The chaotic world of work

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Here are some of the insights and observations that were shared via Twitter this past week.

@JenniferSertl – “Your competitive advantage is not where you work or what you do. It is the accuracy & articulation of your observations & life experiences.”

@mbauwens – ‘Occupy’ as a business model: The emerging open-source civilisation – via @jerrymichalski @petervan

In commons-oriented peer production (first theorised by Yochai Benkler in his The Wealth of Networks, a “p2p” updating of Adam Smith), core value creation occurs through contributors to a shared innovation pool, a commons of knowledge, software or design. The contributors may be volunteers or paid employees. Importantly, even paid contributors add to the common pool. Why?

Because shared innovation makes an enormous difference in costs (give a brick, get a house), and it is also hyper-competitive. A recent study by the makers of the Open Governance Index, which measures the openness of software projects, confirms that more open projects do much better in the long-run than more closed projects. In other words, it makes sound business sense: open businesses tend to drive out business models based on proprietary IP. So it doesn’t matter whether you are a “commonist” free software developer, or a capitalist shareholder of IBM. Both sides benefit and they outcompete or “outcooperate” traditional proprietary competitors.

@hansdezwart – Welcome to the Chaos: The Distributed Workspace

Lori McLeese is the HR lead of Automattic (she is the only HR person at the company of about hundred people now). Nikolay Bachiyski is a developer. The company is 100% distributed and has been like that from day one. They are located in 24 countries and 79 cities. In only 7 cities do they have more than one “Automatician” living and working. They do not have offices and no set working time. Most people work on a single big project: wordpress.com

One thing that they’ve found is that it is hard to build personal relationships. They test new staff in a trial project to see if they are a fit for the culture of the company. The trial can last for a few weeks or even a few months. Once you finish it successfully you are “welcomed to the chaos” and will have to do your first three weeks working in “happiness” which is their customer support team. This helps you learn in a safe environment and teaches you to respect the happiness engineers. You are also learning that it is always ok to ask questions, to bug people and to over-communicate.

@oscarberg – enterprise software significantly hampers knowledge work

Did you know that user-centric organizations achieve 23% higher revenue per employee than those that are technology-centric? And did you know that productivity has dropped 17% the last years in enterprise software usage? If this doesn’t make you think twice about how you approach new IT investments, then someone – probably the owners of your organization – should be really worried.

@margaretatwood – Atwood in the Twittersphere – via @JudithELS

But despite their sometimes strange appearances, I’m well pleased with my followers—I have a number of techno-geeks and bio-geeks, as well as many book fans. They’re a playful but also a helpful group. If you ask them for advice, it’s immediately forthcoming: thanks to them, I learned how to make a Twitpic photo appear as if by magic, and how to shorten a URL using bit.ly or tinyurl. They’ve sent me many interesting items pertaining to artificially-grown pig flesh, unusual slugs, and the like. (They deduce my interests.) Some of them have appeared at tour events bearing small packages of organic shade-grown fair-trade coffee. I’ve even had a special badge made by a follower, just for me: “The ‘call me a visionary, because I do a pretty convincing science dystopia’ badge.”

Preparing for change

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One of the reasons (not the only one)  behind our Net Work Literacy programme [and PKMastery] is to prepare people for a digital economy, much of which is blocked by organizational firewalls. It is difficult to be a connected and networked person when you can only communicate with people inside your organization. As I wrote in Net Work Skills: Imagine if we limited our conversations to only those in the same office.  We would miss out on so many learning opportunities. Well it seems some people are still missing out.  Today, people with larger and more diverse networks have an advantage as professionals and in dealing with change. They are engaged in a constant flow of sense-making through multiple conversations.

Our programme is designed to be a starting point for anyone relatively new to developing professional learning networks, as these are a core part of the distributed, digital workplaces that are slowly replacing hierarchical organizations. The pace of change will quicken though, so it’s best to be prepared.

On Twitter, I asked: “Did you have an unexpected career change recently? What advice would you have given yourself 1 year earlier if you had known? #NWL” [The #NWL is for Net Work Literacy]

Initial responses so far:

@MsNair09 – be comfortable with being uncomfortable.

