Experiential Learning: Beyond Our Borders...

Have you ever found yourself walking down a sidewalk or path somewhere in the United States of America, curious about what your journey ahead will discover?

In 1974, the country was in a different era of change. Walking down towards campus on “The Hill” in Boulder that crisp September Fall, the clan of Hare Krishnas were in front of the book store dancing and expressing their heritage in dress and song.

The Vietnam War was winding down and 58,000+ Americans had made the ultimate sacrifice.

The next four years was going to be full of extreme “Experiential Learning”.

Whether it was navigating the problem-sets of achieving a B.A. in International Affairs within the famous University of Colorado - IAFS Program in the College of Arts & Sciences department, or exploring the favorite steep mountain trails on the weekends, there would be many new challenges ahead.

While taking a full load of International academics, pledging one of the leading national Fraternities and earning a spot on the NCAA Div I National Championship (20) Ski Team (B), the chance to learn the “Art of Leadership” in real-time became achievable.

By the end of those 4 years, it was now time to leave the collegiate experiential learning and to become curious and to explore our world of business.

You can try to put your USA life in context by reading books and visiting a few states, yet you must get out of our country to really learn and understand our nation even better.

Journeys to Canada, Mexico, France, Australia, South Africa, Italy, Germany, England, Ireland, Scotland, and Switzerland has provided significant insight and a more full understanding of our global mosaic. That is just the beginning.

How might you travel our world working and/or vacationing to increase your knowledge and experience to learn what it is like to be an “American”, visiting another country?

In your future, whenever you have the opportunity to have a dialogue with a new acquaintance, ask them to find out their personal level of global context.

Ask them about their particular experiences with living and exploring new and different cultures, while seeing and witnessing something new outside the USA.

So what?

Our global world is not only vast in its geography, it is deep in history and worthy of our true “Experiential Learning”.

Get out of your own neighborhood. Out of your State. Get out of your Country.

Increase your own context on the “What”, “Where”, “How” and just maybe you can start your understanding of the “Why”.

Whether it is Paris, Geneva, Sydney, Cape Town, Rome, Berlin, London, Dublin, Edinburgh, Kabul, Abu Dhabi or exploring the hiking trails above the Virginia USA Potomac River outside Washington, DC, get out there and increase your global experiences.

Better understand and learn what makes our world, what it has now become in 2022. Gain new international context. Feel what it truly means, to be an "American"...

Complacency: Zeros & Ones of Safety...

How might you increase your own resilience to known potential risks in your business operations or even personally this week, or this month?

We all know that growing up, Mom and Dad would teach us, “Don’t talk to strangers”. “Don’t play with matches”. “Wear your seat belt”. Why?

Even a U.S. President is famous for his quote: “Trust But Verify”.

Our life long history of financial transactions and your own personal biometric identity, has made its way online and into the Zeros and Ones digital realms of the U.S. government, Google, Amazon, Apple, Nordstroms and even Netflix.

The single phone number and the e-mail address you have retained for a decade or more, tells almost your entire life story. Where, What, When. How.

In the years past, as you were experiencing all the new mobile technologies and digital services available to you, remember that so too, are the “Nation States” and the “International Criminal Syndicates.

You, the “Human Being” operator, are the single greatest risk to your business and your family safety.

Is it possible that your own personality traits are being exploited by commercial enterprises? Yes.

Is it conceivable that every time you provide a phone number at your retail check out stand to gain rewards, that this contributes to your profiling by Artificial Intelligence (Ai) algorithms with Data Brokers? Yes.

Your business organizations safety and your own families potential vulnerabilities to a spectrum of Operational Risks, are continuously at stake.

When will you make a commitment to change your behavior and to build a discipline that endures and increases your resilience at work and at home?

So what?

If you as a Mother or Father, or Brother or Sister have ever said, “You can’t have a phone until you are 13,” then you have a personal and vital life opportunity before you.

If our own society that is visible in our own cities and geography, has evidence of rising risk and lower levels of personal safety, you might think of our vast searchable World Wide Web as just the top of the “Iceberg”. 

However, 90% as you may know, is below the surface and not visible, also known as the “Dark Web”.

