Reviews (Books & DVD) – Page 203 – Public Intelligence Blog

2008/08/282009/12/04

Review: The Necessary Revolution–How individuals and organizations are working together to create a sustainable world.

4 Star, Change & Innovation, Environment (Solutions), Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design

Value Priced, Superb Overview, Isolated from Other Literatures,August 28, 2008

Peter M. Senge et al

At the end of this review following the links to other recommended books, I specify why this book receives four stars instead of five. Shortly I will load several images that will augment my written review, a couple of them recreated from this book, a couple my own original work.

I found this book absorbing, and while I recognized many many areas where the authors could have identified and respected the work of others more explicitly, I also found this to be the single best book for a manager of any business, any non-profit, any educational institution, any citizen advocacy group, with respect to the changing paradigm of business from industrial era obsess on profit and waste wantonly, to the information era of integrated full life cycle with total transparency of all costs (social, environmental, and financial) and ZERO footprint on Earth and society. There is ample original work from the authors, and this book is priced just right as a vehicle for energizing groups of any kind.

Following from my extensive notes:

+ A handful of top global businesses “get it” and have been pioneering footprint free zero waste business model: BP, GE, Coca-Cola, Dupont, even Nike.

+ Non-governmental organizations (NGO) know more about local needs and the emerging marketplace (four billion of the five billion poor, I am very disconcerted to see the business world “writing off” the one billion extreme poor) than any market “intelligence” firm.

+ With credit to Jared Diamond, I read for the first time about the unreal financial reality “bubble,” and the “real real” world bubble that is catching up with it. See John Bogle's book below for a deeper explanation of how the financial mandarins have stolen one fifth of the value and misdirected the Main Street economy while doing so.

+ Although I have read Stewart Hart's work, this book helped me appreciate in detail his Sustainability Value Matrix.

+ Other “big ideas” by others that are integrated into this book include that of civil society stakeholders; ethical consumerism, stabilization wedges (Palala and Socolow),ladder of inference (an anthropological practice), peacekeeping circles, requisite organization, and law of limited competition (Daniel Quinn)

PROBLEM STATEMENT:

1. Industrial Waste (USA wastes 100 billion tons a year, 90% of inputs)

2. Consumer/Commercial Waste & Toxicity (of 8B/year, 5B not absorbable)

3. Non-Renewable Resources in Sharp Decline

4. Renewable Resources down 30-70% and in some cases close to extinction tipping point (fresh water, topsoil, fisheries, forests)

THREE GUIDING IDEAS:

1. No viable path neglects future generations

2. Institutions matter

3. Real change must be grounded in new ways of thinking (see Durant below, capstone lessons from their ten volume history of civilization was that the only real revolution is in the mind of man, and that morality has a strategic value of incalculable proportions).

THREE AREAS OF BUSINESS CONCERN:

1. Energy & Transportation

2. Food & Water

3. Material Waste & Toxicity

THREE PRE-REQUISITES FOR NEW THINKING:

1. Seeing Systems Within Systems (Full Cycle Closed Earth)

2. Collaborating Across Boundaries (No one has it all)

3. Creating & adjusting instead of problem solving in isolation

SIX BASIC IDEAS:

1. Natural system encloses social and economic systems

2. Industrial system must operate in that context

3. Regenerable resources have harvest limits

4. Non-renewable resources are finite.

5. Waste is a cancer on the Earth

6. Socio-cultural community is the vessel for change

THREE SKILLS FOR CREATING THE SUSTAINABLE FUTURE:

1. Convening diversity of viewpoints

2. Listening to all, avoiding advocacy

3. Nurturing relationships over time and above money

EXPLICIT INCENTIVES FOR GOING GREEN:

1. Save dollars internally

2. Make dollars externally

3. Provide customers with competitive value

4. Sustainability as point of differentiation

5. Shape the future of your industry, win market share

6. Become a preferred supplier for giants like Home Depot

7. Change image and brand for better (70%+ of market value)

The book is full of examples of successful change implementation, and includes a number of “toolbox” pages that could be made into a protable booklet or distributed broadly across corporate networks.

