Change Management Blog

Conference and World Café Meeting in Second Life

2009-07-17T06:58:00.006+01:00

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to attend a conference on "Using Virtual Reality for Stakeholder Engagement", which was organized by PublicDecisions, taking place in Second Life. Not everybody of my readers know what Second Life, therefore, I provide a short explanation from Wikipedia:

Second Life (SL) is a virtual world developed by Linden Lab that launched on June 23, 2003 and is accessible via the Internet. A free client program called the Second Life Viewer enables its users, called Residents, to interact with each other through avatars. Residents can explore, meet other residents, socialize, participate in individual and group activities, and create and trade virtual property and services with one another, or travel throughout the world, which residents refer to as the grid.

Already quite early, Second Life attracted training providers, universities and other educational groups, and already more than a year ago, a World Café had been organized there. Yesterday's conference wasn't really a World Café but rather more a classical conference, with the following components

- Panel discussion on using virtual worlds for stakeholder engagement

- Field trips to interesting sites in SL for stakeholder engagement (I went to a project of Tufts university for citizen engagment in urban planning and the Centre for Virtual Native Lands, an education site about Native Americans)

- small focus groups discussion about the potential of virtual worlds in stakeholder engagement (this came as close as it gets to a World Café setting).

The conference went over six hours, quite a real and exhausting experience!

So, what are the pros and cons of virtual conferences/workhops in Second Life?

Pros:
- Second Life facilitatates the use of either voice or chat technologies to interact. The quality of voice transmission is rather good, so the experience is quite close to meeting people.
- People identify with their avatar so it feels like "being there".
- Through integration of other media such as videos, embedded websites, information notes, etc. one can create an environment that supports different learning styles

Cons:
- The barrier of entry is quite high, in particular for people who are not technology savvy.
- Creating the environment for a learning/meeting experience can be quite time and money consuming. However there are some places which are open for use to the public, in particular for non-profit organizations (Such as Squirrel Island). The organizers of yesterday's conference had quite a large support staff on site.

It goes without saying that Second Life conferences/workshops, like real life workshops need skilled facilitators to create an environment that is conducive for meaningful conversations.

I wonder what it takes to organize an Open Space Technology workshop in SL.

7 Dimensions: Principal Skills of Change Facilitators

2009-07-15T14:36:00.004+01:00

Some months ago, Nils Atle Krokeide, Bernd Weber and I sat together and tried to define what are the general skills of a change facilitator. This is what we came up with:

Dimension 1: Ability to Grasp Clients’ Needs

Key Aspects:
The ability to grasp or understand a client’s needs is the precondition for the design and redesign of the change process. The skilled change facilitator is aware of the fact that that the client’s needs will rarely be fully revealed nor fully known neither by the client nor by the facilitator. The Client-Facilitator System must be able to perceive these needs as fully as possible and to formulate and to document these needs as they are developing. This is the basis for the initial proposal to the client. The facilitated system understands that needs will continually be uncovered, revealed and developed during the change process and requires regular adjustments (contracting).

Related Skills:

Empathy
Ability to understand context specific culture
Analysis of the need system, e.g. stakeholder needs, functional needs, basic individual needs, business needs,
Identification of compatibility, contradictions and potential conflicts
Interview techniques e.g. systemic questioning
Tools for documentations and monitoring of changing needs
Informal and formal information gathering
Sensitivity for the clash of intra-organizational cultures, traditions and rituals.

Dimension 2: Contracting Process

Key Aspects:
The traditional understanding of consultancy sees “contracting” as one step in the consultancy process which ends with a signature. The Change-Facilitator understands that contracting includes the whole process of creating, maintaining and changing the professional relationship between facilitator and client. In this light contracting starts with the first contact and ends only with the facilitation process. CONTRACTING turns out to be “The full assignment management process”, combining project and relationship management.

Related Skills:

Have an ear for the (changing) client’s needs, budgeting, conflict management, analysis of documentation, intercultural communication, differentiation of roles (customer/process owner/client/key actors, etc.), dealing with role complexity, proposal writing, structure of contracts, differentiate and facilitate the formal and the informal contracting (informal shifting of contracts, formal re-definition of contracts, intermediate and final contracts).
Contract context analysis
Contract structure, examples of real contracts
Frame contract, intervention contracts and TORs
(Self-) monitoring of contract development
Sales and negotiation strategies

Dimension 3: Dealing with Complexity

Key Aspects:
The concept of complexity in change facilitation is based on system theory applied to the social field. Whereas in everyday contexts the polarity is seen as being SIMPLE vs. COMPLICATED, COMPLEXITY is a BEHAVIOUR that can be observed also in simple systems. In complex systems the relation between cause and effect (= the system’s behaviour) is non-linear. Logical analysis of social systems such as organizations is not enough. Complex systems tend to show chaotic behaviour. That is one reason why they are not easily manageable. The systemic approach is holistic and proved to be successful for dealing with complex systems.
Complexity may, for example, grow by increasing diversity in the stakeholder system, by growing amount and intensity of interconnections (feedback-loops) between the elements of the system, but also by growing uncertainty by changing roles or increasing role-mix of individual actors etc.

Experienced facilitators know: “People do not resist change, systems do.”

Related Skills:

Identification of logical and non-logical aspects of group and organization behaviour.
The principles of occidental logical thinking. Hierarchy as the social construction that manages may create and manage complicated systems, but fails with regard to complex behaviour of real social systems
Examples for non-logical thinking traditions (e.g. occidental: dialectics, Gestalt-Theory and oriental: Yin-Yang thinking)
Complex behaviour of organizations and institutions: functional complexity
Intra-individual complexity
Dealing with and separating different levels of complexity in change (Ralph Stacey and David Snowden models).
Intervention design and implementation that uses logical and non-logical strategies

Dimension 4: Design of Change Interventions

Key Aspects:
Change in organizations happens simultaneously at different levels: individuals change their beliefs, skills and attitudes; they have to let go of old habits and welcome new ones. Teams establish new rules, processes and relationships. The organization as a whole might change culture, structure and leadership models. The skilled change facilitator is able to think multi-dimensionally and to translate the client’s needs into a sequence of interventions that has to be designed with care, creativity and respect which addresses these different levels of change.

Related Skills of a Change Facilitator:

Systems thinking
Ability to communicate at different hierarchical levels (shop floor to board room)
Broad knowledge of change facilitation intervention techniques
Flexibility in design and redesign
Methods for co-creating intervention designs together with clients and for getting their ownership
Project management skills
Conceptualization and drafting skills
Ability to use different graphical and presentation software
Creating a change facilitation plan

Dimension 5: Implementation of Change Processes

Key Aspects:
In change processes, roles are not stable. As a consequence, change facilitators are the implementers of change strategies. Although the client is the owner of the change process, they hold us accountable for success or failure. This contradiction is a fact. The facilitator may initiate, plan, organise and carry out specific interventions such as training courses, expert consultations, coaching, facilitation of workshops, design of communication strategies, steering of the process, trust building, creating and supporting communities of practice, and much more. The classical division between process and expert consultant has been replaced by a holistic role model of the change facilitator, who is a true multi-artist.

Related Skills:

Training skills (online and face-to-face)
Facilitation skills (online and face-to-face; classical and whole systems change)
Coaching skills (online and face-to-face)
Expert consulting skills and knowledge (online and face-to-face)
Project management skills
Conflict management and mediation skills
Ability to recognize own strengths and weaknesses and flexibility to assemble the right team to do the job
High frustration tolerance within an environment characterised by uncertainty, low transparency and open or hidden power struggles
Broad spectrum of change models and intervention methods, including paradox interventions
Facilitation of interventions for personal development
Ability to tailor-make new interventions that respond to the client system’s situation and facilitate experiential learning
Ability to hold time and space – allowing the right things to emerge (whatever happens is the right thing...)
Ability to consequently apply the minimum intervention principle - do one thing less

Dimension 6: Roles and attitudes

Key Aspects:
The skilled facilitator is able to differentiate behaviour, role, function and position in organizations. In everyday communications in organizations, these concepts are used in a clouded way. When the organization starts to change, this might prove not to be functional any longer.

