Performing Statements

John Hagel’s vision makes a good subject for Vaill’s methods

Although Vaill’s book was published a decade ago, it’s still quite relevant and seems particularly to resonate with issues that arise around web services. In his book Out of the Box, John Hagel describes web services in the context of trends that should scare any manager not comfortable leading through white water. He also has ideas about learning that mesh nicely with Vaill’s approach to managing process in complex systems. To get an overview of these ideas listen to this podcast about the new book Hagel coauthored with John Seely Brown, The Only Sustainable Edge.

One aspect of that title’s meaning is the idea that key learning takes place at the organizational edges where enterprises collaborate. Managing that learning is the key to strategic advantage. As companies shed business types in order to focus where they have world class capabilities, they will need to collaborate effectively with organizations that can deliver the business functions that get outsourced. (A simple example would be a firm that specializes in product innovation and commercialization using a vendor for customer relationship management.) It’s a web services world because such arrangements require flexible and low cost connections to integrate partners into a smoothly functioning system. As multiple companies with complementary business specialties come together, each member is driven to accelerate their own performance and deepen their particular expertise in order to deliver business value.

Within an interconnected business ecosystem, leadership becomes a function of directing your organization’s learning to develop the increased specialization that will drive business value across the system. But when you are asking managers to bet their success on a system that extends beyond the enterprise itself, you are asking them to jump into a continual white water situation, and here Vaill’s ideas can be usefully brought into play.

Vaill identifies three special learning challenges that apply where people are grappling with the inter-subjectivities of a continual learning situation. When managers are balking and feeling a loss of control, these are key points to bear in mind about their anxiety:

1. You can never know everything there is to know about a system, so be aware that you are asking your audience to abandon the comfort of their autonomous boundaries “because a system is open to its environment . . . and because all its internal elements influence each other and the whole in complex and often unpredictable ways” (109)
2. Managerial leaders are deeply involved members of the organizations they are trying to understand as systems, so remember that the observation affects the observer, “inquiry into a social system alters its dynamics and has an impact back on the inquirer” (110).
3. “Systems thinking is content-free in its essentials” so remember that people don’t like to think in abstractions, and you if you force them to, then in a literal sense they “may feel they do not know what they are talking about” (110) Give them something concrete to hang onto.

Later in his book, Vaill presents Keen’s approach to filtering out subjective noise like the challenges above. There are three sequential elements: phenomenological reduction, imaginative variation, and the interpretation. Moving through these modes creates content that can usefully flesh out amorphous abstractions.

1. Phenomenological reduction is “a decision to try to let the thing we encounter be what it is, separate from our perception of it” (161). This step helps you remove yourself from the equation and look at the thing qua thing. Vaill uses the example of visitors from one culture traveling to meet with business partners from another. If you want to figure out the right way to structure the visit don’t start by focusing on your role, but by mapping out what it is that makes up a “visit” so you understand all the components of the dynamic before assigning roles.
2. “Imaginative variation is the almost playful combining and recombining of the various modes of the situation’s being” (161-162) This type of brainstorming starts to put us back in control as we rearrange the composite elements of a situation or project.
3. Imaginative play then frees us by introducing new possibilities that lead to actionable interpretations. “The act of imaginative variation actively releases the phenomenon from the control of our values and perceptual categories. We begin to see what a profusion any situation actually is. Out of this process, we could begin to form interpretations of the likelihood and the desirability of the various scenarios.” (162)

As a tool in your bag of tricks, Learning as a Way of Being offers a way to approach the types of knowledge problems generated by information solutions. In the case of business strategy for a networked economy, it even offers some practical advice which could be extended out much more rigorously than I have with the simple juxtaposition above. If you take Hagel's ideas seriously, then Vaill offers a very important approach to managing learning.

Good Overview of the State of Identity

This interview with Kaliya Hamlin gives a good summary of the progress that is being made on the Open ID project. It's a quick read and worthwhile to get a sense of how people are working towards a flexible identity system that won't be controled by any one vendor locking you into their network.

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John Edwards Doesn't (Yet?) Know What To Do About A Political Reality That Isn't Geographic

The best thing about John Edwards is that he has a sense of humor. It was a real pleasure at Gnomedex to watch him deal with a situation unlike any press event he’d been trained for. I hope he keeps working on his authenticity skills.

Of course the most interesting question was one he didn’t even try to answer. When first asked how he thinks about dealing with an internet reality that isn’t geographically dependent, he offered an easy answer about rallying people to push out from their online communities into their geographic communities. And that’s part of the answer, but it’s a top down patronizing kind of answer.

