Delta Knowledge

The Real list of the worlds best business story practitioners

2013-04-30T14:09:00.000+10:00

Today my friend Shawn Callahan posted a list of the worlds best business storytellers. You can read it here.

I know of several of the people on it and think it's a pretty good list. But it seems flawed to me because it doesn't include Shawn himself, who I think is definitely worthy of being mentioned in this company.

So, without further adieu I give you the REAL list of the worlds best business story practitioners :)

Mary Alice Arthur - New Zealand - http://www.getsoaring.com/

Madelyn Blair - USA http://www.pelerei.com/about-pelerei/madelyn-blair.php

David Boje - USA http://peaceaware.com/vita/

Sean Buvala - USA - http://seantells.com/

Steve Denning - USA - http://www.stevedenning.com/site/Default.aspx

Bob Dickman - USA - http://www.first-voice.com/

Karen Dietz - USA - http://www.polaris-associates.com/AboutUs

Eva Snijders - Spain - http://evasnijders.com/

Terrence Gargiulo - USA - http://www.makingstories.net/

One Thousand and One - Australia - http://www.onethousandandone.com.au/

Limor Shiponi - Israel - http://www.limorshiponi.com/limor/

Tony Quilan - UK - http://narrate.typepad.com/about.html

Annette Simmons - USA - http://www.annettesimmons.com/

The Storytellers - UK - http://www.the-storytellers.com/

Story Worldwide - UK - Sarah Kelleher http://www.storyworldwide.com/profiles/sarah-kelleher/

Victoria Ward - UK http://www.sparknow.net/victoriaward.html

Sheila Wee - Singapore - http://storywise.com.sg/storytelling/

Shawn Callahan - Melbourne, Australia - http://www.anecdote.com.au

Knowledge Management Influencers announced.

2013-04-14T17:32:00.000+10:00

I was pleasantly surprised yesterday when Keith de la Rue congratulated me on being recognised in the top 100 most influential people in #KM on Twitter.

Click on the logo to the right for more information.

It was an even bigger honor when I checked it out, to not only find that I was 17th, but more importantly surrounded by an amazing list of names in the industry.

I don't feel in any way worthy to be listed with them and I am aware that the Top 100 list looks at Twitter only, where I have focus much of my sharing efforts, thus leaving out quite a few very highly regarded people.

People like We Know More, Dave Snowden and David Gurteen go without saying and it was most exciting to see so many Australians up in the list. John Tropea, Arthur Shelly, Keith De La Rue, Nerida Hart, Matt Moore, Cory Banks, James Robertson, Michelle Lamb, Stephen Collins and James Dellow are all there, as well as Michael Sampson and a few of our New Zealand friends. Also on the list is David Griffith (@kmskunkworks) from the University of Edinburgh who I think has one of the most enjoyable blogs in KM at the moment.

The thing that really stands out to me as an indication of the health of KM is the diversity of views and areas of expertise in the list. To me, Knowledge Management has always been the shoe-lace that holds the rest of the business together as it runs the race and turns the corners that management demands of it. It pulls Finance, Learning & Development, IT, HR, Corporate Strategy, Sales and Operations together via the Knowledge Lens and encourages collaboration and cooperation across time, distance and people. It does this encompassing both the formal and social interactions that make up the communications frameworks of our organisations, something that IT and previous iterations of KM failed to do.

It is long since KM was about technology & databases and while these things still play a part, a glance at this list shows that KM is really about people and they way they interact 1) with each other 2) with the resilience and goals of the organisation and 3) with the environment they coexist in.

But most of all, KM for me is about sharing. In this world of information overload and growing understanding of complexity, it is the way we learn to collaborate across teams, organisations and disciplines that is going to help us adapt to the needs of the future. Today, a piece of information about a certain solution can help my business faster than a 4 year degree's worth of knowledge and I get those nuggets through my network of KM practitioners and professionals. They share with me, because I share my useful ideas and findings with them, for free, and often in response to them posting a problem or issue they are trying to overcome. I guess that is what this list is identifying. I hope, whatever your job title is, that you consider joining us. Build a network of people in and around your life. Look for diversity in culture, trade, race, political opinion and expertise, then start helping people and you will see results. What you sow, you shall reap.

Thank you to Mindtouch for the recognition of the these fantastic people.

Finally, for those who don't understand the power of a professional social network, you are welcome to plug-in to a summary of mine and take advantage of my hard work setting it up. Each week, Paper.li summarises the top posts from my network of over 450 KM professionals around the world. You can subscribe to it here: http://paper.li/DeltaKnowledge/KM

Thoughts about Complexity and Surfing

2012-01-20T14:07:00.002+11:00

My brother-in-law tried surfing and wind-surfing for the first time yesterday and it got me thinking about complexity and a few similarities became apparent to me.

Managing complex projects is a bit like surfing. You need to position yourself right and paddle like crazy to catch a great ride. It takes time to watch and try before you understand the patterns of the surf, but the result is a thrilling ride and lot of distance covered with very little effort. I am always amused by the elite swimmers of the business world who claim it was their paddling alone that was responsible for the wave in the first place.

Five rules for Improv

2011-10-12T10:38:00.005+11:00

Yesterday, Prof. Mike Askew spoke about the Wisdom of Improv at CPX in Melbourne.