Facilitators are able to perceive and to communicate which role mixes are assigned to them by the client and to negotiate change of roles according to the systemic needs. This process requires a set of attitudes which are accessible for the facilitator all the time: being a servant, humbleness, ability to be a warrior and a healer, reliability, persistency, being a continuous learner and curiosity.

Related Skills:

Self-reflection and insight of one’s own changeability
Determination to stay the course
Goal and success orientation
Empathy
Ability to identify and communicate the difference between behaviour, role, function and position in organizational change processes

Dimension 7: Change models

Key Aspects:
Presently there exist a variety of change models starting from Kurt Lewin’s classical unfreeze-change-freeze model up to recent models such as Theory U of Otto Scharmer, etc. The skilled change facilitator is aware of the fact that “THE correct model” does not exist.

Related Skills:

To identify the change models that lies in fact behind the client’s interventions realized before the contracting the facilitator
The ability to decide what kind of change models which will support change interventions in different situations and contexts of the client’s system.

Change Model 2: The Grief Cycle

2009-07-14T12:50:00.001+01:00

Background:

The most common myth about change is that we resist it, but this is a misunderstanding of change. Change is an event. Change is a point in time when something old stops and something new begins. What people resist is not the change itself, but the impacts of change. (Lucy Garrick).

Change can be chosen, emergent, or imposed. This model is about imposed change, or, more specifically, about the emotional response of people to change. In essence, the model suggests that people go through several phases of a process when change is imposed. Change leaders need to acknowledge and recognize these stages and offer support that corresponds with the specific need people have in a respective phase of the grief cycle.

Originally, the model was developed by Elisabeth Kuebler-Ross (see below) in order to describe the phases which terminally ill people undergo after they have learned that they are going to die. "We can clearly observe similar reactions to those explained by Kübler-Ross's grief model in people confronted with far less serious traumas than death and bereavement, such as by work redundancy, enforced relocation, crime and punishment, disability and injury, relationship break-up, financial despair and bankruptcy, etc.," (from: Buinessballs), and in particular in processes of inforced change.

Leaders of change processes need to recognize each of the stages in order to implement the appropriate interventions. For example, when people are in anger stage, they won't be very susceptible for communication that tries to sell them the benefits of the change. The model calls for respecting emotions of people and responding to them rather then impleme

Image via Wikipedia

nting a just rational, inflexible change programme.

Creators of the Model:

Elisabeth Kuebler-Ross: on Death and Dying (1969). The model has found its way into management and organizational dynamics but I have no idea who to give the credit for. Do you know who was the first person who applied for change processes in organizations?

Phases of the Change Process (adapted from Wikipedia):

1) Shock: Shock is a first reaction to a change projected that is announced to people. Sometimes this is not the initial reaction to an announced change but the entire cycle only starts when people realize what the change means to them personally. Example - "My God!"; ""What?"

2) Denial: Denial is usually only a temporary defense for the individual. Example - "I feel fine."; "This can't be happening, not to me."

3) Anger: Once in the second stage, the individual recognizes that denial cannot continue. Because of anger, the person is very difficult to care for due to misplaced feelings of rage and envy. Example - "Why me? It's not fair!"; "How can this happen to me?"; "Who is to blame?"

4) Bargaining: The third stage involves the hope that the individual can somehow postpone, delay or neutralize the change, or to get an adequate compensation. Example - "What's in it for me?"; "What does that mean for my future?"; "What can I do?"

5) Depression: During the fourth stage, the dying person begins to understand the certainty of change. Because of this, the individual may become silent, refuse dialogue and spend much among peers who feel the same. It is an important time for grieving that must be processed. Example - "I'm so sad, why bother with anything?"; "What's the point?"; "They are doing this to us, whether we want or not."

6) Acceptance: This final stage comes with peace and understanding of the change that is approaching.People buy-in and start to become pro-active gain. Example - "It's going to be okay."; "I can't fight it, I may as well prepare for it."

Does the Model Relate to Complexity Theory?

No. The model is a linear one, describing the behavior of individuals on a clearly defined path. However, the cycle of grief can enrich a systemic model of change that tries to explain what actually happens in organizations. So, like a weather model can explain why a thunderstorm happens, Kuebler-Ross' cycle can explain why people do not cooperate in certain stages of the change, particularly when combined with a human needs model such as the one of Manfred Max-Neef that I favor.

Applicability:

The model comes in handy as a roadmap for leaders who want to understand their people. It gives suggestions on when to give emotionally support, when to decrease the speed of change and when to accelerate.

Strengths:

The model helps leaders to put their focus on the individuals. It is individuals who can make or break the change.
It shows clearly that communication and involvement needs vary according to the phase of the change project. It gives lots of room for flexibility to chose the appropriate intervention.

Weaknesses

It is a model that has been transferred from terminally ill people. The decisive difference to change management situations is that terminal ill people cannot escape while people in change processes might indeed have other options.
The model only focuses on the negative aspects of change. We know from scoial constructionism (as applied in Appreciative Inquiry) that those things on which we focus get stronger.
The model which was originally not meant to be applied for change processes does not take into account the wider environment and external change drivers.

PLEASE DISCUSS THE MODELS: WHAT ARE YOUR EXPERIENCES?

Change Model 1: The 4D Model (Appreciative Inquiry)

2009-07-12T17:55:00.002+01:00

Background:

The 4-D Model is based on Appreciative Inquiry (AI) which is a larger framework for human or organizational change. Like AI itself, it is based on a shift in paradigms on human interaction. The core can be captured in the idea that we create the world as we describe it. If many people in an organization think that this is a torture chamber, they will feel physical pain when they enter the door of this organization. If the same people think this is a great place to work, it will be.

Alana Karran writes about the difference between problem and outcome orientation approaches:
The other primary orientation is the Outcome Orientation, also known as the Collaborative-Creating Orientation. The focus of this orientation is the vision of the organization. What is focused on has a great impact on the emergent experience. Focus, or intention evokes an emotional response that drives behavior. This behavior reinforces the intention. Because systems are circular and feedback loops return to their point of orientation, this cycle continues indefinitely unless there is a change of focus. The principle of feedforward also applies, as the focus influences the future.

In the Collaborative-Creating Orientation, focusing on the vision engages passion and desire to manifest the intended outcome. When members of an organization have a shared vision and shared meaning this passion infuses the entire system because what affects a part, affects the whole. Biological systems are creative in nature and creativity happens collaboratively, most often in some form of community. Highly functioning organizations with a deep sense of community thrive from this orientation as the vision sparks passion, which creates authentic action moving the whole system closer to the vision exponentially.

Creators of the Model:
Suresh Srivastva, Ron Fry, and David Cooperrider, 1990

Phases of the Change Process: (taken from new-paradigm.co.uk)
Discover—people talk to one another, often via structured interviews, to discover the times when the organisation is at its best. These stories are told as richly as possible.

Dream—the dream phase is often run as a large group conference where people are encouraged to envision the organisation as if the peak moments discovered in the ‘discover’ phase were the norm rather than exceptional.

Design—a small team is empowered to go away and design ways of creating the organisation dreamed in the conference(s).

Destiny—the final phase is to implement the changes.

Does the Model Relate to Complexity Theory?

