JUST THINK

I’m on the continent of Africa working with a major firm just now.

I’ve been noticing (increasingly recurring) some key global factors that seem to have entered the global conscience. Substantive conversations within our work have changed – in some very important ways for me – over the last 12-18 months.  A couple of years ago there was a highly apparent (hugely frustrating) lack of true association and application with important values within some of  the teams we were working with. This showed up in the frameworks. It was borne out through results.

Now things are definitely changing and the quality of attention and outcome is tangible.

The Critical Themes

1. A deeper appreciation of ‘design’ and ‘design thinking’ and how it affects performance and experience in everything.
2. The pressing need for social and human values to return to the fore. Really.
3. Much more focus on living systems, sustainability and ‘systems thinking’ in the connectivity of it all.
4. Far greater recognition that our major political and media systems are broken and we need alternatives.

I know that this is our field so we would spot these wouldn’t we - but this list sprang without much intervention from meetings with 50-60 people strong middle ranking groups in firms in America, the Middle East and Africa. I’m also following several youth blogs and the same themes are there too. Co-incidence? I don’t think so.

What are your thoughts and I’m interested to know what you think is really going on here?

An amazing online visualization designed by Fernanda Viegas, Martin Wattenberg & the crowdsourcing specialists at Dolores Labs, which explores the relationship between the body & its visual & verbal representation. The Touch body heatmap investigates the collective perception of erogenous zones, based on the input of 100s of people that ranked how good it would feel to touch or be touched by a lover in different points of the body.

The Look interface analyzes the individuality and hidden surprises that each body reveals when bared by abstracting & categorizing visual forms of male nipples & female breasts.

The Listen interface charts how often a specific body part is mentioned in different music genres genre, based on a sample of 1000’s songs.

HARD RAIN

I went to see the ‘Hard Rain Project’ and accompanying exhibition by Mark Edwards on New Years Eve 2009 –

CLICK –

It was ‘on’ on the railings outside The Crypt at St Martins in The Field. I bought the book and the DVD. The images and words are impossibly powerful and in more ways than one. The meaning is impossible to do justice to in words here. I recommend you get a copy.

It is set to Bob Dylan’s – A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall – a ‘live’ version – lyrics below. I urge everyone to read and watch it but above all taking note of the message of each sequence. Each line of the song – the idea of it – set to a photographic image of incredible intensity taken by Mark Edwards in over 150 countries. The important idea about the project is that it isn’t about climate change, war or poverty. It is about the human condition – our stupidity, our man made systems and the lack of the realization or interest in how connected each of these things are.

“I’ve walked and I’ve crawled on six crooked highways”

You probably all feel well versed in the topic. This work guarantees you will be.

A Happy New Year!

A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall

Oh, where have you been, my blue-eyed son ?
And where have you been my darling young one ?

I’ve stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountains
I’ve walked and I’ve crawled on six crooked highways
I’ve stepped in the middle of seven sad forests
I’ve been out in front of a dozen dead oceans
I’ve been ten thousand miles in the mouth of a graveyard

And it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, and it’s a hard
It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall.

Oh, what did you see, my blue eyed son ?
And what did you see, my darling young one ?

I saw a newborn baby with wild wolves all around it
I saw a highway of diamonds with nobody on it
I saw a black branch with blood that kept drippin’
I saw a room full of men with their hammers a-bleedin’
I saw a white ladder all covered with water
I saw ten thousand takers whose tongues were all broken
I saw guns and sharp swords in the hands of young children

And it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, and it’s a hard
It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall.

And what did you hear, my blue-eyed son ?
And what did you hear, my darling young one ?

I heard the sound of a thunder, it roared out a warnin’
I heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world
I heard one hundred drummers whose hands were a-blazin’
I heard ten thousand whisperin’ and nobody listenin’
I heard one person starve, I heard many people laughin’
Heard the song of a poet who died in the gutter
Heard the sound of a clown who cried in the alley

And it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard
And it’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall.

Oh, who did you meet my blue-eyed son ?
Who did you meet, my darling young one ?

I met a young child beside a dead pony
I met a white man who walked a black dog
I met a young woman whose body was burning
I met a young girl, she gave me a rainbow
I met one man who was wounded in love
I met another man who was wounded and hatred

And it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard
And it’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall.

And what’ll you do now, my blue-eyed son ?
And what’ll you do now my darling young one ?

I’m a-goin’ back out ‘fore the rain starts a-fallin’
I’ll walk to the deepths of the deepest black forest
Where the people are a many and their hands are all empty
Where the pellets of poison are flooding their waters
Where the home in the valley meets the damp dirty prison
Where the executioner’s face is always well hidden
Where hunger is ugly, where souls are forgotten
Where black is the color, where none is the number
And I’ll tell and think it and speak it and breathe it
And reflect it from the mountain so all souls can see it
Then I’ll stand on the ocean until I start sinkin’
But I’ll know my songs well before I start singin’

And it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, and it’s a hard
It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall.

