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	Rex Ballard - Director of Electronic Distribution
	http://cnj.digex.net/~rballard

On 7 Apr 1996, SamOLSamOL wrote:
> Rex,
> First of all, I want to let you know that I appreciated what you posted.
> Your communication was interesting, informative and articulate.
>
> The only concern I have is for the two portions which I have exerpted
> below which read:
>
> << Peace in the Middle East was actually initiated by Landmark
> Graduates who were able to have leaders from the various countries choose
> the values that empowered them while allowing them to let go of beliefs
> designed to disempower others. >>

The people involved in this were graduates attending the SELP in New York
and New Jersey centers.  They knew some people who worked in the U.N. who
knew some people who worked for the appropriate leaders.  There were some
people in the New York Center who had been campaign workers and campaign
managers for prominant politicians, including Bill Clinton.

According to their stories, they spend several weeks, making several phone
calls/day to reach the people they needed to reach, making unreasonable
requests, and enrolling people into the possibility of their project.

Eventually, they were able to enroll diplomats and diplomatic aides from
both countries (several ended up doing the Forum Themselves).  It didn't
happen over night.  The person telling the story to me was the mother of a
coworker of mine.  When someone takes appropriate actions consistent with
their commitments, anything is possible.

The Forum normally operates at a very personal level in investigating
where you make people wrong by making yourself right.  Then they explore
the cost of being right.  In the Middle East, children were being killed
every day to prove that each side was right.  The distinctions of the
Forum, when applied by beaurocrats and diplomats, shifted a conversation
that had existed for 5000 years.

> < were struggling to force their proprietary technology into the exclusive
> use for telecommunications.  It was the actions of a handfull of Landmark
> Graduates that caused an alignment my several industry leaders around
> adoption of the internet technologies as a standard for what we now know
> as the commercial internet or the "World Wide Web".>>

In 1991, I took the Forum and Advanced Course.  In the Advanced Course, I
declared myself as "Outrageous Combinations Fulfilling Outrageous
Possibilities" (they don't let you do that any more :-).

In the S.E.L.P.  I took my knowledge and love of the Internet, 12 years of
software engineering experience, and asked a question:
	What would be possible if Corporate America had access to the NSF
	databases and the latest in university information?
	What would be possible if Corporations could interoperate using
	open systems technologies (internet)?
	What would happen if College Students and Single Mothers could
	provide skills and exchange information with each other?

	What I saw was the possibility of unlimited economic opportunity,
	available to anyone.

	At that time, only someone familiar with the UNIX operating
	system, and supported by a UNIX system operator could even think of
	accessing the internet.  A young man by the name of David Menges
	was head of Colorado Supernet.  He had told me earlier that he was
	going to loose government funding and needed corporate
	sponsorship.

	In January of 1992, I left my job as a consultant for "Blue" to
	work for a little company called Softronics.  This company had
	done the terminal emulator for OS/2 and looked like they might
	have the right technology to impliment a TCP/IP based terminal
	package for TCP/IP.  We spent from January to July building the
	first "internet for idiots" package.  By August they began
	releasing it as shareware, coupled with a winsock compatible
	TCP/IP stack.  The result - dirt cheap access to the internet
	in a "point and shoot" package.

	Meanwhile, I was also taking the SELP.  On one weekend there is an
	excercise called "Speaking into No Agreement" where you enroll
	people into your project even when there is no agreement.  By the
	end of the 14 hour day, everyone in the class was enrolled.  Including
	the director of Frame Relay Sales for MCI's Rocky Mountain Region.

	After class, this man spent about two hours exploring what could
	be done.  I suggested that he team up with a router company like
	Cisco and let them handle the Ethernet side and MCI could handle
	the frame relay side.  This would mean that the corporate
	customers wouldn't have to install special software on every
	server and workstation.  He asked about Novell, and I pointed out
	that TCP/IP could support almost 1/2 billion hosts.

	A week later, he called me to tell me that his VP had sold the
	Idea to management.  By March, MCI had won the bid for the NSF
	backbone.  One of the conditions was that the same links could be
	used to support corporate and private traffic as well.

	The third prong of the project was being in communication with
	members of several select usenet newsgroups.  HTML had been
	developed for the ANDREW project and was suggested as a possible
	"mac-like" interface.  Within a very short time, someone had come
	up with the "lynx" browser.  We started to fantasize about a
	browser with graphics and audio.  I also started looking at a new
	operating system called Linux.

	Unfortunately, my company was running tight on funds.  Another
	project was over budget and staff needed to be trimmed.  I left
	for a 6 month consulting gig in New York.

