Michelle Long, Transparency Center

Michelle Long recently cofounded the Transparency Center, a nonprofit organization focused on facilitating transparent, stakeholder-inclusive models of trade.

Can't believe how the week is flying by! I need to hurry through today's journal entry, as I have an early appointment with a potential technology partner. Our work at the Transparency Center would not be possible without the innovations in technology we've seen over the last five years ... I can scarcely wait for the new stuff to come out. Certainly, the ideas for applications are much more advanced than the systems available. Hence, a big objective of this morning's appointment is to understand better how much of what they offer is ready and usable in the market now and how much is "vapor-ware."

Our purpose of the Transparency Center is to connect the two ends of production-supply chain, a connection that has slowly disappeared over the last 50 years. People used to know who they were buying from -- this carrot is a good carrot because Farmer Bob always grows a good, safe, tasty carrot. We at the Transparency Center intend to use new technologies to bring that kind of assurance back to people in a way that they can make better, more informed, and more responsible purchasing decisions. And we use technology to bring the values and desires of the growing population of conscious consumers back to producers in emerging communities. These farmers and farm workers are usually unaware of where their carrots are going and just how much you appreciate carrots grown in ways that are safe for the land, safe for the farmer's family to grow, and safe for you to eat for lunch. (Carrots are a simple example, but probably not the best example, as we can easily grow local carrots for local consumption.)

Yesterday was mainly spent fund-raising. I'm on a countdown to a 25 May close date for this round of investments/donations. I have a big white board in my office where I've drawn a large May calendar. Every day that's passed has a big red X through it, leading up to a big red star on the 25th. The names of supporters and potential supporters line the rest of the white board. People who have agreed to be charter supporters have black stars by their names, likely charter supporters have green stars, and all have the most recent contact date in red. I received some good advice from an executive director at another nonprofit: "You don't want anyone to invest in you that doesn't want to. They should feel it deeply, and believe in this opportunity so much that they are thankful to be revolutionaries putting their names on our future legacy." I liked that piece of advice. I know I'm grateful to work on this every day; why shouldn't our investors be just as grateful? People need to feel that their life here on earth matters and that because of their birth, things are just a little bit better.

Today there will be more investor meetings, plus a two-hour team planning session. We're a "virtual team" in that we don't all work in the same location. Therefore, it's critical to meet for at least a few focused hours every couple weeks to make sure we're all on the same page.

I also mentioned on Tuesday that I had just arrived home from the first meeting of the new trustees of the member-owned entity the Chaordic Commons. (I won't go deeply into the premise of the organization, as Donella Meadows has already written a summary of the concepts for Grist.) But for quick summary ... Dee Hock, the founder of the Chaordic Commons, was the founder of Visa and is one of 30 living Laureates of the Business Hall of Fame, and in 1992 was recognized as one of the eight individuals who most changed the way people live in the past quarter century. In his book Birth of the Chaordic Age, Hock writes "The worldwide success of Visa International is due to its chaordic structure. It is owned by 22,000 member banks, which both compete with each other for 750 million customers and cooperate by honoring one another's $1.25 trillion in transactions annually across borders and currencies."

Hock makes the case that all organizations are fundamentally based on flawed 17th-century concepts that are no longer relevant to the vast systemic social and environmental problems we experience daily. Three questions have torn at him throughout his life: "Why are organizations, everywhere, whether political, commercial, or social, increasingly unable to manage their affairs? Why are individuals, everywhere, increasingly in conflict with and alienated from the organizations of which they are part? And, why are society and biosphere increasingly in disarray?" In developing chaordic concepts that harmoniously blend chaos and order, cooperation and competition, Hock has shown us a path to a new way.

I had been struggling philosophically with a different -- but very similar -- problem to the challenge originally faced by Visa. Like Visa, which needed competing interests to cooperate on Visa standards and which would have had to have been an enormous organization to attempt central control over all banks, stores, and restaurants that accept Visa, the problem of transparent, stakeholder-inclusive supply chains is immense. What would be the best way to credibly present the truth, if we could imagine anything as possible, what would truly meet the purpose and needs? Given any scenario, would it be best for a central location/organization to be in charge? It would seem that as soon as one organization claims to be the central body for this information, motives could and should be scrutinized. Second, the issue is just much too big ... and there are too many experts. In fact, much of the challenge is in moving information from "the experts" to people in a way that is relevant to their decisions. Such an organizational "member-owned" and freely owned infrastructure doesn't exist today. Chaordic Commons entering my life became (to me) part of the answer.

I'm now a trustee of the Chaordic Commons, but just for the first year. Next year, the trustees will be voted from amongst all the members. I just attended the first trustee meeting, and it was one I wish would have been recorded and webcast so that people everywhere could have participated. The trustees represent an amazing blend of wisdom, idealism, and pragmatism. The combined intensity of brainpower so concentrated on shared purpose gave me huge hope. I was joy-filled for much of the meeting, because I see in its vision a real opportunity to wipe clean, break down, and turn inside out what is broken. If you care to join this community of change makers, to give wholly of your energy because you want to participate in making the world the way it should be, I encourage and welcome you to visit the Chaordic Commons.