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I'm looking for collaborators to help me flesh out the rest of this systems diagram that shows the flow of tangible/dollar transactions to non-tangible transactions. Basically it's an attempt at showing how non-financial transactions come out of financial transactions. Contact me if you have experience with systems diagramming/thinking and are into this space. (Yeah, I know it needs a lot of work!)
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This summer I've been exercising my gardening muscles after I got a small space in the new West Hollywood community garden. I had been doing active container gardening for several years, trying out some vertical gardening ideas - with varied success. Flowers, ornamental and herbs did well, but my attempts at growing food never thrived or attracted pests. So when my number (literally) came up in the new garden lottery, I accepted it with excitement.
It took a lot of work to prepare the soil. (The garden area used to be an old lot so the soil was not that great.) Then I planted the seeds, watered them diligently, daily. I watched them sprout, tender and fragile, until they grew stronger, maturing. Often after I finished watering the garden, I'd stop by the grocery store and pick up things for dinner. The irony was not lost on me. After months of diligent tending, I was finally able to harvest some of the fruits of my labor.
Like my container garden attempts, some items thrived in the SoCal summer better than others. This coupled with a harvest screw-up made some items inedible. After the months of nurturing this was a tragedy. Still, I had more than enough chard, peppers, tomatoes, and basil (had I not let it go to seed). The sunflowers grew tall with their happy yellow faces.
Of course we ate what we grew - but there's no way we could have lived on what the garden produced. Yet, at the same time, we had more than enough of some things. This gave me new respect for high yield seeds and professional farmers. Those farms that focus on growing amazing, lush foods for us to eat. (I am probably more spoiled than most, living in Los Angeles with the fertile San Joaquin Valley a few hours away.)
I thought, who are these people that want to go back to the old way - of tough small harvests. Science and technology has made life easier - life more productive (both for plants, animals and humans). Why throw these discoveries away or worse, ignore them. They give us the ability to focus on finer grain issues in the world.
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Here's the math equation:
Facebook timeline + Dan Simmons Flashback + Stephenson's Diamond Age (Or A Young Girl's Primer) + AI = Possible future for us Gen Xers when we are old and in old age homes aka "TV" for the old people.
Here's the scene: you're old (but you don't have to be), you want to reminiscence, with/about your friends. Well, lucky you - you lived your life on Facebook (or Twitter or Google or your blog, etc.) and there is a ton of information about you to not only create your life timeline, but an avatar AI representation of you. (I've written about this in my scenario entitled, Trantor Mentors. Extra credit to anyone who gets the name inspiration.) So you can decide to jack in and re-experience certain times - or maybe just read your life like it was a book. (I admit I do that with my own blog sometimes. I am my primary reader, Oscar Wilde inspiration.) And there are different levels of media engagement. Like I mentioned, there's the book/reading, there's the watching, there's immersive VR (probably 3D).
Facebook might wanna consider teaming up with Singularity University right about now.
Protopian Flipsided View: one can use these group memories for various esoteric practices that increase self-awareness, understanding and tolerance.
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I open the shades just in time for the rockies. I'm above the earth again. My flight trajectory is taking me across my favorite landscapes: the Colorado Rockies, Southern Utah and the California Deserts. I've had the good fortune of watching this landscape from the air a lot recently.
I'm glued to the window, a glass of sparkling water at my elbow, the soundtrack Bjork's possibly maybe/hyperballad covering up the droning engines. I feast my eyes, recognizing Pike's Peak to the southeast, Aspen's shaved ski slopes on the mountain just below me. I remember a fast drive on Interstate 70 below me - and a favorite roadtrip moment.
We pass over Moab - I see scratched red rocks. I remember two conversations in this natural land. Who calls into a business conference call from Arches National Park? (One guess.) As I view this landscape from above, I remember the view from below. I first discovered it during my Great American Roadtrip. My mindblowing drive along the Colorado River, hitting my high speed at 7am on a desolate Utah road, winding up and around Capitol Reef, Dixie National and Escalante/Grand Staircase.
