Open letter to the Three Kings. What gift would you ask for for the Age of Collaboration?

If we are not able to think and put on paper what we really want, it is impossible for us to achieve it.

The end of the year is coming, and with it, the time to take stock. What can we improve on? There are many things, of course, but perhaps the most important thing is to always keep the illusion alive. Here I send an open letter to the Three Kings. I would like that, by writing it together, we would be able to make a complete list of the “gifts” we need to grow and improve in the current scenario of collaboration and shared knowledge.

I have come up with 10 requests that I consider important. Now I need your contribution. What gift would you ask the Three Wise Men for the Age of Collaboration?

Dear Three Kings,

I don’t know if this year, with the one that is falling, you will be able to come loaded with gifts. It is possible that you will have to stay halfway due to lack of budget; it may also happen that an unscrupulous merchant has stolen your camels in one of those famous pyramid scams. Maybe you think that what we deserve is “a sack full of coal”… Maybe, but the truth is that my parents warned me many times and, despite this, in the end you were always very generous. So I have not lost the illusion. Precisely because of all this, because we are in crisis and you are short of resources, this can be a good year to make a different list of requests; a list with gifts that do not cost too much money, but that can help us improve in the essentials. Here is my list:

1. New rules for the game

The problem is not the concept. We have been playing it for 25 centuries and improving it step by step, with a lot of effort. But there are still some things that do not work well. Its ultimate goal was to create just societies, governed in a participatory way by free and equal citizens, and the truth is that we have not achieved it. Citizen participation is far from what was expected. We vote less and less, and as the elections take place, we feel more and more distant from our representatives. To make matters worse, some players continue to keep cards under the table, others are dedicated to slowing down the game, and there are still many who abuse their position. That is why I ask you for a new set of rules. I would like these new instructions to take into account the need we have to make our Democracy truly participatory; that politics be transformed into free and open conversations between citizens concerned about their problems and for a fairer world. I would also like us all to participate collaboratively in the game, with rules that reward the creation of social value. To achieve this, you don’t need to bring us the tools. In past years we have already asked you for the collaboration platform and social networks that make it possible for citizens to actively participate, and the truth is that they are great. With them we can collaborate, learn and create a network without limits or borders. What we need now is the will to build a fairer and more fun game together.

2. Scissors to cut with the past

You know better than anyone that we are in a new era, in which the most important thing is collaboration. We must build, together, knowledge and collective intelligence. But the weight of everything we have created in the past prevents us from rising to the surface. After decades of orthodox management, we have become accustomed to managing organizations with recipes from the past, which no longer make any sense, and that keep us anchored to the previous era, the Industrial Age. Therefore, it would be good for us to have a good pair of scissors with which to cut those ties. This scissors thing is not a whim. You can’t imagine how difficult it is for us to convince our leaders that “command and control” is no longer sustainable, and that we must create new organizations that are more transparent and fun, designed for people, and in which leadership and innovation is a job shared by all.

3. A new way of looking at things

The idea we have about organizations belongs to the last century. Until now, we have placed the emphasis on work and capital. But the creation of value today is in collaboration and the management of human capital. That’s why our old managerial glasses are no longer useful. We need to completely change our vision: the structures we have created are extraordinarily complex, and no longer allow us to respond quickly and effectively to the accelerated changes of a global market without barriers. With so many rules and limitations, and so many unproductive routines, we have ended up annihilating the passion of our employees. The weight of hierarchy, the lack of flexibility, endless meetings, paperwork and bureaucracy, exhausting schedules, ordering and commanding… Decade after decade we have been adding these and other elements of complexity, until we put an end to creativity and passion. And it is precisely creativity that our organizations need today. That is why, dear King and Queen, it is urgent that you send us new glasses, binoculars or a telescope if necessary, so that we are able to see things in a different way, to adopt a new radically different point of view.

4. Pills 2.0 for personal growth

I suppose you already know: now, we call everything new 2.0. It’s a way of saying that the world is changing in all orders, and that we need a new version of ourselves, and a new leadership for the future – which we have called Leadership 2.0- to face the new opportunities and challenges of the Age of Collaboration. Everything is changing around us, new forms of collaboration, new ways of organizing in networks and new models of economic and social value creation are emerging. The opportunities for collaboration, learning and solidarity action are endless.

We need to develop new skills to establish our identity and our relationships in the new social structures that have emerged on the Internet; we need new communication skills in the natural language of our children, the digital natives. We need, therefore, new skills to collaborate, share, learn and execute in global and open networks. That is why I ask you for a good box of Pills 2.0 to accelerate our personal development in this new world. Many friends of mine, who have already tried them, have assured me that they are frankly useful to overcome the fear of “not touching”, and that with them we can have fun participating in the new conversations that emerge every day on the network.

