James Manyika, director of McKinsey interviewed Eric Smith from Google last year. The interview reveals strong insights -as usual from Eric Smith -and the feeling of upcoming limits in further growth too.

Google`s view on the future of business: An interview with CEO Eric Smith


How the Internet will change the nature of competition, innovation, and company operations.

September 2008 • James Manyika



Few would dispute that Google sits at the center of the Internet. As the leader in search, Google is now the Internet’s premier brand and the planet’s most potent free service. Managing that commanding position falls largely to seasoned technology executive Eric Schmidt, who in 2001 was tapped for the CEO post by Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page.

In his years at the company, Schmidt has delivered steady growth while expanding Google’s reach. By anticipating the ways in which people would expand their use of Internet applications, Schmidt has introduced new products from the popular Web-based e-mail service Gmail (Google Mail in Germany and the UK) to the recently unveiled G1 mobile phone. And as Google’s audience and influence have increased, so too has its appeal among advertisers worldwide.

Making all this happen depends on Google’s ability to attract and engage top talent. The organization that Schmidt has helped shape depends on collaborative projects and free flows of information that encourage employees to share ideas. Staffers devote 20 percent of their work time to special projects of their own design, an inventive and effective policy that is at the core of its innovation efforts.

Not many executives have a better vantage point on the changing technological landscape than Schmidt. He recently took time out to discuss his views with McKinsey director James Manyika. Schmidt sees more powerful digital assistants arising from cloud computing, markets morphing at an ever faster pace, and plenty of space for human creativity if organizations are willing to carve out a place for it.

read more..

See also:

Google Milestones 1995 -2009

There is an article in the German Issue 25 of WIE. Its from Tom Steininger, editor of the German Edition. I translated very roughly with Google Translator. All errors and possible mistakes in this process are of course in my personal responsibility. I created additionally some hyperlinks to give some background for Hegel, Schelling, Hölderlin and Goethe.

As I am preparing right now a Germany Special for Integral Leadership Review-a most challenging and demanding project -this view at last 250 years of German history in philosphy and poetry is certainly a background and perspective to be taken into account.


Geist Reloaded

The new title of our journal, spirit - culture - the cosmos, has for some of our readers keen interest. . A young woman who also knows our American edition, I spoke a few weeks later, that there's subtitle Consciousness - Culture - Cosmos says.  "Why," said her question, "do you have because in the German edition the word 'spirit' instead of 'consciousness' is used?". We came quickly to the many meanings of the word "spirit" to speak in the German language was a very colorful importance, and also to the German idealist philosophy, the word has so strongly influenced.    Great minds like Hegell, Schelling, Hoelderlin, Goethe, or have in our language left deep scars, even if our world by words such as spirit and absolute spirit of the times just more familiar.   But  does not always swing when we use the word conscious mind a bit to hear some of these many meanings with? . Spirit is not just awareness.  It always includes a thinking-cognition. .It is also more than intellect. . Spirit has a depth that the mind alone never reached. . And mind is active, he designed the world.  . An expression with so many dimensions and such a lively history of fits, so we thought well in the subtitle of What Is Enlightenment?.

Often we are unaware of how very like mind in terms of our language from the deep thinking influenced many great philosophers are. . Today we hear the word zeitgeist, then we often think only in trivial fashion, magazines and at times the actual daily taste of the entertainment industry. . Among Goethe's and Hegel's thought so times but not less than the deepest expression of the human consciousness, the human mind, at a given time is found.  The Spirit, says the idealist, unfolds on his way through the history of mankind to ever higher forms of art, philosophy, religion.  Zeitgeist, the spirit was at the height of the time. Hegel was the first to the evolution of the mind on the basis of his philosophy. Starting from the human history, cultures on the classical, medieval Christianity and the Enlightenment Hegel drew a picture of mankind, which has become ever higher forms of mental integration emporentwickelte, with only one goal: that the spirit world by the people fully its self-conscious.

