Reflecting this week-sorry no rock and roll!

     So, I thought I was pretty tech savvy and applying what I new about technology to my leadership philosophy and actions…and then I took the course and interacted with each enrolled with me, our professor, and our readings and realized I knew much less than I thought. I have a blog, just to name the first innovation!

 

   Without belaboring this, I am more than ever committed to the idea that the cycle of technological innovation has always been part of humanity, but the cycle of change has now accelerated to a point where it seems a major challenge just to remain up to date much less anticipatory. Our world continues to wirearchically organize more prolifically and ubiquitously. Conventional thought, norms, laws, and organizing principles seem challenged at best in this environment.

 

  Enter the role of leaders and leadership in this brave new world. Leadership, as always, is the key. It is the role of leaders to provide both vision and direction, consistent with values yet incorporating technological innovation, to their organization in order to drive it to sustained success. It is leaders who have to consistently inspire and lead by example in bringing technology to enable actions rather than be led or constrained by it. It is leaders who must ensure that their subordinates retain freedom of action based on a climate of trust to act using technology rather than trying to control every activity.

 

  I don’t know enough about how to do this….yet. But I feel better armed now to ask the better questions and give better guidance based on our journey over the past several weeks.  Thanks….

“You don’t what, we can find…” Magic Carpet Ride, Steppenwolf

     So, huge topic this week this week along with readings that are both sobering and stimulating simultaneously. I offer and additional interesting blog from Cisco (http://blogs.cisco.com/news/the-2017-internet-a-look-at-the-future-courtesy-of-the-cisco-vni-forecast/) on their view beyond 2013 and what the Internet will look like in 2017. Worth a look, especially as we reflect on the sustained flattening and connecting of our world into an ever-increasing series of overlapping wirearchies (i.e. networks of networks). This really is a magic carpet ride although fantasy in this case is, or will quickly become reality-of course that is what Steppenwolf is offering to the young lady in the song!

     I remain convinced that leaders either have to embrace this phenomenon, or quickly become anachronistic. I saw the Corning piece several months ago and forwarded to a project management team we have in my previous organization (left it last week, hence now my previous organization) as we were looking to fundamentally alter our workspaces in a new facility under construction. The point of changing physical layout was to take advantage of process changes under implementation to increase collaboration and teaming versus sustaining cylinders of excellence in each portion of our mission set; the latter being the way the organization had been operating for years to success but was quickly becoming a dinosaur and risking relevance (not a good place to be in the midst of fiscal uncertainty with eyes looking for things to cut!). We sent a small  team out to Corning, Google, and several other innovative workplace experts to get some ideas, many of which the team is beginning to implement. This is the essence of leadership in my opinion-don’t worry if you’re not the expert-find those with the ideas and the skills to implement your vision and move out. Be willing to embrace ideas and innovations, develop feasible solutions to problems that use the emerging technologies to enhance actions you want to take to make change; and do all this while sustaining the core values of the organization, the welfare of the workforce, and accomplish your mission. A tall order, but that’s why good leaders succeed.  

    Technological innovation has been, and will remain, a driving force in all sectors of our lives. This is not unique in history, but what has changed is the rapidity with which change comes. As we have discussed many times, our various reading reinforce is the application of Moore’s Law is no longer measured in decades or even single years, but sometimes in months. It’s hard to predict how long this evolution can be sustained, but regardless, it’s a leader responsibility to be the catalyst, the enabler, the manager, the facilitator, the cheerleader, the coach, the quarterback, the Magic Carpet Ride Genie…”you don’t what we can find, but why don’t you come with me little girl (or boy) on a magic carpet ride…” implies that we all have to make the leap or risk being left behind; unimaginative and marginalized.

“The Boys Are Back In Town” Thin Lizzy

…OK, so this classic rock metaphor continues, but I seem to have an addiction (or perhaps affliction!) that won’t let me stop. The “Town” in this case, however, refers to both brick and mortar structure defined as where we physically live and hardware resides, as well as the virtual locations where we work, play, and connect; together this comprises places in which we all live on Friedman’s (2005/2007) “flat’ world. More germane to this week’s question is the nefarious activity known collectively as cyber crime, and the “Boys” (not intentionally chauvinistic, just trying to keep it simple, so “boys” in this case generically equates to both genders) who keep coming back to perpetrate these actions.

