Culture

ITNA – It’s not about the technology. As we struggle to find our way, it helps to recall that there are no financial or learning barriers. The new technology is largely free and it is easy to use.

My take on the main barrier and on the main opportunity is this:

That we only know the machine model where we have to own and control all the parts. That it is so hard for us to see the organic alternative where to costs go down while the value goes up.

Here are some posts that I hope define the nature of both the barrier and the opportunity.

Post 0 - The Context – The shift from machine to organism

Post 1 – Social Media and the Organization – The Donut

Post 2 – How UFIT is enacting these principles as an organization – where the rubber hits the road

Post 3 – Here is more on how an organic (Donut) model can solve the resources issues

Post 4 – Here is how terrorists use this model – Yes warfare is subject to the same revolution

Post 5 – Lessons from the USMC and Dr Jonathan Shay – The value of being human as the key to high performance and how easy it is to lose sight of this

Here are a number of articles that go beyond organization and look at the new media as a “New World” where many of the norms are the opposite of what we have been used to.

• What is this Community thing anyway? Can we control it – what do people really want? Here is a conversation with Luis Suarez of IBM about the power of “Attraction” that operates on the web. How it is our desire to find that special 5-8 people that is the foundation of the social web
• The social web is a place – not a page – a place that has social rules. Many of us see the social web as being like America was for immigrants. Reading books, taking a course cannot substitute for leaving the old world behind and immersing yourself in the New. Having kids to help was key then as it is now.
• Many confuse “quality” with production quality. Quality in the new web is emotional quality – where the voice is human and not processed. The new web is like the Impressionists versus the realists in art. Here is WOSU in action on this point
• Many stations have very limited connection to the daily life of their local community. Again, many tell themselves that their tiny budget prohibits them form covering their community well. Depends again on your mindset. Here is a one man band in Canada that is doing very well thank you with no money.
• The math of why TV as we know shows that it is dead – if content is infinite the value cannot be in content alone – Michael Rosenblum in best form
• Why the money will move before the mainstream listeners/viewers – because the web offers precision for the marketer – why there is no time to wait – the new measurement.

I was a keynote speaker at reboot 9 in 2006. The topic was “Human”. I did my best to describe that I thought a really human organization would be. I took a leaf out of Jim Collins’ ideas for Good to Great. Instead of imaging a theoretical best human organization – I went back into history and looked for an organization that had outperformed all others for hundreds of years and looked at its principles. I found such an organization. We can see vestiges of its structural features still today.

• Post 1 – Is a huge and controlling head office essential? Is there a natural organization for humans as there is of course for whales, wolves and elephants? What did I find?
• Post 2 The Roman Legion is what I found and here is how it really worked – why it did not need a staff or a head office or even a very good general – why you don’t either
• Post 3 – In science you have to be able to repeat something to know that it is valid. So here is a much later example of the principles found in the legion and a completely modern version as well