Dee Hock's is founding CEO of Visa International:

"Life is a gift that comes bearing a gift, which is the art of giving"

"Fundamentally, we have an institutional problem. Until we understand and deal with it, all of our societal problems will get progressively worse. Above all else, we will never deal with it until we realize it is not a problem at all but an unbelievable opportunity." 

                            from the Chaordic Alliance http://www.chaordic.com

Dee Hock presenting his ideas on "Chaordic" designs at a meeting for Health Care Innovation Organization at Airlie Retreat, Vvaleo Initiative, March 1999.

His ideas on Chaordic thinking can be found in the book, "Birth of the Chaordic Age" http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1576750744/o/qid=992886498/sr=2-1/ref=aps_sr_b_1_1/107-5414378-0849316

and "The Chaordic Organization" http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1583760954/o/qid=992886498/sr=2-2/ref=aps_sr_b_1_2/107-5414378-0849316

Some comments gleaned from Dee during a telephone conversation:

  He said that GivingSpace was “right on” in efforts to bring GivingSpace to fruition, and that we should “go for it.”  He spoke of friends who wanted to give significant assets away, but who were unable to find a model in which they could believe.  He said that his quick survey of the industry is that roughly 60% of the donor’s funds are consumed in the infrastructure of giving, never reaching the recipient.

He said that the way that Visa successfully addressed the fraud issue in credit cards was to assume the legitimacy of trust, then audit randomly.  He said that the system can decentralize fraud detection, based on notions of statistics and fractals.  It was critical that the system provide the right feedback – “How much did you receive?” “What did you receive?, etc. based on sampling principles. 

He was positive about focusing on the foundation and infrastructure, rather than an instant operation.  He commented that everyone expected the next Visa right now, rather than going through the 4 years of hard work that it took to get Visa off the ground.