Exordium Chapter Twelve: An Exhortation To Liberate The [AGORA]

This concluding chapter highlights the digital age of ubiquitous but unfiltered information. It is a time of identifying anchoring traditions and vectors of trends in law and governance when everything matters. Looking at gaps in materials for students of the discipline, we looked at deficits in legal literacy for consensus on words of governance. Problems become gaps in boardrooms and council chambers. From a focus on the hybrid governance of diverse public, private, and special interests in a complex marketplace of self-interests and differences, a handful of key conclusions may be self-evident to many:

• governance has emerged as a discipline;

• the role of governance is strategic-oversight;

• the core value of governance is respect;

• the core procedural duty is to ask questions; and

• the core substantive duty is to reconcile best-interests.

These are drawn from the longitudinal study of discord and disputes that inform the rule-of-law and the emergence of governance as a separate discipline of skills and knowledge. In looking at governance now as trans-disciplinary accountability in business, economics, engineering, finance, and law, the technology and speed of the digital age supports learning specialized strategic thinking and oversight judgment. This chapter summarizes key issues of governance in a digital age including digital-age diligence and the importance of disciplined governance skills. Conclusions from our scans of cognitive science confirm that governance is by those all too human, but capable of learning and change consistent with aspirational systems of the rule-of-law. Faced with increasingly complex information and duties for due care and best-interests in decisionmaking, even with digital media and visual analytics, words are still the core units for working with others with intangible concepts of law and governance across diverse vocations and cultures. A fundamental conclusion for hybrid organizations is that everything matters.