), Vigdor Schreibman, Editor &
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Cornelia
P. Atchley, artist,Portrait of Vigdor in blue
2001.