"Yet most average users of corporate business networks have little insight into the growing losses from ransomware. A review of 2021 8-K filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission reveals a more complete picture of the financial damage from ransomware." CSO Online by Cynthia Brumfield

It all begins with a click in an e-mail or text message, from those behind the curtain, or below the surface, utilizing their “Social Engineering” processes across millions of users profiles, purchased somewhere on the Dark Web.

Personal Profiles built and donated as a result of your own activities and actions. Why do you think that the “Digital Forensics” industry is booming?

So what is the solution? How can the growing threat ever be minimized?

It begins here. Less complacent attitudes and behavior in the Board Room and the Family Room is our only hope. It is our only proactive solution towards true resilience.

Just Remember. Don’t play with matches or digital unknowns. Teach someone else the same...

Mosaic: Launching New Solution Navigators…

There are countless people and organizations who are articulating the problems that exist in your agency, your business or your non-profit.

Some international entrepreneurs are assisting those who have not developed their own concept selection and development team with solving the identified and validated problems.

The challenge in most entities has been enough resources and the correct people dedicated to defining the problem-sets and then applying a proven methodology for creating a solution space with a mission to deliver potential prototypes for testing.

How fast does your organization move from “Problem Definitions” to “Deliverable Solutions” ?

Well that is going to depend on what business or industry you are competing in across your geographic area. Are you in a small business? A regional enterprise. The national leader in ordering stuff online made by someone else and then delivering it to your customers household doorsteps?

Or are you in a services institution that invents and delivers new process designs. New intellectual capital. New creative ideas. New real-time OSINT information.

Moving from a past historical era where “Problem-space to “Solution-space” may take years, now our 2022 world is witnessing this time line whittled down to days, hours or even seconds.

In our current digital environment, utilizing Quantum capabilities, the problem may be solved in a minute or a second or two.

If you are trying to launch the next space craft to the Moon or Mars or beyond, it could take longer.

Yet what does all of this focus on true innovation really mean to “John Q. Citizen”?

So what?

Do you remember the first time you used Mosaic? What about the Netscape Navigator?

If you do remember, then you have a substantial set of real context on the topic of and history of creative innovation. Solving real-problems.

You actually understand and witnessed the speed at which people are capable of creating “New”.

Defining problem-sets to creating new solution-sets was a daily process for all of those "Digital Navigators" with electronic keyboards and modems in the early 1990’s.

Utilizing our Earths new World Wide Web technologies and capabilities, provided so many with the ability to explore, experiment and test, then to deliver new product solutions for those who did not even know they had a problem yet.

For those so interested in the future of our world and so eager to be innovators in 2022, sometimes you just have to study the past for a lesson. Maybe even read up on Mosaic on Wikipedia.

This journey has been epic. Now get out there and “Do” what you have a passion for and that will make a difference on this rock!

New Arrival: Curious Destinations...

When is it time to initiate a new strategic change in your future path of direction?

If you are feeling the calling away or the ambition to take on new challenges, then make your course correction with little hesitation. Your new arrival.

Listen to your heart and the future that lies just over the next horizon in front of you. Give those others who you have coached and instructed for so many years, the opportunity to step into your leadership role.

This alone will spawn a few new and challenging opportunities for change and true innovation. How will you really know when you arrive?

By using your personal keen sense of observation and asking so many questions of your peers and new colleagues, you shall find your future.

While leaving many of the past challenges you were solving over the last years, now the use of your proven methodologies and substantial training will provide you with the future insights you will now require.

You will know that you have arrived at your new and intended destination, when the feeling of joy and sense of anticipation is so present and exciting.

Have you noticed how curious you have now become again?

Heading towards the unknown and taking the turns you have never navigated before this very moment.

Now start to imagine, what it will look and feel like when you are finally there, when you have finally arrived.

Look around and take in the new and exciting unfamiliar environment now appearing before you.

Cherish the positive and now such rewarding outcomes from your evolving solutions, from your active presence and your continuous learning.

"In America, we celebrate the virtues of the quiet hero--the modest man who does this duty without complaint or expectation of praise; the man who listens closely for the call of his country, and when she calls, he answers without reservation, not for fame or reward, but for love." 

John McCain - This I Believe 

Be well. We will see you on the other side…