Looking ahead: 2006 and Beyond

It is my considered view that I am entering into the most creative period of my life, so let me put some of my ideas on this before you to see if perhaps some of you may have a few thoughts or suggestions for me as I start to dig into it. Basically, I have with this site launched a continuing process which I hope will define my work and collaboration for the remainder of the decade, not least because almost any of the important things that I would hope to give my attention to will require at least that much time and work to get even a first bite out of the apple. My plan is going to key on a small number of highest quality international partners and projects, with strong mandates and the resources and leadership needed to get the important transforming jobs done.

As you have amply seen here, I am not a career academic nor a full-time researcher. Nor am I looking for a job, if by that is meant a full time, long term fixed position in a hierarchy. Rather at this stage in my career I feel that my best contribution lies in finding ways to make flexible, targeted, cost-effective contributions in challenge areas which I believe to be among the most important in front of us today. An important part of my usefulness stems from the wide variety - technical, geographic, cultural, sectoral -- and synergies of my on-going associations and work environments. Bringing us to the concept of a portfolio of projects and affiliations. (And, incidentally, the matter of organizing international work in good part via the cost-effective, performing technologies now at hand.)

The key to our era

We are today on the brink of a new era with enormous problems looming before us, and equally enormous opportunities. Here in a small handful of bullets is my best synopsis of the high points of the era and challenge ahead. Why do I put this here? Because they simply define the future and the envelope of opportunity.

Sustainable development is the business of business, government and each of us in the 21st century.

We live in an era of transforming technology.

The goals of sustainability and social justice cannot be reached without putting these technologies to work. (And while we will need more than this, the undeniable fact is that without using these technologies, and using them brilliantly, the battle will be lost.

And the only way to achieve this, to turn it from endless words and promises to the near term (a few years max), concrete, palpable results that we need to meet these challenges is by setting clear performance targets which can be openly measured, judged and acted upon by an informed, participatory citizenry.

If that sounds about right to you, and you could use an extra pair of hands for priority challenges before you, I invite you to keep reading.
Back to top

Personal Targets

Here are the kinds of things I am targeting for the years ahead:

Decision counsel to international business, government and the volunteer sector on strategic, high potential impact issues of technology, economy and society in circumstances of socioeconomic stress, rapid technological or environmental change.

Support of shaping programs: Work with whoever has the mandate, funding and courage to create, support and implement pattern-breaking processes and incentives for stimulating social-technical innovation and social justice in a sustainability perspective.

Identifying and finding ways to support "change agents": . How do we spot reward creative individuals and small grassroots programs who are bold and risk taking - including mavericks and others who work outside of conventional reward systems?

Primary sectors/focus areas: Sustainable development; information technology; institution building; work and economic organization; culture, education and learning systems; communications and outreach; mobility, logistics, energy, environment, location and physical planning.

Partners/Clients: Ideally I will be able to attain a creative mix of public and private sector (service, financial and industrial) clients, salted by work with some leading foundations and other able innovative sources of new ideas and initiatives.

Geographic/Cultural: At least half of my assignments should be focusing on issues that are going to be of importance for people, and especially women and children, in the developing world and the Accession countries (and those standing in line).

Understanding the reality of the epoch-forming process of technological change that is now getting fully underway, and that is going to dominate the leading edge of accomplishment over the remainder of this decade.

Back to top

How I might be able to help out

Here are some of the sorts of things that I think I can bring to these challenges:

