Charlie and Lola

The internet is truly and unequivocally a marvellous thing as tonight I have discovered, for the first time, that I can watch Charlie and Lola whenever and wherever I want. With a 3G card in my laptop, and soon in the Mac as well, I might even start turning up at committee meetings. Just don't expect me to listen!

The Future of TV

This is a good resource for those thinking about the future of TV.

"The First Flowering of the Network World"

This lovely BBC report is perfectly timed. It resonates with all we have been saying. It is a great postscript for the course.

The Mythical 100%

One thing that I think about occasionally is the way in which we mark student work. Let's imagine that we get an assignment created by a student over a four-week period and it is really, really good. It is as good as we could possibly expect.

The student hands it in and we academics look at it.

What mark do we award? 70%? 75%?? 82%??? Has anyone ever marked at 85%???? Anyone ever marked at 90%? What about 95%?

Does 100% exist?

Now then, to turn to the matter of Chris Bliss, talent-spotted by Maura Brooks of Leeds and also seen on Disappearing World.

Chris gets nearly 8.5 million hits, and nearly 6.5 thousand ratings. His average score = 4.5/5 i.e. 90%.

So where did the other 10% go? How good do you have to be?

Sharpen up, Chris! Keep trying.

The Kids Are Gifted

Semple is reading The Kids Are Alright. Its serious business.

And, making an obliquely related point, its time we started talking about the relationship between the internet and The Gift. More soon.

Athena and Mars in the Asymmetric Age

All around us, everday, there is evidence of how our world is changing. Our new age of mass communications is changing society. It is even changing warfare. Today, on the train, I noticed this story in a friend's copy of The Guardian. It tells of the Israelis attempting to disintermediate the media in the conflict with the Palestinians. I make no comment on the article, the conflict, or any other of the tragic episodes of war that currently afflict the globe. But it restored to my mind Arquilla and Ronfeldt's book 'In Athena's Camp'. The Israeli initiative is by no means the first military cause that seeks to exploit the immediacy and ubiquity of the internet as a communications device. It just adds to the weight of evidence gathered since Arquilla and Ronfeldt published their book in 1997. I am sure you can think of other examples.

Now, a few days after lecturing on skunk works, I am beginning to wonder if we are all writing a whole theory of asymmetry wherein a faster-paced, networked society loads the dice in favour of the alternative, fleet-footed initiative, rather than the command and control of the incumbent.

Is this the age of asymmetric strategy?

The Slow Attrition of the Soul

Today we have another good example of how blog, in the right hands, is a powerful knowledge tool. Indeed, "powerful knowledge tool" is too techological a term, too clunky a way of expressing a medium that seems as natural and human as handwriting.

"Sent from a mobile phone, probably from the cab of an ambulance."

Once again we cite Tom Reynolds.

It is worth spending time with this site. All those of us who are interested in how our taxes get spent, or how our cities function, or how people react in drama and crises, will find something in Random Acts of Reality.

A Tale of Our Times: the Method and the Fetish.

Faced with the complexity of technology and change, there has been a huge interest in methods designed to help organisations move from one state to another. Sometimes these methods are controlled and utilized by consultants. Sometimes they are passed over to the organisations themselves.

An industry has grown up:
- Systems development methods
- Software engineering models
- Change management methods
- Project management methods

Methods have become an issue in their own right. They have become a complex issue, perhaps adding to the complexity endured by the organisation. Coping with the complexity of the method might even become a way of disengaging from the actual task at hand (i.e. the organisational change project). It becomes a fetish.

What then is the utility of methods? How do you tell good from bad?

This week we will hear stories of organisational change. Please be prepared to bring your own as well. Many of us will have tales to tell.

The Loneliest Man in MySpace ?

Is this man so out of step with the age that, even with the multiple networking features of MySpace, he cannot gather any friends?

Or is he simply a different class?

Hoverstadt's Library

Here are books from Patrick's library. I have not read the Hurst book, 'Crisis and Renewal,' so perhaps I'll start there.

Stafford Beer
Almost everything Stafford wrote is worth reading. But isn’t easy – although I do have a mate who said she kept “Heart of Enterprise” as her bedside reading because she loved the elegance of the writing (not because it sent her to sleep). “Heart” is a good place to start though it is quite thick, “Diagnosing the System for Organisations” is a lot thinner, but misses all the underlying theory.

W. Ross Ashby
If you thought Stafford’s stuff was hard…. But Ashby is the man who invented Ashby’s Law of Requisite Variety – which for management is as fundamental and inescapable as the law of gravity, so the guy deserves a mention even if his books are a wee bit tricky. Thin books, but oh so dense and with loads of sums.

Chris Alexander – “Notes on the synthesis of form”Interesting chap – an architect who wrote “Notes” on designing complex systems – specifically physical systems, but the book was rediscovered years later and became a standard text for object orientated programmers. His thinking is very systemic and he does nice job of demonstrating how Ashby’s law is critical to designing physical systems. Thinnish and easy.

