If I Ran The Council Part 2

To be clear, I have no direct experience of Print for Councils in the UK. Everything I think I know is from searching the net and conversations. So take the following for what it's worth.

If I ran the council I would look at not-now.
It's hard because I live in now.
People want now.
People judge now.

But my job is to care for a community.
Communities grow or die.
Growing and dying are in the past and the future.
I can look at the past, but how to predict the future?

I can't.
The best I can do is to prepare for the worst.
And hope for the best.
And be ready for what's just next, after now.

Google-Mart says "Do with less".
"Cut costs now, use less now-money."
I say "My job is the future."
"Where will I get future-money?"

Money is only a signal.
It comes and goes.
Social capital stays.
Social capital is the best defense against the future.

Safe people.
Healthy people.
Educated people.
That's social capital.

Google-Mart says "Do with less".
I ask "Do WHAT with less?"
How to create more social capital with less now-money?
As the man said "There's the rub."

Google-Mart is freeing functionalities from organizations.
Capture those functionalities and recombine them.
Eliminate or outsource some functionalities.
Invest time and focus on growing the new combinations.

Identify the value creating kernel functionality.
For education the kernel is learning to think with logic.
Everything else supports that or is a waste of time and now-money.
The kernel can be a printed document with a pencil or highlighter.

Compare and contrast.
Scan, highlight, mull, read, eliminate - make new connections.
Embed the Print in a conversation.
Which conversation?

It depends.
The richest conversation is the public conversation.
Thinking logically about common problems is hard.
Solving hard problems creates the most future-money.

The wisdom of the crowd is ok much of the time.
The wisdom of a logically thinking crowd works better.
How to get from here to there?
Since I can only guess at the future, where is there?

If I ran the council I would STOP.
Look carefully for the kernels of value.
Make sure the recombinations work now.
Look carefully if they are creating social capital, now.

Now-money lives in information space.
Now-people live in the real world.
Invest more now-time and less now-money
Get more future-time and more future-money.

That's the real rules of the Google-Mart Economy.
It's also the rules of a world that is using it's resources too fast.
And creating more stuff that is poisoning the resource base.
It's about sustainability.