He responded with a much more sincere “I don’t have an answer” when he was asked about the fact that online communities don’t constitute a single voting block. If substantial numbers of people feel strongly about an issue, but are disenfranchised because they can’t flex their muscles as well as their voices, then that’s a big constitutional issue.

Since my congressman’s got a safe seat, rather than donate to the party this year I think I’ll take the money over to AdBrite and see what I can buy to target Brownback’s constituency in Kansas.

technorati tags:gnomedex, gnomedexdiscussion, Edwards

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Early Morning Off the Wall Thoughts from Gnomedex Day 1

I'm digging into my notes from day one of Gnomedex 2006 and have one idea kicking around my head that I keep coming back to. I haven't dug into the details of either yet, but both the Attention Operating System and People Aggregator have me thinking about how social networks could package themselves as targeted audiences. Why leave it to agencies doing media buys to try to figure out what ads to present me alongside content that grabs my attention? Why not form attention cooperatives that publish out their attention information and offer their attention to the highest bidders?

If a company looked at a network of friends, colleagues, competitors, etc, and said, "Hey, I REALLY need to talk to this group" then give the company the opportunity to present their offering in exchange for paying the members of the network directly to take a look.

I'll let you know in a deep and rich way what grabs my attention, and if you think you've got something I'd be interested in, then pay me to take a look instead of cluttering up a sidebar next to an intriguing article.

 
 

technorati tags:gnomedexdiscussion, attention, reputation, social+commerce, network+economy

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Benkler's Opening Gambit

Thinking about Wealth of Networks, I keep coming back to Benkler’s argument about the importance of nonmarket and nonproprietary production of knowledge happening at the core rather than the periphery of our economy. In an economy with the production and distribution of information and culture at its center, that’s a big deal.

Benkler chose the John Stuart Mill quotes on page 6 well. The first one provides a good metaphor to bear in mind while reading his book: “Human nature is not a machine to be built after a model, and set to do exactly the work prescribed for it, but a tree, which requires to grow and develop itself on all sides, according to the tendency of the inward forces which make it a living thing.”

Makes me look forward to hearing Senator Edwards at Gnomedex to find out what kind of arborist he is.

technorati tags:Benkler, Edwards, Gnomedex

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RCA Adapters and Web Services

Here’s a way to explain web services to my baby boomer friends. In Loosely Coupled, Doug Kaye mentions a great metaphor from The Stencil Group talking about interfaces and components in terms of RCA adapters. The introduction of this easy to use interface drove the transition from stereos that looked like self-contained pieces of furniture into stereos that were stacks of metal boxes. (If you are too young to remember, check out this antique stereo to see an example featured in a KEXP fund drive.) Once there was an interface that could be used to connect any component from any vendor, you could build out a modular system. Even components which weren't invented until after the interface (like DVD players) could easily be added without altering any of the other components.

Posting with Flock

Just installed Flock and was pleased with how straightforward the set up wizard was. Got set up with my Flickr account and the process seemed very friendly given that I had to go from the wizard to the Flickr sign in page (which presents 2 options) and then back to the wizard. The del.icio.us sign in process was more seamless, but I'll leave it to the usability folks to debate the benefits of jumping from one branded look to another and back when manually linking services.

Also, since I'm spontaneously posting using the fun new toy, this post clearly breaks my rule about "every post must pass through the 2nd rewrite filter"

Now let's see how the drag and drop photo publishing feature works . . .

technorati tags:Flock, Usability

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First Thoughts on Yochai Benkler’s Wealth of Networks

While I was working with the Windows Media team, the NAB conference was one of the highlights of the year. We were pushing new technology into the work flows at the very heart of 20th century big media, and it was very exciting to be part of the end of TV as we know it. (If you want a sense of how Windows Media fits into the world of big broadcast, check out their pages for AV pros.) Walking the floor of the LVCC for the first time in 2001, I was blown away by the spectacle of all the capital involved when you want to reach millions through traditional media (think of a $75K hardware encoder versus a free, downloadable, software encoder). It’s the scene I call to mind when Benkler writes about the threat of the incumbency and the need to protect new social patterns from them.

