I’ve taken a little break reading and thinking. I’ve spent the last few days working on some ideas regarding the traversal of innovations across a community and then working on the data to support these ideas. I’m really excited by some of the information my model fits now.

I’ll also get back to blogging. Should be fun.

Technorati Tags: Web 2.0

by seanmcgrath
Winds Of Change:
[Via Chuck’s Blog]

I really enjoy meeting customers. However, not every customer interaction is sunshine and lollipops.

Sometimes, the interactions can be tense at the beginning, but result in an extremely productive discussion.

I had one of those today, and — as I thought about it — I realized I’m starting to see this particular situation more often. It’s a harbinger of things to come.

It Started Out Rough

During a typical briefing, I’m usually asked to lead off the big technology strategy discussion. It’s usually 45 minutes of private cloud / VCE material, with plenty of time for discussion and debate.

Most of the time, it goes very well. Today, it didn’t.

About 3 minutes after I got started, I could tell by the body language that something was seriously wrong. After 5 minutes, the customer intervened.

They were polite, but firm. They didn’t want to hear about technology, or strategy, or anything like that.

They wanted to know how they were going to transform their organization.

Thus starts a nice post about change in an organization, how it happens and the process to accomplish it. More and more companies do not want to know what software to use. They want to know how to leverage their social network for change, making it easier to innovate.

They recognize that for things to work, the culture must change. But cultures are hard to change. So having an understanding of how people adopt a new idea and how it permeates an organization is critical for making the change successful.

I’ve mentioned the 5 steps people go through as they adopt an innovation. The speed that individuals move through these 5 steps places them into one of 5 groups.

And all of this works inside a human social network that must be used in order to accomplish change.

We started by sharing that communications — to all your stakeholders — is a do-or-die mission when contemplating significant organizational change. So much so that we’ve seen IT organizations appoint a communications professional (aka the marketing type) to engage and persuade people across a variety of functions.

I’d consider that a “best practice”, with one caveat. There are a lot of marketing people who know how to do nice newsletters and websites, but really don’t have much of a voice. Find a marketing person with a strong voice, and isn’t afraid of using it.

Yes, I know it sounds ludicrous that an IT organization would hire a marketing professional (don’t we have enough of those running around?) but they’d already considered this proposition on their own — we just confirmed their suspicions.

And, it logically follows that if you’re going to accelerate organizational change, you’re going to be doing a lot of communicating, and that can be a specialized skill.

First you have to engage individuals. Awareness and interest are the first two steps for anyone to pass through as they adopt an change in routine. Effective communication – marketing – is critical. Because the people you want to engage first, the innovators and early adopters, will also be the ones looking most to listen, if the message is presented properly. They are often the most aware and the most interested.

Then the next steps, evaluation and trial can be examined.

There seems to be two generic approaches to getting people to use new infrastructure and processes.

One is the classic “let’s move everything to the new world” approach. Big lists, complex plans, daunting obstacles, unknown risks — this stuff is very hard on the brain. You set yourself up for people to resist.

There are some situations where there is no other viable option, but — in many cases — there’s an incremental approach that has more to do with social engineering than project management. And I have personal experience that it works very well indeed.

Consider building the shiny new thing on a small scale — maybe a small, internal private cloud. Or, perhaps, a new self-service operational process. Anything at all that represents a significant departure from traditional approaches — it really doesn’t matter.

Put some cool people on it. Give it a nice internal brand. Use terms like “pilot” or “proof of concept” to keep people from jumping off cliffs. Communicate widely what you’re doing and why. Make it look like fun, rather than work.

When it’s ready, invite people to try it out. Enlist internal champions to provide coaching and feedback. Ask various executives to give the project a mention in their forums.

If these people like what they see, they’ll tell others, who will be curious as well. Communicate frequently, openly and transparently to anyone who’ll listen or read.

The shiny new thing will attract the innovators, who are always attracted by novelty. And the cool ones are simply another way of describing early adopters. Early adopters are critical for moving an innovation through a community because they are often the important leaders that will be listened to.

