NYT presents an overview:

Multiple Channels for Obamas Cairo Speech

By Jeff ZelenyRIYADH, Saudi Arabia – President Obama’s speech to the Muslim world will not only be delivered at Cairo University. It also will be texted and tweeted, as well as highlighted on Facebook, Myspace and a host of other social networking sites.

The White House is taking elaborate steps to multiply the audience – and vastly expand the reach – of the president’s address on Thursday. It will be translated by the State Department into at least 13 different languages and a special Web site has been created in Arabic, Persian, Urdu and English for people to receive the speech via text message.

Yes, the administration is taking a page from the playbook of the Obama campaign, which often turned to text messaging and other types of communication to draw people in.



“Welcome to the President Obama Cairo Speech SMS/Text Messaging Service,” said a message on the America.gov Web site. “Be among the first to receive highlights from President Barack Obama’s historic speech.”

The speech will also be Webcast as it happens on the White House Live section of Whitehouse.gov and streamed by the State Department as part of a live Web chat.

The White House press secretary, Robert Gibbs, said that by translating the speech and trying to market it directly to a wide range of people around the world fit with the theme of the president’s address.

“There’s a tremendous amount of outreach,” Mr. Gibbs said. “But it’s important to realize that this is one of many events that a continuing dialogue must happen. This is not a one-time event.” 

Here a quick response from Gabor Steingart, SPIEGEL ONLINE:

Obamas Unfinished Speech in Cairo

From NYT:

Arab Students in Cairo Respond to Obama

Al Jazeera English:

Arabs shocked by Obama Speech

From Ynetnews.com:

Ministers split over Obamas Cairo Speech

Atlantic-Community.org:

Is Apologizing a Sign of Weakness or Strength?

A new book from Dutch leadership Guru Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries. I like his work, his humor and unusual mix of perspectives. When reading the title -did not read it up to now -I am thinking about David Brooks and Malcolm Gladwells reflections. Especially about Brooks recent coverage of the Harvard longitudinal study:

They had it made

When I co-published with Particia von Papstein Are You Ready the Play the Integral Way? (March issue of Integral leadership Review) Kets de Vries wrote a quite angry feedback and complained about an intention which seems to big for him.

I can understand it. As nearly 98 Percent of all leadership approaches is completely lacking the dimensions of complex adult play. However, these 4 tenets reflect quite an unconscious acceptance of the view of life in playful manner.

Now, the radical consequences of creating new ways of leadership in the spaces and time-loops of play , as Patricia von Papstein described (no other game designer worldwide has grasped this dimension up to now)and to galvanize new flows of the unique self (see also talk between Russ Volckman and Marc Gafni)into powerful nonstoppable momentum which shakes up even the mainstream (from underground to mainstream!)seems to be an Apollo Project of its own kind for next decades. Even in integral terms some impulses are only babysteps right now. Not really elaborated and  lacking cutting edge furor. See this necessary piece from Hargens/Gordon:

Integral play: An Exploration Of The Playground And The Evolution Of The Player

Here a short synapsis of Manfred kets de Vries new book, which has a great title.And certainly beats any 990 other titles about leadership.

Sex, Money, Happiness and Death

Sex, Money, Happiness and Death: Musings from the Underground

Palgrave, April 2009
Manfred F. R. Kets De Vries

http://www.weforum.org, Jan 31rd, 2009 in Davos, Switzerland:

IdeasLab with INSEAD
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This is forewarded from Sean Esbjörn Hargens:


Hey Everyone,

I wanted to bring your attention to the new version of the Integral Research Center that I recently launched. You can check it out at:

www.integralresearchcenter.org

Feel free to give me/us feedback so we can continue to improve the site and its offerings

Also, note that we have updated our resource documents including the list of dissertations which is now close to 100 (which use integral theory) - Jordan just added around 35 new ones to the previous list.

And most importantly in addition to the annual $5000 Integral Research Grant for JFKU students (online) we now are offering a $5000 integral research scholarship to a graduate student outside of JFK University who is using integral theory to conduct mixed methods research (1st-, 2nd-, and 3rd-person) - so let MA and PhD students you know so they can contact us if they want an application. This is one way that the Integral Theory program at JFKU is demonstrating its commitment to supporting the global community of integral scholar-practitioners.

Feel free to fwd this email as appropriate.

Warmly,

Sean

Sean Esbjörn-Hargens PhD
Chair
Department of Integral Theory
John F. Kennedy University

My interest is drawn to this special announement about a longitudinal research. As i recently commented about They had it made (David Brooks about Harvard Grant Study) and Inexpressible Joy (about Andrew Cohens new blog entry and missing documentation about longitudinal vertical transformation into post-personal stages within a group)its a good dign to start such endevors.

What remains to be done then is comparative longitudinal research between different approaches. For example MeshWorks in SDi and integral projects based on AQAL.
 

Integral Transformative Education Assessment for Curriculum Research

The Integral Research Center is in the process of designing and launching an ambitious longitudinal study using methods from all eight zones of Integral Methodological Pluralism to assess the transformative effects of integral education. We are working with Theo Dawson of Developmental Testing Service and Susanne Cook-Greuter of Cook-Greuter and Associates to help us with this exciting project.

Lots of innovative programs (both mainstream and alternative) highlight how transformative their educational programs are for their students. We don't doubt their claims; in fact we feel the same way about our online program in Integral Theory. However, we want to really find out "In what ways do our students transform?" Do they, over the course of three years of coursework, actually demonstrate some vertical stage development (e.g., exiting Kegan's third order and stabilizing fourth order) or is it just horizontal development (e.g., increased access to emotional content). And even if it is just horizontal development, what aspects are developing? In short, we don't only want to tell everyone about how transformative this program is, we also want to demonstrate the exact ways it is transformative. We plan on using the results of this ongoing study to improve the developmental potential of our curriculum. So we will be adjusting our program making it even more conducive to psychological transformation and growth. [More details on the iTeach Project, PDF]

I spoke with Oliver Triebel, McKinsey Berlin, at the end of 2007 , in Berlin. To clear some points for this article for Integral leadership Review. The new June Issue 2009 is out and here the interview is:

Integral Interventions: Oliver Triebel at McKinsey and Company

Oliver M. Triebel is "Head of Organizational Learning," Mindsets & Capabilities Practice, McKinsey & Company, Germany – Berlin Office

Oliver has started his career with McKinsey back in 1993 after having completed his Master in Public Administration at Harvard University´s Kennedy School of Government and before that a master degree in natural sciences (cell and molecular biology). Oliver left McKinsey after 6 years as a consulting generalist at the end of 1999 to take up an offer from Bertelsmann AG, one of the 5 largest global media companies: as Vice President Corporate Management Development he was in charge of recruiting and professional development of Bertelsmann´s current and future leaders.

