SMLXL: business and communications innovation

October 2nd, 2009

I am often asked what we do @ SMLXL here’s a film that provides a brief overview of the SMLXL philosophy, and some examples of the type of work and projects we have undertaken over the last few years.

From Interruption to Engagement – the journey to truly engaging in the networked world from Alan Moore on Vimeo.

For over 150 years our economies, culture and society have been shaped by astraight-line logic producing considerable economic success. However, in the dawn of the Networked-Society, a straight-line logic of getting stuff done becomes a barrier to progress. Why? Because, the change wrought by the
networked society is structural challenging how markets and organisations have co-evolved over the last 150 years.

This creates a dilemma. And the dilemma is this How can firms and the people that work in those firms, develop coherent marketing strategies/products and services that are premised upon No-Straight-Line principles when they have been versed only in Straight-Line thinking at
least for the over 35¹s from birth? So if the 20th Century was about straight line thinking around commerce, media and communications, the 21st Century will be about a no straight line approach defined as Engagement.

And to bring some sharper focus to what we do here is a film made by the Dutch Think Tank Freedom Lab that explores the central themes of my current research.

The basic outline is this… “I needs we, to truly be I,” wrote Carl Jung, and that is why we as a species are on a quest to rediscover our role in society. Humanity, deconstructed, over the last 150 years, to the point of deconstruction is now deploying communication technologies to regain its true identity. The rise of the networked society is no accident, and a new philosophy is needed to help us with our quest. The core areas are these:

1. System breakdown: We are witness to a structural and transformational change in society.

2. The wholesale pursuit of material wealth has in fact come at a terrible cost for society

3. Threat: the current unsustainability of humanity

4. The true nature of humans and the technology of man: their intimate relationship

5. Liberation Day: We need to examine the various solutions and tools that can enable us to thrive and survive, to take back that which makes us whole as people, individually and collectively.

6. Simplexity: The digital and highly networked world seems to have created a more complex way of living. We need to learn to deal with this complexity, by understanding how it works.

7. Deschoolling: Our imperative is to de-school ourselves in a philosophy that has driven us into a cultural, ideological and economic cul-de-sac.

8. New Philosophy: We need a new language to help us understand the deep context of the change we are in

9. The no straight line universe: We need to explore its shape we need to feel it; physically, intellectually, and emotionally

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