21st Century Organization

Peer to Patent Review - FAQs are Ubiquitous for Peer2Peer Organization

In reading the frequently asked questions about operating an open system or collective to review patents by peers at Peer to Patent designed by Beth Simone Noveck, professor of law and director of the Institute for Information Law & Policy at New York Law School, it occurred to me that one might substitute any peer to peer process and the FAQs would pretty much be the same.

Think of this as the basic check list of "are we ready for P2P in my organization?"  If the objections out weigh the yeahs, use as a platform for discussion and start exploring the assumptions held by individuals in your organization about p2p.  Add your own FAQs to customize the list.

Beth Noveck will be speaking on "Virtual Worlds and the Future of Collective Action" at the MIT Media Lab on Thursday March 29th in Wieser Rm Fl.2 at 4:00 PM as part of the Center for Collective Intelligence speaker series.

The wider implications of her presentation strike at the core of our assumptions about how we look at organizational design today as well as emerging designs for a networked world.

Read the following description of her talk and substitute "my organization" for "political organizations" and "commerce" for "real world power." Think of the possibilities provided in a synthetic environment or virtual world to explore deeply held assumptions about "what is an organization?"

"Virtual worlds and related and related technologies are helping to bridge the divide between online community and real world power.  Yet our political institutions have not adapted.  The law has not mandated new social practices.  Our theory of democracy has not caught up. This talk focuses on how we might evolve new digital institutions for collective action.  The discussion will focus on the emerging frameworks -- both technological and legal -- that could profoundly reshape the ability of people to engage in their own self-governance.  It starts from the premise that the screen helps us to see ourselves and to visualize the communities to which we want to belong.  When we can see the group, we can act as a group and become more effective at organizing, protesting, deliberating, and resolving disputes [ I would add innovating  for both nonprofit and for profit organizations].  If we understand how our institutions of governance and decision-making take advantage of the technology, we can both design better tools and we can re-think  how we define democracy itself."

Would like to see your applications.

 

~ Victoria G. Axelrod

Influence: Innovation Beats Cost Cutting for CIO's

In light of Victoria Axelrod's Influence Points post an interesting March 26 Information Week cover story on The Sinking CIO by Richard Martin.  (Article access requires registration.)

Drawing on survey data and interviews including with Chris Anderson, John Seely Brown and Forrester analyst Laurie Orlov, the article paints a picture of declining influence of IT departments reflected in reduced budget increases, and focus on "keeping the lights on".

Quote:

"Many CIOs are now finding that, while their job descriptions haven't changed and the demands on their time and resources have increased, the parameters in which they operate are more confining. IT cost cutting brought on by the dot-com bust and recession of a few years ago has become the norm. Energy and resources that once went to innovative business initiatives now go to disaster preparedness, regulatory compliance, and IT security. Tech budgets tend to be flat or barely climbing, while some of the work once done by IT departments is being outsourced."

Bottom Line:

"That is, the gradual loss of clout--or threat of it--for those business technology executives preoccupied with cost management at the expense of innovation."

~ Jenny Ambrozek

"Marketplaces of Mercenary Intelligences"

Here's an idea for your knowledge management woes - a knowledge marketplace.  We all know it will be sometime before we have a true semantic web so try the hidden collective mind inside the machine or Mechanical Turk from Amazon.

Jason Pontin,  editor in chief and publisher of Technology Review writes a good piece in the NY Times today Artificial Intelligence, With Help from Humans

Why do people work for such small amounts that Amazon pays?  What's the incentive?

“MTurk is a marketplace where folks who have work meet up with folks who want to do work,” according to Jeff Bezos, Amazon's CEO.

Imagine your organization operating as such a knowledge marketplace - seems like a clear cut incentive to me and the pay is higher!

~Victoria G. Axelrod

Influence Points

In the last few years we have experienced "inflection point" (Andy Grove, former CEO Intel). "tipping point" (Malcolm Gladwell, author) and now I wonder if "influence point" may be a way to more deeply understand the process of change?

The first two describe the awareness of change.  The change has happened or emerged to a point of recognition.  The influence point is who is initiating the change and how.  In a network there are more than one influence points yet they are synchronized in behavior.

It seems in many recent conversations about organizations transforming themselves for Enterprise 2.0 that the focus keeps shifting to either the social technology or the content knowledge generated, but rarely the humans at the point of influence.  Granted the  technology tools and the structure of knowledge content are easier to discuss, however the human interaction with the tools and the content they produce is what drives the process.

An announcement for the upcoming "Synthetic Worlds and Public Policy - Ludium II Conference  chaired by  Edward Castronova describes their process for reaching a consensus platform as:

"... a 19th  century political convention putting conference attendees in the role of delegates to a political party convention whose objective is to hammer out a common platform.  CONVENTION's  incentives will lead the group to a set of policy recommendations believed by most participants to be important, sensible, and feasible."

Would that most change processes had as clear an objective.

