UEN is Creating a Hub for Innovation and Collaboration at Fort Worden
Historic State Park and Conference Center in Port Townsend, Washington
ABOUT UEN
Our Point of View
The world is shaking. That’s not a problem. That’s our opening.
For eighty years, the world ran on agreements most of us never had to think about. The dollar would hold. The institutions would function. The phones would connect. The supply chains would supply. The treaties would be honored. The grown-ups, somewhere, were minding the store.
Look around. The grown-ups are gone. The agreements are coming undone in real time — financial, diplomatic, ecological, communicative, civic. We can feel it at the gas pump, in the headlines, in the eyes of our neighbors, in the awkward silences at our family dinners.
Most of us read this and feel afraid. That’s the right response. But it’s only half the picture.
Here’s the other half: when the old order cracks, the next one gets written.
It always does. It got written after the printing press, the first written Constitution, and two world wars. It will get written now, in our decade, on our watch — and the only real question is who and how it will get done.
The institutions that ran the last century can’t pick it up. They’re too brittle, too captured, too winded. No single organization — no government, no foundation, no movement, no company, no church — can pick it up alone either. The work is too big. The world is too connected. The Doomsday Clock is now only 85 seconds ’til midnight — the closest it’s ever been to unleashing a Doomsday Future.
If they can’t, who will and how will it happen? Those are the questions that are at the heart of UEN’s next transformational strategy.
Our Past Sweet Spot – Addressing the World’s Hot Spots One Event at a Time
Since 1983, United Earth Networks (UEN) has pioneered transformational events that brought the world’s attention to causes that desperately needed attention.
Events in four categories, as sampled below.
Cracking the cement between worlds
Our U.S.–Soviet Spacebridges put American music into Soviet living rooms via satellite in real time, when Cold-War conversations were forbidden. Conversely, we twice brought a cultural tour of 100+ musicians and dancers from Communist China to 35 cities in capitalist Canada and America.
1.
2.
Learning that a Song, a Stadium, and a Satellite could help to civilize our So-Called Civilization
Live Aid invented the global cause event. Wembley Stadium in London and JFK Stadium in Philadelphia: two concerts, two billion humans watching, $127 million raised — and a permanent shift in what was possible when culture and conscience aligned. And the first US Festival that was sponsored by Apple Co-Founder Steve Wozniak and attracted nearly 400,000 viewers.
Our Recent Approach: Building Out the Pipeline
Through our partnership with Hubcast, we can today deliver a Production-to-Distribution-to-Follow-Up pipeline. It will give events a far longer afterlife with music, songs, films, speeches and stories of progress already achieved that continually drive home the event’s message and inspire the people who were there and those who wish they’d been.
And Our Current FocusAnd, currently, in line with a new, patented Market-of-One technology, we’re envisioning a path forward for regenerating our soils, forests and waterways and for crafting a better future in the next 10 years and beyond.
This is the work we’ve been doing for forty-three years. We just hadn’t yet called it by this name.
UEN’s Next Step: Convening a Network of Networks
Successful or not, every company is a network of staff, customers, funders and more. UEN is no different. We’ve always had a small staff. And ever since Event #1, we’ve convened a “Who’s Who” network of musicians, set designers, security crews, food producers, and others — much like the cast and crew of an independent film.
This model worked beautifully for individual events. Today, to meet the gravity of this moment, we’re applying it to organizations — convening a Network of Networks (NON): a coalition of the centers, movements, and institutions already doing the work of transforming how we live on this Earth, in greater harmony with how the rest of Life already does.
In this regard, UEN is acting not as a boss or a brand, but as a convener: an organization that knows how to get the right people in the room, produce jaw-dropping events, enable it with a patented Market-in-One technology and coordinate it all from one of the most beautiful state parks in the United States.
If “Network-of-Networks” resonates with you, come find us at Opportunities. That’s where the doors of partnership and progress start to open.
Opening High-Level Closed-Door Meetings to the People Whose Jobs, Families, Communities, Dignity and Trust in a Happier, Better Future were being Shaken
The first global climate conference at the White House. A convening that included the Nobel laureates, heads of state, UN leadership, faith elders and others, who voted to establish a Conference of the Parties that has annually convened for 30 years.
3.
Building Impact Beyond the Event
Transformational Events typically integrated venues, people, music and technology into an “I was actually at Live Aid” story that grandma tells. But shortly after the lights were turned off, so, too, were many of the pledges to make donations and to take actions.
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Richard Lukens
FOUNDER/CEO
United Earth Networks, SPC -
Michael Jensen
CEO
Jensen Communications, Inc. -
George Orbelian
Buckminster Fuller Institute
Board Member -
Jeff Helsing, Ph.D
Jimmy & Rosalynn Carter Peace School
at George Mason University -
David Gershon
Co-Founder/CEO
Peace Moonshot 2030 -
Daron Ker
CEO
Water Buffalo Pictures -
Danny Milholland
Director of Operations
The Production Alliance
The following history timeline encompasses events over the past four decades that UEN or UEN’s founder, Richard Lukens, has played a pivotal role in. Learn more about Richard Lukens HERE.