1 September 2024
Kia ora
On behalf of Nakedize, I am deeply proud to announce the company’s unlimited support for a charitable endeavour called the Same Page Initiative (‘the Initiative’), which I introduce below.
The genesis is that four years ago, in 2022, I determined I could not achieve my deepest professional and personal aims solely through a commercial entity.
My mission is not just to change society’s attitude to information, as showcased by my new Helpful Information Framework which expands and progresses plain language practice to explicitly promote information that delivers societal value.
I am also passionate about compiling and designing easy-to-consume pages of the essential information that must become ‘common knowledge’ if we are to shift paths to a sustainable future.
To proactively unlock the social change we need, enough of us must quickly ‘get on the same page’ about what needs to change, and how we can make the change happen.
My assessment four yeas ago – which was 16 years after I began contributing to sustainability projects (leading to Nakedize publishing Strong Sustainability for New Zealand in 2009) – was that a simple, mass-engagement plan and movement still didn’t exist.
So, I concluded I’d better give it a try.
Of course, this a huge task, which is why I have spent most of my time since 2022 designing and building the Initiative. I’m not really sure how I have managed to sustain this work – it’s totally unfunded – but nothing is more important.
And funding is now within reach.
Today, I finally applied for the Initiative to become a charitable ‘collective’ operating under the The Gift Trust’s (CC40774) Gift Collective fundholding project here in Aotearoa New Zealand.
If approved, the Gift Collective will transparently receive the Initiative’s donations and pay the Initiative’s expenses – including (I hope) for my time.
And while the Initiative will seek general donations to support the work I outline below, it will also seek donations from those downloading valuable information (like my old Theory of Universal Human Needs and my new Helpful Information Framework) created for, or shared through, the Initiative.
Below, I have answered key questions about the purpose and activities of the Initiative. You’ll learn about the Initiative’s context, goals, approach and method, bold-but-simple 10-year plan, current collaborations, and progress to date.
I am glad and grateful for the interest that has led you to these words, and I hope you will seek to become involved.
As you’ll see, there is a role for absolutely everyone.
You will also see that the goals are as ambitious and far-reaching as they come, and some will undoubtedly view them as idealistic or impossible. But I reason that they are essential to ‘Life’ and must be pursued. And I remain confident that if enough of us get on the same page about our plight and opportunity to address it, we can resolve anything.
Simon Hertnon
Founder and Managing Director
Nakedize Limited
- What is the Initiative’s bold purpose and unique approach?
- What is the Same Page Plan?
- Which organisations are already supporting the Initiative?
- What is the Initiative’s progress to date?
- How can you support the Initiative?
What is the Initiative’s bold purpose and unique approach?
First, here is the submitted charitable purpose.
Through collaboration, broad social engagement, and accessible information, our purpose is to enable the environmental regeneration and social cohesion needed to avoid ecological collapse. Global in scope, but local in practice, we’re determined to gift hope to all of us.
And here’s a breakdown of the Initiative’s context, goals, approach, and method.
Context – our shared plight
Experts agree (and we can all observe) that human civilisation has been on a path to ecological collapse since our plundering of nature ballooned following WWII. The term ‘Neo-liberalism’ in the diagram below refers to what I have heard described as ‘capitalism on steroids’, or ‘economic growth at any cost’. It’s all about new economic freedoms that licence economies to take, take, take from people and nature. Or, in other words, it’s the flawed game plan that keeps us all on the path to planetary insolvency.
The Anthropocene Reality and Planetary Solvency from Planetary Solvency —
finding our balance with nature, a report by the Institute and Faculty
of Actuaries and the University of Exeter (January 16, 2025)
Obviously (one would think), we need to do whatever it takes to change course. But that hasn’t happened because we’re not ‘on the same page’ about what to do or how to do it.
Our reality is that despite millions across the globe working tirelessly to change ‘the system’ or mitigate its effects, the latent desire for change felt by billions of us remains uncoordinated and unactivated.
Context – the cause of our shared plight
According to the 400,000-person global professional services firm, EY, the cause of our plight is the flawed purpose and pursuits of today’s global economic system (aka neoliberalism).
