Second is our inate drive to seek knowledge and truth.  While it is true that so many options have allowed our attention span to be diverted many times over; it is still true that at our core we want to understand.
It is this second drive which is evolving social media to be more collaborative and in fact providing the classrooms for informal training.  More and more as people seek to distinguish themselves on sites like LinkedIn they post knowledge to discussions which advances the entire groups repository of usefull information.  In part it is due to the informal nature which is leading more people to use these outlets as training grounds for testing new ideas and experimenting with theories.

No one has said it better in the last few thousand years than one of my mentors:
” No where is the truth more likely to be found than in a free and open conversation” – Socrates

This evolution of extending group knowledge may have been spurred greatly by Wikipedia but in the everyday needs of commerce social media outlets like YouTube and LinkedIn are changing lives and perspectives.

More to come…

Let’s examine a simple question and answer:
“What will the weather be at Grandma’s house tomorrow?” Breaking it into it’s constituents like we have done in grammar school we see the subject “weather” with the modifiers of time and location; “tomorrow” and “Grandma’s house” respectively. Many search engines do actually support multi-dimensional searches like this but to enter them properly there is a syntax requirement, akin to programming.

So back to our topic of using informal blogging and wiki’s to spread knowledge throughout our business – a portal or dashboard which is comprised of summaries of the latest entries joined with a multidimensional search engine should help.

Expanding briefly on the topic of multiple dimensions of search capability tags associated with your blog should suffice. However the tags should be categorized grammatically and some extras for example “subject” should be a main tag while time-frame tags be it “historical” or “forecast”, additional modifiers like type, location represented in “opinion” and “Chicago”.

There well may be a search engine that works exactly in this way but in the meantime when gathering the data for your organization tag what you can with these extra dimensions as we build a structure with empowers every organization to find information faster.

You vote everyday not once in four years.  Everyday you individually influence how our society works.  So many of our choices we make purely from habit. Without even thinking or better yet for some businesses you made the choice once because the only way to get the product or service is to automatically get charged every month.  By spending the money you work hard for you directly indicate how you want society to function.  Economists and financiers create complex equations to explain how your choices are completely predictable the common denominator has made one retailer the largest company in the world. Price, you want the lowest price, because more for less is always better or so it would seem.  Many pundits and news people enjoy making demons of the big bad company.   Time and time again movies, editorial TV programs, and prolific blogs dictate the horrible behavior of large banks, industrial giants who pollute our environment – each time the villain seems clear.  Yet how did these business achieve their formidable size – we bought what they sold, you did, I did, millions of us did. We made a choice that price was our driving factor and took the goodies home to share with our families.  As a society we have decided not to intentionally buy goods which have been stolen. It is a choice which has a common understanding not to knowingly support (or vote) for a supply chain process which violates a shared value.

We all have tremendous power, but responsibility comes with that power.  When price is the driving factor you cannot be surprised when businesses make decisions based only on cost.  That includes jobs as well, in December 2003 Charles Fishman wrote an article titled “The Wal-Mart You Don’t Know” which had an interesting closing sentence to the first paragraph. “Are we shopping our way straight to the unemployment line?” ( http://bit.ly/1Kza0 )  In many ways one can make the argument that in search trying to stretch our lowered real incomes we continually pushed for lower prices.  This inevitably led to an acceleration of pushing jobs to where people were willing to work for lower wages.  Businesses have to react this way as we continue to vote for a price based behavior. Free enterprise works very well to force the market to respond when consumers vote.  So how are you teaching your children to vote?  Should they always look for the “best deal”?  Can we as a free society dictate how it function, the answer is yes we can, but perhaps you want to learn more about if the product you buy every week and where you buy it is the best choice for you and your community.

When you started reading this you knew all this information, but here is the reminder.  Every day you choose, you vote, how you spend your dollars dictate how business must react to survive.  When you find out something disturbing about a business do you shrug and continue to vote your dollars for it? Knowledge has consequences, if a business is too big to fail, remember who can make it smaller.  You can, your neighbors, your community endorse candidates through retailers, mutual funds, and credit card companies – the question is how what you spent today reflect what you value.  How are you spending your democracy?

In the field of medicine Atul Gawande, author of “The Checklist Manifesto”, states: “Clinicians now have at their disposal some six thousand drugs and four thousand medical and surgical procedures, each with different requirements, risks, and considerations. It is a lot to get right.” Its no wonder that even very competent doctors may overlook or may not be aware of a few possibilities.

