</a>Conclusion

Considering All the Strategic Options (Part #17)

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The argument is essentially an exploration of how "global" coherence emerges and is sustained -- and challenged -- given the selective partiality imposed by an attention span faced with ever increasing information overload. Whilst the argument has been developed in relation to global governance, the diagrammatic representation is also of value in representing the coherence of individual (or group) understanding in the face of emerging issues -- most evidently in how information available electronically is attentively processed or ignored (e-mails, web links, news feeds, blogs, etc). The fact that 97% of e-mail is now understood to be spam, is symptomatic of the challenges for a knowledge society.

As stressed, the various diagrams are purely indicative but they do suggest the possibility of varying the number, form and labelling of elements -- preferably dynamically using an applet -- in support of discussion and the representation and comparison of a range of variants.

The diagrams facilitate understanding of what is as yet "unknown" in relation to what is assumed to be coherently "known" -- progressively challenged by emergent "unknowns" (Unknown Undoing: challenge of incomprehensibility of systemic neglect, 2008). The focus on emergence helps to highlight the manner in which the focus on a currently prominent issue may obscure or distort others that are emerging in its wake -- possibly of even greater significance (Climate Change and the Elephant in the Living Room:, 2008; Systemic Crises as Keys to Systemic Remedies: a metaphorical Rosetta Stone for future strategy? 2007).

The diagrams have the advantage of integrating recognition of the process of "irrational" resistance to information regarding emergent issues that are necessarily destabilizing (threatening) to the current sense of coherence and relevance. Such information appears to emerge from "incoherence" appropriately understood as chaos. In this sense the "disconnect" in Figs. 2 and 3, represented by the horizontal separation, is between a sense of coherence (order, etc) and incoherence (chaos, etc.). The inverted bell curves of Figs. 3 and 4 might then be understood as nesting "governance" within the forms of coherence offered by various belief systems, business, media, etc.