Marked by increasing signs of ecological breakdown, deepening social inequality and rising geopolitical tensions, we find ourselves in the midst of a polycrisis. These causally entangled crises are the result of similarly interconnected structural flaws in the global economic system… Without urgent, large-scale transformation, it’s not a matter of if, but when, we’ll reach the point of ecological collapse.
— A new economy: Exploring the root causes of the polycrisis and the principles to unlock a sustainable future, New Economy Unit, EY (May 2024)
EY’s report goes on to clearly define both the structural flaws and the principles global society must replace them with if we are to change course.
| From: polycrisis economy flaws | To: new economy principles |
|---|---|
| unsustainable growth and overconsumption | sufficiency |
| linear economy | circularity |
| financial capital myopia and short-termism | value redefined |
| siloed thinking | systems thinking |
| inequality and injustice | equality and justice |
We can get our heads around this. It’s not rocket science.
An economic system that seeks ‘cancerous’ growth-on-growth fuelled by the limited resources of people and nature will bring on collapse. One that seeks to serve people and planet will not. ‘Enough of us’ just have to agree to change the purpose of a human-created system.
Yes, it may seem impossible from where we are – surrounded by capitalism, consumerism, and extreme inequality – but it isn’t.
From the perspective of our grandchildren, born or unborn, ours is a simple choice between making a decision and working through a transition, or continuing with our planet-degrading habit at the peril of billions today and every human to come.
Goals – address the cause, then plot a new course
- First, end our accommodation of cancerous business
Facilitate enough of us to team up and change course by replacing the flawed purpose of the global economic system with one consistent with the ‘new economy principles’ above. Instead of people and planet having to serve and fuel the system’s mindless pursuit of economic growth at any cost, we require the system (through social licence and electoral power) to wholly serve the wellbeing of people and planet. - Then plot of a new path
Facilitate updating the design of all societal systems (trade, education, healthcare, energy, etc) without the flawed condition of every action having to increase GDP (requiring extraction, labour, consumption, financial wealth generation).
Approach and method – an intervention of simplicity
The approach is to embrace simplicity and prioritise local-global collaboration, which is the opposite of today’s busy, individualistic global culture.
The method is for the Initiative to perform 3 Essential Facilitations:
- Simplify the task by:
- creating a simple, 15-task plan (directly below) centred around 5 Mass Actions
- designing and facilitating 7 Expediting Collaborations so the world’s millions of volunteers and practitioners already working towards ecological and social betterment can concertedly assist the public to perform their five actions
- Provide essential information and promote helpful information (explicitly needed, universally accessible, concise, memorable) so everyone knows what to do.
- Coordinate the collaborations, including providing a purpose-built collaborator platform.
The 10-year Same Page Plan
The 10-year Same Page Plan is performed by three nested groups: Supporters, Expediters, and Essentialists.
Supporters can be any of us, but don’t need to be all of us.
The plan has just 15 tasks, split between the three groups.
- Supporters (enough of us) perform the 5 Mass Actions so we can change course.
- Expediters (volunteers and practitioners working towards ecological and social betterment) perform the 7 Expediting Collaborations to help Supporters perform the Actions confidently and, thus, quickly.
- Essentialists (very careful simplifiers, like me) perform the 3 Essential Facilitations to enable and support the Collaborations and Actions.
Thus, the work of the Initiative is to complete the Facilitations and seed the Collaborations so the Actions can begin and be completed as soon as possible (we’re aiming for 2027 and 2036, respectively).