The majority of people will only adopt something new when advised to by someone they know and trust in the community. It turns out that early adopters fit this position because they have often had ideas that made everyone’s life easier. They have been successful harnringers of change before to the community. So they are listened to.

The sooner early adopters are on board, the faster things will change as they tell others.

There are many progressive IT organizations that embrace change. And there are more than a few who tend to resist any change whatsoever. This was a big concern for this particular customer.

It’s one thing to convince the business to look at IT differently. It’s another thing entirely to convince IT to look at IT differently. This somewhat paradoxical behavior is not unique to IT people: I’ve seen it in HR, legal, manufacturing, engineering, sales, etc., e.g. everyone has to change but me!

There’s a variety of techniques I’ve seen IT leaders use to combat this problem — rooting out the ringleaders, constant and patient communication, incentive and recognition programs — even bringing a small crew of managed services contractors to show how things *could* be done.

Frankly speaking, there’s nothing specific to IT in this discussion — the same techniques work for any organizational leader to bring the function along to a new world view. The simple approach is to acknowledge it’s a problem, and have a plan to deal with it.

There will always be laggards, those who change very slowly. By keeping communications open and transparent, some of these can be moved over. But there should be recognition that 100% satisfaction is unlikely.

So, find the innovators and early adopters. Move them to your side and help them change the system.

Some of the most impressive IT change agents I’ve met are networking experts.

If your mind immediately went to protocol stacks, you missed the point — these people are social animals. They build relationships across the organization in a variety of places, and they build relationships outside their company, hopefully with people who are doing much the same thing as they are doing.

The best change artists are connected to a very highly linked social network. These include the early adopters who not only have connections inside the community but many outside as well. They are looking for changes that will make their life easier. They are the easiest to get to adopt change, as long as the change is meaningful to their life and work.

Recognizing where people fall along the innovation curve, how rapidly they move through the 5 steps, is critical for making change happen. Find the innovators and early adopters. Give them the tools to help market the change, thus making the change happen from the demand of the community rather than as a mandate from above.

Facilitated change can permit a community to adopt innovations faster and become more productive while being less disrupted.

Technorati Tags: Social media, Web 2.0

by seier+seier+seier
Lessons Learned — Why the Failure of Systems Thinking Should Inform the Future of Design Thinking:
[Via Manage by Designing]

“You never learn by doing something right ‘cause you already know how to do it. You only learn from making mistakes and correcting them.”
Russell Ackoff
Design and “design thinking” is gaining recognition as an important integrative concept in management practice and education. But it will fail to have a lasting impact, unless we learn from the mistakes of earlier, related ideas. For instance, “system thinking”, which shares many of the conceptual foundations of “design thinking”, promised to be a powerful guide to management practice, but it has never achieved the success its proponents hoped for. If systems thinking had been successful in gaining a foothold in management education over the last half of the 20th century, there would be no manage by designing movement, or calls for integrative or design thinking.

[More]

This is a very interesting discussion. It seems to me the problem is not with systems thinking but with the attempt to create a defined process for it. Human nature includes trying to grasp innovation by naming it. In many cases, old fashioned hierarchical approaches are being use to try and fold systems thinking into them.

I recently spent two days at a workshop with around a dozen architects and managers. The facilitator was one of Russ Ackoff’s former colleagues at the Wharton School. It is a reflection of what has become of systems thinking that it took most of the two days for the facilitator to explicate all that he thought we needed to know before we could begin either critiquing or applying the ideas In addition to obvious material on the nature of systems, we learned about chaos theory, living systems theory, Santiago theories, the four foundations of systems methodology (holistic thinking, operational thinking, interactive design, and socio-cultural models), five systems principles (openness, emergent properties, multi-dimensionality, counter-intuitiveness, and purposefulness), the five interactive dimensions of social systems (wealth, beauty, power, value and knowledge) and the related five dimensions of an organization (throughput processes, membership, decision, conflict management, and measurement), the elements of a throughput system (time, cost flexibility, quality, measurement, diagnostic, improvement and redesign), the nature of holistic thinking and iteration, the laws of complexity, loops and feedback, and more.

