I think the most of you know that I’m a true believer in what Enterprise2-0-technology/mindset/adoption can do for companies ability to stay competitive/alive, and my professional career is all about exactly that.
Sometimes I face the challenge, that people ask me why all this is happening exactly now - what are the signs and trends, why is Enterprise2.0 an answer.
Any thoughts? Perspectives?
I see a few my self….
1. Complexity
2. Globalization
3. Open Source
What do you see? And how?
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Inspired by talks I’ve had with Silje Kamille Friis over the last years combined by thinking grounded in complexity science, sociology and innovation, but also views developed on our team at Wemind, we’ve developed a framework where we create tools for Mind Shift, Skill Shifts & Culture Shifts in organizations to cope with new strategy and business development.
One of our observations, which we try to teach our clients is about a new currency in organizations, in knowledge processes - Generosity |
Recently I surfed Kevin Kelly’s site and read his piece on “better than free“. Marvellous, and spot on on our own view on different and new drivers in knowledge processes and value creation.
His point - in short - it that the super-distribution system has become the foundation of our economy and wealth. The instant reduplication of data, ideas, and media underpins all the major economic sectors in our economy. Our wealth sits upon a very large device that copies promiscuously and constantly.
Yet the previous round of wealth in this economy was built on selling precious copies, so the free flow of free copies tends to undermine the established order. If reproductions of our best efforts are free, how can we then keep going? To put it simply, how does one make money selling free copies?
Kevin has two answers:
So, a major question must be; What can’t be copied?
Consider “trust.” Trust cannot be copied. You can’t purchase it. Trust must be earned, over time. It cannot be downloaded.
There are a number of other qualities similar to trust that are difficult to copy, and thus become valuable in this network economy.
Kelly describes them like generatives - he lists Eight Generatives Better Than Free:
Immediacy – Sooner or later you can find a free copy of whatever you want, but getting a copy delivered to your inbox the moment it is released — or even better, produced — by its creators is a generative asset. Many people go to movie theaters to see films on the opening night, where they will pay a hefty price to see a film that later will be available for free, or almost free, via rental or download. Hardcover books command a premium for their immediacy, disguised as a harder cover. First in line often commands an extra price for the same good. As a sellable quality, immediacy has many levels, including access to beta versions. Fans are brought into the generative process itself. Beta versions are often de-valued because they are incomplete, but they also possess generative qualities that can be sold. Immediacy is a relative term, which is why it is generative. It has to fit with the product and the audience. A blog has a different sense of time than a movie, or a car. But immediacy can be found in any media.
Personalization — A generic version of a concert recording may be free, but if you want a copy that has been tweaked to sound perfect in your particular living room — as if it were preformed in your room — you may be willing to pay a lot. The free copy of a book can be custom edited by the publishers to reflect your own previous reading background. A free movie you buy may be cut to reflect the rating you desire (no violence, dirty language okay). Aspirin is free, but aspirin tailored to your DNA is very expensive. As many have noted, personalization requires an ongoing conversation between the creator and consumer, artist and fan, producer and user. It is deeply generative because it is iterative and time consuming. You can’t copy the personalization that a relationship represents. Marketers call that “stickiness” because it means both sides of the relationship are stuck (invested) in this generative asset, and will be reluctant to switch and start over.
Interpretation — As the old joke goes: software, free. The manual, $10,000. But it’s no joke. A couple of high profile companies, like Red Hat, Apache, and others make their living doing exactly that. They provide paid support for free software. The copy of code, being mere bits, is free — and becomes valuable to you only through the support and guidance. I suspect a lot of genetic information will go this route. Right now getting your copy of your DNA is very expensive, but soon it won’t be. In fact, soon pharmaceutical companies will PAY you to get your genes sequence. So the copy of your sequence will be free, but the interpretation of what it means, what you can do about it, and how to use it — the manual for your genes so to speak — will be expensive.
Authenticity — You might be able to grab a key software application for free, but even if you don’t need a manual, you might like to be sure it is bug free, reliable, and warranted. You’ll pay for authenticity. There are nearly an infinite number of variations of the Grateful Dead jams around; buying an authentic version from the band itself will ensure you get the one you wanted. Or that it was indeed actually performed by the Dead. Artists have dealt with this problem for a long time. Graphic reproductions such as photographs and lithographs often come with the artist’s stamp of authenticity — a signature — to raise the price of the copy. Digital watermarks and other signature technology will not work as copy-protection schemes (copies are super-conducting liquids, remember?) but they can serve up the generative quality of authenticity for those who care.
Accessibility – Ownership often sucks. You have to keep your things tidy, up-to-date, and in the case of digital material, backed up. And in this mobile world, you have to carry it along with you. Many people, me included, will be happy to have others tend our “possessions” by subscribing to them. We’ll pay Acme Digital Warehouse to serve us any musical tune in the world, when and where we want it, as well as any movie, photo (ours or other photographers). Ditto for books and blogs. Acme backs everything up, pays the creators, and delivers us our desires. We can sip it from our phones, PDAs, laptops, big screens from where-ever. The fact that most of this material will be available free, if we want to tend it, back it up, keep adding to it, and organize it, will be less and less appealing as time goes on.
