This has been making its way around the web over the past week or so. It can be helpful in making what most of us take for granted easier to explain and understand to those who haven’t had time to wrap their heads around why the technology matters.
Web 2.0 video: The Machine is Us/ing Us
Wonderful 5-minute video on YouTube titled Web 2.0: The Machine is Us/ing Us
[cross posted at FastForward blog]
Over a lunch conversation on Thursday with Andrew McAfee, a group of us discussed barriers and enablers for adopting Enterprise 2.0 technologies within organizations. One objection that I have often seen raised came up in this conversation as well; that blogs, wikis, and other collaboration technologies represent new risks in an era of increased scrutiny and regulation. The reasoning goes that there is already too much risk associated with tools like email and IM of inappropriate behaviors being subject to discovery and that, if anything, for sensitive issues no electronic traces should ever be created.
The primary fear appears to be that legitimate internal debate and discussion of complex problems will be taken out of context and misrepresented. I think this fear actually represents a powerful argument in favor of Enterprise 2.0 technologies as a decided improvement over today’s ad hoc environment of email, instant messaging, and scattered memos and presentations. By design, Enterprise 2.0 technologies contextualize the development and refinement of ideas as a social activity. By making the thinking and the debate visible and organized, you blunt, if not disarm, those who would try to portray the debate as something other than what it was.
[cross posted at FastForward blog]
I was sitting next to James Robertson yesterday as Ray Lane delivered his opening keynote address at FastForward07. At one point James leaned over to me and joked that I was beginning to twitch. What was bothering me was that Ray was perpetuating the lazy and glib thinking of Nick Carr’s infamous Harvard Business Review article “IT doesn’t matter.”
Carr setup a series of artificial distinctions and misleading definitions to make the binary point that IT was always and everywhere a corporate utility function that had no place at the executive table. While that certainly played well in many organizations that had poured millions of dollars into ill-conceived technology initiatives, I doubt that it gained much traction in the board rooms at Amazon or Google. The question is not whether IT does or does not matter. The questions are how does it matter, when does it matter, how does it integrate with our broader strategic agenda, and what do we as senior executives need to understand about technology’s capabilities and possibilities in order to make intelligent decisions for our particular organization.
In the context of this conference, Lane is making a similarly broad assertion that “search is core.” That may make for an excellent marketing tagline, but I am struggling with just what it means for an organization. I am wary of any claims that boil down to “here is your silver bullet.” My own bias is that all of these promising technologies are just that-promising. Now, the task is to unpack and understand what it will take to turn the promise into reality in a particular organization at a particular time and place.
I found the following very helpful in my continuing efforts to understand global climate change.
The Human Hand in Climate Change
Kerry Emanuel (whose influential scientific work we’ve discussed here previously) has written a particularly lucid and poignant popular article on climate change for the literary forum “Boston Review”. The article is entitled Phaeton’s Reins: The human hand in climate change. We thought it worth passing along.
I’m finding how people talk and think about climate change to be a good marker for distinguishing between real strategic thinkers and those who confuse gaming the system with strategy.
I would put the American Enterprise Institute into the gaming the system category based on this report of their encouraging scientists to write critical reviews of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s recent summary report.
Thanks to Jon Husband for pointing this one out. I’ve been a fan of Evelyn Rodriguez’s Crossroad Dispatches for a long while. Her writing challenges me to take risks that I don’t always rise to, but always appreciate.
Business Problems and Root Causes
A delicious discovery whilst browsing this morning …
From Evelyn Rodriguez’ bio on her blog Crossroads Dispatches:
If one could honestly assess the root cause of many business problems – it’d be these intimately related concepts: being open is dangerous and being guided by the echoing fear in our heads is safe.
– Evelyn Rodriguez
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One of the enduring benefits of being a consultant over the years has been the opportunity to go on more than my fair share of plant tours. I love the chance to learn about all the ingenuity and creativity that goes into making stuff. If you can’t get to the actual plant tours, here’s one good alternative. Thanks to lifehack for the pointer.
