Grains of Gold

"Knowledge sharing is an essential component in the process of innovation. When we look back at the..."

Mon, 20 May 2013 02:44:24 -0400

“Knowledge sharing is an essential component in the process of innovation. When we look back at the history of great innovations, we nearly always find that innovations do not come from a lone genius locked away from the world. Instead, they come from people who find ways to connect with other people and their different ideas. These people are able to take concepts, often in disparate fields, and combine them to form a new idea that is better than its individual parts. Google the history of the ice cream cone, the airplane, the cell phone, Velcro, the moving assembly line, and, of course, the Post-it, and you will find that all those innovations were created as a result of melding ideas from different sources.”

- Spaceport Innovators: Knowledge Sharing as the Gateway to Innovation | APPEL http://t.co/5Iic8Vz0ko

"The greatest danger leaders can face is isolation and an inability to keep learning. Most leaders..."

Fri, 17 May 2013 00:49:57 -0400

“The greatest danger leaders can face is isolation and an inability to keep learning. Most leaders agree with this in concept but, upon reflection, realize they are more isolated than they thought. For example, as you become more senior, your people are less likely to give you bad news or criticize you for your shortcomings. In fact, most of your colleagues are subordinates who are more concerned with making a good impression on you than trying to give you coaching. As a result of this, leaders need to work harder to seek advice and encourage debate and disagreement. In addition, they have to work harder to see clients as well as solicit advice and constructive criticism from those who observe them. In short they have to work harder to fight isolation and they have to make a conscious effort to keep learning.”

- Robert Steven Kaplan http://blogs.wsj.com/ideas-market/2013/05/15/harvards-robert-steven-kaplan-on-what-were-really-meant-to-do/

"The industrial model broke down work into its simplest elements and linked it together in..."

Mon, 06 May 2013 02:00:48 -0400

“

The industrial model broke down work into its simplest elements and linked it together in complex processes. The knowledge component was removed from workers and reserved for management, while workers were provided with just enough knowledge to “do their job”…..

Breaking down that model and restoring the knowledge creation and sharing function to all employees requires executive commitment to reexamine business processes, HR policies, and IT infrastructure.

”

- Scott Beaty, Director of Knowledge Management, Shell Oil Company, 2000 (quote found via Nick Milton)

"Social / Open Business Adoption is hard. Well, it should well be. If not, what is the point?..."

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 04:30:44 -0400

“Social / Open Business Adoption is hard. Well, it should well be. If not, what is the point? What’s the challenge? Where is your vision? Where is the business value? What are your goals? Think of it, if social / open business adoption would have been really easy most of us would have gotten pretty much bored right from the start and would have moved elsewhere already. Whether we like it or not, we, social / open business evangelists live on the laggards, the critics, the skeptics. They are the ones who keep feeding us with their negativity, who make us stronger by putting up a good fight, the ones who makes us think whether what we do is worth while or not. In short, they are the ones who will make your adoption efforts a real success or just another IT project failure.”

- Luis Suarez - http://www.elsua.net/2013/04/23/social-business-adoption-the-laggards-the-critics-and-the-skeptics/

"The Internet isn’t really a technology. It’s a belief system, a philosophy about the effectiveness..."

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 16:11:21 -0400

“

The Internet isn’t really a technology. It’s a belief system, a philosophy about the effectiveness of decentralized, bottom-up innovation. And it’s a philosophy that has begun to change how we think about creativity itself.

The ethos of the Internet is that everyone should have the freedom to connect, to innovate, to program, without asking permission. No one can know the whole of the network, and by design it cannot be centrally controlled. This network was intended to be decentralized, its assets widely distributed. Today most innovation springs from small groups at its “edges.”

”

- Joichi Ito http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/06/science/joichi-ito-innovating-by-the-seat-of-our-pants.html?_r=1&

"A manager recently voiced his concerns: “Most employees prefer being told what to do. They are..."

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 02:41:45 -0400

“

A manager recently voiced his concerns: “Most employees prefer being told what to do. They are willing to accept being treated like children in exchange for reduced stress. They are also willing to obey authority in exchange for job security.” That is the way we have seen it: managers inspire, motivate and control employees who need to be inspired, motivated and controlled. These dynamics create the system of management and justify its continuation.

