One of the themes that is recurring in my #sharingorg research project is that of there being two distinct modes for collaboration within organisations. The Optimisation mode is the one that comes most naturally to big organisations - it's the direct descendent of Adam Smith's thinking, and is about delivering improvement through process and (continual) … Continue reading Three reasons for open plan offices not working
Category: Themes
Lots of product announcements out of Microsoft yesterday. Most of them reinforcing the idea that everyone wants everything to be a PC. As I write this I'm standing on a packed commuter train. In the carriage around me, in the hands and on the laps of the people around me, I can see: 2 Macbooks … Continue reading The scale of the challenge
This morning I received some key facts and figures from one of the emerging major players in the world of collaboration. What is striking to me is how much they look like the key facts and figures of a traditional media company: active users (read: readers); paid subscriptions (read: circulation minus comps); some stuff about … Continue reading Mass media collaboration
There is a peculiar phenomenon that I seem to be identifying in the research for the #sharingorg project - something that I'm provisionally calling the "Instant Messaging tipping point of functional uselessness". It goes a little something like this... A new tool or service is developed to address a particular need or niche. That tool is then … Continue reading Less is more
In an era when traditional organisational divides are increasingly redundant, I see that we have need for a new type of worker- the comb-shaped worker. Now for full disclosure this might be nothing but a personal work-generation programme because I see myself as comb-shaped, but let me explain... There are two concepts I've been seeing … Continue reading Comb-shaped
About ten years ago I found myself running a team building session for a software development team that was building online telephone directories for a telecoms company. For those of you under 23 a telephone directory was a... oh, forget it. It was a "sit and talk about how we work" type of session, rather … Continue reading The solution to solve all solutions
The way in which you communicate sets the tone for what people think about you. Not so much what you say, but how you say it. This is the essence of a brand, creating the perceptions held about organisations and individuals by their customers and clients. In many ways the world of Corporate IT is trying … Continue reading Ditch the SLAs
The Pivot is a concept well beloved in the Lean Startup community. Always be looking for the way in which your product or service can be changed to adapt to new markets, new customers and/or new applications. To hear the Lean Startupers go on about it, sometimes you'd think they'd invented the concept. But the … Continue reading Pivot and pass
A while back I wrote about an increasing feeling of worry I have with the way in which many disruptive digital start ups seem to take a fairly dismissive attitude to the established norms of society. Whilst that's on the one hand somewhat obvious (how can you be disruptive if you're not challenging the status … Continue reading The only way is ethics*
A few weeks ago I was able to announce, somewhat cryptically, another role on my ever-extending LinkedIn profile - as a Research Associate for the Leading Edge Forum. Now I can put some meat on the bones... The LEF have commissioned me to run an extensive research project looking into a topic which has fascinated … Continue reading The Sharing Organization
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