Things we'd like to see done regarding Y2K
This list of Y2K projects is a sample of the sort of thing we are working
on at the Co-Intelligence Institute. Actually, we don't have the funding
to pursue projects, as such. For that, we'd need a project director. What
we do at our current level of funding is spark activities in all these areas
and any others where action seems needed or ripe. If you want to help us
expand our ability to work in these areas -- or if you'd like to find out
more about contributing to our 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization -- contact:
The Co-Intelligence Institute
P.O. Box 21203
Oakland, CA 94620-1203
cii@igc.org
http://www.co-intelligence.org
The Projects (more will come)
0) Y2K POLITICAL ACTION PROJECT:
National, state and local Y2K policies and programs will have a gigantic
effect on how the crisis unfolds. Grassroots action can be helped, hindered,
or made irrelevant by such government efforts. The lives and deaths of literally
millions of people will be determined by government action or inaction --
especially if infrastructure fails in the middle of winter, January 2000.
A strong-handed military or fascistic response could seriously undermine
our efforts to make this crisis into a positive change for the better. It
is extremely important who is elected in November
1998, and what the political climate is in the following year, to ensure
that government action is positive, timely and effective. Perhaps the
most important immediate step is getting politicians to take a stand on
the need for guranteeing the Y2K-readiness of the basic minimal infrastructure
to support populations (water, basic food, waste treatment, basic health
care, etc.) and to mobilize the election of politicians who take
a positive stand on this. This must be done in four months, which is very
little time.
1) Y2K CULTURAL CREATIVES OUTREACH
PROJECT: Market researcher Paul Ray reports that 24% of U.S.
adults are "Cultural Creatives" -- people with strong social and
environmental values. They are interested in personal development and spiritual/psychological
issues, and leading edge ideas in human and natural sciences and other fields
(although they aren't fascinated by technology; they tend to use sufficient
technology for their needs, but not pursue it for its own sake). They think
systemically more readily than most Americans and they do lots of community
volunteer work, social change work or other forms of social responsibility.
These qualities make them ideal as early adopters of Y2K-breakthrough understandings
and early organizers of community and societal responses to Y2K. We will
try to reach them through certain organizations, media and leaders to which
they are connected, alerting them to this crisis and suggesting ways they
might creatively relate to it.
2) Y2K STORY PROJECT: We need to
get useful stories out into our culture's "story
field" on this subject. The story field is currently filled with
stories of doom-and-gloom, "it's no problem," "save yourself
and your family/organization" (through survivalism, secrecy or legal
strategies), etc., which are of limited use in our breakthrough efforts.
Here are some examples of the kinds of stories we need
- journalism, interviews, research, and other factual reporting about
communities organizing... about pro-social Y2K heroics... about past calamities
[like last winter's massive blackout in Canada and the US northeast] where
communities displayed pro-social intiative ... about ordinary people using
appropriate technologies that would be useful in building community self-reliance
... and about things that need to be done, such as getting governments to
focus on the Y2K readiness of the basic infrastructure needed for the survival
of populations (see below).
- exploratory scenarios of how the Y2K might unfold in positive ways
- diary-like reporting of how individuals
evolved into a creative response to Y2K
- fiction stories (e.g., visionary
novels and short stories, ballads about Y2K, screenplays and stage productions,
etc.) (A primary strategy here is to have days-long dialogues between Y2K
experts and visionary writers such as those listed on this site. The goal
would be to help the writers understand the dynamics of Y2K -- the forces
at work for good and ill -- so they could then write powerful stories of
the future unfolding of the crisis.)
- mythic imagery (such as ad campaigns, large celebrations with giant
puppets, poetry, etc.). This, too, can be organized by engaging Y2K (and
other) experts with the artists, writers, performers and producers who create
these media.
See A Y2K Call to Our Culture's Storytellers
3) Y2K BREAKTHROUGH FINANCING PROJECT: Getting the philanthropic
and investment communities to see this as a chance to make a real difference,
and to thereby transform their own sense of their role in society for the
long-term.
4) Y2K ACTIVIST OUTREACH PROJECT: Entering into the existing
world of activists and community workers to help them align their diverse
issues with Y2K as an opportunity for major progress on their various agendas.
This can be done as coalitions, or just as a shared vision of how they would
all fit together even if they are all operating independently. In a sense,
a Y2K collapse of the industrial/patriarchal/dominating/centralized forms
of power provides what the destructive half of a revolution provides; the
positive half of the revolution is up to activists to create, using this
opportunity. The communist system fell. Now the global capitalist system
might. Are activists prepared to put sustainable, community-based cultures
in its place?
5) Y2K COMMUNITY RESILIENCE OPEN SPACE PROJECT: Organizing
Open Space conferences which mix Y2K community
activists with veteran community organizers and specialists in sustainable
technology which, if applied broadly and well, could be useful in sustaining
communities. Ideally, we'd do one such conference nationally and record
some of its results (in writing or video/audio tape), and then use those
results to stimulate subsequent state-wide conferences, which in turn could
stimulate local conferences -- all of which COULD be done within 6 months.
