Paul: Human Capital Management

Fri, 09 Jul 2004 23:25:30 GMT

"In times of profound change, the learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists."

- Al Rogers

[Seb's Open Research]

Tipping Point Summary

Sun, 21 Dec 2003 16:06:49 GMT

Tipping Point - Net Version from Robert Paterson's Radio Weblog "How to Start a Revolution"

paraphrasing the main ideas in Malcolm Gladwell's book The Tipping Point (See Link To Author Happy Feet)

The Law of the Few		The Magic Number 150
The Stickiness Factor		Conclusion
Back to Politics

HappyFeet has made the best effort possible to put these items in some form of coherent order. This book used alot of marketing/business angles. I chose to replace those examples, etc. with art, creativity, and revolution. Use this to make the truth bloom.

THE TIPPING POINT IS:

That one dramatic moment in an epidemic when everything can change all at once.
The moment of critical mass, the threshold, the boiling point, a place where the unexpected becomes expected, where radical change is more than possibility. It is a certainty. Epidemics...
Tip b/c of the extraordinary efforts of a few select carriers. But they also sometimes tip when something happens to transform the epidemic agent itself.
1. Ideas and products and messages and behaviors spread just like viruses do.
2. Are another example of geometric progression: when a virus spreads through a population, it doubles and doubles again into infinity.
3. Epidemics are a function of the people who transmit infectious agents, the infectious agent itself, and the environment in which the infectious agent is operating:
  - They (Epidemics) have clear examples of contagious behavior.
  - They both have little changes that make big effects.
  - It takes only the smallest of changes to shatter an epidemic's equilibrium.
  - They happen in a hurry.
This is the most important trait, b/c it is the principle that makes sense of the first two and that permits the greatest insight into why modern change happens the way it does.
Epidemics involve straightforward simple things; a "product" (I put this in quotes b/c Gladwell writes this book using mostly marketing/business ideas. However, I see it as a way to spark revolution.) and a message.
In order to create one contagious movement, you often have to create many small movements first.
Contagiousness is in larger part a function of the messenger. Stickiness is primarily a property of the message.

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THE LAW OF THE FEW

There are exceptional people out there who are capable of starting epidemics. All you have to do is find them. With an epidemic, a tiny majority of the people do the work. Once critical factor in epidemics is the nature of the messenger. Messengers make something spread.
Word of mouth is still the most important form of human communication. Rumors are the most contagious of all social messages.

Connectors

People with a special gift for bringing the world together, people specialists
Know lots of people
Have an extraordinary knack of making friends and acquaintances, making social connections.
Have mastered the "weak tie"; a friendly, yet casual social connection.
Manage to occupy many different worlds and subcultures and niches. By having a foot in so many different worlds, they have the effect of bringing them all together.
Acquaintances represent a source of social power, and the more acquaintances you have the more powerful you are.
Social glue: they spread the message

Mavens

Information specialists
Once they figure out how to get that great deal, they want to tell you about it too.
Solves his own problems, his own emotional needs, by solving other people's problems.
Have knowledge and the social skills to start word-of-mouth epidemics.
A teacher and a student
In a social epidemic, Mavens are data banks. They provide the message.

Salespeople

Have the skills to persuade when we are unconvinced of what we are hearing.
Little things can make as much of a difference as big things.
Gives nonverbal clues that are more important than verbal clues.

"Interactional synchrony": human interaction has a rhythmic physical dimension. We dance to each other's speech…we're perfectly in harmony.
Motor mimicry: we imitate each other's emotions as a way of expressing support and caring and, even more basically, as a way of communicating with each other. Emotion is contagious. "Senders" are very good at expressing emotions and feelings. They are far more emotionally contagious than the rest of us.

Persuasion often works in ways that we do not appreciate
You draw others into your own rhythms and dictate the terms of the interaction.

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THE STICKINESS FACTOR

There is a simple way to package information that, under the right circumstances, can make it irresistible/sticky and compels a person into action. All you have to do is find it. In order to be capable of sparking epidemics, ideas have to be memorable and move us into action. Content of the message matters too.

What is needed is a subtle but significant change in presentation to make most messages stick.
The elements that make an idea sticky turn out to be small and trivial.
"Clutter" has made it harder and harder to get any one message to stick. The information age has created a stickiness problem.
Pay careful attention to the structure and format of your material, and you can dramatically enhance stickiness.
Can tip a message by tinkering, on the margin, with the presentation of their ideas THE POWER OF CONTEXT

We don't necessarily appreciate that our inner states are the result of our outer circumstances. We are more than just sensitive to changes in context. We're exquisitely sensitive to them. And the kinds of contextual changes that are capable of tipping an epidemic are very different than we might ordinarily suspect. The impetus to engage in a certain kind of behavior is not coming from a certain kind of person but from a feature of the environment.

