Article: Wutbürger: What makes "Angry Citizens" in Germany?
Protesters parade a characterture of state Minister-President Stefan Mappus in a March 7, 2011 demonstration against the Stuttgart 21 Rail Station [Bernd Klumpp | istockphoto]. The New York Times ran an interesting article this week on the Wutbürger -- the grassroots movement of largely...
Article: For the Long Journey, Learn from Terns
Artic Tern, Sterna paradisaea. Photo: Carsten Egevang/ARC-PIC.COM
Article: Ben Rubin's Data Visualization Art
My interest in the field of data visualization is growing. Maybe it's my pattern-loving brain that can't get enough of amazing graphs that show a billizion bits of data or my belief in systems as a way to move forward in complexity. What ever it is, I really like some of the trends in data going on right now. I ran across Ben Rubin's work with data. Take a look at the following two videos of the Listening Post piece that displays data collected from Internet chats: Displaying "I am" statements, the most common beginning phrase on the Net: {youtube}dD36IajCz6A{/youtube} And a short video showing some of the other presentations (search youtube for many more...
Article: Doing Good or Finding Good?
Focusing directly on problems or needs tends to create clumsy, imposed, temporary patches. Starting with available assets means people will take direct responsibility and will be empowered in the process. They will build elegant, powerful, and cost-effective solutions, and they will have a firm stake in their success. Consider the problem of world hunger: The governments of the developed world spent about $2.2 billion to solve the problem in 2008i, but in 2009 the number of malnourished people swelled to over a billion — an...
Article: Surveys Find Growth and Maintenance Critical, But Little Spending Planned for Small Businesses
According to a January survey by AmEx OPEN, 60% of small business owners believe growing or maintaining their client relationships is the most important priority in the coming six months. On the other hand, seven in ten owners say they will spend the same or less on growing and improving their business,
Article: Steve Rae's Four Gravitational Forces
I've been doing a bit of research about informal learning for the Story Clarification resource I've been working on. (I used a story about Toyota in the original version that -- in light of the company's current PR storm -- must be replaced.) I came across the following quote that I thought described well the criteria by which informal learning is judged (think learning webs, wikis, social networks, and communities of practice):{sa 0787981699} IBM's Steve Rae posits three gravitational forces for informal learning. The first force is access. The learner has to know the opportunity exists, the costs are reasonable, and it fits her...
Article: Davenport on Knowledge Workers
{sa 1591394236}According to Tom Davenport, at least 28% (36 million people) of the workforce are knowledge workers: Knowledge workers have high degrees of expertise, education or experience, and the primary purpose of their jobs involves the creation, distribution or application of knowledge. Davenport offers this insight about how knowledge workers want to work: They generally "don't like to be told what to do, . . . work best when working with other people in social networks, and are better led by example than by explicit management" (Thinking for a Living, How to Get Better Performance and Results from Knowledge Workers, 2005 Harvard Business School Press, p. 14). Sure pegged me.
Article: Uncle Walt and the Big Story
Over the past couple of weeks, I've been writing about the process of Story Clarification. As I've been writing, I been struck again and again how important meta-narrative is for me. Unless there is a story bigger than me, bigger than my company, bigger than this whole project, something good and meaningful, it all seems a bit hollow. Powering this bigger story is the sense that there are better, richer, ways to go about enterprise. Ways that give delight to the producers and the consumers alike. Ways that are good for the world, not bound in the economics of scarcity and fear. Ways that produce wholeness...
Article: Organizational Storytelling and Leadership
I'm writing MuddyHudson's resource on Story Clarficiation (watch our progress on developing this idea on the wiki). My research has been leading me in some interesting directions, including neuroscience, psychology, and management theory. It seems storytelling is really gaining traction in various enterprises like Xerox (PARC), the World Bank, and Executive Development (PDF). Steve Denning is one...
Article: More Than Pruning
You can't keep an orchard if your only skill is pruning. If all you know is how to snip off what you don't like, you will soon have deformed and stunted trees. If you can't help but snip, you'll soon have nothing but stumps. Growing a healthy orchard takes skill and hard work. The wise person knows to nurture the whole tree: bud, leaf, and branch. And she pays special attention to nourishing the root. A tree well nourished needs little pruning. It grows full and round and produces just as much fruit as it's branches could possibly hold. Of course, I'm not really speaking of trees at all. Rather, I'm taking...
Article: Mission or Ambition?
Does your organization’s purpose light people up? In the course of a presentation recently, I examined the mission statements of several companies. The presentation itself was, generally, about doing business from a relational standpoint instead of from a transactional standpoint. More specifically, it was about “missionalizing” one’s business/organization. The idea is this: organizations that establish a high-level purpose and integrate that purpose into every aspect of operations have the opportunity to connect with people – inside and outside...
Article: I’m In
The fast lane to starting something new often feels much more like the slow lane. What would you do if you recently moved into a new area only to find, to your surprise and disappointment, no youth hockey league for your children? Here’s what you probably wouldn’t do: start a youth hockey league. Not yet anyway…doing so would be exhausting, frustrating, and expensive. Hockey – particularly ice hockey – is a sport that requires a lot of commitment, both in terms of money and time. The equipment can be expensive, and so is the ice...
Article: Don’t Try Too Hard
“Meet people where they’re at.” “Don’t work too hard to persuade people.” These are words that have come up over and over for me lately. I really hate the hard sell. Maybe that’s why these words have resonated so loudly. I’m part of a generation that wants to be invited toward participation, no coerced. And our coercion radar is strong. The way I see it, if you have to try hard to convince me, then one of three things is true: whatever you’re selling isn’t really good enough to stand on its own merits, you’re doing a poor job communicating the...
Article: Breakdown
Hugo had no choice but to call the local large-chain auto parts retailer. Enough unsatisfying experiences made them his last resort for anything auto related. This time, though, his clutch cable was broken – near his home, thankfully – and it was too late to travel by bus to another supplier. So, he called the store, placed the order for a clutch cable…pick up tomorrow at 11am. Great! Easy. The guy on the phone was helpful, efficient, friendly…unlike what he had experienced before. Seeds of changing his mind about the company were...