#Count [6]

#Count who's with you and your story. Count who's not. Help get the latter to join the former, in their interest, with the least energy consumed by you.

"Everything happens for a reason." 

(It took me a long time to hear it. It was in South Texas, some 18 years ago, as I had just landed for the interview for my first full time tenure track professor and director position, the one that helped build the case for my later becoming a U.S. Citizen. Note yesterday's [5] question. This is in part a case study on how that counting should be done.)

Life is indeed a Ponzi scheme. The world is clearly one too. Yet: good news is there is not just one Ponzi scheme. But plenty!

Choose the Ponzi schemes you're a part of. Design and run _your own_ all positive all life and world changing Ponzi schemes. Make everyone participate in these great schemes & abandon the nasty ones they've been believing in (erroneously!) for far too long. 

I _had to_ get to Texas. I had to learn Texas, to know it in some depth, to live it and to love it, to meet everyone I met and have been influenced by there, to make new amazing lifelong friends, to run into My Dear Bride, of course, but most of all, to _learn to proactively dismantle stereotypes_. 

I had to get to Texas, in 2004, it turns out, because when I was a teenager my parents brought me (from Hungary, of all places) a University of Texas branded T-shirt. What a courageous crazy thing, in retrospect, to wear that in the late 1970s, early 1980s, România. Notice how _I believed that story_, in spite of everything surrounding me telling me I shouldn't have. Notice how stereotypical views of Texas hit me in both positive (University of Texas brand & lure, Texas Instruments) and negative (politics & more) ways over time. Notice how some stories have endurance in our minds, if subconsciously so. Notice how learning to dismantle stereotypes is about people. It is about interacting with, learning to know, & trusting people. Day in and day out. (More about this later in our own 6D model—always go slow, and you'll learn much more.)

At first I thought about it—the sentence above—in the context I was in the middle of back then. (Suffice it to say I had to learn that moving was going to matter a lot.) But there was so much more to the lesson. As you can see here and now. The great thing about good lessons is that once learned they stay with you.

"When you'll get it [the doctoral degree], you'll know that it's just the ticket to get you into the ballroom. What you'll do on the dance floor is what matters."

My lady mentor of 28 years & dissertation co-chair couldn't have framed it better.

Take _it_ to mean _your own learning_ of what matters. _To build an ability & to have a desire to make a difference._

Let's watch systems thinking. Ask _your own questions_. We can answer some together if you list them below.👇

In memory of Donald T Campbell and Paul Y Hammond.🙏

Follow in the footsteps of the great.

Look inside.

Repeat.

[6]

https://youtu.be/EbLh7rZ3rhU

I don't have proof of this but I believe strongly that this is the book Russell Ackoff speaks about in his first sentence in his talk above. 

Please note that there is someone relatively (wannabe) famous in these parts of the world who is (should never) formally connected with (and hence know about) Russell Ackoff more than he ever shows. 

We know that from the misters person's much too immodest behavior and much too influential ill reasoning. Who do you think the person is? What can be done to curb said sad trend—that all too many listen to erroneously gathered false fame?

Please _also_ note that yesterday I told the story of how Russell Ackoff helped solve inner city Philadelphia "learning to read by attracting folks to watch Charlie Chaplin old no-sound movies" in the context of making that part of Yates, then Yates Nebraska, and then Yates USA. 

I told it on the way to testifying to the Nebraska Legislature to someone who helped me watch The Goonies in my 50s. 

We'll make this happen, from here in Gifford Park, to the entire country and the world. Let me know if you want to help. Thank you. 

Adrian S. Petrescu, Ph.D., J.D.

Chief Future Architect, InnovationTrek

We got here. What's next?

Accelerate Innovation. 

In companies and self.

Grow flow. Naturally.

ASPetrescu@InnovationTrek.org

#Count [5]

#Count who contributed to, and all that had to align, for you to read this today, here and now. 

Next, #️⃣🧛‍♂️count lives ahead which you will impact into the future. Make it all a good impact. Better yet, make it _the best_ impact.

Use the power of the exponential curve.📈

Once you tell a good story into the future to another, they buy it, & you don't mind the credit, there are now two of you telling that story to the world.

