And you think that you have a tough job?

February 14, 2010 at 4:45 pm · Filed under KETC, NPR

We all know that we should cooperate and collaborate more. We all know that the world is moving to a more open and 2.0 culture.

But if you work of the Department of Defense – you not only know this but you have Directive 501 in front of you that demands this.

B. PURPOSE:
1.    This Intelligence Community Directive (ICD) establishes in part the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) guidelines called for in Section 1.3(b)(9)(B) of EO 12333, as amended, addresses mandates in the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 to strengthen the sharing, integration, and management of information within the Intelligence Community (IC), and establishes policies for: (1) discovery; and (2) dissemination or retrieval of intelligence and intelligence-related information collected or analysis produced by the IC.
2.    The overall objectives of this policy are to:
a.    Foster an enduring culture of responsible sharing and collaboration within an integrated IC;
b.    Provide an improved capacity to warn of and disrupt threats to the United States (U.S.) homeland, and U.S. persons and interests; and
c.    Provide more accurate, timely, and insightful analysis to inform decision making by the President, senior military commanders, national security advisers, and other executive branch officials.

But it’s one thing to know that you have to change the habits of a life time. It’s one thing to be told that you have to do this or else. It is another to make the change.

So how do you do this? For it is not as if the people involved don’t want to do this. We all know that we should not smoke and that smoking is bad for us. Or to lose weight etc. But we also all know that changing the habits of a lifetime is the hardest work of all.

The Research and Development Branch of DOD hired Level 5, a consultant to help them start. (I have no involvement other than interest in this assignment or Level 5). Kurt Lane from Level 5 and I have been chatting about the work.

Here are the results of their work – in essence that that system is now talking to itself and there is agreement to move ahead. No small thing really

That’s not much you might think. But there are over 200,000 people in the branch. Without a broad conversation, nothing will have a chance.

How would I know? Ask yourself, what media organization is making the most progress in moving to a 2.0 world? Few indeed but one stands out, NPR. NPR spent nearly 9 months in a massive system wide conversation with itself back in 2005/6. More than 200 of the 800 NPR staff were involved and nearly 1,000 people in the system. The “New Realities” project was all about having a family conversation. A new terminology was developed and whether acted upon or not – some people really got it. After a 2 year germination, NPR has burst out.

So in the world of media, only one organization took the trouble to set up the cultural ground work. Only one has moved so far. Not really science but still worth thinking about.

For in the DOD as in all organizations, the issues that really confront us are cultural. Many start out by thinking that this is all about technology. But it is culture that drives the technology.

Now DOD do have a unique IT environment. You have a firewall right but not like the top level DOD Firewall. Nothing gets through that!!!!

But even to think about how to cross that road, the culture has to be moved. For even top down directives like 501 don’t work against a fully embodied culture. I am not being critical – it’s just how it is.

My advice to Kurt and the gang at Level 5 is to look at what has happened in Public radio and now TV.

The Conversation – opens up the possibility of a shift. But then it is all about leadership in the old fashioned way.

The most progress that we made in New Realities was with the NPR Board. Many of them played an active and a major role in the assignment – leading meetings and groups. They were part of the process not just the readers of the report. This was their work.

They chose a new President who had all the attributes of a change agent and she has driven change with their support. They are so close now.

In TV, the process has been a bit different but stemmed from the same process. One of the leaders of the system who had also played a big role, was appointed the CEO of one of the largest public TV stations, KETC.

In 4 years, Jack Galmiche has taken KETC to the brink of proving out a sustainable 2.0 culture and operational model.

If this is a model – then it is to start broad as broad as you can with the conversation – then find the champion/leaders and help them take a more narrow and harder driving approach.

NPR and KETC show us that it is easier to prove it and to show it than to persuade all to move broadly. Once the new is embodied, than the debate goes away. The rest are left with a clear choice. Adopt what works or die.

Then you can do what the new BBC Director of Global News told his staff:

Peter Horrocks assumed the position of director of BBC Global News last week, and he’s not wasting time with niceties. The self-proclaimed technology enthusiast is telling journalists to get with the social media program or get out.

