A sense of wonder

You can polish your house al you want, without friction, it won’t shine.

By starting with a multi-disciplinary team, we create a conflict of ideas that facilitates a drive to explore and create value together. Mother nature did it before us; homo sapiens became the dominant species on this planet through strife! The beauty of it is, that this is a self-sustaining process. Because of an experience that remains with you for a very long time, if not for life, the team will always be able to fall back on each other and they know it! The wonder of discovery! In yourself and in others.

We create friction, we create excitement, we create trust and a common enemy in the contradictions that need to be solved to innovate. People become excited about themselves (personal growth), about the contradictions they need to tackle (creative growth), about the group of people (social growth) they are playing with and about the results they will achieve (financial growth)! The group doesn’t have to work together, they don’t simply want to work together, they love to work together.

We provide a team with the means to stay in touch and keep sharing experiences and innovate their lives long after we are gone. That’s what our approach to structured innovation is for; it’s a path to follow together to create meaning and value for ourselves and those around us. That’s what our web hosted platform is for; to facilitate learning, communication, the sharing of ideas, and a path to follow to realize the winning ideas.

Where is your sense of wonder?

The Value of the Intangible

We are running a research project with the Technical University Twente and Nikos (Dutch Institute for Knowledge Intensive Entrepreneurship) , to investigate the value of existing networks in organizations. As such we aim to provide an insight into which aspects determine that value. The results will give decision-makers mechanisms to nourish and stimulate the collaborative network, thus creating more value. Most of a network's values are intangible; we explicitly recognize human, creative and social capital as value domains complementary to financial capital. Ideas (creative value) cannot be touched, yet can generate huge revenues. Relations (social value) are amorphic context-dependent dynamic interactions, as intangible as things get, yet they are crucial to business, whether they be relations with suppliers, investors, customers or employees.

Analysis of intangible values in a business context is not something we have invented. The work of Verna Allee provides a smart and practical way to incorporate intangibles in your business and marketing strategy.

We have designed a questionair that assesses all relevant aspects of value, across the different domains. With that accomplished I realized there is something odd about what we are measuring. The questionair is real enough, and so the answers will be real too. But none of these can be considered ‘objective’ realities. People are asked to judge what they think and feel about certain aspects of their context. They are asked about their personal judgements about what aspects create value, and how much of these aspects is realized, how much of what they think is valuable do they observe in the world around them. This is highly subjective.

We are therefore investigating subjective realities, and one might argue if that is a questionable aspect of our research. Is research not supposed to be about objective facts?

In fact, we do exactly what we should be doing. Value is created by people, inside their own consciousness, even the objectively tangible value we measure in cash. Revenue is still te product of people making choices to buy products and services on the basis of what they personally value; what subjective decisions they make.

This is perhaps less striking for marketeers and psychologists, who fundamentally explore the domain of the intangible and subjective, but in a world that pretends to be so much about hard cash these are relevant considerations.

Individualism my a...

There are many individuals with their own opinions and their own way of looking at things, but there is no such thing as individualism. As our government wants to blame everything and anything that is going wrong in our society on individualism, I get more and more pissed off. Where are our values and what is the norm we hold people up to? We are social beings and depending on context filter our daily life to make sense of it. We subdivide people and situations in categories to give them meaning and the means to talk about them. We create new norms and values everyday of our lives. We innovate and change!

When our government tells us we are growing more and more detached from society each day, don’t care for each other anymore and are only asking the what’s in it for me question, I have just one response to that. Wake up to the changes around you. Stop talking and start listening! Observe what is happening with an open mind and don't try to force your stupid values on us! Yes, they are stupid when you have to force them instead of enforce them! The only reason you blame everything on individualism is because you refuse to let go of old categories that used to make sense of ‘your’ society. People have moved on and found new ways to make sense of their lives, time for you to do the same!

Necessity is the mother of all invention!

It seems like people don't want to think and make relevant choices to their own lifes. When it comes to knowledge we are always looking for a fast food chain, a quick fix. When we need to make choices on where to go, we choose to stay afloat by treading water instead of swimming to shore. When we want to be part of something, we think we get there by fitting in. We want to belong so much, that we strife to become one while our strength lies in our diversity. Work, money, ambition, we bury ourselves in it without wondering why. It’s like a rubber band, we are being drawn between what we want to do and what we have to do. The only thing that will guide us is a personal strategy of what we want, what we have to do and how far we are willing to go to reach our goals!

The essence of strategy is focus! While we are not without focus, the problem is that most of us do not realize what we are focusing on. It has become a subconscious thing because we lack a conscious strategy. In times of prosperity, this kind of behavior is a societal benefit. Since we are not working on a conscious strategy and just want to belong and fit in, there is very little conflict. The resulting stability is what is needed in times of growth. The phrase never touch a working system applies! In times of adversity, this starts to work against us. To improve the situation, we need to come up with a conscious strategy and make hard choices. Choices based on the vision of a better future. The never touch . . saying does not apply anymore. The problem is; the fact that the system is not working anymore is not registered and acted upon. Worse, we cling to our ‘working system’ in fear. Just pretend nothing is wrong. No strategy, no focus.