Candace Pert – “Molecules of Emotion”If you thought you understood how you work, think again. Her stuff also applies to organisations and how they take decisions; I read this and started to see the traditional strategic model (even more than I did before) as a kind of organisational psychosis. Also worth reading as a savage critique of sexism and denial in the scientific community.

Humberto Maturana & Fransisco Varela - “Tree of Knowledge”Some people love “tree” and some hate it, but Maturana’s work on structural coupling and autopoiesis is seriously important stuff and turns a lot of conventional thinking about evolution and competition on its head. A thin book and relatively easy reading (oh and it has some slightly weird cartoons in it).

David K. Hurst
Every MBA student should read “Crisis & Renewal” When you are in a situation in which it has become relevant, it may be too late. His approach is very Mosaic, but he had to learn it the hard way. Medium thickness, but easy reading.

Niccolo Machiavelli
Brilliant, beautifully written and as relevant today as it was in 1513. This is a thin book that should be a must for anyone interested in management.

In the land of Gilgamesh and the garden of Eden.....

from Patrick
In the week when George W got a bit of a kicking in the mid term polls which by all accounts was because of the handling of Iraq post war, I thought it might be worth looking at this using the Mosaic Transformation model.

The post war taming and reconstruction of Iraq was tackled largely using the classical change model: get a government (start at the top of the hierarchy) and then get them to build and/or change successive levels of public infrastructure. I say largely tackled because of course, the exception was Kurdistan in the north. Overwhelmingly, this approach has failed as indeed it was doomed to do. Too big a job, with far too many highly diverse, but massively interconnected problems, and far too little management resource available, in other words, yet another doomed attempt by a government to break Ashby's law. And the inevitable result is that very few problems have been sorted at all and very few areas function.

So how could it have been different? Well a Mosaic solution would firstly have started with identifying the necessary changes as discrete packets of achievable changes and second would have involved searching for available resource to effect them. So two huge resource pools that were disbanded immediately post war were the Iraqi army and the civil service, without this level of resource, only very limited change was ever going to be possible. It is generally recognised now that this was a mistake, but from a mosaic perspective, the folly of doing this was very clear. As far as discrete changes go, the design was to institute change across the country, but that hasn't happened, a very very familiar pattern of failure: of course some areas would be harder and slower to change than others. The mosaic solution is to simply accept it, protect the boundaries of the areas you are able to change (in this case literally protect the boundaries from insurgent infiltration) and work within the areas where change is possible.

The failure pattern we can see, is so familiar, failure of the top-down, homogeneous change plan and its gradual replacement by a more heterogeneous pattern of ad hoc changes - like Kurdistan, a functioning state within a state. And if they had planned for discrete changes? We would probably have had significantly more development in the fast-track parts like Kurdistan, and certainly, the south around Basra could have been further advanced than it is now. Some parts of the centre would be as far from reform as they are now, but could have been prevented from causing quite as much disruption as they have. Outside the boundary protected enclave of the Kurds, that disruption that looks as though scupper the whole project and condemn another generation to anarchy in the land that first gave us civilisation.

from Peter
Riverbend: the voices are out there.

McFlog?

No need to start singing, Aretha. This time we know that its us being zoomed.

McFlog? McDonalds create false blogs!

Thanks to Tudor Rickards for this.

Snakes on a Plane

From your correspondent in Drogheda.

I was told today about the internet phenomena surrounding the film Snakes on a Plane. I confess, I had not heard about this before. The internet phenomena seem to be of two kinds:
- Viral marketing that becomes hijacked by fans (they start creating promotional material themselves).
- Something approaching open-source scriptwriting wherein five days of extra filming are introduced to respond to fan suggestions.

However, I know little, and as ever with viral campaigns, the question is 'Who's zoomin' who?'

Does anyone know more?

Time for a Bonfire Party?

Those who have not yet rethought the whole issue of internal corporate communications might be interested in the lead taken by Leeds City Council working with Chrysalis. Today I heard their first podcast material designed to allow Joanne Hopkins' BPR Team relay findings and issues to stakeholders. It is only a pilot but as I heard the podcasts and was told about the plans for new web environments, I became convinced that it will consign the old reporting protocols to history.

More news when I have it.

Tom Peters wrote once very entertainingly about having a bonfire party wherein, to the distracted surprise of your work colleagues, you incinerate all your office paper. Soon, maybe, it might be safe to do this.

"A Web of Interdependencies"

For those that are interested, Brian Eno's opening lecture to 'Free Thinking 2006' is available for a few more days on the BBC Radio 3 site.

A nice quote: "Everyone is smarter than any one"

The Word, Jeff.