5. A wake-up call to politicians

I’m sure you will agree with me: politicians cannot continue to live thousands of miles away from the citizens who elect them. Nor can political parties continue to become a barrier to citizen participation, with their endogamous vision and blind obedience. It is important that we take advantage of this Era of Mass Collaboration to move towards new ways of doing politics. We need a more transparent and participatory politics, focused on creating social value, and not on maintaining power at all costs; a politics of collaboration, and not of continuous confrontation, focused on what unites us and not only on what divides us. But, above all, we must move towards a politics of values, which encourages and makes possible the participation and commitment of citizens in the governance of society.

I would like you to help politicians discover that they have at their disposal new and powerful tools to know, first-hand, the needs of citizens. It’s a complicated request, I know, but you are magicians and you can do anything, right?

6. An alarm clock for citizens

Some citizens have already discovered it, but others are still dozing between the sheets: web 2.0 allows us to organize ourselves in a network to effectively influence political decision-making. If we organize ourselves, we can give a wake-up call to those politicians who intend to live on a separate planet. That is why I ask you for a good alarm clock, with a powerful bell that helps us get the sometimes lazy citizen conscience out of bed.

Included in this petition is my personal desire to see our digital natives incorporated into politics as true “Citizens 2.0”. These new citizens know the benefits of learning and collaborating using the new social communication platforms, and are able to share their concerns, their concerns and their political action on the Internet as grassroots activists who have discovered their power to change everything. Their values of collaboration, and their actions through the Internet and the different communities and social networks, can forever change the ways of doing politics. H A more participatory, transparent and inclusive Democracy 2.0, based on values of equity, sustainability and social justice, is in our hands. But any help, including of course yours, is welcome.

7. Transparent walls

I’m sure you’ve already noticed: we continue to build the walls of our organizations with opaque materials. It’s an obsolete construction system, which has been on the verge of collapsing many times already, especially in recent months. But we don’t learn. We continue to hide and dose information for our own benefit, without realizing that today, thanks to the technological platform, information flows in all directions with hardly any barriers. We need transparency to regain citizens’ trust in institutions. We need transparent organizations to generate the necessary trust and overcome the uncertainty that is always present in our relationships with others. In a very short period of time, organizations that are not transparent will eventually disappear. The digital revolution is shredding at accelerated speed, and forever, the curtain that has always hidden the reality of organizations from public view. However, there are still few companies willing to accept and handle this new reality. Therefore, I ask you to bring us transparent construction material, to see if we are able to take a step forward before it is too late.

8. An injection of solidarity

Don’t believe me, there is also very good news here. At this very moment in which I am writing to you, there are millions of people collaborating with each other, contributing their knowledge and passion to the community on a voluntary basis. That means that the desire to help, to share and to collaborate beats very strongly among people. The important thing now is that entities such as NGOs are able to channel all that effort and dedication. I ask you for a good dose of encouragement for all these organizations, so that they continue to work with passion and take advantage of this great opportunity for the benefit of all.

9. A Magnet for Talent

You know the digital natives better than anyone, the new generation of young people. In your camels you have brought them, for years and from far away, all those digital devices that have made them so different from us: the computer, the mobile phone, the console, etc. That is why, as you have known them for a long time, you know that their creative talent is impressive. You also know that they are the true protagonists of this Age of Collaboration; that Web 2.0 is their playground, and that with their contributions they are building the largest corpus of knowledge in the history of humanity. As you can imagine, we need to attract that talent to our organizations. Therefore, I would like you to bring us a good magnet to attract and, if possible, retain digital talent.

10. A Load of Optimism

In times like this, when the world is changing at full speed, we always miss an extra dose of energy, good spirits and optimism. If we find ourselves dull and without strength, changes come at us like a mountain, and end up crushing us. On the other hand, if we face the situation with optimism, we are able to find excellent opportunities to grow and improve at all levels. The important thing in life is not what happens to you – that is largely a matter of chance; what is truly important is what YOU do with what happens to you. It is evident, then, that positive thinking has an immense power to generate energy in difficult and uncertain moments. Therefore, I ask you for a good load of optimism, so that we can take on challenges with joy. You, who know almost everything, will have heard this phrase many times:

Both the optimist and the pessimist are right: it is simply a glass half full of water. What is really important is that each of us chooses, and with our choice – in a positive or negative key – we build our reality.

And your gift?

Well, and now it’s your turn. What gift would you ask the Three Wise Men for the Age of Collaboration? What do you think we need to improve and grow at all levels in this new era of collaboration and shared knowledge? This is an open letter: go ahead and ask them for a gift. You never know… Thank you very much for your contribution, and Merry Christmas.