(Recall that what you're looking at is an idea sketch. The Vision Quest in the real GcG will be a mechanism for continuously co-creating a vision; and co-creating ways to communicate or collectively discover this vision — through media, art, dialog, creative play and engagement...)
We offer a prototype vision backed by a sequence of views, each illuminating our quest for an epiphany about our present condition and how to change it, or for 'a good way to play our life and career games' from a different angle. Each of the views provided below is reached by contemplating the material provided in the corresponding node.
View 1 (Global problems). When we (metaphorically speaking) 'put on a pair of x-ray eye glasses' and look at global problems, or indeed at any of the characteristic contemporary issues including personal ones, we no longer see the same problems. What we see is the workings of the internal societal structures. Some of them should take care of those problems in their normal course of functioning, but they don't; some of them are creating problems. And when we look still a bit more closely, we find an underlying reason is the way in which our professions have been evolving: Often they have been treated as career games, where success is reached by playing against others. A result is that our professions, or more generally 'societal structures' have deviated from their original purpose. Seen as games, they have become rather like rigged games. Rigged first of all against the societal purpose they serve; or in other words against all of us. And then also rigged against those players who would play for the benefit of us all.
REFLECTION: Consider the material that has been provided in the 'Global problems' node. The Game-Changing Game enacts an alternative strategy for 'playing career games': (1) show that there is a better way to play; (2) do it.
View 2 (New thinking). It has been said that we cannot solve our problems by thinking as we did when we created them. What sort of thinking might provide us remedies? An answer — 'systems thinking' — has been given already a half-century ago.
REFLECTION: Consider the material has been offered in the 'Systems thinking' node. Reflect on our proposal to complete 'systems thinking' through 'systems doing' (The Game-Changing Game).
View 3 (Information Age). Information technology has been the driver of change; so much so that we call our historical era "Information Age."
REFLECTION: In the light of what's been given in the 'Information technology' node, reflect about the possibility of a mature Information Age, where information technology powers systemic re-evolution.
View 4 (New orthodoxy): We are in a shift of awareness regarding our place in the universe and cognition—from being 'objective observers' to being present in reality, and its responsible creators. Part of this change is a raise in awareness beyond all orthodoxies. Free ourselves from obsolete realities, both institutional and mental, and allow ourselves to create new and better ones. This tremendously accellerates our evolution. Knowledge and information cease to be obstacles to progress; they are now consciously used to enable us to evolve and blossom.
View 5 (New politics): building upon view 4: We become aware of the preponderance of symbolic and systemic power and violence; we used to take institutions and beliefs for granted, and seek solutions within their limits. Now we see them as an integral—albeit usually subconscious—part of our 'enemy.' We see how much of our political action, including democratic mechanisms and institutions, have been in Edelman's use of the word 'symbolic.' New politics is no longer 'us against them'; it is all of us against the destructive structures, both mental or soft, and institutional or hard.
Vision
We don't really need to work nearly as hard as we do. We don't need to worry about the future. We can solve all our problems and more — begin a whole new era of progress.
At the last turn of the century people largely believed that science and technology would bring us freedom from toil and a good life for all. And in a sense they were more right than they were aware. In 1903 the Wright brothers inflamed everyone's fantasy with the incredible news: People can fly! But nobody could even dream at that time that in 1969 people would be walking on the Moon, while everyone else would be watching them on the TV.
What happened was that in the effectivization of virtually everything, we
somehow (and exactly why this happened is perhaps the most interesting part of this story) forgot the one thing that would indeed make the largest difference: (you gessed) our professions! If you imagine them as huge mechanisms (of socio-technical kind), then they largely determine how much useful effect the society will have from everyone's daily work, and what those effects will be.
We have not only neglected this centrally important aspect of our earthly existence; by playing competitively, we have let those 'games' evolve in directions that are not only ineffective, but often outright destructive.
Even the professions that are supported by the rest to think and work freely, such as academic researchers, have evolved their profession in a similar way. So we cannot really blame Wall Street.
There is little point to occupy Wall Street. (...) It is time to occupy our own lives and professions. We need to evovle.
Or perhaps better said — re-evolve.
.......
A change of the way of looking — by 'putting on the x-ray eye glasses', i.e. by looking 'under the surface' not at bothersome symptoms but at societal structures and mechanisms that are causing them—reveals a clear picture of present, and of the way to be followed.
The view of a society in somewhat obscure but threatening 'risks', turns into the view of a society that has stopped 'living' (recreating itself to secure function as circumstances change, evolving further to adapt to environmental conditions etc.). How can a society that is not living be sustainable?
The view of 'problems' changes from symptomatic to systemic ones. In fact, a broad variety of 'global problems' turns into a single one: How can we enable our society to evolve?
