You Are Unchained.
Join, be effective, and become successful in the independent team networks creating a new society.
It is the sunrise of a new era.
The Netcohort are people that build projects based on technology, and join in voluntary networks to get projects done. A solid reputation is crucial.
In fast paced technology environments what you know is far more important than where you learned it. Your capabilities and character are becoming more important than organizational position or certificates.
The Netcohort teams of the new era appear to value reputation based on at least four major principles or attributes. We will examine those attributes on this page.
Go to the Netcohort Institute course description if you want a quick and easy understanding of the Netcohort. The Netcohort Institute lens will also be more approachable than this page that defines the requirements for success within the emerging Netcohort Society.
If you are ready to be immersed, let's take a deeper look at what will be required of the replacements for the bureaucratic age's middle and upper classes.
The Netcohort Is Real
The next four sections explore the minimum attributes required for success as a member of the emerging Netcohort.
Waiting for the last pieces of the bureaucratic age to fall. Maybe we should push it over and be done with it.
OK, I have nothing against the library at Pergam. However it does give a visual representation of the decay within the failing bureaucratic age.
As the bureaucratic age wanes, a new form of individualistic entrepreneur is emerging. The following will help illuminate the Netcohort that is already achieving success. Within the next decade they may become the largest segment of a prosperous and independent minded society.
The Netcohort operates on the social capital of a reputation based referral system. Participants migrate within interdependent team structures.
In fluid and informal relationships they gather together for projects. When they separate as a project ends. each has an understanding of other team members capabilities. These relationships are then used to form new teams as opportunities are discovered.
Reputation management is becoming an important, life long consideration.
Technology is empowering the individual and destroying the bureaucracy enabled middle class. Economies of scale are crumbling as technology provides individualized solutions. The new middle and upper classes are derived in a neo-renaissance manner.
"I know very well that because I am unlettered some presumptuous people will think they have the right to criticize me, saying that I am an uncultured man. What stupid fools! Do they not know that I could reply to them as Marius did to the Roman patricians: 'Do those who pride themselves on the works of other men claim to challenge mine?'"
Leonardo da Vinci
How deeply did Leonardo's detractors impact the world?
As the factory and government worker displaced the guild member - so may the Netcohort displace the bureaucratic wage slave. There is a new power coming, it is time for you to impact our world.
There are at least four attributes of a member of the Netcohort- at least the successful ones.
They must be knowledgeable, adaptable, possess integrity, and enjoy the satisfaction of doing outstanding work. Notice that being "lettered" is not in this list.
A cohort comprised of creative, technolgy empowered individuals
Building a self-tailored society -- The Netcohort Society
A cohort unbound by age, distance, gender, religion, nationality or other social divisions.
What binds the Netcohort together is the desire to create a better lifestyle for themselves and those they love. By extension that means all can prosper. Their tools of choice are technology; their unstructure thrives within reputation based Netcohort teams.
"The great virtue of a free market system is that it does not care what color people are; it does not care what their religion is; it only cares whether they can produce something you want to buy. It is the most effective system we have discovered to enable people who hate one another to deal with one another and help one another." - Milton Friedman
Participating In Collaborative Projects
Netcohort individuals of the Netcohort Society will define a Netcohort Age.
"- I don't understand a thing in your books - said Teodor.
The direction of the future is subject to guesses, but is intrinsically unknowable. At best we can master what is available while remaining adaptable to sudden change.The Netcohort Institute will be a buffet of constantly varying, student created richness. It is within your netcohort teams that the greatest nourishment will be found.
Start by increasing your personal value.
First research to discover a starting point, second start devouring knowledge related to your own passions. Third take that knowledge and accomplish something significant. You live in a quick response world. The faster you can make something happen the more impact you will have.
BUT -- if the future will be fashioned by netcohort teams; how can individuals like yourself transition from passion directed living to effective community collaboration? There needs to be a next step.
The Netcohort Institute will therefore emphasize enabling and enhancing netcohort participation in collaborative projects. The eventual focus will be on developing collaborative projects that require increasing skills, knowledge, and wisdom in order to be completed. Relationships and reputation will be built allowing further growth and opportunities.
Much like infrastructure build outs promoted growth within the industrial age, so will projects of the netcohort expand our options and potential within the netcohort age. We not only have opportunity to create a better future - but to shape its very structure.