He shared 6 rules of improvisation that I think you will agree can apply to more than just that:
1. Always accept offerings
2. Make the other person look good
3. Listen and be attentive
4. Spontaneity (not pre-planning)
5. Fail joyfully
6. Trust others

Have you done each of these once today?

See more about the morning here.

Measuring Collaboration

2011-07-05T10:40:00.005+10:00

Michael Sampson's June newsletter talked about how we measure collaboration.

How do we know if a group or team is being collaborative (or even an organization for that matter)? Are there objective attributes we could look for that would define collaborativeness?

He goes on to offer three possible ideas:
1) Collaborative technologies,
2) Collaborative langueage,
3) The presence of well-formed collaborative interaction routines

For me the answer might lie in looking at some definitions:
"Cooperation" is when we both work on complimentary tasks to achieve a shared goal.
"Collaboration" is when we both work on the same task for a shared benefit.

So indicators of collaboration would revolve around two areas (two that have been taking a lot of my time lately): Ambient Awareness and Adaptive Ability.

By ambient awareness I mean an awareness of the business around you outside the normal hierarchy. ie: talking about another person's project or problems, reading a few customer feedback letters before they are processed, glancing through an online industry forum, picking up when workmates are stressed or upset.
In terms of collaboration, this isn't so much about awareness of work loads, as it is about where a person or teams speciality can fill a gap. Collaboration could be evidenced by regular formal or informal discussions about current events and also possibly by a give-and-take economy, ie: I'll scratch your back in anticipation that you will either pay it back or forward so I will get a benefit eventually when I need it.

By adaptive ability I mean how well set up is the individual, team or entire organisation to respond to opportunities or threats, especially those outside their base responsibilities. This responsive ability could be measured in terms of people's:
- resources (do they have the time and budget to collaborate?)
- inclination (are they characterised by serving others and being dependable?)
- focus (are people open to change or over-reliant on set procedures and tasks?)

Following this logic then, the term "I don't know and I don't care" would be the very antithesis of collaboration.

>.<

If you are interested, Michael has written some fantastic books around collaboration and helping your business adopt collaboration solutions like Sharepoint for greater effectiveness.
Check them out here: www.michaelsampson.net/books.html

I Like Frogs!

2011-06-23T11:04:00.002+10:00

The Knowledge Management Leaders Forum (KMLF) hosted Nigel Paine in Melbourne last night and what a great night of introspection, conversation, exasperation and revelation it was!

Nigel (@ebase on twitter) is an international management consultant with leadership experience in KM at places like the BBC. See his profile here.

Nigel spoke about teams or businesses being more like a frog than a bike. You can't just pull a frog apart, put it back to together again and expect it to work the same. When teams are forcefully manipulated, people fired without notice, changes made to the leadership structure, there is a residue left over. A lot of times that residue is lost trust and a fear of what could happen in the future. As a result people are only capable of working at a reduced capacity.

My favourite statement of the night went something like this:

"We spend millions getting 3% business improvements from systems like SAP when research shows many people operating at only 60% efficiency. We will simply be forced to start learning how to manage people to get the most out of their talents."

Of course saying this and knowing that our people are actually people, not machines is one thing.
Translating that in to how a CEO actually makes a business or division run is something else altogether.

Nigel and Shawn Callahan mentioned a few good books for those seeking to get their heads around these issues and start learning how they can configure their business to get the most out of its people.

What got you here won't get you there - Marshall Goldsmith
Immunity to Change - Robert Keegan

Finally, he talked about the coming death of what he called tactical HR - those HR departments simply focused on transactional, hiring and compliance issues. He foresees a continual frustration with companies thinking this way about their staff and seeing Talent as something held by people they haven't hired yet.

Instead there is a definite kinship between Knowledge Management and Strategic HR Management, focused on getting the best out of everybody in the business. About helping people grow and fit their vocations to the betterment of the company holistically, not just the bottom line.

If you would like to hear more about Nigel, visit his Blog here. A Storify summary of the evening can be found here.

KMLF meets once a month in Melbourne. You can find all their details and up-coming meetings on Meetup. We welcome newcomers and after tonight I hope we get a few more strategic HR people coming along to explore how they can become agents for strategic change in their businesses.

Examples of Complicated and Complex in Business

2011-06-16T14:59:00.002+10:00

This morning I was asked by a friend for an example of complicated and complex systems/procedures in business. I threw back this small example to him.

Do you have a few to add of your own? Please let us know in the comments below.

Hi mate. It's not one or the other, but a sliding scale.

Examples in business:
Simple: Buying stock from Bunnings. Margin Low, Risk Low.
Complicated: Buying stock from multiple vendors. Margin Medium, Risk Low.
Complex: Buying Stock from eBay. Margin High. Risk Medium.

Basically, the definition of Complexity in business is where there are multiple forces at play, one or more hidden and some interacting with others.

The way to operate in the Complicated is to set good procedures that ensure the lowest cost vendor is used each time when stock and forecasted demand are taken in to account.

The way to work in the Complex is to focus on improving:
1) your awareness, both of new stock on eBay, and future possible demand requirements, and
2) your adaptability, including contracts that stipulate slightly different materials may be used depending on availability, different stock-keeping procedures which change based on constant review of market forces, and workers having access to refinishing tools to touch up incoming stock that is damaged or below quality.

