I am just back from a week in London running some workshops, drills and meetings about, of all things, crisis management. Yikes. Now, crisis management is not in my DNA. It is not from where I draw my strength and … Continue reading Whatever You Are, Be A Good One
Many people do not like change, they like to know what to do and to do it. Great. But this is not a choice for many of us anymore, and for fewer in the future.
You can embrace the idea that there is an opportunity herein – that change and emergence lets us change and grow and win. Or you can throw up your hands and hope for the best.
You know which choice I think is the smart one.
Continue reading “Get Ready for #FutureOfWork: It’s Coming To Get You.”
Last week, in sharing this beta process of constructing a Work Manifesto For The Social Age, Richard Martin added his always excellent input…
@ThisMuchWeKnow One word I would like to see on there: Act. Maybe another: Experiment.
— Richard Martin (@IndaloGenesis) August 5, 2014
I protested that hustle was all about action…
Continue reading “Hustle + Flow: How To Possess A Distinct, Undeniable Swag”
Young people are VERY annoying. They ignore your sage advice, they throw out all your “best” practices. They call you square. Now, one might be prone to a sanguine shrug, a “What do they know?!” But no, we don’t. We … Continue reading Fiendish Child: Follow Them To The Edge
Not all projects work according to plan. Every year, my team has several wins and a few losses. The losses, generally, are small and valuable in their learning potential; the wins tend to help the organization pivot just a tiny bit, towards the future. I am very grateful for the people I work with, and gapingvoid has a good ingredients list for teamwork that covers off a lot of what they bring to the table. We have a small team that embraces scaling as a core service and attribute. And, give or take, this is close to how we operate. … Continue reading I Like Working With My Team. We Scale.
Four years ago, before “social” was a thing inside my company, I tried a few things out. One of them was an anonymous blog on the crappy old intranet in which I gently, but directly, skewered various big personalities and important people in the organization, through the voice of The Pundit.
The Pundit always referred to The Pundit in the third person. The Pundit was self-important and zealous, convinced of The Pundit‘s rectitude. The Pundit antagonized and poked colleagues throughout the world, trying to galvanize social discourse and watercooler chat that was visible to all. The Pundit was very edgy, a satirical representation of the back channel protagonists and gossip mongers that patrol the office corridors.
The Pundit, unsurprisingly, was a highly divisive character – hierarchy killing hero to some, rude and ridiculous troll to others.
Continue reading “3 Things I Learned From Being An Anonymous Enterprise Troll”
When you enter the dark and misunderstood world of change agency, a curtain is parted and you see before you thousands of shiny objects and golden baubles – all of them possibilities. Possibilities to add value, to shake things up, in deepen and improve community, to unlock talent from outmoded ways of organizing. What to touch? What to play with? It can be intoxicating, and all the more difficult to decide for it. A Change Agents Worldwide colleague, Kevin Jones, wrote recently about how he defines his service, when there is SO MUCH TO DO! He practiced a few times at a … Continue reading Just What Am I Here To Do…?
So I have been narrowing my gaze a little recently, making my work more personal. This way, there is more skin in the game then when I get all high falutin’. Having an impact on a single person can often … Continue reading The Person To Person Economy: You Should Know…Richard Martin
Yesterday, I mentioned HiVE Vancouver. Today’s trans-enterprise social network is a pop-up version, the first Vancouver #_unBound at the Microsoft office. A few ESN fellow travellers converged to a neutral venue to work (on our own stuff), to discuss (commonalities), and to network. No agenda, no required outcomes, just a space to be held where firewalls are forgotten for a few hours. Boundaries dissipate, inside-outside is put to one side – a trans-enterprise social network. You look around the table at people who are trying to move in a similar direction, and the comradeship is effortless, natural, unforced. It was … Continue reading TRANS-Enterprise Social Networks: #_unBound Vancouver
The wholly despressing stat of the day from LeadershipABC via Jon Husband: only about 2.4% of management time (40% x 30% x 20%) is focused on building a corporate view of the future. If management is the work of today, then is leadership the work of tomorrow? The description implies forward momentum. If so, who will lead us? Who will vest their time now for tomorrow’s benefit? Who is brave enough to commit their energy to this endeavor? ←This Much We Know.→ Continue reading Manage For Today, Lead Into The Future?
Those of us who follow, and perhaps instigate, “social technology” trends and practices experience a fair deal of angst. Nobody ‘gets‘ us. There is no preferred language around which we can create a movement (of change) – hence my use of ” ” around social / technology. We keep saying this is the year, then wonder when the tipping point will (ever?) happen. So, I am always looking for insight into how to define the change and the role required to make it happen. Because that role – the one that makes organizations and teams and people go BOOM! – … Continue reading My Preferred Role: Chief Digital Officer #CDO
Some learning happens in the moment, some comes in reflection and debrief. Living through the working out loud experiment last week was powerful and dense. After, I felt tired yet optimistic – that new conversations might happen, new organizational and cultural opportunities emerge. This week, a few people have been ribbing me, why aren’t you still under the stairs? It’s just not the same Jonathan, without you peering out from the gloom… A few more missed it entirely (March break holidays) and sounded genuinely disappointed (in theory, of course). A contact made the connection between what I did – a willingness to … Continue reading A Happy #WOLyo! Outcome? Finding A First Follower.
This Much We Know 