Oliver re-joined McKinsey´s German Office in Summer 2004. He is the leader of the German Mindsets & Capabilities Practice and a member of the German Organization Practice Leadership Group as well as the European Organizational Behavior Leadership Group of McKinsey.

Oliver brings his expertise in capability building, management development, coaching, and other HR processes as well as in knowledge management and employee communications from a line responsibility back to consulting. Oliver is a certified coach, a skilled facilitator and experienced faculty member in various kinds of training programs. He has several additional qualifications, among them certifications to administer the MBTI, the Emotional Quotient inventory, and the Reiss Motivational Profile. He has studied with Ken Wilber and learned Spiral Dynamics with Don Beck.

In his role as Head of Organizational Learning, Oliver helps McKinsey clients to design and deliver innovative capability building and professional development programs as well as approaches supporting change management and performance transformation initiatives. Additionally, he works on various knowledge initiatives of McKinsey´s Organization Practice, for example on leadership, adult learning, and the future of human resources management. In addition to his consulting role, Oliver currently holds a part-time lecturer position at the University of Cologne where he teaches "Leadership" to MBA students.

read more...

These are reflections from Keith Bellamy for ILR. I met Keith first on a forum at Fast Company. It was then about an article of Tony Schwartz who introduced the work of Ken Wilber . Anno 2000. Keith and I meet again at London Integral Circle in 2004 and so its my pleasure to present his actual considerations, right now from New York City. I will post some short points below the article.

Integral for the Masses: State of the Integral Spirituality Movement—Part 1

Keith Bellamy

We have been very busy little beavers here in the New York City Integral Community of late. On the surface, it might appear as if we have beencontinuing in our normal manner, holding meetings and discussing ourfuture plans and generally seeking to further the cause in theMetropolis. Any casual observer probably wouldn’t have given us asecond glance over the past few months. Yet the truth is, more by accident than design, we stumbled into a process that has the potential to reverberate around “Planet Integral” for some time to come. We have been forced to take a three dimensional look at the navel of the Integral Spirituality Movement and face up to a number of questions that we, and probably many others,might have preferred remain unasked.

Although never intentional, I ended up taking a significant leadership role in these machinations. As I look back hazily, it feels as if I was in one of those old B-movies where the sergeant major asks for a volunteer to take three steps forward. The reluctant hero not being quite aware of what is going on around him doesn’t notice that everybody else has taken three steps backwards and he finds himself being “volunteered.” Perhaps I am being a little unkind to some of my colleagues in the NY Integral Community, but I think that they will admit to a kernel of truth in what I am saying.

The turmoil and tumult of the past few months have, at times, been so immense that I feel that I need to take two columns to report fully. This first column focuses on the process that we have been through and the lessons we have learned about our role and significance in the broader Integral Community. The second column will focus on the findings and understandings that emerged from the investigations we undertook. I hasten to add that we have not fully completed our process, so to report our findings would be somewhat premature, but here at ILR time waits for no man, and Russ is relentless when it comes to asking for copy to meet each issue’s deadline.

read more.

My personal take:

1. There is no integral movement to the degree that the dynamic work of Spiral Dynamics Integral and others with integrating functions are not screened. The Gaia Community in toto is pregnant with diverse impulses too.. Of course the F2F constellations in each case are relevant.

2. Working in the realms of life as Marc Gafni and colleagues are doing -connecting shadow, spirituality and sex -is highly psychoactive. Few living teachers -and other conscious individuals in contemporary cultures of North America, Australia and Europe (to make clear in other cultural orbits its not even as priority)are communicating these issues in the public spheres.

And these spheres are even different in Europa and US.

We have no precise exchange about these realms. its basically focused about feedback on teachers and teachings. This is not enough. The internal complexity of evolutionary, integral and otherwise emerging consciousness isnt researched enough.

3. What really moves (as movement) is the belly of the spiral itself. The last 2 years I explicitly reduced integral jargon as much as possible. Moving between people from all walks of life who do not even know about its existence. Very revealing! I learned that honest communication beyond any jargon is the key.

4.Salons, communities, circles and P2P nexus of all kind are not free from life conditions. The cultures, countries and societies they are embedded in color everything.

5. How are communities of all kind engage in the public spheres? In poltics, media and the fifth estate, blogging? Every "movement" should be connected to diverse forms of collective intelligence.

These are some subjective points. And it comes together for in the insight:

Its not about the teachers and teachings for me anymore. its about finding our own unique roles, functions and bold vulnerability (As Almaas et al say). And to what degree this is manifested and risked, expressed and explored.

SPIEGEL ONLINE once more checks Obamas Cairo Speech AND his following Europe Trip in Germany and France.

Obamas Offer to the Islamic world


By Christoph Schult, Gabor Steingart and Bernhard Zand

With his speech in Cairo, the new US president sought to awaken a global community that has been paralyzed by conflict. He offered a combination of powerful idealism and realism -- but at some point talk won't be enough. He'll have to act.


Speechwriter Ben Rhodes looked tired as he stood, unshaven, in a hotel lobby in the Saudi Arabian capital Riyadh last Wednesday. The big speech was less than 24 hours away, and the manuscript was already on his boss's desk. Now the waiting had begun. His boss, a skillful speaker himself, is a stern taskmaster. He has written two New York Times bestsellers, and it is partly due to his skillful use of words that he became a millionaire and then the president of the United States. Barack Obama brought Rhodes to the White House with him when he took office.


