Insight: Personal Action Test Bed 
Premise: a convergence of crises
1. A convergence of civilizational crises has placed all nations and peoples in palpable and immediate jeopardy of
security and sustainability. Many have observed that humankind is now in its 11th hour. Only a few of the crises
within this convergence:
a. Limitations of global energy resources which not only limit socio-economic sustainability, but also increase
tensions within and between states.
b. Degradation of the earth’s ecosystems to the point that recovery may be at risk.
c. Food and water shortages have already ignited civil unrest and cross-border tensions throughout various
regions. OECD markets are not immune to these shortages.
d. Since the end of the Cold War, the hybrid of Keynesian and Friedman economic models which most OECD
states employ in varying degrees can no longer maintain aggregate demand. This is primarily due to overall
government and military-industrial employment spending reductions. Consequently, because consumer
markets are erratic and vulnerable to energy limitations, etc., neither the corporate sector nor the consumer
sector possess the capacity to intentionally maintain aggregate demand. Without aggregate demand being
maintained, socio-economic destabilization results.
e. Naturally globalizing markets often meet resistance from artificial borders. This consistently reinforces
dependency upon national economies which do not respond efficiently to global energy limitations,
environmental and other social concerns, as well as fundamental market inefficiencies.
f. Growing liquidity imbalances between rich and poor exacerbated by supply imbalances of daily necessities
such as food, water, and energy not only limit socio-economic sustainability, but also increase tensions
within and between states.
g. Nation-state failures are continuing to threaten fundamental world order systems. It has become clear that
conventional hard and soft power tools are no longer effective in maintaining nation-state viability
throughout a substantial portion of the world. It is also clear that some form of ‘economic critical mass’ is a
prerequisite of nation-state stability and sustainability (rather than conventional views that political
authority and democracy are prerequisites).
h. As a consequence of nation-state failures, global gray market activity continues to grow to nearly 40% of
global GDP. Gray markets exacerbate all above tensions and severely cripple any attempt to reform market
and governance systems.
2. Because the convergence of multiple crises places all civilization into palpable and immediate jeopardy,
conventional methods of political action have yet to be effective in impacting the radical changes necessary to
resolve the above crises. If the 11th hour is indeed upon us all, then a radical and rapid response (a global
Marshall Plan) is now required. This insight paper outlines the reasoning of such a radical and rapid response.
Due to the complex and convergent nature of the challenges, this paper addresses changes to fundamental
economic and governance systems.

oobi out of the box insight

 Insight: Personal Action Test Bed  2
 
Objective: radical yet rational transformation
The above crises, when viewed in their convergent state, reveal common linkages to fundamental civilizational
systems that appear no longer effective in maintaining world order. In particular, institutionalized market economics
and social governance systems appear to not have evolved in parallel to the changing nature of human society as a
whole. Further, conventional forms of social activism and political policy appear, at best, to have only a limited
impact upon individual segments of crises—and cannot be expected to bring about the coordinated changes
necessary. As uncomfortable, even naïve, as it may seem, global economic theories as well as social governance
systems will require radical—yet rational and actionable—transformation.
1. Keynesian-Friedman models of economic systems are rapidly becoming incapable of sustainability and
require new alternatives. Further, as technology and markets evolve, labor as an imperative commodity will
continue to diminish and be replaced by innovation, creating near labor-less economies (these evolutions
are already increasing tensions within and between states). Based on a lifetime of original research and a
nine-year on-the-ground case study of the economic development outcomes of nation-building projects, a
new global economic model based on the precepts of a ‘self-restraining capitalism’ theory is herein
presented.
2. Geopolitical objectives of balancing power between states now appear incapable of facilitating global
economic interdependency, thus maintaining world order, and require new alternatives. Further,
representative democratic systems now appear incapable of effectively managing complex social and
economic relationships on a ‘local-to-global’ scale. However, even with the meteoric rise of individualism
and self-organizing collaborative communities empowered by second-generation Internet technologies,
much of global societies lack the training for an effective utilization of self-governance and direct democratic
applications to take root. A global personal response network objective is herein presented.
3. A global Marshall Plan type outline is herein presented to rapidly implement the global economic
interdependency model and global personal responsibility network on a test bed basis.

