In this fourth episode of the Boundaryless Conversations Podcast, hosts Simone Cicero and Stina Heikkilä interview John Robb, the owner and principal analyst for the monthly Global Guerrillas Report. The conversation was rich in topics ranging from the coexistence of emergent networks and existing markets to glocal models that ensure resilience.
A link to the podcast can be found here.
Here are the highlights and my thoughts.
On the coexistence of emergent networks and existing markets
Simone started the podcast by asking John for his thoughts on the power of emerging networks and their effect on creating new forms of organizing. John referred to the TIMN framework, which focuses on how decision making has evolved throughout history from Tribal, Institutional, Market and now Networks.
This framework aligns closely with vMemes in the Spiral Dynamics (SD) framework. Those familiar with SD will recognize the similarity: Tribal (purple/safety), Institution (blue/order), Market (orange/prosperity), and Networks (green/community). For those not familiar with SD, it is a developmental psychology framework that describes how humans have evolved our mental capacities in response to an ever increasingly complex set of life conditions and related problems. In short, we awaken new mindsets and mental capabilities, like decision making, in order to solve problems that our previous mindset could not solve. The reason I like SD so much is it describes two mindsets that emerge after green and it is useful in understanding what new forms of organizations (and related decision making) will likely emerge on top of networks. In fact, the green/community mindset is the last in the first tier of SD vMemes that are motivated by individual subsistence. The Green decision making frameworks and organizational structures (i.e. networks) enable and prepare us for what Clare Graves referred to as mankind’s momentous leap – the evolution from the individual subsistence motivation to the collective coexistence motivation.
Simone commented on the interrelation between the steps in the TIMN framework:
“I see when we think about these frameworks that all these steps somehow [have] built on top of each other. So, somehow the institutional age has been building on top of the tribal age, and as you said, as well, the market age has been building on top of this institutional age. So somehow this network age is building on top of the market age.”
This is correct because all of the TIMN steps represent stages in human development and how we have developed new ways of thinking, decision making patterns and organizational structures in response to increasingly complex problems. Each new stage/mindset represents new thinking in response to the shortcomings of the previous mindset’s ability to solve more complex problems.
Simone asked:
“Can we relate with these emergent, global, open and participatory networks in the same way we have been interacting and relating with markets and institutions.”
John felt that the integration of networks into our society will take time just as with any new way of thinking and interacting. He also shared what networks do better than hierarchical institutions or markets. Networks are better at information discovery, mobilizing resources and information sharing.
Simone asked:
Do you see this transition, [ ] between markets and networks [ ] going through a breakdown of some kind or or [is it] a smooth transition?
John felt it would be bumpy and I agree. That’s because people develop new ways of thinking in response to their life conditions and those conditions are not the same for everyone. At any given time, people are dealing with different problems that shape their worldview. People progress at different rates. Those rates depend on how conflicted they become when their current mindset cannot solve a new issue and how aware they are of new ways of thinking. This is the rewiring process that John refers to below:
It’s not just changing, you know, how we are communicating and how we are organizing, it’s rewiring us, it’s rewiring our brains at a very deep level. It’s changing the way we think.”
Simone then asked a series of questions:
“So my question is, how is entrepreneurship going to change in this process? What [ ] becomes of the word enterprise? What are we going to organize? What kind of needs and what kind of desires are these communities going to organize around? And in this process, what is the role of scale? How do we interconnect scale? What entrepreneurial project can be replicated? And how are we going to [follow] these patterns of open source? What is the role of blockchain, for example, in these distributed organizations? How do you see that playing out?
John shared examples of how networks are already permeating business and society in terms of how people interact, share information and make decisions. On entrepreneurship, John focused on augmented reality in a way that I found disorienting at this point in the podcast. His perspective on the role of AR became clearer later in the conversation.
I felt Simone’s questions were getting at the organizational aspect of the transition underway from markets to networks. In that regard, my perspective is that the transition is raising questions about the roles (i.e. entrepreneurs and corporations) that underpin the market paradigm. In the emerging networked world, new roles are emerging in the form of the commons and open source that are motivated by abundance and sharing, but there currently is no clarity around what parts of society should be shared and held in common and what should be rewarded through entrepreneurial innovation. Two perspectives come to mind. First, Jeremy Rifkin’s work on the Zero Marginal Cost Society, which refers to the possibility that the market paradigm, in its endless drive for productivity, will create its own demise as AI and robots drive marginal cost in markets to zero. In that case, there will no longer be a need for markets to incent innovation and this will give rise to the commons. Another insightful perspective is Jordan Hall’s take on scarcity vs. abundance mindsets in The Great Coming Transition.
“The abundance mindset sees things differently. [ ] People can become free to pursue their lives the way that they want to. And if only a fraction use their time to contribute to the common wealth, everything will be OK. In an abundance society, if 85% of the population does nothing, the system doesn’t skip a beat — because the innovative wealth created by the other 15% is more than enough.”
