Loading ...Re Clay Shirky on the weird things that happen when things suddenly become abundant
I just read this post and it is an awesome subject and terrific speech. It has to do with economic impact of time, as a resource, becoming abundant and how it changes the way humanity function. It made me think about another, previously scarce and now abundant resource - data, and an impact this can make on our lives.
Clay speaks about “physics of participation” and gives examples of meaningful projects such as wiki map of crime in Brazilian neighborhoods. I have read about a similar (in concept) start up in California and Piracy Attacks Map, the examples are also abundant, but all this available time and people’s desire to share also produce enormous volumes of data which, like anything else, can have a double edge sword effect. There is Open Source, “crowdsourcing”, communal knowledge (aka “tribal wisdom”), customer reviews - on one side, and loss of privacy, potential for governmental abuse of power, overwhelmed civil justice system - on the other.
Andreas Weigend, former Amazon Chief Scientist talked about People and Data last week at Office 2.0 in San Francisco. I hoped to explore this subject with him after his presentation, but he is yet to respond to my email. Andreas has very interesting perspective on this subject as well.
According to Shirky, it takes one or two generations to “process” such a phenomena and start using abundant resource constructively, however with acceleration of every conceivable process in society we have experienced in the last few decades, I wonder if we start getting smarter as a species. Although I cannot offer any personal experience that supports this theory. Still the present looks exciting.
There are many excellent blogs and other resources on the Internet which explore methodologies and Best Practices for business process re-engineering, project management, systems implementation, software engineering, and change management. However I could not find much help with unlocking value of integrated utilization of these disciplines to facilitate Organizational Transformation. In this blog I would like to focus on this subject. I would like to stress that this is not an academic inquiry, but a practitioner's desire to discuss and share practical business knowledge and Best Practices. Let's see how it evolves - "Every brilliant idea quickly degenerates into a lot of hard work" - Peter Drucker.
(4 out of 5)
In his book Here Comes Everybody, Clay Shirky wrote: “when we change the way we communicate, we change society.”
I’ve just written a profile about John Abele, retired founder of Boston Scientific and leader of the Grunion expedition - a global pursuit to find Abele’s father’s World War II submarine, lost at sea in the summer of 1942. Abele’s quest for the Grunion is about the power of social networking and, to use Shirky’s terminology, “organizing without organizations.” It’s about what happens when serendipity intersects with technology and human intent.
I think you’ll enjoy the story - it’s both inspiring and demonstrative of the power of collective capability.
Great story, Chris! Thank you. I am particularly enamored with this quote:
“As the owner of The Kingbridge Centre and Institute, a 120-room conference center in Ontario, Abele is researching how collective intelligence can give way to collective capability. He calls it the ‘collaboration paradox.’ “Someone asked me recently what the most important tool is to get people to collaborate better. It’s not technology, it’s leadership,” he says. “To create an environment where people like to collaborate, you literally have to understand every single member of the group. It’s a fascinating flock of birds phenomena that makes this whole experience rewarding.”
Excellent insight.