. There were between idealists also fierce dispute on how to "spirit" has to be understood.  For Hegel, the mind evolved mainly in the minds of the people.  For his younger contemporaries, Schelling, Hegel, along with who had studied in Tuebingen, but there was no separation between the human spirit and the forces of nature.. Everything was just an expression of universal creativity. . Even Goethe, an admirer of the much younger Schelling, not just the poet Lord, but also a serious scientist was described in his nature studies the evolution of the nature of "intellectual form forces" shaped.  Hölderlin, the romantics, even he was a student colleague of Hegel and Schelling in Tübingen, was looking into the spirit of poetry and not in philosophy.  More than others he personally suffered under the cold and superficial materialistic mindset of the Enlightenment. In his seal he attempted an integration of modern thought with the depth of human feeling to be found. His works include up today for the deepest and most beautiful ever in the German language was written.

As for the idealists and the romantics connected was her attempt to the plates, materialistic Enlightenment integral way to a new spiritual dimension. . As some of the first, they have recognized that the Western enlightenment in an impasse is that the Enlightenment with the mythical ancient religious ideas out the baby with the bathwater has. . They saw also that they are an important step in the history of mankind was.   We could not simply back.  Seen in their thinking was one of the first attempts at modern spirituality.  It was a real intellectual Neuland, Goethe and Hölderlin had in her poetry, and Schelling or Hegel's philosophy entered. . Neuland, which is still important.

Ultimately it was the German history, the complex and inherently contradictory experiment of the idealists and romantics had brought about.  It was not a necessity given that in our history came to National Socialism. . Many factors led to the fatal collapse of an entire national culture. . But this collapse also sealed for decades, the fate of the idealistic and romantic spirit of the currents, not only for us but throughout the developed world.  Century belonged to more or less the modern materialism.   The renaissance of spirituality in the past 30 years focused more on the spiritual traditions of India, China or Japan. . Our own modern Aufbrüche has only rediscovered a few years, especially in America.

. As does the integral philosopher Ken Wilber in the tradition of German idealism, and Steve McIntosh, one of the new theorists in the American scene integral explains Hegel loose for the first integral thinkers.  Slowly it is talking about, that the Americans are our intellectual history re-discovered.  What surprised there that Ken Wilber in any country outside the U.S. such a response as with us. . Even if we no longer the land of poets and thinkers, are the poets and thinkers seem to us left.

. I will be abroad more frequently mentioned, we were so German philosophical minds. Andrew Cohen sometimes speaks of the fact that the audiences in Germany, during his lectures and intense in a different kind of listening that the issues here are deep and profound.  Looking at Germany in a superficial way, is our spiritual upheavals not much left. . Our spiritual subculture is a more superficial variety of the great eastern traditions and the German thinking has apparently pulled back to the world with expensive and efficient cars to be happy. . Germany today is a land of engineers, not the country of philosophers.  The rediscovery of an integral and evolutionary spirituality reached us today, especially from America. . There, now the preparatory work of the idealistic and romantic philosophy in new forms of thought. I In Germany, it seems we dare not yet directly, to these major trends of our intellectual history adapter.. Too much is still in space, what happens in this country is.  However, we are interested and excited when others there, where the German philosophy, things are without having had.

  This fall, we want to be What Is Enlightenment?  our own small contribution. . In our academy this autumn, which we again, together with the anthroposophical magazine Info 3 and the integrals Frankfurt organizing initiative, we asked how an integrated and evolutionary spirituality today think and live.  In addition to many modern spiritual thinkers in October, we also GWF Hegel and the German idealists in discussion included.  I think this happens for the first time again in this country - after many years.

I am convinced there is more than at the time a new beginning to set. The German history also includes these important upheavals of the human spirit, but also one of the most dramatic collapse of human civilization - a collapse, which impacts the whole world got to feel. . Simply put, we owe the world something.  What a liberating effect it would have if we were in Germany, the positive legacy of our history in order to see where the romance and idealism in search of a modern and evolutionary spirituality ever have a beginning?

DR TOM STEININGER studied philosophy at the University of Vienna and thoroughly dealt with themes of consciousness evolution.  . He teaches a university course in Conscious Evolution in Connecticut, USA, and is editor of the German edition of What Is Enlightenment?.