The basic structure of the speech had been established for some time, said Rhodes. He and the president had discussed the Cairo appearance at length, and Obama had asked for a candid and bold speech. Now if only the president weren't so consistently critical. Rhodes says Obama "edited it very heavily" over the past week.

The result -- the speech Obama gave at Cairo University last Thursday -- was anything if not impressive. Sixty million people watched, read or listened to the speech on the radio, on television, on the Internet or via text message. The message they heard was one of reconciliation, peace and tolerance -- and change.

read more..

I want to focus on some remarks regarding relationship of Obama Adminstration to Europe. Here is the text passage I refer to:


"Obama's world consists of three partial worlds that must cooperate to turn the attractive vision he painted in Cairo into reality. The first is Europe, which Obama sees as a continent of the past and a community of values and, most of all, remembrances, as the European stations of his trip have documented. He visited the former Buchenwald concentration camp, the Frauenkirche (Church of our Lady) in Dresden, destroyed by British bombs during the war and now rebuilt, with the help of the British and Americans, and Normandy, where American soldiers once landed to liberate Germany from Hitler. A textbook journey to some of the more representative junctions in recent European history couldn't have been designed more effectively.


Nevertheless, Germany and Chancellor Angela Merkel took up little space on Obama's agenda. He visited Dresden and not Berlin, faced an emptied city instead of enthusiastic crowds and spoke only briefly with the chancellor. Of course, Obama sought to downplay any suspicions that there are limits to his admiration for Merkel. Reported tensions between the two leaders are "wild speculation," he informed the press. "So stop it, all of you," he said, jokingly.

Obama is a US president who apparent has no high-flying expectations of Europeans. French President Nicolas Sarkozy, of all people, is currently serving as the Americans' star witness. Sarkozy recently asked: "Does Europe want peace or does it want to be left in peace?"

Officials in Washington think they know the answer.

The Obama administration is also convinced that the Europeans' aim is to do nothing but negotiate -- with countries like North Korea, Iran and Russia -- and that, in the bitter end, when all acts of good will remain unsuccessful and the final notes of protest have been exchanged, they will ultimately abandon the Americans..."

Europe is in no way a continent of the past. Collective memory is identity building. As Claus Leggewie showed in this article
However these -shared -memories- need to be converted and transformed in perspectives for the future. Into new foreign policy (as demanded by ecfr.eu for example)and devlopment maps for all the nation states on their various ways to a complexer transnational identity in EU.

And here all talk about US, EU, Asia and the global world needs to be revamped about the underlying values systems of the respective cultures. About nation building and large sacle systems change. Think Spiral Dynamics Integral...

Without this big endevor earlier or later the same old stereotypes and clichees between EU; US and Asia and other cultures will pop up again and again. Producing hot air and no real traction for all.

Crossposting an entry from Jessica Roemischer blog. A wonderful eyample for the power of music.

Flying Free: Music Without Limits

This video is taken from a performance called, "Flying Free: Music without Limits." It features improvised and semi-improvised piano duets with the women I teach at Riverbrook Residence in Stockbridge, MA. Riverbrook is home to twenty-three women. Under the direction of Joan Burkhard, a committed staff is creating the optimum conditions for women with developmental disabilities to be supported in every dimension of life. This is the environment I entered as a piano teacher in Fall, 2007. In my work with the women, I became disarmed by the result. As you’ll see, these women confirm that beauty arises from the deepest level of being, unfettered by any limitation. They demonstrate why music is, arguably, our most powerful and universal means of human expression and is present in us all!

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One year ago I posted this:

A very short Interview with Jürgen Habermas on YouTube

I am sure Juergen Habermas was smiling about this WEb 2.0 thing. Personally I have read his work since I was 14 and agree completely with Ken Wilber about this heavyweight of critical thinking. Differences with others, like Peter Sloterdijk do not matter here.

And I am grateful to have found this great forum from Denmark presenting lots of his texts, articles and speeches.

Habermas Forum

Jürgen Habermas is celebrating his 80th birthday next week . and fullheartedly I want to congratulate him from this space in the Internet, Jürgen isnt so much trusting right now:):)

Happy Birthday, Prof Habermas!

I am back from the public kick off event of Euroipean Leadership Academy in Berlin. The homepage of the site is still in the process of multilingual translations. So I want to present another aspect of European Culture, often not fully understood in US and elsewhere outside Europe. Its about entrepreneurship. As much in Western Europe as in Eastern Europe. And increasingly focusing on social aspects like in social entrepreneurship, social innovation and poltical collaboration in civil society.

This rising nexus and acupuncture like energetic connectivity of Europe -far beyond formal EU procedures indicate the real enthusiasm and future potential of 500 Million Europeans.

http://www.europeanentrepreneursatstanford.com/

Innovation in European Hitech Corporations

Marco Villa, Italian Angels for Growth


"Stanford Engineering's European Entrepreneurship and Innovation Thought Leaders Seminar is a weekly speaker series that presents industry leaders from Europe's hitech startup, venture finance, corporate and university research and technology commercialization communities to share their insights and experiences with aspiring and veteran entrepreneurs from Silicon Valley.



From Ireland to Russia, and from Scandinavia to the Mediterranean, Europe's technology sector is today playing a growing role in bringing new energy, environmental, water, information, medical device and life sciences technologies to market thru small- and medium-sized enterprises. Europe's countries, however, face substantial challenges in rapidly moving to the marketplace the technical innovations that are being developed in universities, national laboratories and corporations. Many of these regions are increasingly looking to Silicon Valley to accelerate this process and train a new generation of entrepreneurs and innovation professionals. We invite you to join us each week for a lively discussion of the challenges and opportunities facing European entrepreneurs, investors and innovation sector organizations."

And its of course not only about technology.

I have met Mariana Bozesan last year in Germany. Anitta blogged about our conversation here.