Moving towards your goal in a complex environment

2011-06-11T14:17:00.009+10:00

In my Complexity and Go talk, I use the analogy of Inline Hockey to make my point about the difference between the words "Management" and "Control" in a complex environment.

Some of you know I started coaching Inline Hockey to be more involved with my son's chosen sport. It has become a passion and I love helping the kids (U14s, and some other Jnr teams) to develop in to their full potential, both personally and as a team.

At high levels of the sport, if you were to video and study the movement of the puck as it moves forward toward the goal you would notice something. Far from travelling in a straight line, or even a zig-zag, it follows quite an erratic path. Not only do the opposition players get a stick to it, it also bounces off players skates, the boards, assorted other body parts, the Ref's skates and from time to time, the player's own stick.

Isn't this a problem? Surely more control is better? Simple maths says a straight line along would get you to your goal faster right?

Wrong.

Part of the problem with those statements is that simple (Newtonian) maths doesn't apply to complex environments where many co-evolving variables are at play, not all of them in view.

Then who is in control of the pucks direction? Does the player just skate hard and leave the rest to chance? Of course not. To break that question down in this way suggests more control is required. But more (conventional) control actually decreases the players chance of getting the puck in the goal!

My son Niko is pictured above after stealing the puck from two New Zealand attackers. Notice he has tapped the puck but doesn't leave his stick on the it at all. The All-Black on the left has just slashed at the puck but Niko has moved it away so his launching leg protects it and takes the blow. The stick of the opposition player on the right is swinging around to smash the puck away. A split second after this photo Niko deflected that stick with his own, kicking the puck forward with his back leg, then bouncing it off the boards around a New Zealand defender for a shot on goal.

Now consider the traditional "more control" notion of keeping the puck on the stick at all times. Now the opposition player not only has to hit the puck, he can hit the blade or shaft of Niko's stick, his hand, arm or even shoulder and the puck will fly away beyond his reach. Not only that, while concentrating on puck control, Niko would lose his greatest weapon in protecting external influences on the puck...his own stick!

In the complex environment of a hockey game,
MORE CONTROL = LESS CHANCE OF SUCCESS

Obliquity
This concept is captured in the concept of Obliquity. The idea of taking an indirect approach to achieving your goals.

John Kay says "The most striking instance of obliquity in business is the profit-seeking paradox, which is the idea that the most profitable businesses are not the most profit-oriented" and this doesn't just apply at the upper strategic level of business. "Those who assume an oblique approach tackle problems whose natures emerge only as they are being solved" and this applies to almost all situations where some of the factors are not fully known.

The journey from Simple to Complex
Young players new to the game (just like new Go players or business people not used to complex environments) try to achieve this sort of complete control. In hockey they aim to keep their stick on the puck at all times.

In business, more metrics are called for, KPIs implemented and enforced, robust fail-safe systems employed. This gives them a sense of security and for hockey players at least this seems to be a right of passage. A player needs to know how to control the puck directly before he can learn how to "massage" it in the general direction in a series of seemingly happy accidents.

How can we apply this to business?
Maybe this right of passage is the same in the business world? Not all situations are complex that's for sure and even ones that are, can have simple parts that can be controlled with a quality system or better procedures and metrics. The big difference with complex environments is that although patterns emerge, each new situation is subtly different. Metrics still apply, but now they need to be instantaneous. Success isn't about what worked last time and measuring to ensure you are doing the same way this time. Success instead is about measuring as much as possible about the current environment so you can mindfully and constantly adjust your course of action.

Talking Complexity and Go with Creative people

2011-06-10T11:59:00.003+10:00

I recently had the great opportunity to share my talk on Complexity and Go with the Melbourne CPX group (The Creative Performance Exchange).

It was a wonderful morning with broad variety of backgrounds in the room and it was fascinating to see how differently people dived in to the game and then drew the concepts together. Go really is an amazing window in to how complexity theory can be both understood and used in our vocations.

There were quite a few tweeters in the group and Nicky Hayward-Wright was kind enough to collate everything about the morning, including all the tweets in to a storyline. It gives a really good picture of the morning and which parts people thought important.

I really do just present a few concepts and facilitate this presentation. It is the Go Board itself that does all the teaching. I find the people who dive in and play and fail as quickly as possible are the ones that not only learn the most, but walk away with a stronger idea of what complexity really is.

I have evolved the way I present this talk since I first did it two years ago. While it is a very immersive experience, you can browse through the latest presentation below to get a grasp on the game and the key concepts.

CPX 2011 Complexity and the game of go

I can't wait to do this with a larger crowd at KM Australia in July. Hope to see you there. In the mean time if you would like to try Go, you can do an online tutorial, download an iPhone app and even play online against people from around the world of all different strengths on the IGS of KGS Go Servers. You will find me on KGS as "kurokaze20", please say hi and challenge me to a game.

Go for the prizes at KM Australia!

2011-05-31T16:11:00.004+10:00

This year at KM Australia I will be speaking on using the game of Go to understand complexity in your business and how to manage better within these environments.

Associate Professor Helen Hasan will also be speaking on Go at the conference, specifically the Go*Teams application and how they used it at the University of Wollongong to study how teams communicate within complex spaces where communications are constricted and virtual.

The organisers have decided to make the most of the Go theme and have announced a Tournament for the conference. 16 players will face off over a number of rounds to see who is the best Go player in the KM world (well, second best, I don't think they will let me play :).

