Seattle Heifer Community

Project Sara is an international network of scientist-activists that initially consisted entirely of management cyberneticians. We decided to apply our insights to see what could be done about the mess that we humans have made of our world. 

In January 2009 we began an effort to rethink government from first principles. It seemed obvious that governments everywhere and at all levels were failing. We decide to examine the tools available to citizens as well as the constitutions, structures, and processes of governments. 

We have some important insights but this work of rethinking continues (as of June 2009). 

In addition to thinking about the big picture, we feel it is essential to roll up our sleeves and get our hands dirty. There are two arenas where we are preparing to begin practical, community building type projects:

1. Syntegration is a decision process for groups to deal systemically with complex issue-messes. The syntegration protocol enables: 

• Articulation of the problems that are most important to the participants
• Systemic and wholistic analysis of a set of inter-related issues and objectives
• Rapid implementation of agreed upon strategies 
• The time frame from beginning to end of the analysis / planning process is measured in weeks or, for a multi-level syntegration, in months
• Syntegration has worked well in some highly politicized settings, including some in which the participants have viewed each other as deadly enemies.