Wednesday, May 28, 2003

The Intelligent Organization Gifford & Elizabeth Pinchot write: As everybody knows, large organizations today face challenges of increasing complexity. Change is happening faster, everything is connecting to everything else, people and the earth are demanding more consideration, new forms of competition are appearing, computer systems are eliminating the need for whole levels of management--the list grows. How do we cope? Organizations must grow far more intelligent to deal with so many diverse and simultaneous challenges. The breadth of the gap between what is and what needs to be is so great that many employees more than a couple of levels down from the top perceive their organization to be stupid. The potential intelligence of organizations is widely distributed because the brains are widely distributed, one per person. To be fully intelligent, an organization must use the intelligence of its members well. Most members of large organizations we talk with are frustrated that their wisdom "what they have observed and figured out" is not being used when plans and decisions affecting the things they know about are made from above. These people have repeatedly watched their organization do foolish and wasteful things. They have become inured to this, as if it were a law of nature that the designated decision-makers of organizations, focussing as they must on "the big picture," cannot think clearly about the smaller everyday decisions, and cannot find ways to give the people ready to deal with more local issues the authority to address them intelligently. If, on the other hand, managers at every level act as if it is impossible to get good decisions out of the average employee, rules and procedures "vital to organizational effectiveness" will crowd out equally vital local divergent thinking. The result of replacing the widespread use of intelligence with the intelligence of a few decision makers is mediocre performance--not anarchy, but not organizational brilliance either. (05/28/03) Living Economies David C. Korten writes: The Era of Empire has led to the pursuit of money as humanity's defining value and hierarchy/domination as society's organizing principle. It has led to the emergence of a corporate global economy — appropriately described as a suicide economy, because it is destroying the foundations of its own existence and threatening the survival of the human species. It is the Era's final stage. The human future depends on moving beyond the self-limiting and ultimately self-destructive ways of Empire to live into being a new Era of Community in which life is the defining cultural value and networking/partnership is the organizing principle. Ironically, the possibility of achieving such fundamental change resides in the awakening of hundreds of millions of people to the reality that humanity is on a path to social and environmental collapse, which create an imperative to accomplish the seemingly impossible. The global corporations that are the ruling institutions of the suicide economy are required by law, structure, and the imperatives of global finance to maximize financial returns to absentee owners without regard to the consequences for people or planet. In short, they are programmed to behave like cancers that seek their own unlimited growth without regard to the consequences. As these pathological institutions have consolidated their power, the imperatives of global finance have come to dominate the economic, political, and cultural lives of people, communities, and nations everywhere. The human future depends on moving beyond the self-limiting and ultimately self-destructive ways of Empire to live into being a new Era of Community in which life is the defining cultural value, cooperation and partnership are society's organizing principles, and networking is the predominant organizational form. (05/28/03) New Vaccine Regime Protects Against Malaria CNN Health -- A one-two punch of malaria DNA virus and the virus used to vaccinate against smallpox spurs the human immune system to mount a powerful defense against malaria, researchers report. This approach might provide a basis for preventive and therapeutic vaccination in people, scientists said in a paper that appears in Monday's online issue of the journal Nature Medicine. ... Using a strain of the smallpox vaccine known as MVA, the researchers found it had "a rare ability to selectively boost" T-cells -- critical immune cells that attack invading disease -- that have been primed in advance by the malaria protein, Hill said. Thus, Hill said, "the immunization order is critical." The DNA vaccine induces T-cells to respond to a malaria antigen called thrombospondin-related adhesion protein, or TRAP; the modified smallpox virus also produces a response to TRAP. As a result, the T-cells react strongly to the malaria parasite, delaying its release from the liver into the bloodstream and reducing the number of released parasites. (05/28/03) Need Money? Print some on your Inkjet! New Scientist -- Fierce competition in the inkjet printer market has made digital colour printers so cheap and the print quality so high that a £100 printer can produce fake banknotes that pass for the real thing in the dim light of a bar or nightclub. This warning comes from De La Rue, the world leader in security printing. The company has coined the name "digifeiters" for the new generation of counterfeiters spawned by ultra-cheap high-resolution inkjet printers. In speaking out, De La Rue has broken its