Opportunity
Our population is growing and resources on this planet are finite and increasingly difficult to access. From clean water to oil to fertile soils for growing food, the need for innovation to maintain our lifestyles has required hitherto unprecedented intervention and subsidization from both governments and the private sector.
We are so focused on immediate solutions that we have looked past the very systems that are creating the problem. Economic Aid systems developed in the mid 20th century for example are already proving ineffective at creating a net benefit. Rather than building durable productive relationships these programs have increased poverties extremes, rewarded corruption and failed to offer meaningful regional stabilization.
The balance between social, economic and environmental priorities is perhaps the single greatest issue threatening the sovereignty of nation states and the human population.
The largest modern entities from across private, social and governmental sectors have at their core, missions. Each Sector has a number of internal and external signs of success. A social entity (Non-Profit) typically may look to a combination of its annuals budget as well its per person impact globally amongst its initiatives. A private entity may look at its gross sales, product market share and return on investment. Governments look to show constituents their impact on identified value prospects, economic growth or improved quality of life.
These generalizations represent the core ways in which humans in modern societies have evolved views of “value” over the last several hundred years. Business plans in their most fundamental form typically rely on oversimplifications of supply/demand or need/provision as a way to leverage temporary markets. A valuable entity survives by adapting to series after series of such short window opportunities. Adjusting products, services or technologies to meet these evolutions and often abandoning older strategies. This evolution of focus could take months or dozens of years but change is the only constant.
It’s common for entities to “Prove” success in one sector and then as success grows influence passes into the other sectors. This diversification of sectoral impact can show itself in many ways. In a good year, a successful corporation may feel more inclined to offer charitable donations, in addition to tax benefits there may be organizational rewards. At the farther reaches governments reward private entities working to further their interest in other political theatres. Let’s suppose the highest evolutions of an entity that starts in one sector is to achieve integration and influence across each one. If this is truly highest mark that an entity can be held to than why are our basic entity structures not more clearly designed to encourage a responsible integration in nascent entrepreneurs.
What happens for individuals and organizations who naturally function in a more integrated manner? When humans evolve from the simplification of self and other and understand that we are actually much more integrated. The pathway for human evolution is paved by groups and individuals willing to question the norm.
We know that humans have lived in integrated manners through the ages, offering service, earning sustenance in harmony with their environments and yet we have allowed the majority of this integration to fall away in the industrialized era. The next steps of human evolution on this planet and others will require us to quickly grow beyond the current norms.
Impact
Resilient local economies rely on regionally sourced intellectual and physical materials to produce value added products, finding access to both regional and global markets. This insulates otherwise at risk communities from the adverse effects of global economies/influencers while still allowing the benefit of participation.