AI and the 4D-Model are deeply rooted in complexity theory. The underlying principle of simultaneity (change of mind and change of organizations happen at the same time) and the principle of poetry (the story of organizations can be recreated in conversations) relate to a basic systemic process: organizations can not be described as the sum of its parts but only as a whole.

Applicability:

The model has been applied to many different kind of organizations, from the profit (e.g., British Airways) and non-profit (United Nations) sectors. It is suitable for a wide range of transformation processes, including quality management, vision/mission/value creation, improvement of collaboration, etc.

Strengths:

The 4D-model works with what exists already in organizations. People can easily relate to their past success stories and link them to what they want for the future.
It is highly participatory and inclusive and respects different views and values.
The results of a 4D process are directly action oriented.
It creates energy and enhances motivation of people involved.

Weaknesses:

The model is more related to the past and present than to the future.
It does not include a wake-up call. Problems and challenges, although not denied, do not receive the same attention than visions.
The quality of results varies and depends on many factors. AI requires a highly skilled facilitator to make sure that the output of the process satisfies the expectations of the process owner.

More resources:

Website of Appreciative Inquiry Commons
Case Study: AI at World Vision
Timeline of Appreciative Inquiry

Photo of David Cooperrider: Ovationnet

PLEASE DISCUSS THE MODELS: WHAT ARE YOUR EXPERIENCES?

Change Models: A Systems Perspective

2009-07-09T11:13:00.006+01:00

Like other people who collect stamps, I collect change models. I find it interesting and fascinating how much energy and passion people put in the development of a conclusive generalization in what happens during a process of complex organizational or political change. And most of the models make a lot of sense - in certain contexts, organizational cultures or applied to a specific issue that the organization needs to address. However, I haven't found a model yet (and I believe I will never find it) that is applicable to all different situations on the ground. Or, maybe better: although many models might be applied to all kinds of contexts, the result of this application in terms of an improved organization or political process is not always satisfactory to
either the client or the people who are impacted by the change process. I can't believe that some consultants still have only "their" model in their briefcases.

Let us first have a closer look at why no change model can be a panacea and then have a look at different change models and evaluate them in terms of popularity and applicability. There is no finally proven scientific concept of change - as their is no universally valid sociological model that explains human groups or societies - because change happens in complex social systems. The behavior of highly complex social systems can be described and modelled but not exactly predicted and it looks like that it will never be possible to do so. All change models that do not take into account the enormous complexity and final unpredictability of human systems might help to understand certain aspects of how a system reacts to a change driver but it will evidently fall short to produce repeatable explanations that are valid and accepted for all different stakeholders. Present the same model to 10 different people in an organization and you will hear 10 different interpretations of it. You might say now - if a change model fails which does not take into account complexity theory, can't we then find a universally valid change model that respects the laws of complexity theory?

Well, there are indeed a variety of complexity theory based change models. Problem is that complexity theory is a very young discipline which developed over the last 30 years, originally based on the mathematical description of theoretical or artifiically created systems. Since then, complexity science (vulgo: Chaos Theory) has been expanded but those theorems that have been proven experimentally are not that specific enough to explain every aspect of a a system's behavior. (John Smart says: "Most prediction is a predictable failure."). Let us look at what seems to be the scientifically agreed fundament of systems theory. These theorems are not taken from a text book but I wrote them up. So, as I am not a complexity scientist, please tear me apart if you can:

1. Complex systems consist of different, interconnected and interdependent parts.
2. Complex systems show non-linear behavior.
3. Complex systems are not stable; if they look stable, they are in a state of equilibrium.
4. Emergent phenomena are a common feature of complex systems not because they are magic but because we lack the computational power to exactly predict the behavior of the system.
5. Social systems are complex per definitionem.
6. You need a specific model for each kind of system to compute/predict its behavior. The more complex the system the more we depend on empiric findings to establish a specific model. Any prediction can only be an approximation.

Because of theorem No. 6, no model for organizational or political change can be universally applicable to more than a limited set of change processes. Practice will show its validity.

In the next weeks, I will publish a series of blog posts that describe different change models, their background, theoretical foundation, applicability, field validation.

The Change Journey Continues

2009-07-01T07:32:00.004+01:00

For the last days I had the pleasure to work together with my friend and colleague Vesa Purokuru from HUMAP Ltd. and with Antti Huntus on our joint project THE CHANGE JOURNEY. The Change Journey is an innovative concept on how to live the change in turbulent times.

We weren't alone. As we are co-authoring our book on a wiki, we invited outsiders to join us for 48 hours in our writing. And 20 people from around the globe did. Here is a first idea of the phases of THE CHANGE JOURNEY:

* Getting prepared for the journey
* Depart for the journey
* Living in constant change
* Creating skills for working in constant change

1. Preparation:

-Getting prepared for change journey: known and unknown
-Exploring & understanding reasons and alternatives
-finding common mind set: balance between top-down & bottom-up
-Choosing change models
-Finding right partners
-Agreeing the rules and principles
-Making first plans
-Discovering change forums

2. Starting the change journey:
-Getting everybody involved and engaged by joint planning,
-Understanding A to B journey
-First moves & actions towards the goal

3. Living the change journey:
-Living the new reality
-Using strengths
-Solving problems measuring and changing the change
-Becoming aware what works and what doesn’t

4. Creating skills for working in constant change:
-Learning from the experience,
-Developing new skills,
-Being prepared for future changes,
-Being able to change things fast

More to come soon.

It fits well that this morning I found an interesting blog post fro Bill Taylor at Harvard Business:

The 10 Questions Every Change Agent Must Answer. These are the questions.

Please read the full article to get more information:

1. Do you see opportunities the competition doesn't see?
2. Do you have new ideas about where to look for new ideas?
3. Are you the most of anything?
4. If your company went out of business tomorrow, who would miss you and why?
5. Have you figured out how your organization's history can help to shape its future?
6. Can your customers live without you?
7. Do you treat different customers differently?
8. Are you getting the best contributions from the most people?
9. Are you consistent in your commitment to change?
10. Are you learning as fast as the world is changing?

Facilitating Virtual Collaboration

2009-06-15T18:16:00.001+01:00

Image via Wikipedia

Facilitating Virtual Collaboration

Keble College Oxford

September 18, 2009, 9.00-17.00

Virtual collaboration tools have mushroomed and matured at the same time. There are thousands of tools and platforms such as online conference systems, blogs, wikis, chat rooms, forums, social networks, social bookmarking sites, files sharing, etc., which allow small and big groups to work together for a common goal. Many profit and non-profit organizations are using such tools for communication and collaboration with their internal and external stakeholders. In the future, most workshops, seminars, conferences will have a virtual component. Other events will be entirely online. Besides real-time events, the demand for facilitation of asynchronous processes of organizational development is high.

We offer you a practice oriented seminar to upgrade your skills for navigation and communication in the virtual world.

Objectives:
The participants, upon finishing the session, will be able to

...understand the importance of social media for transformative change
...apply different social media tools in their own work
...create meaningful content on the web
...linking up to different social networks on the Web
...initiate change processes by using social media
...apply different social media tools in their own work as change facilitators

Workshop Agenda:

Web 2.0: How social media are changing the world (presentation)
Exercise: Exploring the world of social media (small groups)
The how and what of blogging (hands on learning)
Creating meaningful content: working with videos, podcasts, slideshows, mindmaps and other interactive Web media (hand on learning)
Creating social networks that move people to action (hands on learning)
Microblogging: creating a world brain (interactive exercise)
How to broaden virtual facilitation and networking skills for change processes (group discussion)

Trainers:
Holger Nauheimer and Sofia Bustamante (Radical Inclusion)

Participation Fee: £ 350
Early registration fee (ends July 15, 2009): £ 280

Register here.
Please contact holger@change-facilitation.org for more information.

