Time Traveling

Too much space since my last post.

Of late I have been noticing the great divide between what is really important to one group of people and another. It astonishes me how one group, team, organisation, culture and so on, can prioritise so differently and still work within the wider societal context. I guess the determining factor of this is how affective they can be with their different priorities and succeed playing with the same conventions as the rest of us, i.e. the desire to do what you do better and the fear of failing at this. This manifests itself differently for various groups, but I believe its a common rule which everyone working together (whether successfully or not) abides by.

I hope that I can my life is about being involved in groups and organisations that focus on being extraordinary at something and not fearing to really go for it be that we might fail along the way.

Ideas, Imagination and Innovation.

What would your organisation be like if it had consistent input from stakeholders? - your "customers" tell you how you could improve the things you produce and the services you offer aka the end user’s going from a receiver to an essential ingredient of your development process.

There is a significant element of society that really wants to participate in something that for them makes a difference.

Now stop imagining and starting doing. One of the gateways to the Global Brain is the Internet - low barriers to entry and flexible.

My point in its essence - if our focus is not on attracting Innovators and Early adopters to partner with us in designing improvements for how people can interface and connect with our organisations and what we offer, someone else will and we'll be the last ones left at the party asked to turn the lights off without an invitation to the next gathering.

Can I smell Cheese?

It's interesting how people grow accustomed to things being in the same place, events occurring in same way with similar outcomes, and can hold a belief that people's behaviour is a constant that can be relied upon.

Now before some of you switch off, this isn’t a geek piece.

I read some interesting comments about how Web 2.0 will not get traction from the people hold the most relevant knowledge in organisations; the people from which the organisation will derive the most benefit from them using them. (What is Web 2.0?).

It's sometime hard to keep perspective when talking about the Internet. We have only a quarter century of experience using the tool. In terms of history, it’s an incredibility short time. There are few things in life about people's behaviour that can be said to true at all times. Though I believe there are some, the way people incorporate the use of IM, emailing etc, hasn't really been around long enough to say that it so entrenched in human behaviour that new web tools emerging won’t last. The extreme Internet users who are naturally attracted to the dynamic and ever evolving Internet find it easy to adopt new tools/functionality. These people are the teenagers and young adults of today who will be the workers and business leaders of tomorrow.

Like any advancement in a certain aspect of society, the lasting impact is almost always different to its initial introduction. Web 2.0 will change enterprises and organisations. It must because it's changing how a significant and influential demographic of web users are socially connecting. Whether we talk about businesses, not-for-profits, community groups, churches or whatever, they are made up of people who are relational by nature. If Web 2.0 helps to connect enough people effectively (which I believe it is beginning to doand will increasingly do as the tech behind things like wikis evolves) then that will be enough to cause a shift.

The reality is people are never, not busy. We will never have anymore time then we have now to do more stuff. Once priorities change, people will find the time to do what they value.

What are you doing today...

helping to end a 20 year war perhaps?

A little while back I wrote that there have been no significant social actions (significant in the context of the Internets reach to over 1 billion uses) empowered by the use of the Internet. I may have been wrong. Invisible Children is an organisation with an amazing mission –to end a 20 year war. Three young guys have made a documentary chronicling the Ugandan civil war and the stories of the children who have to flee their villages every night and walk to safe compounds in the city to escape being made into child soldiers or sex slaves. They, and a group of impassioned volunteers, have harnessed the reach of MySpace, Youtube and other youth-centric sites to attract and inspire American youth to believe that they can have a real and lasting affect in changing the world. As clichéd as this may unfortunately have become saving the world is not just for beauty queens.

Please do me the favour of checking out their site. This is an inspirational example of how utilising the Internet in conjunction with old fashioned telephone and footpath-bashing campaigning can effect change. I don’t know what the outcome of this cause will be, but my hope is that instances like this will herald a new wave of effective social action.