 

Cyber crime runs the gamut from individuals who use the open net to steal identities, to active phishing actions to either cause people to squander money on unnecessary items or to actively infect individual systems or networks, to “hacktivists” that are economically or politically motivated on a cause to gain information or disrupt activities, up to organization/state-sponsored actions executed to attempt disruption of institutions, even governments, or active theft of information. This wide range of activities under the over-arching descriptor of cyber crime is often also referred to in the media and government as cyber attacks. Neither is completely accurate nor completely false. How can something be labeled as “crime” where in many cases there is no law?

 

Nations have laws, there are some international agreements, but cyber is ubiquitous and doesn’t necessarily respect national borders and by extension sovereignty. In the US alone, there are innumerable bills emanating from both houses of Congress but few have passed muster to become law. Indulge me for a moment on a couple of examples-I won’t belabor this as a it’s a deep subject and perhaps one on which we can dialogue over the next weeks (months, years, decades…!).

• The US has military organizations dedicated to protection of US military network to detect and attempt to prevent intrusion, as well as identify intruders and under certain authorities take action to counter these actions. This military capability is supported, as with actions in other domains (air, land, sea, space..) by a robust intelligence community across all disciplines (signals, electronic, geo-spatial, human, etc.). If an actor infiltrates a civilian corporation that provides support or production of a military capability on an open unclassified network, and exfiltrates data for their own use, does that constitute crime? Under what statute if the actor is non-US, especially if it’s a non-state actor? This is the big debate going on in the media between the US and China for example.
• Add a layer of complexity on the issue by the physical and virtual location of each actor. Presume the actor perpetrates the intrusion from outside the US, but targets a corporate network inside the US. Even so, the point of intrusion might emanate from and internet service provider physically located on US soil. How does this affect what US actions might be appropriate, or more correctly stated legal?  Think about the Constitutional/US Code restrictions on the use of intelligence activities targeting US citizens as well as Posse Comitatus restrictions on the use of military capabilities to enforce civil law. This may be frustrating to those in authority, but balance it from the perspective of sustainment of civil liberties, First Amendment rights, and the example we claim to set for the rest of the world as a democracy. Where does the balance between individual rights and privileges versus regulation and governmental control lie?
• What’s the threshold we should set between crime and attack? If an actor is purposely creating a worm or virus to insert into a financial institution because of anger over their perception that large banks were a significant cause of the current economic issues a crime? If that network disruption spreads deeper into other financial institutions causing loss of resources or a collapse of some specific capability (your ATM card no longer works, or worse NASDAQ fails) is that crime or does that constitute an attack; or does it matter whether the actor is an American citizen, sponsored by another nation-state, or extra-national (think about Iranian activists and Lebanese Hezbollah for example)?

 

I seem to be asking a lot more questions than providing answers, but this is a complex subject. Despite 20 years of fairly common access to the internet, the governance remains as designed fairly open and therefore what constitutes crime including potential litigation a nascent and very dynamic topic. Given consensus that our world is “flat” and becoming more wired, all digital citizens-natives and immigrants-owe their voice to the conversation. May be we’ve entered a new social compact recognizing that “The Boys are Back in Town” and likely to stay, so we all must know how to act accordingly.

“I’ve got blisters on my fingers!!” Ringo Starr (Helter Skelter on the White Album)

OK-I acknowledge the continuation of my musical references as a means to draw you in, so forgive me for being derivative! I take the quotation out of its musical context, however, as a means to show that perhaps it’s our flat world and the 24/7/365 connectivity that vast numbers of our world’s population now access is causing physical trauma-and by extension trauma to other aspects of our human resilience fabric. The blisters on the fingers of today’s workforce comes not from drumsticks from the pounding of keys, mouse clicks, and text screens to keep up with the rhythm of the world that never stops.

Clearly, information technology has flattened much of the world and connected us in ways perhaps imagined with the advent of the telegraph but not realizable until Friedman’s (2005/2007) 10 “Flatteners” and his “Triple Convergence” emerged. The pros are obvious; regardless of time of day or time zone the work force can collaborate, cooperate, provide real-time analysis/service/leadership across every sector and demographic. People can accomplish so much without having to necessarily be right next to those with whom they are working; teaming/swarming to meet challenges foreseen and unforeseen. This is powerful.

I follow Friedman’s later argument, however, on the application of technological determinism and humanistic determinism. The former posits that technology will continue to evolve and proliferate to touch new segments of the population in ways ever changing in accelerated application of Moore’s Law. The latter, however, places the human appropriately back in the loop-that is ultimately up to humans to make this evolution worthwhile, a force for good. Good is a discriminator that deserves some attention-what is “good?”

