facing the swarm: the coming obsolescence of the big idea

Educated people in business love The Big Idea. Generally this is a heroic idea that will change everything. I am falling out of love with the Idea of The Big Idea. I think the problems were face as a species are so complex, are so wicked that just a few Big Ideas won't do.

We need a swarm of lots of Small Ideas small ideas. Micronotions that propogate across the memescape. Like any small, fast-breeding creatures, many are poorly adapted for their environment and doomed to die but many will reproduce and mutate and colonise.

Of course, careers are not built on small ideas nor are awards won. But the world is changed by small ideas.

I call for a profligacy of conceptulets.

Think small!

muhammad yunus - strategic doer

MY: See making money is an exciting thing. You can find a lot of pleasure in making money. Changing the world is the most exciting thing in the world. We have to make a decision that I will not live my life in a way that will take away the enjoyment of life for another person - that simple decision, that's all.

AD: It's a powerful thing that you are talking about. I mean I am just thinking probably one of the most popular shows on television round the world is called "Who Wants to be a Millionaire", it's about the desire for money.

MY: There should be another show, "Who wants to change the world?" But that show you are not promoting, because those who made the "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" makes million out of it.

I absolutely love this interview with Muhammad Yunus. A high-point of my year. As I read it, tears of joy are streaming out of my eyes.

There are many smart people in the world. But very few genuinely strategic doers. People who not only see the fine grains of detail but the big picture, the whole globe floating in space. And who not only see it but choose to act in a positive way to change it. Whatever your feelings about Grameen Bank, Yunus counts as one of those strategic doers.

PEITSD

Have you ever met a victim of Post ERP Implementation Traumatic Stress Disorder?

How can you tell if someone has PEITSD? Here are the signs:

• A belief that IT salespeople are liars and only want to get as much money out of you as possible.
  
• A belief that all IT consultants are sadists and only want to get as much money out of you as possible.
• A disbelief in RoI figures based on headcount reduction through efficiency gains.
• A morbid fear of consipulation*.
• An overwhelming sense of process-based persecution.

What other symptoms have you noted?

*consipulation = consultation + manipulation

book review: sharepoint roadmap for collaboration

I have been recommending Michael Sampson's book Sharepoint Roadmap for Collaboration to everyone I know who is working with Sharepoint (and that's a lot of people). It's a down-to-earth, practical guide to using Sharepoint to support (rather than hinder collaboration). I prefer it to Seamless Teamwork because that book was mostly aimed at end-users of Sharepoint rather than us poor bastards collaboration experts who have to manage the overall implementation*. This second book is much more for us.

One gripe: No pictures. Not a single one. Something for the visual thinkers in the next book please Michael.

*Apparently SP 2010 will solve all the problems that have bedevilled previous releases. My advice: Trust but verify.

blokes n babies

We have an ergobaby carrier and at the moment it's not only handy for supporting the young chap in strolls & promenades, but also strapping him to my torso seems to be the one thing that settles him down from hardcore tantrum mode.

However the marketing to men for the ergobaby is wetter than the contents of a straining nappy. Pictures like this with effete male models really aren't winning me over. More meatless SNAGs than a vegan sausage sizzle.

May I offer up this alternative aspirational image instead?

master chefs or drama queens?

The TV sen-sa-shun of 2009 has been Masterchef. And to begin with, I was a fan. I like food (as even a cursory glance at my waistline will evidence). And I like the notion of the Australian public being turned on to food. The three grumpy, chubby judges seemed OK as well. N.B. The one thing that annoyed me was the music. They might was well have had signs saying "applause" or "cheer" or "boo". It had all the subtlety of a chicken vindaloo. Try too hard to be dramatic.

So Masterchef begat Celebrity Masterchef and a few weeks ago I was watching the celebs ham it up in some kitchen somewhere. One of the grumpy, chubby judges was exhorting the contests: "This is the most important day of your life!!!"

And I thought: Hang on. Some of these people have had kids. Some of these people have buried loved ones. They've hit sporting heights or wowwed tens of thousands of people in a stadium somewhere. And this is the most important day of their lives? What drugs are you on chubby, grumpy man?