I see the same land from a different perspective and it is just as beautiful - mindblowing. In rock I see the roil of boiling water. I imagine a movable landscape, fluid rock, spewing Volcanoes. I imagine the crust under a shallow sea.
These landscapes, formed in geological time remind me of the long term. Remind me of the long line of the past, the trajectory of the future, and the tiny moment of the present. It doesn't make me feel small though. It vitalizes me. It makes me love this time on earth - and feasting upon the gorgeousness of the land.
Your's Truely on the Grandstand in Death Valley's Racetrack.
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On the outside, it's a boring looking box - building material enclosing a space, the interior, ripe for possibilities. I ride up the escalator, hear music playing, see lights flashing, the space is filled with stages, activities, people.
I weave through the crowds, looking for familiar faces, scoping out the layout, observing the scene, finding new friends. I'm reminded of a Malibu house party years prior. I retreated from those crowds. I found myself a balcony and watched the scene. Detached. It's what I want to do here, now. I tell myself my inner introvert was left back in the states, in my LA office. Besides, I don't live the same life twice. I decide to fully engage in the scene.
Movie scenes play in the back of my mind, memories of playa parties, Silicon Valley parties. We're all humans, despite the industry. I look for the meta-view. "Pull back camera," as Jodorosky says. I gather data. Observe. Wait. On the dancefloor, I pretend it's Bootie. The mashups are in my mind, while my body moves. I spill the wine.
The next morning, as I blear through customs and security finally arrive to the coffee shop. I dig in my wallet for the bill I won. I hand it to the cashier who hands it back to me. Not Canadian. I laugh. It's Euros. A 20 Euro bet, I would have done for the thrill. An exchange to display the courage to take a risk beyond the usual. A transaction.
I've converted/compressed the value of something that can not be exchanged on the stock market (in it's original form) into the binary exchange. Did I just exchange social capital/wuffie into Euros? I don't know.
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One of the negative points that is sometimes mentioned with virtual/alt/complimentary currencies is that they are/were created out of nothing. And the reason the economic systems works is because of scarcity.
I'm calling a big fat bullshit.
Observe where all the money is going and for what? To make MORE MONEY! Out of "nothing." We're in this problem because we are using a scarce system for abundant methods. You get money, you use it to make more money. Where does that money come from? Debt? The Fed's quantitative easing?
The problem here - is the current system is not set up for the abundance paradigm. (Please bear with my hippy language.) Interesting isn't it, that this is the paradigm people want - and are using in some cases. No wonder the current system is freaking out. It's not designed for the abundance paradigm.
So quit fighting the system. Create the place where anyone can create "something" out of "nothing."
It's what we as humans do. It's not a bad thing. It's what we humans are here for. It's a ratification of the raw materials of the universe.
I regularity makes things real based on electrical signals in the cellular matter just inside my skull. You could call that something from nothing.
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A couple thoughts on Money and Transactions have been fluttering in my mind. Until tonight, I've been out experiencing my first Sibos, International Banking convention. It's been a wild mix of activities, observations and surprises.
Incumbents and Start-ups: They need to work together. I'm concerned with the disruption coming from start-up land because I know how start-ups are run. I'm a start-up girl. I love the risk, the challenge of building a new idea, making it real, taking it to market, to the people. Building something, a beta, launching, rapid product development. I know how long it takes for good QA cycles (even with Agile development) - and when we're talking about about a living infrastructure the world depends on - this is not something I want left up to my wonderful, disruptive start-up entrepreneurs. There are serious risks, liability. The necessary requirements for up time and consistency would kill a start-up.
We watch consumers get pissed on social media with any little thing not perfect? Wait till their finances get as messed up as their airline travel. Not a pretty sight. Start-ups and the Big Financial Incumbents need to work together. To do what they do best, so they can keep doing what they do best. To help each other innovate, create/build standards and infrastruture and provide solid, risk reliant financial products and services. There is a place for both the start-up and the incumbent in our new world.
The current system doesn't deserve to be destroyed. Just because it's had some major problems recently, doesn't mean it should be killed. I DO NOT Believe the existing money system is going away. We are BUILDING upon the existing system. The existing system is a FOUNDATION upon which more value is being created. These emerging things could not emerge without prior existence of our current system. Just as our current system evolved out of the previous one.