It is in this analysis that I find some cons to the flat, wired, connected world. The Pew Report (2008) from this week’s readings outlined some telling statistics on the percentages of people who are connected at work, how that translates into their assessment of productivity, and how the lines continue to blur between work and home. Several of my colleagues posted on this last week and gave superb examples of the effects it has on the personally and professionally. I won’t dwell on the statistics on the obvious detractors too much connections may have on the overall workforce-distraction, mixing video watching or personal shopping with work time, clogging up band-width, personal email, etc…Those are factors, but I believe enablers of a much larger challenge: the potential loss of identity and personal leadership in the wired world.

We have discussed the latter in several previous weeks, it’s ultimately about how leaders provide the vision and adherence to values that give the work force the goals and means to accomplish mission within acceptable behavior. I remain concerned, however, that in our rush to harness the power of technology to remain relevant in the world, we run the risk of sacrificing appropriate focus on the individual human and that would be the big “con” in the flat world. This risk to the individuals manifests in the erosion of every pillar of resilience: physical, behavioral, spiritual, social, and family (many different definitions of personal resilience-I have used these 5 in previous courses and in my current professional life). Staying connected is required by our professional lives, but maintaining awareness of how it potentially erodes any/all the pillars is equally critical to life writ large. I don’t have the silver bullet answer to the test question here, but it seems a mandate to every individual and every leader to remain aware of the challenges posed by this dilemma and more importantly be prepared to take action to sustain a balance of resilience in the face of what could be an overwhelming tide of technology. Make the “blisters on my fingers” count in the grand scheme…organizationally and individually…

 

 

“Hold on loosely, but don’t let go..” .38 Special and technology-enabled leadership?

     Clearly, the natural order of the workplace has changed dramatically with the proliferation of information technology, especially in the past 20 years. The previous parameters of Moore’s law on the evolution of technological innovations has shrunk from centuries and decades to at most years and in some cases months and weeks with the ubiquitous “app” development and fielding cycle. 20 years ago, I had one computer on my desk, no email, and a PSTN phone. Today I have 4 stand alone computers, two of which operate on different networks (total of 6); 3 phones, 2 of which are VOIP enabled; and 3 different video chat/VTC systems. That’s just at work, add the personal devices some of which also connect to work networks as well thus blurring the lines and it’s no secret to see the influence of technology.

 

     Both Husband (2013) and the Gartner (2010) analysis were useful in describing the nature of these circumstances and providing helpful insight on how workers and leaders ought to think about this phenomenon and actions to consider taking to better use the technology to further individual and organizational progress. I agree with the “wirearchy” description as it applies to effective workplace action and the relationships it builds and sustains. I think Husband’s working definition of wirearchy as“…a dynamic two-way flow of power and authority, based on knowledge, trust, credibility and a focus on results, enabled by interconnected people and technology”…is right, except I would change “two-way” to multi-directional/dimensional. I would posit that most of us in our professions and vocations see this happening daily and like any organism is quickly adapting to changes in the environment and growing stronger. This seems to be what the Gartner analysis is describing in the “swarming” descriptor. Swarming is to Gartner what “teaming” is to Google and other innovative technology organizations. This concept is proliferating rapidly into other sectors, and threatens to make traditional command and control institutions (like mine) an anachronism.

 

     So, back to the question of the day, how do leaders contribute to this process; retaining the responsibility of leaders without inhibiting the flow of information, collaboration, networking, and rapid innovation/adaptation? A couple of thoughts. First is the establishment of clear expectations on what the organization is trying to accomplish (mission), a solid description of the broad view of how it ought to get there (vision), some specificity of the way points along the voyage that are definitive enough for all to understand without being too prescriptive or inflexible (goals), and clear delineation of what the team embraces as defining (or not) them as individuals and the larger organization (values). Second and directly related to the first, is empowerment of the workforce to take action and the statement/building/reinforcing trust between and among leaders and workers at every level. Trust is key in this rapid and dynamic world as actions that before might have taken days or weeks now might happen in hours down to milliseconds. Trust also acknowledges that people are able to make decisions, and sometimes make mistakes that leaders need to underwrite. Honest mistakes happen- provide an environment for using a mistake as a means to educate and grow all without retribution and watch how effective the team becomes. Third, there has to be an open and as flat as possible flow of communication that is transparent to all. Chains of authority are not the same as conduits of information. This is where the wirearchy concept is useful.  Lastly, leaders must clearly outline the levels of decision authority, reserving only a very few at the highest level and pushing the remainder down the organization as low as possible. This obviously reinforces the other points but I believe is key to effective execution in the flat and wired environment.

