What EraNova offers
A survivable new era
EraNova is a small think tank with a big mission: showcasing a few key organizations that are pursuing an “impossible” goal: saving civilization from environmental, technological, and social suicide — our present course.
[ CLICK HERE for news of daily progress ]
In spite of the daunting odds against success, our chosen developers envision survival beyond a critical point of no return (2030-2050), and the dawn of a new era. We’re here to cheer them on, broadcast their solutions, and connect them with investors and potential customers.
Our guiding strategy is the Smart Green Path™ (also referred to as the Smart Green Deal™ — not to be confused with the Green New Deal).
For an in-depth description of the strategy, its potential, and how it’s already working, see this article:
In brief, the Smart Green Path™ is an action strategy for making good things happen fast, within our 2030–2050 deadline. It’s powerful for two reasons. First, it focuses on two big, related existential threats, not just one:
- The climate crisis, including all forms of pollution and pandemic infection that are killing us and spoiling our environment. Estimated deadlines for turning things around range from 2030 to 2050.
- The AI or technology apocalypse, when machine intelligence exceeds human intelligence, making humans “unnecessary” (from a mindless, dystopian point of view). Our deadline for avoiding this crisis is also 2030–2050, according to expert estimates.
The second reason the Smart Green Path™ is powerful is this. It’s surprisingly synergistic through strategies that are —
- Double-green: green economically as well as environmentally. In attacking climate change, pollution, pandemic infections, and conservation issues, priority is given to innovations that pay for themselves soon, sometimes in just a few years if not months or days, while reducing pollution and warming. To solve our problems fast, we can’t rely on do-good motives only. For strong, immediate action, billions of people must join in, and for that to happen, they need to make or save money “now.”
- Double-smart: helping people and technology work smarter and get smarter together. The approach takes full advantage of high tech and artificial intelligence without displacing millions and making them feel irrelevant, disaffected, and sometimes violent. The double-smart strategy in fact leverages smart tech to help humans pursue super-human status — becoming more intelligent, connected, helpful and fulfilled than ever.
With the right priorities and planning, we can stay ahead of our AI creations because we will subsume them and guide them with our aliveness. We may even generate the “noosphere” or global consciousness predicted by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.
The Smart Green Deal is also infinitely iterative: creating more and better solutions through accelerating cycles of innovations that seed endlessly new innovations. For example, imagine the fruits of the happy marriage of AI and human agency. Resistance to change might be turned into acceptance and enthusiasm, freeing cloud-connected to cure and create anything, ushering in an unprecedented future.
The Smart Green Path™ is a non-political tool that can make a difference while making money in its own right, right now. It may also be used within the Green New Deal or other plans (whether conservative or liberal) — to make bold goals more reachable and ideological acceptable.
Thee Smart Green Path™ is “political” only in that it acknowledges and circumvents a basic cause of our political divide: economic interests skew our views and votes. People instinctively resist anything that threatens their pocketbooks or lives, often becoming fearful, deluded, desperate, impotent, and prone to aggression.
We get around that by supporting private and public-sector initiatives that minimize the pain of change. “Everybody wins” is the winning way and “We’re all in this together,” the winning spirit.
Unfortunately, the Smart Green Path™ l has a strong competitor, the Dumb Brown Path. It’s —
- Double-brown: bad for the bottom line (ultimately) and the environment.
- Double-dumb: replacing bright, caring aliveness with dark, vacant efficiency that may ultimately serve no one.
To keep that from happening, we find and promote what the world needs now: double-green, double-smart enterprises, groups, services, innovations, and trends.
A few examples (many more to come):
More about EraNova Institute
EraNova’s director, Dick Samson, has served as consultant to IBM, AT&T, and other leading organizations over decades. A futurist by inclination, his books include The Mind Builder, Creative Analysis, The Language Ladder, Mind Over Technology, and Highly-Human Jobs.
Published as Richard W. Samson as well as Dick Samson, his work has appeared in magazines ranging from Reader’s Digest to The Futurist; and he publishes online information hosted by Medium.
Samson runs EraNova with his wife, Suzanne, and calls upon a network of like-minded investigators and communicators.
Examples of services spanning decades
- IBM: Samson created a set of “compressed experienced” to help IBM’s managers accelerate the improvement in problem analysis and decision making that normally takes many years of ordinary experience.
- AT&T: In collaboration with General Magic, AT&T Labs, and Cisco Systems, he created early prototypes for mobile interaction; and interfaces for unified communication — helping lay a foundation for the Internet era.
- Hoffmann LaRoche: He created a “bright idea program” that not only motivated employees to make improvements, but prompted their minds in creative, practical directions. The program was credited with improving morale and saving millions of dollars.
- Pitney-Bowes: He reduced paperwork and improved productivity by creating a time-saving alternative to traditional call-reporting for sales personnel.
- Other organizations: He showed magazine editors and computer researchers how to apply “elements of thought” to complete their tasks more creatively and effectively … and developed weekly bulletins to foster “other-directed thinking” in service personnel and sales representatives …
Currently Samson is focusing on “smart-green” innovations in fields ranging from health insurance to artificial intelligence.
He is convinced that society has only 10 or 12 years to change course or all bets are off. He’d like to help everyone, but has the bandwidth to help only a few pivotal players accelerate their high-tech, green-leaning contributions — in turn helping everyone. Samson multiplies his own efforts through a network of like-minded professionals; and he supports key organizations that multiply positive results through their technology and professional staffs.
NOTE: We are registering Smart Green Path and Smart Green Deal to prevent others from registering the names for narrow purposes. We welcome free use of the names by anyone promoting smart, green goals. EraNova need not be credited as the source. References and links are appreciated, however; they help us do our part while connecting you with like-minded innovators.
In development: a description of key transformations that all need to happen if we are to survive today’s existential threats. This 2016 article, revised in 2017, is already out-of-date and now being revised:
dicksamson @ eranova.com
# # #