The new director told the Guardian, “This isn’t just a kind of fad… I’m afraid you’re not doing your job if you can’t do those things. It’s not discretionary.”

But the ground work has to be done first.

I think that when we look back, we will see that this kind of intervention is the hardest work of all. For change will not come from making the rational case – the typical consulting approach. It will not come from supporting the Big Guy – the other approach. Change will come from “infecting” the organization with the ideas and in getting behind the new virus. All very subtle and not how things are done in consulting 1.0.

I look forward to hearing what Level 5 and DOD do. After all, how do they do affects us all.

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The Dreadnought Moment for Public TV – KETC

December 20, 2009 at 11:04 am · Filed under KETC, Public Insight Journalism, Public Media, Public TV

What do I mean by the “Dreadnought Moment”?

In the 19th century, navies all over the world experimented to find the new model for the capital ship.

Like most organizations today who are trying to find the new model for the enterprise in the pub media context, so steel, steam and big guns meant that the wooden capital ship had to go.

So over the century, designers added these new features in a piecemeal fashion – wooden hulls were replaced by iron and then steel. Sails were reduced and then fully replaced by steam – reciprocating engines by turbines. Gun size increased. Turrets were introduced.

The ship on the left in the image above was the great capital ship of its time – about 1876 – it was called the Inflexible – no pun intended. It’s captain was Jackie Fisher who went on the be the First Sea Lord who commission Dreadnought – the ship on the right in about 1906.

Inflexible looked modern. It had all the new bits in some form – like many Pub Media stations or organizations. It had a Facebook account, Twitter, a blog etc.

But in reality Inflexible was not modern at all.

Here is HMS Victory in 1805 at the Battles of Trafalgar. Why Inflexible was not modern was that while she had all the new stuff – she was a prisoner of the culture of the Nelsonic tradition.

The core of her mindset set was that war was an heroic activity where the main point was to get as close as possible - many times touching the enemy and to use training and discipline to pour it on. Part of this culture demanded that the officer corps were men of character – read class was the key.

What Fisher saw that made Dreadnought so much a disrupter is that it had at the core of its design an entirely new mindset.

Battle was to be done at a distance – miles apart. All the smaller guns of Inflexible meant for close engagement could be disposed of. The key relationship was different. Dreadnought could sink the entire German fleet at the time on its own!

Secondly, engineering and technical ability was more important than class. Fisher set in motion events in officer recruitment and training that would open up the service to people who could offer this.

I fear that most organizations are doing an Inflexible. They pride themselves that they have all the bells and whistles but they have not put it all together AND they have not made the organizational changes to make the new WHOLE work as en entity.

But KETC in St Louis is building its Dreadnought now – building a new organization based on the values and the technology that changes the core relationship with the people outside and the people inside.

The Nine Network is the Dreadnought – a physical realization of all the new relationships and tools of the new.

More than a plan – the Nine Network will be ready in March 2010.

So what is in this room and why?

• Community News Pro - KETC is one of a handful of any Pub TV stations with a “News” function. The Beacon is a group of professional journalists – many from the Post Dispatch – who have come together into a network and who share premises with KETC. The Beacon have been recognized by the Knight Foundation as a key pioneer. They are also the only Pub TV partner who are using Public Insight Journalism. The Beacon represent the future of post newspaper local news.
• The Community itself – You see here the Community Room – KETC has pioneered convening the community to come together and to thus get stronger in dealing with pressing issues. The Facing the Mortgage Crisis Project not only helped bring together a wide range of St Louis Community organizations such as the United way and Beyond Housing but also helped nearly 70 other stations in 30 plus of the worst hit cities do the same in their cities. Meeting face to face with community organizations has become commonplace. Our Community Room is more than just a meeting room – it is a fully equipped media room. KETC has given the communities of St Louis a voice and a place to come together. Intractable issues such as diabetes, education, jobs etc can all be worked at here at the ground level.
• The Nine Network – A working “school” that helps the community get the skills to broaden their voice and power. The space just up from the Beacon is the Nine Network space. Here KETC will train interns and young St Louisans how use the new media to tell stories – for it is not just knowing how to use the tools but how to use them to effect that is the key. The focus of the Nine Network is not to teach the skills on their own but to use projects such as stories on St Louis, News items for the Beacon. The “students” will be like Midshipmen of the RN back in the time of Trafalgar – treated like grow ups with real jobs to do that help the whole “ship”. All the online world of KETC and the sweet spot where the online world AND TV come together will come from this full integration of the On Air and the On Line world.
• New Values of Community First - The Nine has TV, Web Video, Community and Journalism all in one space all feeding off and supporting each other. Most importantly the POV is to listen first to the community and to bring the community into everything that we do. This more than any other part of the Nine is the most important. Just as for Dreadnought – distance and technical skill were the values shift. The Nine, like the Dreadnought, brings it all together in one human space.

