Hi Rob,

Sorry about the short response yesterday.

I think that what we are looking at here is an attempt to institute what the Dominicans and other Orders used to call the Advocatus Diaboli (Devil's Advocate) role. In many of the Orders, the person fulfilling the role was granted a form of immunity for anything they said while in that role - similar to Canada's Auditor General.

At an institutional level, part of the problem lies in the intersection between those who are institutionally acceptable, usually measured by previous experience within the institution, and perceptual capability of thinking outside of the institution. Let me put it another way, a good, experienced SGT can spot holes in an LTs plans easily, but the way they would spot holes is based on their experience within the institution. This is a matter of an "expert" criticizing someone with less skills, and it's not what a Red Team or Devil's Advocate should be doing.

Historically, the Devil's Advocate role should be held by someone who knows some or most of the institutional experience base, but can shift to another experience base. This is why your suggestions for "buisness men that have experience in cut-throat economics, bring in a priest or two who might be familiar with papal maneuvering, a former congressman or lobbyist, a lawyer, a doctor, an insurance broker, a real estate agent, a detective, a convicted white collar type," makes a lot of sense, especially if they have served a term or been involved in an analogous institution.

But will this be enough? Honestly, I think that Red Teams are a part of a step towards a solution, but they don't go far enough. All a Red Team can do is explain "why" something didn't work and generate new options inside the institutional matrix. So, how to get beyond that?

Well, to start with, take an organizational matrix that is already familiar but not curently in use: let's say the old OSS . Seperate them out, institutionally, and use them as the institutional base for the Red Teams. Recruit people to work for them on a part-time, distributed basis as well as a full time basis. In addition to the type of people you've mentioned, I would add in hackers, cyberpunks, moderate Muslim clerics, magicians, Anthropologists, game designers, development specialists, systems analysts, web designers, etc.

Use the 'net to advantage. When I mentioned a "distributed basis" I was refering to the type of interactions that we have here. No one is getting paid for their time on this board, but there are a lot of good ideas generated. Can this be leveraged for a "new" institution? Probably.

Marc