Harold Jarche

Open as in commons, not garden

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Once again, it’s time to put my money where my mouth is. I have been a proponent of the open web and open source software for the past decade and more. This site was Creative Commons licensed when CC was in its infancy. I have talked several times about the importance of owning your data. I deleted my Facebook account over a year ago, having no more time for this enormous walled garden, and I deleted my LinkedIn account and started to rebuild it last year. The latter was an interesting experience, as I saw how much more controlling and channeling LinkedIn was with new users than when I first joined.

This week Google announced that it will close down Google Reader, an RSS aggregator that I have found useful, after Bloglines went offline and then changed its operating model. Reader is a very important part of my PKM process, especially the “Seek” part. I have just switched to Feedly and will see how it works. At this stage I am more inclined to find paid services than free ones. As they say on the web, if you’re not paying for it, you are the product. For more commentary on Google Reader see Stephen Downes’ posts.

I would not be surprised if Feedburner, another Google service, gets shut down soon as well. Many subscribers here get their email notifications via FeedBurner. As I move away from the Google web domination machine, I will be removing FeedBurner as an option, though existing subscribers will continue to receive notifications until Google inevitably pulls the plug.

In the meantime, I will try to set an example and remove myself from as many walled gardens as possible. Google Plus is probably next, as is Google Analytics. I still get value from Twitter and LinkedIn and will continue to use them, though I am under no illusions that they are serving my interests.

I will also look for good platforms that are either open source, like wordpress.org, which powers this site, or services that charge a fee and cater to their customers. For instance, I gladly pay for my Flickr service.

We are going through another transition of the web and I have no intention of leaving the whole thing to a few corporate interests. This site will remain ad free and open access, not residing on some commercial third-party hosted platform. It’s a very small thing I can do.

open

The right tool for the right job

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The field of Human Performance Technology (HPT) is systemic and systematic, but not very human. For that we also need to support informal andt social learning. However, HPT, especially performance analysis can be a useful tool, if used selectively and appropriately.

HPT does not work well for tasks that require high degrees of tacit knowledge and cooperation to address complex problems. But I find it useful for confirming that training is the optimal solution, as it is often the most expensive option, so it’s best to be sure. Some barriers to performance that are often overlooked when prescribing training include:

  • Unclear expectations (such as policies & guidelines);
  • Inadequate resources;
  • Unclear performance measures;
  • Rewards and consequences not directly linked to the desired performance.

In some cases, these barriers could be addressed and there would be no further requirement for training. Where there is a genuine lack of skills and knowledge, training may be required, but it should only be in cases where the other barriers to performance have been addressed. A trained worker, without the right resources and with unclear expectations, will still not perform up to the desired standard.

The performance analysis process shown below is based on Mager & Pipe’s book, Analyzing Performance Problems. According to this chart, training is only warranted when there is a clear lack of skills & new knowledge and the person has not done anything like this before. If there is any doubt, one should confirm that there are no obstacles to performance; there are adequate resources; NOT performing is not being rewarded; performance is not being punished; and performance does matter. My experience is that individual performance issues are often the result of inadequate resources or conflicting messages from management.

Here is my updated graphic, as the previous one, made several years ago, was a bit hard to read.

performance analysis process chart

Having enough tools, and knowing which ones to choose, is important for any discipline. In organizational performance, it is critical because we are always dealing with complex adaptive systems. We should consider that all models are flawed, but some may be useful. But we shouldn’t get too attached to our models.

In many cases, when training is prescribed for a work performance issue, it is a case of assuming it is a “training problem” without any further analysis. I can think of two examples in my own business experience.

In one case, e-learning was prescribed to address the performance needs of nurses changing to a new nursing care methodology. In that instance, I was able to convince the client that a quick performance analysis could be used to confirm the assumption that e-learning was the solution. As a result of the analysis, we changed the intervention to the development of an online diagramming tool, because we determined that nursing staff already had 80% of the necessary skills and knowledge, but they didn’t know how to use the new diagramming and reporting procedures. The initial e-learning program was greatly reduced and job aids were created.

In another case, training was prescribed in order to get staff up to date with a new organization-wide policy. Each person received an average of 17 days classroom training. As an observer for part of the training, I would estimate that all of the classroom training could have been done in less than a week, had the new procedures and some job aids been first developed. The total cost of training approached millions of dollars, plus the cost of missed work. The change in performance appeared to be minimal, but the training provider generated significant revenue.

