Toto… We’re not in Kansas (Kampala or Kanpur) anymore!
January 9th, 2006
Dorothy uttered these now famous words, “Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore,” in the 1939 film, The Wizard of Oz. She and her pet dog were swept up in the whirlwind of a tornado that magically transported them to the imaginary Utopian world of Oz.
Were Dorothy to comment on the emerging cyclonic world that Tom Friedman characterizes as Globalization 3.0 in The World Is Flat, she might have included the other lo-K-tions in this post’s title. In the emerging world of globally connected, Empowered Individuals, geographic location is no longer the overwhelming determiner of opportunity and quality of life that it has been throughout history.
We’re making this point in response to comments by Jeff Mowatt and Wendy Kelly in the ned: philanthropic franchise conversation on Omidyar.net:
Jeff Mowatt said (our emphasis [context] added):
…I’m trying to ascertain whether NED [Networked Enterprise Development] aims to achieve this [financial and market sustainability] externally by virtue of being a franchised version of something like an OXFAM shop, offering fair trade goods from developing countries to Western markets and thereby opening markets for micro-enterprises in the developing world. [snip]
On the other hand, could this franchise be deployable in developing world locations on the ground? In this way engaging local people to produce competitively with a free market system and earn at least a living wage, at the same time setting aside funds committed to development of new enterprises.
The former would in my mind be sustained philanthropy and the latter sustained self-determination. Is NED both of these things?
Along similar lines, Wendy Kelly said (our emphasis [context] added):
I am in Nelson BC (shangrila [British Columbia, Canada]) we are the perfect size (10,000) progressive small town. Small Walmart, but vibrant downtown. TONS of fair trade here. Our own coffee (organic, fair trade, excellent) [snip]
Thoughts are that it is necessary; we should be careful about expecting people to buy stuff just because they should (mentioned above); also, do we need to go overseas? Could we not buy and sell small town local stuff at NED? [snip…] if we are there to connect small communities, wouldn’t it be more on target to sell stuff made by other small towns (or small city neighbourhoods) that don’t have access to large exposure?
All good to have the African/Asian, etc stuff as well, but just thinkging that there are tons of local artists here (and in other artsy small towns) that could benefit from having the exposure of NED. As David Suzuki said, it’s time to think local, act local.
Jeff and Wendy, as we have replied before within the Ned conversation, these are all excellent and timely questions. They are, in fact, profound questions when taken in light of the emergence of Globalization 3.0. (See this recent post for Flat World globalization era context.)
When Nations and Corporations Become Background Noise
As the world flattens throughout the emerging era of Globalization 3.0, nations and multinational corporations increasingly become background noise. This is not to say that nations and giant corporations are not powerful and influential anymore. Rather, and this is a vital undercurrent message in Friedman’s book, today’s ICT (Information, Communication, and Transportation) technologies empower the Individual to imagine and then realize his or her own place in the world.
And, thanks to these ICT technologies, our Individual place in the world is no longer strictly bounded by geography nor by the organizations with which we are affiliated.
To say that Globalization 3.0 is the era of the Empowered Individual is not glib hyperbole. This is a challenge to revolutionize the way each of us looks at and behaves in the world.
Paradigm Shift: From Developing Nations to Developing Individuals
Globalization 1.0 and 2.0 were about developed countries and developing countries. International aid was about exchange between nations and insurgency (benevolent and otherwise) by multinational corporations as they set up and/or moved their operations for market access and economic advantage.
Globalization 3.0 is about developed individuals and developing individuals.
In Globalization 1.0 and 2.0, developing countries struggled to overcome the devastating impact of being marginalized. That is, they struggled to overcome the impact of being denied access and participation in the world’s political and economic systems.
During Globalization 3.0, our challenge as Individuals is to work our way out of, or to work to keep from becoming, marginalized as Individuals. In the 21st century, there are hundreds of millions of marginalized Individuals. These masses are struggling in New York just as sure are they are struggling in New Delhi. You’ll find them in rural Kansas just as sure as you will find them in urbanized Kampala.
Sure, there has always been poverty everywhere. But marginalization in the era of Globalization 3.0 is not a unidimensional, socioeconomic phenomena that can be reduced to a matter of money. Marginalization in Globalization 3.0 will have many faces and many battlefronts. It is as likely to be found in the home of a forced-retirement IT worker in suburban Minneapolis as it is to be found in a hut in a rural village of Banda Aceh. It will be found in the farmhouses of rural Iowa as well as in the urban ghettos of Rio de Janeiro.