This is from Issue 42 , the Inaugural Issue of EnlightenNext Magazine. A short intro to Arianna Huffington and an interview with her. Referring to her new book "The fourth instinct" too.

See also my blogpost from Feb, 2007:

Arianna Huffington

Seeking Truth beyond Left and Right

Courage is knowing what not to fear,” Arianna Huffington likes to say, attributing the quote to Socrates. To her, that means that we shouldn’t fear other people’s perceptions or disapproval of who we are and what we do. It is a motto that she has obviously lived by; Huffington has steered an iconoclastic course through life that has often puzzled, if not infuriated, those who would pin her down. Her political leanings have swung from Jerry Brown–style california liberalism to Newt Gingrich’s conservative revolution to running for governor of California as an independent to now declaring her position as beyond left, right, or center. It’s not the political label or any labels that have been thrown at her that matter to her—she’s on a mission to bring intelligent debate, truth seeking, and justice into politics.

Even in creating The Huffington Post, she went up against a naysaying media establishment that ridiculed her and her idea to develop the first internet newspaper. Three years later, the HuffPo, as it’s known, gets nearly four million hits per month and has won the Webby Award for Best Political Blog two years running. Huffington has clearly hit her stride. With a penchant for pushing the edge of our thinking, she embodies a restlessness with the status quo of shallow consumerism and a passion to lift our collective aspirations to change the world.

read more..

Founder of London Integral Circle and my colleague at Integral leadership Review Matthew Kalman informed about an upcoming workshop in London.:

Connected Minds: Lonliness, Social Brains and the Need for Community

Thought this stuff might be interesting for Gaia Community too.

here is an introduction as YouTube Clip with John Cacioppo:

See also:

Bloggingheads.tv diavlog between Kerry Howley and John Cacioppo

Heres to the new:

Integral leadership Review, August 2009

Leadership Quote: Charles M. Johnston

 Leading Comments: This Issue and More!

 Leadership Coaching Tip: Kristoffer Nelson, You are Your Most Important Tool

 Dialogue: Integral Leadership, Wendelin Kupers and Russ Volckmann

A Fresh Perspective: An Interview with Rand Stagen and Brett Thomas—Developing Integral Leaders and Systems

 Article: David Loye, The Evolutionary Outrider

 Review: Andy Atwood, Kegan and Lahey’s Immunity to Change

 Article: Jessica Roemischer, Integral Music: Evolution in Action

 Article: Said E. Dawlabani, Economic Policy and Global Value Systems
 
Integral for the Masses: Keith Bellamy, A Fresh Perspective on Technology and Its Role in Furthering Integral Leadership

 Article: Peter Jones, Learning the Lessons of Systems Thinking: Exploring the Gap between Thinking and Leadership

 Review: Keith Bellamy, Nick Owens’ Salmon of Knowledge

 Article: Mick Quinn, Releasing the Potential of Integral Values

 Leadership Cartoon: Mark Hill

 Student Paper: Kelly McInnes, An Investigation of the Evolution of Leadership and Mentorship from 1975 – present, University of Saskatchewan, Canada

Notes from the Field

 Anja Schmidt, The Power of Vision, European Leadership Academy, Berlin

 Keith Rice, The Center for Human Emergence, UK Roberto Bonilla,

Orchestrating a new Meshwork for Mexico: a Natural Designs Approach

 Announcements:UK, Canada, Italy and US

 Leadership Emerging:
Milton Fiesen, Ingenuity Arts: Adaptive Leadership and the New Science
Bob Johansen, Leaders Make the Future: Ten New Leadershjip Skills for an Uncertain World
Henry Mintzberg, Managing

 Coda: Integral Thinking

Fatah's Sixth Convention is the event that the world has been waiting for and it finally took place on August 4th. Below please find a link to Elza's article that talks about the convention and summarizes the work that the Center for Human Emergence Middle East has done over the last of 5 years. She has done a fairly good job in outlining the framework of the Build Palestine Initiative in less than 750 words and in  stating her and Don's recommendations for President Abbas  "developmental roadmap" going forward.