@DonaldHTaylor – My advice: always foster your whole network and give as well as take. Don’t wait until you need them. I always say “Never let your first message to someone be a demand for help.”

@theCMEguy – Don’t wait another year to make the change…

@learnwonder – If I’d have known 1 year earlier, I would tell myself not to bother going to those boring and pointless corporate ‘away days’

@nassimlewis – From teacher to Ed tech industry. When multiple perspectives coexist, ‘tell a story’ to create common ground.

Any other words of wisdom from the trenches?
no normal
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Innovation is about making connections

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connections
The network era workplace requires collaboration and cooperation because complex problems cannot be solved alone. Tacit knowledge, that which cannot be codified or put into a database, needs to flow. Social learning, developed through many conversations, enables this flow of tacit knowledge. This is not ‘nonsense chat’, as traditional management might view it, but essential for creating stronger bonds in professional social networks. Companies have to foster richer and deeper connections which can only be built over time through meaningful conversations. This is why social learning in the workplace is necessary for business.

Worker autonomy is a foundation stone for effective social learning. It is also the lubricant for an agile organization, where initiative, creativity and passion are encouraged. Individual autonomy in turn fosters group diversity.

As traditional core business activities get automated or outsourced, almost all high value work will be done at the outer edge of organizations. Life is complex and even chaotic on this fuzzy edge. Here, where things are less homogeneous, there is more diversity and there are more opportunities for innovation. Individuals, project teams, and companies have to move operations to the edge to stay current. Business models today need to be more open, networked, and cooperative to stay competitive in the hyper-connected economy.

Change and complexity are becoming the norm in our work. We already see this with increasing numbers of freelancers and contractors. Any work where complexity is not the norm will be of diminishing value.

Embracing complexity is where the future of work lies.

Net Work Literacy

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Working online is different. Few traditional jobs prepare anyone for this. How can you develop a professional network that is not dependent on a job or an employer?

For people who have been working in the same job for 10 years or more, when they step out they will see that it’s a different world today. Almost everything is online and connected and there’s no social media policy regulating it all. For many people, including potential employers, if you’re not on the Web, you don’t exist. Now that’s a change from a decade ago.

Social media for marketing is just the tip of the iceberg. The real power of social media is for getting things done. They facilitate learning and working; which are now joined at the hip in the creative, complex workplace that’s 24/7 in multiple time zones and always-on.

Networked working habits and practices take a while to develop and may not come easily to everyone. This is where to start – by developing net work literacy, where work is learning and learning is the work.

Join us for the Net Work Literacy programme – 26 March to 6 April 2012

Hosted by Harold Jarche and Jane Hart of the Internet Time Alliance

This onine programme on adapting to the networked economy includes tools, tips & techniques from people who have been connecting, communicating and collaborating online for over fifteen years. The programme is for anyone who has spent the last decade or more inside an organisation and is now looking to branch out and connect with the digital reality of the connected economy. Whether you are considering freelancing, working as an alliance or just connecting beyond the corporate walls, this programme is designed to give you a head start.

Net Work Skills

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Imagine if we limited our conversations to only those in the same office.  We would miss out on so many learning opportunities. Well it seems some people are still missing out.  Today, people with larger and more diverse networks have an advantage as professionals and in dealing with change. They are engaged in a constant flow of sense-making through multiple conversations.

Every professional needs to be open to continuous learning and to make much of it transparent in order to cooperate with others. Nothing remains the same, and the only way to remain relevant in the network era is to stay connected. This is life in perpetual Beta.

An open attitude is increasingly important. The people who blog or connect on social media can get things done quicker, find answers faster, get advice and just be more effective. All of this requires professional networks and these take time to build the necessary trust before one can even ask for help. For instance, strangers usually have to know something about someone before they will help out. Without some persistent point of presence (blog, Twitter, LinkedIn), one is invisible online unless he or she is already famous. Most of us are not.

It is not just an advantage to belong to diverse professional networks but in recent years the situation has tipped so that it is now a significant disadvantage to not actively participate in social learning networks.

