power and addicts

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Every fortnight I curate some of the observations and insights that were shared on social media. I call these Friday’s Finds.

“Power not only corrupts, it addicts.” – Ursula Le Guin, via @ndcollaborative

“You are reading a book,” the car said. It pulled over and stopped. “This road is paid for by advertising boards. Look at them to proceed.” – by @MicroSFF AKA Micro Science Fiction & Fantasy Stories

A Walking Tour of New York’s Massive Surveillance Network – via @jafurtado

[Ingrid] Burrington points out that infrastructure is often designed to be ignored. The field guide, with its cheerful drawings of manhole covers and cable markings, turns the infrastructure into something ordinary and familiar, not intimidating, and not some magical process by which videos and images appear in your phone.

“If it’s effective, it’s invisible,” she says. “But if it’s taken for granted, we lose the ability to make decisions about how it’s used.”

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to retrieve or to extend

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It seems that ‘millennials’ in America do not have a lot of confidence in their institutions and markets. According to a 2016 Vox survey, corporate America, governors, and news agencies ranked the lowest. The status quo is not faring well. This is not surprising if we look at the major shift in how we humans are organizing, which is only the fourth in history. The TIMN model shows how each shift created a new dominant form of organizing people: first in tribes, then through institutions, and later in markets. And now we are beginning an age of network dominance.

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valued work is not standardized

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Does automation result in job loss?

“Consider, for example, the effect of the automated teller machine (ATM) on bank tellers. The number of fulltime-equivalent bank tellers has grown since ATMs were widely deployed during the late 1990s and early 2000s (see Figure 1). Why didn’t employment fall? Because the ATM allowed banks to operate branch offices at lower cost; this prompted them to open many more branches (their demand was elastic), offsetting the erstwhile loss in teller jobs (Bessen 2016).” —WEForum: James Bessen

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seek > sense > share for cities

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Two years ago, a number of members from UCLG (United Cities & Local Governments) participated in a personal knowledge mastery workshop. This was part of the organization’s search for “practical solutions to fulfill the citizen’s demand” acknowledging that “learning cannot be conducted alone but has to be part of partnerships”. One result was an initiative between Mozambique and Brazil that embraced my seek > sense > share framework in a unique way (PDF pp. 44 – 47).

“The methodology used throughout the project and the role of partners is described using Harold Jarche’s ‘Seek, Sense, Share’ learning framework as it seeks to facilitate the sharing of complex knowledge and foster a network built on trusted relationships.

Seek: Identify Partners, Cities, Technical and Political Leaders, and People
“The objective was to bring the actors together through triangular cooperation built around Brazilian cities’ experiences and expertise, European support and Mozambican leadership.”

Sense: Building Content and Results
“This methodology was an eye-opener for many mayors, who thus had a better understanding of the role and work of their technicians, which led to higher levels of trust.”

Share: Disseminate Results and Evaluate the Process
“Additional outreach included a blog to share the results and to connect to other stakeholders; a newsletter; radio interviews provided by Brazilian mayors; and strategic connections to other events and meetings in Brazil.”

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a workable future

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In the IFTF report Ten Strategies for a Workable Future, the authors highlight issues for the US labour force, which I believe are applicable to many other countries and economies. (full report PDF)

  1. Combine the best of investor-owned and commons-based platform models
  2. Solve for both transparency and privacy
  3. Integrate marginalized workers in a sustainable economy
  4. Ensure opportunities for workers to advance outside of traditional organizational hierarchies
  5. Support worker-owned identities
  6. Create ways for workers to bring their voices together
  7. Reinvent benefits to follow workers everywhere
  8. Integrate learning and work
  9. Prepare youth for “the hustle”
  10. Champion a good work code

I have discussed most of these issues on this blog, such as platform capitalism, integrating work & learning, and the limits of hierarchies. The triple operating system model for network era organizations aligns with these recommendations, particularly the need to operate as temporary, negotiated hierarchies and the requirement for safe places to work on alternatives (communities of practice). This model is based on the core principles of subsidiarity, wirearchy, and network management.

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carpe diem

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Arun Pradhan recently asked about my own experiences of learning and working. I decided to work and learn out loud and post my responses here. There were four questions, but my responses overlapped, so I have written a single, narrative response, below.

  1. Q1. In your working life, how have you learnt effectively from experience, please provide an example if possible? (e.g. how have you used intentional practice, learnt from failure, learnt from ambitious projects and/or used reflection)
  2. In your working life, how have you learnt effectively from people, please provide an example if possible? (e.g. how have you learnt from project teams, mentors, coaches and/or broader social networks)
  3. In your working life, how have you learnt effectively from courses, research or investigation, please provide an example if possible? (e.g. how have you learnt from reading on the web, reading books or attending courses)
  4. What’s your top advice for someone who wishes to develop faster and learn complex skills in modern workplaces?

The first twenty-one years of my work life were spent serving in the Canadian military. During that time I had four years of formal university education, followed by military courses and instruction totaling several years. I also completed a Master of Education degree part-time while working. I was a trained and qualified infantry officer, health care administrator, and training development officer. On leaving the military in 1998, I starting working in the field of learning technologies, where I had minimal formal education, other than a course in instructional design. My Master’s degree was in adult education and not much use in the field of knowledge management or human performance technology, the main focus of my work for my first two civilian jobs.

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retrieving rationality

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“The underlying social and psychological motivations that drive crowds have remained constant over time. But our new technological scaffolding has changed the way that they form and exist in the world. Today’s crowds can grow to unheard-of proportions and never dissolve. Their members are no longer equal. And for the technologically savvy, their power they embody is easier to wield, and the members are easier to manipulate.” – Renee DiResta on RibbonFarm

According to Renee DiResta, the new digital crowd that influences public opinion is “persistent and large & unequal and easy to manipulate”. Digital social media platforms are changing the influence that crowds have on society because once formed, they no longer need to disperse. I mentioned before that social media can reverse into constant outrage, in we are the media.

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plantations, rentals & politicians

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Every fortnight I curate some of the observations and insights that were shared on social media. I call these Friday’s Finds.

@BrentToderian – “ In my recent work with cities all over the world, this may be the message that’s resonating the most lately: The truth about a city’s aspirations isn’t found in its vision. It’s found in its budget.”

@JmalinowskiR – “Governance is one thing. Good democratic governance needs a sound basis, participation, transparency, accountability, political responsibility …”

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hierarchy shift

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“it is a battle between those for whom hierarchy and authority reign supreme and those who believe diverse, distributed and democratic approaches are best.” – the-war-between-authority-and-democracy-happening-now/

“Finally, the very definition of conservatism entails conserving something.  This is not an urgent priority for someone who sees reality as improving.  But, if the world is going to the dogs, then we need to hold on to the more just hierarchy of yesterday.” – what-reality-are-trump-people-living-in/

“The real engine of value in your organisation is the interactions and collaborations in and through the hierarchy. These collaborative relationships are where the work gets done and where the formal hierarchical decisions are shaped, influenced or frustrated.” – the-wirearchy-makes-your-hierarchy-work/

“A hierarchy is a hub-and-spoke network and pure hub-and-spoke network is nothing more than a hierarchy.  Many organizational consultants today make the argument of Hierarchy versus Network — you have to pick one.  But, hierarchies are networks with specific properties!  Hierarchies and networks are on a continuum — they are not separate species! They don’t collide, they meld.” – watson-looks-at-networks.html

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