Kevin Spacey Teaches Twitter to David Letterman

July 22, 2009 at 10:21 am · Filed under Adoption

Maybe some will never get it

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Constraints and innovation – is there a silver lining?

July 22, 2009 at 7:57 am · Filed under Book Review, Books

The Silver Lining: An Innovation Playbook for Uncertain Times, Anthony, Scott D.

The Silver Lining is positioned as a case for the strategic value of innovation in economic downturns. It evolves into a reflection on the role of constraints in innovation and on the possibility of successful innovation within large, complex, organizations. Scott Anthony, the author, is a former student and current colleague of Clay Christensen and is President of the boutique consulting firm Innosight. The book was conceived in October of 2008 and the manuscript delivered to HBS Press in January and offers itself as a good example of the value of tight constraints. (Here is the obligatory book website)

The Silver Lining presents a succinct, focused, argument for how to do effective disruptive innovation within existing organizations. This runs contrary to the research conclusions in Christensen’s The Innovator’s Dilemma that linked successful disruptive innovation with new entrants not industry incumbents. The management practices of successful market leaders emphasize the prudent deployment of resources to address clearly understood problems and clearly meaningful opportunities. Those practices are about coloring inside the lines. Disruptive innovation goes beyond just coloring outside the lines to redrawing the lines and creating entirely new pictures.

It’s certainly not fear of new concepts and management theories; executives seem to buy and change them as easily as a new set of clothes. But executives demonstrably favor ideas that involve ways to do what they are currently doing in a more efficient, more effective manner. Systematizing disruptive innovation is a different beast. Senior executives have to think and act in ways that run counter to everything they have done to be successful in their careers. As Putz notes, they must be multi-paradigmatic in how they structure their business model, run their firms, lead their teams, and most difficult of all, see themselves and frame their identity as leaders. Simply put, leaders who want to capture the potential of disruptive innovation need to be "consistently inconsistent" with their teams and themselves, and still hold it all together and deliver results quarter after quarter. (pp 154-155)

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Broader E2.0 Horizons

July 21, 2009 at 5:00 pm · Filed under 2.0 Business Model, Enterprise 2.0

The fundamental principles of E2.0 can be applied in a variety of ways to radically improve everything we do in business. Challenged by simply getting businesses to see beyond a focus on the simplist of tools (e.g. blogs, wikis), let alone embrace the thinking that goes along with simplifying business effort, it’s difficult to rush into a vision of the total breadth of possibilities.

While I’ve always purported changing everything we know about software development, I was thrilled to see an old name appear again recently suggesting the same. Reflecting on the influence Tom DeMarco had on me via his book Peopleware (first published in 1987), I recalled that he’s likely the first author to focus on issues beyond the technology itself (esp. culture and context). His opening chapter stated (bear in mind these words were first written over 20 years ago):

“Since the days when computers first came into common use, there must have been tens of thousands of accounts receivables programs written. There are probably a dozen or more accounts receivables projects underway as you read these words. And somewhere today one of them is failing.”

“Suppose that at the end of one of these debacles, you were called upon to perform an autopsy. (It would never happen, of course; there is an inviolable industry standard that prohibits examining our failures.)…One thing you would not find is that the technology had sunk the project.”

In a more recent piece “Software Engineering: An Idea Whose Time Has Come and Gone?“, DeMarco reflects back on an even earlier book of his from 1982:

“In my reflective mood, I’m wondering, was its advice correct at the time, is it still relevant, and do I still believe that metrics are a must for any successful software development effort? My answers are no, no, and no. The book for me is a curious combination of generally true things written on every page but combined into an overall message that’s wrong.”

“I still believe it makes excellent sense to engineer software. But that isn’t exactly what software engineering has come to mean. The term encompasses a specific set of disciplines including defined process, inspections and walkthroughs, requirements engineering, traceability matrices, metrics, precise quality control, rigorous planning and tracking, and coding and documentation standards. All these strive for consistency of practice and predictability.

Consistency and predictability are still desirable, but they haven’t ever been the most important things. For the past 40 years, for example, we’ve tortured ourselves over our inability to finish a software project on time and on budget. But as I hinted earlier, this never should have been the supreme goal. The more important goal is transformation, creating software that changes the world or that transforms a company or how it does business.”

Most tools labeled Enterprise 2.0 just scratch the surface of enabling people to change the way they work, but not necessarily change the work itself. Indeed as John Tropea (@johnt) suggests the greatest natural adoption of these tools is using them to work around existing business processes. Creating Enterprise 2.0-class software that can fundamentally change business models and operations is a whole different beast.

