Quick article here.

The key line -

"Data showed that the top four priorities for HR managers today are performance management, skills and competency management, succession planning, and learning management. At the same time, responses indicate that HR managers believe they have the least amount of expertise in these four functional areas. According to the research, only 35% of organisations have any type of automated performance management system and 58% rely on paper based processes. A significant majority – 68% -- of respondents indicated that integration of learning and HR systems is critical or important to their organisations."

That's the problem of course, with performance and skills management systems.  About 60 to 70 percent of the HR departments, talent agents, etc, simply don't have the time to create these jobs and models.  That's why even when there is an organization that is utilizing a learning management system - and they get some performance and competency management piece as part of the package - studies show that 70% of these systems go unused, or at least vastly underutilized.

I've been away for awhile, and haven't posted.  Hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving!

Outside of my own practice, I've been one of the watchers of the Integral Wiki. 

What this means is occasionally adding something, and then also occasionally reverting pages. when the wiki version of spam hits the site.

Because of my involvement with Integral Wiki, I have now registered with the main Wikipedia. 

After doing this, I've now come across a couple of cool WikiProjects. 

One I will point to now, is the Wikiproject for Spirituality and also the Wikiportal for Spirituality.

Both of these come with "To Do" lists, places where people can contribute. 

It's interesting to look through, and I will most likely start double posting anything that I do to the IntegralWiki, back to the main Wiki portal.

Here's an example of the previous post, and the point I was getting at:

The Wikipedia has a decent introduction to meditation - basic, but decent - with information about various studies and applications from medical research.  (Click the link "Health applications and clinical studies of meditation").

As a foray into the theory of meditation and the brain, here's a quote from the Wikipedia:

"One theory, presented by Daniel Goleman & Tara Bennett-Goleman (2001), suggests that meditation works because of the relationship between the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex. In very simple terms, the amygdala is the part of the brain that decides if we should get angry or anxious (among other things), and the pre-frontal cortex is the part that makes us stop and think about things (it is also known as the inhibitory centre)."

Basic stuff - but easily able to be built upon.  In addition, the reference links and cites from the Wikipedia article are fairly rich.

Since I've posted some about meditation, it's effects, and a few days ago pointed to some research showing changes in the brain for meditation, I thought it would be worthwhile for those who have both a spiritual and research bent, to mention a good place to start regarding these investigations.

The Physical and Psychological Effects of Meditation, published by the Institute of Noetic Sciences, is as good a place as any to start.  You'll find a lot more references from here, to other sources and places that are continuing research now.

Michael Murphy is co-writer of this article, which makes sense to me, since as a book, The Future of The Body is as good a place as any to start as a reference book for studies on meditation, or studies of human potential in general.

The two main tomes in my library during the 90's, were SES, and The Future of the Body.

For myself, I thought for awhile that I would have loved to get paid to do the type of research that is investigated by the Institute of Noetic Sciences.  I entertained getting a PhD there, but I couldn't imagine being on the hook for 80K to 100K at the end of it.

For the spiritual research crowd, is there another comprehensive reference work that is just as important? 

Let me know! 

Also, this TYPE of research, or at least the analysis and recommendation of this type of research, can be forwarded by the blogosphere.  We are starting to do some of this with IntegralWiki, and the framework of Michael Bauwens. 

But, it goes slowly, since the demands of life interfere.

 I pretty much don't use any other rss reader anymore.  Between the stars, and the tags, I'm finding that Google Reader gets all my needs and - MOST of the time, is quick loading.

Things I would love to still see -

Searching WITHIN my feeds - the My Web functionality of Yahoo.  (I wonder if there is a way to combine them both - hmmm...)
Expanding tag and label functionality, easier way to tag.
Rate posts from within reader.

Other things I will think of later...

In the other vein, a post at How to Save the World on finding your genius.

I do find the diagram very useful, with the ideal area being number 3 of the diagram.

I also have doubts that one's "genius" is necessarily what is needed, or what you love.  A good example of this is, say, spiritual achievement, or helping others spiritually.  I myself LOVE this - yet I cannot say I'm the best achiever, or useful at helping others spiritually. 

So the favorite avocation is not necessarily the vocation.

That is why the diagram is more realistic, to what reality is giving me.

 

I've been very please to read a whole series on work, love, and spirit, that has been an ongoing series, over at Syntegral (or maybe sIntegral, but I like syntregral. It's my blog, I'll call his blog what I want to!) Starting with the post "The Eros of Marx", and continuing through now - with the latest post being "Following Bliss as a Goal...Or...As Process?". The series starts with a clear statement of intent, subscribed to Freud:   more »

Look at this link.  It's Google Base, used as an event calendar, integrated with Google Maps. 