Converging shifts in economics & sovereignty

A world order based on the politics of geography has for three and a half centuries provided dominion and
sovereignty to be held exclusively by nation-states and the rulers of those states. But nation-state sovereignty is now
being challenged by the convergence of various factors which impact a viral and tangible socio-economic
destabilization on a global scale:
• The end of the Cold War diminished the rationale and sustainability of military-industrial based and
government stimulus reliant economies, and re-exposed what J.M. Keynes had first observed post World
War I: the long-term weakness of capitalism was that consumer-driven economies were vulnerable to
unstable consumer demands. In parallel, Keynes observed that post war economic reconstruction was not a
matter of poverty reduction, but rather of job creation. Consequently, Keynes argued the role of
government was to maintain long-term aggregate demand and jump-start the creation of new jobs. Since
the 1960s, even though Friedman introduced ‘free market’ and monetarism applications, and Mundell-
Laffer introduced supply-side economics, a substantial majority of the U.S. and OECD Cold War era
economies and employment strategies remained stabilized by the key ingredients of maintaining aggregate
demand: military-industrial economic growth and various government stimulus programs. The maxim of
the West during the Cold War: “War is good for the economy”. The reductions of military budgets resulting
from the end of the Cold War, however, diminished the ability of the military-industrial based economies to
effectively maintain aggregate demand. Without aggregate demand being intentionally maintained, a
number of destabilizing social, economic, and political influences were exposed—some intentionally, some
unintentionally, and some even unconsciously. Obviously, the aspect of aggregate demand is only a single
example of the larger weaknesses of capitalism as observed by Keynes. His other views of the challenges

oobi out of the box insight

 Insight: Personal Action Test Bed  3
 
between production, money, and labor as well as liquidity leakages, etc., are vital to understanding the shifts
now occurring in global economic markets and are addressed later in this paper.
• What have conventionally been viewed as geopolitical ‘power states’ (generally, OECD states), these power
states previously influenced and maintained the larger elements of international relations and world order
through a subtle mix of hard and soft power tools—soft power tools primarily being the economic
influences of multilateral IFIs and specific nation-building exercises. However, as a consequence of the post
Cold War cessation of the maintenance of aggregate demand and the further decentralizing aspects of the
modern rise of the SME role in economic markets, multilateral IFIs and nation-building have proven largely
ineffective as soft power tools. In short, without effective soft power tools to work in concert with hard
power tools, OECD states will experience increasing difficulty in maintaining world order. Two practical
examples of this soft power inefficiency: (a) recent market expansion activity by the Chinese and Russians
have often resulted in cross-border investments and lending programs that purposefully circumvent the
Bretton Woods institutions (and their various governance policies); and (b) the Bretton Woods institutions
possess little to no involvement in the global mass movement of capital relating to private philanthropy and
workers’ remittances. According to the Index of Global Philanthropy 2008:
- Private giving and investment now accounts for over 75 percent of donor countries’ entire economic
dealings with developing nations;
- Official Development Assistance (ODA) is a minority shareholder in the growth and development of
poor countries;
- In the U.S., private philanthropy, along with remittances, to developing nations constitutes four and
one-half times official aid abroad.
• As a consequence of the growing ineffectiveness (and privatization) of soft power tools originally designed
to assist in the maintaining of world order, an ever growing list of nation-states are vulnerable to
fundamental economic failure, rampant corruption, and adverse influences from external states. Of
particular concern, in socio-economically weak states, gray market economies have virtually replaced
legitimate markets. These economically weak states are not only threats to their own internal security, they
are direct threats to regional and even global security. In modern, post Cold War terms, it could be argued
that international relations and world order are no longer objectives which can be facilitated or coerced by
power states. Rather, it can be ultimately observed that civilizations arise and decay as a direct consequence
of their essential economic—not political—relevance to the larger world.
• If government or military-industry sectors no longer maintain aggregate demand—then, who or what is to
undertake the responsibility of maintaining aggregate demand so as to provide some form of stable footing
for socio-economic sustainability?
• In recent years, major transnational corporations grow increasingly dependent upon average consumers to
define what specifically to innovate and produce—yet these consumers’ demands are often unpredictable
and erratic, whereas military-industrial budgets were generally long-term and stabilizing. A recent example
of this re-exposed weakness to consumer-driven capitalism is visibly witnessed in the now-occurring shift
from large and SUV vehicle sales to smaller energy-efficient vehicle sales throughout North America—and
this abrupt shifting reverberates throughout the entire automotive manufacturing industry, causing plant
closures and employee reductions.
• As sudden shifts in general consumer demands consistently occur, these shifts also impact and are impacted
by natural resource demands and environmental security pressures. With the parallel expansion of
environmental awareness, corporate social responsibility obligations, and corporate stock ownership by
average citizens, it is becoming increasingly difficult to define how ethical decisions are debated and
implemented. Friedman famously remarked that corporations were ‘artificial citizens’. In a modern
consumer-driven economy, where the laborer-consumer is also often a shareholder, it could be argued that
corporations are increasingly becoming ‘tangible and ethical extensions of citizens’.