So what is the point? Should we just give up say there is too much complexity and just stick to what we already know? Or is this the opportunity to leverage our shared knowledge trying to reach for the ‘group learning’ (as opposed to groupthink coined by social psychologist Irving Janis). The increased usage of checklists, peer reviews, and collaboration techniques should be a good answer. Anyone working today needs to make two commitments just to stay even in the marketplace let alone advance our competitive offering.

First we need to commit to lifelong learning. Reminding us that as knowledge workers “he who learns the most, earns the most” This can take many forms, webinars, formal classes, reading, even participating in team projects can advance our knowledge of what else is happening in and around our chosen discipline.

Finally, we must also commit to sharing our knowledge and seek out the collaboration of our colleagues and mentors. We cannot expect collaboration from others without sharing our own experience and perspectives. This is not just a restatement of the golden rule, but also a new reality of successful business. When peers are available within your company it helps, but outside viewpoints cannot be underestimated. Many companies today strangle innovation due to internally focused perspectives. One need only look at the American car manufacturers to see what stagnation it has caused. This is not meant to say that outside opinions are always right, focus groups and customer feedback is usually short term focused and may not include a longer term view of how solutions may evolve. In the end a healthy dialogue can only improve the long term goals of both customer and company.

So with all these perspectives how can we get any work done? That’s the work, that’s the secret! It is your synthesis of that information which solves problems, brings new approaches to bear, and tells the story of how we can survive and thrive through very difficult times. So pause for just a moment, take a deep breath… now jump!

BY9J86H7G4H4 – Claim Tag – Technorati

A number of responses to the Social Media Revolution have asked the question whether social media is a fad.  In my opinion this is the wrong question, the right question is does social media help me connect with people better.  Tools always change communication tools are certainly no exception.  Relationships still depend upon how you feel when you interact with someone.  Do they make you laugh, think, cry or does their impact fade once out of sight?  I know it sounds corny but I still believe it is what is inside the person which speaks to us, hard to tell that in 140 characters, but over time with multiple interactions multiple channels be it text, audio, video, or perhaps even in real life you begin to tell those you wish to have some on-going connection with.

So with enthusiasm we welcome all the new tools, lots more to learn, lots more to get lost in and to discover, just include the off-line one too!

Manufacturing having worked through many issues over the years moved much faster once the overlaying systems of accounting, purchasing, and inventory all used the same database in MRP, MRP II, and finally ERP systems. The idea of one objective reality with everyone using their piece of it is present in many ideas and systems which are intended to accelerate coordination. It is also present in Eli Goldratt’s work of “The Goal” and Critical Chain, that any complex system must have very few or even one independent chain which when recognized and exploited is the best method for increasing productivity of the entire system.

The idea of collaboration using web 1.0 tools like email did increase the speed of communication but not to the level of a wiki. Not where one version of reality or objectives can be worked on both synchronously and asynchronously. One can only imagine in the not too distant future people collaborating on a virtual 3D version of a wiki. Perhaps even as I write this it’s already being done, but again the concept of everyone bringing something to write with in a supportive environment can lead to innovations that all of us will benefit from very soon!

All of these reasons make me even more passionate that we can find new ways to come together and solve real problems. No longer will we cower behind artificial separations that prevent open and honest communication – which Socrates told us over 2000 years ago, was the best place to find the truth!

Cataloging summaries and links to the blogs and wikis which develop them further can be performed by the group interacting with the thought leader or by management.  Which method adopted depends upon the structure of your organization and other factors, but this also is accomplished faster using wikis so that one version of reality is in place, not multiple updated versions saved on individual hard drives not always connected to your network.  Access to the corporate wiki can be secure but open enough that employees don’t hoard versions to themselves creating an incomplete or partial version.  Policies and procedures should do everything to encourage work being done directly on networked wiki or blog, this also facilitates better collaboration for all team members since there is only one version of the work in progress.

Finally, as cataloged knowledge grows and thought leadership is defined these new skills can be entered into the formal talent management system by Human Resources.  References on the participants who grew the knowledge and skills build pride throughout the organization as well as the individual.  When attracting new talent to the company the recognition of Thought leadership is something usually reserved for academics and publications but in this company it’s a source of pride for every associate to develop and document existing processes and improvements as well as potential areas for business development.

For more information see my website:   http://chasenvision.wikispaces.com/

Feel free to be brief of as long winded as you like, I appreciate anyone and everyone who shares comments or messages