Mariana gave a presentation in this video .-within the Stanford Programe) about her work and how she uses Spiral Dynmaics Integral. Check it out:

Lecture 6, March 2nd 2009

Her part is from 48.00 -84.00

I welcome a new piece of Fareed Zakaria. Against the new anticapitalistic furor in lots of parts in the world (see it clearly in Europe and Germany too)he postulates simply new qualties in a functional, pragmatic way. Thats good and integrates the best of all worlds. its a transpartisan, systemic view which I recommend especially the combatants in German elections campaigne 2009:)

The Capitalist Manifesto. Greed is good (to a point)

By Fareed Zakaria | NEWSWEEK
Published Jun 13, 2009
From the magazine issue dated Jun 22, 2009



A specter is haunting the world—the return of capitalism. Over the past six months, politicians, businessmen and pundits have been convinced that we are in the midst of a crisis of capitalism that will require a massive transformation and years of pain to fix. Nothing will ever be the same again. "Another ideological god has failed," the dean of financial commentators, Martin Wolf, wrote in the Financial Times. Companies will "fundamentally reset" the way they work, said the CEO of General Electric, Jeffrey Immelt. "Capitalism will be different," said Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.

No economic system ever remains unchanged, of course, and certainly not after a deep financial collapse and a broad global recession. But over the past few months, even though we've had an imperfect stimulus package, nationalized no banks and undergone no grand reinvention of capitalism, the sense of panic seems to be easing. Perhaps this is a mirage—or perhaps the measures taken by states around the world, chiefly the U.S. government, have restored normalcy. Every expert has a critique of specific policies, but over time we might see that faced with the decision to underreact or overreact, most governments chose the latter. That choice might produce new problems in due course—a topic for another essay—but it appears to have averted a systemic breakdown.

read more...

As there were elections in Iran some days ago the Gulf Region in mideast is again in the media spotlights of the West. This portal gives some helpful basic info. Some interesting distinctions start already when its about the description of the Gulf. The GCC countries call it Arab Gulf while from Iran its called the Persian Gulf.







Check it out:

Change, Communication and Cooperation in the Persian/Arab Gulf


This site was developed by the Gulf/2000 Project at the School of International and Public Affairs of Columbia University in New York City. It is designed to make available in a single location a wealth of information on the eight countries of the Persian Gulf region--Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. Click on a flag above to visit one of these countries. The Persian Gulf sits on top of the greatest pool of oil reserves in the world. Over the past few decades, it has been the site of two major wars, an Islamic revolution, and political and economic developments that have affected every country in the world. It is also the home of more than 118 million people, whose cultures extend back to the origins of recorded history.

Nevertheless, for most non-specialists the Gulf remains a mysterious and even forbidding part of the world. This site hopes to remove some of the mystery. With a few clicks of your mouse, you can visit any of these countries, read their local newspapers, check the latest news from the region, and find information about every aspect of their history, geography, politics, economics, military forces and much more.

We have identified what we believe are the most informative and reliable sources of information about the Persian Gulf. We cannot guarantee the accuracy of every item of information that you may find in the many sources collected here, but we have made it as easy as possible to cross-check facts between data collections located throughout the world.

To learn more about the Gulf/2000 Project click here.

His Royal Highness Prince Hassan Bin Talal about a new global Mega Project:

"More than 40 years ago the Apollo Space Program was launched to fulfill the old dream of taking man into outer space. Today, we have a bigger dream, to restore balance between man and his home planet, Earth. With the political will, EUMENA countries could now launch an Apollo-like “EUMENA-DESERTEC” Program, to bring humankind back into balance with its environment, by putting deserts and technology into service for energy, water and climate security. This would be an important step towards creating a truly sustainable civilization."

Summary of the Desertec Concept up to 2050

About intention of desertec.org:


We want to act as “awareness raiser”, “catalyst” and “barrier remover” to pave the way for DESERTEC developments. One of the most useful things we can do is to work with national governments and political bodies like the EU and similar bodies all over the world, to create the right framework of laws and regulations, and to ensure that there is a good framework of incentives for DESERTEC developments.

Since the DESERTEC Concept can serve as key part of any scenario for sustainable development in a world with 10 billion people, it will be of interest to a wide range of stakeholders. An important function of the DESERTEC Foundation will be to serve as a think tank and forum for the exchange of ideas and for discussion of relevant issues.

Marhaba Africa!

CNN trailer about the vision of Dr. Gerhard Knies and the science network TREC who developed the DESERTEC Concept for energy, climate and human security.



www.desertec.org

As I am engaging now in the 5th year with Mideast (triggered by a professional project in UAE) and training my perception for development and systemic growth for large scale systems change) I found- once again- that the voice of the CEO of Center for Human Emergence in Mideast, Elza Maalouf is the most powerful and clarifying one.  As Elza was born herself in Lebanon and grew up there.

Seen from Europe I appreciate her straight talk about this Mega Challenge for Integral Poltics in Mideast. its in fact an integral flagship project for me. And with the same intensity I am pursuing the opportunties for European Integration and growth -with developmental lenses -I applaude her master analysis for Mideast.

Nothing better in the planetary media spheres exists. This is what I am convinced about. In a very down to earth attitude. Thats what integral poltics for and in Mideast should be about:

I am mirroring directly her recent blog entry:

Emerging Patterns in the Middle East: Lebanon and Iran's Thirty Year Itch

Elza S. Maalouf

On March 14th, 2005, one Million Lebanese gathered in Martyr Square ,the symbol of Lebanon's 1943 Independence from France, protesting against the presence of Syrian forces in Lebanon. The Cedar Revolution ended the 30 year Syrian occupation of Lebanon. In 1975/76 Syrian Forces entered Lebanon as peacekeeping forces to protect the Christians, and to squelch the Palestinian dominance in Beirut. Two years later, the Syrian managed to reignite the sectarian civil war siding with the Palestinians when it served their regional interests and dominance and bombing them when they felt the PLO was out of control. The one Million Lebanese of March 14th Movement as it was called later, were not only rejecting the Syrian occupation of their country, but also a dire financial situation and one of the highest levels of corruption in the world orchestrated by Lebanese pro-Syrian power lords and their masters in Damascus.

In Iran, one Million Iranians gathered this week in Freedom Square in Tehran protesting the 'sham' elections and demanding their voices be heard. "Tehran Rising" is happening 30 years after Ayatollah Khumeini led the Islamic revolution along with young intelligent young Iranians, establishing the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979. Mir Ali Mousavi had a role to play in the revolution, and a bloody one I might add. His supporters, more so then Mousavi himself, are not fighting the principles of the revolution, they are fighting the collapsing economy in Iran, corruption and incompetency.