traditional stony silence on alleged security problems. "This is very sensitive subject but we thought it was time to say something and make people think," says spokesman John Winchcombe. In a warning document, De La Rue tells banks and governments: "There appears to be little appreciation of the nature of the problem ­ and even less sense of urgency. The world's central banks are now having to deal with an increasing number of counterfeit banknotes, generated by colour inkjet printers." (05/28/03) SARS Vaccine Testing Begins New Scientist -- Tests of a potential vaccine against the deadly SARS virus are about to start in monkeys, say scientists from Hong Kong and mainland China. Yi Guan, a microbiologist at the University of Hong Kong, says the researchers have cultured the SARS virus in the laboratory and will kill or inactivate it to produce the experimental vaccine. "We will purify it to guarantee there is no live virus, before testing it on animals," Guan told Reuters. "We will then see if the cultured virus stimulates the production of antibodies." The researchers warn that it is far too early to tell whether the experimental vaccine will be safe or effective in humans. Even preliminary results from the animal tests will not be available for another six months. (05/28/03) Green Development: More than an Oxymoron? New York Times: Environment -- A nonprofit group is embarking on its first real estate enterprise, the creation of a $40 million development in the former factory town of Beacon. It will include a 100-room hotel, a conference center, restaurants, shops and hiking trails on 23 acres along the east bank of the Hudson, and it is next door to the new art museum, Dia:Beacon. Scenic Hudson had wooed the Dia Center for the Arts to move a collection of works by artists who became popular in the 1960's and 1970's to the gritty town. "I feel good about it," says Mr. Sullivan, who is lanky with lean, sharp features. "Development is intense in the Hudson Valley; it's going to happen. The question is not whether it's going to happen. It's how we can shape it so that it serves the interests and desires of the people from the Hudson Valley. The development pressure is moving up the valley like a wave." ... Mr. Sullivan refers to the project as "a green development," and says even Pete Seeger, the folk singer and a Beacon resident, seems to like it, especially plans for a boat-building program for young people. (Mr. Seeger says he also wants Mr. Sullivan's help in building a swimming pool floating in the Hudson River.) "We decided it wasn't enough to stop bad projects, but that we should be daring enough to sponsor positive developments that would be sustainable," he says. "We are going to make this a state-of-the-art, cutting-edge, environmentally sound, energy-efficient development." (05/28/03) Oceanic Crisis Confirmed! New York Times: Opinion -- It has long been clear that the world's oceans are in trouble, its coastal waters increasingly polluted and its fish stocks in various stages of decline. Now comes the most shocking news in years: a report from two Canadian scientists that says the world's mechanized fishing fleets have managed in a mere 50 years to wipe out nine-tenths of the world's biggest and most economically important species of fish, including cod, halibut, tuna and swordfish. The report, published in the journal Nature, is the first to present a global picture of the drastic declines that earlier studies had detected on a regional basis. It provides further evidence that fishing fleets have been able to sustain harvests at high levels only by venturing further and further out to sea in a desperate but ultimately self-defeating effort to stay in business. The analysis also provides a timely prelude to a flurry of studies and conferences aimed at shedding more light on the problem and suggesting solutions: a meeting of experts, organized by Conservation International, to be held this week in Los Cabos, Mexico; the Pew Oceans Commission's coming final report on America's territorial waters; and, later this year, a long-awaited report from the Congressionally chartered Commission on Ocean Policy. The crisis described in the Nature article obviously requires global solutions. When it comes to the strip mining of the oceans, it is hard to top Japan's heavily subsidized fleets. Some European nations are only slightly less predatory. But America is hardly blameless — one-third of its fish stocks are in trouble. (05/28/03) India Seeks Peace with Pakistan The Times of India -- India will not demand a complete halt to cross-border militant strikes before talks can begin on normalising ties with Pakistan, External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha said in an interview published on Monday. These remarks by Sinha represent a shift in policy. He described a halt to attacks as a precondition of a "successful outcome" to the talks, but not a requirement before talks can begin. "If this was a precondition then (Prime Minister Atal Behari) Vajpayee would not have extended the 'hand of friendship' to Pakistan last month," Sinha was quoted as saying. "But for the dialogue to succeed it is essential that cross-border terrorism comes to an end." Pakistan Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali said last week that Islamabad and Delhi were moving towards the resumption of peace talks. (05/28/03) 5:14:56 AM

© TrustMark 2003 Timothy Wilken. Last update: 5/29/2003; 6:33:58 AM. This theme is based on the SoundWaves (blue) Manila theme.