THE WORLD WIDE WATCH ORGANIZATION

 

Taming globalization

Part C THE WORLD WIDE WATCH ORGANISATION Taming globalization by Bart Viaene no © • Time schedule What is a reasonable time schedule for launching the World Wide Watch Organization? 1. Complete this book : summer 2007 2. Design and create the website WWW.GOOGLAID.NET prototype : winter 2007 3. Re-write, fine-tune and publish the e-book on the Internet : fall 2008 4. Find a way to attract (a lot of) media attention to kick-start it : Google’s 10*100 project. 5. Hopefully make the Project 10*100 shortlist ! 6. Assemble a dependable team of techies to help launch the early stages: winter 2008 7. Find housing to get the techies to work their wonders 8. Install the necessary ICT technology to handle the membership applications 9. Develop a method and software to assemble and publish balanced global families 10. Contract any necessary service providers: translators, lawyers, diplomats, … 11. Establish branches in different time zones, countries: by 2010 12. Establish the legal structure for the organization 13. Corner the support of important players on the global scene 14. Get a sabbatical from work… 15. Achieve 90% penetration: by 2020 End in beauty : 2023 • Necessary skills Which skills will the World Wide Watch Organization need, to achieve its goals? Diplomatic Logistical Linguistic Networking Financial Fiscal Juridical Marketing HR Coaching Balancing Investigational ICT Web Designer DB designer Data mining Judicial Executive Legislative Educational Media Communicative Collaborative Team-playing Operational Management Anthropological Historic Sales Ethical Perseverance Innovator Security Socio-cultural Political Maintenance Support Strategic Negotiating Organizational Agricultural Medical Engineering Technical • Seeking help How should a global family member proceed when in need of external help? First of all, all local resources available must have been exhausted, of course. The global family should be contacted with a help request, containing: • A description of the problem • The urgency of the problem • A description of the solutions you see (ranked) – if any • A description of unworkable solutions already tried • Explain why solutions are not locally available • The best methods to transport the solution to you • The consequences of a successful implementation • The consequences of failure • The impact on your environment • Parts you can provide yourself • Any obstacles you can foresee • Any middlemen involved • The durability of the solution • The time frame in which a solution should be required • Resources of maintenance available to you • Securing support Once a support problem or request by a global family member is identified or received, the global family’s executive board should analyze it, validate it, prioritize it, and work out a schedule for implementing the support solution (if available), which should be communicated to the member for validation. The global family can use any resources inside and outside the global family that are available. If a support request is part of a major disaster with multiple victims, the best course of action is to contact the governmental of non-governmental organizations that are dealing with the disaster and are coordinating help efforts. It is important not to stress support lines that are already overburdened! Professional relief organizations and local authorities will quickly learn how to best use the global families’ resources. Contact them and follow their instructions. Try to keep in touch with the stricken global relative, to make sure support arrives in time. Make sure authorities know about his/her distress, and make sure they know there are global relatives who care. Try to use locally available resources, if by doing so you do not create a shortage or an explosion of prices. Avoid clogging transportation lines with goods that are not urgently needed. Once a solution to the most urgent needs has been delivered, start working on the longer-term issues. Aim for self-supportiveness, rather than dependency on aid. Once that stage is reached, take a look at possible prevention measures: how can future disasters be avoided? What is needed to lessen their impact? If victims need to be relocated, investigate short-term accommodation with nearby global relatives. Channel support to those global relatives, lest they succumb under the extra load. Try not to break up local families: coordinate support with the global families of the stricken global relative’s local family. A lot of helping hands make the burden light… • Tax issues Social profit organizations are enterprises, which are taxed in the country where they operate. Certain countries provide tax shelters for such endeavours. The World Wide Watch Organization will study and choose the best location(s) for its operations, to minimize taxing on membership fees. The funds of the WwWo will be invested in such a way that they incur minimal taxing and maximal profits, within the selected range of desirable industries. In many countries, gifts to non-governmental organizations are tax deductible. The WwWo will apply for this status. Last but not least : in well-run countries, paying taxes provides local government with more means to deal with local problems ! So don’t evade taxes unless you judge they will not be used effectively. • Internal auditing & supervision • Choosing new officials The WwWo will implement a schedule of regular internal audits by specialized auditing services on all relevant aspects of its organization. Audit results will