The right tool, for the right job, in the hands of an experienced practitioner, can often ensure that the right problem is addressed.

Work is already a game

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OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI came across a statement saying how it would be a good thing to ‘gamify social learning‘, or words to that effect. I’d like to unpack that short statement. What does ‘gamify’ really mean? It could mean that people can be more engaged while playing games and therefore could learn while playing. Star Trek fans may think of the holodeck as the ultimate game-based learning platform.  I have spent a fair bit of time working with flight simulators and can attest to the value of simulation and emulation when it comes to learning how to fly aircraft. There is also significant research to show how epistemic games can be used for learning.

David Williamson Shaffer’s book, How Computer Games Help Children Learn, is mostly about epistemic games, or “games that are fundamentally about learning to think in innovative ways”. He begins the book by showing the fundamental weaknesses of our Industrial School System, another game:

“Not surprisingly, the epistemology of School is the epistemology of the Industrial Revolution – of creating wealth through mass production of standardized goods. School is a game about thinking like a factory worker. It is a game with an epistemology of right and wrong answers in which Students are supposed to follow instructions, whether they make sense in the moment or not. Truth is whatever the teacher says is the right answer, and actions are justified based on appeal to authority. School is a game in which what it means to know something is to be able to answer specific kinds of questions on specific kinds of tests.”

Shaffer shows the need for teaching how to think and how to be creative, instead of how to memorize, and lays the argument for the use of games in learning. Most of his examples are outside of the classroom because it is obvious that these kinds of epistemic games would disrupt classes and learning management. The games that are discussed are called monument games, or exemplars of good practice. The ideas and concepts presented are critical for anyone who wants to use games in learning, not just playing bingo and using words or figures out of context. The latter does not help learning. That’s a different sort of ‘gamification’.

The major problem with the ‘gamification’ of professional learning is that work is already a game. It is an artificial construct that society has created, and many of us have to play. Adding badges, or other extrinsic motivators, to professional learning only detracts from the real game. It also creates incentives that, when removed, may result in going back to previous behaviours.

So yes, good games, and especially epistemic games, can help people learn. The military has engaged in simulated exercises for millennia. However, adding a game layer to our work does nothing more than take us away from our work. As Dan Pink showed in his book, Drive: rewards, consequences and motivation at work, much of what we have taken for granted about work is just not supported by the research. Extrinsic rewards [gamification] only work for simple physical tasks and increased monetary rewards can actually be detrimental to performance, especially with knowledge work.

The keys to motivation at work are for each person to have a sense of Autonomy, Mastery and Sense of Purpose, as shown in this video. Pink’s work is based on the original research that developed self-determination theory, which states that relatedness — the universal want to interact, be connected to, and experience caring for others — is a primary psychological need, instead of a sense of purpose.

Where the ‘gamification’ movement could focus its efforts is on epistemic games, simulations, and meaningful contextual practice, not badges or making points.

Keep democracy in education

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Modern Education was the Result of a Shotgun Wedding

I liken our dominant educational structure as the offspring of a shotgun wedding between industrialists who needed literate workers to operate their machinery, and progressives who wanted to lift up the common person from poverty and drudgery. It wasn’t an easy marriage, and the children are a tad dysfunctional now. The union was never able to clearly identify the guiding principle of education. One book that has influenced many of my opinions on public education is Kieran Egan’s, The Educated Mind: How Cognitive Tools Shape our Understanding. Egan says that Western education is based on three incompatible principles, where all three can never be achieved in a single system.

  1. Education as Socialization (age cohorts, class groupings, team sports)
  2. Education as learning about Truth & Reality, based on Plato (varied subjects, academic material, connection to culture)
  3. Education as discovery of our nature, based on Rousseau (personal sense-making, teacher as facilitator)

If you put emphasis on one of these principles, the others get ignored. The industrialists would have preferred education as socialization and the progressives would have leaned toward education as learning about truth. We have seen some attempts, like Waldorf schools, to develop systems that promote education as discovery of our nature, but that does not go well with a standardized curriculum, whether it has a corporatist agenda or a progressive one.

