Subject: Re: Organisms - research

From: George Dafermos <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2002 12:36:32 EST

Hi Carl,

I am putting some ideas together and I see that I can have a piece
(averaging 10,000 words)ready within two months time. However at the moment
I am kinda bombarded by assignments, a dissertation and an ongoing paper on
open source R&D. I 'll be able to go for full-speed sometime in the summer
and definitely from September on.

In the last e-mail we decided on:
-organisations as organisms
-the ultimate goal is environmental sustainability and management
accountability & ethical (community)governance

Having that in mind I sketched a layout for the piece :

The key question is concerned with how can enterpreneurship or business
policy or organisations in general lead to a sustainable open society
[which recognises that efficient allocation of both tangible (solar energy,
water, electricity, petrol, etc.) and  intangible ("intelligence", ideas
and implementation of these ideas) resources is vital to our survival and
thereafter to our growth]

Now this is the structure - this will definitely evolve into something
different but it helps me achieve a certain viewpoint towardsb the analysis
and the interviews that potentially have to be done later. Its is currently
divided into two parts: 1 introduction which also consists of two sub-parts
and 2. the conclusions-recommendations part

Introduction : this is the part explaining whaT IS HAPPENNING NOW, mainly
three areas until now

- management corruption: the society has lost faith in the organisations'
willingness to play straight - we see it at the Enron fiasco and the
ongoing trials and turmoil at the world of investment banks and analysts
which of course is the Wall Street.
We also see it at the various BPR (business process reengineering)
practices that in fact provide a mechsanism to lay off people - that's why
in most people's mind BPR means downsizing. There are so many compelling
arguments and facts

- environmental destruction: beyond doubt, the world balance is well shaken
off - people think that the technological superiority we have achieved
gives us the ability to modify and control the biological surrounding
without jeopardising our existence. The nature after all is a system based
on "emergent properties" it's just like the water that turns into steam
from a previously liquid form when its temperature reaches a certain level.

- Institutions and social capital: there is a huge requirement for
"intelligence" in all developing countries and in most cases that the issue
under concern has overreaching implications or is so complex that diverse
sources of intelligence (ie. social intelligence in the form of a public
policy reform and technical intelligence in the form of an advanced
technology that filters the infrared radiation). 
To go futher, the intelligence by itself will not do the job. The crucial
part is the implementation and since organisations play such an important
role in society (as devices for growth creation and
economic-social-technological progres) they will be the most suitable ones
ti implement this intelligence - to decide how, what and why they will do
with the ideas that are accessible to them.
Education, public innovation and enterpreneurship and similar
"infrastructural issues" will be stressed upon

In some of the above categories i will add an analysis on unstable and
global financial markets that whilst are sensitive to speculative
investment and thus have impacted harshly on society on several occassions,
still we fail to understand that we cannot effectively CONTROL this
globally networked system.

Then I 'll proceeed to the second part of the "introduction" which is what
is happenning now but from a more optimistic perspective:

the opportunities unveiled by digitisation and code pervasiveness and the
promises that virtual communities and organisations hold for further social
and business welfare. In a nutshell, we could say that there are two
scenarios unfolding in front of our eyes: the first says that big, global
organisations will keep on expanding and growing even bigger and benting
the rules - in fact they will become the new nation states and most people
will define themselves through who they work for - 
-the second scenario says that myriads of virtual micro-businesses will
strive and finally replace these gigantic corporate behemoths -here is that
Linux and virtual decentralised management and development fits in.

After this part, recommendations and conclusions follow that needless to
say, stem from the previous analytical part (introduction). Actually we
elaborate on several key dimensions of the problem and provide suggestions
on how to tackle the deterioration in sustainable economic growth which
creeps into our lives and we have just started to accept as true.

Let me know what you think

Regards

George

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