no questions asked

The recent furor over Mr Brown and MICA is just the latest verse in a very old song. But with recent shifts in global trends, the world's beat is clearly changing. Perhaps it is time we start singing to a different tune.

So let's start by talking about NORA. In the post 9/11 era, NORA is one of the systems that U.S. Homeland Security relies on to develop greater synergies between its many agencies. This is especially imporatant since the post-mortem showed that various U.S. agencies had all the pieces of the puzzle, but they failed to put them together. One of the interesting concepts NORA is built on is that questions, even without answers, have a value of their own. In the past, if the CIA asks "Who is Mr Mohd" and no one knows the answer, its significance is lost forever. But now, NORA remembers. And if the FBI later asks "Who is Mr Mohd", NORA will say, "I don't know, but the CIA is asking the same question." Immediately the two agencies can link up and share the information that has led them each to independant suspicions. And if later again, NSA discovers important information on a Mr Mohd, NORA can immediately identify who needs it.

Another emerging trend is the harnessing of the masses. Chris Anderson calls it The Power of Peer Production, Jeff Howe calls it Crowdsourcing (via Legal Janitor). The hottest business model now is to design an ecosystem and then let everyone else do the work of content generation. Then the traffic and the business just flows in. We all know e-Bay, and some m ore recent examples cited are creating a TV show from the hottest videos being shared on the internet, or providing the infrastructure for amateurs (such as amateur photographers) to market their goods, and of course take a hefty cut. In this way, the system is able to tap onto the ideas and resources of the multitude.

So what does this mean to us?

One of the uniquely Singaporean OB markers that was recently bolded and underlined to Mr Brown is the need to accompany criticism with solutions. Otherwise, we are told, we are just creating dissent, which is unconstructive and unpatriotic. But if no one dares to ask the question, how can we collaborate to find the answer? Until someone identifies the problem, how will others start searching for the solution? Just like for NORA, the question is important too. It can spark open discussion so that individuals with different fields of expertise can cross swords (pens, or blogs) and find the most optimal solution.

While Singapore has survived well by nurturing a stable of immensely capable technocrats, we cannot ignore the changes sweeping through technology and business. In this new world model, we have one advantage: we have very good people. So we must find ways to tap them, before we are left behind. And one way to do this is to let me people ask questions and identify problems, even if they have no ready answers.