The games will be played on smaller 9x9 and 11x11 boards to keep the games short. See here for more details.

The prizes on offer are substantial too! For example:

a copy of the latest Ark Group KM Publication,
a pass to attend the KM Australia Congress in 2012
a Corporate Wine Pack courtesy of Pepper Tree Wines

Only delegates at the conference can apply, so register for KM Australia now and sign up for the tournament straight away to be in with a chance to win. It is taking place on the 19-20 July 2011 at Luna Park in Sydney.

What is Go?
GO is a game in which two players contest for territory. One of the two players uses black stones and the other white stones to mark out their respective territories.

The player who has captured more territory at the end of the game is the winner. Since the players are to fight against each other over territory within a limited space, the game involves many varied forms of contest.

Helping divisions work together better

2011-04-06T13:59:00.002+10:00

Today I was asked about how to overcome difficulties in a company with different divisions working with each other.

I gave the following general advice without knowing much about the situation. Can you offer some more books, techniques or ideas that could help this manager?

The leadership needs to take a proactive role. The best way seems to try several small programs, see what happens and then encourage what works and stamp out what makes things worse. The old way was to analyse exactly why people were not playing ball and working on the issues that came up, but that has two problems:
1) You don't know what upsets them, only what they tell you and they can often be very different things, and
2) Often a lot of these effects are not defined by any one manager or employee. Rather they are the emergent result of many people interacting with different motives, agendas and levels of empathy to those around them.

When you run trials of different initiatives, you 1) are seeing the total result with all those hidden things in play, and 2) often the Hawthorn effect comes in to play which says that by simply showing that management cares (in trying to implement these initiatives) you will get an improvement.

If this isn't your responsibility in the authority structure of the company you can be an influencer or catalyst. In this case I really recommend the book How to Lead Your Boss by John Baldoni.

We have all seen these sorts of problems in companies of all sizes. I look forward to your thoughts on the subject.

Go Twitter to the rescue

2011-02-16T12:25:00.004+11:00

While trying to purchase some materials for my presentation and KM Australia later in the year, I ran in to some difficulties. Twitter helped lead to a fantastic result.

I had been tracking down some Go Stones for my presentation of Complexity and the Game of Go that I first did at KMLF last year. The problem was, the Australian supplier had run out of stock and couldn't get any new stock within my time-frame.

My only option was to look off-shore and after a few back and forths with suppliers in the USA I found out they had low stock issues as well (it seems people don't by Go equipment during an economic downturn!). So next stop was Asia. A workmate helped with some Chinese sites, but it was 6brothers in Korea that had what I wanted. The only issue: their site was not only totally in Korean, but Google Translater wouldn't work on it either.

I put out a call on twitter to see if anybody could speak Korean and within an hour somebody replied saying their wife was Korean and she could help. Bing-ta-da-boom and a few emails later I had the order winging it's way to Australia, for even less than it would have cost to buy locally.

Notch up another win for Twitter.

Make a difference for the homeless this Christmas

2010-11-16T11:16:00.009+11:00

I know this isn't really a post about Knowledge Management, but it is something that has come to my attention lately and I want to do something about it.

Did you know that there are over 104,600 homeless in Australia? Of these 16,375 slept rough in the cold or in improvised dwellings. Many of these are families with children sleeping rough with a parent.

We can make a difference by giving them these excellent swags for just $68. They can be easily carried and stored and offer protection not just from the hard ground, but from the cold night air.

Jen and I have decided to have a little fund-raiser this Christmas to help as many people as we can. For every dollar you donate, we will match it up to $500. A total of $1000 will help 14 people sleep easier and have a little more dignity and safety to get their lives back on track.

Will you join us in helping the poor in our own back-yard?

If so, please click here and help us reach our target. Every little bit helps and donations over $2 are tax deductible.

Here is more information on the Swags for the Homeless project, or details about the swags themselves.

Its not that hard to understand!!!

2010-07-08T19:13:00.002+10:00

I had to laugh when I came across this cartoon today.

Occasionally when I talk about Knowledge Management (often without using the term KM) people react as if the entire idea of thinking about what you know is totally new to them. Nevermind that fact they spent years increasing their knowledge at school university, TAFE college, not to mention the hundreds of books, videos, meetings, lessons people spend just on their hobbies!!

Managing your personal or company's knowledge is not a dark art, it simply involves thinking about that you know and how it might be needed by you or somebody else down the track. Sure there are those like me who decide to go deep and become an expert in all the ways this can be done on larger scales, but really KM is something everybody should be thinking about in a small way every day.

Yes, you may use an accountant to pull your taxes together each year, but you don't consult her when you need a bottle of milk and a newspaper. In the same way, you may need a Knowledge Manager to help implement better knowledge sharing across company departments of different sites, but most of the time it is just about getting in the habit of asking yourself one simple question: "How is the next person who needs to know this going to find it?"

Preferably before you are dead.

Governing Wiki Governance

2010-05-24T20:20:00.003+10:00

A friend of mine today asked what I knew about governance and wikis so I thought rather than just sharing with him I would write a blog post and hopefully help a few others in the process.

Goals of Governance
As Ross Dawson shares in this excellent little interview, the goal of corporate governance is to understand both the risks and opportunities associated with an area and then set policies in place to provide objectives and constraints on behaviour in line with corporate strategic goals. Wow, what a mouthful! Sounds good though right?