And then it struck me that Maserchef might actually be harming our appreciation of food. Because food should be enjoyed in a context. The best meals have a culinary component but they also have a big human aspect too. Banter + Grub = Awesome. Grub on its own = Food wanker. The music had infected the rest of the programme.

And in focusing too much on the grub, Masterchef is in real danger of making cooking a bit stressy & tedious. So you can't make a ****ing Croche en Bouche? Who cares? Can you slap down a nice cake & tell us a funny story & make us feel loved? Yes? Then we'll come back to your table.

Preparing food should be a pleasure. It should not be stressful. Unfortunately the currency of a TV show like Masterchef is drama & stress. Fine in its place. Just don't mistake it for culinary reality.

book review: opening up - remain in light?

I read Opening Up by Andrew Rixon (words) & Simon Kneebone (pictures). about a month ago. It's an immensely charming book that applies the world of fairy tales to organisational life & personal development. I have a lot of time for both author & cartoonist but I also have a challenge for them.

Fairy tales are not all nice. Many pre-modern fairy tales are dark & shocking affairs to modern eyes & ears. People die horribly. People do terrible things to each other. Virtue is not always rewarded. Evil is not always punished. Life lessons are not always learned with a happy smile.

As uplifting as Opening Up is, I was left feeling as though I had been told a version of the world that was not quite true. The world is full of chiaroscuro and we cannot always remain in the light.

I would suggest Neil Gaiman as a contemporary writer who understands the power of fairy tales. And I would challenge Andrew & Simon to encompass both the light and the dark in their work.

finian

pay for play

Some of these discussions around "earned media" vs "paid-for media" remind me of sex (I'm a man, everything reminds me of sex).

• Earned media is presented as inherently better than the paid-for kind at a moral level (as opposed to just a financial one) in much the same way that "earned" sex is inherently better than the paid-for kind*.
• Men who pay for sex do not necessarily do so out of desperation. They may want sex but not a relationship. Is deceiving someone that you want a relationship with them when really all you are after is the sex more moral than paying some for it? Isn't a honest transaction better than a fraudulent relationship?
• A lot of earned media seems to consist of stressed journos recycling press releases - like a relationship where one partner trades security for sexually satisfying the other?
  
• As the cliche goes "You always pay for sex". What are your actual costs with with not seeking paid-for advertising?
  

*I don't particularly want to get into arguments about the morality (or otherwise) of prostitution but it exists in many cultures and it seems to fulfill a basic human need. However it doesn't seem like an appealing career choice.

has marketing eaten social software?

First off, let me say some nice things about the people that put on the Social Media Club in Sydney. They volunteer their time. They put on very professional events that attract a lot of people. They are kind to animals and help old ladies across the road. The first session was especially good because they had a bloke from a marketing agency and they also had Leslie Nasser - who is not a marketing guy but did something cool online.

Now I am not a marketing guy. But I am interested in social software (blogs, wikis, Twitter, etc) and I am interested in people who are doing cool stuff online (regardless of who they work for). And I don't feel there's anything at the Social Media Club for people who aren't in PR or marketing agencies. Now that may be who its intended audience, in which case they ought to change the name to make that clear - the "Social Media for Marketers Club" is nicely unambiguous.

However if it does go down that path then it risks being less interesting as a result. It's like a "Television Club" that only discusses ads or a "Telephone Club" that focuses on call centres. There is a whole world out there and there are plenty of people in it who aren't after a "social media expert" title.

So I'd encourage the organisers to broaden the kind of presentations they have and possibly experiment with the format as well. One or two people on stage separated from everyone else feels very traditional, very old media (as another Gavin mentioned). How could it be done differently?

intelligent design?

Intelligent Design is best understood as a failure of the imagination. We look at the world and see something with order. Jungles with thousands of species existing in equilibrium. Coral reefs, polar icecaps, rolling hills. The idea that is could have been shaped by forces without intention is ridiculous to us. Someone must have built it. Someone like us but bigger.

Because order only comes from intention, doesn't it? The world is a machine, fashioned by the Great Engineer.