This is not a case where the phoenix should be immolated only to rise again. Let's create a new metaphor - joining the strength of the past, building upon this strength and pushing, expanding, extending it out into the unknown, the impossible - and bring our hands back full of start-up ideas for an expanding ecosystem. This is pragmatic futures work.
Embrace and extend. I use the not so loved metaphor to explain my thoughts on what I prefer to see happen with the current system/situation. Incumbents embrace these new systems/concepts/ideas and extend the infrastructure into these new area. (There's a place for start-ups too.)
Market Externalities. Triple Bottom Line. Encoding a new language. Creating the interface to plug currently understood non-financial values/transactions into the market system. Giving/Letting the market system do what it does best. Loosen the bonds holding back the flow of currency.
There is no black and white. All bets are off. We are traversing new ground (while we create it in front of us - just as Iron Council's railroad tracks). Drop your judgements, your expectations, your assumptions. Do not indulge in the dystopian. Challenge yourself to join me (and a less sarcastic Candide) in the Protopian Flipside: a thriving ecosystem of possibilities, waiting to be plucked and incubated into reality. Further refining. The most magical of all: creating a lot of somethings from "nothing." Creating value. Creating the infrastruture for this value to participate in the system.
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I'm reminded of a post I wrote in 2004. I had been watching (and learning) from Pelicans hunting off the coast of Malibu.
"Aim with your complete passion. Be meticulous in your planning. Abundant in your release. Pause a moment before you pull the trigger."
I am reminded today because of the calm I feel. Despite the 30 to 300 mph acceleration in my life the last 60 days, the projects I've become obsessed with, the film I created, the opportunities that have unfolded, I have been calm.
It was not so in January and February of this year. This was before I went public with any research results. My "coming-out" was at the Future of Money and Technology Summit, put on by Brian Zisk in my old San Francisco stomping grounds. I was terrified for weeks before I spoke. I couldn't sleep. I meticulous reviewed and went through my research results. They seemed radical. I was terrified with the response I would get. I went through my research for the 5th time, confirming everything I was reporting was cross-checked, triple checked. It was. I had left out the most radical ideas. It was the first time I had presented original research results. (Let me talk to Executives
The world and it's interest in the future of money, transactions, alternate/complimentary currencies has dramatically changed since January. We have taken our first steps into the new paradigm, fragile it is.
Fast forward to today. Relaxed Awesome was one of my mental mindset goals for the year. And while I failed in the execution of it 8 months prior, today, I am firmly planted in the zero point, center calm. Holding this space, savoring the relaxed, yet building the energy, increasing the tension, until the spotlight - pulling the trigger and release.
I hope it blows your mind or at least shows something you had not imagined before.
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Reading Esther Dyson's excellent post about The Attention Economy reminded me of an attention exchange from days past.
I was walking down Valencia Street in the Mission and there were the usual panhandlers asking for money. I wasn't in much of a giving mood, but this one panhandler started walking with me down the street talking to me. I was probably saying something like I don't usually give money to people on the street, trying to shake him off but he would not be deterred. He eventually asked me to give him a moment of my attention. I immediatelly stopped and turned to face him directly, looking him in the eye, saying nothing, giving him my full attention. Open. Receptive.
This action startled him. He didn't know what to do with my full attention. I said, he had just asked for my full attention, and here I was giving it to him, a much rarer item than the few coins he was asking me for. He paused, took it in for a moment, and then thanked me. For the moment, gave him my full attention - without judgement, without expecting anything in return - and something "happened." I don't know what it was. It wasn't for me to get - the moment was for him. It was a gift. Of Attention. I can't get that moment back, I can't get that attention back, but it's ok. He asked for it - I gave it.
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A few days ago, Mr Dog and I came across a murder of crows. I counted over 30 in the lawn and branches of two trees. I stopped to observe and wonder where they had come from and why were they all gathered there. Mr. Dog was more interested in the squirrel in the tree and I watched as he scampered around a tree filled with crows.