I was struck throughout the book with the value of this work in identifying specific personalities and specific companies who could be drawn into the broader holistic work of emerging meta-strategic networks such as Reuniting America, the Transpartisan Institute, and Earth Intelligence Network. Two women in particular jumped out as future global leaders on the order of Lee Kuan Yew and Nelson Mandela:

1. Vivienne Cox of BP

2. Lorraine Bolsinger of GE

I put the book down deeply impressed with its concluding sections, and thinking to myself: China, CHINA, CHINA! That is the center of gravity for getting right on a massive scale in the near term.

Other important books NOT mentioned by this book:
The Story of Civilization by Will Durant with The Lessons of History (Complete in 10 Vols. plus The Lessons of History which was written by Durant to accompany the 10-volume set)
Organizational Intelligence (Knowledge and Policy in Government and Industry)
The Knowledge Executive
The Battle for the Soul of Capitalism
High Noon 20 Global Problems, 20 Years to Solve Them
The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits (Wharton School Publishing Paperbacks)
The New Age of Innovation: Driving Cocreated Value Through Global Networks
One from Many: VISA and the Rise of Chaordic Organization
The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom
Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace

I resolved to rate this book as a four for the following reasons, in relative order of annoyance:
1) Crummy index for what could have been a brilliant REFERENCE book, not just an orientation book for leaders that do not read a lot. This index is SO BAD it fails to list all the individuals mentioned, and completely blows off numerous key phrases (e.g. sustainability wedges) that would be in any properly created professional index.
2) No literature search and total isolation from the major literatures of Collective Intelligence, Wealth of Networks, Organizational Intelligence, Integral Consciousness, Closed Systems Engineering, Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid, and so on.
3) Understandable use of the iconic name of the lead author, but in all probability actually written by the other four authors.
4) Really marginal reference section and no bibliography (even more valuable would have been an annotated bibliography).
5) Absolutely clueless on the means of visualizing and using world-class visualization to create compelling multi-dimensional mental images (this is not to say I am any better, just that they missed a chance to be “the” reference work for the next seven years).

Bottom line on the deficiency: I read very broadly, and am increasingly distressed at the continuing isolation of authors from one another's work. It's time every work of this importance do a proper job of connecting to other works.

2008/08/282014/03/28

Review: Reinventing Knowledge–From Alexandria to the Internet

5 Star, Communications, Education (General), Information Operations, Information Society, Information Technology

Internet is NOT a Great Leap Forward in Reinventing Knowledge, August 28, 2008

Ian F. McNeely

Edit of 29 August 2008: Am adding a couple of images to help clarify the importance of actually understanding new ways of creating, sharing, and leveraging knowledge. YES, the Internet has led to an order of magnitude or more knowledge creation and sharing but NO, it has not led to a dramatic change in the definition of knowledge or the role played by knowledge.

With a tip of the hat to SALON and book reviewer Laura Miller, whose review can be found at the URL in the comment, I want to add this book to those I recommend for the growing body of citizens who are truly skeptical of the Internet as a panacea, and suspicious of Google and other “snake oil” vendors.

Use the “see inside the book” feature just under the book cover above to examine details provided by the publisher.

Bottom line: we are entering a period when the “wealth of networks” may reinvent knowledge, but having read and reviewed The Necessary Revolution: How Individuals And Organizations Are Working Together to Create a Sustainable World only to be stunned at the end with its discussion of how many non-human primates are learning 500-1000 human words in sign language, I am now convinced, from a system of systems perspective, that the next big leap in reinventing knowledge will be not the emergence of smart mobs, armies of davids, the power of us, but rather, when Pierre Tielhard de Chardin's noosphere becomes a reality, and all living things have co-equal standing “in communion” with one another.

