Early Visions | Bay Area 2020: An Infinite Game | Entrepreneurial Design Renaissance

7. The Bay Area can catalyze an entrepreneurial design renaissance

For the Bay Area to make the shift to Path A we need to develop our regional capacity to design, lead and transform our organizations in ways that enable organizational leaders and practitioners —

• To transcend (and include) this mechanistic view of organizations.
• To free ourselves from the shackles of the "three fatal flaws."
• To expand our design options to include initiatives that are truly generative.

The secret to breaking out of this mold will be to invest energy in cultivating and growing all four of the Design Domains described below, and to do so in ways that promote and support our pioneering leaders and practitioners in achieving breakthroughs in the lasting difference they make for and through their organizations.

1. Technological Design — The design of our things, including our built environment, i.e., our physical and electronic infrastructures.
   
   
2. Environmental Design — The design of our relationships with, and our agreements concerning, the rest of nature.
   
   
3. Social Design — The design of our purposeful relationships and agreements with each other: Our families, organizations, institutions, communities, cities, regions, nations, etc.
   
   
4. Transformational Design — The design of our approaches to learning, growing and evolving, especially as social forms.

The generative initiatives that will breathe life into this movement must be rooted in and among actual organizations from all organizational domains. They must make lasting contributions to the sustainability of their host organizations if they are to be sustainable, much less self-propagating. Those leaders and practitioners responsible for organizational design, learning and change need to be able to draw from all four design domains, and to do so in ways that enable their initiatives to take root and thrive in the climate and circumstances peculiar to the organization(s) they serve.

One of the goals of this eBook initiative is to cast a net that helps identify those resources who are best able to support committed leaders and practitioners with the design of their specific generative initiatives.

One organization that has led the way in prospecting for the Mother Lode underlying all organizational domains is the Rocky Mountain Institute.

Founded almost 25 years ago by Amory and L. Hunter Lovins, "the Rocky Mountain Institute is an entrepreneurial nonprofit organization that fosters the efficient and restorative use of resources to make the world secure, just, prosperous, and life-sustaining. We do this by inspiring business, civil society, and government to design integrative solutions that create true wealth."

Both their web site and the book, Natural Capitalism, are rich and relevant resources. Check them out.

This eBook initiative will be evolved in a way that 1) will help identify and connect such committed leaders and practitioners, and 2) also helps develop support from all four of the above Design Domains.

Our 2020 vision for the Bay Area includes pioneering leaders from all organizational domains championing generative initiatives that draw from all four Design Domains—in ways that accelerate their development and maximize the potential for entrepreneurial breakthroughs.