Classes will begin in January.

With the launch of the Nine Network’s physical space – KETC – will have a de facto new organization that does the Dreadnought – that embodies the new culture and that brings all the new and the old TOGETHER!

Watch this space as more is on its way.

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How do you bring the citizen voice into conventional media? Giving Social Media Meaning

March 18, 2009 at 12:48 pm · Filed under FASTforward'09, KETC

At KETC, the public TV station in St Louis, we like all other media outlets have been struggling to find out how to bring the voice of the “citizen” into what we do. We need to find out how to use the huge potential of our citizens to deepen and make more meaningful our attempts to help St Louisans help each other cope with the financial crisis.

Our starting point is with the young. They are the digital natives and it is their future that is most at risk and they are the people least likely to watch Public TV. We lose them at 8 and they tend not to return until they are 50 plus!

The young are our great under-served group and so make our best target for trying to make a positive change.

Of course most young people are very experienced users of social media. Much more experienced that most of the folks at KETC. BUT what we know how to do very well is to

• Tell a story
• Edit video and sound
• Have a big megaphone – we have the official “air”

So we have been trying a few experiments with the Flip Camera – we have lent some Flips to groups of younger folks and given them an assignment – We asked them to comment on what was The American Dream today for them. You will see that this has become a very difficult question to answer now. What dream? Seems to be a common point of view.

We then worked with them to turn their material into the best 3 minute epics that is possible and then put them onto our “Air” – we have put the rest onto our YouTube Channel.

It’s early days. But our hope is that this might be the beginning of a “social media school” where we build a cadre of young people who can take their existing skills in social media and become better story tellers, expert editors and have a growing reputation in our community. Equipping them to make a difference.

Here is the launch program that will show you how we are going about this.

Here is the YouTube STL American Dream Channel

Watch this space as we expand our project to help people find help in the Mortgage and the Financial Crisis.

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Social Media must be able to do things and get measured – KETC and the Mortgage Crisis

October 21, 2008 at 3:47 pm · Filed under KETC, Measurement

Back in May, we started to think about how a TV Station could help its city cope with the then emerging mortgage crisis. Thanks to CPB, we at KETC got our chance to test our ideas that we could.

The test is over and the results are in. A major part of the project was measurement. We knew that emotion and anecdote – powerful as it is – would not be enough.

How do we measure media? In most cases on air we can get a sense of who is watching. On the web we know exactly who is watching. As we started the experiment to see if a Public TV station could help a community help itself we had to know more – we had to know if what we did – on air, on the web, in person and by measuring itself (Remember in Quantum the act of measurement affects the measured) had an impact.

Would what we did activate action?

Would what we did change perceptions?

Would what we did have a result in improving the health of our community?

Might acting as a social catalyst be the higher goal and role for public media?

Well dear readers, the research is in – yes to all of the above.

A huge thank you to Professor Dhavan Shah and his wonderful team at the University of Wisconsin

One of the points that we measured was the number of calls that the United Way got from people seeking help timed against our on air pieces. Here you can see a massive bump directly related to what we did.

There is more – we found that the act of measuring/surveying had also a huge impact

What do these numbers mean? Are they good, OK or mediocre?

I have shared with you just the highlights – we have a lot more information that tells us that not only were we able to shift beliefs, motivate reaching out and action but also increase support for the station.