Reality drives all events! We can cling to non-working systems all we want, it won’t give us anything but a false sense of security. An illusion that will be shattered when reality finally hits us in the face. Talking about illusions; most CEO’s and government officials are in office, but not in power. They are not in the game, they are not playing and learning new stuff in the game and still they pretend to know the game based on ten year old experience. It’s called being over the hill! They are just using the carrot and the stick. Putting the fear in us for the unknown without explaining, or promising us riches without providing a basis. It’s a sign of our times.

Luckily for us, necessity is the mother of all invention. There are always people who see their own needs and those of others and they will come up with strategies and visions to improve our lives. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have a platform (business, process and technology) for people to work together, to prosper and create value together? I think so!

Because that’s what it means to be part of something! It is not just fitting in, it means contributing to something that has meaning, to add value and to be valuable! Maybe then we will not be afraid to grow (old), because our life won’t lack meaning!

The end of process? I think not!

I read a challenging statement from Ross Mayfield on the end of process. I don’t buy it! Process is what provides us with a comfort zone, a path to follow, especially when times get hard. Processes change in time to adapt to changing contexts, they will never disappear; sorry Ross, not even formal business processes. The fact that some organizations are in a downward spiral when it comes to innovation has a lot to do with the shareholder induced efficiency and cost cutting dogma’s. This is not about process, this is about context! We just need to recognize the changing context and adapt. To adapt we need to work together in multi-disciplinary teams (Toyota) instead of squeezing every last drop of life blood out of our employees and suppliers (GM) to gain short term advantages at the cost of optimizing ourselves to our grave. The processes should be owned by the people who act them out, not forced to wear as straight jackets by the top brass.

A good process is like a good contract. It doesn’t deal with any and all we want to do together, it describes what we want to do together and provides handles for when we hit an exception to the rule. As soon as a process or contract doesn’t, they become straight jackets instead of a means to provide direction and the necessary safeguards to get there. Flexibility built in! Innovation is for the most part recombining existing solutions and there are proven processes with which we solve our contradictions to innovate. Practically every contradiction has been encountered before and people have come up with principles to deal with them. What we need therefore is not a process to innovate, but a process to come up with the right way to innovate within our context. Try putting that into a contract! You can in a process!

Ross' product is a first step to support part of the needed flexibility with web based technology from a more human point of view. I hope he keeps improving on socialtext, I just hope he won’t forget the role processes play in our daily life.

A unifying theory

A unifying theory? Sadly not in Physics, I am not half intelligent enough for that. What it is, is an elaboration of what Mathijs hinted at in his piece on A new Philosophy. A unifying vision on the Marketing/Customer Knowledge/Scenario planning, ‘classical’ KM and the Learning organization.

Because we are in an environment where change is continuous, with new competitors constantly appearing, where new technology (e.g. mobile) is making new possibilities a reality almost daily, organizations have to continuously re-invent themselves. At the same time they have to be super-competitive and looking out for the ‘next big thing’. So, any organization that wishes to survive must be simultaneously effective in all three dimensions of innovation and change:

1. Understand
   Is about the monitoring, development and recombination of products/services, to meet ever changing needs.
2. Renew
   Over time, new products and services are constantly demanded by the market and new solutions must be invented.
3. Exploit
   Is about rapidly responding to market opportunities, for which we must use top resources to be a first mover.

The dimension of Understand relates to people’s sensitivity to trends, scenario- and ‘what-if’ planning, an organization’s Market forecasting and to elements of CRM and Business (Competitive) Intelligence. Understanding is of no value if there is no attempt to translate this understanding into new products and services.

The dimension of Renewal is about translating our expectations on future demands into new products, services, capabilities and so on. This is essentially the capability development and the Learning Organization part of collaborative networks. It also stresses the point that a Collaborative network is selling knowledge and can always re-train its people to ‘deliver the new knowledge’.

The Exploit dimension covers what might be called ‘classical’ KM - e.g. Re-use, sharing, best practice, communities of practice and so on where we are trying to maximize the return on the knowledge assets we already have. If an organization focuses on renewal but does not fully exploit new opportunities while ‘the window is open’ it will never create the funds for future investments. It is not enough anymore to Exploit, with shorter and shorter product life cycles, the advantage of being first mover will soon disappear.

The key point we are trying to make is what Collaborative networks, when seen in totality, are driving. Collaborative networks of diverse specialists around a strategic topic are ideally suited to understand, renew and then; drive the exploitation. That is what successful innovation is about; the future growth, prosperity, relevance and survival of an organization - any organization!

Man's natural condition

When looking around me, it seems to me that people are not taking time to reflect. They are in their cars, going at a 120 miles per hour, racing to the next red light or traffic jam. It seems like it is man's natural state to go nowhere in a hurry. Reflection is for when you are young! When you go to school and learn! When you enter you're first years of corporate life! As if the reflection benefit ratio is only in the plus during the amount of time it takes for us to 'mature'. Hurry up and stay! Now is the time to produce and become a 'productive' member of society! Play is over! No time for frivolous thoughts or discussions on subjects not directly related to being productive. No chatting allowed! Retirement at 65!