The obstacle to evolution is obvious: Our professions have become 'only games,' where we compete for our own position, while being oblivious of whether the wole game and our behavior in it still serve the larger societal purpose.
The other—and far more positive—side of the same coin is that the conditions are ripe for a Renaissance-like sweeping change.
This provides a general explanation (it is still more interesting to see this in concrete detail!) why such enormously large accomplishments have become possible: The Grand Inquisitor Thomas de Torquemada was a famous and successful man in his time—but who remebers him today?
The way to get there we might call 're-evolution.'
Re-evolution happens when we evolve societal structures, large and small, physical and mental, in a new way—to better serve the roles they have within larger wholes.
Or in other words when we 'play our career games' not by competing within existing societal structures, but by changing i.e. improving those structures.
What remains as a problem—which The Game-Changing Game undertakes to resolve (by creating and re-creating its present prototype)—is that a single person cannot create a new societal structure by definition; and that — also by definition — the new structures cannot be created within the old games; hence a new sort of game (societal structure) is needed.
The Game-Changing Game enables re-evolution by using systemic innovation as power source, which is good business (...).
The following visual metaphor depicts the offered prototype of The Game as a rocket consisting of three parts.
The basic point is that the difference between a strategy and a utopia is that the former takes the balance of power into account. The existing structure embody lots of power. How can we counter it?
The Game draws its renewed power by carefully taking advantage of synergies—between humanitarian and business interests, between pesonal career goals and the goal to make the world work.
The power of information technology and related business (which has proven to be a leading change agent — we are living in 'Information Age'; the largest new fortunes have been made through IT business etc.) is oriented into re-evolution in a most natural way.
Re-Evolution
The action performed by the rocket is re-evolution; it is evolution of a new kind, in a new direction. This could not be more simple than it is: We evolve things, or characteristically 'systems' (ranging from our own health to the societal and planetary one), by consciously securing their proper function and constitution (or
wholeness). Everything may be seen as a system, and also as a part in a larger system.
DE DE points to the value that orients re-evolution. The acronym DE stands for design, or more technically speaking for design epistemology. Simply said, design is the alternative to exclusive reliance on spontaneous evolution (or tradition), which in practice means learning a profession and doing it, without asking the obvious questions of meaning and purpose. In economy or business, design is the alternative on relying on 'the invisible hand.' We do our work by consciously securing that its core purposes are fulfilled, also in the new global condition. As the Arabs say, 'trust God, tie your camel!'
Systemic Innovation Think of systemic innovation metaphorically as a new source of energy or power, as might be needed to propel the vehicle that can take you to your goal; imagine this energy source as nuclear power of a new kind. The following visual metaphor explains its principle of operation.
An uncommonly high energy is released by putting together A and B with the help of C. What A, B and C are is explained below. A. Recreating professions (systemic innovation) as the next creative frontier.
REFLECTION: (The market need) Think of our society as a mechanism (or organism) and of our professions as its parts (organs); then what we call 'global problems' or 'contemporary issues' can be understood simply as symptoms of our society's dysfunction (disease). A well-functioning 'social mechanism' (a healthy or well-developed 'social organism') solves its problems in the course of its routine; a misconstructed (ailing or disabled) one creates problems. This means that conceivably all our contemporary issues or wicked problems together may be solved by suitable systemic improvement. Consider also this less known issue: If our societal mechanism might be misconstructed, that would mean that we may be spending a lion's share of our time, effort and resources to do no better than spin the wheels of a misconstructed social machinery! What a spectacular arena for discovery and innovation! Reflect about this as a creative frontier that may be opening up. The innovation that could be done there is of the sort that may yield largest conceivable benefits. B. Information technology as Lego blocks for recreating professions.
REFLECTION: (Invention and Innovation) The best creative frontiers and the best opportunities for business open up when newly perceived critical needs meet newly developed enabling technology. Consider what's been presented in the IT node: Could Information technology provide exactly what is needed—Lego blocks for recreating professions? Can you imagine what (the true or mature) Information Age might be like? C.The Game-Changing Game as a way to put A and B together.
REFLECTION: ('The conveyor belt') The third and critical component is the workflow that enables A and B to come together, and the opportunities to be realized. The conveyor belt unleashed analogous possibilities in its time. Today also communication and marketing will play an important role. The Game as prototype puts A and B together by providing both: (1) 'Marketing'—the awareness of the needs and possibilities, through Vision Quest and (2) a practical way of acting on it, that is, inventing and innovating at systemic level, through Action Quest.
The challenge left for designing Vision Quest (what's presented here is only a rough first approximation) is to create a media-attractive, impressive, sticky... communication channel that will overcome this obstacle and open up the road to change.