6) Y2K-BREAKTHROUGH Q&A PROJECT: FAQs or Q&As (lists
of frequently-asked questions and their answers) regarding (a) the extent
of the potential crisis and (b) the rationale for and meaning of community-oriented
and transformational approaches to it. These lists will be designed to speed
people's evolution towards creative participation in community efforts,
regardless of how significant a crisis Y2K develops into. These lists would
be put up on the web and continually updated.
7) Y2K EMOTION PROJECT: Getting various forms of "despair
and empowerment" work being done, to help people get through their
fear, grief, despair, denial and powerlessness regarding Y2K (and other
related dangers), to contact their spiritual roots, their deep caring and
their capacity to work together to create something good out of all this.
Karen Mercer, John Steiner and others who were involved in such work being
done in the 1980s around the nuclear threat have begun applying those understandings
to Y2K. We want to develop and promote this process.
8) COMMUNITY CO-INTELLIGENCE PROJECT: Setting up community
collective intelligence systems: specifically, a series of regular monthly
dialogues that are easily done by ordinary people (Open
Space, Listening Circles, story-sharing
groups, "World Cafe" process, etc.),
so that the citizens of a town or neighborhood can regularly come together
to process what has been happening with them and what they've been doing
arouind Y2K. This would be tied in with emotional work (see 2, above), educational
workshops, action groups, and a function that records emerging community
knowledge and wisdom for future use (and use by other communities). If the
whole thing is designed for ready local self-organization and posted on
the web such that those who use the model could share their experiences
with it, it could spread and evolve quite rapidly. (See The
Co-Intelligence Dimension of Y2K)
9) Y2K COMMUNITY DATABASE/CHECKLIST PROJECT: Development
of what communities can DO. We have developed the rationale for community-based
responses. Now we have to provide some leadership (or some organized opportunities
for self-leadership) and a chance for communities to share their experiments
and evolve an increasingly real "TO DO" list that late starters
can benefit from. This would include ways to assess community assets and
needs in meeting this challenge.
10) Y2K CULTURE/HUMOR PROJECT: Encouraging, gathering and
circulating Y2K humor, songs, quotes, poetry, artwork, etc. Y2K is a fantastically
heavy and/or divisive event. We'll need a lot of lighter and humanly reflective
material to help sustain us as we work through it.
11) Y2K SELF-ORGANIZED INVOLVEMENT PROJECT: Providing guidelines
useful to ordinary citizens in assessing their own gifts, connections, capacities
in service of Y2K community or breakthrough activities. Once someone comes
to the realization that they have some positive role to play, they can often
use help in clarifying what, exactly, that role should be. This could take
the form of a handout, an article, a tape, a web page, or even a network
of pratitioners or support groups. (See Your
unique role in addressing Y2K)
12) Y2K RESOURCE MATERIALS PROJECT: The creation and spreading
of resource materials of all kinds. For example, one of our friends has
suddenly found her voice around this issue and is making some incredible
speeches on it. If these could be made into cheap tape recordings that anyone
could copy and pass on, it could have a powerful impact.
13) Y2K GRASSROOTS COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS PROJECT: From
a transformational perspective, one of the most important post-Y2K infrastructure
issues is communication, so that communties and change agents can be in
touch with each other to give and receive information and support. We could
further the process of thinking about this in all its dimensions. The chances
are that different areas will need (unpredictably) different modes of communication
to deal with diverse breakdowns in existing communication systems. Cell
phones, short wave, web, bicycle messengers, etc., all need to exist in
readiness to be woven into something workable, regardless of what happens
1/2000.
14) Y2K LEADERSHIP SUPPORT PROJECT: Support for creative
leadership needs to be arranged. Y2K will be a very difficult time, with
leaders arising and, because of the stresses and the diversity of values
and sanity levels among the population, good leaders will be attacked. We
need to make this explicit among those who favor community-oriented and
breakthrough approaches -- that they must be ready to support good leaders
and not to backbite them into ineffectiveness. Exactly what this means needs
to be thoroughly dialogued about ahead of time.
15) Y2K-BREAKTHROUGH PUBLICATIONS PROJECT: Most people
don't use the Web -- and even those that do, seldom read whole sites, or
even read whole pages on sites. Most of what's on this site will not be
seen by well over 99% of the population of the U.S. -- unless it is published
as articles, booklets, or books. This will require considerable planning,
editing, production, promotion and distribution. Are you interested in helping
on this -- as a volunteer or financially? There's ample printed material
on the Y2K problem and how to try to survive, but hardly any on the Y2K
Breakthrough Opportunity and how to use it to build resilient communities.
Let's get the word out!
16) Y2K RADIO PROGRAM PROJECT: We'd like to see a national
commercial radio station that could help communities organize themselves
and learn from each other about Y2K-related work. (See Y2K
Community Radio Project Proposal)