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Failure to grok what's going on?

Doc Searl's, one of the author's of the cluetrain manifesto, has a number of quotes and links in his post, "Power from the people" about the tragic failures on the part of government agencies in the aftermath of Katrina. Last month I wrote about, Open Source Leadership as an Organizational Management Style. Here's part of what I wrote... Today's grassroots ideas on the net become viral in days, scaling in volunteers (Seth, will you help us) to what would make any organization or marketeer cry for mercy or celebrate in the streets. But, that's not happening in most business organizations. Why?

Doc... The big questions are Who are we? And What can we do? The answers won't come down from the tops of the power pyramids. They'll come up from interested parties who step forward with constructive ideas and solutions.

Doc..."Failure to grok what's going on," fits too many situations in both government and business today.

Here's more ideas from Jeff Jarvis, BuzzMachine...

Recovery 2.0: A call to convene. "The goal is to be ready - God help us - for the next disaster so people can better use the internet via any device to better:

  1. share information,
  2. report and act on calls for help,
  3. coordinate relief,
  4. connect the missing,
  5. provide connections for such necessities as housing and jobs,
  6. match charitable assets to needs,
  7. get people connected to this and the world sooner."

People everywhere are waking up and getting connected.

Many of the ideas and technologies (social software: blogs, wikis, forums, text messaging, open source, rss, wi-fi, and mu-fi) that Doc and Jeff talk about are already in place, they simply need to be deployed and accessible to all. People are waking up and connecting. The incumbents, governments and businesses that insist on maintaining the status quo are doomed.