5. WikiWednesdayStuttgart

Die Zusammenfassung von gestern abend steht im Wiki bereit – und kann so von den Teilnehmern ergänzt und erweitert werden. Es hat mich gefreut, dass wieder einmal neue Gesichter dabei waren und hoffe dass auch das Get-together (rund um das Orga-Meeting zum BarCamp Stuttgart) im Vinum und das after WikiWednesday-Gettogether bei Flammkuchen und Pasta gefallen hat.

Vielen Dank auch an die MFG Innovationsagentur und Frau Keßler für die nachhaltige Unterstützung des WikiWednesday.

Was wurde u.a. diskutiert?

  • Trends im Microblogging (dezentrale Infrastrukturen, Open Microblogging Protocol, identi.ca und laconi.ca)
  • Möglichkeiten des Einsatzes von Microblogging im Unternehmen (Wissensmanagement, Projektmanagement)
  • Erfahrungsbericht von der reboot – was macht Grass-roots-Konferenzen so attraktiv?
  • Hindernisse des Einsatzes von Wikis im E-Learning – bspw. in der Schule
  • Relevanzkriterien für Wikipedia-Artikel, Wikipedianer, potenzielle Abschreckung neuer Autoren
  • Wie kann die Akzeptanz von Wikis bei unseren Mitarbeitern und Kollegen gefördert werden?
  • Hängt das Alter mit der Akzeptanz zusammen? Digital Natives und Naives, und mehr
  • Organisatorische Barrieren für “Veränderungen” – Widerstände, die Bedeutung von Macht- und Fachpromotoren

Second day of rebooting – working for free

Second day at reboot, started in the main hall with Jerry Michalski (“Thinking through free“) and Thomas’ (“Free Information Structures“) second talk.

Now it’s “Working for free” with Peter Rukovina (listen to the pre-conference podcast interview with Nicole Simon)

Some notes
– Peter introduces “selfish altruism” and some other nifty definitions (I will link the video here when provided, this is a great presentation but it’s going fast)
– we really need to trust each other more – the alternatives are miserable
– small is good
– not “almost free” doesn’t work – there’s no point in discounting in client relationships – do it 100%-money-based or for 0% – there’s no in between
– essential: we must be clear about the basics (and be prepared for suspicion)

For Peter it works because:
– feeds his curiousity
– gives him access to cool people
– he likes the fun in it
– builds up skills and gives him plenty of learnings

Being Free within Organizational Structures

Next reboot-session where I am again actually taking notes is “Being Free within Organizational Structures – A conversation on achieving “free working” in a more traditional environment” by Robert Slagter:

Within the existing structures of a larger organization it is not trivial to be a “free worker”, even when the organization embraces the idea.

– goal: insights in how to cope with “old school” structures

– what does being free mean for knowledge workers (e.g. when, where and with whom and how; choose topics that align with passions; use tools that work best for me; …)

– organizations aren’t keen on providing freedom (yes, I know that one’s obvious) & freedom comes at a price (more responsibility; less structure and predictability; less guidance; …)

– Robert says that some people seem to be quite comfortable within their “iron cages“, well, yes, in fact living in walled gardens feels safe.

– Simple model of barriers that prevent people from venturing into a more free kind of working: 1. Myself & the people around me 2. Work setting, organization, technology

Now Robert asks us for our experiences and tricks to deal with these barriers, some topics discussed:

– problems stem in part from an outdated understanding of work

– we also need a new role understanding of leadership

– while the need for coordination of big tasks doesn’t disappear (and organizations will continue to thrive) a more 21C-way of working may appear alongside – flexible ad-hoc value networks, business ecosystems, companyconglomerates, etc.

– to leverage the full potential of your knowledge workers you better design for emergence and adaptivity, ie. allow for heterarchic configurations

For me it’s a different kind of game, as an independent consultant your work is life and life is work (still, work-life balance is a problem sometimes). In fact the line between work and leisure time is blurring, but out of free will. Still, as a freelancer you’re less bound and restricted by a boss (no, multiple clients don’t mean multiple bosses …) and most of the barriers I experience are self-set-up and well-thought out 😉

Organizational information architecture: Freely Seeping through the walls of the garden

Some notes from a talk at reboot10: Thomas Vander Wal on Freely Seeping through the walls of the garden

I’m here for obvious reasons: collaboration, knowledge and innovation management (enabled by social software). Besides I travelled to Copenhagen with Thomas this morning, we talked shortly about his planned talk (and he’s a nice chap, too).

– walled gardens inhibit creativity & sharing, yet they create so comfortable environments

– no cross-pollination, no problems of seredipidity and innovation

– people connect on average with 10 people on Twitter (some are not average somehow) – we’re sticking to small groups of people we know

– connections and relationships aren’t commodities and will never be (Luis said something along these lines yesterday in Varese too)

– are we really aiming at freely sharing of information (around and about identity/objects)?

– increased understanding, let everybody in the organization get smarter

– on the elements of social software (duality of identity and object – presence, actions, sharing, reputation, relationships, conversation, groups, collaboration) and how to build order (I have to ponder this a little bit, I doubt that this is a sequential model, seeing also frog-leaping and some fuzzy, i.e. spirally-/recursive learning and adoption curves powered by feedback and learnings etc.)

– spheres of sociality (personal, selective, collective, mob)

– sharing one by one then sharing with groups (e.g. Dopplr, Ma.gnolia)

And yes, all this plays into

– why social software in the enterprise “doesn’t spread like wildfire” and

– yes, there’s much food for thought in here, some derived consulting and implementation challenges are:

– we need to help in easing the fear in the organization, help people go exploring the neighborhood gardens etc.

– we need to teach and inform on the “dangers and pitfalls” of departmentalized knowledge management systems – rebuilding silos and all – trying to look like a worthwhile solution (drag queens, anyone?) while we need to make the walls permeable. Have hedges but tear down the brick wall … then expand on your garden design endeavours (yes, this in freely linked to the earlier responsive architecture session).