French Caldwell

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French Caldwell
Research VP
11 years at Gartner
15 years IT industry

French Caldwell is a vice president in Gartner Research, where he leads governance, risk and compliance research. Mr. Caldwell also writes and presents on knowledge management. His research includes analysis of the impact… Read Full Bio

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They Did Shut Wall Street Down

by French Caldwell  |  November 17, 2011  |  Comments Off

The events today are an inflection point in social e-governance.

In my presentations on the Six Critical Uncertainties, I’ve said for years that social e-governance is the most pressing IT-led  issue of our time.  The political process is meant to resolve or at least manage public policy issues, but due to the rapid adoption of social technologies for organizing on public policy issues, the old political and governmental institutions for dealing with emerging public policy issues are eroding before our very eyes.  The legacy political process is not failing because it doesn’t work, but rather it’s failing because the traditional institutions for managing emerging social issues – political parties, oversight hearings, the traditional media, regulators, etc – are being bypassed by networks that are much better at organizing through the use of social media and social technologies.  Here’s an interesting account of the OWS protests today: http://www.businessinsider.com/live-occupy-wall-streets-early-morning-march-on-the-ny-stock-exchange-2011-11 And here’s the OWS site, where they even streamed live video feeds of the protests today: http://occupywallst.org/

And it’s not just OWS – social technology enabled groups like the Tea Parties and MoveOn have taken over from the political parties the mobilization of voters and political fundraising – so much so that the political parties are really not much of a resource for a candidate these days.  One group, AmericansElect, is trying to bypass the presidential primary process, which if successful will suck out what wind remains in the political parties: http://www.americanselect.org/

By the way – for those who haven’t seen them before, here are all of the six critical uncertainties:

  • Trust in the Connected Economy
  • The Pace of Globalization
  • The Regulation of Cyberspace
  • The 5th Generation of Warfare
  • Social E-Governance
  • Sustainability

Everyone alive today has a stake in legacy political processes – the question is, how will they adapt?  Or will they?

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