oobi out of the box insight

 Insight: Personal Action Test Bed  4
 
• As corporations increasingly are forced to ‘re-negotiate’ their relationships with consumers, financial
markets, and society in general, rising individualism and ad hoc collaborative communities are also
influencing corporate business models. At present, the voices emanating from these emerging relationships
and models have yet to coalesce into political movements capable of consistently impacting large-scale and
cross-border change—but these self-organizing and non-hierarchical voices are perhaps the world’s most
potent tools for radical and rapid transformation toward eventual socio-economic sustainability.

The double-edge sword of sovereignty

As militarism-based economies and their institutions of power are increasingly replaced by individualism and
self-organizing collaborative economies, individuals will increasingly enjoy the freedom and benefits of sovereignty.
But the double-edged sword of this new freedom and sovereignty is that all individuals, globally, will be required to
balance this new freedom with the responsibility of self-restraint. In this regard of global interdependence,
individuals and societies will operate as global citizens in stateless economies.
At the heart of civilizational order has been a persistent tug-of-war between the concepts of representative
leadership versus self-leadership. In The Leviathan (1651), Thomas Hobbes argued that peace and order could only
be guaranteed if countries had a single, all-powerful authority—and justified this view by describing an imaginary
‘state of nature’ in which people live without government: people living in the state of nature would be at constant
war with one another. In such a state all people would be free to do whatever they wanted to do, but nobody could
enjoy this freedom because all people would have the right to trample the freedoms of others. The only way out of
this problem is for all citizens to agree to obey a single power that is strong enough to force everyone to follow rules
and live in peace. According to Hobbes (and many still today), self-leadership is simply not possible. Immanuel
Kant, on the other hand, argued that a durable peace would occur only when individuals possessed the courage to
‘think for themselves’.
We argue, as did Ibn Khaldun in the late 14th Century, that global interdependency of livelihood (economic
prosperity) could very well be the tool with which representative leadership can finally be replaced by self-leadership.
Instead of a single power embodied within a single person or government—strong enough to force everyone to
follow rules and live in peace—the interdependent powers of global livelihood could be embodied within all persons
interdependent upon each other to live in prosperity and peace.
This global interdependency of livelihood will require of all individuals the agony of thought. Practical reason,
then, provides humankind with the tools to think with clarity as well as act with clarity. And, most importantly,
practical reason provides the civilizational tool to not only assess past and present experience, but also to predict and
anticipate future experience. In this new paradigm of socio-economic interdependency, Kantian democratic peace
could finally be realized.
As converging shifts in economics & sovereignty are viewed in the context of global crises, the following overall
observations can be made:
• The average citizen is more likely than not to remain focused on personal survival and stability rather than
undertake the risks necessary to combat the convergence of crises which jeopardizes global stabilization.
• Resultantly, economics is intrinsically interwoven with how and why societies act on issues of ethics.
• Thus, an integrated form of economic and societal shift is necessary. If films such as An Inconvenient Truth
and The 11th Hour might be considered a ‘call to arms’, then what is now necessary is a global ‘Marshall Plan’
type of platform specifically designed to provide both inspiration and actionable tools and processes to
integrate convergent solutions to battle convergent challenges.

