Tag Archives for gov20

Ahead in 2012: Intention & value systems in our culture. And a book.

New Years Day, 2012.  What better time for a checkpoint?

My research has begun to converge.  I’ve posted a recap of key themes at about.me but for now, I’ll follow custom (very retro, I know!) to recap my 2012 resolutions:

  • R1. Intentionality in all things is the new reality of our busy lifestyles, and a grounding principle for heavy multi-taskers who still care about following-through and doing quality work;
  • R2. Examine culture in the context of values & ethics to advance our work from 2010 in the culture series; frankly, we’re way past time for critical thinking in our value systems, especially where there are deep, systemic challenges like the K12, E20 and GOV ecosystems;
  • R3. Publish my book which is a deep dive in the collaboration space; stretch goal: March.

Pretty excited about the last item, as you might imagine.

And what of that last “Divergence” post?  I’ve been reflecting on the implications of that stream, and the many ideas that emerged from my last post on knowledge frameworks.  I’m very excited that it spawned so many comments – on here, Twitter, G+ and several other blogs.  The next post in the critical thinking stream will be an aggregation of key Divergence takeaways.  My recent Kant post (with subsequent discussion on G+) is attracting great inputs too; to me, to me, it’s so darned interesting :)

Upcoming posts show up in the side-bar at right, serving as an editorial calendar.  Specific dates will need to float, but at least there’s a sequence.  I’m always interested in your feedback on where we should focus next.

Expect more major innovations at ECOSYS, with a new blog now online.

A method to the madness?  I’m working on it!

Can’t thank you guys enough for your time, insight and ongoing engagement.  I think it was Jefferson, writing on the power of expanding knowledge and education, who used the metaphor of the candle (then called a ‘taper’) with the unique ability to spawn a new flame without diminishing the old.

That is happening each and every day in social spaces. Exciting stuff.

Stay tuned for more here, and I’ll see you online.

Election 2010 and Social Media: What are impacts to campaigns, results, and the future of politics?

As election 2010 winds down at the polls, analysts on all the networks are scurrying to forecast results, identify trends, and discuss what it all means.

It’s difficult not to speculate: is social media playing a role in 2010?

SM gained considerable attention in Obama’s successful 2008 Presidential bid, in much the same way that television made a big splash in politics in 1960. Any communication channel that reaches the masses in new ways almost certainly has some impact, potentially even changing the rules. And the general consensus is that the impact extends beyond the U.S. to other corners of the globe.

With that said, what is the nature of the impact? Is it lasting, or a flash in pan?

On WEDS 11/3 at 1pET, #SMCHAT will explore these questions with some rigor, to get at the underlying dynamics. We will discuss the nature of SM impact to date and ask ourselves what may happen in the future.

By way of framing, here are the questions for our next live chat:

  1. To what degree can campaigns expect to reach additional and/or undecided voters?
  2. Can the younger demographics of Facebook drive material differences in election results?
  3. Realistically, can voters be swayed by sites, blog posts or tweets?
  4. Do non-profits share a politician’s goals of fund-raising, community building and focused messaging? (looking for synergies, lessons learned)
  5. As Government 2.0 and the Open Government initiatives move to reshape government collaboration and accountability, will there be a ‘pull through’ effect that drives more online, interactive campaign strategies?
  6. Will voter engagement via SM be a long-term game changer for politics?

If you have opinions, insight or additional questions, please post that here, or on Twitter. You can join the live conversation using Tweetchat at the appointed hour.

As always, I’d love to know your thoughts and have the chance to discuss them.

Hope to see you at #SMCHAT.

It Takes a Village: Insights on Culture and Community in Local Government

In prior posts, we’ve looked at the many aspects of culture that affect large organizations, including the cultural dynamics in government that play out in large state & federal agencies.

A few days ago, a reader wrote and asked: “What about local government?”

That really started me thinking. So let’s have a look.

Similarities

Government agencies share a common service mandate, regardless of scale. That means local government exists to support its citizens, and that many aspects of the overall mission would logically be the same. Examples of this: revenue collection, protection services, health & welfare, even natural resources.

There’s also a similar political dynamic. Elected officials are voted into office to provide leadership and direction to full-time administrative branches. That can lead to a philosophical divide between the elected and the civil servants, an interesting cultural rift that is unique to governmental organizations, as I covered previously.

The net result is that local governments, like their larger state & federal counterparts, will encounter challenges of silo thinking and culture clashes, often resulting in small-scale bureaucracies.

Differences

It’s the differences that really bring home some interesting new factors. The most important of these is a sense of community. I wrote on virtual community a few months back, but the ‘brick and mortar’ community – including neighborhoods, businesses, recreation areas, and the like – makes up what is typically the strong, vibrant foundation or our day-to-day experience.

In a real way, our local communities serve as the backbone of our society.