be published on the website. The WwWo will apply for ISO 9001 certification within the first five years of operation. An external board of international supervisors will be assembled to supervise and advise the steering committee and the board of directors. This board will consist of former world leaders of unquestionable repute. These external supervisors will have the power to dismiss a steering committee and have another one selected, in case of a unanimous vote. The steering committee will be selected randomly from eligible global family members with the necessary skills, on a yearly basis. It will be able to hire and dismiss directors. The board of directors will be responsible for hiring and dismissing WwWo personnel, and have the power to dismiss the external board of supervisors and have another one selected, in case of a unanimous vote. • Ensuring independence The World Wide Watch Organization may become a target prize for the world’s powerbrokers. Those who control it could use it to control the world. But in trying to do so, they would diminish its independency and its moral power, which would surely lead to its failure. All power corrupts over time. That is why I did my utmost best to try to make the WwWo as powerless as possible, except where it concerns defending and promoting its own core mission. Hopefully my suggestions are upheld, and hopefully they will be sufficient to make the WwWo unattractive enough to powerbrokers to ignore it. • Change management Start-up organizations have two simple tasks: Growing! Winning market share! Growing means changing, adapting to higher forms of complexity, developing methods for more internal and external communication, shedding the tired skin of the caterpillar for that of the butterfly, and learning to fly with it. The WwWo should expect an explosive growth, if the idea takes hold the way I envisage it. There will be no time for controlled growth. Its future management should be able to cope with that. And after the explosive growth phase, growth will flatten out to a plateau phase. The sky will suddenly be a limit that has been reached, but which cannot be breached. The position of this plateau will be unknown, until the growth curve reveals itself. It would be prudent to prepare for this equilibrium phase, by preventing indiscriminate investing and spending in the explosive growth phase, and by working with temporary contracts only, in order not to squander the organization’s assets. • Advertising issues The best kind of advertising goes by word of mouth: “Hi my friend, listen to the hilarious story my Indian relative Samir told in our global newsletter, about this elephant getting tipsy on fermenting fruit…” “Funny! I didn’t know you had a relative in India?” “Yes, Samir is a global relative of mine” “What is a global relative?” “…” (follows an enthusiastic tale to a possible new member) Being part of a global family will open up an exotic new world, of shared experiences and misunderstandings, of advantages and disadvantages, of successes and failures, and people will start talking about it, thus spreading the idea. The WwWo could help boost this process by airing advertising spots on TV channels, by encouraging media to write and broadcast about the movement’s goals, progress and successes, and by publishing a rich, multilingual website. In telling the tale, it is essential to also stress the advantages to the resourceful, and the plights of the needy, and not only the other way around. There comes a time in life when almost every single being will find him- or herself on the opposite side. The WwWo is not a greed-driven operation: it simply won’t work if people only care about themselves, here and now. It is about sharing, caring, supporting and encouraging. Advertising spots should stress the “family” feeling. Local families can be heaven, but they can also be deficient, or simply lacking. Global families are an insurance policy, a “Plan B “, a second chance, to the needy and to the wealthy alike. • Handling criticism The WwWo will publish constructive criticism on its own website, out of its own will, or on simple demand, and take positive action about it. Constructive criticism is defined as not only stating opposition, but also offering alternative solutions. The world’s three highest ranked critics will be offered a seat in the committee of supervisors, where they can help reform the organization for the better. • Ensuring fairness Fairness in the WwWo’s doings is ensured by making everything voluntary: Membership, subscription fee, the personal information you give out, the time and effort you invest, the projects you choose to support, the global visitors you receive, the feed-back you relay… By balancing the composition of global families, the WwWo tries to provide every member with the same launch pad, fully knowing that this is an illusion. By developing tools for equalizing successful an lagging global families, the WwWo hopes to offer fair opportunities to maximum benefits to all members. • Decision making process • Dealing with opposition I advocate consensus decision making for the World Wide Watch Organization, above all other methods, for important decisions, if there is no hurry. In case of hurry, or for non-essential decisions, a simple majority of votes will do. This applies for the global families as well for the organization’s decision making structures itself. Reason: if there is no hurry, time can be spent in negotiations to get everybody ‘on board’ for a project, and dissenters will want to ensure that their own