Offer fresh eyes, catalyst and source of new ideas, visions, and specific projects for your group
And the energy, obsessiveness and competence to get the job done in a timely manner
Organize and complete independent reviews, peer reviews and 'second opinions' of ideas and projects in the cooker
Provide a discrete 'sounding board' off of whom ideas can be bounced, tested and developed
Give you the bad news early (enough so that you can do something about it.)
Identify international opportunities in the fast-breaking technology/sustainable development interface
Unorthodox problem-solving (when the other stuff is not working)
Conflict negotiation, arbitration, adjudication.
Strategic restructuring of businesses, programs, projects that have gone off the rails or run into trouble.
Probing for alternative approaches to priority issues, projects (Plan B, new solutions to old problems, and old solutions to 'new' problems)
Creating and building on public-private partnerships that actually get the job done
Multi-disciplinary, multi-national, inter-cultural team building and management
Cross-learning: creating a shared pool of knowledge, experience and competence in otherwise fractionalized contexts
Internationalization, including toward the developing world and the EU accession countries
Restructuring existing international units along new lines which extend their reach and enhance their effectiveness and sustainability potentials
"Post mortems" of problem or failed projects to learn lessons, and perhaps find in them the germs of future success
Contingency planning, damage control and reorganization for success
Public presentations and negotiation
Identifying outstanding projects and people around the world who are advancing the sustainability/social justice agenda, often in 'small' ways and working on their own with no or little help or recognition for their accomplishments.
Support in fund raising
Help you give away money in ways which are highly creative and achieve high sustainability impacts where they are most needed.

Again, one of the principal advantages in this case is that we now have the means, the technology and flexibility to work on these issues strategically and in a cost effective manner, without having to tie up resources in creating new permanent positions, onerous long term contracts, etc.

Back to top

Examples/Types of assignments

Here are some examples of the kinds of assignments and areas in which I would like to put my particular skill set to work over the remainder of the decade:

"New Mobility Initiative": Let me cite this as a salient example of the sort of approach that to my mind should be getting highest priority at this time: specific, targeted, visible, checkable, sustainability initiatives with teeth. (See New Mobility Initiative)

Independent program reviews: Independent review, (discrete) commentary and brainstorming on socio-technical programs or initiatives, or those requiring a review and possible rethink -- whether in the public sphere or in industry and international business.

Support/accompaniment of promising ICT projects/business groups that are going to lead the international wave of transformation of the 'information economy'.

Institution building: Neighborhood, national or international groups concerned with extending their focus, revising their operational structure, increasing their effectiveness in the world sustainability arena.

Working with major industrial, resource and financial groups to create and administer true, non-greenwash programs of sustainable development and social activism (all while making an honest buck in part through these actions).

Program restructuring and creation of new structures and routines of existing underperforming business or operational units to achieve more ambitious goals.

Job creation/rethinking work -- especially if I can find backing for putting some of our ideas and experience on this to work in specific areas or target groups (example: very aggressive, properly funded programs to create full employment conditions for males in the 15-35 year age bracket in violent areas of high unemployment. See Rethinking Work for first background on this.)

Regional development and refugee programs that can improve living and economic conditions in 'labor exporting' countries, in an effort to retain both brainpower and workforce in regions of origin.

Cities of the Future programs that use technology, public activism, citizen participation, private initiative, and the media to create sustainable cities

Teaching, Learning, Education, Young People I want to see if I can find ways to work with young people, even children, on problem solving, problem identification learning exercises within the framework of academic institutions or otherwise. I don't see this so much as a drill whereby I stand in front of a group of obedient students who have been brought into the room to hear me dispense great wisdom. Rather I see this as elbow to elbow collaboration and joint work with specific real world (sustainability) objectives in view.

New Mobility: Support of a wide panoply of policies and programs which get at the real root of the transport/sustainable cities interface. (See The New Mobility Agenda, and @World Carshare Consortium for examples of this kind of thinking.)

Technology transfer by new means or through supporting lesser known successful innovations and practices

And, working with others to advance the following concepts by working with others in areas such as:
International networking and coordination for sustainability initiatives.
Pattern breaks for socio-technical change.
Innovative award and prize programs to encourage and support hands-on, independent social-technical innovation and social justice in a sustainability perspective (including from the volunteer and private sector)
Validating sharply different alternative futures using new technology (through new techniques of simulation, interactive exploratory tools, striking visual displays, etc.)
New ways to deliver needed social services (also but not exclusively via new technology)
Harnessing new technology to facilitate distance work in new and far broader ways.
Sustainable mobility - supported by new technology but also through better planning and management of demand
New approaches to integrated, sustainable city planning and development
Anything to do with programs aimed at concentrating development, educational and health resources on girls and young women.
Conflict negotiation, arbitration, adjudication
Creation of opportunities and conditions of life in countries and regions now suffering labor/brain outflows

