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Megacommunities

Booz Allen Hamilton defines its core mission as working with clients to deliver results that endure. Today, our clients face large-scale issues of unprecedented complexity: global climate change; rebuilding urban infrastructure; water scarcity; preparing for pandemics; dealing with aging populations; and maintaining quality of life in the face of globalization. These issues significantly affect national security, economic well-being, and the health and safety of citizens around the world. As we work toward developing solutions to these mounting, many-headed problems, more and more often we find ourselves repeating a four-word mantra: It takes a megacommunity™.

We have come to the conclusion that, in many cases, no sector—government, business or civil society—can solve these problems on its own. Each sector comes with its own discrete cast, skill set and sphere of influence. Many of today’s complex problems require us to find ways to blend these sector-specific advantages and join together into what we've dubbed "megacommunities" (a term most simply defined as a tri-sector, action-oriented “organization of organizations” focused on a shared issue).

Forming a megacommunity presents a challenge for the government sector—as it does for all sectors. It will take hard work, bright thinking and the best intentions to figure out how to reach across sectors and sector-specific interests to find what we call the “overlapping vital interest.” But these overlapping interests must be defined and acted upon if we hope to tackle some of our most serious problems. Each new megacommunity increases our knowledge of how to shape a megacommunity effectively. And the government sector is a critical part of this new equation.

Booz Allen's Megacommunities Thought Leadership

Books

• Megacommunities – How Leaders of Government, Business and Non-Profits Can Tackle Today's Global Challenges Together by Booz Allen's Mark Gerencser, Chris Kelly, and Reginald Van Lee and Booz & Company's Fernando Napolitano

strategy+business Magazine Articles

• Convenors of Capability – Article documents the work being done at the Hope Community Center in Biloxi, Mississippi, shows how megacommunity efforts can bring people the help they need to rebuild.
• HP Engineers a Megacommunity – Article describes the university relations effort that led the Hewlett-Packard Company to forge unprecedented alliances with a variety of private, public, and civil sector partners in Africa to develop the next generation of female engineers.
• Lights! Water! Motion! - Article describes the crisis in urban infrastructure that calls for a megacommunity-style solution.
• The Megacommunity Manifesto – Article lays out the rationale and basic methods underlying the approach.
• The Megacommunity Way: Mastering Dynamic Challenges with Cross-Boundary Leadership - A compilation of articles about megacommunities.
• When There Is No Cavalry – Article shows how no single authority can prepare for or respond to major disasters as effectively as a megacommunity can.

Other Megacommunities Thought Leadership

• Keeping the Megacommunity Strong – If government, business and civil society are to collaborate, they must avoid common pitfalls that can derail the process, says Reggie Van Lee.
• Collective Leadership and Overlapping Vita Interests: The Unrealized Power of Megacommunities – An article by Reginald Van Lee, Mark Gerencser, Chris Kelly, and Robin Portman, which appeared in the Spring 2009 issue of the Innovations journal.
• A World Without Alzheimer’s Disease – Booz Allen simulation introduces a megacommunity approach to Alzheimer’s disease prevention, detection, treatment, and care.
• Booz Allen “Cyber-War” Simulation Gives Leaders Taste of Real Thing –“Cyber attack” simulation demonstrated the need for a new way of thinking about cyber security that focuses on a “megacommunity” approach.
• Integrative Leadership: The Growing Importance of Tri-sector Experience – The most successful leaders of the future may be those with career paths through all three sectors, either migrating through business, government, and the civil sectors during their careers, or serving on boards of organizations in other sectors.
• Megacommunities and the Government Sector – Booz Allen explores the leading role the government sector often plays in a megacommunity.
• Megacommunity Leadership – The megacommunity leader truly has the power to shape the future—providing, of course, that he or she has the right tools.
• The Path to Healthy Homecomings: Findings From the Community Reintegration Summit – A megacommunity approach is applied to the challenge of how to help improve the reintegration experience for service members and veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.
• Preparing for the Next Game – Speech given by Mark Gerencser at the AFCEA Solution Series "Cyberspace: Challenges and Solutions for National Security" held in Washington, DC.
• Wounded Warriors–Taking Care of our Nation's Heroes – Booz Allen employs a megacommunity approach to evaluate and fully understand the Wounded Warrior range of care.

Megacommunities In the News

• Five Steps To Create a Megacommunity for Cybersecurity – June 19, 2009, article that appeared on executivebiz.com
• Megacommunities: The Next Big Idea - April 16, 2009 FCW.com article by Booz Allen's Mark Gerencser and Christopher Kelly.  Cybersecurity, climate change and other complex challenges require a new kind of thinking.