Fortune Favors the Ambitious

by Dr. Ellen Brandt


At least we hope it does, because we have broad-ranging and ambitious plans for the Bring Back the Meritocracy! project. As promised, here's a progress report on the baby steps we've taken so far and what we hope lies ahead over the next several months.


Project Landing Page


Our first step was to set up a project landing page at Google+. We did so, because this blog is based at Blogger, and because we like the ease of setting up Communities at Google. We've established 6 of them: Research, Foundations, Venture Capital, Job Creation, Political Action, and Media Initiatives. We've also set up a Bring Back the Meritocracy! Group at Linked In, an omnibus Group meant mostly as an observation post for those who wish to keep their eyes on the project, before deciding to join one of the Communities.


If you have not yet visited this landing page, please do so as soon as you can and follow its links to the Communities, if you're interested:


https://plus.google.com/u/0/b/114091094386273464410/114091094386273464410/about


Persuading People to Get Involved


As the project Founder, I've just finished a mailing to those in my large (and superb) Linked In network, established over many years, after conscientiously revisiting everyone's profile and trying to figure out which Communities they might most enjoy becoming part of.


So far, the big winner is Venture Capital, probably because its stated mission is the easiest to understand. I want to remedy that with this blog post, further explicating what we're hoping to do in the other Communities, although in some of them - like Foundations - the agenda is necessarily "open" at this point and will take more concrete form based on the decisions of its participating members.


Please note that because this is an extremely serious and ambitious project, we need to make sure that every participant is, first of all, human - no Bots or Avatars - and someone whose background and experience will allow them to contribute intelligently to a collaboration which will begin with universities, on the one hand, and a top-tier group of researchers, venture capitalists, foundation managers, and company Founders, on the other.


For this reason, I hope that all those wishing to participate will first connect with me at Linked In, which has a rigorous and aboveboard process for ensuring that people's university credentials are real and where the full-connection linking process - as opposed to the less reliable followers/followed or friends/non-friends kinds of links - can enable me to vet you via those with whom you are associated.


I fully understand that this project is not for everyone. But its purpose and its agenda do resonate with a very large, significant, and important group of U.S. and world citizens, many of whom, we hope, will join with us as the project evolves.


The Communities and Their Agendas


Once we have large enough core groups of participants in the 6 Communities, we can begin to collaborate via those Communities on Discussion-into-Action agendas for the Bring Back the Meritocracy! project.


Since some readers seem to remain a bit baffled about what we are hoping to accomplish, here's a rundown on how each Community might wish to proceed:


Venture Capital


I'm starting with Venture Capital, since that's the one most current participants do understand.


What we hope to do here is begin work on establishing brand-new venture funds and the mechanisms to run them, geared to the target groups of Founders and early-stage Entrepreneurs over age 50 and Founders and early-stage Entrepreneurs from top-tier university backgrounds.


We are not talking about crowdfunding, nor other kinds of non-traditional venture funds, at this point. We are, in fact, talking about target groups which were favored by traditional and successful venture capitalists long, long ago - i.e. 10, 15, or 20 years ago - before the current trend to fund only very young Founders took hold (with, some believe, a corresponding bias against the well-educated and experienced, especially in areas like gaming and other "apps").


One real advantage of once more supporting mature Founders in their "prime of life" years is that it may allow venture investors to tap more successfully into the so far elusive Baby Boomer marketplace, representing fully 1/3 of the populations of the U.S., the rest of the developed world, and China. We think Boomers overwhelmingly believe they've been sorely neglected by marketers, who not only don't know what they want, but don't seem to have the faintest idea who they are.


Similarly, new funds geared towards supporting Founders who are graduates of top-tier universities in the U.S. and abroad should encourage more "Best and Brightest" graduates to opt for entrepreneurial careers. They will tend to hire their fellow "Best and Brightest" grads, just as Boomer entrepreneurs will tend to hire more of their fellow Boomers than non-Boomer entrepreneurs do. The add-on effect of increased job creation for these groups should be jump-started effectively via these "new" kinds of funds - which until recently were the historical norm.


Job Creation


We are just as excited about the possibilities for the Bring Back the Meritocracy! Job Creation Community - and we hope this blog post will get others excited as well.


What we hope to initiate via this Community's efforts are not one, but several, new entities - new companies, new non-profits, new divisions within established companies and non-profits - whose major purpose is matching the now immense talent pool of the "Highly-Educated But Under-Employed," especially those over age 50, with all those "Unmet Needs" throughout the world that every development conference talks about, but which no one ever seems to make a real dent in. These "Unmet Needs," which exist in both developed and less-developed countries and regions, include projects in infrastructure, manufacturing, healthcare, education, and services of all kinds.


Efforts, many of them government-related, which seek to develop such projects via work forces which are volunteer or very low-paid are not what most in the "Highly-Educated But Under-Employed" talent pool want or need.


They need to earn decent pay for the superior work they have been educated to do or which, in the case of the older "Highly-Educated," work which they have in fact been doing, perhaps for many decades.


The people we are talking about are experienced, intelligent, talented, and creative professionals and managers. They are engineers and scientists and teachers and IT professionals. They're lawyers and doctors and nurses and journalists. They are agriculturists and resource specialists and inventors and small business innovators.


They did not suddenly lose their talent and intelligence and creativity and zeal for hard work, because they passed a certain birthday and suddenly became dispensable. Nor should their exceptional skills and experience be scorned, because they forfeited much or most of their life's savings to the extraordinary economic tumult of the past 30 years: wave after wave of downsizing, outsourcing, managerial shrinkage, housing crises, market crashes, and the "hollowing out" of both manufacturing industries and Main Street small business.