The nicest thing I can say about this book, other than to recommend it, is to link to other books that support the thesis the book presents: the Internet is NOT the big leap forward.

Review: Linking Social and Ecological Systems–Management Practices and Social Mechanisms for Building Resilience

3 Star, Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design

Too Expensive, April 28, 2008

Fikret Berkes

This book, a paperback, should not be costing more than $25.00. Authors need to start shunning publishers that prevent their knowledge from reaching the world at an affordable (honest) price. I will find this author's knowledge online rather than buy this book at this exhobitant price.

2008/08/272009/10/30

Review: Terror and Consent–The Wars for the Twenty-First Century

1 Star, Terrorism & Jihad

Appallingly Ignorant ; Another Nail in “Bi-Partisan” Coffin, April 27, 2008

Philip Bobbitt

Edit to make the point that it is not just the Democratic advisors, but the Republicans as well, that are witless. Everyone is playing the “realpolitic” or the “looting” game and no one, NO ONE, is playing for seven plus future generations and a win-win for all. I am sick of this.

Edit to list the eight “tribes” that comprise the TOTALITY of the global political environment. The “market” manufactures evil because of information asymmetry and the concentration of secret power. Here are a few more books that I cannot link to. You folks that are negative on this review may not be interested in reality, but I assure, you reality is very interested in you.

Tribes: government, military, law enforcement/private security, academia, business (including off the books business in poor areas), media, non-governmental organizations, and civil societie including labor unions and religions.

Other books:
Manufacture of Evil
Voltaire's Bastards
No Logo
Disaster Capitalism
Pandora's Poison
Confessions of an Economic Hit Man
Battle for the Soul of Capitalism
Crossing the Rubicon
Rule by Secrecy
How the World Really Works
Broken Branch
Broken Government
etc.

I normally do not do negative reviews while seeking to understand negative votes in the comments section. In this one instance I feel that national-level remediation is required. This is where I draw the line. No more pencil-heads advising village idiots. It's time we put citizen wisdom and BROAD knowledge back into PUBLIC policy. This author is the “Paul Wolfowitz” of the Democratic Party, and just slightly less dangerous than Dr. Strangelove (Brzezinski).

—————-

Terrorism is a tactic. It has been used by the US and Israel. Anyone who does not understand that is not qualified to write about national security and the real world. Neither Obama nor Clinton nor McCain represent anything more than continuation of the two party spoils dystem that disenfranchises close to two thirds of the Nation. They are advised by people like this and Dr. Strangelove (Brzezinski) and I am coming to the conclusion we have to demand candidates that can lead national conversations and dismiss all their “old think” advisors.

Furthermore, any book that refers to natural disasters as Acts of God without realizing that their destructive power, frequency, and changing nature are in fact Acts of Man, is so far down on the intellectual pecking order as to be virtually irrelevant. See my reviews of, among others:

Acts of God: The Unnatural History of Natural Disaster in America
Catastrophe & Culture: The Anthropology of Disaster (School of American Research Advanced Seminar Series)
The Next Catastrophe: Reducing Our Vulnerabilities to Natural, Industrial, and Terrorist Disasters

I am increasingly appalled at the complete ignorance of both political parties and their candidates for President. I never thought I would consider Hillary Clinton the least of all evils, but there you have it–Obama is listening to Zbigniew Brzezinski with one last Dr. Strangelove attack on Russia left in him, and John McCain is dangerously open to the neo-conservatives and a continuation of America's virtual colonialism, predatory immoral capitalism, and unilateral militarism. For a sense of my concerns see, among many others:

Running on Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It
The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence, and the Will of the People
A Power Governments Cannot Suppress
The Battle for the Soul of Capitalism

Here is what is NOT in this book:

LtGen Dr. Brent Scowcroft, with utterly brilliant pinch hitter Newt Gingrich (when he is not writing shallow books for cash flow), have given us all we need to know to reform national security. Read my review of

