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August 29, 2007

Global Prospects for Health

Definition: Health is a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. --The World Health Organization
The Integral Research Group supports global and local collaboration for the sustainable development of our planet. This planet is a living environment embodied with meaning, power and creativity.

This fascinating article explores the definition of health, models of health care and the role of the internet in creating an epidemic of well-being: READ_HERE

"It is possible to create an epidemic of health..." - Jonas Salk

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

MeshWORKS, a core technlology developed by Dr. Don Beck, enables the essential process of integrating, aligning, and synergizing resources, to meet the needs of people at different stages of development, by mobilizing all resources like laser-beams on specific challenges, goals, objectives or outcomes.

By their very nature, MeshWORKS foundations search for a central objective for which it seeks to ‘mesh’ people, organizations, and other resources. Such a transcendent purpose gives the foundation the high levels of trust, integrity, legitimacy, and respect that it will need to attract high levels of funding and also bring diverse elements together in common cause.

MeshWORKS-type foundations will thus be able to actually do the following that other models cannot or do not accomplish :

A MeshWORKS foundation will learn how to align its own resources, stakeholders, clients, and customers so that internal operations run in a smooth, positive, and additive way.


A MeshWORKS foundation understands the decision-making ‘codes’ inherent in all of the other six foundation types, to enable it to mesh them in common cause, enlist them in cooperative projects, or elicit funds from them for the larger, transcendent mission. This skill in marketing and fund-raising also extends to other funding sources, media interests, and technological assets.


A MeshWORKS foundation thinks in a time-line fashion in that it meshes the past, present, and future into an integrated wholeness to avoid generational gaps, historical cul-de-sacs, or total focus on dealing only with contemporary issues, problems, or situations. It both sees and takes the long view while dealing in tactical issues on a daily basis.


A MeshWORKS foundation is more interested in what is right rather than who is right; who has competency rather than status; and stresses what is natural (rather than artificial or contrived). This thinking occurs in highly functional flex-flow states as it is synchronized, and even harmonizes what appear to be discordant chords, frequencies, and conflicting forms of energy.


A MeshWORKS foundation measures and assesses itself based on what it is able to accomplish, whether it has been successful with the unique win:win:win (The Third Win) strategy, and to what extent it has created greater abundance (wealth, technological knowledge, greater access to resources, higher life quality, more people being helped in better ways and at less cost, a healthier family, community, society, or world, etc.)


A MeshWORKS foundation always has an eye on building something for the future; contributes to a growing body o knowledge; creates innovative ‘skunkworks’ initiatives; and searches for ideas, concepts, and solutions from far beyond its own discipline, boundaries, or spheres of influence. Such a ‘WORKS’ is always a project under construction


A MeshWORKS foundation continues to renew itself, absorb fresh ideas, tap-in to new resources, redefine its macro and micro goals, learn from mistakes, and be open to constant change, transitions, and transformations.


A MeshWORKS foundation possesses an uncanny ability to morph itself to find rapport, identify with, and shape itself and connect with a number of different organizations, interest groups, political groupings, and professional societies. This capacity is essential since it must mesh with these resources to accomplish the Third Win objectives.

Thus, MeshWeavers are able to infuse into the Constructive Dialogue an understanding of the deeper value system codes so that efforts can be tailored for specific situations and different levels of thinking in the people involved. Such an effort can provide the cohesive principle that is missing in the age of fragmentation. This approach can generate transpartisan approaches to policy formulation that are vastly superior to either partisan or bipartisan efforts.

The key technology here is to place competing values system codes on the ends of the paradox to demonstrate how both/and thinking is superior to either/or ultimatums. This would be a creative way to demonstrate how pro-growth and pro-quality of life can often find ways to accomplish both in a synergistic fashion.

Anonymous said...

'Globalization' is commonly used as a shorthand way of describing the spread and connectedness of production, communication and technologies across the world. That spread has involved the interlacing of economic and cultural activity. Rather confusingly, 'globalization' is also used by some to refer to the efforts of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and others to create a global free market for goods and services. This political project, while being significant - and potentially damaging for a lot of poorer nations - is really a means to exploit the larger process. Globalization in the sense of connectivity in economic and cultural life across the world, has been growing for centuries. However, many believe the current situation is of a fundamentally different order to what has gone before. The speed of communication and exchange, the complexity and size of the networks involved, and the sheer volume of trade, interaction and risk give what we now label as 'globalization' a peculiar force.

With increased economic interconnection has come deep-seated political changes - poorer, 'peripheral', countries have become even more dependent on activities in 'central' economies such as the USA where capital and technical expertise tend to be located. There has also been a shift in power away from the nation state and toward, some argue, multinational corporations. We have also witnessed the rise and globalization of the 'brand'. It isn't just that large corporations operate across many different countries - they have also developed and marketed products that could be just as well sold in Peking as in Washington. Brands like Coca Cola, Nike, Sony, and a host of others have become part of the fabric of vast numbers of people's lives.

Globalization involves the diffusion of ideas, practices and technologies. It is something more than internationalization and universalization. It isn't simply modernization or westernization. It is certainly isn't just the liberalization of markets. Anthony Giddens (1990: 64) has described globalization as 'the intensification of worldwide social relations which link distant localities in such a way that local happenings are shaped by events occurring many miles away and vice versa'. This involves a change in the way we understand geography and experience localness. As well as offering opportunity it brings with considerable risks linked, for example, to technological change.

Source: Smith, M. K. and Smith, M. (2002) 'Globalization' - the encyclopedia of informal education.

Eric said...

According to writers Tom Munnecke and Heather Wood Ion:

"The convergence of the Internet, global communications, and medical technology have created an environment from which dramatic new advances in health care and enhancement may emerge. The contagion for this epidemic is healthy people. In any population, there will be some who have maintained their health, and serve as role models for those who have not adapted as well. These people may be healers, or simply people who exude enough vitality that others can benefit. Healthy people are contagious in face to face settings. The Internet can leverage their presence around the globe."

_David

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