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June 28 Ideologues rule the day...Ideology is the key asset for today's talent. If you are not a modern ideologue - favour social capitalism/big govt/regulation - you lose June 27 Ideology versus Experience.....Engaging staff today is more complex than for the past 30 years and it has never been a simple matter. Why? The workplace or workspace has become a tug-of-war between two camps. Those who value "ideology" and those who value "experience". Ideologues have swept the world as Western Economies become less free enterprise and more State Capitalism bound. Workers are passionate about many things today that are framed by their 'ideology" not by their "experience". Ideology is a great framework for employee engagement, if and only if, everyone is in sync with the prevailing ideas, ideals, and values reflected by it. In the workplaces where "experience" is the foundation of culture, work performance, and success then employee engagement is a different issue. Here the challenge is to build purpose-driven workplaces. To do that you must have a clear and present purpose that is aligned with the 'experiences' that all the workers bring with them each day. If you have a mix, most do, of ideologues and experienced colleagues at your workplace then you will have a constant tug-of-war at present over what the culture of the place is now and should be in the future. Your fellow employees will be fully engaged but not in a productive and purposeful way. June 25 Re-organisation....Starting to apply what I have gleaned about social networking and social media (past 3 years) to what I have always known about Organisational Culture. So here we go with some easy questions. Simple answers to the following 3 questions could put you and your colleagues on the path to a useful re-organisation without too much cost, fuss, or fanfare.1) What impact has social networking/media had (is having)
on your culture at work? 2) What HR practices would you like to change to
better accommodate web-based conversations? 3) Who is listening to the feedback from talented employees and consumers at your workplace?June 24 Re-organise your talent boundaries.Customers are the new talent - they can make or break you in a nanosecond. They are organised. They have a culture. They display their organisation and culture via social networks and social media - they blog, facebook, ning, tweet, etc. Embrace your customers' organisation as if it is an extension of your own. June 18 Are you going digital?The world is going digital. Going digital to me means having access and connection to the people, products, and services you want (think you need) while you are mobile. What technologies do you use? Are you going digital? If so do you have a DigitalCore process to filter out whatever does not serve your real time wants and needs? When you go digital you want/need good access, connection, and filters. Otherwise you become far less productive. You become a node in a 24/7 network of nodes that are buzzing each other incessantly without any productive outcomes. Bees buzz too but they are organised to get their job done no matter the context or environment they find themselves in. Bees have a DigitalCore - that is why they produce honey not just buzzing noises. Aspirational Tribes....When I first went to America in the 1980s I was struck by the fact that the Tribes were very different to those back home in Australia. These were Aspirational Tribes. Their members all were purpose-driven in their pursuit of a clear and present set of aspirations. Our Tribes were Equality Tribes. Their members all were purpose-driven in their pursuit of equality for all members. Today the Tribal format has switched somewhat - go figure! June 11 Social media is all about speed.I posted the following as a comment on Fast Company today in response to an item listing 10 Commandments for Social Media. I thought you might be interested if you don't read FC. There are no commandments. Participate? No! Please don't participate unless you are "relevant" to a conversation or have a "remarkable" contribution to make to one or to start a new one. Social media and social networking is different today, say to mid 20th Century, only because we have digital technologies. Otherwise the same principles apply today as they did back when Tupperware Parties were all the rage. Social media plays out within three contexts - tribes, clans, and clusters. Tribes form social silos - they have shared values, ideologies, and purpose-driven projects (80% of people on Blogs, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Ning, and soon to be on Google Wave are actually locked into a comfortable Social Silo. Clans are full of early adopters - in the main these are "tech heads" who are embracing new digital technologies but they are not, and do not pretend to be, social media leaders. Clans are full of people who are the facilitators of social media. Clusters form around themes. Green technologies, horror movies, quirky videos, Susan Boyle episodes, etc. Social media is best when it is "successful chaos" not the controlled activity that the notion of 10 Commandments might suggest. Bible? There is no Bible here and hopefully there never will be. Social media is fun, purposeful, annoying, clunking, exhilarating, frustrating, etc in other words it is a very human activity. Social media works at multiple levels but, each level has an identifiable pattern - sometimes the pattern is repeated time and time again at both micro and macro scale (like a fractal). The energy comes from the people who engage in conversations with others who "best fit" with their social wants and needs. Social media is a referral system that is being used to supplement or replace Brands in business. Social media is a new channel for business if and only if the business is able to let go of its control of Brand, Corporate Image, and Push Advertising. A good example of how social media can be incorporated into a business model is Threadless the T-shirt business. The customers are the talent at Threadless and so social media has become an integral part of the process of business. Finally I get to my key point. Social media is all about speed. June 08 Have you been Googleplexed?I have invented a new verb "Googleplexed". It means "being locked into a silo at work or in life". Most workers live this word everyday. Most do not know just how much of what they do is structured because they are Googleplexed. They have become "system led people" whereas