This weekend on the recommendation of Thomas Kriese of Omidyar.net, I will be attending the inaugural Annual Public Innovator's Summit convened by the Hardwood Institute:
Beginning on Friday, August 18th until Sunday, August 20th, a dynamic group of leading-edge thinkers and community leaders from around the country will meet in Utah to discuss the essence of challenges in public life..... Along with The Harwood Institute, the Summit is being co-sponsored by Fast Company Magazine and made possible by a grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation....At the Summit, topics intended for discussion, among others, relate to what it means to genuinely operate as part of the community, how we move beyond pockets of innovation in public life, and what a culture for the public good looks like in an era of MySpace.
My assigned topic for discussion is something about "How to get them to drink the koolaid." Since koolaid in that particular instance was laced with cyanide, and cult leader Jim Jones died along with the men, women and children who followed him, their bodies strewn around the koolaid tub, I am wondering about the sensitivity to language of those in charge. Shouldn't we from the standpoint of the public good be thinking instead how to bring to justice all those in public life and private business, or for that matter in think tanks or in the media, who presume in the spirit of Jim Jones to manufacture and disseminate the spirit-destroying "koolaid" of propaganda, branding, charistmatic leadership, and cult religiosity?
I know that "drink the koolaid" is just a mindless phrasing, familiar to the point of cliche, but unless we learn to think outside the frame of framing we are in wealth bondage forevermore. Sponsored, the Institute is in part, by Fast Company, a magazine devoted to technology and entrepreneurship. I think something goes darkling when business leaders displace models of language and thought drawn from sources that are, shall we say, "liberally educated," or spiritual. Christ, I guess, is an example of a leader who got his followers to "drink the koolaid" for the greater good - The Way of the Cross is the Higher Koolaid. Hitler, Rasputin, Stalin, Pol Pot, Osama and.... well, you continue the list, are other koolaid mavens. So, before we get our flunkies or consumers or voters or employees or readers or dupes to "drink the koolaid," perhaps we might pray briefly for wisdom and humility and the courage to bear witness to the often unlovely truth.
So, do I act dumb and talk in an upbeat way about how to get them to drink the koolaid? Or, do I print out a picture of the dead around the koolaid tub at Jonestown and ask "the dynamic group of leading-edge thinkers and community leaders from around the country" how they can accomplish similar things when they get home? Maybe we are so poisoned by koolaid already, we as a nation, that going along to get along is the most prudent solution. Far be it from me, etc. I am sure there will be good people at the conference doing good things, and I will probably play dumb since a businesslike perspective seems called for when discussing public good amidst Fast Company.
Added Later:
The actual question set is,
What does it mean to drink the Kool-Aid?
- What happens when we come to believe that our organization or group must "own" a challenge and outcomes - and is there an alternative?
- How does our own hyper-inwardness (for instance our brand identity or gaining competitive advantage) sometime sabotage the good ends we seek?
- Who are the peers and colleagues you seek out for advice and support - and why them?
- What does it mean to genuinely collaborate and why is such a simple idea so hard to do? Are we really in this together?
I can work with that. Merry Pranksters, back on the bus.