I imagine a world where _energy independence is of the individual_, and hybrid. Not national, monopolistic, of the fossil fuels quasi-monopolies or of the renewable energy industries quasi-monopolies. Rather, a _hybrid_ at global scale, focused on the/each individual human being, whereby we can all (yes, that's 7.9 billion all) get and use a fair share of the sun's energy.

Who can argue that in the broad scheme of things the world was intended for a bird—accessing enough energy as to keep it alive and travel across the world if so its species is meant to do—is supposed to be better off than a thinking human? That a thinking human must be relegated to lesser than the panda bear—whose life is always dedicated mostly just to eating, as its food energy density is very low—in terms of that human's ability to be just like any other human, and access enough energy to survive a _human_ life? (Many folks will argue it, but they'd be logically afailing.)

Notice how the issues are never only what someone else, with an interest to distract you, tells you they are. In any system simply doing its job at working as a system, you must get to the root of understanding how the system functions before you can safely do anything to impact it. On this planet all energy comes from the sun. Yet, some will use more of it in their daily life. Some will use much less. Much much less. It's not just _how much_ energy. But how much packed _energy density_ is being used, by everyone, and what is the distribution across "all everyones".

Once we get that economics is physics, and all that actually means, it will make much much more sense. 

"Today" [5] (was supposed to be Monday) we watch _the power of the exponential curve_. It is shown here to show _the size_ of the issue, so that we grasp later, "tomorrow," the need for proportionally responding to that size of the issue.

Anticipatedly "tomorrow" [6] we'll watch _systemic thinking_ and "the day after tomorrow," which is actually today [7], we'll watch the power of constructal law in connection to Voltera S-curves, which we've been studying for over four decades.

Yesterday serendipity had it that we went to testify on #Yates at the Nebraska Capitol. Three minutes are short, so I was brief. I could not fit in «I heard President Reagan's siren call I heard live, saying "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall." and I came to Nebraska as fast as I could.»

In memory of Donald T Campbell and Paul Y Hammond. 🙏

Follow in the footsteps of the great.

Look inside.

Repeat.

[5]

https://youtu.be/O133ppiVnWY

Adrian S. Petrescu, Ph.D., J.D.

Chief Future Architect, InnovationTrek

We got here. What's next?

Accelerate Innovation. 

In companies and self.

Grow flow. Naturally.

ASPetrescu@InnovationTrek.org

#Count [4]

#Count the tasks on your back. Shake them all off—into the water. _Make them_ water.

_Tell a better story. Let it grow._

A Great said "If someone else can do it, let them. Otherwise, get busy." Brilliant. 

We're told a story all life growing up that stuff is _our_ job. Learning new things. Doing house work in the family to make life work. When our turn comes, raising our youth. All correct. All true. All important. 

Yet: after a while you grow. Your job grows—it grows much larger than one person can do alone anymore. When that moment comes you can no longer do _your_ job all alone. A team must do it. An ever growing team of teams. You're a storyteller now. You most do your job as storyteller. You must help folks follow and build inspiring stories in the future that you can help them have the courage and resolve to build for themselves.

Changing the world requires a proportional response to the size of the task at hand. (What many call "being a bigger hammer."—was originally bring, but we'll go with autocorrect this one time.) 

If the world is stone, you can't carry water to it with a pale, all by yourself. You must bring about quite a few storms and hurricanes to do what _you_ have to do to get the job done. #️⃣🧛‍♂️💨⛈🌊🌍

[We are late by one day. Sunday. We were busy applying our own strategic advise. 5 nationalities. 4 people. 3 continents and 3 young age groups. 2 years+. 1 great idea and plan for what's next. _Yates Global_ is born. 

Watch carefully. Think. Well, count. How many years did it take, how many miles around the globe it took, for the story in the making in the picture to get here, so that it can advance from here everywhere ahead?

Don't you wish to know the "secret sauce" that we're hiding in the iPad?

Ask us👇and we might even tell. Can you recognize every place in the picture? Why do you feel they're chosen here?]

Dedicated to the memory of Donald T Campbell and Paul Y Hammond. 🙏

Follow in the footsteps of the great.

Look inside. 

Repeat.

[4]

Adrian S. Petrescu, Ph.D., J.D.

Chief Future Architect, InnovationTrek

We got here. What's next?

Accelerate Innovation. 

In companies and self.

Grow flow. Naturally.

