The new remote?

While we write about the new local, what is the new remote? In the DVD for "The March of the Penguins", a movie about the emperor penguin and its difficult mating ritual, there was included a documentary about the making of the film in which the french explorers talked about how difficult and impossible it was to communicate the depth of the experience. And the explorers also spoke about how they would have to have everything they needed for the six month winter, as the place was completely inaccessible. Yet they still had email, and now the movie is everywhere.

Where is the new remote, any ideas?

Impacts of the New Local on Communities

The next step is a discussion of the impact of the new local on communities. What does this mean for this particular social entity? Let's chew on this for a week or two (or three).

The death of a Genius

Guys - forgive me for sharing this. George died today - my soccer hero. He is now at peace with God

Local exploration

Please focus your comments first on Walters previous "individual implications" thread, but I wanted to start this one as I promised in the comments for the last post.

I listed the definition for local, but sometimes I get my deepest understanding of a word by finding the etymology, the history and ancient roots of the word. For local, the American Heritage dictionary says it is Middle English, from Old French, from Late Latin loclis, from Latin locus, place.

A sense of place seems to convey a depth, it touches on what Paul spoke about concerning the disturbing transience of "the new local". Yet, I think the transience isn't really "the new local" at all, but rather evidence of "the new non-local". A real sense of place can and has been created in cyberspace. It may take time, it may take depth, but it always requires a sense of place that isn't just visited, it's a place to experience life, to care for, to maintain, to protect, to build.

Exploring "the new local", to really help create and serve the businesses and markets that venture into this new realm, will require exploring "the old local" as well -- and seeing how the values, the best parts of a beloved "place" can be nurtured, furnished, built, maintained, grown, and fully realized on an address on the internet, or whatever is the telepresence technology that does best serve this connected global village.

Maybe ultimately, "the new local", when we explore it fully, becomes this tiny spec of rock around a small star on the outer edge of an average galaxy among myriads on a tiny stretch of time called the 21st century. But it is a step forward from where we've been. It's the new neighborhood. How can we best care for it? How can we be good neighbors to each other? How can we have our right livelihood here, as we do business?

Individual Implications

Next step. Lets spend the next week describing and predicting the implications of "the new local" on the individual.

Examples of the new local

For the next week or two - lets consider some examples of the new local (per our unofficial framework).

Certainly our getting together to blog this subject is an example of the new local - consistent with the points made by Harold and Trevor. It occurs to me that one of the major characteristic changes of the new local is that it can be temporary in nature. Local used to automatically mean someone who lived in the area - you couldn't actually be a "local" until you had lived in a place for a time. It this new definition - the local community could be very temporary - centered around a discussion, then disbanded as the inhabitants "move away."

Timeline

While we agreed not to have a defined schedule I think it is important to post on subjects within a reasonable time frame so as to maintain momemtum. It would be great if everyone could comment on the post relative to the need to redefine local within the next week or so. We could then progress to the the next step.

Why the Need to redefine "local?"

This topic should be to restate and expand upon our original observations of why one would even need to consider redefining "local"

Process Framework

As a reminder: Here is the framework I proposed in our original discussion:

Trevor et al:

I did a quick brainstorm of thoughts on the subject of "the new local" and here is what I came up with as a suggested framework for an article on the subject. It is being presented for discussion as a starting point.

1) Definition - explain the need to define the concept of local - no longer a geographic definition but also and simultaneously a state of mind that can span the globe.

2) Examples of what "local" is - this would be a number of illustrations that reinforce the need in the first section.

3) Describe and predict the implications of the "new local" in terms of how it will/does impact:

a) individuals
b) communities
c) business
d) consumers
e) governments
f) international relations
g) other

4) A summary which attempts to tie it all together

We could approach each question one at a time and in order to provide focus, then do the distillation (editing) process at the end. What do you think?

Edit/suggest away. -Walter

P.S. We could also invite Tom P. take a whack at it on one of his transatlantic flights - I'm sure he'd have 50 slides in one trip!

Harold Shinsato's bio

Born in New York where I got to experience the old "local" in a way few U.S. residents experience any more. Most of my friends were a block or two away, we played games in the street and in each others back years, and I walked to a Catholic grammar school four blocks away. But my parents were both from Hawaii, jet planes flew from JFK flew overhead and our neighbors were from all over the world, Italy, Japan, Germany, Puerto Rico, China, Portugal, and more.