A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility–Report of the Secretary-General's High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change

That extraordinary book itemizes, in priority order, the ten high-level threats to Humanity and to the USA, rapidly becoming a Third World hollow country where everything is broken:

01 Poverty
02 Infectious Disease
03 Environmental Degradation
04 Inter-State Conflict
05 Civil War
06 Genocide
07 Other Atrocities
08 Proliferation
09 Terrorism
10 Transnational Crime

The astute reader will note that the Pentagon is optimized for just one of those threats, and may properly surmise that the other instruments of national power (diplomacy, information, economics) are not trained, equipped and organized to “do” intelligence (decision support) on the real world, nor are the funded to “impact” on our domestic strength, much less the real world. The Cabinet Departments are optimized to protect budget share and represent every stakeholder EXCEPT the labor unions and We the People. Here are the twelve policies that must be orchestrated in the context of a balanced sustainable budget (the astute reader will see that both Congressional jurisdictions and the Executive branch must be restructured if this is to be done well):

01 Agriculture
02 Diplomacy
03 Economy
04 Education
05 Energy
06 Family
07 Health
08 Immigration
09 Justice
10 Security (of ALL kinds including water and food)
11 Society (dignity and diversity matter)
12 Water

It is sheer idiocy to use up water we do not have to grow grain we do not need to make fuel for cars that would be better fueled by Cuban sugar cane sap.

Finally, on a third front most academics and policy makers ignore (as well as the media): NOTHING the USA or European Union do in the next ten years matters AT ALL with respect to the future UNLESS they create an EarthGame that can compelling guide the eight demographic challengers (Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Iran, Russia, Venezuela, and Wild Cards such as the Congo) to achieve their growth and development goals–while saving the 60 failed states–without making our mistakes.

To treat them as anything other than partners in the future–to try to push Russia out of Syria and China out of Africa and Brzezinski is trying to do–flexing muscles he does not have in anticipation of a position he will not get–is idiocy. It's time for the old farts (less Scowcroft) to move into retirement homes–but then, that's what CSIS is, is it not?

Bottom line: I am sick and tired of pontifical myopic academics posturing for ignorant presidential candidates too stupid to fire their advisors and lead a national conversation about our future. There are MANY books I have reviewed about Epoch B bottom-up citizen wisdom and the tao of democracy, here are the ones I have enough links left for (limit of 10, see my many lists):

The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom
How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas, Updated Edition

You might also look for books on collective intelligence, escape the matrix, society's breakthrough, world cafe, and so on. There are two sucking chest wounds in America: one is policy makers and elected leaders that have sold We the People down the river and have no clue about why and how complex societies are collapsing or what to do about it; the other is pedant academics with insular prescriptions that have no clue how to see the whole (system of systems) nor how to address the real world beyond their narrow ken.

This author writes for the former and represents the latter. I am depressed by this author's contribution, because along with the state-centric confrontational nuclear-holocaust proxy war views of the neo-cons and Zbigniew Brzezinski (and Joe Lieberman, both of them perhaps the best penetrations of the Democratic Party ever fielded), we appear to be headed straight toward self-immolation as a Nation.

2008/08/262009/12/04

Review: slide:ology–The Art and Science of Creating Great Presentations

5 Star, Communications, Decision-Making & Decision-Support

AMAZING–not about slides, about mind to mind communication, August 26, 2008

Nancy Duarte

I just destroyed this book with folded pages and ink annotations, so the perfectionists out there may want to order two copies, one for eating and one for sharing. The price is phenomenally reasonable, especially for something that is all color and totally elegant.

This is not about powerpoint slides. If anything, it is a very subtle but explicit critique of how retarded they still are (e.g. no separation between bullet groups). This is an utterly inspiring combination of wisdom, education, visual excitement, and plain fun that “lives” what it preaches.

