Comments

Tom, This I Believe.... There are Black Ice Issues (yeah Tom this idea is mine) looming for large organisations - they are about to become more Centralist and Bureaucratic....

The next 5-20 years will see more Centralization than ever before in government and large corporates... Why? The White House is losing relevance - thanks William Safire circa 1980s for this idea... Why? The Black Ice Issues are no longer National - they are either Global or Local (global issues and local action).. For example, global warming needs global thinking and local action... Private equity funds need global thinking and local action... Water, Oil, etc are the same.... National governments will be less and less relevant AND therefore more and more and more Centralist and Bureaucratic.

Large Corporates face very similar Black Ice Issues... They face the new business models of Google, Skype, YouTube, etc... These are networked businesses that go global quickly and most large corporates can not compete (including Microsoft) so they become more and more and more Centralist and Bureaucratic....

National government still has spending power - they have taxes and deficits to fund their interventions... Large coporates still have a hold over consumer's purchasing power to fund their Bureaucracy....

Richard

Posted by Richard Lipscombe at March 5, 2007 5:03 PM

Great stuff Richard - I agree with you but ‘new’ centralisation will not be like ‘old’ centralisation.

New centralisation will be holding on dear to main principles and beliefs. Everything else must be decentralized to the front line. Was it Forest Gump who said rent everything - even your shoes? The role of the ‘new’ central will be caretakers - the action is out there in the muck and bullets - what a great time to be alive!

Posted by Trevor Gay at March 5, 2007 5:47 PM

This sounds like a pitch for the book 'The Starfish and the Spider'. Interesting reading.

Posted by togo at March 6, 2007 2:15 AM

togo, I have never heard of "The Starfish and the Spider" before thanks for the lead... My contribution is, in part, a distillation of what I have been blogging on and on and on about for a year now... My three things are Clear Space Thinking, Disrupt with Purpose, and Richard's Black Ice Incubator... My thinking has enabled me to build new business models for clients last year - one in the "for profit" business of healthcare one in the "not for profit" business of the church...

Sorry but none of it has been lifted from your source yet but all that could change soon THANKS!

Richard

Posted by Richard Lipscombe at March 6, 2007 8:37 PM