On making patterns and links – meaning and illusion

One of the natural wonders of human life is the way in which we look for connections, patterns, and links. We try and make sense of potentially unrelated events and actions by looking for relationships between them. One of my high school teachers told me that I look for things that aren’t there, so I have a strong sense of looking for relationships and connections! But by the same token, I am acutely aware that imagined connections may appear to have some meaning but in fact have no real relationship at all.

My long-time  interest in psychology brought me to the attention of the work by Harold Kelley, and in particular,  attribution theory and causal attribution. The gist of it all is that people to seek to attribute a certain causal relationship between two (or more) events to themselves, often a self-rationalisation and often completely unrelated to the actual reality (causality) of the relationship being considered.

So I was therefore not surprised when I read this news story about a tree stump in Ireland that purported to show an image of the Catholic “Our Lady” in the wood grain. The news story reminded me of a similar event years ago when a spilt milk shake in a lift in the US yielded a similar iconic response.

We look for patterns and links to explain things to give us meaning. It is not just primitive societies seeking explanation for drought and flood from sun gods and rain gods; modern society also looks to find meaning and explanation for things that happen or are likely to occur.  Superstition is everywhere.

At the same time, we need to be wary of attributing causality and seeing relationships and linkages that are not really there. If we are not discriminating in our thinking or analysis, then we can come up with some rather ridiculous explanations for things that have no real relationship at all – and history is littered with them, and not just in Ireland.

Now, I am beginning to look at how to map some workplace relationships (the work-oriented ones rather than the social ones at present) and communication channels between groups in order to get a picture of how people share information within identified networks. I am interested in levels of intensity, direction of flow, and whether there are particular gatekeepers or knowledge hubs.

Yet I am conscious of using this information without looking for relationships and making conclusions that don’t really exist – attribution theory and causal attribution are certainly on my mind. Are the linkages showing real relationships and do those linkages and relationship really matter? Care will clearly need to be taken in drawing out meaningful observations and conclusions.

Let’s look at the following list and try and identify what they each have in common (I love playing this type of game with my daughter, so bear with me on this one). I know it’s not as sophisticated and meaningful as the oft-used Dave Snowden example – cow, chicken, grass – but this is more for fun to illustrate a point.

• Richie Blackmore
• Greenpeace
• Judy Garland
• Goorialla

So, does it matter?

On demographic change and the social

Jeremiah writes a great blog post about the way in which organisations (employers) will need to deal with the entry of socially-connected Gen Yers into the workforce, and the problem employers face with the loss of corporate knowledge with the exiting of the baby boomers.

There is little doubt in my mind that employers should make use of the networked Gen Yers as much as possible. Networking can provide a pool of intelligence beyond the internal reach of an organisation. At the same time, Gen Yers are adept at using their peer networks for both social and workplace connectivity. Being connected is the norm for Gen Yers, and part of their identity and skill set they bring to a job.

As to the potential loss of corporate knowledge as baby boomers retire, this is a more fundamental problem. It is true that alumnis provide a way of establishing a connection between a former employee and the organisation. The question is: are alumnis effective and do they really make a difference?

I suspect that alumnis have a range of outcomes, from practically zero to the occasional peaks, depending on how the alumni is set up and how members choose to make themselves available.

The key to keeping your exiting baby boomers connected, to my mind, is not just the business connection, but the social connection. The social connection is more likely to keep ex-employees interested, especially in the retirement years when additional time is available. Social relations occur at work all the time, perhaps under-appreciated by employers, but nevertheless important to employees. Tap into these social networks with your alumni or some other social-business model. The chances of keeping the exiting baby boomers connected with the organisation and its people will be all the more likely.

As you can see, the common element that organisations need to embrace is social: both the Gen Yers and the exiting baby boomers can be of most use when they stay socially connected as well as business-connected.

 

On five common mistakes in innovation

I want to share five common mistakes in innovation that were recently presented in an article in BusinessWeek. It seems to me that they are just as applicable in the context of developing initiatives for knowledge management inside the firm, and knowledge diffusion between organisations.

