In a digitally interconnected world, those in positions of leadership should focus on helping their networks become smarter, more resilient, and able to make better decisions. Networks move information faster than institutions or markets. While the Cluetrain Manifesto (1999) stated that markets are conversations, today networks are memes that spread instantaneously, without conversation. The borderless and liquid transmission of information makes for a global oral cacophony.
After four years, no government has stepped-up to make us smarter in dealing with the SARS-2 virus. The pandemic continues and people keep dying and more people are condemned to live with the still incurable Long Covid.
Which government minister is going to take on the task of educating the public about the true harms of COVID-19? Which government will implement the measures needed to prevent the gradual attrition of key pillars of society?
The social, economic and public health costs of maintaining the fiction that we can live normally by ignoring COVID-19 are simply too high for this ‘business as usual’ situation to continue and the rate of attrition is too high for this to be sustainable. —John Snow Project 2023-11-25
Leadership in our connected world must come from beyond civil society, governments, and markets. For example, one pop star can have more influence on voter turnout than the best efforts of any institution. We should all use what expertise and influence we have to support democracy and a sustainable future for everyone.
If this pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that experts disagree, nobody has all the answers, and we (especially our institutions) are mostly making things up as we go. In a crisis it is important to act but even more important to learn as we take action. Only cooperative networks will help us make sense of the complex challenges facing us — climate change, environmental degradation, pandemics, political turmoil, genocide, etc.
Our institutions are not up to the task of collective sensemaking and there is no public in the global market, only consumers and workers. Answers to how we address the current pandemic (it’s not over even if our institutions and markets say so) will not come from government or from the market. They will come from networked committed people. The challenge will be to ensure that these groups do not become tribal populist counter-movements, as we have enough of these already. Saving democracy is a worthy objective. ‘Draining the swamp’ and ‘freedumb rallies’ are not.
Each of us has to find out how we can be knowledge catalysts in a liquid world, helping to make our networks smarter, more resilient, and able to make better decisions.
We can each start to seek > sense > share.
