I guess this blog thing is more than an experiment now, as I reach my fifth blogiversary. When I started this I was teaching information technology and knowledge management topics at the Kellogg School. Today, I’m helping clients deal much the same set of issues. We have powerful technology and new services that promise to make us more effective and productive. Sometimes they actually do.
This space is a place where I try to get my own thinking straight and a way to immerse myself better in the ongoing conversation of others trying to get their thinking straight. Some of them think in like-minded ways, others in very different ways, and all are important to the journey.
What I said last year remains true:
I remain interested in the challenges of making organizations better places for real people to work in and still believe that the effective use of technology makes a difference. I suspect that large organizations are nearing the end of their useful life and that the evolution toward new forms will continue to be painful and noisy. I worry about leaders and executives who choose to ignore facts and who can’t or won’t distinguish between the theory of evolution and the theory of who shot JFK. [McGee’s Musings]
As has become my custom, I want to thank those whose paths I’ve crossed, if only electronically:
Jenny Levine, AKMA, Terry Frazier, Betsy Devine, Buzz Bruggeman, Denham Grey, Marc Orchant, Cameron Reilly, Ernie Svenson, Judith Meskill, Jack Vinson, Ross Mayfield, Lilia Efimova, Jeremy Wagstaff, Matt Mower, Ton Zijlstra, Eric Snowdeal, Rick Klau, Greg Lloyd, Chris Nuzum, Jordan Frank, Halley Suitt, Jon Husband, Dina Mehta, Shannon Clark, Bruce MacEwen, Espen Andersen, Hylton Jolliffe, Stowe Boyd, Francois Gossieaux, Jim Berkowitz, Eric Lunt, Dennis Kennedy, Matt Homann, Jim Ware, Elizabeth Albrycht, Regina Miller, David Gurteen, Rik Reppe, Tom Davenport & Larry Prusak, John Sviokla, Bryan Rieger, Stephanie Rieger, Sheryle Bolton, Lynne Whitehorn-Umphres, Bill Ives, Giovanni Rodriguez, David Maister, Nancy White
Congratulations! That’s tenacity – and a very useful way of blogging.
Jim, that’s awesome. Congrats!
happy blogversary, jim!
I am honored to be your friend!
Hi Jim, congrats on those 5 years of blogging!
Happy to have been reading and conversing along in the last 4 of them 🙂
Thanks for the nod, Jim.
This:
I remain interested in the challenges of making organizations better places for real people to work in and still believe that the effective use of technology makes a difference. I suspect that large organizations are nearing the end of their useful life and that the evolution toward new forms will continue to be painful and noisy. I worry about leaders and executives who choose to ignore facts and who can’t or won’t distinguish between the theory of evolution and the theory of who shot JFK.
…. inspires me, as I have as often as not felt it was more like tilting at windmills than anything else.
It will be interesting to watch and see just how long the “command-and-control” philosophy remains in place as the dominant model for efficiency and responsiveness.
I tend to prefer “champion-and-channel”, as in champion new / innovative ideas (or just what works best) and channel resources to the idea until the concept is proven or crucial ineffectiveness is exposed.
Keep on keeping on .. here’s to another 5.