1) An over-reliance on pilot initiatives – pilots tend to focus on a single technique when a range of techniques (the portfolio approach) may better suit project or organisational  requirements

2) An unhealthy fascination with unique, charismatic examples – this occurs where charismatic leaders are used as templates for success for others to copy (dare I say it, celebrity enrtrepreneurs!)

3) A misapplication of the approach of other companies – emulating the approach or strategy of another company may not work for you

4) A descent into a cycle of self-recrimination – compared to others, our people just can’t make it happen says the management team.

5) A resignation to superficial changes – cosmetic change occurs instead of real structural change (this one is particularly relevant to marketing departments that delight in changing the colours and font styles in web pages, but are happy to keep the lousy content).

The point I want to make about these commonsense observations is that they all demonstrate the importance of context. Context is what matters since that is how sense is made from what is happening. Looking at examples and experiences from other contexts will need thought, modification and rearticulation for adaptation into the new context. And, importantly, the new way needs to fit with the existing workplace culture – something I have mentioned in a previous post.

And when it comes down to superficial change, you won’t be foooling anyone. Changing colours and doing makeovers might work for television programmes on home renovations, but cosmetic changes to the organisation are largely illusory.

On what’s all this fuss about?

Some friends of mine have been encouraging me to open up a Facebook account. I understand the mechanics of Facebook, especially it’s college mentality origins. Intellectually I can see why Facebook has become popular, but personally I am not so enamoured. But then again, I don’t watch much televison (especially useful at this time in order to avoid the political commercials – propaganda - for our upcoming federal election) and I don’t play computer games so maybe I’m a little too bookish for Facebook. Mind you, I don’t feel disconnected by not being connected on Facebook either.

However, it’s nice to know that there are other people who are trying to work out what all the fuss is about with social networking sites, like this post about Flickr (thanks Mark for the heads up on this one).

I checked my own contributions to Flickr and see that I have less than a handful. And having promised Matt Moore to load up a plethora of images from my own photographic collection, I am yet to do so. Mind you, I am still to digitise the thousands of slides sitting in their dark, archival quality storage boxes. I need a home-based digitisation project first.

As a photographer though, I do like to look at other people’s photos and I do scan a range of tags of interest on Flickr. Perhaps it’s voyeuristic entertainment much the same way viewers watch other people’s marginally more exciting lives on television, or roast the duds so they don’t feel so completlely hopeless, helpless, and ordinary.

Yet I do use Flickr as a sort of image gallery but only in my spare time (of which I don’t have too much left to spare these days). I have actually been inspired by some of the photos on Flickr so this is a good thing. If only I could feel inspired to get those thousands of slides out of the cupboard and onto the hard drive….or Flickr.

On digital identity (2)

Matt Moore has a couple of recent blog posts on digital identity that pose some interesting thoughts.

The first, the technology of the secret, discusses secrets and what they represent, especially in terms of knowledge sharing and trust. Matt rightly says that we need to ”manage our identities in ever more complex ways. And they make our secrets increasingly fragile to exposure”.

The second post, I want to stay hidden, discusses his experience with Facebook. Matt poses a critical question in relation to our emerging digital identities: “How do we manage ourselves to get the best out of our interactions with others?”

Finally, let me recommend the 8th annual Digital Identity Forum to be held in London, 20-21 November 2007, as a good place to hear and discuss the latest digital identity issues.

On everything is miscellaneous

I have been discussing podcasts recently. I have also been doing a bit of long-distance driving. One benefit of the driving has been listening to podcasts.

One good podcast I listened to yesterday afternoon on my MP3 player was a recent interview with Dave Weinberger, author of the book, Everything is miscellaneous. Weinberger discusses web 2.o, web-based participation and user ownership, and the miscellaneous nature of knowledge in the rapidly changing digital world. Very interesting and well worth listening to (and reading the book).

On KM Australia 2007 (Part 3)

The highlight of the KM Australia 2007 conference was the presentation on the afternoon of Day 1 by Michel Bauwens on “Peer to peer: the new paradigm for social innovation”.

Michel believes that free agents are becoming the dominant form of economic activity in the post-dot com world. As a result, people and their networks are becoming increasingly important as individuals rely on each other for information and collaboration within a trusted relationship. The new social computing technologies have enabled peer to peer networks to grow rapidly, Facebook being a prime example. The value from these networks is created by the individual. Michel calls this the “wealth of networks”.