As Egan says:

“Socialization to generally agreed norms and values that we have inherited is no longer straightforwardly viable in modern multicultural societies undergoing rapid technology-driven changes. The Platonic program comes with ideas about reaching a transcendent truth or privileged knowledge that is no longer credible. The conception of individual development we have inherited is based on a belief in some culture-neutral process that is no longer sustainable.”

Shotgun Wedding 2.0

I think we may soon get invited to another shotgun wedding, this time between techno-utopians, with financial speculators as bridesmaids, and libertarians, who feel the state and teachers have screwed-up education. It’s education as socialization, but socialization to the dominant business paradigm. But any problems with the education system are a result of the governance and economic environment in which it resides. It is through democracy, all of us, that we can improve education. Public education does not need a VC-backed Silicon Valley start-up to be saved. It needs more of us to participate in it. It needs democracy.

deweyIf social business is merely a hollow shell without democracy then the same goes for the new social education, currently manifested as xMOOC’s, those backed by large institutions or private interests. Audrey Watters provides a good overview of the flaws around the notion that our new education couple will be any better than the last arranged marriage:

“Hacking Your Education advances the notion that education is a personal (financial) investment rather than a public good. The School in the Cloud project posits that education is a corporate (financial) investment rather than a public good. Why fund public schools when we can put a kiosk in a tech company’s annex? Why fund public schools when you can learn anything online?

The future that TED Talks paint doesn’t want us to think too deeply as we ask these questions. But what happens,when we “hack education” in such a way that our public institutions are dismantled? What happens to that public good? What happens to community? What happens to local economies? What happens to social justice?

As such, the vision for the future of education offered in Stephens’ new book is an individualist and incredibly elitist one. It contains a grossly unexamined exceptionalism, much like the Hole in the Wall which, at the end of the day, worked best for the strongest boys on the streets.

So despite their claims to be liberatory — with the focus on “the learner” and “the child” — this hacking of education by Mitra and Stephens is politically regressive. It is however likely to be good business for the legions of tech entrepreneurs in the audience.” —Audrey Watters

We have not yet been able to effectively integrate democracy and business. Our current education systems, while flawed, still have some democratic oversight. In a networked world, our society needs to be more democratic, not less. Just as some business leaders are beginning to realize the potential of democracy in the enterprise, now is not the time to remove democracy from education. If work is learning, and learning is the work, there is little hope for democratic business if education becomes a business. For our future to remain democratic, both education and business need to be based on its fundamental principles. We are at a crossroads. Let’s cancel this wedding.

France_in_XXI_Century_School

Yes, Virginia, the world is going crazy

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Here are some of the observations and insights that were shared via social media during the past two weeks.

And now for something completely different [for my long-time readers]:

“Pertussis epidemic: How Vermont’s anti-vaxxer activists stopped a vaccine bill” via @nahumg

Schools and homes are where disease spreads. And in Vermont, [Doctor] Till says there are “pockets of unimmunized” posing a threat to their communities, especially in the “hot spots of anti-vaccination.” One such hot spot lies outside the capital, Montpelier. “These young parents were born in the vaccine era and have not seen devastating diseases,” he says. Till says these parents are “picking and choosing which vaccines they give to their children.” One of the vaccines these parents are most often choosing not to give their children is against polio.

“I feel so sorry for the public.” Former chief scientist, Frito-Lay on industry’s deliberate contribution to obesity – via @TimOReilly

The public and the food companies have known for decades now — or at the very least since this meeting — that sugary, salty, fatty foods are not good for us in the quantities that we consume them. So why are the diabetes and obesity and hypertension numbers still spiraling out of control? It’s not just a matter of poor willpower on the part of the consumer and a give-the-people-what-they-want attitude on the part of the food manufacturers. What I found, over four years of research and reporting, was a conscious effort — taking place in labs and marketing meetings and grocery-store aisles — to get people hooked on foods that are convenient and inexpensive. I talked to more than 300 people in or formerly employed by the processed-food industry, from scientists to marketers to C.E.O.’s. Some were willing whistle-blowers, while others spoke reluctantly when presented with some of the thousands of pages of secret memos that I obtained from inside the food industry’s operations. What follows is a series of small case studies of a handful of characters whose work then, and perspective now, sheds light on how the foods are created and sold to people who, while not powerless, are extremely vulnerable to the intensity of these companies’ industrial formulations and selling campaigns.

