Posts Tagged collaboration
when humans are more powerful than machines
a colleague asked me to help him find an example of an after action report (that final step in a project or project phase that everyone seems to ignore). i spent over 2 minutes looking for an example on our enterprise search engine. i performed a general search, and even a detailed search to look for only word documents followed by only pdf documents.
i got nothing.
after that failed, i sent a question out on our yammer network to my colleagues and friends asking the same question. roughly 2 minutes and 30 seconds later i had a colleague of mine forward along an example document with exactly everything i was looking for. this was a colleague whom i’d have never even known existed if it weren’t for social networking within the enterprise.
but here’s the kicker…
the enterprise system we’ve developed has cost the firm countless thousands of dollars (probably millions), meanwhile the yammer network we’re using is the free version — no cost at all to us. using this high-cost technology outfit provided me with no answers at all and was actually a time-suck when you look at it, meanwhile a free system available to anyone was able to connect the person who needed information with the person who had the information.
the moral of the story is this: business needs to rethink where it’s spending its money. high cost IT departments in organizations don’t have to be high cost anymore. there was once a time when machines could do things that we mere mortals couldn’t, and so we developed these new systems to supplant humans. the problem is that that paradigm has shifted.
the focus needs to not be on what the technology is capable of, but on what the technology enables us to do.
at the end of the day this change in focus is better, faster, cheaper, and more efficient.
not easier, but better.
why i love trance music so much
image by scootie, flickr artist
i like trance music. a lot. in fact i’d say that i truly love it. the reasons why are many, but aside from being good music it’s the trance community surrounding it which makes it so special to me.
in a musical genre categorized by well defined characteristics, the level of innovation and collaboration is off the charts. to use such common musical elements and structures as other artists and rearrange them to form entirely new tracks takes a great deal of creativity. add to your original mix countless mashups and remixes from other artists and your EP is — the vast majority of the time — largely filled with someone else’s work.
what i love so much about trance is that these artists not only create their music but they actively invite people to take it and make it better — to put their own spin on it (sorry for the pun).
the business world could use a little trance influence.
you never see the giants of industry partnering together to create something special. when was the last time you saw facebook and google working hand-in-hand on anything? or microsoft and apple? or sony and samsung? for that matter, sometimes we even have trouble getting our own internal teams to collaborate together — like information security and the end users.
we were always taught that competition makes everyone better, and there may be some truth to that. business has no doubt followed in that tradition ever since history can remember. but what if we took the time to collaborate a little more? what if we partnered more between business and charity for instance? what kind of mashups and remixes could we make?
that would be some kind of beautiful music.
simple science
image by Alvin K, flickr artist
here’s a simple science experiment:
count how many emails you get today from advertisements. also count the number of spam messages that get filtered into your junk email folder. in addition, count the number of emails you get that have attachments to them, especially large ones. then finally count how many emails you currently have across your folders that are unread.
now, you tell me if email is really a good tool to use or not.
competition vs. collaboration — how far can you jump?
image by unclebumpy, flickr artist
i recently came across a post on wired.com’s science section about american bullfrogs and their leaping ability. in short: when in the wild, bullfrogs have a certain expectation of maximum leaping distance which scientists have previously measured at 4.3 meters. however, at a county fair in california’s calaveras county their bullfrogs have been known to leap over 7 meters when involved in their frog jumping competitions. that’s quite an improvement!
in business, it seems everyone is focused on collaboration; on finding synergies and maximizing productivity. but what if we increasingly looked not towards collaboration on our teams, but towards competition? how would the game change then?
ideas do not occur in a bubble
image by Reini68, flickr artist
when was the last time you had a good idea? one of those eureka moments?
i remember back in college my roommate and i were discussing which of the honey bunches of oats ‘flavors’ we enjoyed the most. after trying pretty much all of them, i told him with conviction that hbo with strawberries was my favorite. i said: ”the thing i love about it is how your milk turns strawberry-flavored afterwards.”
immediately i thought, ‘hey — they actually make that stuff!’ and i shouted out with such joy, “dude! what if i make strawberry milk, and then pour that into my hbo with strawberries? it’s double the strawberry! how awesome would that be?!”
