@deewhock is a living legend who founded one of the greatest exchanges of value in history, @VISA. I wanted to share what I thought were some of his key ideas and to try to help provide a little extra visibility to a very deserving man whose ideas should be more widely known

1/ “Chaordic” is a term Dee coined that is a blend of chaos and order. He came up with this word before complexity science was mainstream, and today “chaordic” can be considered “complex.” VISA arose by thinking about organizations as organisms

2/ “In VISA, no part knew the whole, the whole did not know all the parts, and none had any need to. The entirety, like millions of other chaordic organizations, including those we call body, brain, forest, ocean, and biosphere, was self-regulating and self-organizing.

3/ “Forming a chaordic organization begins with an intensive search for Purpose, then proceeds to Principles, People, and Concept, and only then to Structure and Practice. It can't be done well as a linear process.

3a/ Each of the six elements can be thought of as a perspective, a sort of "lens" through which participants examine the circumstances giving rise to the need for a new concept of organization and what it might become.

3b/ The most difficult part is to understand and get beyond the origin and nature of our current concepts of organizations; to set them aside in order to make space for new and different thoughts. Every mind is a room filled with archaic furniture.

3c/ It must be moved about or cleared away before anything new can enter. This means ruthless confrontation of the many things we know that are no longer so…If you can accomplish all this, profit becomes a barking dog begging to be let it”

4/ “The nonmonetary exchange of value is the most effective, constructive system ever devised. Evolution and nature have been perfecting it for thousands of millennia. It requires no currency, contracts, government, laws, courts, police, economists, lawyers, accountants.

4a/ It does not require anointed or certified experts at all. It requires only ordinary people, caring. True community requires proximity; continual, direct contact and interaction between the people, place, and things of which it is composed

4b/ The nonmonetary exchange of value is the very heart and soul of community… It is a mistake to confuse money with value. It is a mistake to believe that all value can be measured. And it is a colossal mistake to attempt to monetize all value”

5/ “The first and paramount responsibility of anyone who purports to manage is to manage self; one's own integrity, character, ethics, knowledge, wisdom, temperament, words, and acts.”

6/ “Particularity and separability are infirmities of the mind, not characteristics of the universe”

7/ “Desire to command and control is a death wish. Absolute control is in the coffin”

8/ “It seems a principle of evolution, perhaps the fundamental principle, that the greater the capacity to receive, store, utilize, transform, and transmit information, the more diverse and complex the entity.

8a/ It holds true from neutrino, to nucleus, to atom, to amino acids, to proteins, to molecules, to cells, to organs, to organisms. From bacteria, to bees, to bats, to birds, to buffalo, right on through to baseball players.”

9/ “We must begin with noise. Noise, in its broadest sense, is any undifferentiated thing which assaults the senses. It is pervasive and ubiquitous, whether auditory, visual, or textural. The supply of noise is infinite.

9a/ Noise becomes data when it transcends the purely sensual and has cognitive pattern; when it can be discerned and differentiated by the mind. Data, in turn, becomes information when it is assembled into a coherent whole which can be related to other information in a way that.

9b/ ...adds meaning. (Bateson's definition of information as “a difference that makes a difference.”) Information becomes knowledge when it is integrated with other information in a form that is useful for deciding, acting, or composing new knowledge.

9c/ Knowledge becomes understanding when related to other knowledge in a manner that is useful in conceiving, anticipating, evaluating, and judging matters beyond the reach of information. Understanding becomes wisdom when informed by ethical, moral, and beneficent purpose...

9d/ ...and principle, along with memory of the past, and projection into the future. The fundamental characteristics of the opposite ends of this spectrum are very different. Data, on one end of the spectrum, is separable, objective, linear, mechanistic, and abundant.

9e/ On the other end of the spectrum, wisdom is holistic, subjective, spiritual, conceptual, creative and scarce.”

10/ “Understanding requires mastery of four ways of looking at things - as they were, as they are, as they might become, and as they ought to be.

11/ Educe is a term that should be used more often. It means “to bring or draw forth something that is already present in a latent, or undeveloped form.” Too often, we induce or compel people when we should be seeking to educe

12/ Dee’s life is a case study in multidisciplinary compounding. For DECADES, he has gotten up early enough to have 2-3 hours of self-study, consuming everything from biographies, history, organizational theory, economics, science, philosophy, and more.

13/ He has devoted his life to the study and implementation of these ideas. This seems like the next wave, washing away Industrial Age thinking and assumptions. How can you run with these ideas and incorporate them into your life, business, thinking?

14/ Learn more here https://blas.com/on-dee-hock/ 

15/ Follow @deewhock and visit his page http://www.deewhock.com/ . He lists several beautiful essays that are well worth reading

16/ Listen to this 7-part podcast series https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/the-innovation-show/e/68225703