The reality for each of us is this: In the hyper-competitive world of Globalization 3.0, nation-states and giant corporations are going to have their hands full just taking care of themselves and their already enfranchised citizenry and customers. We will have a very long wait if we expect our lives as Empowered Individuals to be handed to us on silver platters from the governments where we live, or from the corporations from which we buy things or where we work.
The Globalization 3.0 Challenge: Wealthshifting from the Big Three
Becoming an Empowered Individual in the Flat World of Globalization 3.0 is exciting and, let’s be honest, a bit scary. It can be scary to know that we are quite literally on our own. But paradoxically, what makes our Globalization 3.0 lives scary is what makes them exciting as well.
As Empowered Individuals of Globalization 3.0, we all share the same fundamental goal. Our shared goal is to shift wealth from the Big Three to the rest of us. The Big Three are nation-states, multinational corporations, and the world’s wealthiest individuals who have more money than most of us can imagine.
Our means to achieving this shift of wealth is not through violent revolution nor any other form of replacing an existing One Right Way with yet another, different One Right Way.
Our means to empowering Individuals in the Globalization 3.0 world will be to envision alternatives in how we organize to do work and create economic and social value, and in how we envision and create markets. Nothing short of a revolutionary alternative — an alternative, not a replacement — of our understanding of, and strategies for, investment, production, and consumption will achieve the scale of social and economic change that is possible in the Globalization 3.0 era.
When enough of us make this shift in how we think about ourselves and how we think about our world and the power of our place in it, the full potential of Globalization 3.0 will begin to be realized. The cyclone of change of Globalization 3.0 will pluck each of us from our homes in Kansas, Kampala, and Kanpur and we will find ourselves networked, hand-in-hand, in the Flat World of Empowered Individuals.
–Sohodojo Jim and Timlynn–
Entry Filed under: Globalization 3.0 and the Small Is Good World, Inprosumerism, NED - Philanthropic Franchise
Toto… We’re not in Kansas (Kampala or Kanpur) anymore!
January 9th, 2006
Dorothy uttered these now famous words, “Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore,” in the 1939 film, The Wizard of Oz. She and her pet dog were swept up in the whirlwind of a tornado that magically transported them to the imaginary Utopian world of Oz.
Were Dorothy to comment on the emerging cyclonic world that Tom Friedman characterizes as Globalization 3.0 in The World Is Flat, she might have included the other lo-K-tions in this post’s title. In the emerging world of globally connected, Empowered Individuals, geographic location is no longer the overwhelming determiner of opportunity and quality of life that it has been throughout history.
We’re making this point in response to comments by Jeff Mowatt and Wendy Kelly in the ned: philanthropic franchise conversation on Omidyar.net:
Jeff Mowatt said (our emphasis [context] added):
…I’m trying to ascertain whether NED [Networked Enterprise Development] aims to achieve this [financial and market sustainability] externally by virtue of being a franchised version of something like an OXFAM shop, offering fair trade goods from developing countries to Western markets and thereby opening markets for micro-enterprises in the developing world. [snip]
On the other hand, could this franchise be deployable in developing world locations on the ground? In this way engaging local people to produce competitively with a free market system and earn at least a living wage, at the same time setting aside funds committed to development of new enterprises.
The former would in my mind be sustained philanthropy and the latter sustained self-determination. Is NED both of these things?
Along similar lines, Wendy Kelly said (our emphasis [context] added):
I am in Nelson BC (shangrila [British Columbia, Canada]) we are the perfect size (10,000) progressive small town. Small Walmart, but vibrant downtown. TONS of fair trade here. Our own coffee (organic, fair trade, excellent) [snip]
Thoughts are that it is necessary; we should be careful about expecting people to buy stuff just because they should (mentioned above); also, do we need to go overseas? Could we not buy and sell small town local stuff at NED? [snip…] if we are there to connect small communities, wouldn’t it be more on target to sell stuff made by other small towns (or small city neighbourhoods) that don’t have access to large exposure?