 

     Another point in this whole discussion, and one that should be assisted by technology but too often has been inhibited. Leaders need to clearly identify what success means in themselves and their organization. Too often it seems, the addition of more and better information technology is stifling decision-making rather than enabling it-leader wait for more and more information to take action just because it’s available, regardless of whether it’s useful or not. In the military, it’s the difference between information and intelligence (the latter being information that is analyzed, and the useful parts provided to help fill in the answers to critical questions). I read an interesting article about a book written by a professor at Swarthmore that seems to have some insights that might be useful in this regard. The book is titled The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less-How the Culture of Abundance Robs Us of Satisfaction (Barry Schwartz. Harper Perennial, 2005), and the basic premise is that our culture of so many choices in every aspect of life is not producing a feeling of abundance and satisfaction but is further exhausting us. Schwartz says that “Clinging tenaciously to all the choices available to us contributes to bad decisions, to anxiety, stress and dissatisfaction-even to clinical depression.” He divides people into two broad categories: Maximizers and Satisfiers. While Maximizer seems like a good descriptor, in this case the Maximizer is one who is seeking only the best; the elusive quest for perfection. The Satisfier on the other hand, seeks a “good-enough” solution without unduly sacrificing standards, understanding that nothing will be perfect. Seems to me, that a Satisfier Leader who can implement effectively the points outlined above will not only be better at using technology to their advantage but will also have an exceptional organization with a motivated team and therefore by extension a superb outcome.

Managing knowledge??

Friedman (2005/2007) describes his concept of a triple convergence as the merging of his previously outlined 10 flattener factors increasingly working together to extend the flattening process from isolated anecdotal localized effects to global and ubiquitous. As this occurred, new skills and processes emerged that moved means of creating value from vertical to horizontal, and from a hierarchical architecture to a collaborative environment that was further flattening.  As this happened, new players emerged from the developed and developing world to take advantage of the first two sectors of the convergence creating increased compete, connect, and collaborate opportunities. I buy into the triple convergence concept as an apt description of the environment, but find Friedman’s discussion lacking when it comes to ideas for the practical and effective application of this phenomenon to sustain or increase the effect more universally.

Enter our other two assigned readings, each of which picked up Friedman’s slack and gave us not only analysis of what was but more practical and useful insights on what could be given enlightened and engaged leadership. Nancy Dixon (2009) in her blog series on knowledge management provided a great framework for organizations and leaders at all levels to determine where they are in the continuum of KM, but more importantly an effective set of tools to shape where they need to go. I was especially struck by Part 3 on leveraging collective knowledge and connecting workers with decision makers by:

• Inclusion of cognitively diverse perspectives
• Integration of the organization’s knowledge, and
• Increased transparency

Jarche (2012) then led us through a discussion of how organizations use these concepts in formal and informal means to train, and more importantly encourage learning, within their workforce to increase effectiveness, efficiency, and by extension improvements in every sector; presumably profits, personal health, satisfaction and morale, personal development, etc.

It seems to me that the role of leadership in this environment is not dramatically different conceptually from what it has always been. Establishing vision, articulating values, communicating with those who follow, demonstrating by personal example as well as words both the importance and value of the organization and its mission, empowering subordinates and underwriting their mistakes, accepting blame and passing praise, ensuring fairness of reward and punishment, and retaining a sense of humility and humor throughout the process. It’s not the principles of leadership that change with the current proliferation of information technology, it’s the technology itself. I posit that the world has always experienced this phenomenon. Take Europe in the Middle Ages before movable type. Information was passed via personal contact, largely oral as few could read, the exception to the latter being clergy and some members of the nobility. Within this construct, a few read and debated big ideas, most passed stories within their communities by mouth, and therefore much of what was accepted as truth came from assuming what they heard constituted right. This is not dissimilar from what occurs even today where many presume what they find on the internet is true (a technology-enabled version of the oral tradition) unless they choose to research further, engage in debate (even on-line), or question via some other means. This parallel can be drawn into almost any era or any culture. “Flat” among Middle Age villagers may have meant their information exchange only made it to the next village or market town, but in their context it was flat…now we have the means to move information around the world in nanoseconds-the question remains how to turn that information into something useful rather than global “tribal lore.” Time for leadership…