To me, as networks proliferate, we will organize less around products, services delivered via institutions and markets and more around ecosystems organized around human needs. This is what I had in mind when I created the Ecosystem of You framework. I imagined ecosystems emerging around a hierarchy of human needs (based on the vMemes in Spiral Dynamics) and likened a human being to a flower growing and blossoming from a pot.
I worked with colleagues Andreas Freund and (fellow PDT community member) Danielle Stanko to create detailed models that align to the EoY framework.
- Post Capital Cybernetics: A Decentralized Model for Participatory Economies and Businesses is a detailed business, organization and technical model that enables a commons based peer production approach with blockchain.
- The Wolf and the Caribou: Coexistence of Decentralized Economies and Competitive Markets explores a model for the interaction of markets and the commons.
Simone then asked John for his thoughts on how new forms of organizing might be impacted by risk factors or issues (like climate change) that affect our supply chains and ongoing access to commons resources like food and water.
John felt our existing institutions and markets would not be able to solve these complex problems at an international scale, whereas networks could mobilize resources more effectively. He also felt that networks will also need to evolve in their means of maintaining cohesion because networks also amplify information that can fragment communities along ideological and other lines. Ultimately, he felt networks would prevail as the best means of addressing these issues.
Along these lines, Danielle Stanko and I applied the above Post Capital Cybernetics model that attempts to address Simone’s question of societal challenges like climate change.
- Preserving Our Commons with Blockchain Technology explores the application of the model to overcome the tragedy of the commons to incent the preservation of our planet’s commons.
Stina then asked:
“So what happens when, for example, the networks themselves start to monitor the information that is being shared, like we’ve seen in some cases or by Twitter and Facebook, because of regulation that is emerging, but there seems to be a sort of gap between the institutions, the markets and the networks? So [do] you have any thoughts to share on these kinds of risks of — [ ] censoring, or regulating the information flow?”
John felt that censorship and regulation were short term issues compared to the longer term issue of AI control of networks. He felt that because AI needs social data to be useful, its utility is being constrained by data privacy regulations emerging in Europe and the west in ways that aren’t happening in China. Therefore, he felt China may lead in the development of AI with their access to unconstrained social data.
While I agree with this assessment, I also think we have to protect against bias in social data that can polarize or accelerate inequality as in what has happened with journalism becoming market-driven political storytelling. We need a means to establish trusted information that’s unbiased or AI can just end up making things worse. I wrote this post about how AI could be used in a positive way to accelerate collective intelligence and project values that help us solve our collective social challenges.
On Glocal Systems
The discussion then turned to the relationship between global institutions and local communities. Simone asked:
“So, I see this kind of friction: looks like we are a bit lost now between looking for more coherence at the national level in the wake of these new risks coming up, or more resilience or community level. So, how do you see that? And especially again, from the perspective of designing organizations?”
I liked John’s response and perspective on resilience.
“My general philosophy with resilience in the modern world at the individual and the community level is to come connect with the bigger system on your own terms. So, what that means is you build enough productive capacity or reserve capacity. So that if the bigger system goes down, you can still function, you can still achieve your goals. But on the other hand, you don’t want to totally disconnect or overproduce at the local level to the point where you are competing with you know, more efficiently produced stuff at the macro level.”
Simone then asked about how to prioritize and fund local redundancies in an economic system that prioritizes pointless technological gadgets like an app that enables celebrities to give birthday wishes to someone. John responded that the beauty of the network model is it enables us to adapt quickly to changing needs with entrepreneurial answers to those things that add value to people’s lives.
I agree and with this COVID19 crisis, I see things like celebrity birthday wish apps losing their importance. I see this pandemic as a turning point and a catalyst for us to reflect on our priorities and set in place these new resilient infrastructures.
Stina then asked about the emergence of a circular economy to offset the dependence on global supply chains for things like energy. John said the downside of globalization is global supply chains. He felt that we wouldn’t move away from things being provided in the most efficient way, but we will also see the need for more local self-sufficiency to connect on your own terms.
Simone added:
“There’s also an open question [on] how these institutions are going to interplay. So, these four stages that four layers that you mentioned at the start, the tribes, the institutions, the markets, and the networks are going to coexist.”
John said:
“I’m still trying to find ways to formalize and modify networks in a way that, you know, that they could so they can integrate, integrate into the existing decision making systems and we’re still figuring out what they’re good for.”
John added that networks can create tribalism based on emotion and polarize communities and that we need to find a positive way forward in perhaps creating a global village.
This is the essence of second tier thinking (yellow/interdependence mindset) in Spiral Dynamics. It focuses on coexistence of multiple mindsets and models where we maximize the positive attributes of each system and minimize the negative aspects of each. In fact, the most advanced tier 2 mindset observed in Spiral Dynamics is the turquoise/harmony mindset, which is a tribal mindset. It’s focus is on creating a single cooperative global tribe.