On perspective

There’s a great piece in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy that says: “Space is big, really big. You might think it’s a long way down the road to the local chemist, but that’s just peanuts to space”. And there’s also the piece about the total perspective vortex, the most hideous torture for any sentient being, where one sees oneself in proportion to the infinity of space: “an invisible dot on an invisible dot”. And lastly (in case you haven’t fielded my drift yet), there was that great image in Al Gore’s documentary, An inconvenient truth, that showed a photo of Earth from the (Voyager?) space probe out past Saturn, that turned its camera back to planet Earth and showed our tiny little dot of a planet in relation to just a part of our solar system and the Milky Way. Sobering stuff, mein Gott!

Perspective. What’s our perspective of our life in Australia (and other parts of the rich world) in comparison to that of other human beings in Burma, China and Zimbabwe - or Indigenous Australia for that matter? And that’s just for starters.

It’s all about perspective, isn’t it? As individuals, we might feel helpless in not being able to make a difference, but collectively we can make a difference. Every small positive act can mean something - to an individual, a family, a community. The aggregation of hearts, minds and commitment have achieved many positive things in history if, as individuals, we choose to act. Despair is not something we in the rich world can afford for inaction.

What can we do? We can start by donating now to the appeals from Medecins Sans Frontieres and others in relation to the current natural disasters in Burma and China. We can be selective if we want to but let’s not use that as an excuse to do nothing. We can make a commitment to keep donating to whatever helpful cause (you can see who I support below my blogroll), so that our commitment is enduring and consistent. But this is a financial commitment, important and necessary, but we can do more.

What is just as important, and just as significant, is how each of us relates to each other - in person, within our communities, and with people we may never meet. It’s our way of thinking - our perspective - that can make the difference (something that was reinforced to me today when speaking with Andrea from Reconciliation Australia). How we look at things, and how we try and see the perspective of others, are very important for each of us. And out of this perspective shift, our attitudes and behaviours and responses will change accordingly.

Perspective - that’s something to think about in our dealings with other people, both here and overseas

On the four rings of enterprise social tools

This a short post to alert people to an interesting item from Thomas Venderwal on enterprise social tools.

One of the difficulties of applying social tools in the organisation relates to how well they mesh together. Vanderwal illustrates the issue with his four rings of enterprise social tools: the tools themselves, interface and ease of use, sociality, and encouraging use. Where these four elements overlap is what provides the greatest interest - check out the post and we will come back to the discussion later in the week.

On the ties that don’t bind

This article from the Australian Financial Review(subscription required) discusses a recent book by human resource management academic, Lynda Gratton, on the power of weak ties in the network. Having read Gratton’s Living strategy, I was intrigued to learn more about the new book, Hot spots, albeit written for a more mass market audience.

Weak ties are people who are generally acquaintances or people you bump into occasionally. They are not good friends but may be friends of friends. Granovetter’s 1973 article was one of the first to examine weak ties and much work has been done since refining the concept in relation to a range of networks. One of the first papers I read on the topic was Hansen’s 1999 paper on weak ties in knowledge transfer in organisations. Over the past 10-15 years there has been a far greater interest in discovering and mapping social networks, often using social network analysis (SNA) and sensemaking software.

The gist of the new Gratton book is that “innovation comes from people who cross boundaries (and) talk to people in all areas of the business and outside and bring foreign ideas into their own work”. Gratton rightly points out that most organisations don’t even realise the capacity and power of potential networks inside their own organisation - an untapped and relatively inexpensive resource.

At the individual level, people need to take up the challenge of boundary spanning - the capacity to move outside the central node of friendships and social contacts into the more ambiguous and uncertain domain where they don’t really know people very well. With some curiosity and interest, these weak ties will form.

At the organisational level, there is often the fear that individuals need permission to meet and discuss issues outside their immediate working relationships. An open and collegiate workplace culture certainly helps dispel such fears, but where this culture doesn’t exist, encouraging co-operation and boundary spanning from senior management is a good start.