All good to have the African/Asian, etc stuff as well, but just thinkging that there are tons of local artists here (and in other artsy small towns) that could benefit from having the exposure of NED. As David Suzuki said, it’s time to think local, act local.
Jeff and Wendy, as we have replied before within the Ned conversation, these are all excellent and timely questions. They are, in fact, profound questions when taken in light of the emergence of Globalization 3.0. (See this recent post for Flat World globalization era context.)
When Nations and Corporations Become Background Noise
As the world flattens throughout the emerging era of Globalization 3.0, nations and multinational corporations increasingly become background noise. This is not to say that nations and giant corporations are not powerful and influential anymore. Rather, and this is a vital undercurrent message in Friedman’s book, today’s ICT (Information, Communication, and Transportation) technologies empower the Individual to imagine and then realize his or her own place in the world.
And, thanks to these ICT technologies, our Individual place in the world is no longer strictly bounded by geography nor by the organizations with which we are affiliated.
To say that Globalization 3.0 is the era of the Empowered Individual is not glib hyperbole. This is a challenge to revolutionize the way each of us looks at and behaves in the world.
Paradigm Shift: From Developing Nations to Developing Individuals
Globalization 1.0 and 2.0 were about developed countries and developing countries. International aid was about exchange between nations and insurgency (benevolent and otherwise) by multinational corporations as they set up and/or moved their operations for market access and economic advantage.
Globalization 3.0 is about developed individuals and developing individuals.
In Globalization 1.0 and 2.0, developing countries struggled to overcome the devastating impact of being marginalized. That is, they struggled to overcome the impact of being denied access and participation in the world’s political and economic systems.
During Globalization 3.0, our challenge as Individuals is to work our way out of, or to work to keep from becoming, marginalized as Individuals. In the 21st century, there are hundreds of millions of marginalized Individuals. These masses are struggling in New York just as sure are they are struggling in New Delhi. You’ll find them in rural Kansas just as sure as you will find them in urbanized Kampala.
Sure, there has always been poverty everywhere. But marginalization in the era of Globalization 3.0 is not a unidimensional, socioeconomic phenomena that can be reduced to a matter of money. Marginalization in Globalization 3.0 will have many faces and many battlefronts. It is as likely to be found in the home of a forced-retirement IT worker in suburban Minneapolis as it is to be found in a hut in a rural village of Banda Aceh. It will be found in the farmhouses of rural Iowa as well as in the urban ghettos of Rio de Janeiro.
The reality for each of us is this: In the hyper-competitive world of Globalization 3.0, nation-states and giant corporations are going to have their hands full just taking care of themselves and their already enfranchised citizenry and customers. We will have a very long wait if we expect our lives as Empowered Individuals to be handed to us on silver platters from the governments where we live, or from the corporations from which we buy things or where we work.
The Globalization 3.0 Challenge: Wealthshifting from the Big Three
Becoming an Empowered Individual in the Flat World of Globalization 3.0 is exciting and, let’s be honest, a bit scary. It can be scary to know that we are quite literally on our own. But paradoxically, what makes our Globalization 3.0 lives scary is what makes them exciting as well.
As Empowered Individuals of Globalization 3.0, we all share the same fundamental goal. Our shared goal is to shift wealth from the Big Three to the rest of us. The Big Three are nation-states, multinational corporations, and the world’s wealthiest individuals who have more money than most of us can imagine.
Our means to achieving this shift of wealth is not through violent revolution nor any other form of replacing an existing One Right Way with yet another, different One Right Way.
Our means to empowering Individuals in the Globalization 3.0 world will be to envision alternatives in how we organize to do work and create economic and social value, and in how we envision and create markets. Nothing short of a revolutionary alternative — an alternative, not a replacement — of our understanding of, and strategies for, investment, production, and consumption will achieve the scale of social and economic change that is possible in the Globalization 3.0 era.
When enough of us make this shift in how we think about ourselves and how we think about our world and the power of our place in it, the full potential of Globalization 3.0 will begin to be realized. The cyclone of change of Globalization 3.0 will pluck each of us from our homes in Kansas, Kampala, and Kanpur and we will find ourselves networked, hand-in-hand, in the Flat World of Empowered Individuals.
–Sohodojo Jim and Timlynn–
Entry Filed under: Globalization 3.0 and the Small Is Good World, Inprosumerism, NED - Philanthropic Franchise
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