Michel argues that institutions, such as corporations and governments, have become less accountable to the public and trust in them has fallen significantly. Trust between peers has become the most important trust relationship. At the same time, a new generation of young, mobile and independent workers have emerged to find new meaning from the traditional work relationship between employer and employee. Combined, the individual is becoming more reliant on peer to peer networks in both work and social contexts, based on peer production, peer governance, and a common inclusionary network culture.

Michel also notes the importance of the “passionate user”, an individual with an intrinsic and positive motivation to do things for non-monetary reasons. As the threshold for voluntary particpation increases, aided by inexpensive social technologies, the peer to peer network increases, and the opportunity for creative innovation is enhanced. Michel gave the example of Linux that was started by volunteers, and the success of the open source movement. Innovation becomes social and flexible, the antithesis of traditional workplace heirarchies.

Michel posits that we are entering a fundamental shift in the economic landscape, moving to a peer to peer mode of production. After all, with knowledge and a computer, Michel says that individuals can now control the means of production.

The social network becomes the competitive advantage. Quoting Fernanda Ibarra: “The main source of value creation is shared knowledge and collective intelligence, not land, labour, or capital. It is that shift in the basis of value creation, what propelled virtual communities in the limelight as collective players with largely untapped potential for radical innovation”. The collective intelligence of the network, peer governance, and the democratisation of innovation will be the defining features of the peer to peer networked world.

I enjoyed the positive and enthusiastic vision of the future, especially the democratisation of production and the ability of individuals to choose their own destinies.

For me, the impact was twofold. Firstly, the importance of the virtual social network became clearer to me. Social computing is the lead instrument for many people today in connecting with other people who they may never actually meet in person. At the same time, new ways of using social networks do provide opportunities for later face-to-face interactions. Michel cited the example of CouchSurfing where people make available couch accommodation in their homes for visitors and tourists, people who they have an association with through networks despite never having physically met them. I guess it’s not really too far removed from word-of-mouth that was so prominant (and primitive in retrospect) when I was backpacking around Europe and Africa in the 1980′s looking for safe places to stay at low cost.

Secondly, the new economic model in which individuals are empowered in the labour market by their knowledge and their social networks is very interesting. I see how this is happening now with the high rate of labour mobility in the workforce but wonder if this is sustainable if economic conditions worsen and economies plunge into recession. Moreover, I wonder whether heirarchical organisational structures are really breaking down and whether the associated power relations inside those organisations are changing for the better. Certainly, autonomous networked individuals working collaboratively for the common good is an attractive proposition.

Over the coming weekend, I will conclude my overview of the KM Australia 2007 conference with some notes on some of the other presentations.

Finally, I have Patrick Lambe’s presentation from the NSW KM Forum last Tuesday evening and will make it available shortly.

On KM Australia 2007 (Part 1)

Wow. Today was the first day of the KM Australia 2007 conference in Sydney. I was very impressed with some of today’s presentations, although I must say it was sometimes difficult to hear the speakers due to the noise coming from the vendor and catering area next to the stage.

Not surprisingly, Dave Snowden was in fine form with his presentation on naturalising sense-making. Dave told me he hopes to have a podcast of the presentation up on his blog when he gets the opportunity to do so. Although I had heard much of what Dave spoke about today at another conference (including seeing the delightful basketball video), it is always refreshing to hear him challenge management orthodoxy in his initimable style.

The highlight of the day, however, was the presentation by Michel Bauwens from the P2P Foundation. Michel is quite the optimistic evangelist for peer to peer innovation creating a new mode of production for post-capitalist society.

I also enjoyed the presentation from James Price and Brian Nielsen from Adelaide-based ”Experience Matters” highlighting some of the learning points from a couple of client work examples.

I am still going through my notes and thinking about many of the key issues raised at the conference today. A full report will appear later in the week – stay tuned.

Also, tomorrow evening is the next meeting of the NSW KM Forum. Our speaker will be Patrick Lambe of Green Chameleon fame. Hopefully, I will have a synopsis of Patrick’s talk when I return home later tomorrow evening.