A computer afficianado since elementary school in the late seventies, I would bring my computer on the subways in New York City, a "Trash"-80, with the monitor in one hand and the combined CPU and keyboard in my large oversized bookbag. After graduating from MIT in '84 with a BS in Computer Science, I went straight to Silicon Valley to work under the shadow of the legendary Xerox Palo Alto Research Center in a division of Xerox attempting to make market dollars out of PARC's brilliance. I've been fascinated by the possibilities within computing of human intelligence amplification, as well as the potential for connecting us all. The internet has touched my life deeply far earlier than most, as I really "got" the value of email when I was exposed to it in college and got to see how wonderful it could be in early discussion forums at Xerox in the mid eighties.

Still in the computer industry, now I telecommute from the beautiful Big Sky country in Montana to Inxight Softare in Sunnyvale, California. My own family mostly lives in New York and Hawaii. My wife's family are mostly in Wisconsin. And my closest friends are in Seattle and California. The "new local" has a deep personal meaning for me, as well as an abstract one, as I believe "local" needs a redefining or remembering in physics as well as business and spirituality. Jesus said "love thy neigbor"? We're basically asking "who is my neighbor?" all over again.

Keeping it simple may be difficult for me, as my interests in this topic are personal, but also philosopical. And the spiritual aspect may be controversial. I spent four years getting a Spiritual Practitioner's license from the church of Religious Science, have meditated on spiritual topics and how they tie in with science. You may gather this from my other blog. Yet the business aspect is also vital. I've been studying Tom Peters, Peter Drucker, Robert Kiyosaki, and many others. Business is the landscape and canvas where much of our lives are painted, and it is a vehicle to touch and benefit a great many others where it really matters, in our livelihood. As a Bahá'í, I also accept work as worship. For me, livelihood isn't true livelihood unless it is expressed as our dharma, or right livelihood. The place where our passion lives. The Wow! There's no competing with those who really have their passion in their work and business.

I hope to see the definition of "The New Local" grapple in all these fields. And I am so grateful to see others in this forum make a stand for "keeping it simple". As the old Shaker hymn goes, "'Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free." And I also like what old Einstein had to say, "Everything should be as simple as possible, but no simpler."

Mark Foscoe's bio

Mark Foscoe is a logistics and supply chain manager who has worked for 3rd party logistics services providers and for manufacturing / sales businesses buying these services. He currently works for Mitsubishi Electric as European Logistics Manager. Why is he interested in The New Local? Because he works for a pretty traditional company that tends towards a one-size-fits-all, centralising, command and control mindset. He wants to work out how to find a way to manage that allows his reports (the Logistics Manager in each country) to operate autonomously, swiftly and in a way that best fits his market but which also combines the scale advantages that come from group purchasing and in a way that ensures all suppliers are managed in a consistent manner. How do these guys feel they've got local authority and responsibility as well as being part of a bigger picture?

The New Local - In the Beginning ......

Hello Guys

This is how the discussion started back in early September on TP Blog site

I think we have to re-define what we mean by 'local.'

I know many people in America, Africa, Australia and various other parts of the planet - thanks to virtual conversations - much better than I know my 'local' neighbours in my street in England.

My network of such contacts is therefore 'local' to me even though geographically covering thousands of miles and many cultural divides.

Maybe 'local' needs a new definition in the dictionary. Any suggestions?

My 'thoughts' are fairly unstructured at this stage - Annie would probably say; 'So what's new?' :-)

I just feel - without being to complex about all this - that the 'new local' is simply about 'relationship building' across the planet (through technology) rather then a 'physical' or 'geographic' definition as it has been for the last many centuries. I have virtually 'met' hundreds of interesting people through Blogging for instance. (I have 'met' no un-interesting people by the way) I may never meet most of these folks but it 'feels like' they are 'next door' - therefore 'local' to me.

I am keen to develop my thinking on this and I want to create more discussion - I also think I might be on to something with this Jeff.

I am not always the best 'completer finisher' but I am always happy to prompt discussion and keep it going. I look forward to more comments about this.

Maybe interested folks can collaborate in writing a paper from Tom Peters regular Bloggers - supported by Tom himself of course - How about it Tom?

Welcome to The New "Local"

This is a collaboration project among a group of readers at Tom Peter's blog who wanted to have a sidebar discussion about how to define what "local" means in today's world. Since many businesses and organizations tend to base strategic plans based upon local strategies it occurred to us that old definitions and assumptions of what was meant by the term "local" may not accurately serve them well. We simply seek to define the term local in more robust terms to accurately reflect modern day usage.