Thursday, July 18, 2002

Connecting technology systems and systems-thinking. Self-herding Cats. From Michael Helfrich's weblog: Technology Confined Collaboration? Collaboration is about people. Collaboration needs technology frameworks that support adaptive, ad hoc interactions. Adaptive from the sense of extending functionality on the fly and securely embracing new members on the fly. Simply put, it's the swarming culture fused with adaptive technology. [High Context] Also from the article: The IT lady summed it up best when she said, "web collaboration doesn't work the way people do."  Technology was confining the natural human collaborative process.  This particular product was forcing these folks (all 26, 000 of them) into working with a fixed set of tools, which was the real problem.  If your problem didn't fit almost exactly into the function set the tool provided, you were forced to change the way YOU work.  Compound this by being forced to work within the firewall and the need to have IT set up a space and the point is made. This from the folks at Groove. We're starting to see a richer view of how technology, organizational culture, and work practices interact. David Gurteen has some relevant observations on this, as have Matt Mower, and Terry Frazier. Slowly, we're beginning to learn how to put together the insights of software and technology developers with the insights of systems level thinkers. One starting point on systems thinking is a great paper by the late Donella Meadows, Places to Intervene in a System (pdf file). [McGee's Musings] 10:59:14 AM

Top down endorsement for klogging.. The Utah State CIO made this Offer to Utah State IT Employees. I believe that the 900 or so IT employees of the State of Utah would benefit from speaking and listening to each other more. I think we need groups of specialists inside various departments to communicate with others in their specialty and without.  Consequently, I'd like to see more people writing blogs and communicating their ideas through an open forum like the one blogs engender.  To that end, I'm willing to pay the licensing fee to Userland for the first 100 employees who start a blog.  Here are the conditions: Download the software and begin using on the 30-day free trial.  I'd like to see you get a start before I pay the fee.  Let me know when you're up and running. I'm biased toward IT employees, but other are welcome too, particularly if they're interested in eGovernment. You're responsible for what you post.  If you're going to talk about things that shouldn't be public on Userland and need to be kept behind the state firewall, let me know and we'll set up a place inside the state network for that.  We could even set up an authenticated area, if needed.  "It is good to be king." Royal suggestions cut through all kinds of trust issues and formal decision making. I've been asking for prerequisites to success on various knowledge management lists. Uniformly the top answer is "senior management endorsement, buy-in, enthusiasm." UserLand's hit a sweet spot too. Low price point cuts risks of trying and eventual rollout Newbie-friendliness gives immediate satisfaction (egoboost, social affirmation) Syndication/etc. amplifies social networking effects, reinforcing current participation and bringing in new users One other thing: you can see from Windley's post there is something real about the sense of ownership and control you feel when the tool and your writings are on your desktop. Radio gives you this. The tradeoffs of remote access and managed desktop are also real, but have much less emotional investment. These feelings of control worth of attention as the klogging meme spreads. [a klog apart] 10:57:06 AM