As I looked, through my developmental lenses, at both events and the cultures that produced them, the patterns of emergence that are unique to that part of the world in the 21st century were becoming clear. Beirut, Tehran, Baghdad, Kabul, and Cairo were some of the most progressive capital cities in the region at the dawn of the 2oth Century. Those cities were compared to Paris in culture, modernity and uniqueness. However, such notions of freedom and progress were almost exclusive to the capital cities, and rarely spread to the rest of the country. Inhabitants of these capitals had access to Western education and progressive schools of thought while their compatriots lagged behind in the darkness of tribal norms and feudal dominance. A split cultural personality we may say. That tension between modernity centered in the capitals, and a strong hold for tribalism, poverty and illiteracy in the rest of the country created a large gap that eventually ended up being the primary cause of each culture's downshift.

In Clare W. Graves' "Emergent Cyclic Double-Helix Model of Adult Biopsychosocial Systems" theory that forms the basis to Spiral Dynamics, the Double Helix gives us the key to evolution in cultures; as life conditions change, biopsychosocial systems within people and cultures have the potential to change to find solutions to their existential problems. Naturally, when people find solutions to their problems they create new ones, a process Graves elegantly called "the never ending quest."

Let's explore the particular case study of Lebanon and Iran.

Read more...

David Brooks once again offers a thoughtful analysis regarding change. This time for Iran.While a clear definition of whats a core of change isnt possible in the sense of rocket science the artful and effective montage of big dynamic rubic cubes (certainly with at least several dozens elements ) is in demand.

(I was tempted first to comment some of Lexi Neales lengthy piece at kenwilber.com about Introducing the AQAL Cube.

However this piece is highly intellectual and once again fishing with the tier terminology from 1-3. This is problematic as I have explained elsewhere. And the 8 perspectives/zones in Wilbers work. In a very loooong timeline certain trajectories of change may be determined this way. Will be happy following Neales game he is working on.)

Nobody can look into the crystal ball. I remember exactly the year 1989 when very, very, few people -from all professions-sensed what would happen in October and November in Germany and Europe.


So a heightened attention is necessary with cultural, poltical moves as much as from citizen power. For me its not about some  miracle power but focusing as precisley- just in time - and determined all action. Considering the emerging memetic patterns in Middle East as Elza Maalouf described here

Fragile at the Core



By DAVID BROOKS
Most of the time, foreign relations are kind of boring — negotiations, communiqués, soporific speeches. But then there are moments of radical discontinuity—1789, 1917, 1989—when the very logic of history flips.

At these moments — like the one in Iran right now — change is not generated incrementally from the top. Instead, power is radically dispersed. The real action is out on the streets. The future course of events is maximally uncertain.

The fate of nations is determined by glances and chance encounters: by the looks policemen give one another as a protesting crowd approaches down a boulevard; by the presence of a spontaneous leader who sets off a chant or a song and with it an emotional contagion; by a captain who either decides to kill his countrymen or not; by a shy woman who emerges from a throng to throw herself on the thugs who are pummeling a kid prone on the sidewalk.

The most important changes happen invisibly inside peoples’ heads. A nation that had seemed apathetic suddenly mobilizes. People lost in private life suddenly feel their public dignity has been grievously insulted. Webs of authority that had gone unquestioned instantly dissolve, or do not. New social customs spontaneously emerge, like the citizens of Tehran shouting hauntingly from their rooftops at night. Small gestures unify a crowd and symbolize a different future, like the moment when Mir Hussein Moussavi held hands with his wife in public.

At moments like these, policy makers and advisors in the United States government almost always retreat to passivity and caution. Part of this is pure prudence. When you don’t know what’s happening, it’s sensible to do as little as possible because anything you do might cause more harm than good.

Part of it is professional mind-set. Foreign policy experts are trained in the art of analysis, extrapolation and linear thinking. They simply have no tools to analyze moments that are non-linear, paradigm-shifting and involve radical shifts in consciousness. As a result, they almost invariably underestimate how rapid change might be and how quickly it might come. As Michael McFaul, a democracy expert who serves on the National Security Council, once wrote: “In retrospect, all revolutions seem inevitable. Beforehand, all revolutions seem impossible.”

read more..

As new and old troublespots worldwide do not simply cease to exist, despite of all crisis management, mediation, meditation and diplomacy I found the analysis of US Colonel Fred Krawchuk enlightening.

Equipped with insights from Spiral Dynamics Integral and systemic understanding he has profound operational and analytical experiences and background. While strategy gurus like Thomas Barnett are focusing on strategic blueprints and patterns of connectivity, the COCOMS (Combatant Commands) need traction and effective action on the ground.

Its highly relevant in my eyes to bring together civilian and military thinking again. Anthropology and the ability of a country and transnational organizations to create results with a minimum of damage.

I appreciate the work of Colonel Krawchuk and wish it attention of German polticians too who are right now communicate the Afhganistan conflict in often confusing ways. Recently SPIEGEL ONLINE reported about Afghanistan and some voices of German soldiers here.

Not Calling Afghanistan a war is a Semantic Farce

Boulder Integral Info about Fred Krawchuk
 
Colonel Fred T. Krawchuk is a U.S. Army Special Forces officer with twenty one years of service currently assigned to General Petraeus’s staff as a member of the Multinational Force - Iraq.  He has led soldiers in a variety of assignments in the United States, Europe, Asia, Middle East and Latin America.  Colonel Krawchuk served as an Olmsted Scholar in Spain and as an Army Senior Fellow with the U.S. Department of State.  Fred is a General MacArthur Leadership Award Winner and graduate of the United States Military Academy, University of Navarra-IESE, and Harvard University.  He has also attended courses at Strozzi Institute, Integral Institute, Spirit Rock Mediation Center, and Esalen Institute.  Fred has served as a term member with the Council on Foreign Relations, the French American Foundation’s Young Leaders Program, and the Council for Emerging National Security Affairs.  Fred has published articles on the topics of terrorism, leadership, and strategic communication.   One of Fred’s passions is bringing together diverse voices in order to find common ground and align collective action to holistically address complex international relations issues with wisdom and compassion.