These are critical factors for any town or region to remain healthy. Where these elements are absent, as is the case in regions with long-term economic decline, the systemic problems can be overwhelming. That means local communities and their governments are vitally important to create safe, healthy places for people to live and work.

Several things come with community that can benefit the cause of local government, with opportunities to drive a more open, participative culture

  • Citizen engagement – most want to live a good, healthy lifestyle, and want their neighborhoods safe, their schools effective, their tax dollars put to good use. This bodes well for engagement, because local citizens have an immediate stake in the affairs of local government
  • Proximity – by being nearby, it is far easier to participate in local government events and elections, including hearings, council meetings, and the like. Not so with state or federal.
  • Visible results – the effect of government can be seen locally, reinforcing value in real terms

I’ll argue that an “intellectual distance” has caused state and federal government to grow more removed from their constituents. It’s a chasm that hurts relevance to the average citizen. Small wonder the feds have long embraced a “town meeting” approach, in hopes of capturing the level of engagment that normally accrues locally.

The other major delta that impacts culture in local government derives from smaller scale, with 3 immediate impacts:

  • Less-hardened silos – the walls of over-specialization become stronger (quite literally, hardened) with time and scale. Yes, local governments will exhibit turf wars and silos among departments. But because they are typically smaller scale, it should, in theory at least, be easier to begin working across them.
  • Greater impact of individuals – with smaller jurisdictions in particular (towns, small cities) it is possible for strong leaders to drive signifcant changes; this is more difficult with large-scale entrenched bureaucracy.
  • Low critical mass (smaller talent pool). Being ‘smaller’ means there is generally less expertise available locally; smaller jurisdictions may need to lean more on outside help.

What does this mean? For starters: state and federal governments should ‘think small’.

But it also means this:

Local government should be aggressive on capitalizing on the advantages that community and smaller scale afford. They enjoy unique levels of access to their constituents. Moreover, they are closer to organizational models that favor collaboration .. provided they can abandon the silos that are inherited via the notion of government as ‘bureaucracy’.

A strong message from our culture research still applies here: there are no silver bullets. Achieving change of any scale is hard, and culture is as strong a factor in local government as with the larger jurisdictions. Government must be willing to interact directly with their citizens, not hide behind the silo’d walls of bureaucracy. Being both small and local can encourage engagement, a fundamental enabler of social change.

Is it time for the resurgence of the local community? Maybe it takes a village, after all.

Solving for ‘Social Media’? Why Context Matters

It’s common these days to see conversations or workshops with the premise: “here’s how you achieve success in social media.”

To be fair, in our weekly SMCHAT discussions, we’ve been exploring some similar questions .. though we’d claim it’s been with rigor, applying energy to frame specifics, and to vet our takeaways. But let’s face it. Lots of people are trying to get their hands around the new technology. The answers are needed.

No harm, no foul.

What we’ve learned, however, is that ‘solving for SM’ can’t be reduced to a simple formula.

Sure, it’s fundamental to engage, and to be authentic. Those are universal basics. But there’s also a variety of usage scenarios that cross a range of organizational contexts. The dynamics of using social technologies can vary quite a bit .. all the way down to selecting the best tools and metaphors .. depending on these scenarios. To illustrate the point, here’s a quick snapshot of the results from our brainstorming over the last several weeks.

For more viewable detail, check out the SM Usage Scenarios in pdf format.

Like everything we do at SMCHAT, we’re going to attack the problem head on, to try and wrestle it down. But this one may be our nemesis. With a quick glance, it’s clear: there are many contexts to consider, a range of content types, and (as shown in the PDF) a diverse set of audiences. The many to many to many mapping can get a bit crazy. Welcome to social media. Or in some quarters, its now ‘new media’ .. more proof of the variability of requirements across venues.

The semantics of “2.0” can be a daunting exercise, no?

We’re going to use charts like these to get our bearings, as we plan the scope and scale for SMCHAT in 2010, already in progress. But if there’s one thing we CAN take away from this analysis already, it’s this.

The correct answer to “How should you handle ‘social media’ .. ?”

It depends.

Featured

Organization Culture: The Challenge of Alignment in the Complexity of Human Interaction

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Foundations of Org Culture | Blue Mesa CO (c) 2020 Amberwood Media

CARY, NC. 2010 (with updates).  How would you define organizational culture?  I’m finding it’s an increasingly important question.

To interact and function in the 21st Century,  it’s become critical that leaders understand the internal dynamics of the teams they are leading. How will an organization play in the new world? How will it connect? Drive value? Compete?

An org chart might show us structure and intent, but to truly grasp how decisions are being made, we need to understand the organization’s culture – a task that’s easier said than done. Ask enough people and you might get a sense of it, but its dimensions and reach can remain elusive.