If we want to meet the challenges of the post-industrial world, this relationship needs to change. The workers changing their role are often seen as a matter of the extent to which the managers are willing to allow it and give up responsibility. In reality it is as much a matter of how much the workers are willing to grow their (management) capacity and take more and wider responsibility.

”

- Esko Kilpi http://eskokilpi.blogging.fi/2013/04/14/social-business-and-the-changing-theory-of-management/

"Social Business has no doubt seen success in pockets. But mostly, Social Business to date is..."

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 01:29:07 -0400

“Social Business has no doubt seen success in pockets. But mostly, Social Business to date is like a Salmon swimming upstream. We all know how that movie ends. It’s time to see how you can leverage social computing to enable the organization to swim in the direction of the incentive currents and help them collaborate more effectively where its apparently needed. And identify which technology puts flippers on your employees feet.”

- Sameer Patel
http://www.pretzellogic.org/blog/2013/04/06/circular-social-business-arguments/

"Employees who want to game the system are going to do so inside or outside the office. Supervising..."

Sat, 16 Mar 2013 18:10:51 -0400

“Employees who want to game the system are going to do so inside or outside the office. Supervising them more closely is costly, enervating, and it’s ultimately a losing game. As for highly motivated employees who’ve been working from home, all they’re likely to feel about being called back to the office is resentful — and more inclined to look for new jobs.”

- Tony Schwartz http://www.theenergyproject.com/blog/want-productive-employees-treat-them-adults#ixzz2Nk8PxSAa

"The tension between ‘business’ and IT has been around forever, but instead of getting..."

Sun, 10 Mar 2013 15:27:45 -0400

“The tension between ‘business’ and IT has been around forever, but instead of getting better, it has gotten worse in the last couple of years. The reason is that digital has become ’normality’, and almost everyone now feels at ease with digital technology. In other words, the natural knowledge advantage of the IT department has eroded. To put it bluntly, since everyone and their dog started carrying around iPads, the IT department really lost their advantage on the ‘frontier of technology’.”

- Peter Hinssen http://www.businessinsider.com/it-departments-have-become-completely-useless-2013-3

"Working in a world of extended collaboration asks individuals to contribute through a different and,..."

Tue, 26 Feb 2013 01:19:03 -0500

“

Working in a world of extended collaboration asks individuals to contribute through a different and, in many ways, more complex set of activities. Workers must deal with rich content that flows through infinite links. Individuals must make intelligent, well-informed decisions about what to share with whom (and what not to) with less guidance from the hierarchy to simplify the patterns of interaction. And they must dig deep within themselves to form innovative ideas and put their best thinking forward.

To a large extent, the conduct of these activities is not something managers can prescribe or even monitor. Unlike process-based work, in which the goal is to perform synchronized tasks consistently and reliably, extended collaboration occurs asynchronously and is often aimed at discovering or developing something new. Rather than requiring everyone to be in the same place at the same time, extended collaboration can occur virtually. In process-based work, quality can be assured through in-process inspection and performance judged on conformity to process specifications, while the quality of collaborative work can typically be assessed only by the results achieved.

”

- Tammy Erickson http://blogs.hbr.org/erickson/2011/03/challenging_our_deeply_held_as.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+harvardbusiness%2Ferickson+%28Tammy+Erickson+on+HBR.org%29

"Constraints shape and focus problems, and provide clear challenges to overcome as well as..."

Fri, 01 Feb 2013 14:56:23 -0500

“Constraints shape and focus problems, and provide clear challenges to overcome as well as inspiration. Creativity loves constraints, but they must be balanced with a healthy disregard for the impossible.”

- Marissa Mayer http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2013/01/how_intelligent_constraints_dr.html

"If implementing enterprise social software can increase employee engagement by as little as 0.1%,..."