Thank you to Jeff for the extra effort he went to in order to get online last week. Jeff has an exciting job in SAP, and is one of the authors of this book. It has sold a lot!

Great to talk to you Jeff, thank you.

Thank you also to the main event last week, Karl Wills of Abacus Billing. It was great to hear about strategy and operations at the cutting edge of modern, hi-tech business.

Thank you Karl, talk to you again soon.

Kendrick's Library

No doubt Kendrick's library is an interesting place to spend some time. Here are his notes on some of the books he has mentioned to you.

Pour the ginger tea, Ian...

Geoffrey Moore

Check out chasmgroup.com You can subscribe to a free email newsletter. I do.

Crossing the Chasm
The original work from the early ‘90s. Now revised so that the case studies/examples are more up to date. Still an excellent read, in Moore’s conversational style. Essential, unless you get a copy of….

Inside the Tornado
The follow on from CTC, focuses on what it is like to be in the hyper growth Tornado phase of the Technology Adoption Life Cycle. Includes an overview of CTC. Probably the best “Chasm” book, if you only want one.

Living on the Fault Line
Again from Moore, covers life in the internet age. Some say it is dated now, being pre dot com fiasco era. I still reckon it is very good. The slide that I use about risk, capitalisation etc is from this, as is the culture model of William Schneider. Recommended.

The Gorilla Game
Supposedly a guide to how to “read” technology companies and spot the emerging Gorillas. Never achieved the success of his other works and possibly his weakest, IMHO.

Dealing with Darwin
Moore’s latest work, focuses on what happens after the original Chasm crossing and the category matures. Feels like a response/trump to Clayton Christensen’s works on innovation. It is here that Moore reveals 14 innovation types. Excellent, highly recommended.

Clayton M Christensen

Another Harvard guy. Made his reputation by focusing on how innovation works.

The Innovator’s dilemma
The original work from Christensen. Introduces the concept of disruptive innovation and how large companies put themselves in potentially fatal danger by focusing on satisfying their customers and continuous improvement. Meanwhile a disruptive innovation comes along that seems trivial but ends up taking customers and business away from the large incumbent market leaders. After this book, Silicon Valley firms started to hire Vice Presidents of Disruption. No, really. An excellent work, Christensen is more academic in his style that Moore.

The Innovator’s Solution
A guide to how incumbents can deal with disruptive innovation. A well argued, rational read. Recommended.

Seeing Whats Next
A bit like Moore’s Gorilla Game, Christensen shows how to use knowledge of how disruptive innovation works to spot how winning disruptors configure themselves for success. One of the best books on high tech strategy, IMHO. Highly Recommended.

Other authors

Kim and Burgoyne – Blue Ocean Strategy
A Blue Ocean is a nice place to be. Full of oxygen and empty apart from you, no competition. The opposite is a Red Ocean, full of competition, red with blood. K&B show how to establish Blue Oceans in a very practical and sensible way. Entirely compatible with Moore and Christensen but easier than either of them. Chapters on Bill Bratten, the man who turned around New York from being crime ridden and dangerous into a much safer place. One of the greatest leaders I have ever read about and certainly one who understands the principles of variety management/requisite variety espoused by Stafford Beer and W Ross Ashby. Very good read.

Markides and Geroski - Fast Second
An examination of companies who prosper by waiting until a category is established and then stepping in to win the big prize. A great idea for a book…..but….. I could not get into this one. Feels like a rehashing of Moore and Christensen without adding too much value. Worth a look though.

Warren Bennis - Organising Genius
An examination of a number of “great groups” from history, including Disney, Apple, Xerox PARC, the team who got Clinton into the White House, Los Alamos (original A bomb) team and the original Skonk Works at Lockheed, (forever referred to as Skunk Works) at Lockheed. Bennis explores what it is that separates these groups from history. He draws some very interesting conclusions. A great read and highly recommended. I have a short form/summary PDF of this if anyone wants a copy.

Stafford Beer

Where to begin? Probably not here as Patrick’s lecture next week will cover the Viable Systems Model and related topics. All of Stafford’s books are serious works but can be a bit daunting. For those who would like an introduction without having to read Stafford, check out Barry Clemson, Cybernetics: A New Management Tool, Volume Four. Specifically commissioned to be an introduction to the VSM.

Arie de Geus – The Living Company
A look at how to build and lead in a company that works as a living entity rather than a machine. An excellent read, it is here that Arie introduces his 4 rules of long lived organisations. Recommended

Kees Van Der Heijden – Scenarios: The Art of Strategic Conversation
Probably the most authoritative work on scenario thinking. Excellent but not one to skim read.

Gill Ringland – Scenario Planning
Gill was the person who led the ICL team that produced Coral Reef and Deep Sea. Her book is a good set of case studies and different approaches. Not as heavyweight as Kees’s work but recommended all the same.


That’s enough for now.

Cheers

ian

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