Then there was a commotion and the crows took flight. My eyes caught a bit of brown, different wing shape among the dark flying birds. I remembered the neighborhood hawk. Could s/he be here among the crows? My eyes scanned the tree branches, and yes! there! I saw her mottled brown. Boy did she look beautiful. Feathers were shiny. Well fed. Not a scrawny hawk here.
But what was going on with this murder of crows? Some wildlife drama was being played out.
In my brief observation of the scene, I saw several bursts of flights. I watched the hawk go after a crow like a fighter pilot shooting it's target. I saw the crows dive bomb the hawk. And finally they would all resettle, crows in trees on the grass, the hawk in a nearby tree, devoid of crows.
When I lived in rural america I didn't watch these scenes play out so clearly in my forested backyard. But here, in West Hollywood, I've got a front row seat each morning.
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Here's one from the Intuited Future:
Custom melanges, created out of high quality locally sourced spices. These personal custom spice melanges will be carried around in precious containers. And it would be safe to assume they will have additional micro/nano/cellular based ingredients.
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I will be on the Future of Money panel with a lot of great minds at Sibos in Toronto later this month. And yes, I do think there is a role for banks in the future. :)
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I'm the passenger on a 14 hour drive from desert to desert. The wind blows through the car, kicking up the fine dust that covers everything. I haven't showered in 5 days, but I'm clean thanks to moist towelettes. It's all part of the ritual. The end of the year, the beginning of the new one. Christmas morning and NYE wrapped in a week of hard camping in a difficult environment.
But it's over. I'm headed back to reality.
14 hours. Hot sun on my lap, burning through my dust soaked pants. I read chicken john's book as we leave the desert, enter the mountains, view Mono Lake and skirt the eastern edge of the Sierras. My colleague and I, we trade stories about places of interest on this road. Previous adventures. We've traveled part of it together before. There was that bar from that race years ago.
I enjoy road trips with him. We can be silent. We can talk. I love his taste in music, his ipod playlists. We sing along. I'm no musician, he's accomplished. I take in the scenery, I listen to songs I haven't heard in ages. The sun sets painting pink across the desert sky. We're at the place the Sierras dissolve into Southern California deserts. We pass the California City exits - a failed 50s future dream. I'm reminded of my many roadtrips on the other side of this road, my NorCal adventures into the magical mojave and Joshua Tree deserts. Chocolate cake and plastic bags.
We look forward to the cool Los Angeles weather, but are disappointed by the 90+ degrees after dark. Entering the bladerunner landscape. I'm left at my door with two dusty bags, a thanks. We both have months of work ahead of us. Socializing is done. The drive is over. We have returned to our city and our many lives.
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Several year ago, when I called San Francisco my home, I changed my life. If you go back far enough on the blog you can visit those days. I stopped living by rules, because I realized the rules no longer applied. All Bets Were Off. It wasn't my choice, the bets being off. I just realized my world had changed.
Last Saturday I remembered those days. My old mantra went through my mind. I was the single passenger, sitting in the co-pilot's seat in a small 6 seater Cessna on it's way to a dusty runway in the desert. I feasted my eyes on the brown landscape, broken only by the turquoise of Pyramid Lake. My mind went back to the old phrase, rolled it around in my mind. It wasn't just me the bets were all off for. It was the whole world. The rules in the world have changed. The Bets are Off for all of us now. And it's actually quite freeing.
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Sometimes it's the possibilities that do not become reality.
A dream. A possibility. The pathway to make it a reality, clear - not so difficult to walk down, yet unwalked. I see possibilities. I see the pathways to make them reality. Sometimes, I want them to pass from the veil into this reality. To become. Possibilities that could change my life. A set of dreams come true. Real-ized.
In the space of a moment, the possibility passes through the veil. No longer possible. It's here. In this reality, with the certainty that comes with a choice made, an action, selection. Possibilities evaporate. I pass my hand through the veil. I grasp at the possibility. I pull it close. I feel it's hot breath on my body, pulsing, writhing, taking form. Possibilities growing stronger, weaker. A momentary embrace, puissant, before I open my hand and release. The moment has passed, the possibilities remain.
Anything could still happen.
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