One example of boundary spanning inside an organisation can occur naturally. A new employee often brings new insights and ideas to a new organisation because they have not been corralled into like-minded teams inside the organisation. Once people become ensconced with people of similar ideas and contexts, the opportunity for innovative ideas tends to break down. As the article today says: “in order to get something unusual, you need to put people together who are different from each other”.

I pretty much agree that new thinking and new ways of looking at problems and opportunities are enhanced by diverse teams and weak ties. I also happen to be a fan of networks generally, believing much can be done by tapping the power of both information and social networks.

However, at my own new workplace, I must also become aware of the environmental context in which people are working. Plenty of fresh ideas are wonderful, and I like to think that I have a few ideas myself, but a scatter-gun approach may not be the most effective initial strategy. Nevertheless, I think it is still important to consider those fresh ideas within the existing workplace framework, as well as to frame those fresh ideas into new and potential workplace frameworks.

Certainly, as the new boy on the block, I am already forming loose ties across the organisation. I can have plenty of conversations within this organisational context, enabling a better understanding of the current workplace environment, while at the same time working through and generating new ideas for the future.

On conversations

Well, my first day in my new job at the Fred Hollows Foundation was really very good. The travel time to work was better than I expected (so that was a great start!) and I met some wonderful and committed people. The feature of the day was conversation - the largely informal conversations with people in the organisation about things that are going on and things that matter.

Now, I am also reading Patricia Shaw’s book, Changing conversations in organizations (thanks, Chris, I have nearly finished it). The book is somewhat hard going to read. Yet I can see how important conversations are within organisations to extract real meaning and real contextual understanding. I can certainly see how established hierarchies often make conversations difficult or prevent them from even occurring.

Shaw says: “we are daily involved with others in forming and being formed by the evolving ’situations’ which we experience as the sensible interweaving of our actions with another” (p.72). In other words, our personal context is dynamic and evolving within the context of our conversations and relations with others. These features lead to behaviours and actions that affect the organisation.

To my mind, conversation (communication) seems like common sense if one wants to discover any meaning about anything. My experiences today have only sought to reinforce that view to me.

On my new job

I start my new full-time job at the Fred Hollows Foundation tomorrow. I will be in charge of the information, knowledge management and education unit of the organisation. I am really looking forward to working back in the NGO sector and in international development. It will also make my involvement in KM4dev and Society for International Development more relevant.

It’s sort of a full circle for me since my first full-time job was working for an international development NGO, Australian Freedom From Hunger Campaign (AFFHC). That was quite some ago, but it feels like yesterday!

There will be some differences for me though, having worked in the Sydney CBD for most of my working life, and now working out in the suburbs. The organisation will also be different to me, having working in the banking and finance industry for almost twenty years.

The new position combines my personal interests and professional skills very well and this match really appealed to me when considering my working options. I look forward to the new challenges with the Fred Hollows Foundation and helping to make a real difference beyond just the organisational borders.

I hope to relate some of my experiences and observations in this new workplace context through more regular blog postings - so stay tuned!

On participation

I was listening to the radio this week when I heard an interview with a film producer on triple j. Of special note was the comment by the female dj that perhaps casting for movies should be done the same way as decisions are made in those reality tv shows. Just sms your vote! The film producer was aghast at such a thought! In contrast, the dj’s suggestion was just an obvious manifestation of what is already happening within her demographic’s frame of reference.

And this is where the demographic fundamentals will be working in businesses today. Participation isn’t something the management requests when it suits them, oh no! In a culture where participatory decision-making and social networking are becoming second nature, the workplace will need to adapt as well.

At the same time, the very same set of younger generations have not only been brought up with a hefty dose of reality tv but they have also been participants in the internet revolution. To them, the web and all it can do is as normal as a mobile phone.

Enter web 2.0 (the term web 2.0 was actually born in 2004) and add gen x, y and z.

The web-savvy generations with their penchant for personal networks and participatory decision-making are gradually working their way now (and in the future) into the very dna of organisations across the globe. The norms of organisational decision-making in those post-Fordist managerial hierarchies are looking a tad less secure in the 21st century.

