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Wednesday, August 27, 2003 |
In the late 1970's I had the adventure of becoming Wood Gundy's man in Saudi Arabia. I spent 3 amazing years travelling around the Kingdom as it was in the midst of the transition from from small mud-brick towns such as Jeddah, with the Purdah wooden screened balconies facing narrow streets, and in Riyadh, where the old mud quarter and the old fort were still part of the town, to a huge building site where all sorts of modernity emerged.
My first night in Jeddah was spent in the old airport hotel, high ceilings and fans and waiters in fezzes, opposite the old airport - so close you walked from the terminal to the front door. I got some kind of skin disease on my feet from the shower floor. When I left the new airport was miles out of town and I stayed in hotels that matched any for opulence and cleanliness. I am not sure that this was better.
To prepare myself to fit into the culture, I read two books - The Seven Pillars of Wisdom and Wilfred Thesiger's account of his travels across the empty quarter. I wanted to get the cultural sense of how to behave as a westerner. I wanted to get a sense of the meaning of life even if this life was being destroyed before my eyes. Thesiger, a hawk of a man and a real warrior stood out more than Lawrence. He found the essence of the bridge between the Englishman and the Desert culture. The power of reticence and understatement - the formality which hides the feeling - the love of the landscape - courtesy - the power of holding back and letting things happen - the essence of endurance and toughness and not complaining - the power of giving one's word - the ability to listen for what is the subtext and the real agenda.
These were great lessons. I learned how to spend the day productively in the great man's audience room gradually making my way to his ear and being asked to comment throughout on other people's business. I learned how to listen for the test that would be put subtly upon me before I could return and talk about what I wanted. I learned to love the desert and would spend the weekends (Friday) in the desert with friends hunting and picnicking. A Saudi Picnic would usually involve taking lunch, a goat, out live and killing it and the cooking and eating it that evening. Knowing how to talk and how to eat was an important part of fitting in.
He died this week aged 93 a stranger in his own culture and lost to a culture that has also died. So much the pity
1:28:08 PM 
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Mars at Dawn. Tonight's the night: Mars Watch reminds us that at 5:51 a.m. (ET) tomorrow, Mars will be a mere 55,760 thousand kilometers from here (as the space crow flies) -- and the last... [TeledyN]
I went to my tree house last night and sat in the plastic chair in the branches watching Mars come up on the Eastern horizon. Low in the night sky it shines like no other. It took 60,000 years to get this close and apparantly will take 280 years to return - worth a look if you are not Rip Van Winkle
7:43:10 AM
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rest in peace. From Joi’s blog, I learned that a regular on the #joiito IRC channel—Mike Lea, aka mazeone—had committed suicide this weekend. Joi also linked to Mike’s web site. The diary/weblog portion of the site broke my heart. 07/18/03-09:21:54 PM Friday — touching the rocks and flying i will never be a writer, an artist, a musician, a programmer; i will never be an athlete, a monk, a dancer, a mechanic; i will never learn how to talk to people, meet strangers, make friends; i will never have a happy childhood, another chance to make the connections that i missed, another chance... [mamamusings]
How precious life is - what if we lose sight of this?
7:36:31 AM
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More Great KM Stuff.
Collaboration is in the KM toolbox.
Collaboration is the new KM
Why collaboration? I think it appeals because its less fluffy than 'KM' - people intuitively think its good (few CEO's are crying out for their people to collaborate less) - and it taps a current need: in trying to cut costs by e.g. reducing travel, people are feeling the pain of projects failing and mis-communication. 'Virtual teams' as a term has been around long enough, but few companies are getting it right.
[from Intellectual Capital Punishment]
This snippet from the middle of Sam Marshall's comments hints at why collaboration has gained new attention: collaboration = faster throughput with the same resources. He also reminds us that for this to be done well, we have to prepare for it.
As part of his discussion on expert databases last week, John Chu shared a report on the topic from Outsell, Trend Alert: Connecting People to People - Expert Databases (abstract only). Outsell surveyed a number of companies with expert databases and said some things about knowledge management and setting up expert databases. It was the conclusion that was most telling:
In our opinion, the pain won't be worth the gain if collaborative work practices aren't already inherent within the organization.
It is relatively easy to set up the technology to run video conferences and webinars. But to create a culture that takes advantage of these technologies is much more difficult, and much more interesting in the long term. Beyond saving money on travel, what does the organization expect to gain from having NetMeeting or WebEx or iSight?
[Knowledge Jolt with Jack]
Not only is collaboration important and allows more productivity with the same number of people, but the final aspect, culture, is critical. Companies that do not already have collaborative cultures will not be able to utilize these technologies efficiently and will thus be at a tremendous disadvantage to companies that already are collaborative. Simply providing collaboration tools to a company that believes that knowledge is power, where restricting the flow of information is the way to advance, will result in unused tools. In companies that already value transparency and open communication, that want as many eyes on the problem as possible in order to find solutions, these tools will only enhance productivity. So, in my mind, it is worthless to try and provide the tools to a company whose culture will not allow them to be utilized. You might make a buck but your customer will not be satisfied. If their industry requires novelty, creativity and innovation to succeed, then they will eventually fail. In such an industry, not having a culture that fosters collaboration is a business model of failure. [A Man with a Ph.D. - Richard Gayle's Weblog]
Richard is hot! I am 100% with you Richard - the new competitve frontier is culture. Those who have a collaborative culture will learn and adapat more quickly and will overwhelm those that do not.
You can't buy this type of culture - so the leadership issue becomes critical
7:09:20 AM
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© Copyright 2003 Robert Paterson.
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