Collaborative Strategic
Planning and Action:
A New Approach
FRED T. KRAWCHUK

© 2008 Fred T. Krawchuk
The complexity of the contemporary US security environment demands
a new, comprehensive way of assessing and contending with the ongoing
challenges. The current method can be characterized as a symptomatic
rather than systemic approach. The present interagency and multinational
mechanism consists of reacting to immediate threats and opportunities,
dealing with the conditions of violent extremism, and responding to each
crisis as it arises. Such actions are often slow, isolated, and wholly inadequate.
Government planners and operators focus on immediate response to a
crisis without considering the long-term implications. Academicians and
members of think tanks focus on long-term solutions and potential policy
changes, withoutmeans of testing their proposals or getting the information
to those who would act on it. The private sector pays for forecasts and
data-mining to understand and profile the same areas of concern, yet military
planners do not benefit because they lack adequate access to academic
endeavors or private-sector reports.1
Combatant Commands (COCOMs) need to find methods of integrating
the agility and innovation of the private sector with the foundational
knowledge of academic efforts to meet the emergent needs of military commanders
and planners. With the proper kind of creative thinkers and pragmatic
project managers, COCOMs can forge helpful bonds with willing
partners, while leveraging the knowledge and experience of the private and
Summer 2008 67
public sectors. This integration of resources and expertise will help foment
and nurture the conditions for peace and stability in conflict-prone regions.

Integral Collaboration Teams
The military is taking important steps to close the knowledge gap between
academia and “boots on the ground.” Secretary of Defense Robert
Gates, in a speech to the Association of American Universities, said the military
is beginning to employ human terrain teams “with the assistance of anthropologists
and other experts to get a better sense of the cultures in which
they’re operating. The human terrain program—which also includes economists,
historians, and sociologists—is still in its infancy and has attendant
growing pains. But early results indicate that it is leading to alternative thinking.”
2 To bolster the success the human terrain teams are having at the tactical
level, academic and private-sector resources also need to be integrated at the
operational and strategic levels. The Integral Collaboration Team (ICT) concept
provides an inclusive framework that will incorporate human terrain
teams and other similar initiatives at the COCOMand national level, and connect
them to a broader community of interest.
Given the complexity of conflict-prone areas, ICTs will take a holistic
approach that addresses the social, political, and cultural landscapes; assess
situations in a predictive and anticipatory manner; find common ground; and
enable governments and the private sector to synergize their capacity for planning,
leverage resources, implement thoughtful action, and assess results. The
most critical need, and perhaps the key to all other adaptive change in response
to complex threats and opportunities, is establishing a multidisciplinary and
strategic “think-act-reflect” capability at the COCOM-level. This capability
will employ innovative training, research, monitoring, planning, and assessment
support for developing systems approaches to wicked

Read more...

This is forewarded from Nancy Roof, Editor in Chief and founder of Kosmos Journal. I mentioned Kosmos Journal with highest appreciation here . For all who might be inteested and live near Lenox.

Part-time opportunity - Kosmos Journal


Hi Everyone,

We are looking for a part-time administrator for Kosmos Journal with the possibility of growth.
We are an integral journal that has published many articles by Don Beck, who is on our advisory board.

If you know of anyone who might be interested please pass this job description attachment along.

Warm regards to all,

Nancy Roof
Founding Editor, Kosmos Journal
PO Box 2102
Lenox, MA 01240
Www.kosmosjournal.org

Job Opportunity for a Special Person.doc

SPIEGEL ONLINE describes a dilemma for the German Ministry on Foreign Relation and Governement. How to communicate with the Iranian regime? Similar tensions can certainly be spotted in all Europeans governments and the US adminstration or the one in Canada too.

Its revealing when either or dilemmata are emerging. Always the case as much and in so far the underlying dynamics are not understood. The tectonic vertical shifts in geopoltical orbits.

The Center for Human Emergence Middlle East is providing a crystal clear approach and action on the ground now for years. Elza Maalouf is Blogging about perspectives for Integral Poltics.

No package of interventions on level of governments can be sustainable as far as these dimensions are not understood. Governments are generaly fearfully when they do have to admit they know nothing or only a bit.

Yesterday Fareed Zakaria interviewed  EX CIA man Robert Baer. The man was honest and confessed nearly nothing is really known about Iran.

However we know the dynamics in mideast. Its high time to bring especially here integral perspectives into real field testing and solution sequences.

Heres to the SPIEGEL article:


Election Violence Upsets Berlin?s Stance on Iran



CARROT OR STICK?



Election Violence Upsets Berlin's Stance on Iran

By Ralf Beste

The German government is divided over how to react to the brutal suppression of protests by the regime in Tehran. Some officials want to continue with a dialogue-centered approach, while others are calling for tougher sanctions.


The German Foreign Ministry is a tightly run institution. The ministry's press office, known as "Department 013," monitors contacts between diplomats and the media. With its roughly 30 employees, the department is one of the largest units within the venerable organization. Its mission is to ensure that all communication to the public remains on message and reflects the views of the foreign minister.




Last week, however, the Foreign Ministry exhibited an unexpected range of opinions on the question of how Germany and the West should interact with Iran following its brutal suppression of the protest movement there. Initially, the German government's human rights commissioner, Günter Nooke, made a thinly veiled call for a coup in Iran. "Our policy is far too soft-footed," Nooke, a member of Angela Merkel's center-right Christian Democratic Union, wrote in an op-ed for the respected Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Germany should "openly encourage those who are calling for an end to the Islamic Republic," Nooke continued.

Two days later, a senior official from the Foreign Ministry voiced an opinion pointing in precisely the opposite direction. In remarks to the Berlin daily Tagesspiegel, Gernot Erler, a member of the center-left Social Democrats, warned against seeking conflict. On the contrary, he said, it would be a serious mistake to allow the crisis in Iran to jeopardize negotiations with Tehran over its controversial nuclear program. "There is no realistic alternative to continuing to negotiate with Iran and to convince it of the benefits of cooperative behavior," he said. Any other approach, according to Erler, would go against "our own security interests."