Integrating a new global economic paradigm with governance

If one were to view possible solutions to the convergence of global crises in a manner that was not bound to a
specific school of thought (liberal, conservative, Western, non-Western, etc.), but rather in a manner that was free to

oobi out of the box insight

 Insight: Personal Action Test Bed  5
 
combine aspects from various schools of thought—then, the potential to envision more effective paradigms becomes
profound. A combination of Keynesian-Friedman capitalism, Kantian self-governance, and even quantum science, as
examples, might reveal these new paradigms.
The exceptional opportunity that underpins the convergence of global crises is that society as a whole is
ultimately the group that could directly and personally balance the interwoven objectives of maintaining global
aggregate demand with personal and social responsibility. Further, the element of society as a whole becoming
responsible to maintain aggregate demand raises a fundamental question not really asked before by any previous
civilization: what products/services are we to produce that possesses the potential to maintain aggregate demand on
a global scale (in much the same way as Cold War era military-industrial production)? A new economic paradigm is
needed to ask and answer these profound questions. This, indeed, may be a rare opportunity for humankind.
As with any contemplated transition or transformation, stakeholders throughout the social, economic, and
political spectrums will be naturally concerned about personal security of livelihood. Undoubtedly, sacrifices are
required. However, the new economic paradigm considered herein can be structured so that all transitions are both
practical and effective.

At a glance: comparison of Keynesian-Friedman capitalism & self-

restraining capitalism
Figure 1 - The Keynesian-Friedman Model

Farming
sector

Government
Military-
Industry
Interest
sector
Rate
Market
stimulator
M bili
st
ar ze

Marginal
a

Debt- Money
ke r
t

driven Market Efficiency

of
Capital

Product
Market

l
gina
Mar sity to
en
Labor Prop sume
Market Co n

As Figure 1 illustrates, the hybrid Keynesian-Friedman model views three integrated segments of money and
labor as both commodities and benefits of production. Externally, government provides stimulation when necessary,
and the military-industrial sector provides essential market stabilization (by providing aggregate demand) so that
various other risks can be taken within the production market. A few observations can be made from this model
within the context of global crises:
1. When Keynes and Friedman both influenced national and global economic thought, debt/interest was still
the primary investment tool. This debt-driven tool even influences the fundamental logic of the Bretton
Woods institutions. However, with the massive movement of individual consumer trading of public and
private stocks beginning in the 1970s, equity investment has replaced a substantial portion of debt-based
investment.

oobi out of the box insight

 Insight: Personal Action Test Bed  6
 
2. Since the introduction of personal computing and the Internet, the revenues earned from knowledge-based
value assets have replaced a substantial portion of physical labor-based value. Not only does this begin to
shift the laborer from mere representations of physical labor to creative innovator, the very pricing
(valuation) of labor shifts from token representations of salary incomes to percentage ownerships of
intellectual property.
3. In the end analysis, however, it becomes clear that the Keynesian-Friedman model is dependent upon either
the government or military-industrial sector to stimulate/stabilize overall production and consumption
activity.
4. From a philosophical perspective, the inferred intentions of the Keynesian-Friedman model are:
a. Production-consumption for the sake of production-consumption. Military-industry markets are based
on preconceived notions of essential utility (an aircraft or tank possesses an inherent utility). Whereas
consumer-driven markets is an erratic mixture of utility and luxury (food versus flat-screen televisions).
The more economic systems are driven by luxury rather than utility, the more unstable economic
systems become.
b. Accumulation of capital as an end. This human condition is motivated in part by protectionism and
greed. Both of these motivations are destabilizing to the larger economies. Periodic accusations of
‘price gouging’ by the oil industry is an example of this.
c. Unemployment is persistent. This is due in large part to the market’s inability to form interdependent
relationships with education in a rapid-reaction manner and to the human and market aversion to risk.
Figure 2 - Self-restraining capitalism model
Marginal efficiency Self-restraining
of non-human resources capitalism

Government

Human Mechanical
Labor Labor
M rsig
ov
ar
e
k e ht
t

Production
Human
Knowledge Human
as Innovation Equity
Capital as Capital
Intention

Consumption
Human-social
Well-being
Natural
resources

Marginal propensity to balance wealth generation (market stimulation)

with self-restraint (ecosystem & social well-being)  
 

As Figure 2 illustrates, a self-restraining model rearranges the intentions of human participation in relation to
production-consumption.
1. Transformation of product value is based not on labor, but on mixture of socio-economic weighting inputs:
a. Percentage of global market consumption (measuring civilizational needs and wants);
b. Percentage of global market usefulness (measuring civilizational utility); and
c. Percentage of global market accountability (measuring the balance of benefit and responsibility).

oobi out of the box insight

 Insight: Personal Action Test Bed  7
 
2. Transformation of market value is defined not by token value-based labor economies, but on true
knowledge trading and interweaving-based innovation.
3. Transformation of cash as primary source of income to corporate stock-value income for all individuals.
This provides both the authentic value of intellectual property to be globally traded as well as the essential
safety-net for risk to be taken within global capitalism-based economies.
4. Transformation of corporations as entities primarily focused on producing end-user products to be equally
focused on transferring and receiving technology and knowledge assets on a large and global scale.
5. Transformation of hierarchical-based corporations to project-oriented and self-organizing collaborative
communities.
6. Transformation of obligation/PR-driven CSR programs to authentic employee/shareholder-driven
personal response programs.
7. These economic systems transformations, in toto, provide the basis for societal activism and political policy
to more effectively facilitate the balance between wealth generation and self-restraint.

