World Knowledge Bank®

You may be concerned

that the World Knowledge Bank®’s efforts are counter to the free exchange of online information, but in fact, our mission at the Bank is to add valuable knowledge to the public sphere—knowledge that has not been available before. The Bank is dedicated to encouraging the “deposit” of knowledge that hasn’t been valued before from all people including those people who haven’t been valued before—but bringing this knowledge into the public square using a financial structure that is more equitable and rewards the person whose knowledge is being shared.

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You may think that the meaning of the word “free”

is clear to you and that this meaning is shared widely by others. But free is a very complex term which means different things to different people under different circumstances. What I have seen, for example, is that the Internet is not free if you can’t afford a computer, a cell phone or Internet service. Or your community doesn’t have the Internet to start with. Remember how people in New Orleans before and during hurricane Katrina were suppose to drive out of town when they didn’t have a car or their own or couldn’t afford access to transportation. We need to have a deeper and broader understanding of the term free.

To me the deeper truth here is that contemporary life involves the giving and receiving or the exchange of labor, goods and services. The question should be not is something free but is the exchange of goods, services and labor affordable and fair enough?

Or, to put it another way, for the Bank the question becomes, is the price reasonable for the benefits received and are the communities’ resources divided equally enough that most people can afford the benefits. The World Knowledge Bank®’s pricing structure was created with this question in mind and is based on many customers paying small fees per a given service, adjusted such that differences in currencies are fairly accommodated.

In general then, the Bank is bringing a valuable new kind of knowledge to the public sphere and asks that the knowledge contributors including the WKBank be fairly compensated for the benefit received. The WKBank invites you, even asks you to judge it by the fairness and vitality of its benefits, fees and services.

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You may be fearful that people will subvert the good

of the World Knowledge Bank®, hijacking the WKBank’s operations and stealing people’s knowledge. This is a very real concern because in every human enterprise there are those that will try to destroy it. Certainly we cannot let this fear stop the creation of something deeply useful to humanity. In fact because the WKBank is empowered by the large numbers of people who can and will participate and benefit and this collective is glued by inclusion and mutual appreciation, the chances of those who wish to destroy the WKBank by getting a strong footing, are significantly reduced.

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about the WKBank, but in fact, the World Knowledge Bank® welcomes and invites these kinds of questions and concerns in our pursuit of working together to create solutions to how our knowledge is shared and how revenues are distributed.

their ideas and experiences on screen or in print without being compensated (e.g. reality TV, documentaries, non-fiction books, government studies), but what I believe is that the revenues from any of those works should be shared not just with the writers or producers or distributors but with the subjects of those works.

but my experience has taught me that every life, including yours, is overflowing with knowledge of all kinds. Many, many times I have had the experience that once people know that they are being listened to, in a setting that values, protects and respects their knowledge, they begin to release the bounty of what they know. Releasing and sharing one’s knowledge is a joyful experience, empowering and validating the giver, the listener, and our common humanity.

to deposit in the WKBank. But you alone cannot adequately measure the importance of what you know. It is only when knowledge is shared and others’ benefit—whether in ways you thought about or intended or not—that the value of your knowledge can be fully realized. It may even be that something you have shared will be very valuable only to generations to come.

inform us at the World Knowledge Bank®. We are happy to open a conversation with you to help you get started with your knowledge deposits. We can provide you with helpful questions and tips. You and the WKBank can decide whether or not that conversation will be useful to others and want to place it in the World Knowledge Bank® Public Library.

My experience has shown me that this is a misconception built on a couple of ideas. One, that there are creative and non-creative people. Second, that the most creative people make art. Of course people who make art are creative but this is not the only kind of creativity. As a practicing artist of over forty years I have come to see that art-making is a special kind of creativity. It is not fair or accurate to make art-making the only kind of creativity or the most important kind of creativity. What is served by making that distinction? Surely not the deeper sharing of our humanity. There are distinctions but these are an expression of the abundance of creativity not its rarity. And it and every bit of creativity are valuable because creativity regenerates your life force and the life force in others.

Some may fear that this expansive sense of creativity will demystify creativity.

But creativity, like the life that expresses it, is fundamentally mysterious. Or to put it another way, to say that creativity can be demystified is like saying that life can be demystified.

I have come to see is that all creativity like all of life itself requires mercy to come into this world. New ideas and ways of doing things require a kind of self acceptance even self love and the love of others to allow the new to exist, if even for a moment, protected and free. Sharing and listening to the new in each other takes self-acceptance and acceptance of each other and each of our capacity for life.

and its capacity to change business as we know it, that the Bank may create unintended or unforeseen consequences. WKBank shares this concern. In fact, it is because of this concern that the WKBank has placed a large emphasis on its governance structure, has declared itself and its knowledge contributors to be accountable, and has created a set of policies and rules of conduct and a means of enforcement built on the open discussion of issues. That is, WKBank stands for something. While discussion and enforcement are the underpinning of the enterprise the WKBank has an ethical center. It is the WKBank’s creative and just implementation of this ethical center from which the WKBank derives its strength and power as a force for good.