I don’t think I truly appreciated or was willing to embrace all of what Sameer Patel (@SameerPatel) purported in a couple of pieces, perhaps for concern that it would muddy the already murky waters. In his piece “Don’t Confuse Enterprise 2.0 With Social Computing Concepts“, it took me a while to recognize that he was suggesting in his first diagram that the list did not EQUAL Enterprise 2.0 (as is the tendency for most to suggest), but was indeed part of it.

Sameer also begins to suggest the tackling of major portions of enterprise operations — I believe I got hung up while looking at his original list because of their Web2.0 implications (many of them have both Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 perspectives and focuses). His recent coverage of a more specific example (supply chain), adds significant depth to his earlier points. I also believe there are broader implications for functional-area-focuses like supply chain. Without any intent for the term to be adopted, it simply makes a point, that these are in themselves industries of practice that transcend the enterprise. The term Industry 2.0 helped me then differentiate what the larger potential of a shift in productivity tools would look like if we could speedily replace the ERPs of today.

For me, it was the Tom DeMarco reminders that helped add clarity to it all. And in the end, I have to confess that ALL of this (exposure to the recent DeMarco piece, continued dialog with great practitioners like John Tropea and Sameer Patel) is only possible because of the enabling channel of exchange Twitter provides.

It seems to me that there is an issue greater than adoption at play here: hesitation to recognize the breadth and depth of adaptation that needs to occur across the entire enterprise and every aspect of the business model.

I do know one thing: we’re not going back.

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“Maybe those who run our organisations will forget their management tools, and constant ‘tinkering’ with the system”

July 21, 2009 at 3:11 pm · Filed under Charles Handy, Collaboration, Community, Culture, Enterprise Social Computing, Organizational Design, Social Computing

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Thanks to Paul Thomas, guest-blogging at the Cognitive Edge, a networked organization focused on applying complexity theory in practical ways to complex issues and organizational problems.

(Dr Thomas is founder of the complexity theory think-tank organization DNA Wales, Head of Leadership at the Business School, University of Glamorgan and is also the BBC Wales ‘Business Doctor’. Paul works with private and public sector organisations of all sizes, including multi-nationals, trying to show them there is another way to run the workplace.)

The title is lifted from the Cognitive Edge blog (extract below).

I have not yet read the Macleod Report (I’ve skimmed through it) ) but it seems that the Cognitive Edge blog post lays out yet-another-argument for coming to terms (or grips, or whatever) with the probability that it (social computing) will become the main way of carrying out the bulk of non–routine knowledge work.

Oh .. and of course I don’t think that all management concepts and activities should be dropped holus-bolus.  I do, however, think, that managers everywhere should start really trying to understand the new social dynamics and methods of constructing pertinent knowledge that are now available, and making thoughtful and sensible decisions about why and how people get engaged with getting things done on purpose.

I know, I know .. it sounds like heresy to not constantly "tinker" in order to improve processes, efficiency and effectiveness.  After all, we’re all familiar with concepts like continuous improvement, orthodox performance management schemes, Six Sigma, reengineering, etc. 

However, how many of us have often wondered about whether or not people have an orientation towards doing things better, easier, faster, cheaper, if we find ways to honour their desire to do good work, to be respected, to make meaningful contribution, to be heard … 

Maybe (in some or many instances) there’s too much structure, too many goals, overly rigid mindsets and worldviews … not enough questions, not enough debate, too few mistakes (how many discoveries or innovations are preceded by mistakes?), not enough "failing faster to learn faster", not enough acknowledgement of the deep motivations of people to serve others and do more useful and meaningful work, etc. ?

There’s a reason why the word "unleashed" gets used so often in books, articles and conversations about organizational effectiveness .. and I don’t think it means turning a horde of web-bots loose onto the organization’s processes.  It has something to do with people and their motivation and guidance.

Anyone else ever wonder ?

I think that’s what this report from the UK government suggests.  But I will have to go beyond skim-reading it to confirm that guess.

What do you think ?

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MacLeod Review says people potential should be ‘unleashed’

[ Snip ... ]

The MacLeod Review of employee engagement, commissioned by the Department for Business, has said workers need to be properly involved in the future of their firms.