	Eventually, I ended up at Dow Jones.  There, I enrolled the
	Product Manager of the DowVision product into creating an
	internet version of the product.  He was talking to a company
	called WAIS Inc.  There, a man named Brewster Kahle was working
	with a graphical version of Lynx called Mosaic.  We contracted
	with WAIS to create a MOSAIC compatible front-end to the WAIS
	engine.  We also started working with the developers of Mosaic
	to come up with a method of encrypting the content and
	authenticating the users.  Eventually, a company called Verity
	licenced the search engine and front-end.  The resulting package
	with the encryption and authentication was called NetScape.

	Meanwhile, back at the ranch.  Just as people were beginning
	to join the internet for it's E-Mail potential, I got on a mailing
	list of publishers.  They were trying to figure out how to mail
	a "pretty document" to hundreds of users.  They wanted to create
	"junk e-mail" similar to "junk fax".  I proposed that they should
	keep their content on their own servers and let the users come to
	them.  I proposed the use of Mosaic initially, and later Netscape.
	I also spent hours describing how to create a "magazine" that was
	more like an adventure game than a newspaper.  I even suggested
	that there might be some "poor starving artists" who could help
	them out instead of panhandling in New York City ;-).

	I also gave them a lot of technical advise.  I helped several of
	them get the initial approval for a pilot project by telling them
	about an Operating System called Linux, which provided everything
	they needed to create and internet server.  I actually got thank
	you letters and acknowledgements from several publishers who not
	only put up their sites, but created publishing projects to
	circulate Linux along with fat reference books.

	Of course, I was also attending Landmark seminars in New York
	City, and encouraging artists to learn how to create computer generated
	art.  I was sharing a condo with an artist who specialized in
	computer generated art and gave her name to several artist friends
	in NYC.  I had a degree in theater and had learned to communicate
	to artists about technology.  Several of the contractors and
	programmers at Dow Jones also moonlighted as comic book artists,
	and started contracting for "Web Art".

	Eventually, I joined McGraw-Hill, and provided the background
	materials and a "sign here" anonymous proposal for web based
	products.  After minor rewrites by the senior editor of
	MarketScope, the reccomendation was approved by Senior Management
	and eventually went to the CEO, who chartered all 167 McGraw hill
	companies to "get on the web".

	I have been reluctant to "show myself".  I have learned that the
	most powerful people often don't even show up in the papers.  My
	great-uncle, Lloyd Mints continued to advise economic advisors
	until he was over 100 years old.  He advised Democrat and
	Republican economists, including the Federal Reserve and the
	Treasury Department.  His creedo - which he passed to my mother,
	who passed it to me was;
		"You can do ANYTHING you put your mind to".

> Although what you say *may* be accurate, and I have no reason to doubt
> you, you are most certainly going to get *a lot* of "flaming" on these
> statements.  You may want to be prepared to back up (with evidence) what
> you say here *or* be cautious in the future to not say something *of this
> nature* for which you have no evidence.  It *could* damage your
> credibility.
>
> I'm not sure your first statement *can* be backed up with evidence.

> My last point here is that what people have done *after* participating in
> Landmark and its programs really only says something about who *they*
> are...not about Landmark.

What Landmark did was give me the ability to see the difference between
wanting to do something and taking the actions that will cause it to
happen.  It helped me to see that I was a network of conversations, rather
than just a skin-bag.  As a network of conversations, I could enroll
others into my projects, be enrolled by theirs, and accomplish more than
either of us had dreamed possible.

Right now, I am in the Wisdom Course.  In it, we look at both our first
circle (those we are in direct contact with regularly), and our outer
circles (friends of friends).  By the way, this isn't the most important
distinction of the course).

> If they want to credit their ability to have
> produced a particular result to their participation in Landmark's courses,
> they of course have earned the right to do so.  For someone like you or
> like me to give the credit to Landmark, is *at best* not useful.

I really don't know which came first, the chicken or the egg.  What I do
know is that those who participate are extraordinary.  This includes the
guests, participants, graduates, seminar leaders, and Forum Leaders.  I
consider it a privilidge to be in their company.

I also know that the Forum enabled me to take actions on my commitments
that had previously been "pipe dreams".  I thought I had reached the
ceiling of my profession when I took the Forum.  It seemed like I was just
going to be a software architect for a 40 billion insurance company and
that was it.  The distinctions of Landmark removed those past-based
limits (my father was an accountant for a major utility).  I started
taking risks, I started functioning as a leader, and I started
communicating effectively instead of hiding in a cubicle.

> Regards,
> Sam
>
> "Of course, that's just my opinion.  I could be wrong." (Dennis Miller)
>
> A man cannot speak but he judges himself.  With his will or against his
> will he draws his portrait to the eye of his companions by every word.
> Every opinion reacts on him who utters it.  (Emerson)
>
> Deal so plainly with a man and woman as to constrain the utmost sincerity
> and destroy all hope of trifling with you.  (Emerson)

	Thank you for your support.

		Rex.


From rballard@cnj.digex.net Fri Apr 12 08:54:51 1996