For managers, we need to foster this connectedness and participatory zeal in our workplaces. We can assist with a suite of web 2.0 applications (RSS, blogs, wikis, social computing) that enhance the level of participation and communication among our people and our people-networks. And we can allow and actively encourage the participation, the networks and the conversations to take place inside our businesses because it is through these interactions and participation that we generate real organisational value competitive advantage.

Participation and web 2.0 are a great combination so let’s use them to the best of our advantage. [Check out this Ross Gitten's article for some more reasons to treat your employees well].

On business and social computing

This blog post pretty much sums up the benefits of social computing for business - couldn’t agree more!

On blogging until you drop

According to this newspaper report, blogging professionally is dangerous to your health. As a non-paid blogger who blogs out of interest (and not as frequently as I would like), I don’t seem to have that kind of health issue.

On breakfast, lunch, and tea

There are a number of ways in which information and knowledge can be disseminated and exchanged, including breakfast, lunchtime or evening meetings. These meetings can be internally or externally based. Organisations, like the Society for Organisational Learning Australia (SOLA) for example, have run morning information sessions for members featuring a special guest speaker. I first heard Dave Snowden at such a breakfast in Sydney a few years ago. There are plenty of examples across a range of businesses and professional associations.

At Rabobank I organised a number of lunchtime meetings featuring a guest speaker to discuss a topic of interest. The last one I organised dealt with water infrastructure and the speaker was a friend of mine from a leading law firm. The lunch and discussion afterwards were a great success. I hope to arrange similar sessions in a different organisational context in the future.

Having been both an attendee and organiser of such functions, it is often difficult to gauge how successful these meetings will be and what size of audience will actually turn up. Breakfast and lunchtimes are often busy times for people too, even if outside the official working day. And worst of all, sometimes the quality of the presentations are marginal, causing a major rethink as to the value of these types of sessions.

So what is it that makes these events a success?

From my experience, and from the example of the Dow Jones Factiva breakfast session I attended this morning (and the previous session last year), there are five key dimensions:

1) the speaker/s MUST be of good quality with something interesting to say (they don’t have to be famous but they need to be able to speak to a group of people in a relaxed style and have something relevant to say)

2) the speaker MUST be able to present in a professional but informal manner

3) the session should not be too long (1-1.5 hours is sufficient) and timing must be tightly controlled to avoid wasting time

4) a good mix of people in the audience widens appeal and scope for questions and post-session conversation

5) the venue MUST be comfortable and able to fit the number of people attending

The Dow Jones Factiva session this morning had three speakers: Chris Pash from Dow Jones Factiva and his self-advertised blog, Hugh Martin from APN Online, and Martin Quadroy from Telstra). All three speakers in their individual ways provided interesting, entertaining, and relatively short presentations covering content, online marketing, and competitive intelligence.

Well done (again) Dow Jones Factiva!

On snack drama

Expect to hear more about snack drama in the future. Snack drama represents a niche product that will entertain a growing subscriber base using mobile communication platforms. Consumers’ increasing use of mobile communication for news and entertainment will provide the market momentum for this new communication product. And time poor consumers will support the snack drama format if the content is of a consistent and desirable quality.

Expect to see advertisers and “message” communicators use snack drama formats as a new communication channel. Communication providers will look to gobble up content in order to service this niche, giving significant market opportunities for clever content producers and advertisers. 

Snack drama - watch out for it.

On blogs and CoP’s

Joitske Hulsebosch blogged about the potential of using blogs with communities of practices (Cop’s). Joitske gives four very useful ways in which blogs can support CoP’s but I just want to focus on one of them. Quoting Joitske:

“A weblog with summaries of discussions can be a repository for the community. An example is the weblog Everything you always wanted to know about capacity development . It is a weblog from ICCOcapacity building advisor”.

Using a blog as a repository for summaries of debate and rich content is a great idea. Some threads in a vigorous discussion in a CoP can be lost in the rumble-tumble of debate. Sometimes the debate is at such an intellectual depth that a summary of the salient points would be a nice feature to have to bring the level of discussion into a broader realm of understanding. This latter point was highlighted for me with a sterling debate among three key protagonists on actkm recently - a debate I really enjoyed but at times found difficult to follow (not helped by my part-time tracking of this exchange at one of my contract jobs).

