Category: Cultural Intelligence

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Babette Bensoussan: Have You Tried Failure?

Commercial Intelligence, Cultural Intelligence
Babette Bensoussan

Have you heard……. failure is one of the biggest indicators of future success in an entrepreneur. Many venture capitalists won't invest in a new enterprise if the founder has never undergone failure – why?

From failed efforts it is proven that we have our best learning experiences, we grow, and we gain the experiences necessary for future significant successes. The fact is that businesses will not assume the risks necessary for innovation and developments if they're not ok with the idea of failing on some level.

There are those who are so afraid of failing they will do anything to avoid it. The problem with fearing failure is that you ultimately avoid risk, and this can stunt your richest experiences. Apparently those who have never faced a failure in a product, division or business don't have the experience that is valued in business. However, no-one wants to fail!
The key is to manage for failures. Be prepared to share what went wrong and dissect it. Another strategy is to create a “disengagement process” for getting out of a project that is showing triggering signs of failure.
It could be assumed that it is simply less disappointing and easier to not work that hard and not reach success. The excuse is built in to the equation already. What would happen if you tried your hardest and it didn't work out? The real question is – what if you didn't? What could you be losing out on by never trying at all?

What are you doing to minimise the risk of failure? We might be able to help.

Best regards
Babette Bensoussan

Source: “Venture Capitalists Are Looking for Failures“, News from WomenOnBusiness.com, 30 March 2011,
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Event: Free Online Download Why Stone-Age Instincts Run Your Life & How Science Can Change That

04 Education, 11 Society, Advanced Cyber/IO, Communities of Practice, Cultural Intelligence, Earth Intelligence, Ethics, Methods & Process, Strategy, Threats
Tom Atlee

Dear friends,

I’m excited to let you know about an upcoming free teleseminar by colleagues of mine, Michael Dowd and Connie Barlow. This couple is well known for their work in translating the various evolutionary sciences into practical wisdom for meeting the challenges of everyday life.

The focus of their hour-long audio seminar will be, as they summarize it: “Why the Stone-Age instincts we’ve all inherited can so often challenge us in our modern-day settings—and how new discoveries in the evolutionary and human sciences offer perspectives that are both practical and profound.”

Michael and Connie were the ones who launched me into my own evolutionary perspective, which expanded and deepened into the vision in my book REFLECTIONS ON EVOLUTIONARY ACTIVISM.

I'm beginning to see an emerging whole-life curriculum to bring actionable evolutionary understandings into virtually every aspect of life, just as feminist and ecological understandings have spread into every niche.  The first rough outline of such an “evolutionizing” curriculum might look something like this:

*  Evolutionize yourself and your relationships:
Connie and Michael's class
*  Evolutionize your groups, organizations and communities:
Peggy Holman's ENGAGING EMERGENCE
*  Evolutionize your society and social systems:
Tom Atlee's REFLECTIONS ON EVOLUTIONARY ACTIVISM
Robert Wright's NON-ZERO
John Stewart's EVOLUTION'S ARROW
Paul Ehrlich and Robert Ornstein's NEW WORLD, NEW MIND
*  Evolutionize your worldview
Elisabet Sahtouris' EARTHDANCE
Thomas Berry and Brian Swimme's THE UNIVERSE STORY
Michael Dowd's THANK GOD FOR EVOLUTION
David Sloan Wilson's EVOLUTION FOR EVERYONE

There are many other dimensions that could be included in such a curriculum — evolutionizing technology, education, heatlh care, you name it — and dozens of other really fine books and other resources that could be used — but the general idea in this outline intrigues me and, I hope, others who might act on it.

I invite you get a good whiff of how this perspective could play out in your own life.  Check out Connie and Michael's free evening teleclass this Wednesday (May 18th) — “Evolutionize Your Life: The Science of How to Decode Human Behavior, Eliminate Self-Judgment, and Create a Big-Hearted Life of Purpose and Joyful Integrity”.   You can read more about it and register at http://bit.ly/EvolutionizeLifeClass .

Enjoy!

Coheartedly,
Tom

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Secrecy News: Executive Privilege–Thomas Drake, Whistleblower, as a Political Prisoner in the USA…

07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Corruption, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Government, Officers Call, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy
Click on Image to Enlarge

A CLOSE LOOK AT THE THOMAS DRAKE CASE

An insightful account of the pending prosecution under the Espionage Act of former National Security Agency official Thomas A. Drake appears this week in The New Yorker.  Author Jane Mayer delves deeply into the origins of the case stemming from Drake's critical view of NSA management and surveillance practices. She explores the unfolding consequences of the case and its larger significance.

Among the article's many striking observations on the Drake case is the concluding quote from Mark Klein, a former AT&T employee who exposed warrantless surveillance activity by the Bush Administration. “I think it’s outrageous,” he says. “The Bush people have been let off. The telecom companies got immunity. The only people Obama has prosecuted are the whistle-blowers.”

See “The Secret Sharer” by Jane Mayer, The New Yorker, May 23, 2011.

Photo Caption:  Drake, a former senior executive at the National Security Agency, faces some of the gravest charges that can be brought against an American citizen. Photograph by Martin Schoeller.

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Future of the Library versus Future of the Librarian

Advanced Cyber/IO, Communities of Practice, Cultural Intelligence, info-graphics/data-visualization, IO Mapping, IO Multinational, IO Sense-Making, Methods & Process, Policies, Threats
Seth Godin Home

The future of the library

What is a public library for?

First, how we got here:

Before Gutenberg, a book cost about as much as a small house. As a result, only kings and bishops could afford to own a book of their own.