Small changes in context can be just as important in tipping epidemics.
An environmental argument.
What really matters is little things
- "Broken Windows Theory": in a city, relatively minor problems like graffiti, public disorder, and aggressive panhandling, are all the equivalent of broken windows, invitations to more serious crimes (Rudy Gulliani's belief)
An epidemic can be reversed/tipped by tinkering with the smallest details of the immediate environment.
There are specific situations so powerful that they can overwhelm our inherent predispositions.
Human beings invariably make the mistake of overestimating the importance of fundamental character traits and underestimating the importance of the situation and context. We are a lot more attuned to personal cues than contextual cues.
Character is more like a bundle of habits and tendencies and interests, loosely bound together and dependent, at certain times, on circumstances and context.
The convictions of your heart and the actual contents of your thoughts are less important, in the end, in guiding your actions then the immediate context of your behavior.

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THE MAGIC NUMBER 150

"There seems to be some limitation built into us either by learning or by the design of the nervous systems, a limit that keeps our channel capacities in this general range (i.e. the human minds inability to comprehend things beyond sets 7)" —George Miller "The Magical Number Seven"

"The figure of 150 seems to represent the maximum number of individuals with whom we can have a genuinely social relationship, the kind of relationship that goes with knowing who they are and how they relate to us. Putting it another way, it's the number of people you would not feel embarrassed about joining uninvited for a drink if you happened to bump into them in a bar." —Robin Dunbar,

Even relatively small increases in the size of a group [beyond 150] creates a significant additional social and intellectual burden.
The rule of 150 suggests that the size of a group is another one of those subtle contextual factors that can make a big difference.
Peer pressure is much more powerful than a concept of a boss
Transactive memory: we store information with other people. Since mental energy is limited, we concentrate on what we do best.
Groups of 150 are an organized mechanism that makes it far easier for new ideas and information moving around the organization to tip; to go from one person or one part of the group to the entire group all at once.

CONCLUSION

First Lesson of the Tipping Point

Starting epidemics requires concentrating resources on a few key areas. Your resources ought to be solely concentrated on the Connectors, Mavens, and Salesmen.

Second Lesson of the Tipping Point

The world does not accord with our intuition. Those who are successful at creating social epidemics do not just do what they think is right. They deliberately test their intuitions.

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Important Conclusion!

What must underlie successful epidemics, in the end, is a bedrock belief that change is possible, that people can radically transform their behavior or beliefs in the face of the right kind of impetus. Tipping Points are a reaffirmation of the potential for change and the power of intelligent action. Look at the world around you. It may seem like an immovable, implacable place. It is not. With the slightest push; just in the right place; it can be tipped. NOTES, ETC.

Diffusion model: a detailed, academic way of looking at how a contagious idea or "product" or innovation moves through a population.

Innovators: the adventurous ones. Visionaries.
- Connectors, mavens, and salesmen make it possible for innovations to connect with the early adopters. They are translators: they make ideas and information from a highly specialized world and translate them into a language the rest of us can understand. They drop extraneous details and exaggerate other details so that the message itself acquires a deeper meaning.
Early adopters: the slightly larger group that is infected by the innovators. Visionaries.
Early Majority: the deliberate and the skeptical mass, who would never try anything until the most respected of this group try it first.
Late Majority
Laggards: the most traditional group that see no urgent reason to change.

Robert Paterson's Radio Weblog

DIT Leadership Retreat

Wed, 11 Jun 2003 22:38:11 GMT

I attended a leadership session with my co workers in the Michigan Department of Infomation Technology over the last few days. It was entitled, DIT Leadership Retreat: Leading Through Change in a Client-Centered World. It was presented by Progress Associates. I learned quite a bit about the Agency and the Top Executives as well as myself. I feel great about the way our agency is headed and the team we are developing. I was most gratified that leadership is intent on moving the leadership model downward though the organization. As an added bonus, the governor stopped by to thank us for all of the help we have provided her recently on some of her initiatives and to encourage us to keep up the good work. What a pleasure to hear that from her!!!!! Leadership DOES begin at the top and looks like we are moving forward!