Cooperation or confrontation? It is a contradiction that has defined the foreign policy of Berlin's "grand coalition" government of the Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats for almost four years, and now it is back on the agenda. China, Russia, Syria and even Cuba have served as theaters in the struggle to define the correct diplomatic approach to authoritarian regimes.

read more..

This is a report from Jim Clifton, CEO of Gallup. Highly revealing and underscoring the importance of life conditions. Worldwide. Gallup did not speculate about these patterns but created a world poll. The big discovery Jim is describing isnt a surprise for me.

The whole poll is a big evidence for the truth of spiral insights into the global memetic patterns and how closely personal dreams reflect it.

Global Migration Patterns and Job Creation

 by Jim Clifton
Chairman and CEO of Gallup
More and more often, global leaders are asking us the same simple, yet colossal, question: "Does anyone know for sure what the world is thinking?"

There is a great deal of classic economic data that records an infinite amount of human transactions, from GDP to unemployment to birth and death rates, that indicate what man and woman are doing, but there is no ongoing, infinite, systematic account of what man and woman are thinking.


Global leaders are right to wonder. To know what the whole world is thinking -- not just what people in their own countries are thinking -- on almost all issues all the time would certainly make their jobs a lot easier at the very least. At most, knowing what the world is thinking would create newfound precision in world leadership. Leaders wouldn't make mistakes and miss opportunities because they misjudge the hearts and minds of their constituencies and the other 6 billion with whom those constituencies interact.

We think we have found a very good answer to that very good question. We created a new body of behavioral economic data for world leaders that represents the opinion of all 6 billion inhabitants, reported by country and almost all demographics and sociographics imaginable.

We call it the World Poll. We've committed to doing it for 100 years.

The World Poll

We knew going in it was a monumental challenge, but creating the World Poll was even harder than we thought. To start, Gallup scientists combed the best public opinion archives, academic institutions, the United Nations, the World Bank, the European Union archives, the State Department, everything and everywhere we thought we might find existing information of this type.

We couldn't find it. There was no world poll. So we made one.

We knew the whole project hung on the questionnaire. It needed to cover almost every issue in the world, be translated accurately into dozens of languages, and be meaningful in every culture. Even more difficult was engineering consistent sampling frames in more than 100 countries from Ecuador to Rwanda, Iran, Russia, Afghanistan, Ireland, Cuba, Lebanon, Kazakhstan, Venezuela, Honduras, China . . . You get the picture.

Having constructed the questionnaire, our team of experts found its next biggest challenge was choosing a methodology to ensure consistent data collection so the whole set is comparable. For instance, when we ask about life satisfaction, everyone from a Manhattan socialite to a Masai mother has to be asked the same question every time in the same way with the same meaning and in their own languages so the answers could be statistically comparable. If the meaning of the questions isn't identical from language to language, culture to culture, year to year, the data are useless.

Furthermore, we needed to create the first-ever reliable and consistent benchmarks so leaders can see the trends and patterns. So we benchmarked well-being, war and peace, law and order, hopes and dreams, healthcare, suffering and striving, personal economics, poverty, environmental issues, workplaces, and on and on.

We have now completed the design, engineering, and first year of global data collection. The first-ever world poll on almost everything is done.

Then our Gallup scientists, affiliated academics, and colleagues from around the world who helped us make the poll got busy. They counted and sorted and used every known statistical technique to analyze exactly what the world is thinking. The conclusions are complex. This may be the great understatement in Gallup's history, but it's true.

For instance, when you dig deeply into the hopes, fears, motivations, and satisfactions of 1 billion Muslims, the more you learn, the more you realize how little the world knows, how wrong people are, and how much more complicated Muslim attitudes and opinions are than conventional wisdom would lead us to believe. Western leaders tell us religion drives Muslims to war. But Muslim extremists tell the World Poll that their anger is not about religion, it's about politics.

It's the same with the 3 billion people who live on $2 a day or less -- the hungry half of the world's population. What they're thinking is very different from what most government agencies and NGOs understand and report. While we're rushing them food and medicine, most of them feel the only real solution is jobs.

Another example: One of the most important questions in the world is "What do Muslim women want?" Discovering what Muslim women want has been as big a surprise to us as anything we have ever seen. Muslim women want all the freedoms that their counterparts in the Western world have -- they want the right to vote, to have the same rights that men do, and to hold leadership positions in government. The big surprise is that most Muslim men think Muslim women should have these too. And because women are half of the population, it's difficult to win in the new world unless they, their hopes and dreams, and their talents are integrated into the leadership of every organization, economy, and government in the world.

And those are just three demographics. Christians, Jews, Buddhists, old people, young people, black people, white people, communists, capitalists, Easterners, Westerners . . . These data are overwhelming because, while they offer answers to many questions that could never be answered before, they make us intensely aware of how little we know about what is in the hearts and minds of 6 billion people.


The great global goal

Gallup is committed to conducting the World Poll for 100 years, but we may have already found the single most searing, clarifying, helpful, world-altering fact. If used appropriately, it may change how every leader runs his or her country. But at the very least, it needs to be considered in every policy, every law, and every social initiative. All leaders -- policy and law makers, presidents and prime ministers, parents, judges, priests, pastors, imams, teachers, managers, and CEOs -- need to consider it every day in everything they do.

What the whole world wants is a good job.


That is one of the single biggest discoveries Gallup has ever made.

read more..

  The Economist is once again weighing the quality of German Poltical Leadership. This time in the person of chancellor Angela Merkel. These observations are basically true miss however the understanding of the German mystery itself.

Points 1 and 4 of Economist analysis refer to inside realties.

1.Cautious by temperament" isnt bad in the light of german history. However its bad perception in case of Angela Merkel. She has had a bold way to the corridors of power. And shown qualties pirates ususally have. She isnt just as emotional and extraverted as others. Protestant education seems to be barrier per se:) Maybe a look to US Wasps could give more clarity.

4. Mood of the country: Germany is build on consensus only for superficial observers. In fact deep conflict and tensions are to be found in deeper layers of consciousness. Old ideological contrasts as much as clashs between inner identities and outer roles.An unpleasant relationship to its own national identity.
And a collective memory culture to much in the shadow of Post WW 2 history.
Instead re-conecting the roots to great 250 years of postive change, progress and thriving in many areas.