Court of Appeal seems to ban Bayesian probability (and Sherlock Holmes) – via @undunc

… when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth
(Sherlock Holmes in The Sign of the Four, ch. 6, 1890)

In a recent judgement the English Court of Appeal has not only rejected the Sherlock Holmes doctrine shown above, but also denied that probability can be used as an expression of uncertainty for events that have either happened or not.

US Dept of Justice DOJ Admits It Had To Put Aaron Swartz In Jail To Save Face Over The Arrest – via @wikileaks

Apparently the DOJ thought it was a reason to throw the book at Swartz, even if he hadn’t actually made any such works available.

The “Manifesto,” Justice Department representatives told congressional staffers, demonstrated Swartz’s malicious intent in downloading documents on a massive scale.

Some may agree with that, but it seems like a jump towards “thoughtcrime” since he hadn’t actually made any move towards making the JSTOR data available. It’s possible that he planned to only make the public domain works (of which there are many) available. It’s also possible he planned to leak the whole thing. But, really, you would think that there should be a bit more evidence of that before prosecutors throw the book at him.

More importantly, it suggests that Swartz was arrested and prosecuted for expressing his opinion on how to solve a particular problem. You may or may not agree with it, but I thought the US was supposed to be a place where we were free to express ideas. There’s even some famous part of our Constitution about that…

Finally, on a lighter note:

“@Cmdr_Hadfield we found your space to-do list! Just one item left.” @davyay

to do list

 

first structure the work system

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org characteristics
I first developed the above table in 2009 to explain that working together [follow link for background info] requires different types of group work according to the complexity of the environment. The tension I see in workplaces today is a direct result of two (almost) opposing principles for organizational design that are necessary in workplaces that deal with complex environments, networks, emergent practices & cooperative work.

First, complex work requires strong ties and high levels of trust to enable work teams to function. On the other hand, innovation needs loose ties and a wide network to get diverse points of view. In these loose networks, cooperation (sharing freely without any quid pro quo) is the order of the day, not collaboration (working together toward a common objective).

The problem is that in a TIMN world, one cannot focus only on networks and complexity and ignore the rest. Therefore there is no single answer on how diverse a work team should be, or the right balance between time spent with loose networks and time spent focused on projects. It’s not as simple as tacking on 20% time. Work and learning are in dynamic tension at all times. While some action and coordination in the workplace can be automated with performance support systems, collaboration and cooperation are still intensely human and require continuous learning.

My recommendation has been to support workplace activities that are both cooperative and collaborative and also to provide the necessary support structures. However, my observations to date show that a third piece is required, and that is the fostering of communities of practice to connect the two. These communities, internal and external; are a safe place between highly focused work and potentially chaotic social networking. I also see the support of communities of practice, through skill development and structural support, as a primary role for learning & development staff.

Enabling people to work in all three spaces is more natural than boxing work as a separate activity from learning and development. John Bordeaux has had similar thoughts about the need to focus on organizational design instead of process design. I think humans, with their complex brains, can develop processes that work, if they are in organizations that allow them to be natural. I also think that this model can work with junior employees, if they are treated like adults. John asks a key question, “Why do we work in organizations where natural interactions and instincts are discouraged?”

“Others have written about new organizational structures, such as heterarchy, wirearchy, et al.  We cannot fall into the trap of the last decade, where “flat organizations” were supposed to destroy hierarchy.  Sociology is not extinct.  But radical new organizations are possible and are in fact happening.  A dear friend now works for a consulting firm where people come together into ad hoc teams to tackle projects.  The firm itself is just the backplane, providing health care, office space, etc – in exchange for a percentage of revenue.  The consultants/engineers/developers/project managers self-organize around opportunities.  The morale is high, the reputation is strong, and the life balance is exquisite.  This model does not suit junior employees, and would not work for many areas outside professional services – but it represents a triumph of natural systems over machine processes.  It maximizes crew methodologies for client value.”

From ideas to ideology

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Charles Green wrote a few years ago that management is still fighting the industrial revolution:

Ideas lead technology. Technology leads organizations. Organizations lead institutions. Then ideology brings up the rear, lagging all the rest—that’s when things really get set in concrete.

So basically, ideas are enabled by new technology around which new organizations are created. Only then do new institutions get built in order to support the new dominant ideology.

So what does the current set of pillars that informs management look like?