Sat, 31 May 2003 19:00:05 GMT

Making Mistakes

Bill Gates leter to employees explains he has some tolerance for making mistakes. [The Scobleizer Weblog]

http://www.sellsbrothers.com/fun/msiview/#myInterview

Sun, 20 Apr 2003 15:16:16 GMT

Interviewing @ Microsoft: An interesting and DETAILED description of a tough process.

I had two days of interviews at Microsoft in the middle of March, 2003. The first day was with the MSDN content group. They're the folks responsible for all of the technical articles at http://msdn.microsoft.com and the ones at Microsoft with the job most closely related to what I already do. It's their job to tell developers how Microsoft technologies really work through articles, talks, samples, online chats and whatever other means they think will be effective. From Chris Sells

Sat, 19 Apr 2003 15:08:39 GMT

A very nice site that discusses Project Managent and technical hiring issues. It is also a great example of how a small company can have a big presence providing value. The site has good ideas about Recruting IT staff too.

Now, consider if you are hiring project managers. Who do you hire? Someone who only has a decent resume, or someone who has a decent resume and someone who has a weblog like this? Well, duh! So, get writing! [The Scobleizer Weblog]

You can't buy passion-driven people

Fri, 18 Apr 2003 22:57:16 GMT

Radioactive Hiring.

So I leave town for a week with no Internet access, and when I come back Scoble has been assimilated! Scoble is hinting that another well-known blogger is going to announce soon. If it's who I think it is, all I can say is we're definitely getting an infusion of talent and energy these recent months. We search for people who are really passionate about technology and the software ecosystem; the kind of people who would be working on the stuff one way or another even if they didn't have the job.

I have a little theory about how this works: You can't really buy passion-driven people. You have to pay for them, of course, but they have to choose you. Passion-driven people are attracted by many things, but one of the biggest attractions is the desire to work with other passion-driven people who can challenge and appreciate them. As an organization grows, the challenge is to keep the bar high enough that critical mass can be maintained and new people will still continue to be attracted. It's like running a nuclear reactor -- if your fuel rods aren't pure enough, you won't be able to get/keep the reaction going; but if you enrich and purify the material, the reaction is self-perpetuating.

The neutron bomb theory of hiring is not really appropriate for most hiring situations, but is fun for use thinking about MSFT. For example, what happens if someone uses a lead plate to separate the radioactive material? It's also one of the reasons I so strongly reject the criticisms of those who claim that MSFT people are simply thralls to some intricate corporate machinations. MSFT is just a bunch of radioactive people colliding with one another and causing explosions. Particles colliding randomly can generate tremendous energy.

Sure, there is some degree of coordination taking place within all of the chaos, but it's a huge mistake to think that MSFT strength comes from intricately plotted orchestration of the employees. The managers aren't sufficiently complicated and the employee's aren't sufficiently pliable. Instead, every part of the system is generating energy internally; and the outcome of any effort is as much the result of the magnitude (or lack of) of the eventual explosion as it is a result of any pre-planned strategy.

[Better Living Through Software]

Wed, 19 Feb 2003 23:44:48 GMT

IBM: Challenges in mapping organizational knowledge (pdf).

Quote: "The term knowledge management (KM) conjures up a number of images: a customer service representative accessing a database of frequently asked questions; a team of consultants collaborating on a new salary study; or a facilitator capturing the lessons learned from a major marketing initiative. Many firms have undertaken formal and informal knowledge management initiatives designed to improve process performance, increase customer responsiveness and spur innovation. But while some organizations have reaped significant benefits from their investment in knowledge efforts, others have run into noteworthy challenges."

Comment: PDF - outlines five common pitfalls and suggested solutions.

[Serious Instructional Technology]

Paul: Human Capital Management

Tipping Point Summary

Tipping Point - Net Version from Robert Paterson's Radio Weblog "How to Start a Revolution"

paraphrasing the main ideas in Malcolm Gladwell's book The Tipping Point (See Link To Author Happy Feet)

THE TIPPING POINT IS:

to top

THE LAW OF THE FEW

Connectors

Mavens

to top

THE STICKINESS FACTOR

to top

THE MAGIC NUMBER 150

CONCLUSION

First Lesson of the Tipping Point

Second Lesson of the Tipping Point

to topImportant Conclusion!

DIT Leadership Retreat

http://www.sellsbrothers.com/fun/msiview/#myInterview

You can't buy passion-driven people

to top
Important Conclusion!