Boot Camp 4 the New Millennium

Don’t just catch up; jump ahead!

Do you think bloggers are kind of nuts, but fascinating? Are you curious what makes wikis work, or why people participate in developing open source software? Do you believe all these phenomena are important, and that they are linked somehow? Are you generally optimistic about where this is all heading? Do you think your organization should be harnessing these trends? Would you like to do something about it?

If so, read on.

Since the beginning of recorded history, ordinary folks have been unable to publish their ideas to one another easily, without regard for time or distance. Putting thoughts on the Internet is relatively simple (though not as simple as it ought to be). Once you’ve put ideas on a website or weblog, those thoughts stay there, available for search engines to index and other people to find and use.

As individuals living in societies, we haven’t yet grasped the full meaning of this new power.

As companies, we’re often overwhelmed by the many ways that power is already in our faces, from relatively simple things like having to build websites and e-mail response systems, to the more difficult issues like learning how to build authentic relationships with our stakeholders or dealing with those among them who are really angry.

Unfortunately, building authentic relationships is quite a challenge when companies are stuck in consumer capitalism, busily inventing clever technologies to fling more flights of messages to target demographics in order to convince “consumers” to do things they may not, in fact, need or want to do. This need not be so, but seeing a way out is difficult, unless you spend some time recalibrating your lenses. That’s what our programs are designed to do.

Amid the chaos of today’s strange environment, many useful and exciting things are emerging. Some of them feel natural and unnatural simultaneously, such as the concept of open source software, or MIT’s pioneering decision to make all its courseware available publicly, free of charge. These and many other phenomena signal a large-scale transformation that, after some cycles of flow and ebb, should lead to a more humanist business and social environment.

BC4NM Background?
BC4NM Structure
BC4NM Sample Schedule
Why call it boot camp?

Our full Boot Camp is designed to catapult you into a new world of tools and services, actions and interactions, relationships and business models. It mixes hands-on exercises with broader presentations and group work. It balances face-to-face presence with our virtual online existence, helping put both into a more useful context. It draws from a variety of disciplines and methods, some familiar, some eclectic and some a little uncomfortable.

After these four days, you should not only find the new Millennium more comfortable, you will also have many new ideas of what your role in it might be, as well as your organization’s. You may also leave the program a bit more hopeful about where we’re headed.

(Don’t worry, just because we use “4” instead of “for” now and then doesn’t mean we believe that English will soon evolve toward Prince’s lexicon. We have bigger fish to fry)