In addition to the search, there are sub-searches, based on tags, date, etc.  Then to a description of the events, with pictures, reviews, etc.

I can only imagine how full this will end up getting, in the future.

Saw this article on the New York Times, about LIME, "Healthy Living With a Twist".

Called a "New Age" channel - and it does have Deepak Chopra - what I notice is the full multi-media platform.  Like Integral Naked, or like Noetic Institute's Shift In Action, the platform includes video, audio - and in the case of LIME, blogging.   Probably some other stuff I haven't run across...

Also, from a simple marketing perspective - I notice that there will be a radio channel on Sirius, for LIME. 

Given the amount of material at Integral Naked now, I wonder if anyone over there has thought of arranging alternative distributions of some of the multimedia content on Integral Naked?

Lastly - given the explosion of content - video, audio, text, blogging, that now inundates anyone who is "connected", the last remaining puzzle which isn't present is community programs and participation.

Here are the five basic modules that are the foundation of an integral life -

Module 1 - Spiritual Practice

Module 2 - Health and Exercise

Module 3 - Interpersonal Relationships

Module 4 - Career and Money

Module 5 - Psychological Health, Stability, Motivation, Meaning

These 5 modules form the basis and foundation for an Integral Practitioner.

It's important to note that most authentic spiritual paths and communities, in some way, address all five. 

I'll be posting (or re-posting, in some cases) evaluations that exist online - and next steps offered from those evaluations - for each of these modules.

So make sure to stop by!

Now that Google Base has been release, it's time to talk about how Google Base can contribute to the open source accumulation of spiritual realization.  This builds on yesterday's post, about data collection to evaluate and build models of behavior and practice which can be confirmed or disconfirmed.

Take a look at Google Base, for the moment.  I'll have much more to say later. 

Vince has begun the reflection on his 6 week retreat, with his first installment. 

Definitely go check it out!

Saw this article on the Google process. 

It's a fascinating article, for a few reasons -

One, they hire the best of the best, and they make sure to get people who not only are smart, but who are also easy to work with, by insisting on like-minded cooperation, and not "personal".  A few examples:

a. No one can call an idea "stupid".
b. An emphasis on teamwork:  "Some brilliant prospects don't get hired, flaming out when background checks show they are difficult to work with. "It takes discipline not to hire some of these people, they are so smart," says engineering chief Alan Eustace. "But it also doesn't take much for a single person to subtract 10% from everyone else. Very quickly, that reduces your total output.""
c. "In some meetings people aren't allowed to say "I think … " but instead must say "The data suggest … "

So the social and interpersonal aspects of a person, are just as important as the intelligence of that person.  You can see that this minimizes the ego clashes, between otherwise brilliant people.  In integral language, good development lines in both social, cooperative, and of course technical skills.

For as long as it lasts, this truly is the "flatter" networked company of the future - much less hierarchy, projects developed and then abandoned if they don't work (no attachment!), tremendous productivity and flexibility.

One last point - the emphasis on data. 

After spending time on the Integral Spirituality draft last night, I got to thinking about what a tremendous proposal Integral Methodological Pluralism is.  To take any aspect of a situation, and INVESTIGATE this situation from one of the eight angles. 

The example uses is Kohlberg, and moral development. 

In this situation, Kohlberg gathered data over YEARS, and then collated this data into a hypothesis of the nature of moral growth and development. (The 3rd person perspective of 1st person values). 

Various integral claims, meditation claims, and practice claims, require similar data sets, in order to move a hypothesis to beyond a pleasing story. 

Otherwise, there simply remain disconnected claims, for various dimensions of life.

Perhaps in the future, there will be applications that allow people to act, in small groups, and submit data.  Here's a process proposal.

Meditation practice for 30 minutes, with a diary submittal. Have a group of 10-100, to however many more, doing this.

a. The person Mark beginning of practice - the person submits that he has practice started on cellphone.
b. Person submits that the practice session has ended.
c. At end of practice, record online diary of experience (or perhaps submit diary by voice to go to online repository).
c. That data can then be collated, analyzed, cross-referenced and compared (perhaps with pre-existing personality evaluations), so that theories such as Kohlberg's are more easily created - or more easily dismissed.

I think the connected internet phone - or some similar unobtrusive gadget - is the only way to get these type of real time, large, datasets recovered.

Any other thoughts on this?

The plan is to dive into Integral Spirituality.  So this should be interesting!