With social media, anyone can easily create digital content and collaborate with others without any special programming skills. And the kinds of skills needed for all professionals today are not so much specific social media platforms, but rather changes in attitudes and perspective.

It is getting difficult for anyone to be an expert other than in a very narrow field for a short period of time. Bloggers can quickly get the scoop on professional journalists. As knowledge workers, we are like actors — only as good as our last performance. For a fleeting time, we may be viewed as experts. This erosion in perceived and conferred expertise means that professionals have to become learners themselves and follow the flow of the ever-expanding bodies of knowledge related to their fields. It is a shift away from subject matter experts and toward subject matter networks.

“Creativity is a conversation—a tension—between individuals working on individual problems, and the professional communities they belong to.”~ David Williamson Shaffer

Conversation is an essential part of being a networked professional today. One person cannot know everything, but can add to, as well as benefit from, the knowledge of others by engaging in various online conversations. Social media let anyone join in professional conversations, and conversely, may isolate those who do not.

Professionals immersed in communities of practice, or those continuously pushing their informal learning opportunities, may have a larger zone of proximal development (the gap between a person’s current development level and the potential level of development). They are more open to learning and to expanding their knowledge. Active involvement in informal learning, particularly through web-based communities, is key to remaining professional and creative in any field.

Being a professional in the network era is becoming more about your network than your current knowledge.

Fields of knowledge are expanding, new tools are constantly being introduced, and over a billion people are connected via the Internet. However, blogging still stands out as nearly ubiquitous, especially for professional development. Varieties of blogs include text, video, and audio, but blogs are relatively simple, give individuals voice, and enable conversation to flow. One can think of a blog as a professional journal to record thoughts and ask questions of peers.

Each blog post has a unique identifier (permalink) which can be referenced by others, without permission. This is where blogs still remain superior to many walled information gardens, like Facebook. Blogs enhance serendipity. Blog posts do not need to be perfect essays but can help make sense of the learning process. The comments between blogs help create networks of conversations around issues or topics.

Even once connected with social media, the critical aspect that remains is attitude. Accepting that we will never know everything, but that others may be able to help, is the first step in becoming a networked professional. This is an acceptance of a world in flux, and that knowledge is neither constant nor fixed.

Instead of trying to know everything in the field, we can concentrate on knowing with whom to connect. The network becomes all-important. That means embracing an attitude of openness and collaboration—joining others on a journey of understanding. Giving up control is a first step on this journey.

Having a blog, a permanent presence on the web, becomes the jumping off point for deeper professional discussions. I call it my home base. Producing a blog also opens a person up to criticism, so once again, an open attitude to learning is essential.

Networked professionals can no longer rest on their past accomplishments while their fields of knowledge change and grow. 

Through sharing and exposing their work on the web, networked professionals can connect to communities of practice and get informal peer review. There is no way to stay current all by ourselves. With blogs and other collaboration methods, each of us can become a participatory node in various communities of practice.

The whole becomes greater than the sum of the parts, and knowing who to call becomes more important than having the right answer. But we are all humans and we relate on a human level, which means that we first have to get to know others and develop a level of trust before real sharing can happen. Collaboration is a two-way street.

Finally, critical thinking – the questioning of underlying assumptions, including our own – is becoming all-important as we have to make our own way in the network era. Critical thinking can be looked at as four main activities, which social media can help us achieve:

  • Observing and studying our fields
  • Participating in professional communities
  • Building tentative opinions
  • Challenging and evaluating ideas

In the early 21st century, it’s time for all professionals to develop net work skills.

Shared thoughts

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Over the years I’ve written a fair number of words on this blog, starting in 2004. Some words have resonated with others and have been picked up on blogs and shared via Twitter or other social media. The thoughts in this presentation reflect my perspectives on the work I have been doing for over a decade.

You might think of it as a visual business card.

Shared thoughts by Harold Jarche

"Serendipity is too important to be left to chance"

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Here are some of the insights and observations that were shared via Twitter this past week.