Collective Intelligence

2009-06-09T18:06:00.003+01:00

If you have 30 minutes of your precious time and want to use it for learning, I recommend to watch this video of Jean-François Noubel, speaking at the Global Human Resources forum, Seoul, South Korea, Oct. 2007 on collective intelligence, and 21st century organizations:

Introduction to Collective Intelligence from TheTransitioner on Vimeo.

Tweetup Report: The Change Journey

2009-06-03T19:21:00.014+01:00

This is the main thread of our 10-tweets training workshop of June 3 on THE CHANGE JOURNEY. We discussed along the lines of some statements I made around change and collaboration. The entire experiment took about one our and can be followed up at TweetGrid. Click on the embedded links to get more information on the background of my statements.

hnauheimer No time for change management: Predicting the economy is more difficult than forecasting weather http://bit.ly/k5e79

lucy2shoes: @hnauheimer experience as enemy of rapid change reminds me of Otto Scharmer on hyper complexity, patterns of the past no longer useful

lucy2shoes: RT @hnauheimer: alternative to change management is tapping the sources of innovation. http://tinyurl.com/qhsv9t

hnauheimer Change happens whether welcomed or not. "In times of rapid change, experience could be your worst
enemy.” J. Paul Getty

hnauheimer RT @StephenRCovey We do not see the world as it is; we see the world as we are. Furthermore, our head creates our world

carlplant: @hnauheimer yes and also the questions we ask ourselves or others governs how we describe the world around us, problem vs solution focused!

arnoldbeekes: @hnauheimer new thinking also requires the changing of old beliefs

hnauheimer Change is a mental construct. Organizations need new thinking, co-created in a dialogue:

johankjork: @hnauheimer love this video!! thats how we work with change management radical involvement and inclusion in the future!

arnoldbeekes: The book The Iconoclast talks about new experiences/environment which is needed for a new perspective

hnauheimer “If you’re looking for a role model in a complex world, you could do worse than to imitate a bee” http://bit.ly/hTTEM

cj76530: @hnauheimer either imitate a bee … or investigate the tao te ching for ideas http://taooftheday.com/

hnauheimer Widen the circle of involvement as much as possible: Connect people to the content and to each other @rtvc_wks

hnauheimer Create encounters where the new thinking may happen (radical inclusion), in physical/virtual spaces http://bit.ly/mSCls

TheTransitioner: Reading conclusions of the real time virtual conference of may 9. @hnauheimer. ?rtvc. http://is.gd/NkGW Great use of tools. Want to play!

hnauheimer All people have purposes, concerns, circumstances. Being appreciated, they will collaborate: http://bit.ly/Nxvrh

Maria_G: @hnauheimer If you help others see the "win" for themselves, they stop resisting the change.

lucy2shoes: appreciate each other's intentions, efforts, strengths, engagement .. .. what else?

hnauheimer New leaders embrace self-organization, nurture emergence & increase the system’s requisite variety
http://bit.ly/16P0DS

hnauheimer In 21^st century organizations, people need a new consciousness to serve as leaders as well as supporters
(@jascharohr)

lucy2shoes: @hnauheimer leaders need new collaboration skills too, institutuional sharing of knowledge and ideas as a resource.

TheTransitioner: @Balanor Agree what you say on emergence. the context is balance inside organizations. Following the conversation on#cj01

sheriherndon: Love this question - RT @thetransitioner What is the right balance in between emergence and structure?

10 Tweets Seminar on The Change Journey

2009-05-30T12:55:00.006+01:00

On Wednesday, June 3, at 1 pm EST / 17.00 GMT, I will hold a 10 Tweets seminar on contemporary concepts of change facilitation. The seminar will be delivered through Twitter, i.e. I will post 10 tweets in a short time. The tweets will contain main messages and links to further resources.

Content:
* Why change has changed
* Why we can't manage change
* New leadership skills
* Transformation of organizations

To follow the seminar, just follow me on Twitter, or follow the hashtag #cj01.

The seminar will take about one hour and involves some reading from your side, and a short video. You can follow the seminar in real-time or asynchronously.

Jascha Rohr: Unfolding Individual & Collective Potential in Corporations

2009-05-16T13:28:00.020+01:00

I attended a presentation of Jascha Rohr (@jaschrohr) at the Berlin Hub on Unfolding Individual & Collective Potential in Corporations. During the presentation, I twittered the main statements and ideas of Jascha's German keynote, which I document, comment and annotate here (my original tweets in bold). You can read the entire tweetstream here.

Photo: www.partizipativ-gestalten.de

@jascharohr starts with a question: are bees or ants happy?

That is a real good question to reflect about. I mean, we all know that bees' and ants' brains are probably not made to feel emotions. But if we just assume for a moment that bees and ants would have the ability to feel, what would they feel, in particular, what would the worker ants and bees feel? Would they be proud and happy to be part of a greater good?

Reading an impressive article of National Geographic on swarm theory, I am not sure whether Jascha's underlying hypothesis hold: that there are power structures in bees or ants colonies. The author of this article says:

One key to an ant colony, for example, is that no one's in charge. No generals command ant warriors. No managers boss ant workers. The queen plays no role except to lay eggs. Even with half a million ants, a colony functions just fine with no management at all—at least none that we would recognize. It relies instead upon countless interactions between individual ants, each of which is following simple rules of thumb. Scientists describe such a system as self-organizing.

When you are 1 in a million in China, there 1300 of you. @jascharohr refers to Shift Happens.

"Shift Happens" has become one of the most quoted videos on change of society and culture. It has changed the way we look at our closest future. I just learned there is an updated version:

This year there will be 4 extrabyte of new information, more than was generated in last 5000 years.

Another quote from Shift Happens which shows us how quickly what our knowledge will be outdated.

However, I wanted to know more. A Google search on "Growth of Human Knowledge" did not reveal anything satisfying. So, this was the decisive moment of testing www.wolframalpha.com, the new "intelligent" search engine which has had a lot of (rather bad than good) PR during the last days. It reveals the following interesting information:

Input interpretation:

Value:

Comparisons:

A counter scenario to continuous exponential growth: Peak Oil Theory.

Peak oil is the point in time when the maximum rate of global petroleum extraction is reached, after which the rate of production enters terminal decline. The concept is based on the observed production rates of individual oil wells, and the combined production rate of a field of related oil wells. The aggregate production rate from an oil field over time usually grows exponentially until the rate peaks and then declines—sometimes rapidly—until the field is depleted. This concept is derived from the Hubbert curve, and has been shown to be applicable to the sum of a nation’s domestic production rate, and is similarly applied to the global rate of petroleum production. Peak oil is often confused with oil depletion; peak oil is the point of maximum production while depletion refers to a period of falling reserves and supply. (Text and image from Wikipedia.org)

Whatever growth theory is right: We will have to deal with accelerating change - what does that mean for organizations?

At this point, Jascha went to the core of his presentation - what organizational forms do we need in the 21st century, in times of great uncertainty and growing complexity.

Consciousness is the skill of reflexive mindfulness. Is the consciousness of an organization only the sum of individuals or more?

3 levels of organizational consciousness based on the concept of David Deida and #spiraldynamics

David Deida is acknowledged as one of the most insightful and provocative spiritual teachers of our time, best-selling author David Deida continues to revolutionize the way that men and women grow spiritually and sexually. His teachings and writings on a radically practical spirituality for our time have been hailed as among the most original and authentic contributions to personal and spiritual growth currently available. (from Deida's own short biography)

Spiral Dynamics is an evolutionary model of human development which can be applied to individuals, societies and organizations. Originally conceived by Clare Graves in the sixties, it was taken up and further developed by Chris Cowan and Don Beck (the two guys, after having collaborated and published a seminal book on the topic, parted in conflict). We have published a case study on the Lebanese history based on Spiral Dynamics.

