A Brilliant Future Vision for a More Brilliant World 0

In a nutshell, Doug Engel­bart's vision for humanity is about boosting our collec­tive capability to pursue important challenges at scale.

He recognized that the opportunities, problems, and challenges we face – whether business, social, political, economic, scientific, environmental, etc. – are increasing exponentially on a global scale, so finding exponentially more powerful ways to collectively pursue important challenges would be crucial.

This is both a dire threat and a golden opportunity – companies, initiatives, regions, nations that take concerted action soonest will likely surpass those that don't in leaps and bounds.

What might this look like?

  • Teams, initiatives and organizations putting greater effort into increasing their effectiveness, faster, smarter, further;
  • Forming 'networked improvement communities' (NICs) to jointly pursue challenges of mutual concern or benefit;
  • Getting smarter about how to engage and leverage group smarts and collective action for more brilliant outcomes, employing the best tools and practices available for the job;
  • Understanding first principles about what makes us capable, how we improve capability to get more capable, how we do that smarter, faster, more cost-effectively – improving how we improve;
  • Including how we scout and explore the frontier, pushing out ahead with exploratory pilots and pioneering expeditions, transferring results to the front lines of the organization;
  • A significant multiplier effect is available for those initiatives improving 'Collective IQ' tools and practices for others, while also harnessing same to faciliate their own pursuit to greatest effect; ultimate multiplier effect available to a NIC improving Collective IQ capability for itself and its members;
  • Exploring how to pursue any or all of the above;
  • Joining forces in a NIC to explore that together;
  • Scaling up to a Grand Challenge level through an alliance of such NICs.

The sooner we reach critical mass as a planet, the better off we all are, and thus there is tremendous value in sharing best practices, and in addressing this collectively as a Grand Challenge.

See Strategy at a Glance and Call to Action for details, and watch Doug presenting his strategic vision for the future at the Engelbart Academy, with case examples in our Networked Community Show­case and Technology Show­case, plus practical pointers and tips for putting this to practice in your teams and initiatives in Your ABC Toolkit for Bootstrapping Brilliance.

See how you might Get Involved!