In knowledge intensive organisations, communicating expectations to authors within the organisation is important. It guides users toward expected outcomes, outlines what information should and shouldn't be shared, and limits the chance of harassment in the collaborative fray.

With public Wikis, like the online encyclodaedia Wikipedia, governance is a more democratic affair, although even here there is structure. At a talk in Melbourne 3 years ago, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales declared it is really a monarchy with many issues requiring a final ruling by him to settle disputes about proper usage and profitable procedures. So what is the best way to govern wiki use inside a corporation?

When is a duck not a duck?
Recently quite a few bloggers have spoken about Social Media Policy, many pointing to public examples like Coca-Cola, Intel, Kodak and IBM. I particularly like the IBM policy because it includes a focus on the positive value of social-media, helping less technical managers understand why they would allow staff to participate. Oracle's policy is concise and is a good combination of clear constraints such as not allowing staff to comment on mergers and acquisitions, while giving a lot of freedom for staff to use social media both inside and outside the firewall so the benefits can be realised by broad participation and discussion.

The question is though, is social media really so different from other corporate IT systems or even personal information security? It is laudable to discuss the special implications and threats presented by the open information architecture that these tools represent, however in many cases the risks are already present in more analogue ways. You may wish to consider simply refining existing policies rather than adding another. In fact with ageing policies and staff turnover, this may be a great opportunity to re-educate your staff on your information policies in general.

Making it happen at the coal-face
Developing policies around publishing is one thing, how they interface with the business is another. When it comes to distributing and enforcing policy, I tend to think a focus on

With social-media tools like Intranets, Podcasts, Wikis and Blogs, different publishing models can offer advantages in different environments. James Robertson's post on Five different publishing models gives a good breakdown of some of the options, but I encourage you to see this as a moving banquet. Even if a more restrictive, fully centralised publishing model works in current systems you may find it limits participation and may even smother a wiki project entirely.

The key is to balance risk and value. Sometimes people strategies can convey and enforce policy better than threats and punishment. Take Disney TV President Anne Sweeney's practice of weekly executive breakfast meetings that use peer-review to mediate new ideas and strategies and at the same time make expectations clear.

A simple taxonomy for starters
Ross Dawson suggests corporate information be broken in to three distinct categories:

proprietary, which you maintain inside your organisation
information that you share with trusted business partners, clients, suppliers or alliance members, and
information that you actively disseminate to the public at large.

Communicating examples of each type can go a long way to helping prevent loss of IP or damaged to your brand while allowing the efficiencies of collaborative systems like wikis to flourish in your organisations.

One last word on getting it right
More important that the perfectly worded policy or precisely aligned implementation strategy is actually the way these are developed in your organisation. Even if it is possible to have the ultimate governance program for your wiki, it may not remain that way for very long.

To focus on a robust policy that restricts in order to avoid failure at all costs will likely introduce a fear of failure that cuts of the participation wiki's need to succeed. On the other hand taking a laissez-faire approach could allow damage to occur without you even realising it. Jessica Scarpati says "Regulatory bodies treat social media compliance no differently from instant messaging compliance" and employees can innocently place the company at risk without proper education.

I suggest a strong focus on monitoring and a gentle hand when it comes to correction, with a focus on education and resilience to error. Start with basic policies that capture the spirit of your wiki venture, clearly outline a few definite taboos and then review frequently so that the guidelines co-evolve with practice.

Expect a failure or two but insist the organisation learns from its mistakes and doesn't repeat them and you should have the best of all worlds: creative collaboration, communication of corporate objectives & managed risks.

GO forth and Complexify!

2010-01-29T12:42:00.003+11:00

A while ago David Snowden of Cognitive Edge commented that Chess and Go can be used to highlight the differences between the “Complicated” and “Complex” domains respectively.

happyseaurchin commented that it would be good to understand more about Go and then talk about it, and I decided I was the man to make such a thing happen given I have played Go since my teen years.

This week at KMLF in Melbourne, I had the opportunity to run a session and it seems everybody enjoyed it very much. I had such a great time I am looking forward to opportunities to run another one and spread word, both about Go and Complexity theory.

Below are the slides from the presentation. Apologies for the fonts. It seems Slideshare didn't like the one I used in PowerPoint. I will post an animated version with audio in a few days when the editing is finished.

Stuart French KMLF Complexity And The Game Of Go

View more presentations from Stuart French.

For more about Go, check out the article on Wikipedia or an interactive tutorial. This 10-day introductory course is for the brave souls who would like to get a good grip on how such a simple game can be so complex!

Trust, weak ties and building effective networks

2010-01-26T11:35:00.004+11:00

The public has recently been introduced to the concept of the Dunbar number through a series of news articles about how we are all really only capable of maintaining relationships with around 150 people. Some have even suggested that we should limit our Social network connections in order to not break this number.

I read a great blog post by Jacob Morgan today that spilt some light on the way I was thinking about this issue and how networks are powerful way beyond those we actually know and interact with regularly. A response to his post by Robert Paterson claimed that Dumbar's number was still relevant because trust is critical for influence. As such I thought I would wade in with my 2 cents worth which I share with you below.

Access to a wider network of weak ties allows the "long tail" to be mined, both for information and for opportunity.