the very next time we went to the grocery store i bought some strawberry nesquik mix and put my theory to the test. naturally it ended up being horrendous, but it was still a good idea at the time.
the difference between participation and adoption
image by dharmabumx, flickr artist
i was listening in on a social media community of practice presentation today that a colleague of mine was giving about social media in the enterprise and individual performance.
while i feel that my colleague has done some great work — and really took a rather large bite to create a conceptual model for promoting participation in online networks which is itself valiant — i think it’s important to make the distinction between participation, and adoption. it’s a distinction that i feel is greatly overlooked.
mike’s model talked about awareness, self-efficacy, organizational trust, and this notion of perceived improvement potential all being drivers of participation. and i think that’s wrong. in fact, i think it’s exactly backwards.
you might think that i’m splitting hairs right now; toe-may-toe, toe-mah-to, right? but participation and adoption do have rather different connotations despite the fact that often times you’ll hear those two words used interchangeably. i think, however, that you’ll find one is far more desirable (and much harder to come by) than the other. in fact, one leads to the other.
reduce your frustration: stop using email
[i started writing this post as a comment on megan murray's blog post, actually, but it quickly grew into something more.]
i find email to be a burden to my work.
it’s the hammer in the tool box. the problem is, not every situation is a nail. sometimes you need a screwdriver, and other times you need a wrench. but we’re so dependent on email (i blame ms outlook for it) that we all try hammering in screws and bolts — even when we know it doesn’t work.
even though we have instant messaging, and even though we have enterprise 2.0 tools like wikis and blogs and more, we time and time again return to email.
showing appreciation: not just a manager’s role
image by foreverdigital, flickr artist
i’m not sure exactly what my favorite part of hockey is. as a goaltender (in my younger years), i have to admit that few things get me going more than a glove save on a 2-on-1 breakaway. i can still appreciate a fine dangle, however.
i can tell you with conviction, however, that one of the best moments is the celebration when a player scores a goal. the unbridled passion, the camaraderie, everything great about the sport of hockey comes through in one moment shared by 5 players on the ice (sometimes more). it’s one single moment that embodies all of what hockey is about.
teamwork.
it’s the culture, stupid!
image by syamastro, flickr artist
blog. wiki. ms excel file. ms project plan. ms sharepoint page. basecamp project.
they’re all tools. while people may prefer one tool over another, whichever tool it is will not take hold unless the culture there supports it.
i see a lot of proposed changes to current work streams and business processes fail because — even with support from leadership — the user base rejects those changes. there could be a few reasons why:
- it’s not simple. if the change is convoluted, adding extra steps to the workflow process or time to complete tasks, people are going to reject it – even if they agree in principle that the proposed new method is “right”
- they don’t understand it. if you make a change that people don’t understand the reasoning behind, they will have a hard time accepting and implementing it. #1 sign that you made boo-boos? hearing employees say, “uh.. why are we doing this again?”
- it doesn’t fit. if your changes contradict the way you do business, it’s only going to lead to confusion and frustration, and ultimately it will be abandoned.
if you’ve tried making changes to the way your team or organization does work in the past and failed, check the process again. look at what you’re trying to do, and see what your people think about it. when new tools don’t take hold, don’t discredit their use.
it’s the culture, stupid!
keep the tools and fix the culture.
social media: an evolution in communication
image by oliver widder, creator of geek and poke
people don’t fully understand social media, and part of it is our own fault — the social media mavens. i don’t think we do a well enough job of explaining it to everyone.
most people aren’t very fond of change, because change is unpredictable. am i going to be better, or worse off? will i be able to adapt? can i make the necessary changes in me to succeed in this new environment?
the problem with social media, though, is that it’s really not a change from one thing to this other. in the end, we’re all still communicating. how we communicate — the tools we use — do (as everything) evolve over time, however. but it’s certainly not anything to be frightened over.
we need to find better ways to communicate the benefits of social media to yesterday’s enterprise 1.0 stalwarts. how do you get someone who is so loyal to the old way of doing things to change?
i think it’s in the metaphors.
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