Self-restraining capitalism provides stability and effective tools for global

interdependence
The socio-political resource mobilization orthodoxy that still binds much of humankind is based on national
government-driven policy and regulatory systems. Civilizations have inherited government leadership concepts
from Socrates and Plato, and have maintained these archaic systems even though they no longer are effective.
Adherence to government-driven orthodoxy prevents global citizens to more naturally and effectively join together
and mobilize resources for global action. A certain amount of ‘protectionist’ orthodoxy even exists in the Web 2.0
world, where online social networking and ad hoc collaborative communities are still considered ‘walled gardens’, or
independent stand-alone communities. But in the near future, social networking sites such as Facebook
(www.facebook.com) will become ‘plug-and-play’ operating tools within a larger coordination of peer-to-peer
networks (operating somewhat like a personal matchmaker as a person logs into various sites and groups—matching
interests and resources per individual footprint). The Internet possesses the greatest opportunity for global citizens
to identify and mobilize diverse socio-political and economic resources—with far greater speed and reach than any
government institution or apparatus. A small example of this Internet challenge to government apparatus orthodoxy
is Roger Cohen’s recent article, The Obama Connection, which observes:
Obama spent only 10 years of his adult life in the split world of the cold war, double that in a post-Berlin Wall
world of growing interconnectedness. MAC — mutually assured connectivity — has replaced the MAD — mutually
assured destruction — of cold-war days.
For Clinton, born in 1947, that ratio is different. Her mental paradigm is division. When her husband last ran for
president in 1996, the Internet was marginal. The thinking and people from that campaign have proved unable to fast-
forward a dozen years. They’ve been left like deer blinded by the Webcam lights of the Obama juggernaut.
This cultural failure has been devastating for Clinton. As Joshua Green chronicles in an important piece in The
Atlantic, Obama has used social networking and his user-friendly Web site to develop the money machine, and the
youthful engagement, that has swept him forward.

WiserEarth (www.wiserearth.org) is an online community directory and networking forum that maps and
connects over 100,000 non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and individuals addressing the central issues of the
day, particularly environmental concerns. Ethical Markets (www.ethicalmarkets.com) disseminates information on
socially and environmentally responsible investing, global corporate citizenship, green business and technology,
ethical news and sustainability by making available reports, articles, newsletters and video gathered from around the
world. Both of these site examples are valuable—but still separate—tools for global citizens to involve themselves in
world affairs. For global transformation to occur more effectively and more rapidly, these individual ‘walled gardens’
will require true plug-and-play integration on a global scale.
oobi out of the box insight
 Insight: Personal Action Test Bed  8
 
The opportunity that this insight paper herein identifies is that a missing link to true integration of these types of
social networking, advocacy, and action sites is the process to translate online relationships and knowledge to on-the-
ground action. Thus, the interdependence of online and on-the-ground resources is the next tactical step to global
transformation. The establishment of a ‘Marshall Plan’ type local-to-global personal action network can provide
global citizens the tools and processes to act with clarity. It is conceived a personal action network can initially be
established as a test bed platform—which then can be expanded on a global basis. This personal action network is
tentatively named: Qecon.

Q econ economic in ter d ep en d en cy

[ p er s on al a ction tes t b ed ] 
 

The strategy: design a diverse-aware process network

1. Process—development and integration of local-to-global:
a. Conduits for technology and know-how transfer
b. Conduits for market access, domestic and international
c. Networks for corporate mentoring
d. Networks for targeted training of human resources
e. Networks for research and development
f. Local, state, and multilateral government and regulation teams (regulatory integration becomes
rational on a global basis when all nation-states begin to develop their own intellectual property—
China as prime example).
2. Consequences—transformation of:
a. Gratuitous consumerism to self-restraining consumerism
b. Poverty to job creation
c. Accumulation of capital from an end to the means of balance
d. Jobs from division of labor to fulfillment of life tasks or calling
e. Aggregate demand to global interdependence
f. Individual separateness to social and individual entanglement. Quantum economics measuring the
moment-to-moment value of quantum societies (Qecon).
g. National economies to stateless economies.