I agree with Robert in terms of trust to a certain degree, however trust takes time to develop and often it is credibility that can hold sway in a distributed network.

Each member of the network makes a value judgement as to whether their help is valuable enough to warrant their time and resources. Due to the nature of weak ties and early signal detection, sharing a very simple piece of information may have enormous impact for the searcher, giving a higher value to the effort.

Both the credibility felt by the remote giver and the indebtedness perceived (due to the effort and resources already invested into the network by the searcher) should also weigh into the value equation.

So building a network involves building credibility and indebtedness (some would say loyalty) which then through closer interaction may lead to trust and the two remote parties possibly becoming part of each other's "Dunbar group".

What do you think? Should we limit ourselves? If a valuable benefit comes to you at little cost from somebody you hardly know and share little in common with, is it any less valuable to you? And given your differences to them present a similar value, is trust as important as credibility and indebtedness at a distance?

Write your responses on $100 notes and mail then to me! I'm saving for an Apple iSlate :-)

QUiCK THiNK & CoNVeRSaTioN!

2010-01-21T10:13:00.004+11:00

Well, although I began the QUiCK THiNK idea just to get people to think for 90 secs, many wish to share their answers and discuss them with others. The resulting excellent conversations between my Facebook friends from around the world and difference backgrounds has really excited me. Not just because people are interested, but because of the diverse views that are being respectfully shared.

My Facebook profile though, is just too restricted to do this justice. I have created a Facebook Group called QUiCK THiNK so anybody who wishes to can join in even if they aren't my friend on Facebook which I keep mainly for family and very close friends.

I will still post the QUiCK THiNKs on Twitter and Facebook, but I encourage those who want to talk about them to join the QUiCK THiNK Facebook Group and see how other people THiNK too!

Take time for a QUiCK THiNK each day

2010-01-16T15:25:00.006+11:00

What is knowledge?
Wow, what a question. What an important question. And yet such a hard one to answer.

I have heard David Snowden say that we have struggled as a civilisation for thousands of years to try and define "knowledge" and failed, so I along with David are highly sceptical when some management consultant spouts out a definitive explanation. Until Cognitive Neuroscience moves down to the detail of tracking individual neurons, nerves, synapses and hormonal systems I don't think we are even capable of guessing at the answer, and even then....

But despite this I do run across people every day who make simple mistakes, in business, in hockey, in relationships, in life, because they haven't sat down and thought about what it is to know and to think.

I constantly need to remind myself to reassess assumptions, to question social norms, to overcome mental shortcuts and stupid thinking. So I thought I might at least help my readers move a little way toward understanding knowledge through a daily reminder to quickly think about a question.

Ask yourself a question
We are all capable of so much more than we actually achieve. My hope is that if everyone just takes 60-90 seconds of their day to think about something to do with how they think, both individually and as a group, then I have made a difference in the world.

So keep an eye out on my Twitter stream @DeltaKnowledge for the QUiCK THiNK tweets each day. I hope they get you thinking!

National Culture's effect on E2.0 Implementation

2009-11-10T11:55:00.005+11:00

A while ago I wrote this post about culture and its effects on Enterprise 2.0 implementations.

In the meantime, Mark Masterson wrote this cracker on his ideas about English versus German cultures and if Social Software would work the same in non-Anglo Saxon cultures.

This morning I was talking with Emanuele Quintarelli from Rome about the impact of cultures on Enterprise 2.0 success and his concerns that the local corporate culture had more impact than the national one did.

My discussion with him turned into a bit of brief description of Culture-as-Cognition and how it can be applied so I thought I would copy them here for you all.

Hofstede's work is totally brilliant, eminently usable and absolutely wrong!

Here's the thing. There is no such thing as "culture". It is not a thing in the same way that a river is not a thing. We look from a distance and see a flow of water, but actually, that water you see now will never pass that point again.

There are flows in the current that form eddies and turbulence that are static in the way they fill the space and exert forces on things that come in contact with it, like a boat.
You can describe generally how the boat will react, but there is no way of knowing for sure from minute to minute and even in 2009 we have many boating accidents.

A while ago, this site grabbed my attention. Have a read. It is about how a snow flake forms and it is almost identical to the cognitive science view of culture.

Each snow-flake is individual, however thousands can look almost identical if they individually go through the exact changes in temperature, humidity and pressure as they fall. Their life journey.

In the same way, people as just people, but they interact mentally with the world in a way that create common attributes (like the arms of a snow flake or the standing waves in a river rapid).
You can gauge these commonalities (that's what Hofstede's tools do), but in the end each individual is capable of anything, so it is easy to fall into an "ecological fallacy", where we assume the attributes of the individual based on the average of the group they belong to.

The power of the corporation is that it tapped into the large currents. The beauty of social computing is that now all those little eddies and changes in currents can be tapped into and surfed on.

What this means for me, is not that Social computing will work or not work in a given country, like Mark says, but more that how those tools are used will be different in the different environments. A different part of the river will have a totally different landscape and therefore different external forces working on the current. Likewise I have seen different companies using the exact same wiki software in TOTALLY different ways. Ways that for them make sense. That is why the concept of sense-making is far more important than outmoded concepts like Best-practice or Six Sigma when it comes to complex systems. And as Snowden says, any system with people involved is a complex system.

To use a more collectiveist defintion of the word colture. The enterprise "culture" is often stronger, especially on the negative side if there is distinct lack of trust or taboos about corporate communications at a social or informal level.

