In an era where quarterly reports and next year's election have become the major driving concerns of society, this modest enterprise is being launched with four time frames in mind, periods each of which has its own importance for the undertaking as a whole.
1996: Our first target is the year directly ahead -- the launch year for this new activity. It will be these early months that set the pace for what is to follow. This is not to say that we absolutely must see The Commons take off as a major international media and policy success story in so short a period, indeed a small success will do quite nicely. The immediate point of comparison might be our last two years of work with the two ‘electronic libraries and discussion spaces’ that we set up on CompuServe in association with our work with the European Commission (DG XIII, the New Ways to Work and the Access/Sustainability Forum. Despite our hard work this proved to be a modest accomplishment indeed; but nonetheless it did the job of laying a firm base for the present effort. If we can do as much with The Commons in its first year, that may be quite enough.
2000: The second time frame that cocerns us is the four year period out to the first day of the year 2000. This is the time period over which EcoPlan and its associates are now committing to maintain this site, as an absolute minimum. This is, I might add, an entirely comfortable and familiar time horizon for us. When we opened our physical and virtual doors in Rome in 1966, we had a plan for international networking and problem solving in the areas which are the concern of The Commons which stretched out to the year 2000. In the intervening years, time and again we have launched activities with decade-plus time horizons, which have been carried to fruition. Four years is thus no problem.
2020: The third target period that concerns us is more or less the year 2020. Beyond that date most of those of us who are committed to the success of this enterprise are unlikely to be particularly active (not to say extant). In addition to this dour fact, we can say several other things with certainty about this 'medium term' period. We know for sure, for example, that at the end of it, the need for responsible caring citizens and institutions to come together to consider and take initiatives on these problems of society and technology will by no means have disappeared. On the other hand, the means at our disposal will have greatly altered the landscape, and today's efforts, which may appear to be so daring and advanced to some of us, will be looked back on with a smile of condescension, if not outright derision. This should not, however, keep us from plugging away with the best we have today (which is already entirely enough to do the jobs that we think need to be tackled next).
2046: We have decided here to do no more or less than to take a page right out of the book of Benjamin Franklin, where in his autobiography, written in his great old age, he reported:
“About this Time (1731) I propos’d to render the Benefit for Books more common by commencing a Public Subscription Library. I drew a Sketch of the Plan and Rules that would be necessary; by which each Subscriber engag’d to pay a certain sum down for the first Purchase of Books and an annual Contribution for increasing them. So few were the Readers at the time in Philadelphia and the Majority of us so poor, I was not able with great Industry to find more than Fifty Persons, mostly young Tradesmen willing to pay down for this purpose Forty shillings each, & Ten shillings per Annum. On this little fund we began. The Institution soon manifested its Utility, was imitated by other Towns and in other Provinces, the Libraries were augmented by Donations, Reading became fashionable, and our People became better acquainted with Books, and in a few Years were observed by Strangers to be better instructed & more intelligent than People of the same Rank were in other Countries. When we were about to sign the above-mentioned Articles, which were to be binding on us, our Heirs, &c for fifty Years, Mr. Brockden, the Scrivener (law clerk), said to us: “You are all young men, but it is scarce probable that any of you will live to see the Expiration of the Term fixed in this Instrument”. A Number of us, however, are yet living; But the Instrument was after a few Years rendered null by a charter that incorporated & gave Perpetuity to the Company.We felt that if it was good enough for Ben, it was good enough for us.
___Enter The Commons Here