projects get on the schedule list, too. With every ‘on board’, there will be no opposition trying to make the project fail. I dislike systems where majorities use their power to systematically enrich themselves by siphoning off investments intended for minorities. So if it needs a lot of talking to balance things out, so be it. In urgent matters, the worst decision would be to take no decision at all. So even if the wrong choice is made, it has to be made, even if not by consensus. Lingering breeds frustration, and frustration will breed dissent if repeated. The proposal that assembles the highest majority will be implemented first. After acceptation, a new majority will need to be found for other proposals. Majority-based decisions must be clearly published, though, together with the rejected alternatives, and the names of the decision makers and the opponents. Their outcome should be analyzed, responsibilities established, and lessons learned for the future. Another important rule is that victims cannot be helped against their will. That means that those in a perceived need of help can reject certain forms of help if they judge that the cure will be worse than the illness. Members of a constructive opposition should get a real chance to power. That is why I choose to implement a revolving steering committee randomly selected from volunteering members with the necessary skills. • Providing escape hatches for excessive energy Is a well faring, healthy, stable, secure and safe life liveable? For some it is not! The world needs disasters to be overcome, problems to be solved, territories to be explored, mountains to be climbed, enemies to be fought, limits to be passed. Most young and eager men and women will find escape hatches for their energy in domains such as sports, research, social services and business endeavours. For some, this is not adventurous enough, so they will go travelling the world, resort to the virtual worlds of gaming or even drugs, or even go to war, actively seeking danger, seeking ‘kicks’. The World Wide Watch Organization will offer these people the exciting alternative of putting their wits to the test in trying to solve the problems of others, all over the world, in an organized yet unexplored, novel and unique way. • Quality of service assurance “In the beginning, there was light”, says the first sentence of the book of Genesis. That may be true, but right after the beginning, there came bugs, and bugs seem to have been reported in all different theories and beliefs dealing with the world’s beginning… So the WwWo will experience bugs and mistakes, in quantity, and most will appear in its early stages. In these pages, I am confident I have provided a warm habitat for a whole bunch of them. It is my experience that a service generally improves with the number of years that it is delivered. This will apply for the WwWo and for the global families. Mankind is adaptable. We will conquer the bugs, correct our mistakes, or learn to live with them. Some bugs will be domesticated and some bugs will be discovered to be features. So the best assurance of quality is time. Time to spend effort to improve things. With the entire world’s population watching us and urging us on to deliver what we promised, I have no doubt that a respectable level of quality for our services will soon be reached. • Remuneration of officials Being a social profit organization, I believe the WwWo should not offer its officials excessive payment for their services. Serving the WwWo should be a privilege. Highly skilled professionals should gladly want to take a sabbatical and offer their services, just for the privilege of being part of ‘history in the making’. The WwWo needs highly motivated, but socially motivated personnel. Motivation because of steep wages would be deadly hazard. That said, the WwWo should also be able to attract the best technicians in their fields, so wages should be comfortable enough to allow for the necessary continuity. • Partnering with NGOs Some NGOs may have similar goals, but their methods are mostly different, and their scope is often restricted to selected domains (health, education, children, food, water, financing, …) Cooperation with non-governmental organizations is necessary, for coordinating rescue and relief missions in stricken areas, and for maximizing the impact of specialized prevention projects. The WwWo can help shorten the NGOs’ response time, by quickly mobilizing resources. NGOs can help the WwWo with know-how coordination and logistics, amongst others. But the WwWo should not form any close associations with NGOs, nor should it compete with them in their domains. We cannot and do not seek to control their actions, nor would we welcome being controlled by outsiders. When invited, the WwWo will accept an advisory seat in umbrella organizations for NGOs. The WwWo will not seek NGO status for itself, unless this would prove to be necessary (e.g. for fiscal reasons). • Protecting diversity Globalization is perceived as a threat to diversity. That may be correct, but the World Wide Watch Organization seeks to tame globalization, to remove its dangerous claws. Supporting global relatives to live a fruitful life, helping them to overcome disasters will hopefully prevent them from losing their land to multinationals, having to migrate to overcrowded mega-city melting pots, or even seek their salvation abroad through emigration. Global relatives may even help you earn a living by cultivating or setting up trade in assets you never knew were special, thus ensuring their