ASPetrescu@InnovationTrek.org

#Count [3]

#Count #️⃣🧛‍♂️ how many _stories_ you believe. How many are true?

Yet, you have no real data to verify most of those stories. Nor any easily available means to gather such data if you don't have it handy, to verify its accuracy and validity, and to ensure that the stories as told are backed up by data showing them as valid.

Some are obvious. Santa Claus, anyone?

Others are not so obvious.

Crime is up. Or down.

Is it, really, or did we just issue and count more, or less, police reports? What then is up? Or down? Crime, or police reporting?

Did police seek more crime because doing so will mean a raise? Or did they seek less as they were more comfortable eating donuts and less inclined to work the streets as hard?

Were crimes reported harder to find and report or (much) less hard to find and report than crimes that were actually not found and reported? Which crime is then up? Or down? The harsher crimes? Or the lesser crimes?

(Former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani was famous for being successful at reducing crime. Except the reduction started a few years before he took office and correlated with and was likely caused by something totally different than the election of Rudy—check with Freakonomics, by Lewitt and Dubner, as they tell the story and actual counter story extremely well.)

Then let's imagine _all_ the stories that we just believe, or held to be true and still do, all our life so far and we want to keep holding true ahead for the future. This is much more serious than it may seem at first sight to the untrained eye.

Take property rights. They're actually _reduced_, not protected, by HOAs. Of course they are reduced. What were you thinking? Ask Bob Yapp.👇

Brands are cool. Of course. Believe that. We've been conditioned that way almost forever. Offer them all free advertising at your own expense, even though you may not own stock in them (yet). This is a hard one to at least count, let alone reduce further unnecessary damage. It's even worse when counting for a teenager you may have at home. Uniforms in schools may solve the issue somewhat, but let's not count on it too much. It's controversial.

Hard work pays off. Of course it does. This is true. But it's not as self evident as it may seem at first sight. Story with college is incomplete, and by far imperfect, if student loans were the price you paid for that success. Depending of field and how long it took for a degree or more, repaying loans may take away your chance at joining early enough the ranks of believers in the American dream story of home ownership, for example.

What do you mean, _story_ of home ownership? Bank owns a home until mortgage is fully paid off. You knew that. Put this story on the list. Because we believe that a home is a wealth creation vehicle. _It depends_.

Got my personalized ticket. I'm off to Cartwheel Galaxy. See y'all.😎

Dedicated to the memory of Donald T Campbell and Paul Y Hammond. Thank you.

Follow in the footsteps of the great.

Look inside. 

Repeat. 

[3]

Adrian S. Petrescu, Ph.D., J.D.

Chief Future Architect, InnovationTrek

We got here. What's next?

Accelerate Innovation. 

In companies and self.

Grow flow. Naturally.

ASPetrescu@InnovationTrek.org

#Count [2]



In our new series #count, I ask 

how many people are "like me"? 

The answer is always two fold. First, it is _none_. Second, it is "it depends." 

In what respect? is the intermediary question that _must be_ answered before one can start counting. 

Having a dishwasher? That was answered in yesterday's video by Hans, twelve years ago. 

Having read the US Constitution at 11 and having fallen in love with it, for life, in spite of the risks to life and liberty that entailed? One. Me. Because I was 11 y.o. in România and in 1976. Albeit as it turns out, you can love and recognize flaws in _something_ and want to change it to improve it, if only maybe dramatically, just the same.  

Having one's right protected by the Constitution? What about by _a_ powerful Constitution, dedicated to truly protecting human rights? _That_ is where the difficulty of real actual counting starts. Try it for yourself and see how far you can get. Suggestions on how to proceed? Write them down and see how well we can solve this simple arithmetic question.👇

Meanwhile, a good start on the learning journey, as pertaining so far to those on this land in the United States, over time, is here. Enjoy the show. It is much well worth it. If troubling, of course, as seeking truth always is. 

We thank wholeheartedly the Weitz Family Foundation, our Yates Illuminates partners, for the chance to see the show, and for bringing the show here in Omaha. A great performance. 

This series is dedicated wholeheartedly to the memory of Donald T. Campbell, and Paul Y. Hammond. Thank you.  

"Follow in the footsteps of the great.

Look inside. 

Repeat."

[2]

https://constitutionbroadway.com/

Adrian S. Petrescu, Ph.D., J.D.

