Equipoise

I’d kill you without blinking

I'd kill you without blinking

DoubleQuote from Charles Cameron


“Dear Dzhokhar, you failed. Did you ever think that you would make it out? The US captured bin Laden and Saddam. There was no chance you would escape. This is not the measure of your success, though. Dear Dzhokhar, you failed because Boston was neither bowed nor afraid. You set off a bomb, and the city gave blood for victims. You escaped initial capture and the city opened its doors to strangers. You were at large and making more bombs, and we gathered in prayer at Garvey Park and the cathedral. You went on a rampage, and people stayed home in an orderly fashion and opened their homes to the police during the search. Dear Dzhokhar, you failed, because light cast out the darkness, and the man who knew that his boat just didn’t look right wasn’t afraid to call it in.”
~ Rev. Mr. Michael Rogers, S.J.
Read full text, this link.

When two or more gather

Click for full image and text

Click for full image and text

This is what it feels like
to re-shape grief into love.
Not because it’s simple or easy
but for four lights lost
and the hope of not losing again
.”
~ Meg Fowler
Read full text of poem, this link.

Moral value: Love

Martin Richard

Martin Richard – Click for full image

“You are probably not a psychopath or currently suffering from some other variety of mental illness or developmental disorder that limits your capacity for empathy. You have the ability to, put simply, put yourself in the shoes of another living human. That’s good: humans evolved to have this capacity for empathy for a reason. Which sounds kind of like a tautology but really isn’t: we developed the ability to feel for others to understand the actions of others, such that we ourselves can better survive and thrive on Earth and, you know, have babies and stuff.

It’s not much more poetic than that. So, having empathy, you might be confronted with an uncomfortable feeling about Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the 19-year-old Russian-born suburbanite currently struggling to not die in a very, very well-guarded hospital room in Boston. That feeling is feeling sorry for him, and it is most definitely not the feeling that you are supposed to have and you might have even kept it to yourself. See, feeling empathy for a suspected terrorist also feels like it should carry with it an absence of empathy for the many innocent people maimed or killed in the twin Boston Marathon explosions and the aftermath, though there’s no good reason those two feelings should be mutually exclusive or contradictory.”
~ Michael Byrne
Read full text, with powerful imagery, this link.

Strategy null

Bombing Boston Marathon

This was not Sequential,
neither prelude
nor preparation.

This was not Cumulative,
neither integrated
nor affinitive.

This was a Statement without a strategy,
absent leadership,
absent appreciation,
absent moral value: Love.

Is there, where be the strategy of “Do No Harm”?

Freedoms Ring: Let them come to Berlin

There are many people in the world who really don’t understand, or say they don’t, what is the great issue…

Let them come to Berlin.

~John Fitzgerald Kennedy

Destruction and Creation

Destruction

Destruction

“The view from the surface of the Berg (hill) itself was phenomenal on a clear day. At night, we often saw flares firing off along what was then the ‘Wall’ on the western border of West Berlin. Most of the time, it was caused by animals tripping the flare trigger. Near the site, we often saw wild boars along the perimeter fence.” ~A Teufelsberg Tale

One day the wall came down, and with it another phenomenal view!

And the wall came down

Better!

With that view–that new perspective–came a new question, How can we create a better future?

Creation

Creation

Can we teach ourselves that, yes, we can intentionally generate trust in the world around us?

Truly know there be examples of people opting out of war, creating on their own terms, strategies to prevent violent conflict.

It starts with an idea

Thoughfaucet

Thoughtfaucet – Burlington, Vermont

How can we highlight certain relationships and feedback loops that are necessary for change to take place?

Strengthen by conversation

Strengthen

Strengthen

It is by conversation that we strengthen mutual understanding of our situation.

Measurement of Effectiveness

The Two Track Challenge: Trust

The Two Track Challenge: Trust

If Bill Gates wanted to provide you with resources. How could you tell him when the impact is better, when it’s not?

A Landscape of Trust

There are people in the world who really do understand what is the great issue, trust.

Significant, Positive, Lasting Change

Significant, Positive, Lasting Change

“Let them come to Berlin.”

The Road to Trust is a Two-Track Challenge

Trust: The Two-Track Challenge

One-slide Brief, visual cues to facilitate a conversation
Boyd and Beyond (Boston), April 27, 2013, 9a-5p+
Harvard Science Bldg, Room 252
Cambridge, Massachusetts

The Two-Track Challenge

Key Trust References

Destruction and Creation ~ John Boyd

Organic Design for Command and Control ~ John Boyd

More Trust References

The Year 2000 Security Dimension Report
~ Thomas P.M. Barnett

The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid
~ C.K. Prahalad

Plutocrats: The Rise of the Global Super-Rich…
~ Chrystia Freeland

Opting Out of War: Strategies for Preventing Violent Conflict
~ Mary B. Anderson, Marshall Wallace

Tempo: timing, tactics and strategy in narrative-driven decision-making ~ Venkatesh Rao

“Connectivity: The Measure of Effectiveness”, blog post
~ Thomas P.M. Barnett

The Impact Equation: Are You Making Things Happen or Just Making Noise?
~ Chris Brogan, Julien Smith

Marketing in the Round: How to Develop an Integrated Marketing Campaign in the Digital Era
~ Gini Dietrich, Geoff Livingston

Trust: It Starts With a Conversation

Come talk with us, Saturday, April 27th. And if you have any questions, send me an email :)