survival. Finally, global families will cause a great boost to tourism. Promoting eco-tourism will offer an opportunity to help save diversity. • The big principles • Enter yourself in a ‘global’ family of exotic ‘relatives’ all over the world • Contact your ‘global next of kin’ and try to get to know each other • Help each other overcome problems and disasters through mutual aid • Most disasters also cripple your local sources of support => think globally! • Gradually build a global community of welfare • Cultivate a global kind of understanding and mutual assistance • Learn, trade, visit, welcome, respect and enjoy! • Do’s and don’t’s Do subscribe! Don’t hesitate, do it now! Do tell about yourself on the application form Don’t be worried if you don’t get a quick response Do look up your global family on its web page regularly Don’t despair if you don’t feel very ‘familiar’ at first Do volunteer for global family tasks Don’t under- or overestimate your own possibilities Do try to launch a first initiative Don’t leave out any members, not even the very young or old Do welcome new arrivals Don’t forget to contribute to the newsletter, telling about yourself Do speak about your global family with your relatives and friends Don’t forget to tell your global family about your local relatives and friends Do visit the WWW.GOOGLAID.NET website Don’t forget to relay your ideas and experiences in the questionnaires • Rights and plights A global family member has the right to be included in all general global family communications. Take into account that translating and relaying these communications to you may prove very difficult. You cannot be forced to help or be helped. Helping and getting helped does not require maintaining a balance. Everything is voluntary and on needs basis. No payment for voluntary services is to be expected, unless agreed upon in advance. On the other hand, being part of a global family sets obligations of participating. The degree of participation is of your own choosing, and you are allowed to let it vary over time. But a yearly report on your situation seems to be a minimum. If you are incapable of participating just now (e.g. because of age, lack of resources, education or health), you can delegate a local family member or a local friend to act on your behalf, even going as far as having this person subscribe yourself as a member, pay your entry fee and communicate on your behalf. Be honest about yourself and your situation. Being poor or being wealthy is not something to be ashamed of, but dissimulating either is! Be aware that the global family will inform itself about you before deciding to support you. And vice versa: when you do not participate in helping others according to your means, your global relatives will eventually find out and will remember, once you become needy yourself. Everybody welcomes a flower on his grave. But beware: your first obligations should you to your local family and friends! Don’t spurn them because you get better response from your global family. Helping does not necessarily mean to offer material aid. The best help is to teach to help oneself. • Will global family members have a vote ? How to organize voting ? On the level of the WwWo, referenda can be held by the means of web questionnaires. The WwWo will also provide tools to send questionnaires to global families as an entity. To help global families organize themselves, the WwWo will develop voting tools, which can be used from the web page, on behalf of networked members. It is up to the global families themselves to decide whether these tools can be used in a representative manner to reach all members. Global families are free to choose their own organizational structure. As in most local families, there probably will not be much need for a formalized structure, unless important decisions are involved. • Membership fees • Method of payment The membership fee is voluntary and warrants a life-long membership. The minimum fee is €1. The maximum is 1 average working day’s worth of your earnings. No proof needed. The fee is not refundable. You can pay via credit card when subscribing via the form offered on WWW.GOOGLAID.NET Or you can pay a recruiter, who will transmit your payment via the website and his/her own credit card. The WwWo will over time provide alternative methods of payment, for instance via post offices and banks. In all cases you should receive a receipt with your payment, and the credentials of your global family membership after a limited processing time (unless the system is down for maintenance, in which case it will say so, or will not be reacheable). • Starting/ending membership Your membership starts immediately after successfully subscribing to the WwWo. A trusted relative or friend can participate on your behalf if you are (temporarily) unable to participate yourself. In this case, your trustee should let this fact be known to the global family. You can unsubscribe or have yourself unsubscribed by your trustee at any moment via the website. The membership fee is not refundable. If your subscription remains silent for more too long, the global family can declare it “sleeping” and by doing so, request for new memberships to be sent by the WwWo to fill up the gap. Your subscription will be removed automatically 150 years after your date of birth. • Role of middlemen Recruiters, scouts, interpreters, translators, trustees and other middlepersons will necessarily play an important role in facilitating the operations of the WwWo’s global families. The WwWo will establish methods to