Three "C"s that will change society;
* Collaboration - netcohort teams formed of visionaries eager to improve their lives, and as a byproduct our lives also.
* Competition - developing different and better solutions to create a winning edge, improving both the quality and the price of offerings.
* Cooperation - if it is to big to handle alone it can still be accomplished; not by inefficient coercion of governments but by willing interaction between motivated teams of individuals.
"If you wish to prosper, let your customer prosper. When people have learned this lesson, everyone will seek his individual welfare in the general welfare." C. F. Bastiat
Just as our time is mostly free of plague and famine due to progress engendered by visionaries of the last era; so marvelous benefits may accrue to society from projects soon to be envisioned by netcohort students.
"The risks and rewards of collaborative projects are greater, and of far more value to society, than any illusions of security enslaving human cogs in a social machine." - Allan Wallace
Here are a few books that were part of the basis of these ideas.
this is a new lens - there will be more stuff soon
The Sovereign Individual: Mastering the Transition to the Information Age
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The New Barbarian Manifesto: How to Survive the Information Age
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1) The Netcohort seeks knowledge and understanding.
Learning is part of the culture, each project requires new skills and applications. The netcohort thrives on 24/7/365 learning; challanging themselves with each new undertaking.
Most colleges give a degree that in effect recognizes adherence to their bureaucratic rule set. Many employers hire based on appreciation of a college graduate's compliance -- and plan to train their new bureaucratic employees for specific job duties.
The public school system is dedicated to supplying these cookie cutter employees.
The Netcohort is happily an independent bunch - learning what they love - then finding and solving a need that matches what they have learned.
The Netcohort is flexible - sometimes working alone - sometimes joining in fluid teams to accomplish a larger task. For very large projects there may be several teams each working within their own specialties.
The knowledge required to function in the Netcohort needs to be wide and it needs depth. The "long tails" concept applies, and also implies that Netcohort knowledge workers have to self-direct their own educational pursuits.
The knowledge the Netcohort needs parallels their own individualistic interests and opportunities. They are therefore primary candidates for a self directed learning style.
bureaucratic management is through
The Netcohort responds
based on respect
for accomplishment.
Bastiat Free University Weekly Journal
this college blog will keep you up to date on BFU, and on the new Netcohort Institute
Fetching RSS feed... please stand by2) The Netcohort must be adaptable to a rapidly changing environment.
Not only do the Netcohort teams and their members need to be flexible, the very essence of technological competition requires the ability to adjust to new challenges from unexpected quarters
Netcentric knowledge workers, the Netcohort, are stifled by this archaic structure.
The Netcohort is finding opportunity in the current, individually empowering, technological revolution.
The future workplace already exists as small relationship driven protean associations. The Netcohort is of necessity adaptable so as to survive within the new information and miniaturization age's transformational structure.
As bureaucratic structures deflate or implode it is the adaptable Netcohort that will enter the void and provide better service than the economy of scale based bureaucracies were able to implement.
You were born knowledge seeking - it has been beaten out of you by compliance seeking bureaucracies. Nothing is boring in the Netcohort. Once you get used to a constantly changing environment you start to enjoy the challenge.
Adaptability is once again being rewarded - discover for yourself where you wish to fit in the new Network Society.
How many of the Netcohort attributes do you posses today?
There are four attributes required to seek the best opportunities within the Netcohort.
1) Knowledge - and an eagerness to keep learning
2) Adaptability - able to adjust to changing circumstances
3) Integrity - I do my best and everyone knows they can count on me
4) Work ethic - hey, I love what I'm doing -- keep it coming
3) Integrity - a good reputation is necessary. Without a good reputation the other attributes may mean nothing.
Be careful - it takes almost no time to destroy trust. It takes a long time to rebuild it.
You must trust your team members and they must trust you. Fail at this and you may not even be allowed to complete the project. It will also make it very difficult to acquire other projects.
Reputation based systems are the basis for Netcohort interactions.
Western schools have a decided anti-business bias. Many teachers imply or declare that business people lack integrity and that is the reason for any success. The mass media frequently carries the same bias - and for the same reasons.
Almost none of the teachers in western schools have run a business. They are bureaucrats that distrust anyone not in their bureaucracy.
To the contrary, it is the exception that a business person is untrustworthy, rather than the rule. As many have discovered to their dismay - a contract is worthless in the hands of a crook and his lawyer.
