I would argue that most of folks doing management work, strategy design, or outstanding innovation processes (in or out of house) know what really works. THey’ve taken the time and effort to go study the 20 or so books, blend in the thinking that the web2.0 world that Tim O’Reilly named, thought deeply about what works, and they work on applying these ideas to their craft every day. What is interesting is that there is no roadmap that i know of to do it “out of the box” today — that’s the genesis of The New How.

Surely such folks are a small minority today? Maybe less so in tech companies / the Valley ? And changing more and more quicly, no doubt with the help of books such as yours.

The question I have is when / whether / if what you describe is going to become commonplace in the knowledge-based workplace, and if so, when ? And, in terms of structure, I suspect that we will not (in the future) have a one-size-fits-all model such as the organizational pyramid and the attendant methodologies that ‘design” it. Mass customization applied to knowledge work and organizational structure ?

And your:

its interesting to me that the Enterprise 2.0, Management 2.0 and Collaboration folks have such similar goals and aspirations and yet they seem to spend energy (at least online) to talk about which terms make most sense or talking past each other. That seems like a missed opportunity

I’m in total agreement. But/and that’s a result of hierarchical assumptions about the organization and use of knowledge, no ? Specialization, siloed fiefdoms, etc. .. all the ’stuff’ organizational theorists have been by and large railing about for a couple of decades ?

I’d include KM, Learning & development and OD in the areas that need to be in a common conversation, but I suspect that I’m in a minority, for now. That said, I have my ear to the ground in a range of such conversations, and there’s integrative momentum building, it seems.

Two thoughts to contribute. i would argue that most of folks doing management work, strategy design, or outstanding innovation processes (in or out of house) know what really works. THey’ve taken the time and effort to go study the 20 or so books, blend in the thinking that the web2.0 world that Tim O’Reilly named, thought deeply about what works, and they work on applying these ideas to their craft every day. What is interesting is that there is no roadmap that i know of to do it “out of the box” today — that’s the genesis of The New How. To simply provide an integration point of best ideas and HOW TO APPLY them in this collaboration enabled, post-web2.0, creative-workforce world in which we live. That will let it go beyond the top 1 or 5% who currently know how to apply methods and practices to be more mainstream.

2nd, its interesting to me that the Enterprise 2.0, Management 2.0 and Collaboration folks have such similar goals and aspirations and yet they seem to spend energy (at least online) to talk about which terms make most sense or talking past each other. That seems like a missed opportunity. Maybe because i’m new to these domains (remember, i’m simply a strategist working out here in the field), I am only catching the non-collaborative parts of the conversation. But i hope i’m catching a distorted view and that there’s more progress being made than what first catches the eye.

Great synthesis – and it’s interesting how much energy can be put into maintaining the supposedly rigorous and important management hierarchies, while the “real work” routes around the errors in the hierarchies to let people who actually need to get work done, get work done across departmental and other boundaries, and the rules be damned.

So here’s a question for you – perhaps even a challenge… what can we do to more actively connect OB/OD, Design Thinking, Lean Thinking, Systems Thinking, Agile Development et al into a more cohesive movement truly driving E2.0? I hate to suggest a grand unified theory, but someone (or far more likely a group, large as possible) needs to push this along. Otherwise it’s just so many untied strands.