It is going to be fascinating to see what happens as this work spreads more broadly in the public TV and Radio world.

It’s one thing to bring good content and information to the public. It is another to be able to help activate the public to take back power and control into their lives.

I feel that we are on the edge of a breakthrough – the networked world is finding its place and its organization

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Culture – The Secret to a 2.0 Organization

August 11, 2008 at 9:12 am · Filed under 2.0 Design Thinking, Barriers, Blogging, Business Model, CPB, Community, Control, Culture, Enterprise 2.0, Enterprise Social Computing, Enterprise Software, Interaction, KETC, Measurement, Mortage Crisis, Network Effect, Public Media, Public Radio, Public TV, Relationships, Social Media, Social Networking

What is the secret of a 2.0 organization? Is it merely the mastery of the tools?

If your organization is all about control and top down – it is unlikely that having a Wordpress site will take you to the new world of networks. To make a 2.0 world work for those you serve means that you have to have such a world working inside your organization.

So what do you do to get this? It is clear to me that we have made this shift at KETC in St Louis.

The context of this story is a project that KETC is working on to find ways of activating the community in St Louis to help reduce the pain of the mortgage crisis.

In so doing we are testing the big idea that Public Media can do more than bring Jane Austen to your TV screen. The CPB is testing this idea in St Louis and if we have enough progress – will expand the test to many other cities and stations.

So an important task that we have to fulfill will be to help the system replicate what we have done.

The easy part of this task will be the “Whats”. The Content we created, what we did on air, on the web, in meetings with the community etc. But I don’t think that only talking of the “what” will be very helpful. I think that it will be the “how” that is the real secret. The “how” will be about the new culture – the new set of work and social norms that are behind becoming a convener.

We surely have to become a Convener inside the station before we can have much a of a chance of being the Trusted Convener outside. That is the really hard work. I know that KETC has pulled this off. But how can I tell you about the how. How do you tell another about a new way of being?

This weekend while watching the Olympics I had an aha about the “How” that I would like to try here with you.

Here is a picture of the Canadian men’s 8 at the Olympics yesterday.

When all the 8 in the boat and the cox are aligned – something magic happens. All the effort is applied to the work. When this happens, you feel it. It is almost a spiritual feeling. It’s a form of magic. The boat just flies. You dissolve into a field that is the boat, the 8 and the cox. You are ONE. All friction and resistance is gone.

With a big race and your reputation on the line – the pressure to get aligned is huge – you can feel if one person is not there with you.

This is what it feels like in our KETC project meetings now. It feels like the boat is flying – it feels so good to be with the other members of the boat.

The pressure is there. As the guinea pig for Public Media we feel the eyes of thousands upon us. Upping the pressure to perform seems to help with transformation. Like heat applied to water creates steam or heat applied to iron with other things creates steel.

So creating pressure about results, time and scale is a first step. You don’t go gradually into this – you have to go full tilt.

We had no time. the project is only 3 months long. So there was no time to be incompetent. In the early days we had to re-arrange the boat a bit to get the team that could do the work and do it with the others. We could not tolerate anyone in the boat who could not pull their weight. We acted immediately when it was clear that the mission was being threatened. This is not the pub media way but it is the real community way. Real communities see everything and expect a lot. Real communities are not soft.

But after this initial shift – we know we have the right team. With the right team we build energy and confidence over time. There is a trust and a confidence in each other that has been developed by publicly and transparently experiencing the abilities of the others.

To get this transparency – we have a process that is built around all involved making public commitments.

It has developed by a simple part of the Project Management process – the day starts with asking each other for help. Every day we meet for 30 minutes to talk about what is going on and all the cards are face up on the table. We have learned to be explicit. Not rude but very clear. A very different norm from the past or most organizations. Accountability is fully visible.

This does not seem like the typical meeting that many of us have. It is very operational – what has to get done today and this week. But it is also very social. As trust has built there is also a lot of laughter and banter. The walls of the silos are coming down. We are finding that people who we did not know or trust much can be very helpful and that they can work miracles. Especially when the chips are down.

