Planet Earth 2.0: Yes We Can

Imag­ine see­ing a top sheik from Dubai, wrapped in tra­di­tion­al Arab cloth­ing, exclaim “Yes We Can” in front of the 800 experts gath­ered dur­ing the Sum­mit of the Glob­al Agen­da that just took place in Dubai, co-orga­nized by the World Eco­nom­ic Forum and the Gov­ern­ment of Dubai. This same sheik added that “we build the future with our own hands”.

You can read more about the main points of the Glob­al Agen­da Coun­cils con­ver­sa­tion here: Dis­cus­sion High­lights. Below go some of my own still-jet­lagged reflections.

The finan­cial cri­sis has made obvi­ous the obvi­ous: that we live in a tru­ly new and glob­al world.

And that busi­ness as usu­al will lead to glob­al dis­as­ter — we need new approach­es to col­lec­tive­ly adapt to and thrive in this new envi­ron­ment. The answer is not to go back to any old par­a­digm, which sim­ply will not work in a new real­i­ty, but to imag­ine and build a bet­ter new way of doing things.

Some of the atten­dants urged us to “reboot” the sys­tem. I don’t think that a “reboot” is enough — we need to upgrade to a new oper­at­ing sys­tem. We can call it Plan­et Earth 2.0.Based on the group dis­cus­sion we had on Sun­day morn­ing, let me pro­pose some of the archi­tec­tur­al prin­ci­ples that should under­lie any emerg­ing Plan­et Earth 2.0 oper­at­ing sys­tem. And let me present those prin­ci­ples using a “Yes We Can” val­ue-based approach:

Yes
— From Busi­ness As Usu­al to Imag­i­na­tion-led Action.
— From Analy­sis to Syn­the­sis.
— From Talk to Walk.

We
— From Finan­cial Hege­mo­ny to Human and Nat­ur­al Cap­i­tal.
— From Us vs. them to Win-win Diver­si­ty.
— From Regulation/ Dereg­u­la­tion to Mind­ful Archi­tec­ture.
— From Top-down Author­i­ty to Shared Respon­si­bil­i­ty.

Can
— From Self­ish Genes to Com­mit­ted to Improv­ing the state of the world.
— From Account­ing Rules to Val­ues and Stan­dards.
— From Being Stuck to Learn and Evolve.

Giv­en that each of us are in fact part of that new oper­at­ing sys­tem, we could start by pledg­ing to live by prin­ci­ples like those. How can we refine them?

Need­less to say, this new oper­at­ing sys­tem upgrade would ben­e­fit from a new empha­sis on cog­ni­tive health and per­for­mance, such as the one dis­cussed in the pro­pos­al for a Glob­al Con­sor­tium for Neu­rocog­ni­tive Fit­ness Innovation.

In short, no more Busi­ness as Usu­al. We need more Imag­i­na­tion, and Action. By each of us.