Conceptually, org culture might be framed like this:

A complex, loosely-defined amalgamation of beliefs and behaviors of a group of people that yields significant influence on what actually gets done.

Peter Drucker called the topic “amorphous” (literally, without shape) because it defies the crisp definition that most in management prefer. Personally, I think it will likely fall more in the domain of leadership, aligned with Grace Hopper’s pithy: “You manage things, but you lead people.”

Regardless of how you try to frame it or categorize it, two key questions emerge. Can culture be overtly changed? Many, especially academics, say ‘no’. But can culture be influenced? That’s a topic of some very interesting debate and the subject of this series.

I’ll concede now, I’m not an expert but I’m a practitioner and a survivor. I’ve written vision statements in attempts to shape culture, and I’ve been stymied by mandates from above that were rendered impossible by the forces of culture. At one time or another, we’ve all worn cultural handcuffs.

Series Framing. I’ve continued to post on the many aspects of culture using this outline, with key entries posted.

  1. Org Culture: Dimensions. (ref: Schein) 1/25/10
  2. Org Culture: 4 Structural Forces. (ref: Handy) 3/02/10
  3. Org Culture and Complexity: Useful Patterns. (ref: HSDI: Eoyang, Halladay, Nations) 3/20/10
  4. Culture Change in Government. (ref: Eggers/O’Leary and B.Noveck) 3/21/10
  5. Org Culture: Interventions. (ref: Kotter) 4/10/10
  6. It Takes a Village: Insights on Culture and Community in Local Government 9/10/10
  7. Collaborative Culture: Insights from Peter Senge 1/11/11
  8. in response to Tara Hunt post 11/17/12
  9. Why Culture Mattered at IBM and Kodak (on Medium) 9/2/16
  10. Org Culture: Deconstructing Silos 6/8/20

I’ve touched base with colleagues in OD, KM & IT on this over the last 8 years, and have approached many more recently, hopeful that several are still willing to join in the journey.  I encourage you to post your insights via comments, both here on this blog and on LinkedIn. Per my usual MO, this on-going research will be a collaboration.

Org Culture:  The Story with a Significant Arc

Getting at culture problems has been on my mind since 1989. At the time, a few short years out of college, I recall rifling through Rosabeth Kanter’s classic Change Masters, hoping to unpack my first run-in with hierarchy, silos and cultures of control.

I asked, “Isn’t there a better way?” Ah, the innocence of youth.

In the years since, I’ve tried to follow Kanter’s advice. Sometimes my interventions, at once brave and naive, have actually worked. But 20 years later, I’m still in chorus with my colleagues, still reciting that same old question.

The Trouble with Silos.

As we’ll see in coming posts, silo thinking and cultural archetypes that favor stability work against innovation. In fact, I’ll argue that innovation is being held hostage on an increasing number of fronts. Silos are designed for specialists, driving to standards and removing variance. It’s important for manufacturing and accounting.

But, here’s the kicker –

If the silo model gets applied too broadly – which I contend is rampant throughout the business world – collaborative behaviors are counter-culture.

It’s a challenge of immense proportions. Let’s find some answers.

Chris Jones | @sourcepov

Starting 2010 with a Bias for Action

It’s the New Year, and there’s no time like the present to embrace all the things we spent 2009 talking about. Trouble is, there was lots of talk in 2009. Talk full of buzz words. Some claim that we’ve begun talking in circles. Maybe so. But in the process, we’ve laid an important foundation.

Look at it like this:

Meaningful, sustainable change starts with an informed conversation. Together, it’s easier to frame the future, to find the best path forward.

In 2009, via blogs and chats, we began to frame that future.

In many ways, 2009 had to happen. It’s not entirely clear how, but we survived it. We realigned our cost structures, built our networks, and learned how to interact using social media.

Now, with scarcely time for a breath, the hard work begins anew. Let’s start 2010 with a clear mindset. Here are four key themes, resolutions to guide our collaboration efforts:

  1. Bias for action. The key step in breaking the talk cycle.
  2. Bias for engagement. Moving away from the Web 1.0 broadcast model of communicating, toward a more valuable 1:1 exchange that builds relationships.
  3. Bias for learning and discovery. I’ve posted on the need for a learning culture, not only increased higher priority for education, but renewed focus on critical thinking and semantic clarity. If we succeed, the prize is a knowledge renaissance.
  4. Bias for change. None of the above will matter if we continue to cling to the past. Our risk-averse cultures are often biased to resist change. To move forward, we need to embrace it.

What does action-oriented collaboration look like? Here are some case studies in virtual community that seek to use engagement and discovery to drive new solutions:

  1. Look for some immediate changes at #smchat. Building on insights from 2009, we’re brainstorming how we can drive even more value for members. Thought leadership and emergent insight have been the core of our value stream. How can we leverage that?
  2. We’re at an inflection point for exciting things w/ #ecosys, our pilot project on public engagement to drive social innovation.
  3. Take a look at what’s happening at govloop. Over 20,000 voices from across government are self-organizing. Ideas are everywhere.