This naturally led to the creation of shared books, of libraries where scholars (everyone else was too busy not starving) could come to read books that they didn't have to own. The library as warehouse for books worth sharing.

Only after that did we invent the librarian.

The librarian isn't a clerk who happens to work at a library. A librarian is a data hound, a guide, a sherpa and a teacher. The librarian is the interface between reams of data and the untrained but motivated user.

After Gutenberg, books  got a lot cheaper. More individuals built their own collections. At the same time, though, the number of titles exploded, and the demand for libraries did as well. We definitely needed a warehouse to store all this bounty, and more than ever we needed a librarian to help us find what we needed. The library is a house for the librarian.

Continue reading “Future of the Library versus Future of the Librarian”

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Plastic Bottles & Plastic Bags: Massive Scam & Threat

03 Environmental Degradation, Civil Society, Commerce, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Earth Intelligence, Government, Policies
John Steiner

Please spread link to this short [4 minute] video if you feel inspired!

From Kyle Thiermann, Surfing for Change:

Hi Everybody,

I'm excited to announce the release of my new movie “Where is Away: Solving
Plastic Pollution in 4 Minutes”.   It tracks a plastic bag that I use in my hometown of Santa Cruz California, all the way to the north shore of Oahu, demonstrating both the destruction and solutions along the way. Famous musician Jack Johnson, and Story of
Stuff Annie Leonard join me in this fast-paced journey to highlight the power we all have to end plastic pollution.

Where is Away: Solving Plastic Pollution in 4 minutes

See Also:

Worth a Look: Book Reviews on Poisons, Toxicity, Trash, & True Cost

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Niall Ferguson’s 4 Reasons Why US Dominance Is Over

08 Wild Cards, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Military, Misinformation & Propaganda, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth, Policies, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Threats, Waste (materials, food, etc)
DefDog Recommends....

Missing is the lack of integrity of the US Government…..

Niall Ferguson's 4 Reasons Why US Dominance Is Over

Jeff Cox, 12 May 2011, CNBC

LAS VEGAS—The era of US economic dominance is rapidly coming to an end as an “American Gothic” age sets in and China becomes the new global leader, economic historian Niall Ferguson said.

. . . . . .

01  The “mother of all Keynsian fiscal binges” in which the government spent nearly $1 trillion on stimulus from which there will be a “hangover” with only the timing at question.

02  A “massive monetary binge” in which the Federal Reserve ultimately will print money to the tune of nearly $3 trillion.

03  An ensuing spike in commodity prices, a process that has gone on virtually unabated since the beginning of Fed intervention and for which there has been a recent pullback.

04  China “is not the Soviet Union,” meaning the nation doesn’t have the same destabilizing economic conditions that brought down the former Communist republic.

Read full article….

Phi Beta Iota: Mr. Ferguson is correct on his four factors, but leaves out much more.  The loss of integrity across not just the US Government but across every major “tribe” comprising the US nation-state (see our “Paradigms of Failure” and also “Legitimate Grievances“) is the root problem  Within that is the collapse of education, the ruthless export of jobs that could have been kept in the USA if infrastructure had been developed properly, the looming private debt collapse (defaults of credit cards and everything else), and the deep social challenge of dealing with several hundred thousand returning veterans who are mentally and physically ill, facing unemployment, and rapidly discovering that their pain and suffering was for nothing.

See Also:

Preconditions of Revolution in the USA Today

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Reference: Cynthia McKinney Speaks in Tehran

05 Iran, Advanced Cyber/IO, Analysis, Civil Society, Corruption, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Government, Methods & Process, Policies, Threats, Waste (materials, food, etc)
Cynthia McKinney

The Tehran Peace Conference started on 14 May and ended today, 15 May, (63rd Anniversary of Palestine's Nakbah ) with me chairing the 7:30 am panel entitled, “Terrorism:  Concepts and Contexts.”  Members of the Clergy from Brazil, Greece, and the U.S. made presentations as well as international lawyers, academicians, and peace activists from Australia, Canada, Ecuador, Venezuela, Spain, Ghana, and Bolivia.  My assignment is to write up my report of each of the presentations and submit the recommendations from the panel to the Conference Secretariat.

On Day One of the Opening Plenary with journalist Jim Lobe seated on my right and Rabbis Weiss and Rosenberg sitting in front of me, I was surprised when my name was called to make a presentation at the opening plenary of the Tehran Peace Tribune.  I immediately set about writing my remarks and here is what I said:

Cynthia McKinney
International Conference on Global Alliance Against Terrorism for a Just Peace
Tehran, Iran
15 May 2011

How wonderful to be at a Conference where the word “love” is used; we are here because we love humankind.  We are here from all corners of the earth; we are against terrorism; we want peace.

However, we must clarify peace.  What kind of peace do we want?

President John F. Kennedy answered his question by saying:  “. . . not a Pax Americana” imposed on the world by weapons of war.  He went on to say that the kind of peace we want is the kind of peace that makes life worth living–peace for all men and women for all time.

No Justice, No Peace.  No Truth, No Justice!

But, today, U.S. policy is rooted in lies, injustice, and war.  And at home, the people of the U.S. suffer.  Racism is acute, despite and maybe because of President Obama; hatred is rampant with hatred of Muslims, incarceration of Palestinians, targeting of immigrants, the lynchings of Blacks, disappearances of Latinos, and the pauperization of the people.  People inside the U.S. are under attack in the realm of policy:

Continue reading “Reference: Cynthia McKinney Speaks in Tehran”