Everyone else has been blogging about this, so I figured I would too.

There is another study showing that, yes, meditation DOES alter the structure of your brain.

Brain imaging of regular working folks who meditate regularly revealed increased thickness in cortical regions related to sensory, auditory and visual perception, as well as internal perception -- the automatic monitoring of heart rate or breathing, for example.

The study also indicates that regular meditation may slow age-related thinning of the frontal cortex.

"What is most fascinating to me is the suggestion that meditation practice can change anyone's gray matter," said study team member Jeremy Gray, an assistant professor of psychology at Yale. "The study participants were people with jobs and families. They just meditated on average 40 minutes each day, you don't have to be a monk.

Well, that's a good thing, since I'm not a monk! 

This has been a question of debate here in the integral blogosphere - whether the earlier studies actually showed some brain changes.  From what I recall (I've been looking for the study, but I've run out of time, and wanted to get this posted), the brain changes claimed by the other study weren't the same.

Still, it makes sense that changes from meditation happen.  Alterations in brain chemistry come about because of exercise, for an example (in terms of a better mood), so why should meditation be any different?

It will be interesting, in the coming years, to find what parts of the brain are "fixed", and what parts have some malleability.  Especially with more experience in chemistry, and over a decade of targeted smart drugs, who knows what is on the horizon?

I had to link to it.

I am of course speaking about the incomparable Alan Moore.   This came from Al Billings over at Watching Rats Abandon Ship (one of the top ten Magickal/tech blogs out there), and it is an interview with Alan Moore, that's pretty wide-ranging.

I hope to post the "ending of the world" from one of his more recent creations, Promethea.  It's an amazing piece of writing.

Thanks to Integral Options, but in the wealth of information over at Integral World, I had missed the back and forth about the "Mean Memes".

Here's an article pointing to the Mean Orange Meme (It's true MOM's can be mean!).  This article complains about Wilber's focus on the Mean Green Meme (MGM).

Here's a response by Wilber, who assures that the MOM mean is very destructive, and equates it with flatland.

He also mentions the other Mean Anocronysms - the MBM, as an example.

For myself, I get the points of these articles - but I can't help but smile and/or giggle either.

I see all these tribble-like things on the floor - red, and blue and orange, growling at me.

I jsut find the juxtaposition of this high philosophical conversation with "watch out for the MGM!" - well, funny.

One of best ways that I've found to think about integral theory, is to think of it as a series of typologies.  After all, in integral theory, we have:

a. States
b. Stages
c. Levels
d. Lines
e. Quadrants

But because so much is involved in the various TYPES of consciousness - this ends up being a static map. 

And a lot of the further analysis is also based on types, or being static.

While there is nothing wrong with this - life occurs "in the flow", so to speak. 

It's dynamic.  It's process.  The ongoing moment by moment now.

In that vein, I thought I would forward on this work on Towards an Integral Theory of Process Dynamics.

The metaphor mainly used is the tango.

Premise 1, It takes (at least) two (of something) to tango, reminds us we cannot regard any individual or system of any kind as isolated in its own orbit, but rather seek out where the reciprocity dynamics are happening, and expect to find layers of them, like ripple effect interactions. -

Premise 2, Whatever we don’t tango with directly (but could), we put “out there,” has significant implications. It reminds us we need to learn how to recognize projections, to keep an eye out for those that get parked on Saturn, to be alert to look for and reclaim them, and consider the conditions and potentials for projection dynamics in all our human undertakings. It highlights projection because it seems little-known or recognized outside the field of psychology, even though it plays phenomenal roles wherever human beings are concerned. If this premise gained traction, supportive human development methods that help people and societies recognize and reclaim their projections, along with the creation of healthier holding environments so fewer projections develop, might become higher on social change agendas. -

Premise 3, There are limits to what we can tango with, and they diminish as we develop, calls our attention to learning about and applying some basic understandings of structural limits germane to human and social functioning. The adult developmental psychology and transformative learning fields, which are as instrumental in this premise as complexity sciences, demonstrate their own limits in various ways, yet they are some we need to keep referring to, developing further, and integrating with other fields of research and practice. -

Premise 4, There are common dynamic processes involved in dancing the tango, encourages us to learn how to adjust our zoom lenses appropriately to look for and notice the dynamics going on all the time. It encourages us to decenter our attention enough to notice fractal patterns that can help us transfer our learning about how things work in black boxes at many human scales. It gives us some ways to start noticing our own “inner” dynamics, which can help us discover our own projections, assumptions, etc. This premise can help us make sense of how these dynamics affect what we want to learn, understand, or support, because the processes are what comprises whatever we consider our focus. Nothing is standing still inside the black boxes. -

Premise 5, Something new emerges from each and every tango, emphasizes the massive co-creative learning laboratories in which, with which, and as which we exist. It reminds us we need to find ways to identify and consider the complex range of environments interacting and/or coupled with anything we study. It challenges us to take a dynamic, processually-integrated approach to all phenomena, because all phenomena are dynamic processes in an ongoing pattern of co-creative evolution.

