Snippets

"On the ROI of Social Computing Do you know of any organisation that has tried to and succeeded in..."

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:20:25 +0800

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On the ROI of Social Computing

Do you know of any organisation that has tried to and succeeded in measuring how it performs at building market intelligence? Or that has succeeded in measuring how efficient and effective the communication within a project team is? For example, do they measure how much communication it takes and how long time it takes to delegate a task to a team member? Do they measure the effectiveness of this communication - if the right decision was made or the right task was carried out in the right time?

I’m all ears.

”

- Oscar Berg

"“No business case will sell social software to a firm that doesn’t already value collaboration in..."

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 10:43:45 +0800

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“No business case will sell social software to a firm that doesn’t already value collaboration in its culture…If the ROI is needed to convince an organisation that collaboration is a good thing - then ROI is the least of your problems…”

Larry Hawes

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"The higher in the hierarchy, the more complex the organization as a whole seems to function. If you..."

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 10:10:23 +0800

“The higher in the hierarchy, the more complex the organization as a whole seems to function. If you are high in the organization, you’re aware of the size of the organization, and therefore aware of the variety of actors. How they all interact, is difficult to grasp. The lower in the hierarchy, the less you are aware of all the other players that exist in the organization, and the more focussed you are on your tasks which are relatively not complex at all.”

- Complex Adaptive Systems, my understanding « Bas Reus’ quest on self-organization and online collaborative spaces

Think about the relationship between two people, A and B. This relationship actually consists of two...

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 14:16:32 +0800

Think about the relationship between two people, A and B. This relationship actually consists of two relationships – AB = A’s perspective of the relationship and BA = B’s perspective of the relationship. In the world of mathematics AB=BA, but not in the human world.

Stephen Billing

“Success stories are subjective and not easily replicated. I’m glad it can’t. If success can...

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 15:00:11 +0800

“Success stories are subjective and not easily replicated. I’m glad it can’t. If success can be replicated, success loses its value. It becomes a commodity. That’s not realistic.”

Bas Reus talking about Ricardo Semler

"Why people are different from ants 1. We never make decision based on rational grounds 2. Human..."

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 14:29:11 +0800

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Why people are different from ants

1. We never make decision based on rational grounds
2. Human beings have multiple identities
3. Free will

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- Mathemagenic

"What I learned as a psychologist is that ‘resistance’ doesn’t exist. It is the..."

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 14:01:49 +0800

“What I learned as a psychologist is that ‘resistance’ doesn’t exist. It is the therapist/leader/facilitator who doesn’t know how to relate with where the person really is, how the other really feels…
- Ria Baeck”

- Change Management Blog: Do people resist change?

"…organisations are not systems at all -not living systems, not emergent systems, not soft..."

Wed, 09 Sep 2009 08:23:11 +0800

“…organisations are not systems at all -not living systems, not emergent systems, not soft systems or any other kind of system. This is because systems thinking has been developed for the natural world but does not apply to the social world. Unlike the parts of systems, humans have consciousness and will, and they do not act like the parts of systems because of that consciousness and free will. That’s why I say that complexity science offers little apart from some limited analogies when it comes to understanding social phenomena like organisations. We find ourselves talking about systems because much of the thinking about complexity in organisations simply adds complexity on top of systems thinking. I am arguing…that it makes sense to stop thinking of organisations as systems, because they do not behave like systems. People in organisations use systems and other tools to help them do their work. But the organisations themselves are not systems.”

- Stephen Billing said, on August 27, 2009 at 13:34

Self-organization defined « Bas Reus’ quest on self-organization and online collaborative spaces

"I see self-organization as a dynamic of all organizations, however they might be designed and..."

Tue, 25 Aug 2009 11:06:49 +0800

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I see self-organization as a dynamic of all organizations, however they might be designed and managed from a formal standpoint. Outcomes emerge from this process - both locally and globally. Emergence locally takes the form of jointly improvised ways of thinking and acting. And globally it can be seen in such things as the idealized designs of the formal organization; the informal coalescing of people around particular agendas; and the widespread ‘patterning’ of taken-for-granted assumptions about the organization, which creates a generalized tendency for people to think and act in familiar ways.

- Chris Rodgers (comment 6)

”

- Stephen Billing’s Blog » What Does it Mean to be Self Organising?

“Most businesses are so oblivious to their own machineness that they have no resources...

Tue, 25 Aug 2009 10:45:00 +0800

“Most businesses are so oblivious to their own machineness that they have no resources responsible for the overall health of the machine (shoving food into your mouth — ala. a stream of financial capital — just to keep you alive is hardly a well-rounded life). Then there’s the whole dimension of the psyche — for which many organizations are schizophrenic (due to the competing nature of the ‘parts’).”

- Paula Thornton (Rotkapchen)

http://basreus.nl/2009/07/27/self-organization-defined/#comment-59

"“self-organization” is not something that is within the gift of managers to decide upon. It is at..."