Level 1: The level of clearly prescribed roles, clear hierarchies, clear job descriptions. These organizations are efficient.

In Spiral Dynamics, we call those entities "blue organizations". They are organizations where trust is developed by rules and hierarchies. If you stick to rules you know that you are on the right track. Level 1 organizations work well in predictable markets.

But Level 1 organizations are not able to quickly adapt to change.

We have seen the fall of typical blue organizations recently, such as GM which had failed for many years to adapt to quickly changing markets.

Level 2 organizations are looking for meaning. It is kind of a community and includes emancipation. Trust is based on equality.

Problem of Level 2 organizations: they are not as efficient as Level 1 organizations and equality blocks individual development.

In Spiral Dynamics, we call those entities "green organizations". Trust is given by the community of equals. There are no hierarchies and no leaders. Issues are discussed and either decided by group consensus or left undecided. Level 2 organizations have worked well in particular in non-profit settings.

In level 3 organizations (just emerging): Instead of roles and equality, authenticity is the base of organizational consciousness.

In Level 3 organizations, leadership is a service, helping others to unfold their authenticity. Here, people unfold their potential.

In Spiral Dynamics, we call those entities either "yellow or turquois organizations", depending on whether they have the ability to create community and serve for a larger good (turquois).

How to organize Level 3 organizations? @jascharohr suggests participatory co-construction.

In @jascharohr's concept of participation, all living/non-living actors are part of the co-construction process and have their role.

Participatory co-construction is based on generative patterns

In a participatory co-construction process, all living/non-living actors are part of a non-linear field and interact with each other.

This concept is based on several sources:

1. The work of Christopher Alexander (http://www.patternlanguage.com, a Vienna born architect. From Wikipedia comes this quote from one of his books:
The Timeless Way of Building described the perfection of use to which buildings could aspire:

“ There is one timeless way of building. It is a thousand years old, and the same today as it has ever been. The great traditional buildings of the past, the villages and tents and temples in which man feels at home, have always been made by people who were very close to the center of this way. It is not possible to make great buildings, or great towns, beautiful places, places where you feel yourself, places where you feel alive, except by following this way. And, as you will see, this way will lead anyone who looks for it to buildings which are themselves as ancient in their form, as the trees and hills, and as our faces are.

2) For me, another important source for this is the work of Arnold Mindell, further developed by Max Schupbach in his WorldWork approach.

Worldwork brings is a new way of thinking about and working within the complete spectrum of collective life and its organizational forms. At its core is a theory that links research in consciousness studies to fresh interpretations of findings in modern physics.

More about the WorldWork paradigm can be found here.

In Level 3 organizations, all actors are ready to be deeply involved, aware that they are part of a field which they cannot control.

In Level 3 organizations, everybody can and will lead and everybody can and will follow in different phases.

We don't know whether Level 3 organizations do exist but there have been early prototypes, such as Dee Hock's Visa, who said in an interview:

"We are at that very point in time when a 400-year-old age is dying and another is struggling to be born -- a shifting of culture, science, society, and institutions enormously greater than the world has ever experienced. Ahead, the possibility of the regeneration of individuality, liberty, community, and ethics such as the world has never known, and a harmony with nature, with one another, and with the divine intelligence such as the world has never dreamed."

Conclusion of @jascharohr: Let us stop being judgmental on leading and following. So bees and ants must be happy.

This blog post is just a start. There is much more to say about Jascha's theories, and - we have to put them into practice. Please contribute to the discussion.

Follow Jascha and Holger on Twitter.

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

Everybody believes that this is a quote from Nelson Mandela's inauguration speech. Unfortunately, this is an urban myth, and the text comes from an author called Marianne Williamson (read the full text here). How it got attributed to Nelson Mandela remains a mystery. Marianne Williamson herself said: "Several years ago, this paragraph from A Return to Love began popping up everywhere, attributed to Nelson Mandela's 1994 inaugural address. As honored as I would be had President Mandela quoted my words, indeed he did not. I have no idea where that story came from, but I am gratified that the paragraph has come to mean so much to so many people."

Facilitating Virtual Dialogues

2009-05-13T22:22:00.006+01:00

I will host a 2 days training on "Facilitating Virtual Dialogues" in Oxford, UK, Sep. 17-18, 2009, as a preconference workshop to the IAF Europe conference.

Summary

Social media of the WWW are now widely used to facilitate team processes, organizational development and stakeholder dialogues. The choice of an appropriate tool is based on five context markers: place, time, content, relationship and language. Such processes can take place in synchronous, asynchronous or mixed mode.

In the two days workshop, participants will experiment with a multitude of social media and learn how to facilitate virtual processes of different size and duration. It will be learning-on-the job: the learning group will subsequently form an editorial team that covering the IAF conference by different media (blogs, podcasts, videos, photos, community groups, Twitter, Facebook, etc.)

Learning Objectives/Outcomes

The participants, upon finishing the session, will be able to

- ...understand the importance of social media for transformative change
- ...apply different social media tools in their own work
- ...create meaningful content on the web
- ...facilitate asynchronous and synchronous virtual events
- ...linking up to different social networks on the Web
- ...initiate change processes by using social media

Session Content Outline & Description

Before the workshop:
- Participants will connect through a social web platform

Day 1
- Web 2.0: How social media change the world (presentation)
- Focus group discussion: What are virtual facilitation skills
- Exercise: Exploring the world of social media (small groups)
- Group presentations
- The how and what of blogging (hands on learning)
- Group presentations
- Creating meaningful content: working with videos, podcasts, slideshows, mindmaps and other interactive Web media (hand on learning)
- Group presentations
- The rising importance of social networks on the Web (presentation)
- Social media as means for transformative change in teams and organizations (group discussion)

Day 2
- Creating social networks (hands on learning)
- Group presentations
- Microblogging: creating a world brain (interactive exercise)
- Virtual facilitation skills (presentation)
- Conference platforms (interactive exercises)
- Real Time Virtual Facilitation: creating multi-media events (hands on learning)
- Reflection. How to broaden virtual facilitation and networking skills for change processes (group discussion)
- Planning: creating editorial teams to cover the IAF conference; defining objectives of coverage

Bookmark the date, more info soon.
Please send me an email at holger@change-facilitation.org if you wanted to be posted on this event.

Guest Blog: Strategic Change Management

2009-05-13T11:35:00.003+01:00

This article focuses on a marine engineering company, which is a supplier of stabilisers and steering systems to the world's navies and commercial fleets.

The company had been the subject of a review, but in view of its sound performance and scope for development it became a core business in the technology division of their parent company. To develop the company and maximise results an ambitious 'Way Forward Programme' was launched. A month later the financial director left at short notice.

The role of FD was crucial to the change programme and a replacement was urgently required. The company decided to take their time to recruit and in the meantime employ the services of an interim manager. An acting finance director was placed in the company.

His primary objectives were to develop a new costing structure to provide relevant information for decision making on strategy, bidding for and sourcing new equipment, making recommendations to achieve labour cost-savings and identifying key performance indicators.

He was well suited to the role with his extensive financial management experience in manufacturing industries. He spent a period of five months at the company and comments: "I achieved all the objectives and was able to offer a fresh pair of eyes providing independent advice for the real improvement of the business."

The managing director of the company says that his company gained significant benefits from his services. He believes that hiring an interim manager can provide a unique solution to a business dilemma.

Read the original article about strategic change management

The RTVC Happened! Successful!