6th Convention Fateh`s and the building of a nation


SAN DIEGO - After its long-awaited Sixth Convention, Fateh has inched a bit closer toward building the institutions needed to establish an independent Palestinian state. In spite of the power jockeying, participants renewed their commitment to a two-state solution, and the voices calling for resistance through economic development outnumbered those wishing to keep the status quo. Fateh's challenge now is to create a platform with new goals and a new interpretation of its charter, in order to become a movement that represents all Palestinians. In a true gesture of reconciliation, Fateh should extend an olive branch to Hamas and invite the movement to join in creating a new national platform.

It remains to be seen how effective the election of a younger generation of Fateh members will be in establishing a new national agenda, but the only way forward for Fateh is to boldly assume the responsibility for creating a developmental roadmap that will prepare all Palestinians to negotiate a two-state solution from a position of strength.

The idea of a development roadmap was born based on the Center for Human Emergence in the Middle East's work with third and fourth generation Fateh members over the last five years. We approached the problem using an innovative socio-political framework, such as the one that helped South Africa transition from apartheid.
First and foremost, our research pointed to the enormous asymmetry in societal capacities between Israelis and Palestinians. This has been a principal cause for the failure of previously-attempted peace treaties. The Palestinians simply did not have the capacity to self-govern or to develop a unified vision of a future state. Internal clashes generated by extremists on both sides have also continued to fuel the conflict.

read more..

 

BTW:  The greatintegralawakening.com online tele-seminars series today is with Don Beck.

"Our teleseries continues this Saturday with one of the living pillars of Integral theory and action--Dr. Don Beck. Part philosopher, part psychologist, and part activist, Don is the visionary trailblazer behind Spiral Dynamics Integral, a powerful evolutionary theory that is helping us understand where we are and where we're going. Join us as we explore what it means to become an "Agent of Evolution" in a world that urgently needs our enlightened action."

Earlier this month John Mackey, CEO of Wholefoods posted an OPED article at WSJ. You find it here, on his blog:

John Mackey: Health Care Reform

It created a storm of protests and even petitions on Facebook and other social networks. Including a call for boycott of his products.

Even Tom Peters felt called to comment upon this here:

Whole Foods in Unhealthy Situation

Another commentator writes:

Whole Foods. When Liberals Attack

A phenomenon which shows the deep polarization in the US Society. The interplay of memetic dynamics is wildly whirring without development maps to give guidance and direction.

Without commenting it its clear for me that social networks momentum per se never creates breakthroughs and innovation.

Health Care in Europe isnt as "socialistic" as Mackey suggests. Problems are evident too. But the public tension and stormy either or reactions are not existing in this way.

So health care reform -and its implicite challenges demand as much systemic intelligence and memetic lenses as any other pressing global issue. This storm of reactions indicates the necessity AND opportunity finally to look deeper and allow serious perspectives to enter the public spheres and corridors of power.

Cheers,

Albert

In June I was guest at European Leadership Academy in Berlin. It was a great day and reminded me why I am currently working and living in Berlin. The city is in the center of the new expanding Europe.  This Europe is itself is positioning in the transatlantic and transpacific cosmos too. As lots of new think tanks, connections and projects show it. The entreprenurial drive is awakening in new forms and social innovation is cooking in diverse forms:)

All people I spoke with at ELA day (for Integral Leadership Review and personally) are working globally too but appreciate Berlin as very special location.

"Situated in Berlin as the dynamic, matured and multicultural metropolis in the midst of Europe, the European Leadership Academy attracts executives from countries in Europe and the rest of the world. The ELA offers a ten-month (ten three-day sessions) extra-occupational executive training, the New Leadership Development "

I have met Guido Fiolka  -CEO and founder of ELA -years ago and some other people too. We agree that 90 percent of Leadership Literature and best practices (so called:):)come from the Anglo-American sphere and Europe has to offer its own tenor, focus and version of leadership to the world.

The Notes from the Field for Integral leadership Review were written by Anja Schmidt.