When I get back to the office I am going to read this book again while I create a briefing on the Earth Intelligence Network and educating the poor one cell call at a time that respects the deep knowledge being imparted by this author and her team. Mills Davis, visualization and semantic genius (Project10X) called my presentation “dense” yesterday, and I needed this book to understand just how polite he was being.

Bottom line mechanically: 10 slides, 20 minutes, 30 font size MINIMJM. For the advanced audiences, 20 slides, 20 seconds each, 6 minutes and 20 seconds total.

I read and reread sections, and the recurring thought in my head was that this book may well be all one needs to run a semester long course on the communication of important complex ideas. The author does not just show a correct slide, the author breaks down every aspect (e.g. fonts, color, grid layouts, use of images, creating your own art) into separate chapters with very ably-illustrated palettes covering all the options. I have a note on this, “nuances are unpackaged and illustrated.”

I note the author's admonition that change across the presentation is a distraction, that animation should support the message and the continuity of understanding.

For large organizations, the author covers templates as a means of harnessing the diversity of knowledge of varied functions and employees, while maintaining a consistency of brand. BRAND is huge within this book, and in this book BRAND is not a legal term, it is a philosophical term. I am hugely impressed by a chart showing UK companies that treat BRAND as a design imperative being so much more competitive and profitable than those that do not. This book is not just asserttions and demonstrations, it is fact and case based and eminently authoritative.

I learn for the first time that powerpoint slides can be instantly made to be black and white to focus audience on the speaker, or made all white, by pressing B or W. Why didn't I learn that from Microsoft? Because their tool bar is not designed to teach….perhaps?

Special pages for me:

10-11 The Presentation Ecosystem (Message, Story, Delivery)
12-13 Time Estimate for world-class presentations (36-90 hours)
18-19 Rick Justice and 27 slides on eight topics (organization)
58-59 Making Diagtrams Work Together
64-65 Following the Five Data Slide Rules (Tell the Truth is Rule 1)
82-83 The (Financial) Value of Good Design
116-117 Lose the logo on every slide….
142-143 Dissecting a font (this section alone was HUGE eye-opener)
148-149 Typesetting a block of text (what powerpoint does not do)

The references are phenomenal, and comprise an instant library for any person, firm, or school of design. I only have ten links allowed, so below I list the reference categories, and link to a single book from the multiples identified–no disrespect intended for the others!

DESIGN
Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery (Voices That Matter)

BRANDING
The Brand Gap: How to Bridge the Distance Between Business Strategy and Design

VISUAL THINKING
Zag: The Number One Strategy of High-Performance Brands

INFORMATION GRAPHICS
Nigel Holmes On Information Design (Working Biographies)

DATA DISPLAY
Information Dashboard Design: The Effective Visual Communication of Data

CONTENT
Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die

BUSINESS BOOKS
The E-Myth Manager: Why Most Managers Don't Work and What to Do About It

The index is very good, another manifestation of the utter devotion to quality of the publisher, O'Reilly (I dislike most of their book sets, this one very properly rose to a proper high level).

Lots of white space. There isn't an ounce of fat or irrelevance in this book. It is world-class in every respect, and most publishers are so crummy about price and color that I want to end with a tip of the hat to o'Reilly for getting this one “just right.”

2008/08/252009/12/04

Review: Execution Premium

4 Star, Best Practices in Management

One Side of Wisdom, Needs to be Read with Prahalad Et Al, August 25, 2008

Robert S. Kaplan

I strongly recommend this book for any executive with ambitions to both rise and to help grow a sustainable and increasingly profitable (or effective) organization, i.e. this applies to non-profits and government and academia as much as to commercial enterprises.

The book MUST be read in partnership with The New Age of Innovation: Driving Cocreated Value Through Global Networks, both emphasize strategy and business processes, and they are each unique in how they approach the urgency of getting an executive grip on both strategy and business processes or the blood and guts of operations.