I liked the thinking behind Joitske’s use of blogs to support CoP’s. As a result, I am doing some thinking of my own as to how weaving narrative into the blog summary may be used to create another dimension to understanding rich content.

On harvesting text

In most organisations there is a plethora of text that is composed, written and sent out. Sometimes the text circulates and sometimes text comes back. We take text for granted because it is so ubiquitous. But in the digital world we can do more with text.

A recent blog post from Nancy White highlighted some techniques for making use of text in a much more effective way. Nancy’s experience was with KM4Dev. Nancy explains the summarising and harvesting of learnings from key community conversations in the KM4Dev email list and onto a wiki. The same techniques would have worked with my former communities of practices that were also based on e-mail lists.

Sometimes, when changing applications, the existing text-based information is archived or just deleted. The new application starts afresh as if there had been no information and no learnings that preceded it. By taking the existing information from the listserv and reusing that knowledge in the wiki, there is now the opportunity to reframe the information via the wiki format and to maintain the knowledge learnings and knowledge history.

The value of the existing information is retained and rearticulated for re-use. New discussions will emerge and radiate within the new format. The process will be ongoing and regenerating, just like in the natural world with sowing, nurturing, growing, and harvesting.

On conferences and good experiences

I love attending good conferences. I love thinking about ideas and discussing them with interesting people. I love networking with people and connecting up with them after the conference is over. I love refining my thoughts and my notes on the way home.

And so it is with this in mind, albeit without a budget to attend, that I want to advise that the Gel 2008 conference is on in New York on 24-25 April. Clay Shirky and a host of interesting people will be presenting. An eclectic mix of attendees is expected.

Gel is the conference organised by Mark Hurst from Creative Good. Mark also writes the blog and newsletter, Good Experience. I have been a Good Experience subscriber for a few years now and enjoy the focus on making the customer experience as positive as possible. Gel 2008 will no doubt have some great customer experience insights as well.

Now, where’s that money box?

On measuring library value

I have been reflecting on some of the methods I have used in library and information services in the past to measure and report on success.

At a former workplace, we used software to measure online useage statistics and hit rates.  From memory, it wasn’t sophisticated software but gave basic information. The library was consistently in the top 20 most popular sites on the intranet. This was indeed pleasing. There were some popular sites contained within the library site, often reflecting the level of business activity in an area at a particular point in time. And, I could anticipate much of the interest in the content of the site by knowing the seasonal nature of the business and marking useage statistics across the cycle. For instance, there was greater interest in research and information for grains information after sowing and before harvest because there was more time to actually read and discuss the information.

I also kept a log each month of information requests. Using the library management system, I was able to generate reports on the useage of the physical library, loans and returns. And I used to complete a monthly activity report for each of the communities of practice I administered. Lastly, I monitored hits and downloads for newsletters and news items (the “My FAR” page that let people know what the research team was doing each week, and an online space from where I had hoped to launch podcasts and videocasts from).

I had plenty of statistics and plenty of information from a variety of sources for my monthly statistical report! But even so, the most telling information I received about the library and information service was when I either met with or spoke to staff personally. They would tell me how they found a report “just in time”, or that they could download a presentation that they could show a potential client, or that the insurmountable question had been answered through one of the communities of practice. What they also told me was the confidence they had in knowing that information, research material, and help was available and that they could tap into that at any time.

Sometimes we can get caught up with a set of formal metrics of measurement that yield outputs but do not reflect impact. And one way to ascertain impact is through talking to your clients and the people you service.

On SXSW 2008

I am really disappointed that I wasn’t able to get to Austin, Texas, this year to attend SXSW Interactive. I will get there one day (I hope) but in the meantime we are fortunate that the organisers provide podcasts of the presentations and discussions.

Check out this interview with Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook fame - some interesting discussion on how people in different countries are using Facebook and what Facebook holds for the future.

Warning: the interviewer is really annoying, thinks she’s clever, and she probably thinks she is real cute.  Not impressed. Note to potential interviewers and facilitators - “it’s not about you, ok?”