Now, this particular article is lacking in terms of depth.  But processes, vibrations, energies - the timeless now is never still, but always flowing, breathing, expanding and contracting.

Has anyone seen any other pointers to a "process-oriented" integral?

From the English edition of Der Spiegel.

Good article, fleshing out all points of view. More in-depth than most other articles I've seen on this.

Saw this article on Wired - the main point -

Twenty-five investment groups, representing about $21 billion in assets in the United States, Europe and Australia, are signatories to a "joint investor statement on freedom of expression and the internet," an initiative spearheaded by the media watchdog Reporters Without Borders.

While normally this would be Catallaxis's beat (Daniel O'Connor) I thought I would point to it, as this is an example of an "integrated framework".  In this case, stockholders (and theoretically, the officers of a company express stockholders will) wish to invest in companies that have a balanced attitude, that produce profits AND also respect human rights. 

Since I believe there are some studies that show that companies that have these type of values tend to have less corruption, better value over time, it can make financial sense, as well as moral sense.

From Tim Boucher, saw this article about Giant Apes - or Gigantopithecus blackii - and it gave me a smile.

Integral Options has an analysis of Hilary Clinton as a politician - and goes into how she uses language to appeal to different value systems, in the same speech.

Check it out.

I've continued to experiment with Google Reader, and the functionality keeps getting better.  I am now receiving podcasts from Integral Naked at Google Reader - and it's great, because I can access them from anywhere.

Here's the link by the way -

http://www.integralnaked.org/podcast/atom.xml


Here, for example, is Ken Wilber on Tonglen

Is anyone here an MMPORG (Massive Multi-player Online Roleplaying Games) fan?

I have never gone into this arena, for fear of getting sucked in - but it occurs to me that all of the social aspects of the internet which I've been pointing to, in this blog, are pretty much already present in the MMPORG's.  Social world, identity and history, items and agendas, interests, etc.

Has anyone ever planned or participated in a "meetup", focused on integral?  What are the thoughts around this?

And falling off the wagon of consistent practice as a result. 

I find myself "in meditation" at odd times, and then also relying on a couple of guided meditation in my I-Pod, as the mind and body stay in motion.

Full stop mentally, when travelling on a bus, is always a strange and wondrous thing.

Great diagram from How to Save the World, about how social networking works, and the tech tools that have developed to serve this need.

The first is by Joe Perez, titled "Gay Culture's Over - What's Next?".

What I like about this article, and the article by Sullivan this points to, is the shifting sense of identity in the cultural world, and how identity changes over time.  Am I identified as gay, as buddhist, as a nationalist, as whatever the heck I am?  With this identification, do I wall myself off with those who share my identifications, or do I still interact with others outside of that identification?  Do I claim my ethnic background (in some sense a smaller sense of identity), and go out from there to a larger embrace of universal and spiritual values, or do I minimize an ethnic background, in order to emphasize my embrace of integral or spiritual values?

Also Tuff Ghost has a great integral analysis on the clash of values embodies by the death of Theo Van Gogh. 

Particularly the discussion of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who is a female Muslim apostate, threatened by other fundamentalist Muslims in her country.

While it is very easy to say the ideal is "unity-in-diversity", in practice, values that are held important by me, or anyone, are in a sense violated all the time, either of a secular or religious nature.  So there are fundamental commitments that we have - whether to certain social freedoms, the ability to wear certain clothes, or not others, the ability to allow certain practices, and not others.

What is allowed and not allowed in practice, what you approve of, or dont approve of - economically, socially, artistically, and religiously - we all have these stated and unstated commitments. 

I've been noticing the various controversies - here, here, and here - regarding the new Google Print program.

For the life of me, I can't understand what the issue is, from the brief looking I've done.

Here are two searches on Google Print.

Non-duality

Ken Wilber

Take a look at what is viewable for a particular copywrighted book.

You've got:

Front page
About this book
Copyright
Table of Contents
Index
Back cover

I have tried to see more information - I can't get there. 

So why the freak out by the publishing industry?  This function simply makes it easier to discover hard-to-find book.  If I'm not mistaken, Amazon does something similar.