certify these people, to try to assure a high level of dependability of the system. Middlepersons will quickly specialize or start offering a host of related services, spawning a whole new industry. The WwWo will negotiate reduced taxing facilities with local authorities. • Financing the first years I would like to see the WwWo grow by its own resources, and nothing else, to stay independent. That is why the membership fees are important. In the initial period, the World Wide Watch Organization will probably have to sell more promises and thin air than support, until the membership fees start coming in at a fast enough rate to hire professionals to develop our services and rent equipment to publish them to the members. That means that early adopters may have to exercise some patience before their applications can get processed and their global families can start to be assembled, unless adoption by Google’s Project 10*100 would bring sufficient start-up funding. It is to be expected that applications from well-connected people will start flowing in much earlier than those of people from the more remote corners of the world. Their membership fees will be needed to build the early WwWo infrastructure. Once we can go live with it, they will find their global families consisting largely out of themselves and a few other early adopters from other regions. It will take time, probably many years, for their global family to deploy its full wing span. That could be a good thing, provided that they can be patient. The early adopters can spend the early years of the gradual build-up to get their local family organized. Once the first less-connected global relatives arrive, they can concentrate on trying out communication methods, which will benefit later arrivals. It is an opportunity for organic growth. Some early adopters may feel disappointed: what was all the hype about then? They should realize that they have the privilege of discovering a new frontier, of living the exiting first years where nothing is settled definitely yet. As early settlers always do, they will pay the highest price, but they will also write history. Late arrivals will probably also contribute lower membership fees: members from developing countries, newborns and members being offered a subscription by local relatives, friends and (non-)governmental organizations. Income for WwWo will decrease to subsistence levels, but that is not a problem: the largest investments will be needed in the construction phase anyway, and the ‘cruising phase’ will probably thrive more on voluntary contributions of a gigantic number of members, than on new investments. • Penetration of ‘white areas on the map’ Some geographical regions will be slower to discover the WwWo’s benefits than others, because of lacking networking resources, government objections, translation difficulties, operational hurdles, or even cultural differences and plain distrust. What can be done to speed up their integration? I would plead for sincerity, honesty and respect. We should point out the advantages and be clear about the dangers. We should offer a clear and safe route to integration, without endangering established positions. The goal is not to cut everybody down to the same level of equality-in-need, but instead to support everybody into achieving higher levels of welfare and happiness. All members should get ‘richer’ in the process. The ultimate goal should be, that you would trust your global relatives to take care of your children during a holiday abroad, wherever in the world that may be, just as you would trust your own local relatives with them, and that your global relatives would do likewise. That’s were we want to arrive. And that just about sums up the extent of the road ahead. The World Wide Watch Organization has set itself this ambitious goal. • Completing a global family to ensure maximum spread A global family should ideally be a mini-replica of the world’s population. A hundred members, their locations maximally spread out over the world. Of course, the world’s population is not evenly distributed, geographically speaking. Some areas (e.g. coastal areas, and areas with temperate climates) are much more populated. The assembly algorithm will have to take this uneven geographical distribution into account. If China and India currently house about one third of the global human population, global families should reserve a comparable number of ‘seats’, even if these cannot immediately be filled yet. But distribution should go further: it wouldn’t do if all Chinese members of one family lived in Bejjing, or all Indian members lived in coastal areas. That’s why the distribution algorithm should work on the basis of members’ GPS positions of residence on earth, compared to all the relative occurrence of all such positions on earth. But even that is not enough: age groups, sexes, wealth and language skills will also need balancing. This means that if new membership applications are unevenly distributed, global family completion will have to be delayed until suitable new members arrive. The algorithm cannot work on a ‘first come, first served basis’: new arrivals could complete the oldest global families which still have a fitting vacancy, but that would mean the gradual creation of a growing pot of ‘unfitting new arrivals’, when the algorithm does not allow for new tendencies, in, for instance, regional birth rates or deaths. That is why I think the algorithm should use a combination of expertise, flexibility, adaptability and randomness: Expertise, because it needs a