All of this was presented as foundational knowledge that was necessary before we could get to what it was that brought most of us (or at least me) to this particular workshop — designing for human interaction. In addition to the number of frameworks and ideas, and the density of the interconnections among them, there was a strong normative quality to the material and its presentation. “If one hopes to make any progress at all,” we were told, “you need to both understand and accept these related ideas.”

Systems approaches are not a series of bullet points. They are approaches for using human social networks to solve complex problems. It may not be useful for accountants but it can be critical for researchers.

It is not a set of bullet points. People do not simply change to a new approach because someone else says to or has a bunch of fancy names. I’ve mentioned what is necessary. The post also recognizes this.

These requirements are at odds with how we tend to acquire new knowledge. Rather than accepting a new idea because we must, we like to try it out. A new skill is most likely to interest us if it contributes to both short-term and long-term learning objectives. And the easier it is to try out parts of a theory, the more likely we are to jump in.

Systems thinking works when people learn and adopt an approach, not when they are told the steps involved. And they have to recognize that it has short term benefits.

Use a bottom up approach. Find the early adopters and get them on board. Work the adoption curve and you will have much more success. That should be the lessoned learned.

Technorati Tags: Social media, Web 2.0

I happened to read this article from the Center for American Progress about the different groups found in polls about global warming. and was immediatley taken with the numbers. Here is the relevant figure I wish to discuss.

I’ve read a lot about how new ideas and innovations work their way through a population (here are some handy examples). What struck me was the these percentages are actually almost exactly the numbers one would expect to see for any innovation or idea moving its way through a society. Read the whole report . Seldom does a survey’s report find people falling into similar ‘types’ seen that full scale research efforts also identified.

Look at the numbers – 18%, 33%, 19%, 12%, 11% and 7%. I’ve mentioned several times before the different groups that are found as an innovation or as new idea diffuses through a community. There has been a lot of work that indicates that there are 5 groups present as a community adopts a new idea:

• innovators
• early adopters
• early majority
• late majority
• laggards

From the work of Beal, Rogers and Bohlen (and the Wikipedia page), the distribution of each of these types in a population follows a bell curve,

Now look at the numbers from the global warming survey.They fit pretty well into these categories. Just another item to demonstrate how acceptance of a novel idea or innovation breaks down.

This can also give us hints about how far we are along the process of adoption of the innovation

If one looks at the cumulative adoption of an innovation in a community, it follows an S-shaped curve, as seen in the original paper from Ryan and Gross from the 30s:

This same sort of curve is seen again and again. It does not matter whether the innovation is a new hybrid corn or a new drug. It appears that this type of adoption is very dependent on human social networks. Each group informs itself based on what the previous group knows (i.e. the group to the left).

For example, the innovators tend to be highly connected with many sources of information from outside a community, acting to bring that information into a group from outside and determine whether the idea the innovators are playing with has any real use. The early adopters act as a bridge from the innovators and the rest of the community, usually adding their own input and serving as opinion leaders on new innovations.

The 68% in the middle are deferential to the opinions of people that they trust. They usually need explicit approval from leaders in their community before adopting a new innovation.So, the early middle adopt a new innovation when the early adopters do while the late majority waits until the early middle does. The laggards serve as a check on the entire group to make sure the community does not get overly excited by the innovators and their shiny new toys.

There is, then, a pretty defined path to adoption of new innovations and ideas in a community. So, where are we with regard to progressing along this curve for climate change? Well, the curve starts with 0% adoption of the innovation and progresses to 100% (or close to it), so we are obviously some place along the curve.

Examination of the curve above shows that once the early adopters and innovators have made the change (that is, when about 16% are onboard), then the rate of adoption increases tremendously, almost going exponential, as the majority in the middle rapidly begin adopting the change.

Well, we now have more than the 16% on board with global warming, so we should expect rapid change. I think that is exactly what we are seeing.

In fact, the early majority is really moving close to where the early adopters/innovators are, with even some of the laggards getting on board. Ten years ago, there was a lot of doubt that climate change was even happening. Now look at the distribution:

Almost everyone is above ‘Don’t know” and the various ‘global warming is not happening’ choices. We are making progress. And I suspect we are well along the part of the curve signaling rapid change in people’s views.

