About The Book Collaborative Commonwealth is a bold fresh look at individual, business, and public governance. You are invited to join the Collaborative Movement. For the Individual, it declares individual sovereignty based in God-given rights to pursue life, liberty, and happiness. Are you a new Collaborateur? For the Business, it replaces the fragile top-down hierarchical leadership model that gives power and profit to a few; with an agile model that offers servant leadership, which values both intangible and tangible assets where power and profits are pro-rata shared with all the collaborators. For Government, it envisions a reformed and restored Republic back to the hands of "we the people." It replaces the outdated, tyrannical, democratic, and federal form of governance and reforms and restores America back to the vision of our Founders. As Ben Franklin said, we require "servant leaders" who will provide governance in support of the needs and desires of the people. This reformation keeps the best of that we all have in common and resists the extremes that has taken us in the wrong direction. The Concept of Water "The essence of any great Ocean, River, or Stream begins with one Drop. Drops come in all sizes, shapes, and forms; just like people. Each unique Drop was created for a purpose, and so were you. This purpose will change throughout the life of a Drop, which is called emergence. Like you, water can be used over and over again to cause its environment to flourish, change, evolve, and renew." In this book, we use this metaphor of water to show how each individual aligns with others to form Streams. Streams then merge with other Streams to become Rivers, which have power and are movements. Lastly, when these powerful Rivers merge, they create great EcoSystems such as lakes, seas, and Oceans of great potential to accomplish anything they set their thoughts too. This book with teach you how to collaborate with others and create positive change.
Robert A. Needham, JD is a business advisor, consultant, coach, innovator, economic and social theorist, author, public speaker, innovator, scientist, thought leader in the collaborative and cooperative movements, and thought leader in financial services, franchising, cooperatives, and public and private governance. Needham is co-founder with his wife Cheryl-Ann Needham of Global Stewards Initiative Needham is founder of CollaborateUSA(TM). Needham created Collaborative Commonwealth(TM) and new form of governance. He has written several books and white papers which have introduced innovation and new ideas in more than 90 industries and have been used by business and non-profit leaders internationally. Other recent books include: Why Divide When You Can Multiply? - Sow A Seed Feed A Nation (2012), Wealth 3.0 - Saving America One Small Business At A Time (2008), and Solving the Puzzle of Owning a Franchise - Stop Renting Your Life and Start Owning it Instead! (2006). Needham is president of SPECTRUM Advanced Markets, Inc. which is a business advisor and consultant to for-profit, non-profit, ministry, and cooperative business concepts. As former president of FranchiseInc!, LLC, Needham lead one of the top franchise development, franchise consulting, and franchise broker firms in the nation working with some 300 concepts. Recently, Needham has applied Collaborative Commonwealth(TM) principals to public companies, private companies, non-profits, ministries, and cooperatives and has several successful projects underway. As a scientist, Needham has a highly decorated military career that included a member of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) National Space Transportation System (NSTS - Space Shuttle) Powered Flight and Assent Design Team (Houston), Unified Space Command, Needham also worked as a consultant to the government as a defense contractor. As a public speaker, Needham has spoken at numerous conferences on missions, strategic planning, franchising, ministry development, cooperatives, and new trends. Needham recently, spoke at the 2014 Future of Money & Technology Summit in San Francisco as a panelist on Community Crypt-Currency. Needham has been a convention keynote speaker and appeared on numerous television and radio stations as well as featured in several newspaper, internet and industry magazine articles.