The key is not to talk about how we in engineer an E2.0 system to work in a certain culture.
The key is to talk about how we engineer an E2.0 system to adapt and evolve into whatever that microculture (using the term loosely) will find beneficial. It is about managing the evolutionary capability of the company (to quote Snowden again).
This is one of the reasons I have a problem seeing the tool and the adoption process as separate things. In my mind they are tightly coupled in a complex space. We need to focus on the adaptive capability of both which is why I tend to talk about the company rather than the tools of the projects that implement them.

So, what's wrong with Hofstede?
Well nothing for top-down strategic appraisal of national-level cultural commonalities. But the real world of culture is bottom up. Each man for themselves!

We already know that social tools like this perform sub-optimally when implemented from the top-down rather than organically from the bottom up.

The problem with generalising tools like Hofstede is that they can stop people trying in the first place because they assume the average culture will not suite the tool or system. No trying means no experimentation, no experimentation means no adaptation, no adaptation means no novel applications or beneficial outcomes.

Some of my favourite Enterprise 2.0 resources

2009-10-21T07:39:00.006+11:00

This morning I am helping run a "Discover your inner Geek" session for the KM Round Table in Melbourne.

As such I thought I would list here some of my favourite Enterprise 2.0 blogs and sites. Enjoy! It is by no means exhaustive (I have hundreds listed and I feel bad leaving so many great ones out) but this should get you started on your E2.0 journey.

Firstly the more official ones. Prof Andrew McAfee is the gentleman who came up with the concept of Enterprise 2.0 and his blog frequently discusses the definition of Enterprise 2.0, and when it is (and isn't) applicable for use.

Secondly is probably the home of natural complexity both in theory and practice. David Snowden's work on Sensemaking has helped me form an understanding of the changes in management theory and how these possibly disruptive ideas can be used to make the most of the new global business environment without simply trusting in new tools or techniques because they worked in another context. His blog is called Cognitive Edge and the site also includes podcasts to help get you up to speed as you drive/train home each night. His recent discussion about the difference between Go and Chess is a favourite.

One of the people who takes Andrew McAfee's ideas and expands on them is CNet author Dion Hinchcliffe. Great big picture guy. You will find his work at various places like the CNet site, his main blog is here and his Web2.0 blog is here. All are worth keeping a tab on every now and then.

One of the guys in this space who thinks a lot about how all this interacts with the culture of your organisation, and more importantly how you should see your organisations culture, is Stephen Billings. Check him out here.

James Dellow from Headshift is somebody with broad experience, but especially in the Intranet and Government sides of enterprise social computing. Known as Chieftech, I highly recommend his blog here.

From Canberra, Stephen Collins is more at the marketing end of Web2.0, but his thinking is deep and clear and he is a great communicator. I enjoy his blog as a way to learn how to inform business people about E2.0 and this article is one of my favourites (partially because it touches on the impact of culture & implementation and some of my thoughts on it).

Wondering about how to make a business case for Enterprise 2.0 in your organisation? Check out this nice report by Louise Ross of the CIMA.

Finally, I encourage you to start building your network of peers. Once great way is on twitter and this page has a great list of E2.0 tweeters around the world. This is a Google Docs spreadsheet and you can add your own details here so others can find and follow you.

Hey Hey! Is Harry's taboo for you!

2009-10-08T19:50:00.004+11:00

Seeing Cultural Differences
Cognitive science views culture as the combined mental maps (or schemas) built up through people's shared lives. Under this view cross-cultural interactions are a kind of collaborative, mutual learning experience. Each experience involves a learning or exchanging of ideas and maybe even social norms for both parties but it isn't a direct transfer. They are filtered by personal experiences, assumptions, taboos and world-views.

So how do you handle cultural differences that arise?

Hey Hey! We have a problem!
One example of this came up recently when Harry Connick Jnr was judging a Red Faces competition on a special comeback episode of "Hey Hey It's Saturday!" that involved a group of gentlemen (of Indian descent) with black make-up on their faces doing a terrible impersonation of the Jackson Five.

Bloggers, journalists and talk-back hosts have gone to town with their own versions of what happened, and whether it is defined as racist or not (both in Australia and the USA). You can read a few here, and the comments on this post give an idea of the American response.

One of the cultural learning mechanisms is the taboo. A topic that should be avoided if possible, or in the least approached with great sensitivity. Cultural groups not only develop different taboos (to cope with different shared traumas of their past), but they transfer these taboos in different ways.

Many Australians don't understand either the depth of racism against African-Americans in the USA, nor how recently it was still considered normal. You get a sense of of it in the movie "Remember the Titans", but a good percentage of people Down Under think racism died out soon after the American Civil War. To cope with this, several extremely strong taboos have emerged including the use of the "N" word and the practice of "Black-faced" entertainers.

The comment on this blog by toujoursdan who has lived in both New Zealand and the USA captures my thoughts nicely.

The Curse of Knowledge
The "curse of knowledge" is a concept from Chip Heaths book Made to Stick which basically states that when we know something, it becomes hard for us to imagine not knowing it. This makes us bad communicators because we can't imagine others not knowing what we know either.

On "Hey Hey!" Harry took strong offense at such a taboo being played out and apparently enjoyed by the audience. Some accused him of being too politically correct, however from his culture, this was a truly offensive act and his response was proportionate and in fact I think he conducted himself with a level of dignity considering how he must have been feeling.