Leaders, therefore, have an increasingly important role in what is called knowledge management, but really may be more correctly knowledge enabling. Too often, management controls are emplaced that stifle effective knowledge sharing and therefore further inhibit collaboration. I don’t purport that an organization ought to have unrestricted or unbounded knowledge enabling, but clearly the more horizontal and collaborative and organization is, the exponentially increased chance of better sharing and more timely and effective execution. The chain of command or management is not the same thing as the path information ought to take. I offer for consideration an interesting blog by Jim Stikeleather on the on-line version of Harvard Business Review (http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2013/05/the_metamorphosis_of_the_cio.html)  , who outlines the increasing importance of the CIO position, reinforcing Friedman, Dixon, and Jarche by stating that effective organizations are those who are “…socially enabled; they will operate as digital business ecosystems, offering innovative services and products as rapidly and inexpensively as possible; and they will view innovation not as an optional advantage, but as the only advantage.”

Week 2-Collaborate!

Google Docs began as a service from Google © that provided collaborative work space using free on-line word processing and spreadsheet software, along with storage capability of documents. It quickly expanded to increased capabilities for collaboration using both the original free-ware and a variety of available commercial software as well, including Microsoft Office © suite and others. The real power of Google Docs, however, came from the ability for multiple users to read, review, and revise documents in various forms with access to the documents anywhere, anytime when on-line. This reduced the need for discs, thumb drives, emailing files or any other storage device and further enabled users from all sectors to increasingly flatten the access to information. I have used it in several courses during my current degree pursuit when working with others on group projects.

Google Docs became a part of Google Drive© in April 2012. Drive has increased the amount of available software, free storage, and includes other tools as well. Additionally, Google Docs on Google Drive offers cloud synchronization with computing devices, off-line editing, and file sharing. Drive currently offers 10GB of free cloud storage, with additional storage available for a fairly nominal cost.

The capabilities offered by this service, free for the basic system, are powerful examples of Friedman’s (2005/2007) definition of flattening.  They exemplify in practice #s 1 & 2 of the world-flattening forces, the New Ages of Connectivity and Creativity, utilize #3 Work Flow Software, while also supporting/facilitating his remaining 7 especially #4 Uploading, and is the epitome of #10 Steroids: Digital, Mobile, Versatile, and Virtual.

While I use this service in my personal and education life, there are some challenges in my professional life based on security classifications.  Understanding this, we are working the Google and others on methods and services we might adopt to take advantage of the powerful tools available in Docs and Drive to significantly improve collaboration and by extension both effectiveness and efficiency without sacrificing security.

Flat or Spiky?

Neither is complete right or wrong. Both arguments (Friedman, 2005 and Florida, 2006) provide good insights through anecdotes and data, but it almost seems an “apples and oranges: argument.

Friedman shared his epiphany that the world changed sometime around 2000 with the increasing flow of information and ubiquity of associated technology, the combination of which provided both the means and mode of “flattening” the world. To him, this enables people everywhere to be increasingly connected, and by extension open opportunities for interconnecting people and businesses into an interdependent global economy. His early anecdotes center largely on the services and support sector migration to developing regions, with the acknowledgement that proliferation of education opportunities and desire to excel provide both the motive and means to shift the research,development, and ownership of increasing amounts of industry and commerce in the near future.

Florida obliquely counters Friedman through data that shows the disparity of population centers and access to electricity (increasingly prolific and urbanized) with the location of patented technologies and scientific inquiry. While the former two categories show spikes in many locations-especially in the developing regions of the world, the latter two categories tend to center on more traditional Western centers. Florida views this as evidence that while information technology may have flattened the world with access, control of that access remains in the hands of far fewer-those on the tips of the “spikes.”

Both acknowledge the influence (interference, assistance, regulation…) of governments, international business conglomerates, war, conflagration, etc…but I believe there is much to this as it influences whether flat or spiky is even a relevant comparative analysis. More to follow in future posts on this, the impact of cyber security issues, and the overall impact of technology on society and cultural norms to name but a few…

Test Post

Added a Gravatar, and wanted to test the site to make sure Professor could access and connect via Netvibes. Looking forward to this course and the opportunity to interact…