minimum of knowledge about what a ‘mini-replica of the earth’s population’ really needs, to be representative of the real thing. Flexibility, because it should arrange for how the world’s population will evolve in the future, based on extrapolation from time-historic models. Adaptability, because not everything can be known in advance, so some fine tuning may prove necessary over time. Randomness, because the ‘completion rate’ of global families should be fair: there is no reason to believe that a calculated completion algorithm (for instance on ‘first come, first served’ basis) would not cause a biased distribution, over time. • Unreacheable members What should a global family do with members that cannot be reached (anymore, or from the beginning)? Repeated contacting attempts have been unsuccessful, members passing through cannot locate the ‘lost’ member, local authorities cannot relay his/her whereabouts… If the global family feels that there is little likelihood that a member will become reachable again after some time, it can mark the member as ‘sleeping’, thus opening up the global family for the arrival of a new member. If the lost member suddenly turns up again, the global family will simply have grown a little bit beyond its limits, and have become a little bit ‘top heavy’ on the lost members’ and the new arrival’s local side, but that is not a problem (it could be, if this becomes a system, but WwWo’s algorithm will prevent such lopsided constructions). It should be noted that a global family member may have valid reasons for being unreachable: prolonged illness, a world trip, being on the run for the law… The global family should take care to protect a member’s privacy and safety. Which is not a synonym for offering shelter from prosecution! Manipulation of a global family by members, factions Selective global families It happens in the best of families, the saying goes. Everybody makes mistakes, and nobody is perfect. So expect that your global family will sooner or later be influenced by some of its members. Certain projects may be promoted heavily, while others which seem more urgent never seem to make the cut. The global family may become selectively blind and deaf to certain types of problems... If the manipulator happens to be you yourself, or happens to act in your favour, you probably won’t even realize it, because everybody wears eye blinds in at least some aspects. But it can become a problem if the influencing has negative results, for you yourself or for other members whom you feel are not respected. This is normal, but don’t overreact. State your views clearly and respectfully, speaking only for yourself. Appeal to the manipulator’s sense of justice. Don’t seek to start an opposition: the idea is to work together as a family, not to start a fight. Be aware of cultural differences. In most cultures, everybody listens to the elders and the most experienced. Don’t be impatient: creative ideas and proposals need time to be digested and accepted. On the other hand: don’t feel disillusioned by a refusal. You can always try again at another opportunity. Remember that their views may change over time, and so may yours. If you feel a vote is needed, call for it, packaging your proposal in a constructive way, and abide by the result. • Education issues Global family members will have to deal with ‘next of global kin’ with all kinds of educational backgrounds. In some regions, religious education builds the cornerstones of beliefs and convictions (e.g. in Iran, but also in the USA). In other regions, lay education is paramount, or at least optional. People communicate with each other for a large part based on an acquired body of common experiences and ‘dogma’. That can pose a problem if there no such common body. Members having received religious or lay educations will have to find a way to communicate with each other on some other basis that their educational background. It can be done only if there is a common will for openness and respect. A little story on how easy successful communication can be, even between extreme opposites: During a safari in southern Africa, our intercontinental group of tourists had the opportunity to meet a family of Bushmen and follow them during a day on foot, hunting-gathering in the bushveld. We didn’t have a language in common, and I felt embarrassed by our ‘alien’ presence, intruding upon this pre-historic setting (at least, according to our standards). And did these people have a real choice? While watching their daily activities of digging for roots, making fire, hunting for antelope, producing water, food, soap and rope, one of the elderly Bushmen noticed that we took interest in his scarifications and tattoos. He proudly took off his cured-leather hunting attire to let us marvel at his tattoos. Upon which one of the English ladies in our group dropped her pants and showed off her own tattoo on her bottom! Soon, all of us, Bushmen and tourist alike, were almost rolling on the ground with laughter!! Succesful communication can be exceedingly simple, I was taught. • Contacting a global family A global family can open itself up for contacting through its web page, or through any other means of their choosing. The WwWo will provide functionalities to allow ‘read only’ access to visitors, as well as a read/write visitors’ forum that will have to be maintained by the global family itself. Global families that make themselves reachable will be able to get commercial and other kinds of proposals from a whole new economic sector that might offer services specially