Anja Schmidt heads the European Leadership Academy's Marketing and Customer Services unit. She holds a Diploma in Journalism from the University of Dortmund and a MA in International Relations from the School of Advanced International Studies of the Johns Hopkins University in Washington D.C. Before she joined the ELA, she worked as a media specialist for the European Patent Office.

Open Day at European Leadership Academy, Berlin

In June the European Leadership Academy invited guests, partners and friends to its first Open Day. This is a report from Anja Schmidt, Head of Marketing and Customer Services at the European Leadership Academy.

What is the European Leadership Academy?

It is "A place for leadership. A place where people are given the opportunity to learn about, train and experience effective and good leadership. It offers a leadership that is inspired by core values in European society such as democracy, tolerance, peaceful conflict-resolution and a respectful use of the world's natural resources. That is the European Leadership Academy's purpose as introduced by Guido Fiolka, CEO of the European Leadership Academy, to his guests. More than 50 entrepreneurs, business leaders and personnel development professionals gathered on June 12 in the ELA's newly renovated venue to get a first glimpse of the Academy's work.

The ELA is an executive education and training centre, which is focused on leadership. Its trainings and programs are following an integral, systems-oriented approach to leadership. The Academy's programs are geared towards two levels of leaders: senior executives in companies and organisations as well as young leaders with evidence of high potential on their way to board-level positions. Situated in Berlin as the dynamic, matured and multicultural metropolis in the midst of Europe, the European Leadership Academy attracts executives from countries in Europe and the rest of the world. The ELA offers a ten-month (ten three-day sessions) extra-occupational executive training, the New Leadership Development Program (NLDP), and a range of multi-day open or in-house trainings and events.

Why a Leadership Academy?

"What is needed is a different kind of leadership and a place where this can be learned", answered Guido Fiolka, one of Germany's top executive coaches. "It was about a year ago, reading day after day about the financial crisis and the critical situation all over the globe that I knew things have to change and the time for change is now!" His vision of an academy for leadership was inspiring and convincing. In December 2008 the European Leadership Academy was founded by him and 22 associates from four different European countries.

Forty years ago, Aurelio Peccei, an Italian industrial manager, might have had a similarly strong vision concerning the need to bring the limits of the world‘s natural resources to the attention of decision makers in politics and the economy, worldwide. Back then, he banded together ambassadors of economics and sciences over a vivifying discussion about the central challenges for human kind in the Italian capital, Rome-this was the hour of birth of the Club of Rome.

On the ELA's Open Day, Uwe Moeller, former Secretary General of the Club of Rome, gave the opening address, kicking off the day with a passionate speech focusing on key-values for leadership.

read more...

the new issue of EnlightenNext magazine is bringing a new conversation between Andrew Cohen and Ken Wilber too. There is a remarkable statement from Andrew Cohen, to be found on page 2 of the dialogue:

" In putting together this issue, we did an interview with futurist John Petersen, which laid out a pretty bleak picture of our very near future. After listening to it, I saw myself literally descend out of what you've been calling being needs and fall right down to a survival level. Suddenly, everything I've devoted my life to and everything I'm living for-the evolution of consciousness and culture and the inherent glory of that in every moment-seemed to vanish. I found myself thinking, "There's no point in doing this. We just need to find a way to get through this crisis." It took me about three or four hours to get back in touch with the glory and beauty of what's always calling me. "

In fact, everybody can make this experience in the face of stress , crisis and high pressure. and. ltes make no confusion, there are real breakdowns . Even with seemingly strong persons and groups. The subtle recession of perspectives and mental securities is always included.

Heres to the dialogue:

Freedom in the Face of Fear



Andrew Cohen & Ken Wilber discuss the challenge of staying connected with a higher spiritual perspective when humanity's very survival hangs in the balance.



Andrew Cohen: These days, just about everyone is aware of the fact that we're in what many consider to be a global crisis. At this particular moment, of course, we're most aware of the great financial crisis, but this is happening in the context of other looming dangers-the threat of terrorism, climate change, and the destruction of our natural environment, to name just a few. In this issue of EnlightenNext, we feature a number of prominent futurists who offer us their perspectives on what we may face in the coming months, years, and decades. But I thought that you and I could approach this theme from a slightly different perspective and look into the individual's internal, subjective, existential, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual relationship to crisis.