Let me know if you know of others.

2010 will be a time of culture change and new paradigms. We don’t have much choice. So strap in and hold on. We’ve got some work to do.

The Problem with “Social” in Social Media (the case for ‘New Media’ and the semantics of 2.0)

The other day, I had an epiphany.

In one window, I’d been watching a series of tweets on how State CIO’s put collaborative tools at the bottom of their 2010 technology priority list, even though their top 3 strategic goals included better management of labor costs, workforce optimization, sharing of work .. in a nutshell: productivity.

In another window, I’d watched die hard SMCHAT members bemoan the boss who wouldn’t let them communicate via blogs, for fear they were wasting time. Forget the great ideas and potential innovations that were emerging.

Finally, the last straw: several high ranking execs were talking strategy, and one of them referred to the corporate adoption of SM, aka Enterprise 2.0 (#E20), as “Facebook behind the firewall.”

That’s when I snapped, so to speak.

From here out, I’m calling it facebook syndrome. You may know someone who has it too. It assumes social media is just about planning parties and swapping pictures, and it definitely doesn’t help with management buy-in.  In fact, there are two working definitions of social. One connotes entertainment, and another, the one we’re talking about for Government 2.0 (#GOV20) and E2.0 and any serious commercial application is about building new work groups; facilitating new engagement for problem-solving; driving better partnerships; enabling culture change; and, quite literally, unlocking innovation.

Let’s change the game. Let’s rally around a new name .. like “new media” perhaps? .. for commercial applications. And to sell it, let’s demonstrate a basis for measuring actual productivity gains, showcasing the people working closely together on shared problems that only recently had never met.

Watch people get excited about coming to work again.

It’s not social media that we’re chasing. It’s the networked learning organization. To get beyond images of wedding crashers, the solution language needs to reflect the mission.

DoD Query: Web2.0 Integration aka the Portability Gap

Wouldn’t it be great if Social Media tools could talk to each other, and share basic profile information about you, your interests and your network?

The Federal Goverment (DoD) is working on that very question, and has requested public input (DoD Guidance Forum).

In spite of XML, which was invented to facilitate software talking to software, it remains a complex problem.  Many vendors are in the mix (eg., Twitter, Google, Facebook, Linked-In) and social media culture tends to say ‘no’ to standards and control.  Where can we draw useful boundaries on Web 2.0 integration issues, and how do we make our profile and social network information “portable”?

Here’s what I’m thinking.  These comments and a few more are now cross posted as DoD’s blog comments:

WEB 2.0 DEFINITION. Connecting people and content in more intuitive ways through adoption of social technologies; this drives enhanced user experience and interaction capabilities, with benefits that include: (a.) expanded user personalization, choice, and content filtering, (b.) propagation of rich, more intuitive multi-media, (c.) facilitation of all aspects of community building and interaction, and (d.) empowerment of local contribution on a global scale.

PORTABILITY is a significant gap in today’s Web2.0/SM space. The need is for a common, single-source entry with multi-vendor re-use for personalization data (profile data about the user and their preferences) as well as social network data (who the users is connected to, and importantly, why, defined by tags).  The gap is the ability and willingness of stakeholders — including vendors, users, developers, large stakeholder coalitions (eg., government) — to organize around a minimal, practical set of common guidelines. I believe an open source consortium for Web2.0/SM Data (Personal & Social Network) Portability Guidelines is needed. A ‘meeting in the middle’ to achieve a shared approach for ‘top down’ and ‘bottom-up’ data exchange would be ideal. The faster this gets done, the more quickly portability gets solved, which will lead to accelerated adoption of Web 2.0/SM.

WEB 2.0 IMPACT ON BUSINESS PROCESS (“Enterprise 2.0”). Social media and Web 2.0 are ultimately about connecting people and content in more intuitive ways, so the business processes impacted are those involving human interaction and content messaging. Examples:

  1. Collaborative Research.
  2. Customer Service (1:1 PR).
  3. Software Development.
  4. Marketing & Media Communication (1:n PR).
  5. Collaborative Solutions (Knowledge Management). [enhances capability/value of 1-4 above]
  6. HR Talent Acquisition & Supplier Sourcing.

AUTHORITATIVE REFERENCE. “Wikinomics” by Don Tapscott (2006).

What needs to happen to make this work?

“For adoption in business, government or academic organizations, Web2.0/SM requires cultures of trust & empowerment, with team environments that encourage knowledge sharing and collaboration.”

Feel free to comment, here or on the DoD site, as the spirit moves you.  These are key issues.  I’d like to know what you’re thinking.

Chris (@SourcePOV)