If you read no further: for EVERYONE in the training business, read this entire article, via @MimiBarbara – Evolving Training Into the Perfect Hole by Gary Wise:

If we architect the learning resources correctly, we will have an ecosystem where…

The right performers will have seamless, frictionless, and ubiquitous access…
– to the right learning assets
– at their moment of learning need
– in a work context-friendly amount
– in a readily-consumable format
– to/from the right devices

“Serendipity is too important to be left to chance ~ Yossi Vardi, standing in a hallway during a session at TED2012″ via @jhagel

“Ideology narrows our thinking and keeps us from effectively addressing complex problems.” via @demingSOS

“Self-education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is. ~ Isaac Asimov” – via @psychoBOBlogy

through the lens of the Cynefin framework – by @davecormier [MOOCs (massively open online courses) may be more suitable for workplace learning than academia] –

MOOCs as a structure – and rhizomatic learning as an approach – privilege a certain kind of learning and learner. The MOOC offers an ecosystem in which a person can become familiar with a particular domain. Rhizomatic learning is a way of navigating that ecosystem that empowers the student to make their own maps of knowledge, to be ‘cartographers’ inside that domain. It suggests that the interacting with a community in a given domain is learning. The community is the curriculum.

Micro-blogging: the liquid knowledge network – by @dpontefract [e.g. narrating your work]

Two years ago, I wrote that ‘Micro-Blogging is Good For Leadership, Good for Your Culture’ and I haven’t flinched since.

Two years later however, I am altering my thoughts somewhat. I now believe micro-blogging must be positioned as an organizational habit for employees. (whether for internal or external purposes)

Micro-blogging; it’s truly the liquid knowledge network that (when immersed in daily work routines) can help expedite many work processes as compared to an organization without micro-blogging services and without the all-too-important habit of micro-blogging itself.

Dickinson, Gauguin, Bronte: Communication, collaboration & social networks contribute to creativity – via @JohnnieMoore

[Professor Katherine Giuffre] concludes – It was not when the artists were alone … that they were most creative, but when they were attached to others in a more moderate way and when those others were close to each other, although, again, not so close as to form one cohesive group. (p. 836)

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Photo by Kenneth Allen

Making collaborative work work

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Everyone talks about collaboration in the workplace today but what does it really mean? How do you get from here to there? Every snake oil salesman is selling social something: enterprise social; social learning; social CRM; etc. For me it boils down to three principles.

Narration of Work: This means actually talking about what you are doing. It’s making your tacit knowledge (what you feel) more explicit (what you are doing with that knowledge). Narrating your work is a powerful behaviour changer, as anyone who blogs regularly can attest. Of course, I mean personal or professional blogs, not writing articles just to attract eyeballs and increase advertising revenue.

In an organization, narration can take many forms. It could be a regular blog; sharing day-to-day happenings in activity streams; taking pictures and videos; or just having regular discussions. Developing good narration skills, like adding value to information, takes time and practice, so don’t expect overnight miracles.

Narration of work is the first step in becoming a social enterprise.

Transparency: This is an easy concept to understand but much more difficult to implement in the enterprise. It’s switching the default mode to sharing. This can be enabled by social media but note that social media also make the company culture transparent. A dysfunctional company culture does not improve with transparency, it just gets exposed. Here’s an observation from Ross Mayfield, founder of SocialText, in 2007:

But I’ll also make one argument, about how the change in tools may be deterministic for changing culture and about cultural spillover.  Blogs and Wikis are inherently more transparent than email, where 90% of collaboration occurs.  Users are first gaining exposure to these tools as consumers, within consumer culture.  The default in that culture with these tools is transparency and sharing.  Corporate cultures vary. I can say that we see earlier adoption by corporations with healthy cultures and management practices such as 360 degree reviews, and adoption practices matter.  But it should be noted that consumer culture spills over to corporate culture.  And because this culture shift aids practice building, I’d assert that these tools will trend us towards transparency.

Use social media to promote transparency but be ready to deal with the culture that is exposed. Transparency means real knowledge-sharing. The prime benefit cited for social media in the enterprise is increasing the speed of access to knowledge. This is what transparency enables and it’s necessary to implement the third principle.

