SURVIVE SOMEHOW

There is no one approach to discovering survival strategies for the coming millenium. Humanity's survival depends on its collective capacity for visualizing and acting on a theoretically infinite variety of such strategies. As we face this new millenium, a new breed of organization is emerging - the organization that truly integrates the energy of the individuals in its employ. It is through wide implementation of such a human-focused business paradigm that we can guarantee the level of innovation in our society, thereby ensuring the survival of our species.

All species benefit through running in small collectives, and human collectives such as business and government are responsible for most of the great achievements of mankind. Within these collectives, of course, rests the individual; between individual and collective impulses there must inevitably be conflict. Since collectives are so much more powerful than individuals, they tend to dominate if left unchallenged. This domination generally leads to the degradation of individual rights. Originally the institutions were formed to serve people; near the end of the cycle, people exist to serve the institutions.

When the institutions that govern society are perceived as acting against the best interests of its individual members, it is said that "revolution is in the air". Grumbling, acts of sabotage, and both passive and active noncompliance with the instruments of institutional control typify this state of affairs. However, it must be acknowledged that millions of angry individuals do not a revolution make. Individuals in isolation can hardly pose a challenge to the collectivized state.

Revolutions, like certain chemical reactions, must be CATALYZED by individual direct action as well as revolutionary organization. Through creating revolutionary organizations, however, a threat to the hegemony can be formed. Whether this threat takes the form of a revolutionary cabal, a punk band or an Internet start-up, these microcollectives are exponentially more powerful than their component individuals. And despite this power, the size of these microcollectives enables them to conduct the greater part of their activities under the radar scope of the status quo. Hence the formation and possible success of the archetypical "movement", whose leaders are often perceived as the ultimate heroic individuals.

These revolutionary individuals have an incredible opportunity to brand a stretch of history with their name and ideas. Names like Gandhi, Washington, Hitler, and Elvis will not soon be forgotten in the annals of history. (Full disclosure: I intend to be such an individual. Reality check: You should too.) As revolutionaries, they each presided over a seismic shift in human values, culture, and mission. It's more than likely that every single person you know of due to their fame or their creations, rather than through acquaintance, has presided over a shift of some size. Whether they fomented a revolution in Cuba or in music history, those whose names characterize social and cultural movements are endlessly celebrated.

Any improvement in the delicate art/science of organizational behavior inevitably spawns economic and social revolution. By now, it is obvious that the Internet is such a revolution. The Internet is as important a tool for social revolution as has ever been deployed. Others have sung paeans to its potential as a content and commerce platform, but the true strength of the Internet lies in its capacity for accelerating social interaction, which is one of the primary nutrients for innovation. After a century of rapid-fire historymaking, with similarly rapid growth in applied technology, the dam between pre- and post-revolution is certain to burst.

It is impossible for an individual to manufacture the need for such a revolutionary shift without the collective desire of society, but it is possible, through timing and positioning, to BE the person who presides over the shift. Through fomenting revolution, one positions oneself near its head - if one smells revolution brewing, it's prudent to grab your gun and head for the barricades. I intend to be among those people who spearhead the coming shift, through advocating revolution in my art.

A "medium" is any vector through which a person with art in her/his soul can reshape in such a way as to communicate the fact of that person's existence. In other words, when you listen to a CD, there can be no doubt that individuals were involved in the creation of its musical content. It's important to stress that ALL CREATION IS ONE, even though you may like certain CD's more than other CD's. As long as some kind of feeling of artistic importance informs a work's creation, it qualifies as "art".

Art is anything which communicates ideas. As such, art is our most valuable survival skill - it is through art that we LEARN, and through it we communicate our experience to one another in such compelling form that author and reader are one. No one contribution to the survival effort should be absolutely valued over another, and I am allied with all of the other people who are tirelessly creating a better tomorrow. If you are one of their bosses, be cool to them and respect their vision, lest they compete you into the ground. This generation was born to regenerate the potential of the world. All who oppose us will soon find their backs to the wall.

Those of revolutionary blood - that is, those who are able to decipher the real meaning of this coded message - are awakening right now, like vampires to the night. Our ideas are blinding us with excitement, and we are no longer able to sleep on them. We are secretly massing our capabilities and reshaping tomorrow. We are enjoying great sex, we are dreaming better dreams, we are experiencing more art and earning more money than ever. The joy we feel is a direct challenge to the coming global economic shift. We have created the seed of a second economy just outside the dying husk of the first. The world is changing due to our efforts.

And our generational focus at this juncture is directed at inventing business models that don't have names yet. It is through our continued commitment to these diverse attempts to spawn community through business that we will, within our subculture of innovation, sustain a rate of innovation that will enable humanity to survive this decade and propagate to the stars and beyond.

Won't you join us?