Where I am increasingly disappointed (only one star worth) with the business literature is with its relative isolation from all the other literatures. Business is one of eight “intelligence tribes” (learn more at Earth Intelligence Network and OSS.Net,): the others are government at all levels, Military and National Guard or Gendarme, Law Enforcement, Academia, Media including bloggers and new media, Non-Profits, and Civil Society including lasbor unions and religions.

Where the Innovation book adds to this book by Kaplan and Norton is in its focus of co-creating value with all indiviudals–cutomsters, suppliers, employees, regulators. Both, however, lack the sense that can be found in, for example:

The exemplar: The exemplary performer in the age of productivity
The Knowledge Executive
The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom
Collective Intelligence: Mankind's Emerging World in Cyberspace (Helix Books)

I also find both completely lacking in their appreciation for the green to gold, cradle to cradle sustainable design ENVIRONMENT of business, as well as the toxic immoral environment that most businesses accept rather than challenge. See for instance:

Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution
Green to Gold: How Smart Companies Use Environmental Strategy to Innovate, Create Value, and Build Competitive Advantage
The Battle for the Soul of Capitalism

Finally, while strategy as well as information and intelligence (one in inputs, the other outputs) are buzz words in the business world, this book does well at demanding an Office of Strategy but does not reflect the best knowledge of strategic thinking such as represented by Colin Gray in Modern Strategy and other recent publications; and neither really appreciates external unstructured ANALOG or human information, although the innovation book tries with a second hand appreciation of humans.

A huge paradigm shift is coming, and the value of morality as a basis for trust (Nobel Prize awarded for the guy that gamed that trust lowers the cost of doing business) is upon us. We are now ready to create the Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth that Buckminster Fuller envisioned. See Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace for a sense of what 55 others are saying on this vital FOUNDATION for business enterprise.

2008/08/252009/12/04

Review: VOICE OF THE PEOPLE–The Transpartisan Imperative in American Life

4 Star, Communications, Democracy

Conversational Book, Valuable, August 25, 2008

A. Lawrence Chickering and James S. Turner

My substantive review, which is very favorable, follows the Table of Contents that I am entering here because the publisher failed to do so using the tools that Amazon provides.

Part I: The Crisis in Our Politics: Partisan Fatigue
Chapter 1: What Divide? Our Phantom Political Conflicts
* The Divided America Myth
* The Transpartisan Majority: A Different America
* Language: Partly a Problem of Words
Chapter 2: Some Casualties of Partisan Politics: Prisons, Schools, Hospitals, and National Security
* Prisons and the Penal System
* Public Schools: A `Rising Tide of Mediocrity'
* The Healthcare System
* National Security
* Bringing Citizens into Public Spaces
*
Part II: The Old Politics: Squeezing the Life Out of Society
Chapter 3: Transpartisan Capitalism I
* Private interest and Public good
* Ownership in Public Spaces
Chapter 4: National Security and “The Long War”
* Improved Law Enforcement and the Recruitment of Citizens
* Spending for Security
Chapter 5: Challenges of an Unconnected Society: Race, Sexual Preference, and Religion
* Rethinking the Relationships
* Race
* Gender and Sexual Preference
* Religion/Spirituality

Part III: The Transpartisan Imperative
Chapter 6: A Call to Action: The Transpartisan Opportunity
* Addressing the Nature of Life: Nasty, Brutish, and Short
* The Founding
* Forming a More Perfect Union
* The Structure: Congress Shall Make No Law
* The Transpartisan Context: We are all Republicans We are all Federalists
* Transpartisan Discourse

Part IV: Transpartisan Politics: Bring Life Back to Society and Society Back to Life
Chapter 7: Transpartisan Capitalism II
* Public Schools and the Challenge of Bureaucracy
* Notes on a Political Strategy
* The Energy/Environment Challenge
* What is Politically Feasible
* Who will Decide What to Do on Climate Change?
Chapter 8: Recruiting Citizens as Partners for National Security and Foreign Policy
* Focusing on Social Trust
* A Foreign Policy Model
* Spending for Security
Chapter 9: Re-engaging Society: Race, Gays, Religion, and Spirituality
* Race
* Gender and Sexual Preference
* Religion and Spirituality

