As I have looked at creating the highest value commons as well as linked value in a set of companies I have invested in and some I own, coupled with some related volunteer of philanthropic projects, we have found useful seeing ourselves as floating islands with drawbridges we can let down when we come close to one another and can exchange value. I want to reduce the cost of coordination that can distort each project or company's goals or course of action with false dreams of synergy that lead you to take a series of less than optimal steps along the way toward a grand goal of synergy you never achieve. But I think we are entering, in my space of social enterprise and impact investing, the third phase in Coases market maturation theory; coordination. It follows discovery and cooperation.

 

That means a lot of infrastructure is emerging but it is like the early days of rail in the u.s.; trains worked but there was no agreement on gauge, so each cargo had to be offloaded and reloaded when it entered a new system. You can solve that with standardization, but in this complex adaptive system with multiple lenses, in a frame of Ostrom polycentric governance, I think that the answer to a global problem is not a global solution but a multiple local solution. So thst means a Rosetta Stone, multicultural approach to interoperability is called for. That is why I have started working on projects in multiple local towns and cities after leading what has become the largest gathering on earth of the do good with investments, business can play a role in transition gatherings, the SOCAP conference,