Could the tents of Organizational Design be a similar failure of the imagination? Are our organizations more like machines or jungles?

social software measurement as asymmetric warfare

A couple of weeks ago, I was at the Sydney Social Media Club where there was much discussion of measurement by Paull, Jye & Matt.

After the event, I was pondering this well-known story:

Two campers are walking through the forest when they suddenly encounter a grizzly bear. The bear rears up on his hind legs and lets out a terrifying roar. Both campers are frozen in their tracks. The first camper whispers, "I'm sure glad I wore my running shoes today." "It doesn't matter what kind of shoes you're wearing, you're not gonna outrun that bear," replies the second. "I don't have to outrun the bear, I just have to outrun YOU," he answers.

When you are asked to demonstrate the ROI of social software, all you have to do is prove that SM delivers the benefits of traditional media at a lower cost - because it seems that most marketing is a cost of doing business rather than a generator of sustainable growth.

There's a problem here however: What if it doesn't? If you compare Twitter to TV using TV's metrics then TV is probably going to win. TV's metrics have coevolved with the medium over decades. It's a fixed match. TV is wearing the running shoes and you're looking like a tasty snack for a Mr Grizzly. Julian does some very interesting crunching of Twitter reach numbers and concludes: Knowing this is great for planning but who is going to take back a reduced number when traditional media agencies are still talking inflated reach into the 100,000s?

In making this move, I would suggest that the SM crowd risk doing a Mullah Nasrudin:

Nasrudin found a weary falcon sitting one day on his window-sill. He had never seen a bird like this before. "You poor thing", he said, "how ever were you allowed to get into this state?" He clipped the falcon’s talons and cut its beak straight, and trimmed its feathers. "Now you look more like a bird", said Nasrudin.*

Even by calling it "social media", we clip its talons. As this article by Malcolm Gladwell explains, if you are a David and you play by Goliath's rules then you then he will squash you. If you are engaged in an asymmetric struggle then you need to choose your turf and your weapons - not let them be chosen for you.

Some hypotheses (which may well be wrong because I don't work in marketing):

• Social software is that it allows you to do multiple things at once - customer service AND promotion AND sales AND research. Organisation with a combined approach to selling, marketing & service would be more open to social software plays that offer an integrated approach to the customer (not that are necessarily many of those about).
  
• Social software is speed. Measures around "time-to-market" and "response time" become critical here (which are more associated with new product development & customer service than advertising).
• Social software is cheap (unless someone is greedy) - "cost per message" anyone? This means that you can run multiple experiments in a short period of time at low cost. Iterating TV spots is not cheap.
• Social software is interactive - you'd expect that cross-selling/up-selling metrics might be relevant here.
  

Of course, these measures don't help you persuade people that Twitter is better at TV's job than TV is - but should you be trying to do that in the first place?

There are two other riffs in my head:

• Marketing & media as ecology (with prey, predators, parasites, symbionts).
• Measurement as social proof.

But those will be other blog posts.

*Thanks to Dave for introducing me to this story.

Story Week Tuesday: Little Triggers

So we looked at how people responded to a story told by Obama back in StoryWeek. What did people think about Tuesday's story? Here's a quick recap:

... we organised a workshop, it was really high pressure and done at very short notice. It ended up being a success, but the CEO was there, and I thought it was one of those things where the team had all sort of pulled together, and it could of fallen over, but it didn't. At the end of the workshop, it had all gone well, there was a perfect window there for the CEO to come up to the team and say "Good job". I don't know the CEO at all, but it was a perfect opportunity for him to go and get some easy PR, or even at least say good stuff, and pass it on. But he just left. I mean, he may have had a thousand other things to do, but it was one of those things.

So how did this score?



Well overall it wasn't as memorable as the Obama story - although people did find it more believable. However as with Obama, there was a definite split in terms of who found this story memorable. For Obama it was country of origin. For this story is was around gender.


The ratings given by men (n=27) & women (n = 24) are almost mirror images of each other. Which is interesting because we know that the CEO is a man but we don't know the gender of the storyteller or any of the other characters. For women this story is far more memorable. Why*? Is it because women have been in this situation more often? Is it because they empathize with the characters more? What do you think?

BTW the Wordle clouds are here and here if you are interested.