The industrial era was based on the notion of standardization and best practices. Factories and mass production enabled corporations, like General Motors, from which business schools such as MIT’s Sloan School of Management (Alfred Sloan was president & CEO of GM) were created to develop managers trained in some variation of the principles of scientific management. Here is an excerpt from F.W. Taylor’s Principles of Scientific Management (1911):

It is only through enforced standardization of methods, enforced adoption of the best implements and working conditions, and enforced cooperation that this faster work can be assured. And the duty of enforcing the adoption of standards and enforcing this cooperation rests with management alone.

The network era is starting to take shape and some of the pillars are getting set in place, while others are in the making and not yet guaranteed to be part of the mix. Ideas like wirearchy and open business have been taken up in conjunction with new internet technologies, especially social media. There are experiments with new organizations, like  B Corporations that have social and environmental components, or peer to peer production.  It’s not obvious what the new institutions will look like, but we are seeing frenzied action in the educational sector as new and old players vie for dominance.

Perhaps new institutions will look like Massively Open Online Courses (MOOC’s). Perhaps not. But before a dominant ideology emerges we will see much more experimentation during this shift period. Will the dominant ideology be more like the “unassailable techno-humanitarian” TED Talks, or perhaps have the grassroots qualities of Shareable? My initial stab at a new ideology is a Taylorist mash-up: The principles of Connected Management:

It is only through innovative and contextual methods, the self-selection of the most appropriate tools and work conditions, and willing cooperation that more productive work can be assured. And the duty of being transparent in our work and sharing our knowledge rests with all workers.

However, if history is to be repeated, things will only stabilize after the new dominant ideology sets in place. Meanwhile, we will continue to live in very interesting times.

connected management

We need to learn how to connect

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From danah boyd’s presentation at ASTD TechKnowledge 2013, on the future of work:

But if you want to prepare people not just for the next job, but for the one after that, you need to help them think through the relationships they have and what they learn from the people around them. Understanding people isn’t just an HR skill for managers. For better or worse, in a risk economy with an increasingly interdependent global workforce, these are skills that everyday people need. Building lifelong learners means instilling curiosity, but it also means helping people recognize how important it is that they continuously surround themselves by people that they can learn from. And what this means is that people need to learn how to connect to new people on a regular basis.

I’ve highlighted the last phrase because this is what social learning is all about; connections. No person has all the knowledge needed to work completely alone in our connected society. Neither does any company. Neither does any government. We are all connected AND dependent on each other.

One of the barriers to connecting people is the nature of the JOB, seen as something to be filled by replaceable workers. Shifting our perspective to treating workers as unique individuals, each of whom have different abilities and connections with others, is a start in thinking with a network perspective. Another barrier is viewing knowledge as something that can be delivered, or transferred. It cannot. Knowledge from a network perspective is about connecting experiences, relationships, and situations.

Work and learning today is all about connecting people. Managers, supervisors, and business support functions should be focused on enabling connections for knowledge workers. Like artists, knowledge workers need inspiration. Too few connections mean few sources of inspiration and little likelihood of serendipity. Innovation is not so much about having ideas as it is about making connections. We know that people with more connections are also more productive. Chance favours both the connected mind and the connected company.

connected-company.001

Increasing connections should be a primary business focus. It should also be the aim of HR and learning & development departments. Connections increase as people cooperate in networks (not focused on any direct benefits for helping others). Diverse networks can emerge from cooperation that is supported by transparency and openness in getting work done. Basically, better external connections also make a worker more valuable internally. Fostering this perspective will be a huge change from the way many organizations work today.

perpetual beta is the new reality

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When I discuss life in perpetual Beta, it is often from the perspective of the individual. My interest in personal knowledge mastery (PKM) started with my own need to stay up to date in my field. It has since become a core part of my professional services. Sometimes it seems it’s the workers who are always spinning around, trying to find or keep work, while organizations move at a glacial pace, or even seemingly backwards.

A recent article in Businessweek shows that companies are facing life in perpetual Beta as well.

“A study by economists Diego Comin and Thomas Philippon showed that in 1980 a U.S. company in the top fifth of its industry had only a 10 percent risk of falling out of that tier in five years; two decades later, that likelihood had risen to 25 percent. In finance, banks are losing power and influence to nimbler hedge funds: In the second half of 2010, in the midst of a sharp economic downturn, the top 10 hedge funds—most of them unknown to the general public—earned more than the world’s six largest banks combined. Multinationals are also more likely to suffer brand disasters that clobber their reputations, revenues, and valuations, as companies from BP (BP) to Nike (NKE) to News Corp. (NWS) can all attest. One study found that the five-year risk of such a disaster for companies owning the most prestigious global brands has risen in the past two decades from 20 percent to 82 percent.”