Tue, 25 Aug 2009 10:41:12 +0800

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“self-organization” is not something that is within the gift of managers to decide upon. It is at play just as surely in an organization ruled by the proverbial ‘iron fist’ as in one that has all the attributes of empowered self-management. However, the critical thing to emphasize here is that it is the conversations that are self-organizing. And it is through the self-organizing interplay of these ‘local’ conversations across the organization and beyond that ‘global’ outcomes emerge.

- Chris Rodgers (comment 6)

”

- Stephen Billing’s Blog » What Does it Mean to be Self Organising?

"Organizations are entities that allow for economic efficiencies in the use of capital. The problem..."

Mon, 24 Aug 2009 15:18:03 +0800

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Organizations are entities that allow for economic efficiencies in the use of capital. The problem is that human capital is not properly accounted for in the ‘machine theory’ upon which management principles evolved. Humans were ‘devolved’ into controllable machine parts that fit into machine processes. Technology now enables the human potential to break the bonds of the machine — not to mention blows up the original economic context in which huge sums of capital had to be pooled for entry to markets.

- comment by Paula Thornton (Rotkapchen)

”

- Self-organization defined « Bas Reus’ quest on self-organization and online collaborative spaces

There’s an innate human desire to share, a desire to have influence - Twitter’s Evan...

Sun, 23 Aug 2009 15:16:06 +0800

There’s an innate human desire to share, a desire to have influence - Twitter’s Evan Williams

The never-ending days of being dead - marcus chown p 100

Sun, 23 Aug 2009 08:58:31 +0800

Extrapolating into the far future, it is easy to imagine a quantum computer so powerful that it can carry out more calculations at any one time than there are particles in the universe. An interesting question will then arise. Where will such calculations actually be carried out? After all, if a quantum computer is doing more calculations at any instant than there are particles in the universe, the universe simply does not have the physical resources at its disposal to do what the computer is doing

The never-ending days of being dead - marcus chown p89

Sun, 23 Aug 2009 08:36:01 +0800

…light falls on the cells of the retina and changes them - and it is these changed cells that the brain senses, not the light itself. We think we are directly observing light but in fact only observing it indirectly. It is ourselves that we are observing directly. “all observation is self-observation” - sven aerts “what the observer knows is inseparable from what the observer is” - wojzcieh zurek …we never actually directly see a quantum thing like an atom or a photon of light. What we see instead is its effect on some kind of detector or even the retina of the eye. What we observe, in other words, is not the quantum object itself but the record that the quantum object leaves on a large number of other atoms “a detector does not measure an exterior system directly, but rather, through an act of observation, changes the state of its own system” - sven aerts

"The challenge for managers that is presented by the concept of self-organisation is not “How..."

Fri, 21 Aug 2009 09:52:49 +0800

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The challenge for managers that is presented by the concept of self-organisation is not “How can I empower my people to be self organising?” They are already self organising (in spite of management directives). The challenge is “How can I influence the constraints and power relationships so that different (hopefully more desirable) patterns of social interaction emerge.” If different patterns of social interaction emerge, then along will come innovation and different results - the actions of the manager will play a big part in whether those results are more desirable or less desirable - so we cannot just say “anything goes.”

- Stephen Billing

”

- Stephen Billing’s Blog » What Does it Mean to be Self Organising?

"“De-emphasize the cultural shift of using the wiki. When people hear that something is..."

Wed, 19 Aug 2009 08:07:11 +0800

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“De-emphasize the cultural shift of using the wiki. When people hear that something is different and requires a major shift in thinking, they’re more likely to focus on the perceived differences and dangers. Instead, present the concept of contributing to the field manuals as part of daily routine, just like answering emails.”

- Stewart Mader

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- Army Uses Wiki to Gather Experience, Revise Field Manuals

"stigmergy is a form of self-organizing, without the need for any communication"

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 10:03:49 +0800

“stigmergy is a form of self-organizing, without the need for any communication”

- What about communication? « Bas Reus’ quest on self-organization and online collaborative spaces

"Bringing new tools and ways of working into old structures and processes may in the short-term..."

Fri, 14 Aug 2009 11:27:18 +0800

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Bringing new tools and ways of working into old structures and processes may in the short-term complicate matters in some respects, as people will have to continue dealing with old processes and systems whilst trying to adopt new tools. The best way we can help is by ensuring the new tools support existing needs better than previous systems, whilst opening up a path towards new and better ways of working. Hence the need for behavioural transition strategies.

- Lee Bryant

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- Behavioural transition strategies for E2.0 :: Blog :: Headshift

"But in truth, social software isn’t really about the tools. It’s about what the tools..."

Thu, 13 Aug 2009 11:34:26 +0800

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But in truth, social software isn’t really about the tools. It’s about what the tools let users do and the business problems the tools address.

So, rather than saying: “X is hot on the Web, let’s get it on the intranet,” say: “We need to accomplish Y; can X help us?”

”

- Social Networking on Intranets (Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox)