I have just completed the first ever Network Centric Preaching Review - a compilation of World Sankirtan.Net output for 2004. It is entitled: “Operations Manual for World Domination”. It’s a weighty document, at 125 pages. I have printed it out and will get some copies photocopied double sided today to distribute to all those people who have been saying: “What does Sitapati actually do?” all year =)

The screen optimized pdf is 2.2MB, and the printer optimized version is 4.8MB. Definitely worth the download, in my opinion.

Here are some excerpts: the contents, and the introduction, because they nicely give you an idea of what the document is all about. Download it and above all, “Enjoy Life”! =)

Network Centric Preaching Review Issue #1 – Year 1
Operations Manual for World Domination

Contents

1.Network Centric Preaching: An Introduction 5
2.Document License 7
3.Post Congregational Preaching 9
4.Rationalizing Resources: “People are the Focus” 12
5.Email: Re: [Ezine] Contacts System in Action 15
6.Sowing the Seeds of Sraddha 27
7.Towards Network Centric Preaching: Vision 2011 41
8.World Sankirtan.Net 48
9.Ezine Project 50
10.Ezine Profile 54
11.Email: [Ezine] Announcement 60
12. Email: Reply to personal correspondence 66
13.Screenshots of Contacts System 70
14. Excerpt from Goloka Link ezine 72
15. Hare Krishna FAQ Project 73
16. ISKCON News.Net 81
17. Email about ISKCON News.Net 84
18. Bhakti-vrksa 1.0 – not yet ready for prime-time 88
19.Spiritual Achievers Club (SAC)– What is it? 96
20. SAC – 4 Steps to a Fully Transcendental Lifestyle 98
21. SAC – The Purpose of the Study Guide 100
22. SAC – Study Guide Design 102
23. SAC – Partnership for Achievement 105
24. SAC – Planning Guide and Self Assessment 109
25. SAC – How do I contribute? 112
26. SAC – What is the Plan of Development? 114
27. SAC – Example Study Guide 115
28. Where to from here? 120
29. Quotes 120
30. Web Directory 121

Network Centric Preaching: An Introduction

The first thing that people always ask is: “What is it?” Commonly the next thing they say is: “Oh, preaching on the Internet, right?”

Not quite. Network Centric Preaching means to systematically harness the power of networks to preach.

Although computer networks and the Internet have raised awareness of networks in modern time, networks are not a recent invention. In fact networks are a fundamental design principle of the universe, from the social organization of ants, to the road systems that formed the backbone of the Roman and Incan civilizations, from the web of a spider, to the “grapevine” of Chinese-whispered gossip in a community.

When we align our actions and organizations with fundamental principles of the universe we tap into powerful harmonics and synergies.

Network marketing, cellular organization of guerrillas and intelligence organizations, the stock exchange, the telephone exchange, peer-to-peer file sharing, these are some examples of the power of networks to organize and focus the collective output of many people.

This review may appear superficially to be a jumble of unrelated ideas, but if you look a little deeper you will see that they are part of an interrelated plan for World Domination, and that they are all based on the principle of forming networks and using them to generate power. I haven’t gone much into a discussion or elaboration of the abstract principles of networking, partly because I am as yet unable to elucidate them in a pithy form, or in other words, I don’t have many “schlogans”. Some key concepts in networking are: Decentralization, Distribution of Power and Responsibility, Empowerment of the nodes, Communication and Coordination.

This presentation is a brain dump of World Sankirtan.Net as of December 2004. The Network Centric Preaching Review will be a regular publication – how regular we don’t know yet – publishing the collective output of the thinkers and doers involved in the development of Network Centric Preaching. This year’s edition has contributions mainly from myself. Next year, after the World Symposium on Network Centric Preaching, we will publish the papers of the other speakers.

The material here is sometimes repetitive, sometimes overly wordy, sometimes sketchy, sometimes contradictory as ideas are considered, tested and then discarded in favor of others. There is minimal editing. It represents a work in progress, a moving target. In today’s environment organizations have to be rapidly adapting, and the individuals involved in these organizations have to be rapidly adapting. New skills must be learned constantly. New ways of doing things are constantly being developed. As quick as the manual can be written, it needs to be rewritten. Therefore a lot of documentation exists in an ephemeral form, in the form of conversations, of emails, of collaboratively edited documents that change from day to day.

At the same time, there are eternal principles involved, which don’t change. In trying to align the present situation with these eternal principles change is there, as the present situation changes and as we advance in our grasp of these eternal principles and mature in our understanding of how to align ourselves and our organization with them, but at the end of the day, we’re not doing anything new, we’re just rediscovering the same principles that have been used by all the acaryas and great preachers, and figuring out how to use them today.

I took the time to write this all down. I thank you for taking the time to read it. If you don’t like it when you are finished, by all means improve on it. If you like it, by all means, improve on it. This publication is released under a Creative Commons License which encourages sharing and improvement.

You are encouraged to copy and redistribute this work. If you are an enterprising type you are welcome to make a profit on it. You are encouraged to modify this work. The only caveat there is that you must include a hyperlink to the original version of the document, along with a notice that this is a modified version. If you wish to have your changes merged in to the original document, just send them to me and I will take a look at them for inclusion.