Future Salon

Three questions of Dino Karabeg

Update: We will do our best to webcast the event again via Ustream.tv on the Future Salon Channel: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/Future-Salon

Anticipating our Wednesday Future Salon, I asked our speaker Dino
Karabeg three questions. Here are his answers:

1. What is the single thing that everyone can do that has the greatest
lever for change into a positive direction?

Create trimtabs for systemic change. I will take one half hour to
explain what this means and to plead my case, then I will give the
participants a chance to either challenge it, or to roll up our sleeves
and begin doing it.

2. What is the greatest danger you see for us?

I believe that our greatest danger is that we may be engaging in
contemporary problematique in a symbolic way, to use Murray Edelman's
expressive term. What if we may be recycling our trash and perhaps even
riding bicycles (as I myself do), and as result receiving all the
biochemical rewards of right-doing, while at the same time avoiding to
raise to the challenges that are presented to us? I will invite the
Future Salon members to a bit of meta-thinking and meta-design –
What can you and I do that really can lead to a radical positive shift?
I will raise this question by proposing a candidate answer.

3. What is your greatest hope?

My motivation is an anticipation of the next Renaissance. I even dare
believe that I can see how this might happen in some detail. But I have
ethical qualms about focusing my speech on this enticing vision,
because there is still some work that we need to do to make it possible.
This is why I chose this rather technical title.

Join us this Wednesday, 6:00 PM, at SAP Palo Alto. Please RSVP.

Future Salon: Trimtabs for Systemic Change

Trimtabs for systemic change Future Salon Wednesday May 26th Please RSVP http://bit.ly/fstrimtab

Mark Finnern offered me, Miguel F. Aznar, a chance to host the Future Salon because I met someone (speaking at the May 1 BIL conference @ UCSC) whose ideas call for a Future Salon.  Join us Wednesday, May 26, to listen and share.  Dino Karabeg, professor of informatics at University of Oslo, describes his presentation this way:

"When we shift focus from symptoms of systemic dysfunction to systemic change, an uncommonly rich and inspiring action space becomes available. 'Trimtabs for systemic change' are acts that are small enough to be feasible, which can add up to make our civilization change course and guide us along a new and different direction of progress. 

In this talk I will present nine prototype trimtabs in key areas including corporate business, informing, scientific research, education, healthcare, and design. Those examples have been developed at the  University of Oslo with external collaborators during the past fifteen years and implemented in practice in varying degrees. Part of the presentation will focus on a strategy for worldview and value change. This thirty-minute lecture will set a stage for further development of these ideas through dialogue."

We catch him the evening before he returns to Oslo, so don't miss this salon.

Dino Karabeg has been at the University of Oslo since 1992, where he is a professor in the Institute of Informatics.  See more information: Invitation to Self-Organizing Collective Mind workshop, Knowledge Federation Elevator Pitches, blog  Holoscope for the Buckminster Fuller Challenge, blog Trimtabs for systemic change, and introduction to book manuscript.

Future Salons have the following structure: 6-7pm is networking with light refreshments proudly sponsored by SAP; 7-9+pm is the presentation followed by questions and discussion. Please RSVP http://bit.ly/fstrimtab

SAP Labs North America, Building D, COIL (Co-Innovation Lab). SAP is located at 3410 Hillview Avenue, Palo Alto, CA 94304[map]. Free and open to the public. Please spread the word and invite others, but be sure to RSVP so we know how many people to expect.