The debate is really not going to be if global warming is happening but what to do about it, an entirely new sort of debate. And some of the debating points appear to already have been decided. For instance, carbon dioxide as a pollutant:

or increasing fuel efficiency, something Obama just announced:

Both of these show significant support throughout the population. In contrast, there are also some ideas that are still in the very early stages with even the early adopters unsure if they should take up the innovation:

All in all, a great report illustrating the standard process as new ideas percolate through a population. We are well through the stages of acceptance of global warming and making good progress on what to do about it.

Just remember, once the early adopters/innovatoers have taken a position on a new innovation or idea, then change usually happens quite rapidly. So, identifying who those early opinion makers are and educating them can increase the rate of diffusion of the innovation quite a lot.

Technorati Tags: Environment, Social media, Web 2.0

by Schristia (busy with my daughter’s exams)
The Most Compelling Leadership Vision:
[Via HarvardBusiness.org]

A distinguished woman rose to speak in the front of a room of 40 fellow employees during a Total Leadership workshop I was conducting earlier this week at a large pharmaceutical company’s headquarters.

“Joyous laughter — this is the sound I hear throughout the home I have built and now maintain for mentally ill women in Puerto Rico. They are surrounded by people who love and care for them. They are enjoying life.”

Juana, let’s call her, was telling the brief (one-minute) story of her personal leadership vision; a description of the impact you’re having on your world and the legacy you’re creating 15 years from now. When Juana sat down, one of her close colleagues said, “I’ve known you so long yet I never knew about this part of who you are. Wow!” I couldn’t help but ask Juana how I could support her pursuit of her vision. All of us were moved, and felt inclined to contribute.

People will not follow a leader if it is only to the leader’s benefit. We are social animals, using networks of interactions for live our lives. The most invigorating visions are those that lead people to a better place. Not to one that simply makes the leader wealthy.

After hearing a set of examples, I then ask the whole group to describe what was inspiring in what was just said and heard. Invariably, it is the people who speak not about their own achievement but, rather, about how they’re helping someone else who draw the most powerful emotional responses and pronounced support.

Having heard many personal vision statements in the last few days, in different groups (including, through an interpreter, securities industry executives visiting The Wharton School from China), I was struck, once again, by the power of this very this simple, yet critically important idea. Serve others and others will want to serve you. This paradox is often difficult to grasp, especially in your early years. Yet is seems to be a universal truth: People are more likely to pay attention to you — and they are more inclined to help you — when you declare yourself committed to serving others.

It is a paradox of a social animal – simply doing what is best for the individual is not as successful as doing what is best for the group. The chances for survival are much greater when the power of the group is brought into play. That is why we developed this way. Group dynamics determine what gets done.

So, an effective leader is one that can harness the group but the group evolved to really like what benefits the group, not just the leader. Thus, an effective leader is one who works for the group not just for themselves.

This is not to say that leaders can not utilize the group needs in order to create benefits for the leader. It does suggest, however, that the best leaders are those that at least appear to be serving the group. In most cases, the more the leader appears to just be gaining power purely for self-aggrandizement the less likely they are to maintain the interest of their followers.

Technorati Tags: General, Web 2.0

Frame It Bigger:
[Via chrisbrogan.com]

What would you say some of the biggest communication challenges your organization faces? How would solving or improving any of these better your business (or organization)? What does your customer (even if that’s a b2b customer or an internal customer) need the most from you, and what does your organization need from your customer? How can you improve your customer’s life (in any way)? What would simplify any of your customer’s challenges?

And from these bigger questions, can you find a smaller action? Can you find the miniaturized first step that would bring you in any of those directions?

Photo credit Jurvetson

So often, social media are portrayed as a bottom-up phenomenon. The individual take control of their own needs using these tools. This is certainly one approach that is hard to stop because the tools are so easily implemented and used.

But a larger, more strategic approach can also be extremely useful. This takes a longer, more top-down view to see where the holes exist. Bottom-up approaches can leave gaps between what the user wants and what is also useful for the organization.

Answering these ‘big’ questions can be as useful as answering ‘little’ ones. The organization just has to make it part of their process.

Technorati Tags: Web 2.0