The folks who will upset the incumbency aren’t even playing the same game, “Nonmarket behavior is becoming central to producing our information and cultural environment. Sources of knowledge and cultural edification, through which we come to know and comprehend the world, to form our opinions about it, and to express ourselves in communication with others about what we see and believe have shifted from heavy reliance on commercial, concentrated media, to being produced on a much more widely distributed model, by many actors who are not driven by the imperatives of advertising or the sale of entertainment goods.” (56)

Benkler insists on the deep connection between markets and democracy, and a significant part of his project is to outline the economic sustainability of the new networked information economy he’s describing. He’s not into “an exercise in pastoral utopianism” but directly concerned with practical possibilities and the real need to take social and political action. “We still stand at a point where information production could be regulated so that, for most users, it will be forced back into the industrial model, squelching the emerging model of individual, radically decentralized, and nonmarket production and its attendant improvements in freedom and justice” (26). Benkler is not writing about the fringe when he describes our current state of change. Information and cultural production are at the core of our economy; establishing nonmarket, nonproprietary production systems at the core will result in radical changes to the democratic apparatus. (Benkler makes a great counterpoint for Chun, BTW.)

The Components of Vaill’s Learning System

What types of learning are important for people who manage “permanent white water”? Vaill describes seven interrelated modes of learning that comprise his system (an integrated, day-to-day practice). Below I’ve selected representative quotes that capture an important aspect of each type, but I’m not attempting to encapsulate his complete definitions which are more nuanced than the isolated quotes may suggest.

Self-Directed Learning
What it’s like to turn to experts when you are self-directed “We seek help not from a position of dependency but on our own terms, and we are conscious of our self-directed stance. We have questions to ask the experts, questions that grow out of our experience to date with the material, frustrating as it has been. We have reasons, which remain conscious and clear, for wanting to continue to struggle with the learning. Our questions are particular . . . “ (60)

Creative Learning
While managers aren’t generally engaged in the hands on creating of a thing in itself, they must learn how to manage the process of creating things in new ways: “The creativity of the managerial leader is to shape ways of working, ways of structuring human relationships, ways of focusing and budgeting resources, ways of evaluating progress that do not kill it in the process” (65). While not as glamorous as the creativity of an oil painter or musician, those four tasks cover some of the most difficult learning managers are asked to do.

Expressive Learning
If you consider our perception of time’s forward movement as the essence of consciousness, “learning by doing” is key. “. . . we learn the roles and the timing of the various elements in relation to each other . . . we learn the relationship of the activity to the wider setting in which it occurs, and we learn how the activity is spread out in time as well as in space. That is, since most activities of any complexity occur in a time stream, we learn the pacing they require, their rhythms and durations” (67).

Feeling Learning
If you are trying to learn in an environment where the pace, pressure, and complexity leave you distracted, anxious, and breathless, you’d better have a good sense of what it feels like when the learning process is working. “Self-directed learning, creative learning, and expressive learning all involve a whole range of feelings, among which curiosity, patience, courage, and self-esteem are particularly important. Inevitably, negative feelings arise also . . . we need to develop self-acceptance of the feelings that arise during learning because these feelings are part of the learning. They are not, as institutional learning would have it, annoyances which must be put up with in the learning process” (73-74).

On-line Learning
Vaill means something different than you may assume. Writing in 1996, “Thanks to the computer revolution, the term on-line has come into currency to describe a process that occurs simultaneously with all the other processes of the system in which it is imbedded. Thus, on-line learning is a process that occurs in the midst of work and of life rather than in an artificial, sheltered environment” (76).

Continual Learning
Think of an expression like “We’re rebuilding the airplane while we’re flying it.” Because we are constantly having to adapt to new technology and new circumstances, “We do not need competency skills for this life. We need incompetency skills, the skills of being effective beginners” (81).

Reflexive Learning
To the point that these components must work in harmony to be effective, “once we understand the practical function of reflexive learning, we can see that learning about learning is precisely determining the extent to which any learning activity possesses the first six qualities” (87).

User Generated Content at Where 2.0

Interesting observation from Tim O’Reilly at Where 2.0

“What's particularly interesting is how much activity there is in adding user-generated data. Especially interesting is the way that Google is trying to get users to build 3D models of buildings with sketchup. Brad Schell gave a great demo of how to visualize a building and place it in Google Earth. Particularly impressive was the ability to search for real-world architectural elements and add them to a building you're drawing. (AutoDesk, watch out....) Lovely.”

It would be useful to create and share a model that shows how you have to come around the side of my building and down the stairs to get to my front door. Very interesting to think of all the additional richness that could be added to Google Earth if lots of people start playing with it. (The product web site could do a better job communicating the scenario. An interesting point of contrast is the Flock product site which communicates well using the product UI as well as creating community.)

I love it when O’Reilly says things like “It becomes clear that Google Earth is not just a data visualization platform. It's a framework on which hundreds of different data layers can be anchored.”