27 January 2008

In the preceeding two blog entries, I discussed two different approaches - to business and to knowledge/education/r&d - stemming from adoptions of different world perspectives guided by specific though varying realities. At the heart of the approaches is the 'reality' guiding the respective perspective.

But what if we change the reality and its resulting perspective altogether?

Hyphenation is the clarion call signaling the existing doxa to two choices: either sustain itself through moderate-to-conservative change or break free completely by aligning with a new, revolutionary, and prescient reality wherein electronic technologies enable virtuality as living, existing, and working spheres amongst multiple spheres of interdependent virtual-realities and real-virtualities.

Indeed, hyphenation posits the individual on the hyphen between virtual and real that is itself potentiality in action, in effect, and in realization...

And this, this juggling is not a huge feat because it is the current state of our living presence and a naturally evolutionary stage in our co-existing development alongside our creative and creating technologies...

It is always remarkable when I happen upon 'hyphenation-in-action' that is a lived and recorded actuality, so it is with great pleasure when I read about the next generation of 'social entrepreneurs' who effect social change on their own terms, and with remarkably substantial success (Nicholas D. Kristof, "The Age Of Ambition," The New York Times, 27 January 2008).  However coincidental, Kristof captures and echoes key elements of hyphenation in his article:

1) Kristof quotes Soraya Salti, creator of the Injaz organization:

" 'If you can capture the youth and change the way they think, then you can change the future' "

2) Earlier in his article, he quotes Bill Drayton, Chief Executive of Ashoka:

"...social entrepreneurs [...] neither hand out fish nor teach people to fish; their aim is to revolutionize the fishing industry."

Changing the way we think effectively demands a re-appraisal of and re-purposing towards the assumed reality. This, coupled with 'revolutionizing the fishing industry' are exactly the actions hyphenation asks of each individual.

Returning to the first of this three-part series, I wrote of business models adopting either the 'cuts for sustainability' approach or the 'investment for growth' approach.

But what of doing away with the cog, the wheel, and the material existence of the machine itself?

Whereas the trends of business models, modalities of information, and successful social movements paved by our 'next generation' collectively work towards effecting change, hyphenation is not satisfied at stopping with assumed realities. No, it beckons every individual to extend beyond the comfortable status and to reflect, re-purpose, and account for his living presence - a presence that forces him to juggle virtual and real and exist in both spheres simultaneously in seamless, inexorable, and perpetual transitioning...

In this spirit, let us take pause and discuss 'reality':

'Reality' is affected by what the individual allows into his realm of the possible. What she sees is what she allows into her recognitive reality and in turn, becomes her world, regardless of physical 'sight'. The difference between the social entrepreneur and hyphenation is the latter 'switches venue' to an infinite realm of multiplicity inherent in creative potentiality.

The inhabited spheres of potentiality extend beyond the real and are rather super, supra, and hyper-real. They are the materialized imagined and the virtual simultaneously...

...because the stage of potentiality exists beyond the existing doxa of assumed possibility, hyphenation demands the doxa to recast its assumptions, to change perspective and thus, to account accurately presence in the now, here, and today for a decisive step forward...

...there is a veritable precipice; our success is a matter of all positive and unwavering action...