One of the incentives in this convention game designed by Studio Cypher,LLC
is "influence points" which reward those with the ability to exert the most influence.  There are 400 plus participants expected from a diverse set of perspectives on the topic making for "bombastic" conversations in their terms.

We have been looking at organizations as human networks (extended internal/external) and understand that they are political in their operations; to ignore the reality of organizational politics is to be naive. But how often and how well do we look at the positive influential capability of individuals in organization networks?  The Synthetic Worlds Convention is making influence explicit and building it into the consensus building process.  A lesson learned.

Robert Cialdini - Influence at Work, has done extensive research on influence and found 6 principles which one needs in order to move others to say "yes" or change.

They are:

Reciprocation: People are more willing to comply with requests (for favors, services, information, concessions, etc.) from those who have provided such things first. Think open source.
Commitment/Consistency: People are more willing to be moved to a particular direction if they  see it as consistent  with an existing commitment. Think AMAZON rankings.
Authority: People  are more willing to follow the direction or recommendations of a communicator to whom the attribute relative authority or expertise.  Think  relative as in blogosphere or f2f, your expertise counts in rankings by peers.
Social Validation: People are more willing to take a recommended action if they see evidence that many others, especially similar others, are taking it.  Think word of mouth.
Scarcity: People find objects and opportunities more attractive to the degree that they are scarce, rare, or dwindling in availability. Think any niche item.
Liking/Friendship:  People prefer to say yes those they know and like. Of course!

It would be interesting to run a social network analysis of the individuals who amass the highest number of influence points at the Synthetic World's Convention to see if network central roles correlate with influence ability.

My guess is yes ... what do you think?

~Victoria G. Axelrod

TIME Redesign: Briefing The Moment

Richard Stengel, the same TIME Managing Editor responsible for "Person of the Year:YOU" edition tells readers of the March 26 magazine:

"A New Chapter:  We've redesigned TIME to provide you with a clearer and more forward-looking take on the world."

His editorial describes some of the shifts TIME is making including  "getting the magazine to you before the weekend" and "creating a TIME that is more meaningful and forward looking".

Given the challenges print publishing faces, with burgeoning sources of timely online news (traditional media industry and consumer created), I'm interpreting as TIME magazine needing to change their focus and adapt by repositioning TIME's job:

"to outline the choices ahead and help you make those decisions."

TIME's redesign editorial caught my attention having just bumped into a dated (October 2006), series of "blunt" blog exchanges around the term "User Generated Content" (UGC) inspired by Stowe Boyd's "Nielsen is Clueless" post.  Following the threads finds Mark Kaloff (representing Nielsen BuzzMetrics) confronting leading participatory media practitioners and advocates, catalysts to the search for new business models the media and advertising industry confront.

It was the "Briefing" article that I first noticed in the redesigned TIME magazine. The headline "Briefing" followed by the words "The Moment" tagging the photo.  The phrasing encapsulated what everybody I know faces and the reality that will no doubt continue to challenge all media: people have no "time" and getting our attention for just a "moment" is increasingly difficult.

~ Jenny Ambrozek

Trampoline Systems: Responding to the dysfunctional nature of corporate systems

Following the money-- investments in technologies that are and will increasingly impact organizations (like Cisco's recent acquisitions), -- via Jerry Bowles Enterprise 2.0 micropublication an interesting note reporting an E 2.0 Breakthrough in Europe: Trampoline Systems has raised $5.8 million.

Thanks Nat Welch for alerting me to Trampoline, (until now best known for their Enron Explorer).  Reading Jerry Bowles October 2006 Trampoline Systems Profile: Social Lessons from Enron and Agnes intriguing to see Trampoline's roots lie in co-founder and chief executive Charles Armstrong's, (an ethnographer) 1999 frustration with the  "'dysfunctional nature of corporate systems". His response: retreating to a 72 inhabitant Scilly Isle to figure "how people naturally organize and communicate in an environment without access to the technology and tools of modern communications".  Trampoline Systems, "enterprise software that harnesses social behaviour" is the result.

Having revisited John Seely Brown & Paul Duguid's "The Social Life Information" in search of their way forward paradoxically is to "look around" quote I'm struck by the comparison to Julian Orr, an anthropologist studying how Xerox technicians really worked collaboratively (page 99) and the technologies that flowed from Xerox PARC efforts to support them.  Readers can correct me but from hearing John Seely Brown present I believe both Nextel and PlaceWare, the collaborative tool Microsoft purchased to create,"Windows Live" have their roots in Xerox PARC.

Richard Cross lists the 6 principles underlying Trampoline in a report from O'Reilly's Emerging Technologies Conference March 2006 where Trampoline founder Charles Armstrong spoke:

• The requirement to understand useful social mechanisms in the enterprise

• The nature of implicit authorization parameters within groups or communities


• How Groups pool intelligence on relay targets


• How Groups can function as targets for relaying


• How Relaying is activated by semantic triggers


• The notion of trigger thresholds governed by social network and the need to access activity, content and user preference data from across the whole corporate ecosystem

A thought provoking list in light of recent discussions here about implementing Enterprise 2.0.