The essential components of the proposed ‘Marshall Plan’ type local-to-global personal action network (which
mimics the Marshall Plan’s skeletal structure and process of the US Economic Cooperation Administration (ECA)
and its relationship with the Organization for European Cooperation (OEEC)):
1. A series of knowledge, technology, and transformational resources conduits. Each conduit is comprised of a
cluster of corporations, universities, government agencies, private individuals—all channeling ‘best
practices’ from location to location (via Internet and on-the-ground strategy teams).
2. A series of execution strategy facilitator strategy teams (decentralized: regional, state, local, and corporate
level teams). Each strategy team is comprised of a mixture of local and international facilitators—each
oobi out of the box insight
 Insight: Personal Action Test Bed  9
 
facilitator possessing the creative and filtering capacity to comprehend diverse sources of knowledge and
technology, and help to facilitate best practice interdependency (facilitators operate somewhat like a road
intersection traffic signaling process).
3. Embedded within each conduit and strategy team are clusters of human communications, marketing, and
social/cultural liaison teams. These teams liaise throughout three types of groups: participants within
conduits, participants within strategy teams, and the general public (locally and globally). Liaisons maintain
the ‘human touch’ to ensure diverse groups effective collaboration and interdependency.
Figure 3 - Interdependent resource mobilization

Education Technology
Facilitates between conduits

Logistics & Liaison teams

Commun- Know-
ications Resource how
Conduits

Capital Human

Social Economy
well-being MACRO
Facilitates between strategy teams

Liaison teams
Ecosystems Economy
Strategy MICRO
Teams

Governance Infrastructure

4. An Internet-driven strategy and mapping tool to integrate local-to-global plans and actions—with the
capacity to measure quantifiable results of plans and actions. This becomes the communication and
collaboration tool of the conduits, contact groups, and liaison teams. A Canadian company, Visible
Strategies (www.visiblestrategies.com), as an example, provides such a strategy and mapping tool which can
be modified for the purposes of the proposed local-to-global personal action network. See Figure 4, below.
Additionally, various militaries utilize sophisticated applications and operations to effectively manage
logistics and strategies. Over the long-term, these applications and operating procedures can be translated
for civilian use.

oobi out of the box insight

 Insight: Personal Action Test Bed  10
 
Figure 4 - Internet-driven strategy and mapping tool (www.visiblestrategies.com)

Figure 4 is a simple snapshot taken from www.visiblestrategies.com a web-hosted next generation strategy
mapping and reporting software and consulting services that enables community and corporate leaders to
communicate transparently with staff and stakeholders regarding key progress towards their strategic goals. The
company’s see-it™ application allows stakeholders to:
• Consolidate plans. see-it™ lets users consolidate multiple strategic plans “locked” away in various
documents, spreadsheets, databases and pdf files.
• Engage stakeholders. see-it’s visually compelling dashboard gives stakeholders an easy way to interact and
engage with strategic plans.
• Track progress. At a glance, stakeholders can track progress on key indicators – from core strategy and
sustainability to CSR and triple bottom line reporting.
• Show transparency. Highlight accomplishments and goals while providing the level of transparency
stakeholders require.
 
5. Although the primary objective of a ‘diverse-aware’ process network is to allow for the greatest amount of
decentralization to thrive, it is somewhat logical that some form of central clearinghouse of strategies and
resources will be required—particularly so as to consistently review the decentralized process for
accountability and overall effectiveness. This central clearinghouse might operate somewhat like the U.S.
Automated Clearinghouse (for a background of how the U.S. ACH system operates, see
http://www.nacha.org/About/what_is_ach_.htm).