Wed, 12 Dec 2012 08:24:20 -0500

“If implementing enterprise social software can increase employee engagement by as little as 0.1%, based on Best Buy’s correlation between engagement and operating income that would result in an ROI of greater than 800%”

- Competing on Talent Analytics

by Thomas H. Davenport, Jeanne Harris, and Jeremy Shapiro

"Almost all companies that enjoy success over a prolonged period, or that regain a profitable..."

Sat, 10 Nov 2012 02:33:54 -0500

“Almost all companies that enjoy success over a prolonged period, or that regain a profitable position in a competitive market, will be able to trace the improvement back to a fundamental change in the company’s assumptions…There are many assumptions to evaluate and study. Think about how your business interacts with customers and end users. Did you set your sales and marketing strategy before the explosion of social media? Did you even imagine that customers could be your partners, not just customers? Probably not, because the social media that make it possible for you to engage your clients as partners didn’t exist back then. Yet your basic assumptions about customers remain the same!”

- From “Unboss” by Lars Kolind and Jacob Boetter

"Social” is not a layer. “Social” is not a feature. “Social” isn’t a product. Social is about..."

Sat, 03 Nov 2012 02:48:14 -0400

““Social” is not a layer. “Social” is not a feature. “Social” isn’t a product. Social is about bringing being human back into business. About how we conduct business. About why we conduct business. Social is something in people’s hearts, in people’s beings, in their DNA. Man is born social. Many companies were not. And the companies that weren’t, they can’t just become social by buying layers or features or even products. Porcine unguents, nothing more. You need to be reborn social.”

- JP Rangaswami http://confusedofcalcutta.com/2012/11/02/plural-of-personal-is-social/

"We do not keep separate sets of people, some of which we communicate in one medium and some by..."

Fri, 19 Oct 2012 00:34:39 -0400

“We do not keep separate sets of people, some of which we communicate in one medium and some by another. The more often we see someone face-to-face, the more likely it is that we will telephone the person or communicate in some other medium…In the realm of communication for inspiration … visual contact is probably the most important. If people do not see each other, they will not have the opportunity to interact and create that knowledge.”

- James Thomas Allen, “Managing the flow of technology” (MIT Press, 1984)

"The architecture of work is the network and the basic unit of work is not a process or a job role..."

Thu, 04 Oct 2012 00:43:44 -0400

“The architecture of work is the network and the basic unit of work is not a process or a job role but a task”

- Esko Kilpi, @EskoKilpi

"Facts"

Wed, 03 Oct 2012 04:30:37 -0400

42% believe in ghosts (Poll Harris Interactive 2009)

76% believe in miracles (Poll Harris Interactive 2009)

38% trust business to do the right thing (Edelman Trust Survey 2009)

"This social revolution is unlike anything we have experienced before. It’s an incredible time,..."

Fri, 21 Sep 2012 00:54:35 -0400

“This social revolution is unlike anything we have experienced before. It’s an incredible time, a spectacular time. It goes even deeper… it gets down into our core, The fundamental interaction between each one of us, because we are changing how we are doing business.”

- Marc Benioff, CEO and co-founder of Salesforce http://m.cnet.com/news/salesforcecoms-marc-benioff-preaches-the-social-enterprise-gospel/57515986?ds=1

"Companies that really do a good job of focusing on their customers, training their employees,..."

Wed, 19 Sep 2012 04:46:19 -0400

“Companies that really do a good job of focusing on their customers, training their employees, nurturing the right culture, and that develop a free flowing information style, are going to be today’s big winners.”

- George Hu, Salesforce.com’s Chief Operating Officer http://www.forbes.com/sites/markfidelman/2012/09/19/salesforce-coms-new-social-strategy-is-brilliant-heres-why/

"I’ve never been in a business that would be able to serve its mission and reach its goals..."

Tue, 18 Sep 2012 00:28:21 -0400

“I’ve never been in a business that would be able to serve its mission and reach its goals without relationship, and vulnerability is the glue the binds relationships together…We want innovation but we have no tolerance for risk or vulnerability—and vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation and creativity.”

- Brené Brown, author of Daring Greatly http://www.fastcompany.com/3001319/why-doing-awesome-work-means-making-yourself-vulnerable