~ Jenny Ambrozek

Valuing Collaboration: Cisco pays $3bn cash for WebEx

Having just pointed to resources on practical steps for collaboration today's Financial Times technology section story "Cisco in $3bn cash deal for WebEx" caught my attention, especially the closing paragraph:

"Cisco has been investing heavily in non-core businesses as it attempts to capture more of the value of the information that flows through its switches and routers and into businesses and the home."

I've been watching the news stories about Cisco acquiring small social networking technology companies starting with Five Across . Infoworld reported:

"Cisco doesn't plan to set up its own social-networking site to compete against News Corp.'s MySpace or Facebook. Instead, it will use Five Across technology to create software that will help enterprises better connect with their customers. In addition, service providers may be able to build services with the technology and sell them to their business customers, Cisco said."

and more recently "selected assets", according to the Cisco press release, of Utah Street Networks. Yahoo Finance explains assets not bought included Tribe.net, the social networking site the Utah Networks platform operates.

Watching the Cisco Human Network site I've been trying to understand Cisco's strategy. Their $3.2b WebEx purchase and new Media Solutions Group makes clear Cisco believes, as their "Human Network" tagline suggests:

"When we're all connected, great things happen. Join us and see how life on the network is changing life as we know it."

~ Jenny Ambrozek

Openness, Preparedness, Collaboration & Creativity

In the search for practical approaches to leveraging open network models and implementing  social media in organizations some recent finds:

1. Yochai Benkler and Eric Von Hippel at the The Economics of Open Content Symposium, January 23-24,2006

Year plus old presentations that still make compelling viewing. 

Benkler explains the principles of social production embodied in his Wealth of Networks.

Von Hippel describes his research into the important role of lead users in innovation.

(Around minute 40 in the New Models of Creative Production in the Digital Age
Collaboration and the Marketplace

  His book Democratizing Innovation 2005 available in PDF here.

2. Preparing to Implement a Social Media Project

Via Nancy White email, Chris Carfi outlines prerequisites for starting a business-driven Web 2.o effort and advice for nurturing interaction online. His blog includes coverage of the recent SXSW conference.

3.  Collaboration and Creativity
From Patti Anklam an overview of Fred Mandell's guest Babson blogging describing seven core creative competencies and a test for whether we are collaborating. The full article is here.


~ Jenny Ambrozek

Network Science

A well thought out reference for understanding network science generated from your tax dollars hard at work for some positive benefit.  Enjoy!

~Victoria G. Axelrod

Creating Value Through Interaction: Gardening, Listening, Understanding & Letting Go of Control

Since being a recipient of a Dave Snowden fireball in response to my suggestions in  responding to Euan Semple that the kinds of changes organizations confront implementing any new technology, I'm taking stock and looking for the value in these interactions. (I've discovered in some circles being the target of Dave's differing perspective is a badge of honour.) 

Introducing "The Social Life of Information" in 2000 John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid write:

"The way forward is paradoxically to look not ahead, but to look around."

I'm looking around to see:

1.  Gardening

Simon Wardley used this term describing his experiences using a wiki:

"So as an organisation we are needing to introduce "gardening" structures in order to maintain it's usefulness."

and Euan confirmed:

"One of the things we discovered with our wiki is that some people, often our librarians, liked gardening!"

Forum hosts in the earliest online days were charged with:

• FEED - respond to contributions to fuel participation
• WEED- remove the trash, and
• SEED-  start new threads to nurture fresh conversations.

I hadn't paid attention to "wiki gardening" as accepted use so thank you both.

2.  Listening

Euan Semple's closing comment here was:

"How many managers do you know who feel listened to at the moment?"

So how can participatory tools be used to promote "listening" in organizations?

3. Understanding & Letting Go of Control

On his blog Euan Semple writes:

"How many managers do you know who feel really listened to by their staff at the moment?

How many managers feel really understood by their boss?"

It will be interesting to see what comments emerge.  Will "misunderstood managers" contribute or are they so busy trying to survive in "misunderstanding" organizations they have no time to participate in conversations like this? Or because they work for "control freaks" are unable to express their experiences only?

Dave Snowden cast aside my suggestions for the changes organizations confront as "deeply flawed" and a "list that could have been produced anytime in the last 100 years (and has been)."  Perhaps we need look no further than Euan Semple's observations about "managers not being heard" and argument for liberating "control freaks" for why the list has longevity.  While technology buffets organizations people inside them, especially in positions of control, are reluctant to change.

John Seely Brown and Estee Solomon Gray wrote in the first "Fast Company" Magazine, October 1995 "People are the Company" and

"Organizations are webs of participation. Change the patterns of participation, and you change the organization. At the core of the 21st century company is the question of participation."

The arrival of participatory media tools challenge and demand organizational change but because "People are the Company" do not guarantee it.  Looking around perhaps "gardening", "listening", "understanding" and "letting go of control" offer clues to the way forward.

~ Jenny Ambrozek