This is wrong on so many levels, that I don't really know where to begin. Peter F. Drucker just past away at 95, he started his career in 1946 arguing that managers should give workers the power to make decisions and take the initiative. Why are many companies still not following this very sensible advice? I think it's because for that to happen you need to know where you want to go, how you want to get there and what you are willing to do to get there, as an individual and as a group or company. That is impossible without wisdom and wisdom is impossible without reflection. At the current speed with which we are changing, it is also impossible to do alone.

The problem is, this takes time and effort and we are so busy getting faster, that we do not want to take the time or effort to reflect on where we are going. I am not saying everything we do is getting nowhere, that is just an exaggeration to prove a point. The point being that we are not taking the time anymore to wonder were we are going, let alone whether we even want to go there. What about enjoyment, what about being master of your own destiny, what about personal leadership. A case in point. In the Netherlands the media is full of the lack of leadership in our country. I agree with the sentiment, but not with the proposed solutions. What we forget is that most leadership is context dependent. Being context dependent, it is essential we give our potential leaders the time and space to find out how their leadership potential fits into the context within which they are to operate. They need to be given room to grow into their potential and that takes play and reflection, individually as well as in a group. It also takes time to gather experience. The problem is; we seem to think that training is enough. Another quick fix to satisfy our need for speed.

There is a very old saying; Think before you act! Take time to reflect on the challenge you are facing and look at both the short term and long term impact of possible solutions. Talk with different people and cherish the dissonant who forces you to look at what you are doing from a different perspective. We need to change our natural state from one where we go nowhere at a 120 miles per hour, to making sure that we get to were we want to go!

Moving out of our comfort zone

I have been trying to write something sensible on why it is difficult to start something new and gather enough people around us to make it stick. I have come close, but no cigar. Until I read Danah Boyd's latest blog here. It's been staring us in the face all the time. We create enthusiasm and interest, because what we deliver is a new experience and a new way to experience. It addresses something on an emotional level that has been bothering many people; how can I be valuable, how can I contribute?

We try to constantly move people out of there comfort zone; discuss what motivates them together with others with different backgrounds and viewpoints. By stimulating a discussion/conflict on a topic approached from each individual's different viewpoint, new insights are created. This is a very stimulating experience that you long remember as invigorating. Based on these new insights, people become creative and innovate. To support the latter we provide the means to do this in a structured way, and in a sense provide a comfort zone for realisation of their new idea. There is your added value!

What struck me in the article - the challenge we face - is that as soon as we gather a significant number of people around us, we start to think the same and slowly become homogenous and start preaching to the choir. We strife to become one when our strength lies in our diversity., and there goes our advantage. How about that for a contradiction! In order to keep sharp, we need to constantly meet and discuss with diverse and new groups of people. We need to constantly diversify! Our own private version of the red queen syndrome.

This is a serious dilemma. Why? Because it is very hard to sell something that needs to change in order to stay valuable. We need to address the short term financial value of what we do in order to sell, but since the added value is based on human, creative and social values as a catalyst for change and creating financial value; we are having difficulty in providing a stable product and a consistent market approach.

Mathijs' piece on pennies from heaven, provides the basis for our grounding. I am looking forward to constantly moving us out of our own comfort zone.

Pennies from Heaven

Knowing what to do is not the same as doing it. Realizing the necessity of taking a certain action is usually not sufficient motivation to actually make a move. Such is man's proclivity for inertia. Is it fair to project this idea onto our prospective clients?
One important aspect of our idea is our approach to values. When we talk about value and added value we have four different dimensions in mind: human value, creative value, social value, and... yes, financial value. These distinctions don't always resonate with our prospects. The issue always seems to be reduced back to: how and when do you produce financial value?
This question is asked for every new initiative taken, implying that we are all in fact very careful to make only decisions that create a certain and fair amount of return on investment. How can we then explain the burst of the internet bubble? How is it that our economy has been in a rut ever since that time?

Financial value... hmmm. We live in an experience economy as much as we live in a knowledge economy, this is illustrated by the high value we put on experiences. We are quite willing to pay good money for experiences in our personal lives; we go skying and scuba diving, drink quality wine, and pay exorbitant prices to see our favorite artists perform. The essence is always the experience. How odd to value such a transient intangible 'thing'?
Financial value is not the bottom line at all. Money in fact is not the most important factor in life, and neither in business. (Life includes business, therefore what is valid of life is valid of business: there is no business without life)
Why then do we limit our conception of value so much in our professional lives? Someone told me recently:"If it doesn't make you any money, you shouldn't be doing it."
That's bullshit. We have to stop this systematic application of a double standard. Return on investment is not the important issue, added value is. If we act only out of financial gain, we paralyse all value adding processes. All financial value is produced by people working together creating and marketing new ideas, it is a consequence of succesful processes in other value dimension (human, creative, social). The surest way therefore to create financial value is to invest in these other dimensions. Of course everybody knows this, and we have known this for years, yet it still seems difficult to act on this common knowledge.