Exceptional People. "Unmet Needs." Does that not sound like a Match Made in Heaven? Then let's work towards coming up with ways to wed them. That will be the basic work of the Job Creation Community.


Research


Many of us feel one important reason the "Highly-Educated But Under-Employed" have become well-nigh invisible, even as their numbers have grown and grown, is that there's been a dearth of major research projects focusing on this group, just as there have been way too few research studies focused on at-risk Baby Boomers.


In the case of the latter group - again, 1/3 of the population in the U.S., the rest of the developed world, and China - the fault lies partially with extremely skewed statistics. Boomers have been thought to have remained a "wealthy" generation because their large numbers have made their aggregate wealth look impressive compared to generations with fewer individuals. They are known to have inherited assets from their thrifty parents' generation. And they have made up a very high percentage of homeowners, particularly in the U.S.


We think future research studies will prove that much of that supposed wealth has disappeared into thin air - or Dark Pools - with the tumultuous economic events outlined above. We believe that the wealth-skewing phenomenon which has gifted the vaunted One Percent with more and more of the planet's assets, while everyone else has lost out, will be shown to apply in more, not less, stark outline within the Baby Boom generation itself, with an immense gulf having opened up between the relatively few Boomers in superb financial shape and the very many Boomers teetering on the financial brink - one or two crises away from economic extinction.


And the "Highly-Educated But Under-Employed" of all generations, we believe, may be shown to be more, not less, financially vulnerable than the rest of the developed world's population, because they have tended to make up a very large proportion of those groups hit hardest by economic dislocations: investors, homeowners, managers, professionals, and small business owners.


In any case, there is fertile ground here for talented and determined researchers willing to investigate the current status and ongoing trends specific to the "Highly-Educated But Under-Employed," without bias and with the expectation that such studies should prove immensely useful.


The Bring Back the Meritocracy! Research Community will encourage and support such efforts among researchers working within universities, think tanks, political groups, and companies, as well as those working independently.


Foundations


The Bring Back the Meritocracy! Foundations Community has an open-ended agenda, because we want the experienced non-profit managers and consultants who choose to become involved in the project to have as much scope as they wish, coming up with initiatives to support the "Highly-Educated But Under-Employed" in creative and productive ways, either within well-established foundations or in new non-profit entities yet to be formed.


Research-oriented foundations may wish to offer grant stipends to institutionally-based and individual researchers studying this cohort.


Education-focused foundations may want to match the "Highly-Educated But Under-Employed" talent pool with existing or new educational development projects, where they can act as teachers, trainers, or administrators.


Foundations whose mission is economic development may participate in some of the "Terrific Talent-Unmet Needs" match-up work of the Job Creation Community.


Some foundation-based projects may focus on the topic of Meritocracy per se: why certain political cadres have been propagandizing against it, how such attacks undermine a core tenet of the American Dream, and what we can do to encourage open discussion and turn the tide.


The above are simply suggestions. The Foundations Community is meant to become a launching pad for a wide range of non-profit initiatives and may inspire the formation of entirely new foundations focused on the "Highly-Educated But Under-Employed" - who they are, what they need, how to help them.


Political Action and Media Initiatives


We conceive of the last two Bring Back the Meritocracy! project Communities, Political Action and Media Initiatives, as service Communities, assisting the other four Communities in their work, while possibly also launching sub-projects of their own to aid the overall effort.


Political Action's main task is communicating the project's aims to both major political parties in the U.S., major parties in other nations, and interest groups and activists across the political spectrum.


We wish to stress once more that Bring Back the Meritocracy! is completely non-partisan. In U.S. terms, its agenda is equally Centrist, Conservative, and Progressive, because Meritocracy per se is a basic tenet of American thought, central to the concept of democracy and to the ideal of the American Dream.


Moreover, assisting the "Highly-Educated But Under-Employed" is a goal which every part of the political spectrum should share, as should specifically helping those in the "Highly-Educated" group who are part of the vast Baby Boom generation, whose dwindling economic prospects pose a serious threat to the U.S. and world economies.


Meritocracy, as we have shown, is also closely connected to the concept of higher education, the future of top-tier universities, and their continued ability to contribute to the nation's and the world's store of shared knowledge.


Note, too, that Bring Back the Meritocracy! does not and will not seek government funding at any level, which should appeal to every prudent legislator and activist. We hope that Bring Back the Meritocracy! will benefit hundreds of millions of people, beginning with those who become active in the project. But it will depend solely on the goodwill, hard work, and focused attention of those who choose to become involved.


The Bring Back the Meritocracy! Media Initiatives Community will likewise play a helping role to the project as a whole.


Its job is to encourage favorable coverage of the project in all forms of media and to report the progress of the various Community agendas as they evolve.


We're hoping the core participants in this Community will include Communications and Alumni Affairs adminstrators at all eight Ivy League schools and other top-tier universities throughout the world.  Getting the higher education establishment on board will, we believe, ensure the success of the overall project and encourage those from other realms to jump on the bandwagon.



So that's where we are right now. We hope this summary has encouraged you to consider joining with us whenever you feel comfortable doing so. By our next progress report, we expect several of the standing Communities will be working on their Discussion-into-Action agendas and that word of the project and its purposes will have reached a much larger audience.


A bit more housekeeping in the next blog. Then on to discussions of why top universities have such a crucial stake in preserving and protecting Meritocracy as a cornerstone of their influence and viability and why, in different ways, political Centrism and the Baby Boom generation have become lightning rods in the Meritocracy debate.