3. The great coalition: Well, this constellation only mirrors some of the roadblocks towards innovative thinking and expanded and evolutionary. perspectives . The total potential of Germany Genius is splitted in the landscape of poltical groups. And even not really represented there. The group of people are have turned their back to politics is growing.

Unlike the Netherlands, Denmark or parts of the Nordic Region the connectivity between innovative networks and initiatives is underdeveloped. There is a great potential collective power in the country. A possible We space which can create eruptions and powerful shifts. However it needs a construction plan or a design.

This "masterplan" isnt the job of the Chancellor. Its the job for the creative elite and fresh perspectives for innovative, even globally oriented leadership in Germany.

Thats at the core of the German mystery. Thanks Economist for labeling the right word at the right time:):)
  
Germany's inscrutable chancellor

The mystery of Ms Merkel

Jun 25th 2009
From The Economist print edition


Europe’s canniest politician needs to be bolder about reform if she is to be seen as an historic chancellor

Reuters



SHE is the first female leader of Germany and the first since the war tohail from the east. She has had the job for three-and-a-half years andlooks likely to keep it after the federal election in September. Yet as Angela Merkel prepared to meet Barack Obama in Washington this week, acertain mystery still hung over her. Who is she and where might shetake her country?

Mrs Merkel’s character is best summed up by what she is not. Unlike other Europeanleaders, she is neither charismatic, nor flashily intellectual, nordomineering. Yet nobody could deny that she is a highly effectivepolitician. She has swatted aside all challengers inside her ChristianDemocratic Union (CDU), despite coming from outside the party’straditional base. She has grabbed any credit going for her “grandcoalition” with the Social Democratic Party (SPD), leaving her SPD rival for the chancellorship floundering. She won kudos for her presidencies of the European Union and the G8 club of rich countries in2007. Were she to express interest in the job of EU president that willbe created if the EU’s Lisbon treaty is ratified this autumn, it would be given to her on a plate.

Above all,Mrs Merkel has stayed popular—more consistently so than any chancellor since Konrad Adenauer. And she has accomplished this in the teeth ofGermany’s worst recession since the war. GDP shrank by 7% in the yearto the first quarter. Industrial production has fallen by over a fifth.Unemployment has been masked by job subsidies and make-work schemes,but it is likely to climb back above 4m next year. That Mrs Merkel isstill favourite to win re-election as chancellor, whether in anothergrand coalition or with the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP), is atribute to her political skill.


But is she a reformer?
The questionis not whether Mrs Merkel will keep power, but whether she is ready touse it. She has an unusual background for a CDU leader: daughter of aProtestant pastor, raised in communist East Germany, she was a physicist before turning to politics (see article).That ought to bode well in a party that is fonder of consensus than of radical change. She seems intellectually to accept the case for greater liberalisation, smaller government and freer markets. But she has shrunk from more substantial reform, for four reasons.

First, she is cautious by temperament. The opposite of France’s Nicolas Sarkozy, sheis more of a methodical scientist than a mercurial revolutionary. Those who once hoped that she might be a Thatcherite reformer, a Maggie fromMecklenburg, were always going to be disappointed. Moreover, her instinctive caution was reinforced by a second factor: her experience in the 2005 election campaign. When her then economic adviser started talking of big tax cuts and radical welfare reforms, her support dropped sharply—and even after she dumped him and tacked back to the centre, she almost lost.

That led to the third and most obvious reason why Mrs Merkel has been unable to be radical: her narrow victory forced her into a grand coalition. Such an alliance operates by the lowest common denominator. Mrs Merkel has held it together, but at the cost of putting off serious talk of most further reforms to the labour market, the welfare state, health-carefinancing and a hugely complex tax system. The only substantive measure her government has adopted is a rise in the retirement age. Her SPD partners have even managed to roll back some of the Agenda 2010 reforms they made when they were previously in coalition with the Greens in2003-04.

That also reflects a fourth explanation for Mrs Merkel’s lack of reformist zeal,which is the mood of her country. Germany is a place built onconsensus—in the workplace, in society and in politics. It is also successful. It is still (just) the world’s biggest exporter; thanks to impressive discipline over wages, its companies have regained competitiveness; and its public finances are in better shape than most.The angst of a decade ago, when it seemed that Germany might be the new sick man of Europe, has largely gone. Instead, the global economic crash is seen in Germany as something that came entirely from outside because of Anglo-Saxon free-market zealots—and that has not made Germans any keener on further liberalisation.

Yet all this betrays a dangerous complacency. Even if the economic crisis was not made in Germany, it has changed the world: Germany will suffer unlessit responds. The old reliance on manufacturing exports looks broken.Consumers, chary of spending, are hobbling domestic demand. Services,the backbone of all modern economies, are underdeveloped. Germany suffers from deeper weakness too. The demographic outlook is grim,threatening Germany’s public finances. Education, once the envy of theworld, is now mediocre—especially when it comes to universities, wherethe government is only just starting on reform (see article).

Admittedly,many other European countries have even bigger immediate problems thanGermany. But the truth is that all of Europe needs reform: to shiftaway from high taxes, generous and wasteful welfare states, and, mostof all, overly regulated and inflexible product and labour markets. If Mrs Merkel’s Germany were to lead the way, it would be not justEurope’s biggest economy but also its intellectual leader.


Smarter than Nicolas (let alone Silvio); but not Konrad
By that exalted measure, the CDU programme that Mrs Merkel will launch this weekend is likely to be disappointing. It will offer little more than promises of continuity, bolstered by the appeal of Mrs Merkel herself.That may be enough to win her re-election—Germans seem content withsomeone to reassure rather than inspire them. Yet Mrs Merkel ought tothink about why she wants to be chancellor at all. If she does not setout plans for health-care reform, for more liberalisation of labour andproduct markets, for privatisation and for tax and spending cuts, shewill have little chance of getting these through in office, whateverthe make-up of her coalition.

Mrs Merkel will go down in history as Germany’s first female leader—no mean feat.But if she wants to measure up to Adenauer or Helmut Kohl, she mustpersuade Germans of the case for change. And for that she needs to be far bolder.