Back to top

Closing Comments

How much Britton might you need or want:
The short answer to that is that in most cases it may be not all that much. Given the nature of my competences and the way I work, you will probably make best use of me on a focused periodic basis, where an extra pair of hands or intellectual sparring partner for a very specific task or element of a project is required. Examples are: the initial brainstorming stages, project formation, interim review, and, if appropriate, post-initiative analysis and lessons learned summing up. If we bear in mind that such projects are usually very strategic, it is important that there be a high level of trust and good communications all around. And the best way to ensure that, is by creating longer term working relationships.

Future Work Partners and Sponsors:
Good fit is critical. The outstanding qualification that I should be looking for in partners and sponsors for my work over this period is (a) groups with strong felt need in areas in which my background and work style can find its place; together with (b) a clear mandate and the resources needed to tackle the challenge at hand, and (c) leadership which is up to the task. My experience shows that if a very strong, almost desperate need for remedial policy and practice is not felt, then my style probably is a bit too (and here I search for the word) "strong" or perhaps better "discomforting" for the comfort zone probably being sought. (My creative dissonance work style does not go very well if the overarching target is, public pronouncements and rhetoric aside, maintaining someone's comfort zone.)

Team work:
This is a sine quo non of any contribution I might, and this results from the fact that my background and skill set is far too general for me to dig in and make an unallied personal contribution in some important area of needed expertise. That is simply not what I do. On the other hand, I have been pretty successful in working with, organizing and interacting with outstanding international teams and colleagues in problem solving and demonstration projects, and so in good part my present quest is to find the people and groups with whom I am going to be able to collaborate and support in the years ahead.

"Distance work":
Over the last decade I have carried out most of my work with a combination of personal and 'virtual' presence with my work partners: a formula which has worked well and which I intend to continue to use in the future. The advantages are considerable: lower costs (including my fees), better use of time, higher efficiency. The mechanics of these arrangements are mediated by a continuously up-dated array of computer and communications tools which together provide true 'virtual presence' of the sort needed to get the job done. (More information on this as you require.)

And. . .
It is my best guess that as part of my work bouquet I will end up working in an appropriately flexible manner with one or two outstanding public sector agencies that has a strong mandate for change in areas where I can pitch in. And with one or two industrial or financial groups that are looking hard for new patterns of activity or initiatives that relate to my competences, and with a strong commitment to implement the results. I also intend to find a way to have regular shoulder-to-shoulder working and learning relationships with leading projects, thinkers and doers of the sort that one finds at best in a great university, foundation, institution or similar center of excellence.

Back to top

And 2022?

How many more years do you and I have to work on these and other such pressing issues with all our energy and capabilities intact? Well time is flying and so we better start to plan ahead.
My firm commitments thus far only take me out to June 5th, 2022, where I hope once again to work with the City of Stockholm to celebrate the 20th anniversary of our first Stockholm Partnerships for Sustainable Cities award ceremony. That at least is what I offered as my answer to His Majesty the King of Sweden when he kindly asked me about longer term plans for the Partnerships -- suggesting that this means that his and my family and friends had better take pretty good care of us so that we will be there to do the job when needed. As an active non-depressive non-smoker vegetarian cyclist who only drives his car to church on Sunday (that's a joke), I may have a good shot at that according to the actuarial tables. But don't let that keep you from lighting a candle for me. (And me for you.)

Home About BrittonOnLine.com Translate The Commons Contact
Top

Le Frene, 8/10 rue Joseph Bara 75006 Paris, France, Europe. T: +331 4326 1323
Copyright © 1994-2006 The Commons ® All rights reserved.
Last updated on 9 April 2006