Author David MacLeod said he wanted to see people’s potential “unleashed” and said engagement was a key to innovation and competitiveness. Apparently the report’s authors were told during their research that “trust works two ways” and that not trusting staff had a negative impact. They were also told it was people, not machines, which made the difference to a business.

Responding to the report employment relations Minister Lord Young said: “Workers know better than anyone how the firm they work for can improve, innovate and succeed.”

If this all sounds familiar, that’s no surprise.There’s nothing radical, or even new, about this report.

[ Snip ... ]

Of course people are the key to a company’s success. Of course the best people to ask for a solution to a company’s problems are those within it and on the frontline. And it stands to reason that if you haven’t got everyone in the organisation fully behind what you’re trying to achieve, you’ve got less chance of achieving it.

The Government says it accepts the report’s recommendations and now there’ll be an action plan to deliver them.

Now that the message is becoming more mainstream, maybe those who run our organisations will forget their management tools, and constant ‘tinkering’ with the system and finally wake up to the fact that this is the only way to make them fitter for the future.

Let’s hope they don’t just pay it lip-service, and they actually do it.

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E2.0 Blogcast: July 17, 2009

July 17, 2009 at 9:55 pm · Filed under Enterprise 2.0, Social Media

Included in this survey of relevant Enterprise 2.0 posts are a couple of riffs off of recent pieces of mine (title links clickable).

Will Enterprise 2.0 Change Corporate Culture or Reinvent the Silos?

Poul J. Hebsgaard (@hebsgaard) takes a spin on one of my posts to recap his impressions from the recent Enterprise 2.0 conference in Boston. I particularly appreciate the facts he summarizes from an AIIM report that takes a hard look at email practices.

I look forward to his next post “about the role of organizational silos”.

For Positive Enterprise 2.0 ROI, Build IT/HR Partnership

Ethan Yarbrough (@ethany) suggests that one way to weave stronger horizontal threads through an organization would be to team up with HR. He backs up the idea with some thoughts from Mike Gotta (@MikeG514). If it weren’t for Mike’s clarifying differentiation between strategic vs. administrative HR’s, I’d have a problem with it. Such distinctions are HUGE.

Ethan says:

“Enterprise 2.0 initiatives must be fully integrated into the company’s strategic goals to succeed — they can’t be add-ons or afterthoughts”

I’d take it a step further to suggest that they have to be ubiquitous: a seamless part of the fabric of doing work.

He also talks about being included in the process. If done right, the whole thing evolves with EVERYONE involved in the process. It just has to start with the right soil and a few good seeds. Which is why it cannot be a classic ‘project’ with an end date.

Unfortunately Ethan, one of the biggest issues that I keep screaming about is that the really necessary skills in human factors and human interaction design are not anywhere to be found in either HR or Marketing (championing the real needs of employees and customers). Those are the real champions needed to head up these efforts, if you can find them (many organizations have none).

Indeed, the main reason I abandoned pursuit of an advanced degree in Organizational Design was that they were all too HR-focused and never had any true focus on Design, or any intent to fundamentally change cultures and operations to focus on the true needs of employees and customers.

Lessons From “Why Software Sucks” About Terminology

Gil Yehuda (@gyehuda) takes issue with the term adoption (which I totally agree with) by saying:

I’ll state boldly: Clients do not want to adopt Enterprise 2.0. They want to succeed with their business goals — which may tangentially include adopting Enterprise 2.0 practices and tools.

Enterprise 2.0…A Revolution of Knowledge in Three Parts

While this is from March (and I’m trying raise awareness of current posts), it was a current post that brought the three phenomenal presentations in this piece to my attention (apologies if this is ‘old’ for you). They visually tell a very compelling story about Enterprise 2.0 in very simple terms.

It’s only because of the quality and clarity of the messages that I’m willing to forgive their use of the phrase of which I dare not speak. So do me a favor, just blank out all the references to KM as you review the pieces — all references to “knowledge”, however are perfectly relevant.

Great job @frankx, @sih, @hut1315. Clearly 3 heads ARE better than one.

The Red Couch

A collection of video interviews from the recent Enterprise 2.0 Conference, includes Mike Gotta (@MikeG214), Oliver Marks (@olivermarks), Dion Hinchcliffe (@DHinchcliffe), Gregory Lloyd (@roundtrip), Steve Wylie (@swylie650), Nate Nash (@natenash203), and others.

The video quality is great and the questions help draw out some great answers from the interviewees. This is a great way to get to know some of the best voices contributing to the evolution and growth of the Enterprise 2.0 industry. Each <5min. long.

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