Chief Future Architect, InnovationTrek

We got here. What's next?

Accelerate Innovation. 

In companies and self.

Grow flow. Naturally.

ASPetrescu@InnovationTrek.org

New one year series #Count [1]

Hans Rosling knew how to #count. He knew what may the world need to make it nicer to more of us everywhere. 

With this, today, January 20, I start a new series here, under hashtag #️⃣ Count🧛‍♂️, for a year. It is intended to open everyone's minds as to how #numbers are all too often deceiving because we're not looking at them well enough. 

(Thanks for the idea go of course to our wannabe world changer extraordinare, CEO of Tesla Motors—whom I usually call PT Barnum of this century, because he always blows smoke and wants to sound knowledgeable about things he has no idea about, from Mars "colonization" to you name it—as an example of how ignorance grows out of proportion based on the cult followership towards the promoter.  Suffice it to say, I equate him to an irrelevant soccer ⚽️ player, as speaking in international economics or physics.)

This series is dedicated wholeheartedly to the memory of Donald T. Campbell, and Paul Y. Hammond. Thank you.  

"Follow in the footsteps of the great.

Look inside. 

Repeat."

[1]

https://youtu.be/BZoKfap4g4w

Adrian S. Petrescu, Ph.D., J.D.

Chief Future Architect, InnovationTrek

We got here. What's next?

Accelerate Innovation. 

In companies and self.

Grow flow. Naturally.

ASPetrescu@InnovationTrek.org

“You could have read that book at 11, but you didn’t, did you?! Why didn’t you?”

Honesty. (Including with oneself. In thorough analysis of _everything_.)

A forgotten trait? Or, rather, a systemically buried into the ground (ostrich like) skill we by far underutilize all too often?

"I read your resume. It still isn't very clear to me: What do you do?"

"I'm in sales. I've been in sales for forty+ years."

"You are? It doesn't say sales anywhere on your resume."

"Of course it doesn't. Most important things in communication are the ones that are not said. Peter Drucker said this, I think."

"What do you sell?"

"Smoke and mirrors."

"How do you mean?"

"It's a big lie. All the stories we tell are nothing but big lies. The one I've been most successful with for over two decades is 'education will change your life for the better.' That's what I mean by smoke and mirrors. If you can sell that you can sell anything."

"Education does change lives for the better. You're a liar!"

"It does, of course. The real question is 'by how much?' when you compare with the correct comparable. As for liar, didn't someone tell you that education will change your life for the better?"

"They did tell me, and it did."

"Of course it did. What do you do?" 

"I'm the HR director here. You're supposed to know who's interviewing you."

"I know. You run the company? You own the company?"

"No, that's the CEO. The shareholders own it. I run HR."

"You own shares?"

"No. There are no stock options for us. Only for the VPs."

"That's what I thought. For how long is your contract?"

"I'm asking the questions here."

"Ok. It doesn't matter. This is a right to work state anyway, so however long your contract is it can end tomorrow."

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"What do you think? Only the good questions are worth answering, remember? We're just trying to figure out together how much of a difference in your life did education make in your case."

"It made a huge difference. My career would not have been where it is without my degrees and certifications."

"Of course not. But do you know where would you have been had you taken the other fork in the road, say when you were 11 y.o.?"

"You mean a life of crime? They asked me to sell marijuana on the corner. I refused, vehemently. Obviously. My parents taught me well to stay out of that kind of trouble."

"Of course they did. What book do you remember reading when you were 11, that marked your life forever?"

"None in particular. There weren't any good books back then."

"I bet there were. Say this one: 'One thousand ways to make $1,000' was first published in 1936. I bet you could've read it when you were 11, but you didn't, did you? Why didn't you?"

"I didn't know. Nobody asked me to."

"Here it is. https://lnkd.in/eQQNMNq8 Read it now. You have children?"

"Yes. Why?"

"Maybe you can improve their perspective on life. Show them they can choose their own books to read, without waiting for school or you parents to tell them what to do all the time. Maybe it'll help them, and society too."

"Your smoke is deep."

"Is it?..."😇

Adrian S. Petrescu, Ph.D., J.D.

Chief Future Architect, InnovationTrek

We got here. What's next?

Accelerate Innovation. 

In companies and self.

Grow flow. Naturally.

ASPetrescu@InnovationTrek.org