most expected to be part of, and still want to belong to, a "people led system". Google is the place to be right now - free food, free time (20% of your work week for your personal project), free association with some of the world's best and brightest, etc. It is reasonable to want, even need, to work at Google. So you like so many others might be dreaming of a small space within the Googleplex in that impressive site in Mountain View California. It is also reasonable to expect that life and work within the Googleplex will be as it is reported in the business and popular press a fairy tale existence. In the early days of the Googleplex I am sure it was. It was a "people led system" and there was much to rejoice about. But success has made it is big bee hive with lots of worker bees and a structured decision-making process to control the output of those bees. It has become a silo. A place like so many others around the world with "system led people". So I offer a new term for you to describe your work situation or workplace. You work in a silo, with system led people, when you dream of working in a social network, with people led systems. Structured decision-making.....Structured decision-making is the core system for formal organisation. Much is made of and written about customer service, customer relationships, customer sentience boundaries, etc and they are important but, more important is structured decision-making. The organisation - business or not-for-profit - that provides its customers or clients with an efficient and an effective decision-making structure wins. It can scale. It can grow quickly. It has a revenue silo to exploit. For example, the new offering from Microsoft's Redmond Campus is called Bing. This is a smart product. It will build a very successful revenue silo. It structures "decision making" for a popular set of wants. Microsoft is a savvy business and its leaders understand that structured decision-making is what people want and need most in their lives. If you "structure decision-making" for your customers or clients - you win. June 04 I will just Google YOU in.....Are you having fun yet with social networks and social media? As many of you know I have spent the past 2 years trying to understand what these new technologies will mean to you and me. Things will change but not in the ways that most gurus, experts, workshop speakers, journalist, authors, etc suggest. The pace of change in technology is swift and increasing. The pace of change within communities and social entities is glacial and reducing. But there will be changes. Here is one idea for change that I have come up with since the release of Google Wave over the past few days. This idea is all about how we get a job, who recruits us, and who ultimately defines our job. I am not suggesting this will suit all jobs but it will suit some. Here is my text to an Executive Search professional yesterday.
"I see great changes coming to the Executive Search Industry over the
next 2-5 years as open source connectors like Google Wave* enables
better collaboration between provider, executive search facilitator,
and customer. Not all jobs, but some very important ones, will be put
into an Online Community as a concept - the process will be given a
deadline of say 10 days - where the customers will help your client
(say BHP) define/redefine the role. In the process the best candidates
in the Online Community (it will grow quickly to include all interested
parties) will become self-selecting applicants for the job on a
contract or permanent basis. The major inputs from you and your client
will be to provide the details on prevailing/future revenue models
within the organisation and the regulatory provisions of employment for
the position. These Online Communities will be formed in a nano-second
and disappear just as quick if there is no perceived reason (cost,
revenue, productivity, or developmental role) or benefit that would
have them prevail. Good fun ahead in your industry. June 03 Kids and adults are social networkers....I am rewiring the draft of my book Sundays in the Park. This book was first conceived as Chattering Clusters but, it has moved backwards since then. Moving backwards is not what a digital warrior like me is prone to do I know, so I probably need to explain myself a little. The book has been my research project for the past 2 years. It was my way of getting into the digital transformation from a people, not a technology, perspective. As I did that I found that most of the change was happening to the technology not the people. Even the Net Generation as Don Tapscott refers to our teenagers are not really that different to their parents or grand parents. I proved that point to my own satisfaction with a simple empirical study. I went to my 15 year son's school yard at lunch time. It is essentially no different to the one I went to lunch at all those decades ago. Sure the technologies are different - way different - but the people and their need to form "coalitions of interest" are essentially the same. They are the same because these kids have the same needs and wants as we did back when. They need to be part of the social networks that facilitate their enjoyment or otherwise of life. They need and want to be, first and foremost, social beings capable of making the right connections so they can best pursue their interests while at school. School dominates their life so what they do there is vital to their fulfillment in life. Adults do not shed these needs and wants - perhaps they become even more acute as they form families and become fully engaged in their life at work/home. Adults display their social networks too. They are just as clear and present as those I observed amongst their kids in the schoolyard. Sundays in the Park is their yard. There they mix and match to find a social platform - as opposed to a technological platform - that works best for them today or on a series of days in the park. Those of you who have read this blog, under former titles, will be familiar with my claim that "Sundays in the Park" is the perfect laboratory for those who want to test or better understand human behaviour on the Internet. On the net we act the same ways we do on Sundays in the Park. Sure the space is virtual. Sure the technology is full of changes and surprises. Sure there are many quirky aspects about being socially accepted on the net. BUT in essence, we are the same on the Internet as we are at Sundays in the Park. |
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