The five mass actions
| Action | Purpose |
|---|---|
| A1 Team up | First, we equip our movement with the power of numbers. |
| A2 Notify businesses and politicians | Second, using our millions-strong vocal power, we invite businesses and politicians to proactively join us in boycotting and prohibiting harm-causing business. |
| A3 Boycott harm-causing business | Third, using our millions-strong consumer power, we stop supporting businesses that fail to show us their activities are wholly healthy or harmless. |
| A4 Prohibit harm-causing business | Fourth (and simultaneously), using our millions-strong electoral power, we withhold support for politicians who fail to assure us they will prohibit harm-causing business. |
| A5 Redirect societal systems | Fifth (and simultaneously), using our millions-strong wisdom and design capabilities, we amend the goals and rules of our societal systems so they serve and prioritise ecological health and social health. |
The seven expediting collaborations
| Collaboration | Purpose |
|---|---|
| C1 Mobilise Team Humanity | To expedite teaming up (A1) |
| C2 Support societal participation | To expedite notifying businesses and politicians (A2) |
| C3 Reinvigorate social permissions | To expedite boycotting harm-causing business (A3) |
| C4 Simplify legal protections | To expedite prohibiting harm-causing business (A4) |
| C5 Streamline system transformation | To expedite redirecting societal systems (A5) |
| CR Renew humanity’s wisdom | To inform all five mass actions |
| CP Promote helpful information | To support all five mass actions |
The three essential facilitations
| Facilitation | Purpose and method |
|---|---|
| FS Simplify the overall task | To seed popular focus and generate enough belief that changing course is achievable by: supplying a simple action plan; and designing and facilitating |
| FP Provide essential information | To support and stimulate mass participation in the movement by providing essential information to every community in the world. |
| FC Coordinate the Collaborations | To expedite achievement of the Supporter Actions by providing streamlining services to the Expediter Collaborations. |
Which organisations are already supporting the Initiative?
Nakedize has provided full support from day one. Nakedize is my family business, owned by myself, my wife, and my mother, and I couldn’t be more proud of its support to help me turn an idea into an initiative that might just evolve into a movement.
Throughout the evolution of the Initiative, I have enjoyed the support of Kāpuhipuhi Wellington Uni-Professional, where I have been teaching writing skills since 2008.
More recently, I have enjoyed the support of impact company Mission: Mārama, the thriving Plain Language Community of Practice (CoP) within the Victorian Government, and the talented team at Write Group (a B-Corp company).
Mission: Mārama (led by Juhi Shareef) is building a coordination platform (powered by ethical AI) for mission-driven groups such as sustainability, energy, and innovation networks and project collaborations. The platform is being designed to facilitate the work of the Same Page Plan’s 7 Expediting Collaborations.
Mission: Mārama and Nakedize are also collaborating (as MxN) to design and promote a Universal AI Declaration – an online tool that any entity can complete (yearly) to transparently declare their AI understandings, intentions, commitments, and safeguards (governance and guardrails). We recently socialised a prototype at the Aotearoa AI Summit (organised by the AI Forum and Tech NZ) in Wellington, and were delighted with the engagement.
The Victorian Government Plain Language CoP and Write Group are both providing collegial support to me and Nakedize in the development and promotion of helpful information, which is foundational to the Same Page Plan. Together, we are seeding a Helpful Information Network that I envisage leading the seventh Collaboration: CP Promote Helpful Information.
What is the Initiative’s progress to date?
| Facilitation | Progress to date |
|---|---|
| FS Simplify the overall task | The simplest version of the Same Page Action Plan is complete (you’ve just read it). The next level of detail is partially complete on the Plan page of the Same Page Manifesto. The Same Page Manifesto – needed to engage Expediters for the 7 Expediting Collaborations – contains a full summary on its homepage, with the supporting detail approximately 50% complete. |
| FP Provide essential information | The first cornerstone output – the one-page Helpful Information Framework – is complete. Other relevant outputs, headlined by my one-page Theory of Universal Human Needs, are ready for rebranding as Same Page Initiative outputs (subject to approval of the charitable ‘collective’). In collaboration with Mission: Mārama, Nakedize is designing and socialising (with New Zealand’s AI Forum and its members), a Universal AI Declaration (UAID), which is essential for achieving responsible AI use. |
| FC Coordinate the Collaborations | Mission: Mārama is building the collaboration tool for the 7 Expediting Collaborations. |
How can you support the Initiative?
Right now you can:
- Learn more about the Initiative by exploring the work-in-progress Same Page Manifesto over at samepagefoundation.org.
- Sign-up for progress notifications at: https://samepagefoundation.org/#notify
- Reach out to me via simon@nakedize.com or through LinkedIn.
And as soon as the Initiative’s ‘collective’ is approved by the fundholding charity, you will be able to start downloading the essential information outputs listed earlier and – if you can afford to – make a donation.
More updates coming soon!