Since that evening, I have learned to recognize the terror worm in many of its guises. A student whom I am supervising in an independent study on “distributed coordination” finds in Al Qaeda’s military operations a fascinating case study. Last week he wondered if I thought his online searches could get him into trouble.  “With whom?” I asked.  He wasn’t sure. “No way,” I reassured him, “this isn’t East Germany in 1980. It’s not like the Stasi are out there watching.”  Later I realized that it didn’t matter if anyone ‘watched’ or not. All that mattered was that he was already infected.  Still later I realized, maybe they are watching….

My banker friend in Chicago admonishes me, only half joking, not to talk about my sense of outrage on the phone. “It’s all data”, he cautions. “They look for patterns.”

Another friend has just arrived. In her hotel room she opens her suitcase to retrieve some work. Her face reddens in confusion and alarm: the once neatly packed contents of her case are a jumble of clothes and papers. “They’ve been through everything”, she says in disgust. “I need a drink. I need a shower.”

One evening at home, my son and I recall highlights of our Paris trip, especially his scientific sampling of pastries and chocolates across several neighborhoods.  “Let’s return soon”, I say.  He hesitates.

“I had such a great time, but I don’t know if I want to travel again. The airport was so scary. Remember when they yelled at you, Mom?”

He says he wants to write a book. I ask him what it would be about. “I want to write about a dystopia, you know, like Vonnegut--where no one has any rights. It would be very depressing, but there would be little glimmers of hope. The big surprise would come at the end when the reader would discover that it’s not a dystopia after all. It’s real life.”

I’ve got my work cut out for me now.  I must find a way to disable the terror worm in my boy.  In my boy and in yours. When the last soldier returns to American soil, this war on this front will continue to rage. It’s unintended consequence: the suppression of the hard won sense of psychological self determination that is the hallmark of our age. This contest isn't over. We must win back what we are losing-- not from the terrorists, but from the hackers.

“Step back, ma’am.”

“Look, he’s just twelve, let me stand with him”.

“Move back, ma’am or we’ll have to call security”, he growled.

The outrage rising in my throat made me feel sick. With my heart racing, blood rushing to my face, and pin pricks of sweat trickling down my chest, I was flooded by a déjà vu. I was on a wooded road in the lake country of Pinochet’s Chile. At twilight a checkpoint suddenly rose up out of the shadows. Soldiers in camouflage with automatic weapons lounged by the roadside. There was shouting: out of the car, documents, hands over your heads. I learned then the feeling of nauseating vulnerability in confrontation with a capricious force that had turned its back on reason. The toxic cocktail of ideological indoctrination, scant training, and little accountability meant that the ordinary person was guilty until proven innocent. Shaming and danger could be triggered by the slightest resistance.

One learned to live cautiously during those dark years-- never quite free of fear, anticipating the government’s many eyes and ears, and conforming to evade exposure. Returning to the States after life in Chile, I knelt down in the terminal and kissed the ground. I can still taste the rush of gratitude I felt for a life without fear and backward glances. I knew I could never take for granted the good fortune of living where reason and the rule of law prevailed, where rights could not be violated on a whim. No matter what its imperfections, I had come home to the light.

The airport that night was still a far cry from Pinochet’s Chile-- but not nearly as far as it used to be. I looked behind me to the long lines of submissive travelers slowly snaking their way to the x-ray machines, shoes off, baggies in hand. We had internalized the new drills without protest, editing our behavior as carefully as we edit the contents of our carry-ons. Does anyone mention the lunacy of this planet-wide assault on innocent citizens? Do we complain that our belts and shoes are less likely to contain explosives than the plane’s cargo which is barely scrutinized? No-- we shuffle with heads down, vulnerable, trying to follow the rules without attracting attention, each of us guilty until proven innocent. We anticipate and conform-- anything to avoid being called out by those who are watching. We had become smaller, while they had grown larger. Then I realized it: This was the work of the terror worm. (to be continued...)

The solutions to climate crisis will not come from simply doing the old model– only less. Forcing more social competition over the shrinking pie of fossil fuels will destroy what’s left of our social fabric. Yes we need to develop alternate energy, but those innovations will be most effective in the context of a whole new distributed model for life and work. The two vectors of capitalism and climate are converging on this one idea: don’t reduce, distribute!

NExt time you are with a group of friends, just ask if anyone trusts their insurance company. It’s rare to find even one person in a group who does. In its essence, the argument of The Support Economy is this: Vast new markets for trust are languishing, as consumers and citizens anxiously sweep the horizon for political and commercial agents worthy of their trust. The standard enterprise logic in which today’s organizations operate is not designed to deliver this kind of trust, anymore than a Model T was designed for the Interstate. New competitors need to break out of that old logic, to embrace a new approach to commerce that is aligned with the needs of the individual. A new enterprise logic, engineered for trust, will encounter a massive virgin market.
Right now, Obama is trying to be a first mover in this new territory. Can he resist the old gravitational pull?

The constructive solutions for the next episode of capitalism that we have written about and are experimenting with will come from this new kind of space in which we are alone together. It’s more powerful and exciting than anything in the last fifty years of economic history. All the critical components–new people, new technology–are coming together here. We’ll be writing about it and hope you will too. Send us examples. Tell us what you see.

History teaches us that those enterprises that move decisively to reconnect with an alienated population get rich first.
When wealth creation depends upon authentic relationships of trust and advocacy, there’s no more room for adversarial behavior that ekes out a profit at the expense of consumers, employees or suppliers. In a support network, all behavior is aligned with the interests of the individual who pays. More alignment means more cash, more profit and more well-being distributed throughout the network. eBay is an example of one small step through this looking glass. It realized previously hidden economic value by listening to and aligning itself with the needs of its members. It learned through trial and error how to engineer trust. Riding this inside-out distributed value-based logic from its inception in 1996, it posted gross sales of $70 billion last year. But eBay has addressed itself to just one tiny slice of consumer needs and in one very limited format. Imagine hundreds of eBays using a variety of means and methods, able to link and coordinate support across the widest possible spectrum from health care to house repairs—all on the consumer’s terms.

History teaches that the enterprises that move decisively to reconnect with an alienated population get rich first. But, like the thousands of companies that derided the new disciplines of mass production a century ago, there will be many that cling to current practices, determined to ride out the tide. They are unlikely to survive the next decades. CIOs with their unique expertise in distributed processing and digital platforms have the potential to help define the new enterprise logic. We need the CIO that was imagined a quarter-century ago, even more so now. It’s time for the CIO who stands on the shoulders of technology to become the champion of the individual. But don’t forget to bring your coat. It can’t be done from the sewers