Shared Power: Jon Husband describes wirearchy as; “a dynamic two-way flow of power and authority based on information, knowledge, trust and credibility, enabled by interconnected people and technology.” This is the desired state, but getting there is difficult. Companies that start with this objective have an advantage over existing hierarchical cultures. Examples of shared-power organizations are growing, but not so much that they are the majority.

Start with narration and move toward transparency, with a longer-term objective of shared power. This third principle is essential for social businesses that derive their value from complex and creative work. In these organizations, the higher value work is at the edges and power has to be pushed out to enable exception-handling, the real work in the connected enterprise.

These three simple principles should be enough guidance. The rest depends on the specific context of each organization and the ability to keep things in perpetual Beta.

“You have to have an idea of what you are going to do, but it should be a vague idea.”  ~ Pablo Picasso

 Thanks to Chris Mackay for the title of this post.

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View the conversation on Google Plus

subject matter networks

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“I think the singular SME is an antiquated a notion as the solitary game player & our development pipelines need to change.” writes Mark Oehlert, on Twitter. Mark coined the term, subject matter networks, as a change from the industrial concept of subject matter expert, or SME, a term I first heard in the military in the mid-1970’s. But the world has changed and most notably during the past decade.

Image: Clark Quinn

We have become connected

With all of these connections, complexity ensues. Markets in Asia can have an impact on a local grocer. The release of not-so-secret diplomatic cables influence events like the Arab Spring.

In a complex world the optimal social form is the multi-organizational network and emergent practices must be continuously developed through cooperation. In such an environment, the lone expert is at a disadvantage. He or she cannot learn and adapt as fast as a cooperative network.

So the critical skills for people formerly known as SME’s are how to become contributing members of subject matter networks. Part of this is in narrating one’s work and learning. I have called personal knowledge mastery (PKM) – our part of the social learning contract. One cannot be effective in professional networks without contributing. Subject matter networks are made up of many contributors. A key skill is in weaving the best networks together.

We collectively realized before forming the Internet Time Alliance that we were much less effective on our own than working cooperatively. Based on the feedback and interest from many people over the  past year, I think we will see more cooperative alliances created. Part of our advantage is the ability to bring many subject matter networks together.

Distributed research needs collaborative researchers

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“What Sanofi is doing is reducing its own internal research capacity,” he said. “The days when we locked all of our scientists up in a building and put them on a nice tree-lined campus are done. We will do less of our own research. We’re not going to get out of research. We believe we do certain things well in research but we want to work with more outside companies, startup biotechs, with universities.”

Chris Viehbacher, CEO of pharmaceutical company Sanofi recently stated that ” …  big companies, and not just Big Pharma, big companies I believe, are not any good at doing innovation.” It seems Sanofi is moving to a more networked way of doing business. But to be more innovative, companies must first become open and transparent.

That’s the challenge of the networked organization. Trust only emerges if knowledge is shared and diverse points of view are accepted. People who have been working in silos for decades may not immediately embrace a more diverse and complex networked way of doing business.

Part of working smarter is connecting the work being done with the identification of opportunities for future work. Innovative ideas often come from loosely knit external learning networks. These can later get developed in slightly tighter communities of communities of practice. But in order to capitalize on novel ideas, professionals have to be continuously sharing knowledge in their communities and testing new opinions in more dynamic external networks.

As research becomes more networked, researchers will need to be more collaborative. Social learning, or learning from and with their (distributed) peers, will become more important. New practices will emerge from these new relationships and more innovative tools & processes will have to support this complex work. The role of connecting and communicating what is happening in various widespread groups will become critical. This is the job of a CCO, or some similar role: to manage workforce collaboration.

The three principles of net work remain, in my opinion:

  1. Transparency
  2. Narration of Work
  3. Distribution of Power
Getting a workforce, and many organizations, to embrace and internalize these principles will take time and managed effort. It will require normalizing the act of working across boundaries and switching the default mode to sharing information. In addition, the organization will have to tolerate mistakes and encourage reflection. This could be a major culture shift. Any company that is going to open its work processes to a networked model must make a significant effort to support its people in integrating their learning and work because you simply cannot train people to be social.