And it’s got an RSS feed here. So now we have that wonderful combination of insightful editorial filtering with a format the flows into my information space on my terms. While the dinosaurs at Syndicate try to figure out how to preserve their obsolete business models, Tom Peters and crowd are forging ahead.
TP Wire Service Launches. There’s something new from the tompeters.com team, and I think it’s COOL! Check out the TP Wire Service. We’ve… [The Tom Peters Weblog]
I caught up with Buzz last week face-to-face. We were both in Cambridge, MA and managed to find time for some pizza at Bertucci’s followed by ice cream at Herrells. If you live in Cambridge, you likely know of Herrells. Those of you who don’t, should make the pilgrimage if quality ice cream is important to you.
Buzz chided me on my less than prolific blogging recently. The usual excuses apply; travel, new client projects, family sporting events when I am in town, etc., etc. But he’s right. I haven’t been making as much time for this practice as I should. Some of the issue is managing and rethinking the split between public and private blogging. I originally began using these tools as a backup brain and as an amplifier on my ability to stay informed about topics that matter to me. I still spend substantial time tracking topics using RSS and my aggregator, but much of that doesn’t find its way into McGee’s Musings nor should it.
I also use my local blog as the place where I draft and work out various ideas for my client projects and other efforts. Again, that is material that is frequently not ready for wide dissemination.
While I find these tools immensely important to my long term productivity as a knowledge worker, I still find it a difficult concept to sell. I don’t think we really give tools the importance they deserve if we are knowledge workers. If you’re reading this, most likely you’ve made this conceptual leap already. But how often do we encounter conversations like the one Rex Hammock reported last week on a question by Ellis Booker, “ What were you trying to achieve with your blog in the first place?”
I agree with Rex. I didn’t start this with a well-developed business case or a clear plan. The out-of-pocket costs to play with these new technologies are close to zero. The time costs can be a different question, but the potential payoffs are what is absolutely critical. And none of it fits into a business case any better than trying to calculate the future value of a newborn baby. You’ve got to live it to create whatever value is going to be found.
Here’s my analogy. We’re about where Frederick Taylor was when he started trying to figure out how to make manual, repetitive work more productive. Figuring that out was science at its most fundamental; observe, experiment, learn, repeat. The sooner you start, the faster you learn. If you continue the process, the most that anyone following you can do is to catch up to where you are now. Waiting for the answer is a sucker’s bet. It’s the person doing the practicing that gets better, not the spectator in the stands. So, Buzz, you’re right.
I have another column up at ESJ. I’ve been arguing that knowledge work is best thought of from a craft perspective for a long time. This time I took a look at knowledge work deliverables and came to a new insight (I’m just a bit slow sometimes). Knowledge work products achieve their value from their uniqueness not their uniformity.
This contributes to the failings most organizations have had with their efforts at knowledge management. Managing activities in an industrial economy is about achieving and enforcing uniformity. When it works, we get the PC revolution where my computer gets better and faster and more reliable every year. When it doesn’t, we get everyone in the call center reading from the same debugging script after I’ve been on hold 30 minutes while they ignore the problem diagnosis I’ve already done before I ever called.
Knowledge management efforts need to be rethought to bring this issue to the forefront. They need to put attention toward how to enable knowledge workers to be more proficient at creating unique results, not at creating an artificial uniformity that undermines the real point of knowledge management in the first place. The more sophisticated your knowledge workers, the more likely they are to ignore ill-conceived efforts toward uniformity. Also, the more likely they are to support efforts that address their real concerns.
Dave’s turning 50 tomorrow. Since I celebrated 52 yesterday, let me offer my best wishes and let you know that it keeps getting better.
I started this blog courtesy of his software innovations and his example. I been using his innovations from nearly the beginnings of the PC revolution. ThinkTank helped me through many a consulting engagement and I remain a huge fan of good outlining software.
So, Dave, kick back for the day. Celebrate your successes. Illegitimi Non Carborundum. Then get back to innovating so the rest of us can make some progress attacking the problems of our choice.
If you want to wish me a happy birthday, first, let me say, thank you, mazel tov, a blessing back at ya, namaste and let’s have fun. I have one request, which I get to make because it’ll be my birthday tomorrow, and I’m getting in practice for one day of pure selfishness. Instead of sending an email, if you have a blog, how about posting your wishes on your blog with a link to mine? I could always use some more flow, and I’d love to climb a few notches on the Technorati list, truth be told. “;->”