2009-05-12T10:37:00.006+01:00

We did it! After a two months preparation, our international team hosted the first Real Time Virtual Facilitation workshop, applying Open Space principles and using a lot of different social media tools.

Here is a complete (and outstanding) mindmap covering the event (you better click on the image to see the entire mindmap):

After the agenda wall had been opened 48 hours prior to the event, 50 particpants from around the world met in a big (Skype) chat room for the opening session. From there, they went into "break-out rooms", using chat rooms, Skype voice conferences, Dimdim (conference platform), different Twitter applications, Etherpad (a simplified Wiki in which people can simultanously work on a document, and chat at the side), and other tools.

These were the topics discussed:
* Collective Action
* Communication tools for the Manager 2.0
* Introducing social media to large organisations
* OpenMoney: connecting social entrepreneurs with new currencies
* New Change Management Approach for the 21st Century?
* Interdependencies between sensible and meaningful communication and tools/ technological development
* Global Skills
* Community Owned Communications Infrastructure
* Collaborative Intelligence in the Workplace

After two break out sessions, people reconvened in the big chat room, where we facilitated a reflection session, in which we heard words like: "thrilling", "encouraging", "roller coaster", "what's next?", "bacterial", "fallingoffthecliff", and much more.

We learned a lot as a team about technological barriers, virtual facilitation skills etc.

We will be back with an even improved concept!

The Market Place of the RTVC Has Been Opened!

2009-05-07T16:07:00.002+01:00

The Marketplace of the RTVC conference that will take place on Saturday, May 9 from 14.00-17.00 GMT has officially been opened. That means, we encourage you from now on until Saturday to identify topics you want to explore. You don't need to be an expert on that specific topic - we just appeal to your passion and responsibility. If you have such a topic, please go to the marketplace and follow the instructions:

http://www.change-management-toolbook.com/mod/glossary/view.php?id=616

Beside the topic, we ask you to define the virtual (or real life) meeting place: You can use any vehicle for dialogue that suits you well. Beside the few tools that we suggest, feel free to meet where ever you want - in Second Life, in a conference platform that you use regularly, etc. All you need to do is to specify that meeting place in the marketplace, where you post your topic.

Remember the Open Space Technology rule:

Whatever happens is the only thing that could have.

We also remind you that not all of you have yet either provided us with their Skype ID or have not yet confirmed our connection request on Skype. You need to do that to follow the opening and closing session in Skype chat. In case you cannot find the connection request, you can connect to us by using our Skype ID, which is rtvc.wks . If you are unable to install Skype (remember, it is not about the voice option but about chat), you can follow the main lines of the opening and closing ceremony at our Twitter account.

http://twitter.com/rtvc_wks

Looking forward to meeting you soon in cyberspace,

Holger Nauheimer and the Steering Group of RTVC

Stephan, Lucy, Hans, Sofia, Julian, Suresh and Michael

Creating a World to which People Want to Belong

2009-04-20T06:40:00.006+01:00

This is a reprint of an article I wrote for the April newsletter of the IAF Europe.

Robert Dilts
(image by Cantabrigensis
via Flickr)

"We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future."
George Bernard Shaw

Many years ago I had several encounters with Robert Dilts, one of the early developers of the systemic thinking school of NLP. Robert, in his kindness has left a deep impression on me with the subtitle of his book “Visionary Leadership Skills”, which serves as the title of this little article
on how facilitators can have an impact on change in organizations and societies. I hope Robert doesn’t mind.

We are living in times in which most aspects of life have become unpredictable. Will we still be in business next year? If so, what new skills will we need to serve our clients? If we are employed, will we still have a job? Will our kids be able to develop their talents and gifts? Will our organizations become better places, where the individual contribution is valued and where team work becomes a means for personal and corporate success? Will there be more or less wars,
terrorist attacks, and hunger (for food and for meaning)? And these are just the big questions – just try to write a list with two columns: in one column, jot down the things that you deem certain and in the other those which you think are uncertain. What’s your personal balance?

So: if uncertainty and unpredictability prevails, can we as facilitators have an impact or are we subject to the strong forces of a seemingly chaotic world?

I believe we can. As facilitators, we

help teams to develop
create room for dialogue
assist organizations to improve their collaboration practices
support individuals in their intent for personal growth
deconstruct complexity and enhance comprehension
understand and describe systemic patterns in groups and organizations
serve as role models that provide orientation
allow emotions and feelings to be expressed
identify emerging leaders and give them room to experiment
express our views on the good, the bad and the ugly of organizations and societies
act as messengers of social initiatives
suggest tools for improved collaboration
etc.

As systemic thinkers we know that every action has an effect on the system. At the end our
work boils down to one simple thing that we do: Creating space for passion and responsibility to unfold. I love to start my workshops with a simple exercise: I ask the participants to get off their chairs (which of course are assembled in a circle with no tables), and spend 15 minutes to meet other people. For these 15 minutes, I encourage them to talk about two aspects of themselves: What are they passionate about? What do they want to take responsibility for during the workshop (and beyond)? This little activity sets the tone and provides fertile ground for openness, transparency, emotional involvement and collaboration.

So, here is our contribution to a better world: let’s focus on helping to increase the global
quantity of passion and responsibility. If we commit to this as an objective for any of our workshops, then I am not worried about our impact.

There is more reason for optimism: the global web culture that has developed over the last years is an indicator showing that people do collaborate if they have the tools, the freedom to use them and nobody standing behind their backs. Gary Hamel has expressed this perfectly in an article for the Wall Street Journal (“The Facebook Generation vs. the Fortune 500“). He describes the following patterns of collaboration via social media:

1. All ideas compete on an equal footing.
2. Contribution counts for more than credentials.
3. Hierarchies are natural, not prescribed.
4. Leaders serve rather than preside.
5. Tasks are chosen, not assigned.
6. Groups are self-defining and -organizing.
7. Resources get attracted, not allocated.
8. Power comes from sharing information, not hoarding it.
9. Opinions compound and decisions are peer-reviewed.
10. Users can veto most policy decisions.
11. Intrinsic rewards matter most.
12. Hackers are heroes.

Quite a good description of how the real world should function, isn’t it? So, let’s start to build in real life what works in the Web already. I am ready to assume the hacker’s position, if wish so.

Change Facilitators Need to Change

2009-04-16T13:13:00.002+01:00

Image via Wikipedia

IBM has just published a very interesting study about the enterprise of the future, based on interviews with 1000+ CEOs from around the world. It is only 6 pages of text and it has the potential of shaking our foundations.

Summary - the enterprise of the future is:

hungry for change
innovative beyond customer imagination
globally integrated
disruptive by nature
genuine, not just generous

I would like to open a discussion on what that means for us as Change Facilitators. Are we ready to guide our clients into that future? Do we have the skills, attitudes, knowledge, tools?

Do our consulting organizations work along these principles? Or are we repeating old patterns? Are we ready?

Join the discussion and let us shape the future, together. I have opened a discussion forum about that topic at http://www.change-management-toolbook.com/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=50.

I believe we need to change. Do we want to? Or do hope that after the current economic crisis everything will go back to normal?

On Complexity, Paradigms and Language

2009-04-15T20:42:00.011+01:00

Image by pipiwildhead via Flickr

I read a great post of Peggy Holman on PATTERNS OF CHANGE: Invoking Emergence in a Time of Uncertainty Peggy starts with the provoking question:

What would it mean to know how to work well with the unprecedented upheaval many of us face today?

She continues:

We live in unprecedented times. With financial systems crumbling, oil prices rising and falling, educational systems failing their students, whole industries like newspaper publishing and auto manufacturing collapsing, it is clear that dramatic change is happening whether we like it or not. The pathways of the past no longer reliably guide us to understand the needs of the present, much less the future.
...
What follows is an emerging story that puts the old story of change in perspective, opens the way for something new, and provides some insight into how to put the ideas to work.