There are more untrustworthy business people today than in the past. The last fifty years of good times have allowed some bad practices to survive. As we enter this next depression that will change.
Untrustworthy business people reflect our society just as much as the politicians we chose. Enron and Arthur Andersen were destroyed in part for using the same bad accounting practices the US government is still using.
If you are to have a long term growing business you must have a good reputation.
Business people do business with folks they trust. A good reputation is the foundation of a successful and enduring business.
A good reputation will be even more important in the future.
It is by your network that you will discover those key individuals that will help you complete your project. Those operating in a network society will not want to soil their reputation by recommending Netcohort free lancers they do not trust.
The time to start building a good reputation is today.
If those you work with now do not trust you - seek to change their minds. Also seek to discover new teams that you can work with on a basis of mutual trust.
Start small if you are just becoming part of the Netcohort- it takes time to build trust.
Your good reputation may be even more important than the other three attributes we explore here - being knowledgeable, adaptable, and being hard working.
Without a good reputation the other attributes may mean nothing.
Just a few more books for those that like to hold what they read.
These books also had an impact on the idea of the Netcohort.
The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable
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Atlas Shrugged (Centennial Ed. HC)
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Economics in One Lesson: The Shortest and Surest Way to Understand Basic Economics
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4) Work Ethic - The Netcohort does what they promised to do in a timely way with high quality results.
Find work you love and it will not be difficult to be a productive part of the team.
Whether it was public schools or oppressive work environments the rewards for excellence were small. In fact in many instances an open mind and its creative application have been punished.
A snoopy cartoon, as I remember it, opened with Charlie Brown telling Snoopy what a good dog he was.
Snoopy then chased off an intruder - the mailman; barked at a neighbor at the fence; and chased some birds off by barking at them. Snoopy was then told he was a bad dog.
Snoopy's conclusion - "the only way to be a good dog is to do nothing."
Bureaucratic institutions promote those that do not threaten their bosses. Just like Snoopy, the best way to be a middle level bureaucrat is to be pleasant looking and do nothing.
Public schools reward conformity and obedience, those are not the sort of things that result from a strong work ethic.
Many discover the difference between an "A" and an easy "B" is a great deal of work - and the rewards are not commensurate with the work required. Bureaucracies are deflating or imploding. The stilted training of today's bureaucratic educational institutions qualifies an individual for future downsizing.
Small Netcohort teams are carving out the profitable niches from huge organizations using these four attributes: Knowledge, adaptability, a good reputation, and a dedicated work ethic.
These networking team members - the Netcohort - will be the middle class and upper class of the future. Value is increasingly vested in knowledge rather than physical plant.
The too bigs - including big business, big government, big education, and big unions will lose much of the power they have exercised since the bureaucratic revolution - they will deflate.
Just as union members and low level bureaucrats replaced guild members as the middle class - the netcohort will replace the social machine cogs.
To be part of the netcohort, you must be willing to engage in ventures with great promise. Your invitations to join these ventures will to a great extent be dependent on your consistent work ethic.
It is imperative that you focus your education on gaining useful knowledge that you enjoy - rediscovering the pleasures of self directed learning.
A change is coming - in the foreseeable future - a college degree will not be nearly as important as knowledge and action. Accomplishment will rule.
To be part of the protean Netcohort society is to be engaged in 24/7/365 learning.
Rediscover the pleasures of self directed learning - and you may also rediscover the pleasures of doing excellent work.
A work ethic is normal - yours has not been killed - it has just found a safe hiding place.
I guess if you are still here you have found something of interest.
Let me know what you are thinking.
You have the potential to establish yourself outside of bureaucratic strictures and help create new avenues for personal expression and fulfillment.
Using technology, rewrite guidelines that have directed civilization the last few centuries. The bureaucrats had their chance, they ruled the bureaucratic age.
It is now your chance - how do you want to live?
You are the Netcohort - create it.
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BFuniv.com
Spirituality, Then thank you for fighting through this far. This is a new lens, I will work at making it more approachable. I need to figure out how to tell corporate types (bureaucrats) their day is ending, in a language non-bureaucrats can understand ... Posted May 25, 2008 |
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spirituality
I have trouble getting this lens. Sounds like a lot of corporate speak to me... Posted May 25, 2008 |
Was that enough for now - or do you still have question?
These featured lenses will give you some other viewpoints on the same issues.enjoy
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