LESSONS LEARNED FROM THE Y2K PREPARATION EFFORT (CompWellness.com)

Compiled and edited by Kenton Johnson, Littleton CO USA

http://www.compwellness.com/Comm/Y2K%20Lessons%20Learned.htm

[Fair Use: For Educational/Research Purposes Only]

 People are wonderful, caring and willing to act on their convictions with little compensation, even if they are in a very small minority.

 A small number of people can make a big difference.

 Expect the unexpected, especially when you think you have things figured out -- Diane Squire

 People prefer black and white to gray.

 People who solve problems are heroes -- those who anticipate and prevent problems are not recognized -- Jan Nickerson

 We do not see reality, we each create our own interpretation of what's real -- can we talk -- Meg Wheatley's Principles of Living Systems, via Gerry Kaufman

 Anxiety over uncertainty generates denial -- Jan Nickerson

 The threat of disaster impacted people on both conscious and subliminal levels around the planet -- The Dalai Lama

 In a crisis, people display creativity and resourcefulness, learn and respond quickly -- especially given good information -- experiment constantly to find what works, are unified by shared purpose and meaning, want to help others, and exhibit leadership without being in the role -- Ray Pena

 Emergency preparation is intelligent and prudent for the long term.

 Self-sufficiency is empowering -- Kathy Garcia

 Helping others gain self-sufficiency is very empowering. -- Leslie Varnicle

 Community and neighborhood building have created more self-reliance and self-sufficiency, which must continue to protect ourselves from another potentially serious event -- Paloma O'Reilly

 Telecommunications, just-in-time inventorying, and other high-tech systems have greatly increased our global interdependence, making our way of life far more fragile than we realized -- Barbara Blakely

 High-tech places humanity at unnecessary risk without a low-tech support infrastructure -- Tom Osher

 Get the facts firsthand -- don't trust everything you read/see in the news -- Jim Allen

 Not understanding complex systems, the media and the public reduce observations into simplistic cause-and-effect explanations and polarize perspectives to the extremes -- Jan Nickerson

 When you build the connections, the expertise will show up -- Critt Jarvis

 The Internet, while a great new communication medium, can easily be misused by legitimizing rumor -- Barbara Blakely

 When Senior Executives pay attention, provide support and monitor the progress of a software project, it is more successful -- Ed Yourdon.

 Business and government short-sighted practices nearly caused or allowed local and possibly national disasters -- Paloma O'Reilly

 Our governments operate on short-term economic criteria, not public safety -- Jan Nickerson

 Some governments realize the tremendous resource that citizen volunteers can be to them and are willing to support our goals of being an effective help to our community -- Cindy Brown

 There are many other lessons for industry, government and the media, including the Internet -- see my list -- Dick Mills

Copyright ) 2000, Complementary Wellness, except for Meg Wheatley's and Jim Allen's Lessons, which are copyrighted separately.
Permission granted for the other originators to freely use their Lessons.

(Some hotlinks are included off the original web page)

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), January 16, 2000

Answers

[Doomers@suck.com, or Adam, you've been banned from the forum for repetitive spamming. Please post elsewhere, not here--Sysop]

-- (sgt@elias.jesus-christ.com), January 16, 2000.

sgt@elias.jesus-christ.com..........."We are better than the Pollys". No it's just that Pollies are so frigging STUPID!!!!!!!!!!!!!

-- SGTSTUPID (SGT@STUPID.COM), January 16, 2000.

sgt, cognitive dissonance was covered in a prior thread, heh.

-- Hokie (Hokie_@hotmail.com), January 16, 2000.

"Expect the unexpected, especially when you think you have things figured out -- Diane Squire"

That is a definition of Life.

"People prefer black and white to gray."

That has always been true.

"The Internet, while a great new communication medium, can easily be misused by legitimizing rumor -- Barbara Blakely "

The same has been said of every newspaper since the dawn of the printing press.

People who solve problems are heroes -- those who anticipate and prevent problems are not recognized -- Jan Nickerson

This is the Tao.

Godspeed, and keep watching.

-- Forrest Covington (theforrest@mindspring.com), January 16, 2000.

"Y2K was overhyped." Jim Thompson

Hey; I guess staying away was "harder'n quitting cigarettes"!

-- Jim Thompson (jimthompsonmd@attglobal.net), January 17, 2000.

I'll smoke to that!

-- Michael (m@m.m), January 17, 2000.