Sherri Black in her comment to that post, replies:

Peggy — it may be a bit more diplomatic talking about “old change” a bit more kindly — like change patterns that used to work but suddenly with the degree of turbulance in our lives do not seem to help any longer (or someting like that –not to offend all the other change or OD method masters).

I do not agree with Sherri. It is the role and responsibility of thought leaders to introduce a new language. The old language serves as justification for trying to reestablish the old ways of doing things. It is probably that we have not yet found the new language we need to describe patterns that are breaking through, and attitudes and tools that we need.

Image "PhotonQ-Beauty on the Horizon of Complexity" by PhOtOnQuAnTiQuE via Flickr

During my attendance of the last Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco I saw a fascinating presentation of Soren Stamer, CEO of Coremedia about Darwinism on the Web.

We have to realize that it is impossible to predict anything substantial even about the near future. Soren states seven compounding reasons why:

1. Increasing Dynamics
2. Rising Complexity
3. Increased Transparancy
4. Global Synchronization
5. Huge Opportunities and Huge Risks
6. Abundance of Options
7. Exponential growth

So, maybe the "old" OD and Change Practitioners have to learn we are entering an era of new paradigms. Which doesn't mean that the old methods won't work any more. But there are fewer situations in which they actually do work.

When I started my professional life, we were facilitating so called Objective Oriented Project Planning Workshops in Africa, Asia and Latin America, trying to conceive detailed plans stretching over 3-5 years. What a joke!

I now have to admit that what we have used over the last years, methods such as Appreciative Inquiry, Future Search Conferences etc. are not effective in isolation. Rather, they need to be complemented by new ways of facilitating change.

Where do we get the new language from?

Reblogging: Citizen-Powered Election Monitoring With Vote Report India

2009-04-15T12:38:00.005+01:00

This is an exciting website (from: digiactive) for anybody who wants to effect social change:

Vote Report India is a collaborative citizen-driven election monitoring platform for the 2009 Indian Lok Sabha elections. Users contribute direct SMS, email, Twitter and web reports on violations of the Election Commission’s Model Code of Conduct. The platform aggregates these direct reports with news reports, blog posts, photos, videos and tweets related to the elections from all relevant sources, in one place, on an interactive map.

It is also worth to watch this great video which gives tips on digital activism:

Make a Difference

2009-04-14T10:12:00.005+01:00

It is about 2 weeks that I attended the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco. Getting ready for this evening's Social Media Lab at the HUBBerlin, I am revisiting my conference experience. The conference's website is a great source for learning what will be the forces that change our future. Here is a recommendation: If you can spare 25 minutes, watch the keynote of Tim O'Reilly on how Web 2.0 is changing the world, and how we are changing the world.

Tim talks about three major trends:
1. Enterprises understand that Web 2.0 is about turning themselves inside out
2. Web 2.0 evolves into cloud computing
3. Mobile phones and ubiquitous sensors lead us to ambient computing

An example for the last point is the Quake Catcher Network of the University of California at Stanford which uses the motion sensors of users' laptops into monitoring earth quakes.

Tim ends with the assertion: Make a Difference! Time well spent:

Real Time Virtual Collaboration Workshop

2009-04-07T01:58:00.002+01:00

What tools and principles do we need to help change to unfold? Social and technological development as means for better organizations, and a better world.

Join an experiment of virtual collaboration.

This is an experiment in virtual collaboration. On May 9, 2009, from 14.00-17.00 GMT (please check your local time here), we will host the world's largest Real Time Virtual Collaboration Workshop. The workshop will be based on the self-organization principles of Large Systems Change Methods like Bar Camps, World Café, Open Space Technology, etc. and will be facilitated applying different collaboration technologies such as Voice-over-IP, messaging tools, micro blogs etc.

Although we have a certain structure and procedure in mind, this is work in progress, and if you have a passion for this, we encourage you to join the steering group. Just drop us a note in the forum below and we get in touch with you.

During the Real Time Virtual Collaboration Workshop, this page will be the central place where the agenda will be created. Also, this is a place for documentation.We will post the instructions later on.

For the time being, please register here and join our pre-conference discussion

Here is an update on what has happened so far:

Since we had the first call for the conference, more than 50 people have registered and we have formed an organizers committee to brainstorm and set up the main facilities. Here are our latest ideas:

This is the concept which is unfolding (work in progress):

a) we will have to create a very simple interface which will be the meeting place. Here, the agenda of the conference will be posted (on a wiki or a whiteboard), this is where participants can get advice from tool hosts, i.e. people who specialize to answer questions on application of certain tools. This is also the place where everybody can go to meet and join an open discussion - kind of coffee break room.

b) our team will propose a set of standard tools which everybody can refer to. This will probably consist of
- wikis for the agenda and for notifications
- chat rooms
- Skype (for one-to-one chat, group chat and voice-over-IP conversations)
- Twitter for communicating with the outside world in real time
- personal journals in which participants can post the summary of their group discussions

c) we will all start building our agenda before the conference starts. At the beginning of the conference, participants have the opportunity to add topics and suggest virtual breakout rooms according to their preferences.

d) we will encourage participants to use other platforms for joint learning and exploration. For example, it could be that a group of participants decides "let us build a photo story around a certain issue of interest" and off they go to search photo databases. People search blogs or other websites for certain information, and then return to a discussion forum (this could be a chat room or Skype or whatever).

e) participants will take responsibility to document their results on a platform that we provide, or in their personal blogs.

f) we promise to keep everything as simple as possible. However, some explanation will be required and we will produce a short video before hand to outline the main procedure of the conference.

Web 2.0 Has Matured, What's Next?

2009-04-03T22:20:00.011+01:00

This is the summary of my 2 1/2 days venture deep down the rabbit hole. I have just attended O'Reilly's Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco. While during the last days, I was just able to comment, I should now give some personal reflection on the conference.

Was it worth to travel to San Francisco only to attend the conference?
It definitely was. I had attended both of the Web 2.0 Expos 2007 in San Francisco and Berlin. There wasn't much of a difference between those events, and the excitement about Web 2.0 and social media was enormous at this time. I don't know whether the words Enterprise 2.0 and Government 2.0 existed back then, and if so, I didn't know them. MySpace was leading the web communities sector by far. Twitter existed already but except a few geeks like Stowe Boyd, nobody knew it or used it. Ning was the latest kid on the block, Dopplr and many other networks just had started a few months before.

This year's conference certainly had a very different tone. Social media have matured and are mainstream, somehow. For a consultant like myself who tries to help organizations to navigate through change, it was important to hear about the latest developments and have a look into the future. There wasn't much new tendencies, it seems that this is the time of consolidation. I liked the motto of the conference: "The Power of Less."

What were the main topics discussed at the Expo?
I didn't attend any sessions of the design or development track, so I have no idea what's new in terms of technology. I focused basically on two aspects, one being how to build strong online communities, particularly in the corporate sector - the Enterprise 2.0 aspect so to say, and the other one issues aoround marketing in the Web 2.0 world.

From my limited perspective, I would say that the notion of how to create strong tribes was one of the main topics (a concept that has been introduced by Seth Godin). The other one was mobile applications. It was interesting to see that Facebook and Twitter have become the mega (or meta) applications, those which set the standards and basically define the cornerstones of Web 2.0 All other platforms and applications are kind of supplements to a world which - at least from a marketing perspective - focuses around the question "How can I make use of the enormous diffusion rate that Facebook already has (with at least 200 million users, in all generations), and Twitter might have in the future? How can I increase the efficiency in which I use this platforms for my strategy - as a person or as an organization?" There are hundreds, if not thousands of programmes that aim at enhancing the user experience and the utility of both platforms. So, summarized, it is Microsoft, Google, Facebook and Twitter which dominate the Internet. And the iPhone of course, as a technical device - it seems that half of the attendants had one.