Part V: Leadership for a New American Politics
Chapter 10: Transpartisan: Past, Present, and Future
* Transpartisan Integration: Engaging Left and Right
* Expand the Analysis
* Transforming Taxes: A Transpartisan Discussion
* Expanding the Business/Commercial Context
* Synergizing Religion
* Empowering the American Transpartisan Imperative
Chapter ii: An Awakened America
* The Changing Role of Leadership: Repairing the Structure of Partisan Politics
* The Paradox of Political Change
* Active Citizenship Organizing Transpartisan Political Campaigns

Conclusion: Leadership for a New Politics
* Starting a Conversation

MY REVIEW

Jim Turner, the liberal co-author, shares with Don Beck, author of
Spiral Dynamics : Mastering Values, Leadership, and Change (Developmental Management), the conceptualization of the word “transpartisanship,” a word that is a direct contradiction of the word “bi-partisan,” the latter being code for “keep the two-party spoils system immune from public challenge.” See Peter Peterson's Running on Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It.

A. Lawrence Chickering, the conservative co-author, wrote Beyond Left and Right: Breaking the Political Stalemate, a concept that has gained great popularity, in part because of Paul Ray's superb work on “The New Political Compass” (not yet a book, free online).

Both authors credit Dee Hock with his pioneer role in One from Many: VISA and the Rise of Chaordic Organization.

I rate this superb book at four stars and a “must read.” The authors and the publisher lose one star for failing to offer the book in a scalable manner, and for presenting a mish-mash of policy assertions with little reference to either the actual threats to our society or to the actual budget (e.g. 950 billion for the military and 30 billion for diplomacy, in 2007).

This is a hugely important book and a must read. It is not available free online, which is a pity because the book *should* be read by millions before Election Day 2008.

I went through my copy today (I traded Jim Turner a copy of Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace) and here are the critical points that grabbed me:

+ “Old (partisan) politics squeezes the public out of politics.

+ Transpartisan capitalism (not to be confused with Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution) creates a valuable new concept that melds private interests and public good.

+ National security is broken, in part because the US “system” is optimized for state to state relations, for “hard power” from the military, at a time when we need to distinguish between–and deal differently with–strong versus weak states, and weak states versus their societies (often fragmented ethnically, tribally, and by religion).

+ Restoring local ownership is a key principal in energizing change. I personally support “home rule” and the reasonable demand that corporations forego their illicit use of “personality” to avoid liability.

+ The authors present the need for an informal network for deciding upon and then delivering foreign assistance that is separated from US “policy” and not necessarily funded by the taxpayer.

+ The authors quietly present the alternative to individual income taxes, crediting economic professor Edgar Feige with the idea of an automatic banking transaction tax.

+ The authors call for changing the debate from left-right to a four quarters matrix (see Paul Ray's work for a more sophisticated depiction) and for creating new means (not further defined) for engaging all of us in participatory democracy. [The most obvious need is for all budgets to be online and open to the public prior to being voted on by Congress or other bodies, and for the elimination of all secret earmarks.]

The book ends with a disappointingly out of date list of founding members of Reuniting America, 110 million strong, and a handful of organizations including 25 representing the “radical center.”

See also my own political book, free online as well as for sale as a high end full color version, Election 2008: Lipstick on the Pig (Substance of Governance; Legitimate Grievances; Candidates on the Issues; Balanced Budget 101; Call to Arms: Fund We Not Them; Annotated Bibliography). There is no connection between the two books or the authors of that book and my own personal “shout out” against the corruption that is so evidently on display in Washington regardless of which party controls the Congress or the White House. “Bi-partisan” is code for betraying We the People and giving trillions of our hard-earned credit to Wall Street speculators that bribed Congress to look the other way as they destroyed the American economy.