We have set major milestones and we have surpassed them all. Everyone has been tested in public. By being open – by being demanding in public – we are closer. Nothing is not unsaid anymore. You don’t have to whinge in the washroom. This is more than transparency – this is “clarity”.

So how does this happen? Well we are set up as I now see like an 8. The engine room is of course the department heads – they do the rowing. But it is the project management structure and discipline that makes the 8 go so well. So let’s look at this because all can replicate this.

First of all we have “Cox”. Not the project sponsor, not the President but the Cox (The Project Manager). In an 8, it is the cox – usually a very small person (Our PM is new and is very young but is an old soul) – who not only steers but who encourages and who works with the crew to respond to threats and opportunities as they happen on the water in the race. He is always pulling us back to the task. He is always asking the awkward question – he is always asking for more clarity. He uses humor and self-deprecation to get his way. But behind him is the power of the coach and the President. He can always use disappointment as power – “Do we really have to go to Jack about this?” usually settles most issues without escalation.

So the PM/Cox not only sets the process tone but also shows us how to use power as a convener. He uses personal power and almost never has to escalate because all the conversations are in the open – bad behavior – is obvious to all – social pressure ensures good behavior.

There is no doubt in my mind that Project Management is a key skill in the operation of a high performing organization. What it does is it keeps focus – it forces accountability – it manages the white space between the silos – for this is where the cooperation is demanded. For a while it all feels forced for this is new. But after 9 weeks it is our new normal.

Of course what is really happening is that the PM is “Convening”. He is holding the kind of open and trusted space that enables groups to work well with each other. The central process at KETC has become Convening.

We are also seeing that the project never ends. There is always complex work that is measured by outcomes to do. That raises another issue. Outcomes and measurement: in the old norm, we were soft on both. Now everything that we do has to have an objective and hence has to have a measure. This again was awkward at first but now is a new normal.

Which brings us to the “Coach”. The Coach in an 8 is not the cox. The coach’s work is all about ensuring that the goals are set and the capability is ready. We have such a role being played at KETC – the project Sponsor.

There is a lot of discipline in the role. The coach is not one of the guys. The coach pushes all the time. the coach has expectations.The coach sees the needs of the whole race/project. She sees how this race/project connects to others. She sees the development needs and she has an eagle eye on personnel. If someone is not working out, she has to deal with this.

Part of her power comes from her appointment. She has been selected by the “Club President”. She can escalate and does over personnel and budget issues. But she settles organizational issues from her position. But not all her power is delegated from the President. She has her own power based on her own achievements. For the coach is also rooted in their own talent. She has deep skills in a key area – Community Engagement. She has a track record of her own in getting tough jobs done well.

Finally we have the club president. He is responsible for the financial envelope – which provides the boat etc. This is a separate role to that of the Coach or the Cox. But in most organizations this person does all of this.

This is what I mean by Top Down organizations being political. They tend to be like medieval courts, where factions compete for influence and power. All the work happens in the corridors or in secret. Little is really visible. All in the end is decided by the King.

What is happening at KETC is that all the key work is now taking place in a process that is fully transparent. The President can look at the boat in the water and see all the workings. Accountability is clear.

• Each rower has his or her part and they have to be visibly working with the rest of the 8.
• The cox’s ability to get the boat running optimally in each race is clear to all – especially in the boat itself.
• The results of the boat belong to the coach – her role is clear.
• The resources for the club are the President’s role – and he is delivering and he also sets the tone.

The President in our case, asked the team for it all. He wants Gold in an Olympic setting and he asks for nothing less. In asking for all, he is getting it.

So that’s my metaphor. If you run your organization like a rowing team, if you set up the key roles as you find in a rowing team, you can make the shift inside from 1.0 to 2.0.

The irony is that the 2.0 world is more disciplined than the 1.0 world. But as you can see much of the discipline happens because of visibility and clarity. It’s like being in a small town. What you say and what you do can never be a secret. So your word and your actions define you. In a small town you also have to help each other.

In the 1.0 world of the huge city – there is little social pressure. All is anonimity. So there have to be rules and policemen and gaming the system.

Installing the kind of Project Management Process that we are using at KETC gives you a good shot at making this shift.

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