What about blogging - was that an issue at all?
Not really. It seems that blogging is taken for granted. When you are a Web 2.0 geek, it is out of questions not to blog.

What surprised you most?
A couple of things, in fact. First of all it was the growing awareness that there is a need for change management to accompany Web 2.0 projects in organizations. I arrived with my concept of Web 2.0 being a tool for change facilitation - which it is. But I had to realize that introducing social media as a tool for better collaboration, either across an organization or with outside stakeholders needs to be facilitated. It's like the introduction of personal computers 20 years ago into offices, or a big ERP project. And it seems that as long as the millenium generation hasn't entirely taken over all positions within organizations, there will be resistance to implementation of Web 2.0. For a couple of reasons: IT departments want to protect the security of the company's system, Boards fear that will not be able to contain openness and transparency once people are encouraged to write blogs, collaborate on wikis, etc. And putting customers into the driving seat of product development actually means turning how many companies work upside down.

Second, was the massive focus on permission marketing and the diffusion of marketing into every niche of the WWW. It was somehow fascinating and at the same time shocking for me to hear the same mantra again and again: Go to facebook, invade the social communities, listen to them and get into a conversation, and you will sell. And this is really a difference to the Web 2.0 conferences in 2005. Back then, marketing session were about how to make your social media platform popular. Now, marketing is about how you can exploit social media for your corporate goals (and here I include the fundamental Christians who have discovered Twitter as a perfect tool to reach out).

Third was that I realized that the concept of crowdsourcing has now become reality in the Twitter Era. You have a question - throw it out to the masses and you will get an answer. Even if you don't have so many followers (well, you should have at least some influential followers).

So, what's your executive summary? Web 2.0 has become mainstream, at least in the US and in Asia (so it will be mainstream in Europe in 1-2 years). It is clear what are the standard applications of social media for organizations, governments and non-profit communities. The tools have pretty much matured, and all further development just gives the cream on top of what we have already. It is now time to go vertical, i.e. deepen the diffusion of social media in organizations and society. This is a change project for most organizations, and for administrations anyhow.

We will have to fight for our privacy in the WWW, and have to learn how to protect ourselves from unsolicited, or subtle intrusion of marketing messages into our private lives, and of course the even worse things we all know about: child abuse, right wings, terrorists. This is an entire set of skills which we have to teach at school to protect our kids. As I have been saying many times before - the Internet isn't good or bad, it is really a mirror of our society - but it provides an effective platform for the very good ones and the very bad ones to pursue their aims.

But then, hey - it's good that companies and administrations are finally talking to their clients and citizens, and there is no way back to the classical, hierarchical organization where people work in their silos. The Internet revolution which started about 15 years ago has supported emerging societal trends that started in the late 1960ies and which found there expression in the collaborative approaches that dominate modern change facilitation approaches, such as Open Space Technology, Future Search Technology, World Café, etc. With the help of social media, we are now able to establish Open Space organizations, even on a global scale.

Putting Web 2.0 to Work: Social Software in the Enterprise

2009-04-03T19:02:00.007+01:00

Image via Wikipedia

So, this is another session on Enterprise 2.0, one of the big topics at Web 2.0 Expo. The speaker is Ross Mayfield (CEO of Socialtext). He starts looking back in history. Only seven years ago, wikis, blogs, social platforms etc. were only used by a couple of technology folks. Within a couple of years, these social software platforms caught our imagination and changed the way organizations work.

"Web 2.0 is made of people. The power of these application comes from how people use it."

Three spaces for application of Web 2.0 in organizations:
1. Social Intranets, e.g. platforms behind firewalls which are used for enhanced collaboration in organizations
2. Social Extranets, e.g. platforms for organizations to collaborate with their customers / stakeholders / partners
3. Social Media, e.g. the established platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, etc. which organizations can tap on to get into dialogue with people.

Patterns that are evolving:

Enterprise 1.0 to Enterprise 2.0

document-centric to people-centric
structured to freeform
taxonomy to folksonomy
folders to tagging
knowledge management to knowledge sharing
need-to-know to need-to-share
one-to-many to many-to-many
centralized to distributed
top down to emergent
rigid to flexible

Email is a document centric paradigm more related to paper than to modern forms of virtual collaboration.

"The average employee spends one day per week searching for people and information. But search provides results, not answers. Discovery provides answers, sometimes from people. And context."

Social Messaging: Twitter is in that sense not a classical search engine but an intelligent anwering machine (no wonder that there are a lot of talks about Google likely to buy Twitter). An application could be for example call centers, in which employees spend up to 50% of their time doing searches on Google. How better it would be if replies to a question would be based on your context. So, we are moving from an asynchronous search to a near-time search. The consequence will be that ideas spread like wildfire and and organizations will eventually be able to move faster.

Ross also mentions that people in organizations who use social networks more than others, rise faster, and what is important for organizations: people working together to solve their own problems need less resources. Good stuff.

In parallel, I found an interesting discussion on how Europeans think about the rumors that Google might buy Twitter. I am just going to reply on that.

Zemanta - the Coolest Application for Bloggers I Have Seen

2009-04-03T17:32:00.011+01:00

Image by Hans on Experience via Flickr

Wonder why since Wednesday my blog posts suddenly have quite a lot of images and links? Wonder how I am able to synchronously post from the Web 2.0 Expo at a high frequency and still have the time to select those images and links? I will tell you the secret.

I was lucky to meet a guy during lunch on Wednesday who was a representative of Zemanta. (John, if you read this post - I lost your business card, please send me an email). He told me about their product which I installed immediately. Zemanta is a plug-in for Mozilla Firefox which integrates into most blogging softwares. While you are blogging, it suggests you images related to key words that you use or names of people that you mention. So, for example when I mention Tim O'Reilly here, you see some photos and even videos of him popping up at the right (look at the screen shot below). If the suggested selection of images is not to your taste, you can do a keyword search. I looked for images related to the word "blogosphere". For each photo, the plug-in provides information about the type of copyright license related to that image. Zemanta also suggests links (see below), which on click are connected with the subject (you can see that I actually accepted the proposed links for 'Zemanta', 'Tim O'Reilly', 'plug-in' and 'Web 2.0 Expo'. For popular keywords, the software suggests again a selection of links.

Below the links you will find a selection of tags, and again, I accepted three of them (highlighted in orange). Next, Zemanta suggests other blogs articles that might be related to your subject (I selected a BBC article with an interview of Tim O'Reilly.

Finally, Zemanta inserts a function at the bottom of your article which makes it easy for other bloggers to use your material and reblog in their blogs. Try it out, it is so cool and increases the joy of blogging.

Authenticity is the New Authority

2009-04-03T16:58:00.006+01:00

Last morning of the Web 2.0 Expo starts with a dynamic presentation by Heather Gold (the Heather Gold Show : "I'm extremely conservative about what's important. Some things should not be changed. Jalapeno cheddar bagels are wrong."). She talks about workplaces - what kind of workplace are you at? Do you enjoy, or do you pretend? "Everybody wants to be themselves." Marketing (again) is about telling stories (I heared that before).

What she actually is saying is that people don't change just because the Twitter - they don't become more lovable, more attractive: it's just the same kind of stuff that produce whether online or offline. People make decisions on whether they like what you write on your blogs based on relational stuff. So, is what you write consistent with who you are? The best way for being authentic is being present.

Nice stuff.