Test bed approach

The initial test bed application of the above diverse-aware process network will require:
• At least 4 specific cross-border markets to operate as a ‘test bed’. Examples for discussion purposes only:
Frankfurt and Chicago (2 developed markets) and New Orleans and Bucharest (2 emerging/reconstruction
markets).
oobi out of the box insight
 Insight: Personal Action Test Bed  11
 
• Within these 4 cross-border markets, companies (transnational and SME) with a progressive attitude and
focused on true sustainability. Willing to link their experiences, know-how, technology, and other resources
through a local-to-global personal action network platform—and demonstrate to other companies how to
identify best practices.
• NGOs willing to collaborate with private sector and civil society—with a particular objective of facilitating
best practices which are consistently reviewed for accountability and sustainability.
• Government officials and offices to operate within the ‘test bed’ to establish a knowledge-base of best
practices in balancing private sector activity with socio-political processes.
• Individual ‘champions’ dedicated to transforming clarity of thought into clarity of action.
• Key personnel (individuals, corporations, universities, government offices) to implement conduits, strategy
teams, and liaison teams.

Status and Next Steps

Initial presentation of concept
• As of June 2008, this insight paper has been prepared and is presently being presented to individuals and
organizations which could serve as champions of this concept.

Buy-in and Planning

• Once a core group of champions have been assembled, then develop detailed operating and resource
mobilization plans—collaborated and coordinated throughout the conduits, contact groups, and liaison
teams.

Execution
• Execute ‘test bed’ plan.

Know, then that the difference between people arises principally from the 
difference in their occupations; for their very union springs out of the need for co­
operation in the securing of a livelihood. 
Civilizations must go through four stages: the first stage is the emergence of a 
new civilization and society.  The second stage covers a period of growth and 
prosperity.  Stagnation and decadence characterize the third stage where wealth can 
no longer increase.  This brings us to a fourth stage of decline leading to the ultimate 
collapse.  Finally, a new civilization emerges from the ashes of the previous one and 
another cycle is born.  The conditions of the world and of the nations do not persist in 
one unchanging state, but are transformed with the passage of time and move from 
one condition to another.  
— Ibn Khaldun, The Muqaddimah, 1377 

   

oobi out of the box insight

 Insight: Personal Action Test Bed  12
 
 
About the Author
Michael Byrnes began his strategic advisory career in 1980 as a consultant with the New York and Washington,
D.C. firm, World Affairs, Inc. There, under the tutelage of Martin R. Haley and Daniel Patrick Moynihan, he worked
on multiple ‘big picture’ projects, ranging from defense conversion strategies with the National Economic
Commission to technology transfer processes with multiple stakeholders, including the NSA, U.S. Congress, and
individual technology transfer offices. He also worked with Fortune 500 clients to design and manage various
corporate intelligence and crisis management projects.
While deployed in Europe in the mid-1980s to assist in the design of economic development strategies for
German Reunification, he resided in the Vatican City. There, he studied dialectics and ethics, and later was
ordained.
Throughout the 1990s, he worked primarily in North America to assist both transnational and SME companies
adapt to knowledge economy transformation. In 1997, he undertook an assignment in Bosnia-Herzegovina to assess
the country’s electronic banking capacity. He remained in the Southeast European region for the next nine years to
study the long-term economic consequences of nation-building. In 2004, he completed a 600 page technical
assessment of the economic status and future potential of the SEE region. In April 2008, he completed an economic
philosophy treatise, Hands & Brains Unbound: Revealing the Illusion of World Order & the Revolution Ascending, which
assesses the historical, modern, and philosophical perspectives of world order through the lenses of economic market
evolutions and nation-building case studies. The book then presents a revolutionary model of world order
obtainable through economic interdependencies. The book is the process of editing prior to publication.

About oobi
oobi (out of the box insight) is a collaborative platform through which creative concepts can be effectively
resourced, birthed, and incubated. oobi was founded by Tamara de Callataÿ and Michael Byrnes.

Tamara de Callataÿ has spent 9 years at her position at the Ministry of Defense, the Netherlands, where she has
been involved in developing cultural awareness and political advisory insights. Her own personal insight and
spiritual development were triggered by questioning the true meaning of life. The transformation as described in
Eckhart Tolle’s Power of Now, awakened her to her life’s purpose and made her return to what she does best: building
bridges and inspiring people to exchange human value and knowledge. She is presently developing more interactive
CSR applications delivered via emerging web 2.0 technologies. She has established oobi in order for society to
comprehend and shape the future by understanding the interconnections and interdependencies between the
different challenges and key drivers influencing the global agenda.

Contact Information:

Tamara de Callataÿ Michael Byrnes

Tamara@callatay.be michael.byrnes@gmail.com

Skype: tamdeca Skype: m.g.byrnes

Phone: +31 641766376 Phone: +31 6 345 71039

 

09 June 2008, Level 2, draft 3.0

oobi out of the box insight