*More women gave the Obama story 6 out of 6 for memorability but the other pattern of responses wasn't as stark as this.

gigadread

Katie Chatfield recently asked Where did the future go?

She was following up on Bruce Sterling's closing speech at Reboot 11 - Sterling also runs a blog on related topics courtesy of Wired.

Some reflections & responses:

• The talk was a half-digested stream of ideas - some awesome, some dumb, some both.
• Many of themes that BS touches upon mirror the obsessions of early 90s CCRU (incl. Mark K-punk Fisher & Steve Hyperdub Goodman). Cybergothic, inhuman technology, undead capitalism, the swarm. CCRU's ideas were heavily influenced by Deluze & Guattari, Jungle and the writings of... cyberpunk authors such as Bruce Sterling.
• "High-Tech Gothic" is a great phrase but it applies more to system than to individuals. Zombie banks. The financial system as out-of-control Frankenstein's monster. Financiers as parasitic vampires. Capitalism has reached its Gothic phase. It is epitomised not by Steve Jobs but by Dow Jones Index or a CDO contract sitting in someone's email - something that may once have had its origins in human behaviour & needs but no longer "human" or "alive" in any meaningful sense.
• "Dark euphoria" is another great phrase but it feels wrong. We're not entering a period of euphoria or depression but dysphoria. You can try to cushion the dread rush with shopping at the endless sales ("For a limitless time only") or alcohol or religion (Islamic, Christian, Environmental) but it just won't go away.
• Gen X are not goths - but I can see how we may look that way to Baby Boomers who salved their dread of nuclear war with the bounty of consumer culture. What happens when the cure becomes the new disease?
• "Favela Chic"is a great way of both celebrating & critiquing "open source" culture. Everybody code before the police come! No civil rights. No protection.
• The "great grandfather" crack is misplaced. Consuming less than we do now does not make us dead. It just makes us thinner. Bruce Sterling or Mr Creosote?
• The final point about keeping a small amount of good stuff and getting rid of the rest is a very sensible idea of which I am a massive fan.

marrickville week (4)

Source: ABS Census Data

marrickville week (3)

Source: yewenyi


Source: OZinOH


Source: lucid7

marrickville week (2)

Source: Marrickville Image Library

marrickville week (1)

This is the street where I live now. On the downside, there is no baker's cart plying its wares every morning. On the upside, I don't have to shovel up the horse dung from the baker's cart every morning.

Source: Marrickville Image Library

man week (6): little acts

Men like doing stuff. We are creatures of action. However in my case, "stuff" consists of sitting in front of the TV promising to fix the busted tap in the laundry (I will, I will).

So with all this Man Week stuff, I'm curious as to how this all plays out into action. We bare our souls and have our group hug and it's all like an episode of Thirtysomething but online.

So I'm interested in what happens next. Not big things. Just little things. I can think of a few off the bat.

man week (5): brutal

Man Week is leading to some darned interesting blogging. One theme that crops is violence. Mostly men being violent to each other via bullying (the issue of men being violent to women crops up less in the writing so far). And it's true. Men - esp. young men - are brutal. And this cuts both ways - the most frequent victims of violence are also young men. This happens at all levels of intensity. I have never murdered anyone. I was bullied at school and I also bullied others. I still feel I am a very angry man but not an especially violent one*.

So if my child is a son, what can I do? I think role modelling is really important. But what does that mean? I can't see myself beating people up in front of him. How I control my temper is going to be important. As will be my assertiveness. One of the most painful lessons in life for me has been the need to meet conflict directly rather than avoid it. I would rather he learned that lesson early.

But beyond that I'm not sure. Mark Pollard mentions martial arts and I would love a son to take up one of these sports - because they are about control & discipline**.

Any ideas bloggerati?


Source: Economist

*We all have emotional motors that power us though our lives. I would like to say I am driven by a desire to better the world or by an ambition to be the best at whatever I do but if I'm honest with myself it's just non-specific rage - as destructive as it is creative. My tombstone will probably have "What are you looking at, breather?" carved on it.

**May be we should bring back national service. And the death penalty. Hang on...

Man Tag

• Oscar Nicholson
• Zac Martin
• Luke Naismith