Disaster may be just around the corner, it seems.

PKM, through seeking, sensing & sharing, can help networked individuals deal with the complexity of the network age. We’re finding that this is not a nice-to-have, optional set of skills but core to business survival. BP, Nike & News Corp. could have handled things better if people were actively and openly sharing their knowledge.

Soft skills, like collaboration and cooperation, are now more important than traditional hard skills. While cooperation is not the same as collaboration, they are complementary. Collaboration requires a common goal, while cooperation is sharing without any specific objectives. Teams, groups and companies traditionally collaborate. Online social networks and communities of practice cooperate. Working cooperatively requires a different mindset than merely collaborating on a defined project. Being cooperative means being open to others outside your group. It also requires the casting-off of business metaphors based on military models (target markets, chain of command, strategic plans, line & staff).

Cooperation, sharing with no direct benefit, is needed at work so that we can continuously develop emergent practices demanded by increased complexity. Collaborating on specific tasks is not enough. We have to be prepared for perpetual Beta. What worked yesterday may not work today. No one has the definitive answer any more but we can use the intelligence of our networks to make sense together and see how we can influence desired results.

Work in networks requires different skills than in directed hierarchies. Cooperation is a foundational behaviour for effectively working in networks, and it’s in networks where most of us will be working. Cooperation presumes the freedom of individuals to join and participate so that people in the network cannot be told what to do, only influenced. If they don’t like you, they won’t connect. In a hierarchy you only have to please your boss. In a network you have to be seen as having some value, though not the same value, by many others.

As we transition from a market to a network economy, complexity will increase due to our hyper-connectedness. Managing in complex adaptive systems means influencing possibilities rather than striving for predictability (good or best practices). No one has the definitive answer any more but we can use the intelligence of our networks to make sense together and see how we can influence desired results. This is life in perpetual Beta. Get used to it. Preparing for this will require time, social learning, and management support.

Find out more about the skills needed for PKMastery.

pB

The future is connected, messy, loose and open

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Why is self-directed learning and professional development so important today? Rawn Shah, commenting on one of my presentations, said that knowledge is evolving faster than can be codified in formal systems and is depreciating in value over time. This pretty well sums up the situation.

Think about the fact that knowledge is evolving faster than can be codified in formal systems … and what does that mean for all of our formal systems? Schools, government, and even religion are no longer stable bastions of knowledge. The logarithmic curve of knowledge, like our population, has hit us like the proverbial hockey stick it portrays.

World_population_growth_(lin-log_scale)

 Image by Waldir

One of the ways to deal with this knowledge explosion is to use what we have, our humanity. We have developed as social animals and our brains are wired to deal with social relationships. By combining technology with our brainpower, we can figure things out. We are naturally creative and curious. We just have to build systems that nurture our inherent abilities. Schools do not do that. Most workplaces do not. Our economy does not. Most of our governance systems do not. The answers to our problems are within us, collectively. We have more creativity (for good and bad) than any other creature. We need to harness it.

This is what social learning is all about. Not just solving problems, but creating new ways of working. There are amazing technological inventions and discoveries every day, yet we and our media focus too often on our problems. On the edges of society people are experimenting with new ways of working and living together. What is most amazing is that now we can learn about these things with a simple search or click. Two billion people connected to each other is absolutely amazing, yet many of us cannot see the forest for the trees.

Here are just a few examples:

Learn about almost anything, with excellent commentary, from A Man with a PhD

Find out about the new economy from Shareable and Fast Co-exist

Follow what is happening in learning and education with Stephen Downes and his extensive daily newsletter

The Internet is a cornucopia of people sharing what they know. All one needs is the interest and a few skills to filter this. Don’t have the skills? Ask somebody. There are many people willing to help.

It seems so obvious to me, but most organizations are trying to deal with this complexity in simplistic ways. Humans have the ability to deal with some very complex things, yet too often our cultural and organizational barriers block us from using our innate abilities The future is connected, messy, loose, and open. Anything else will be sub-optimal.