Embodiment — At its core the digital copy is without a body. You can take a free copy of a work and throw it on a screen. But perhaps you’d like to see it in hi-res on a huge screen? Maybe in 3D? PDFs are fine, but sometimes it is delicious to have the same words printed on bright white cottony paper, bound in leather. Feels so good. What about dwelling in your favorite (free) game with 35 others in the same room? There is no end to greater embodiment. Sure, the hi-res of today — which may draw ticket holders to a big theater — may migrate to your home theater tomorrow, but there will always be new insanely great display technology that consumers won’t have. Laser projection, holographic display, the holodeck itself! And nothing gets embodied as much as music in a live performance, with real bodies. The music is free; the bodily performance expensive. This formula is quickly becoming a common one for not only musicians, but even authors. The book is free; the bodily talk is expensive.
Patronage — It is my belief that audiences WANT to pay creators. Fans like to reward artists, musicians, authors and the like with the tokens of their appreciation, because it allows them to connect. But they will only pay if it is very easy to do, a reasonable amount, and they feel certain the money will directly benefit the creators. Radiohead’s recent high-profile experiment in letting fans pay them whatever they wished for a free copy is an excellent illustration of the power of patronage. The elusive, intangible connection that flows between appreciative fans and the artist is worth something. In Radiohead’s case it was about $5 per download. There are many other examples of the audience paying simply because it feels good.
Findability — Where as the previous generative qualities reside within creative digital works, findability is an asset that occurs at a higher level in the aggregate of many works. A zero price does not help direct attention to a work, and in fact may sometimes hinder it. But no matter what its price, a work has no value unless it is seen; unfound masterpieces are worthless. When there are millions of books, millions of songs, millions of films, millions of applications, millions of everything requesting our attention — and most of it free — being found is valuable.
I think these eight generatives are interesting, but are they the only pillars in a new “value-creation-model”?
Do you know the economic term “Ceteris paribus“? It’s a term being used to get hold on complexity. As an educated economist I’ve been told over and over again, that a necessary way to look upon the world, understanding the world, is by trying to reduce the number of variables in the equation.
But how can we react as reductionists and believe that everything can and should be measured?
There has been a lot of discussion lately about “Social Media” aka “Social Software” aka “Web2.0″ aka “E2.0″ aka “Enterprise2.0″ and how to measure ROI. It seems that every thing needs to be measured, still, but do we look on the right metrics?
What are the metrics by the way when looking on the deployment of new companies, new technologies and new mindsets? The same that was defined in the industrial age?
As part of our work at Wemind on how to build Social Capital as a catalyst for business innovation, improved bottom line and business survival I’m very much interested in your perspectives and maybe ideas on what the future metrics should look like. Please take a look on our take on Social Capital so far - registration is needed.
Alex Osterwalder from Arvetica has been commenting here at CPH127 before - his work over at Arvetica is highly relevant, not only for Private Banking Professionals, but business in general.
He just published a podcast with John Hagel about how strategy is formulated by most companies, and more interesting, how it should be done when coping with uncertainty and complexity.
Personally I believe that most companies are organized to handle different problems, and thereby also strategy, as is the reality of today. We are shifting away from handling complicated matters to coping with complex problems, and that with a rapidly shift and increase in speed and uncertainty.
I also believe that a shift in mindset is heavily needed. A shift towards a more adaptable mindset, a mindset where each and every individual in the organization sees control as a nice thing, but not needed always, where competencies like intuition and improvisation is highly valued, and where diversity is embraced.
But then again - maybe I’m wrong? What do you think?
I recently bought Gary Hamel’s New Book - The Future of Management. VERY interesting and if I may say “spot on” when it comes to a description of what is necessary for companies to understand. Companies should organize them selfs as social systems, not as mashines.
When reading through the book I experience page by page that I’ve got my self a new friend. I knew that already when reading Gary Hamel’s comment on my post about “beta mindset“.
His book is interesting because it links Enterprise2.0 to Enterprise survival.
“Look around you; what things have demonstrated their adaptability across decades, centuries and eons? What sets the benchmark for adaptability? From my vantage point, life, markets, democracies, faith and cities all seem surprisingly adaptable. Each of these biological and human systems has proven itself to be far more resilient than any large corporation. They must become the role models for 21st century companies.”
and
“Many companies devote 5, 10 or even 20 percent of their revenue to R&D. Why not set aside a small share of discretionary funding for ideas that don’t pop up at the right time, or in the right place, to make it into the formal budgeting process? My guess is that a community of hundreds of mid-level managers spread out across a large company would, in the aggregate, make better investment decisions than a few folks in a corporate new ventures unit.”
I do of course agree, but many managers doesen’t understand the dynamics that web2.0 unfold internally in organisations…..I’ll come to that in another post 
Do you have any takes on how the organization of a company would look like in the future? Which leadership competencies are in play? And what role does design play in the development?
Richard Dennison has a great post on the BT-case, and how they used Social Software internally.
To quote:
“The power of social software is undeniable in the free, anarchic world of the global internet. But what happens when you bring these tools into the constrained, policy-driven, risk-averse world of the corporate intranet where the user population is small, where expressing oneself as an individual and on a personal level can feel threatening, and where management is watching your every move? Well, that’s just what one of the world’s leading providers of communications solutions, BT, has chosen to do. Richard Dennison, BT’s Internal Programme Manager, tells the story.”
Which organizational dynamics do you think is released by this interesting initiative?