Time for MINDING
World Economic Forum distinguish “The Fourth Industrial Revolution” with velocity, the exponential growth of technology, now involving health, finance and others (for the moment); scope, which can be an opportunity, with the internet, computer and mobile resources, implementing information filters of what can access to us; and,system impact, because everything that one person does affect not only other people, but also the environment directly or indirectly, we have complex problems and we need system approached solutions.
We need to prioritize the efforts of development of new technologies that can turn into real innovations for the solution of complex problems, based on Maslow´s Pyramid of needs, focusing first on the quality of life of every person around the world, by giving food, health, water and all of our basic needs, from there, implementing the best model of basic income for everyone, which is already planned to be implemented in European cities like Helsinki. This way we can provide security and let anyone look for friendship and affect. So that at almost the last level we start knowing ourselves and promote a culture of respect, and success. Keeping for the end self realization, related to our purpose in life, which sometimes is a problem in different companies, where they now the most valuable “asset” of the company is their human capital, but they lack of contribution to the organization, and the contribution from the organization to the world, we need to turn companies into human centered inside, with the organizational culture, and outside with their clients, leaving behind “consumism” and focusing on solving problems that can´t and will affect people on a positive way, by promoting social entrepreneurship.
And, when I say will, it´s because we need a long term visualization, which I think could work based on design centered organizations. Where we see design specialist (with a design degree) as the facilitators of innovation from the organization, where they recognize every member as a designer in its area of expertise, and turning “business degrees”into sustainability finders, looking for new business models that help the organization to generate revenues to keep providing solutions, based on their purpose. Not leaving behind technology, as an important resource for innovation, if used correctly. Which will automate industries and give a chance to employees to develop themselves in other areas of thinking and work.
Thinking of businesses as platforms, instead of the old structures of industry, where they create a new venture for each project. Because we recognize problems as complex systems, it´s necessary to understand the need of constant iterations of the solutions provided by each company. That´s the point where they invite, new visions into the organization to improve their solutions, what we call “Intrapreneurs”, which make changes inside of the organizations, looking to generate positive social change when their actions affect the outside. Promoting DEVELOPMENT as the most important action. Taking advantage of the massive creation of projects and startups during the previous years and developing those visions of change for a better world.
We need to take into account that industry is one of four actors that need to be in constant collaboration, having government as a support, not as a creator, which means it would be “the gardener” as Susan Davis and David Bornstein said in their book “Social Entepreneurs”. Where, they help them grow, trying to benefit the seed, providing the conditions they have, as an example, the scope and velocity of implementation.The seed will be “the constructor” and will have the responsibility to grow, business. Having open governments thanks to transparency and clarity of information and structure, efficient and prepared for open innovation. What we could call “delegalization” of work which benefits business by using resources , and government by reducing time of try outs and management thanks to businesses experiences. All of these to guarantee equality and universal access of services for society, represented by the government.
We as society, the third actor, for this to happen, need to turn ourselves into a participatory citizenship, who asks, while government involve us more and more in decision making processes. Using artificial intelligence to turn each one intelligence for decision making into a collective intelligence that can then turn into quick actions from the government who provides the solutions managed by businesses. Providing our knowledge and experience from our actions and NGO´s part of this society, which have tried to solve the problems before and can represent different points of view. Highlighting our mind as the most important asset each human has and it´s appreciate by industry and developed by our forth actor, Academy.
Academy will be responsible for developing 21st century skills, intuition and adding Arts into STEM, having ethics at the core. Seeing education as a gradual process of development thanks to answers you can find and the new knowledge you can acquire with different internet platforms and cyber experiences yet to come. Promoting the involvement of students with the other actors (Government as a provider for the people, Society as Participatory Citizenship and Industry as a Platform for Development) as paradigm destroyers.
All of this by encouraging a human-centered development of intuition and fostering a culture of collaboration between humans and machines as a way to have more time to explore our minds an self realization. We need a revolution called MINDING.