geared for global families’ needs. The WwWo will also use internal facilities for contacting global families, for instance when launching a questionnaire. • Updating a global family Over the years, the composition of a global family will change, and these changes will have to reflected to its web page. Part of these changes will be covered by new arrivals and deaths. But most of the changes will just be updates of individual member’s records: changes of residence, of profession, local family and material situation changes… Well-connected members will be able to update their record themselves, but others will have to resort to services of local family, friends or recruiters, or simply send a letter to the global family’s secretary with a change request. The WwWo will provide functionality on the global family web page to install a member as the global family’s secretary. This person will be allowed to update other records on request. Reorganizing & reassembling global families Powerful global families Dysfunctional global families Would a global family ever need reorganizing or reassembly? It is unlikely that its membership would fall or rise too steeply, as new arrivals are completely dependent on the balancing algorithm. But it is conceivable that a global family would become so successful or so dysfunctional that its members vote for a break-up and a redistribution of its members over other global families, as a new challenge, or in the hope of a new start. The WwWo will honour such requests, and will provide functionality on the global families web pages to automate such reassembly after a break-up vote. Failed global families: how to handle ? No matter how smart the global family balancing algorithm, human nature, time and fate will apply unforeseen changes that may cause a global family to fail in its mission of organizing communication, providing mutual assistance and promoting welfare for all members. The WwWo should install measuring infrastructure to monitor global family functioning, and install early warning and alarm bell procedures to detect where things go wrong. In such cases, offers of outside supervision and assistance should be made. This could be accomplished by letting volunteering successful global families ‘parent’ those that seek outside help. A ‘cook book’ for successfully running a global family will be provided on the web site, as well as case studies demonstrating what could go wrong, and how to deal with it to effectuate a turnaround. • Keeping the fire burning As with most things in life, the ultimate ‘killers’ are disinterest and neglect. The novelty might wear off, and the WwWo might go the way of all temporary hypes. When there is nobody to pull the cart, it won’t move an inch, and finally its axels will rust so it will not even be able to move anymore. The WwWo will therefore have to be and remain creative. As in a ‘Second Life’ game, there will have to be new levels to be discovered, new frontiers to be explored, and new projects to be accomplished. Only this is not ‘Second Life’, it is ‘Second Family’! As with your ‘first family’, disinterest and neglect may creep in. One way of preventing ‘crumbling’ is having a steady influx of new members, and having members who set ambitious goals for themselves and for their ‘global next of kin’. New members by themselves will keep a basic level of activity going. They will be curious to meet the others, and the others will be curious to get to know them, too. With an average of 2 new members a year, and 98 ‘old’ members constantly setting sail to new horizons, I doubt that there will be much fear for ‘running out of fuel’. • Sleeping global families What if a global family falls into sleep? Should the WwWo awaken it? I think an awakening call would be indicated when a newly assembled global family never wakes up and starts functioning. That presupposes that the WwWo should monitor global family activity levels. The WwWo could then send an e-mail to its connected members, stating its monitored inactivity level appears to be sub-standard, and giving advice about how to get in action. Global family levels having fallen asleep after an initial period of activity could likewise be sent a wake-up call, pointing out the benefits of active engagement by including successful real-life examples. EPILOGUE OK, after highlighting about a hundred aspects of the World Wide Watch Organization, my holiday in France was over, giving you at least an global idea what it is about and what it could do. I munched at it for another year, wondering how best to launch it, until I learnt about Google’s GOOGOL project, which I immediately recognized as a golden opportunity to give my idea a kick-start. The WwWo is capable of altering the world for the better. Even if the WwWo is off to a running start, it is unlikely that it will change the world overnight. So it is not a revolution, but rather a gradual evolution to – hopefully – a higher stage in social security. Meaning that you will have to invest time, effort and patience to see it happen. The World Wide Watch Organization is just a tool. Nothing will happen if you let it lie idle. Now it is up to you. Are you prepared to give it a try? Enter, friend, and welcome to the global family! Bart Viaene Final revision before submitting to Google’s GOOGOL project on October 12th, 2008http://WWW.GOOGLAID.NEThttp://WWW.GOOGLAID.NEThttp://WWW.GOOGLAID.NEThttp://www.project10tothe100.comhttp://www.project10tothe100.comshapeimage_7_link_0shapeimage_7_link_1shapeimage_7_link_2shapeimage_7_link_3shapeimage_7_link_4