The "Jackson Jive" and also the shows producers had failed to take into account Harry's cultural background by allowing the act to go ahead. The Doctors, who tried to apologise afterward once they realised the offence, seem to have been unaware of their act being part of such a strong taboo.

On the other hand, Harry (and many of the US-based bloggers) seem also to have succumbed to the curse of knowledge.

They seem to consider that since it is such a powerful taboo for them then everyone in the world would know about it, and
They seem unaware of other cultures methods of transferring taboos.

The concept of the "Red Faces" segment is not a talent show (as this post suggests) but an invitation to do live skits that are socially embarrassing - thus the name. The results are often amusing to Australians not because of the content, but because they are things that aren't normally done in public. In this way, the skits actually act as a subtle social mechanism for discouraging these sorts of behaviour in normal life.

Many Australians commenting on talk-back radio today about the subject suffered the same problem, saying (from their point of view) it was inoffensive and that Harry should "lighten up" or be less politically correct.

Respect is the Key
Cultural misunderstandings like this happen all the time. The term Culture Clash is frequently used, especially in the business world where negotiations can break down over what seem to be small differences in opinion to one of the parties.

The key is Respect. Starting with an understanding that other people have different taboos and world-views helps us not be so shocked by their comments or behaviour and allows us time to find understanding and hopefully communicate our discomfort without damaging the relationship. Cultures should be seen as different, not better or one more right than another, just different.

Some say that respect must be earned. Here I tend to disagree. Trust is earned, but respect is something we bring to the table ourselves regardless of the other party. Our ability to constrain our offence and keep the lines of communication open will determine how well we interact with those of different cultural backgrounds, be it another country, a different company or the sports club down the road. Remember, the handling of the offence is a learning experience for those involved and handled well it can challenge false taboos or increase the awareness of useful ones.

All good and well. As for Daryl trying to handle such a difficult situation live in front of millions of viewers while keeping things light and funny, I take my hat off to him. I hope you do half as well next time your business negotiations run into foul weather.

Training and communicating with short videos

2009-08-06T00:30:00.003+10:00

One of the projects I am working on right now is going to require a set of training materials setup and I am working on short videos using the wonderful Camtasia Studio software.

A few days ago I came across this article discussing the use of short VoxPop type videos to sell ideas to others in your company (in this case Google). It got me thinking about the style of the videos and if I should maybe try something a bit different for the initial introduction video to get people's attention and keep them engaged.

Here are two of my favourite videos describing podcasting. Have a watch of both and then let me know what you think would be the best way to introduce a new ERP system to non-finance users.

First the fantastic Lee LeFever. Simple, eye-catching, older audience will watch it right through.

Second, something for the younger audience. Not much detail, but has great memory sticking power to add future lessons to.

I look forward to your comments.

MindTouch Deki - Opensource Wiki Project

2009-07-07T20:13:00.001+10:00

Over the past few years, the open source community has started to be noticed by the business press.

In the cyclicals, Christopher Koch's 2003 article in CIO about stumbling across Open Source POS solutions started to erode some of the mysticism for businesses to open up their options. Now CIO has a permanent section for Open Source news, covering issues like SOA and the Sun Java move as well as the impact that the Open Source movement is having on Back-Office apps.

More recently, the Ernie Ball case showed that companies could totally ditch Microsoft and survive. A proposal more than attractive to many other Small to Medium Enterprises.

Thomas Friedman's book The World is Flat used several Open Source examples and made business people aware of the basic principles of Open Source software. The Apache Web Server development and the impressive growth of the Linux operating system are exciting examples of what is possible outside the normal private sector development strategy.

Clay Shirky talks on TED.com about the impact these distributed structures are having on the world and discusses these in terms of the institution versus collaboration. This video is well worth 20 minutes of your time if you haven't seen it.

Finally (and importantly for me) many of the wiki solutions we see today are either open source, were started that way, or have open source components or plug-ins. Whether it is Media-wiki (the system Wikipedia uses), the venerable TWiki, Atlassian's enterprise focused Confluence or the sexy, standards-based Mindtouch Deki, the key here isn't the software, but the community that springs up around it's design and continued development & support.

If you have a few minutes, please take the time to vote for Mindtouch and some of your other favourites in the Open Source Community Choice Awards. Many of the people involved in these great projects do so for little or no money, only the recognition and a sense of a job well done. Click on the logo above and give them a little or your recognition.

What a wonderful time to be alive!

2009-06-30T17:33:00.003+10:00

I have been fascinated over the last few weeks to see what is described here as "Twitter content or garbage", however I view it a little differently.

Most people see twitter as the technology. In fact the tech is just a communications enabler for a community. Now the Twitter community is fairly new, in a phase of high growth and as such has a loose culture. However this culture is morphing, maturing, in this case before our very eyes. Clay Shirky has discussed this in terms of the China quake in his recent TED video.

Many fell for the recent Jeff Goldblum incident by retweeting about his unconfirmed death, however they learned, etiquette has adjusted slightly. Today with rumors of a jet going down in the Indian ocean, tweets were a lot more reserved. People linked back to sources more. We are seeing a new culture develop right in front of us (or around us and in us if we are on twitter ourselves).

What a wonderful time to be alive!