I've thought quite a lot about this matter, and I have made some interesting observations about myself and other people. I've noticed that what happens when human beings become frightened is a profound contraction in the self. When our way of life and our sense of freedom are being threatened, there is not only an emotional contraction but an intellectual, philosophical, and spiritual contraction-a contraction of our capacity to think in big ways.

Ken Wilber: That's exactly right. Times of crisis tend to aggravate the self-contraction. And this issue is really crucial right now, given the nature of our times.


1 | 2 | 3 | 4

I found, independantly from this conversation, these lines in the Google Books version of "Think and grow rich".


How To Outwit The Six Ghosts Of Fear

Though the book is lacking ditinctions about perspecives, horizones, stages and states - it was published in 1966 -it has lots of astonishing insights into basics of the human mind and the manifestation process. THE SECRET and other publications are rooting much in this.

I reade the book of Almaaas:

The Unfolding Now: Realzing Your True Nature Through the Practice of Presence

And found very much resonances with my own discoveries from the last 10 years. And an astoinshing crossover with devleopments in other teachings. A special comparison with Time, Space knowledge would certainly be interesting.

Most valuable for me is the re-appreciaton of what Almaas calls bold vulnerability.

I first was touched by this qulity 25 years ago, then within the teachings and practice in the time of Adi Da. And it went on from then more and more.

I really  love the table of contenss does not even have one times the word spirituality. Its about reality, experience, space, learning, the now and bold vulnerability.

The many components of Self and Essence are precious in the Diamond process to.


Heres to the:


Table of Contenss:

LOVING THE REAL i
1 LEARNING TO BE REAL
9 HANDS OFF YOUR EXPERIENCE
20 MAKING SPACE FOR EVERYTHING
31 OPENING TO OURSELVES
45 CULTIVATING A BOLD VULNERABILITY
57 AND HARMONY
73 FINDING TRUE ACCEPTANCE
87 THE TRAP OF IDENTIFICATION
139 LIGHTING UP THE Now
153 A MERCURIAL SENSE OF SELF
165

THE PERSONAL THREAD OF MEANING
179

BEING WITHOUT MIND
187 To BE AND NOT TO BE
202 THE PRECIOUSNESS OF EACH MOMENT
213 AFTERWORD

On Saturday I listened Craig Hamilton and Terry Patten at greatintegralakening.  It was the second half of the conversation that created a deep resonance.  Having spoken about Integral Life Practice and its 4 marginals body, mind, spirit and shadow, Terry and Craig spoke about the 3 faces of God.

And Terry referred to the experience of existence as miracle. As mystery and how entering spirit power is breaking out of ALL conditional and conceptual references.  Nobody know what anything is. An awesome ride and a thrilling one too. To awaken from the dream of reality AND to shape it in all of its complexity. To participate in transformation.

And an unpublished publication from Terry came to my mind:

The terrible truth and the wonderful secret

It creates a strange and vey strong resonance in me.

A very early book Saniel Bonder and Terry Patten were involved in- Garbage and the Godess - breathes this atmosphere, this felt sense and awakening, even bodily feeling of spirit power.

Terry commented very carefully about the experience of a certain loss when giving up the teacher-student relationship.  Of this radical , intimate face 2 face consciousness with unbroken light. Loosing face totally. And covering it all with coaching, some therapy and mediation...isnt the same.

I share this feeling. The mystery, the secret and even the enigma of life can never be reduced to these practices however important this cross-training too.  I was initiated student of Adi too. For 5 years. And the strong, even fierce impact this time has planted in my life is a psychoactive force never ceasing to work and to challenge.

And in the work of Almaas some similar impulses are radiating as I feel it.

Deep thanks to Craig and Terry for diving int it!

Heres to the Integrallife Profile of: Terry Patten

And his homepage: www.integralheart.com