The National Association of Manufacturing has been posting a weekly video for over two years that shows how things are made. This is a great way to learn new information while being entertained. Some of their past topics are linked below:
- How mattresses are made
- How breakfast cereal is made
- How neon signs are made
- How clocks are made
- How clarinets are made
- How Harley Davidson motorcycles are made
- How Mack trucks are made
- How baseball bats are made
- How golf clubs are made
- How tennis balls are made
- How parade balloons are made
The series has been going on for over two years which means there are well over 100 videos available.
How things are made – [Shop Floor]
Comparing the average management self-help book to Nigerian spam may be a bit harsh. On the other hand, I’m also finding indexed to be a welcome daily provocation. Makes a point and makes you think. I think of it as a daily dose of insight to help avoid succumbing to what the late Steve Allen described as “dumbth.”
This delightful sketch comes from indexed, a blog which is worth a daily feed. Having spent a lot of time in airports recently the sheer number of shelves devoted to simple guru based recipes is scary. Everything is made simple, reduced to simple steps, off the shelf recipes and impossible problems. Snake-oil salespeople have been around for a long time and they persist. Nigerian spam is just a difference of degree from the average self help book.
The increased importance of sensemaking will prove to be one of the central drivers for Enterprise 2.0 technologies adoption. Organizational theorist Karl Weick positions sensemaking as one of the central tasks in organizations. Dan Russell at Creating Passionate Users provides a nice definition of sensemaking that will serve as a useful starting point:
Sensemaking is in many ways a search for the right organization or the right way to represent what you know about a topic. It’s data collection, analysis, organization and performing the task. [Sensemaking 3]
The value of the sensemaking notion in organizational settings is that it highlights the active requirement for managers and leaders to construct sensible accounts out of ambiguous, ambivalent, equivocal, and conflicting data. In a world (imagine Don LaFontaine here) characterized by significant technology, organizational, and strategic change, the problem of sensemaking becomes more acute.
It occurs to me that there is an useful analogy to be made between sensemaking and open source development practices; in particular with the adage that “with enough eyes, all bugs are shallow.” Instead of counting on the insights of a mythological strategic genius, you distribute the problem to the wider organization. Many of the more interesting strategic planning processes (think scenario based planning and future search conferences, for example) are ultimately grounded in that notion.
One of the attractions in Enterprise 2.0 technologies is that they make these strategies more feasible and scalable. Blogs, wikis, tagging, etc. allow participation to scale beyond what face-to-face methods can support. They make it possible to generate and organize more extensive raw materials and inputs to planning/sensemaking processes. Wikis with good version tracking and refactoring capabilities make it both safer and easier to generate and work through alternative representations/sensemakings.
Realizing this sensemaking potential will require brokering some introductions and partnerships. Those adept in the techniques are likely to not be versed in the ways that the technologies reduce or eliminate some of the key barriers to successfully using the techniques. Those who understand the technologies may not be aware that the techniques exist, much less that they could benefit from technological improvement. One starting point I would suggest is for those promoting Enterprise 2.0 technologies to investigate the sensemaking planning techniques and practices and map points where the technologies enable, simplify, or improve the techniques.
I found these at a blog I’ve recently added to my news aggregator. Both the quotes and the blog are worth your consideration.
Found these in a completely different context (a discussion group about Prediction Markets); thought that they were wonderful descriptions of the “provisionality” of blogs. See what you think.
In physics the truth is rarely perfectly clear, and that is certainly universally the case in human affairs. Hence, what is not surrounded by uncertainty cannot be the truth.
Niels Bohr:Never express yourself more clearly than you think.
Actually there is another good Feynman quote in the comments to this post that is also worth calling to your attention:
For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled
Chuck Frey is doing a new research project on the uses of mindmapping. If you’re using mindmapping tools take a few minutes to help with his research.
It’s now time for my next research project. This time, I’m focusing on issues like sharing your maps and collaborating with others, exporting maps into other data formats and a “wish list” of future software capabilities. This survey also includes several open-ended questions, where you can share your thoughts and opinions with me and your peers.
Please take a few minutes to complete this brief, 10-question survey:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=323173213778
I look forward to your thoughts! [The Mind Mapping Software Weblog: Please participate in my latest mind mapping software survey.]