“Someone has to stop the cycle of stupidity in life & in the workforce. Why not you?” she said. – Laurie Ruettimann

Think about what the world could do with better ideas…!

Your personal success is about having a better idea about ‘you’. Your business needs new ideas if it is to a better business. The 21st Century needs new ideas because we all know that we have a lot of critical problems to solve as a species.

* An idea is the formation of a fresh thought. A thought, an idea developed inside us – designed to carry a concept. The concept becomes the precise formation of the idea. This entire structure is then a ‘framework’ that’s perfectly set up to create change. Think about that!

* An idea in a robust framework is a tool through which we can make anything, change anything or communicate anything. As individuals, in business or in our global systems generally – the re-birth of IDEA is now the most important tool we have.

Armed with this definition of ‘idea’ the ‘20 Things’ we describe below are ‘things’ that need to be thought about very differently in this new decade if the idea is not to be still born.

Critical Idea

The western world has grown lazy, frustrated, dangerous and bland by following earlier ideas. In their day they were appropriate but we all know that everything changes. We urgently need fresh thinking, containing the sparks of optimism and hope sprung by new ideas. For today! Because we are bound by these old ideas we have in many ways lost the fire of individuality in our business and personal life. We find ourselves living in a world frantically searching for better ways of achieving value, satisfaction and harmony. Ideas!

“Whether we are a business, a government agency or a start-up we must fully understand and embrace the power of IDEA.”

Ideas are at the heart of any change, any new impetus, interest or action. For a business to win in the 21st Century it has to lead and innovate in some way. Firstly with a bigger or better idea. Then followed up with different thinking.

An idea carries with it very special energy. Energy that has the power to carry people with it and in so doing achieve great things. This energy causes movement in us. It’s what we call passion. This movement means exactly what it says. It has the power to move everything. It has the power to make us rethink, unlearn and open our minds to opportunity.

“In a time of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists.” – Eric Hoffer

THE 20 THINGS WE DESPERATELY NEED TO THINK DIFFERENTLY ABOUT IN THE NEW DECADE

Take a really good look at this. Quite brilliant. Clicky

The Known Universe takes viewers from the Himalayas through our atmosphere and the inky black of space to the afterglow of the Big Bang. Every star, planet, and quasar seen in the film is possible because of the world’s most complete four-dimensional map of the universe, the Digital Universe Atlas that is maintained and updated by astrophysicists at the American Museum of Natural History.

The new film, created by the Museum, is part of an exhibition, Visions of the Cosmos: From the Milky Ocean to an Evolving Universe, at the Rubin Museum of Art in Manhattan through May 2010.

I think we are suffering from degrees of inertia, intolerance and insensitivity in every day life.

We see this in all its glory in business and politics. Crazy decisions, bizarre explanations for failure and toxic disdain aimed at the traditional institutions. This is now the mainstream. Business in particular could possibly even be viewed as an open laboratory for a failure of 21st Century thinking but it is by no means alone. Systems are at breaking point all over the world. Political and other major systems are also struggling with coming to terms with more current/relevant thinking to reduce the anger of an increasingly frustrating and hostile public.

Take the insensitivity of the services we receive from most automated customer services, the inept experiences in many high street stores, disbelief with the actions of major brands and government services. The dreadful similarity between city streets that are being overtaken by sameness from one city to another. I find it quite distasteful to travel across continents and witness similar trading patterns, experiences and their ‘typical’ attendant issues. On the other hand I find it wonderful to find an entirely innovative, different and charming experience that is heartfelt meaningful and rich in human values. More interestingly this is more often found in the least expected, less westernized parts of the world and the furthest away from the highly streamlined and supposedly sophisticated enterprise.

This lack of human or local sensitivity is bought about by the deeply ingrained preference business has for risk aversion, reliability, consistency and repeatability. And it is these tradition approaches that have brought around a palpable inertia – a seeming difficulty thing for the enterprise to do much about it. But why? And believe me I am optimistic.

For me it is important to bring different forms of thinking to bear and at the heart of this lies the idea of heuristics. A heuristic is really a rule of thumb, a general ‘truth’ that holds up in more cases than not. It is a more fluid, natural and pragmatic idea than for example an algorithm, something that has the absolutes coded into it. I think this coding is what has caused us as humans to question the services and stupidity we see all around us. It is this hard wiring that takes little or no account of how life actually goes on and why I like the idea behind Gregory Bateson’s wonderful epithet – “The major problems in the world are the result of the difference between the way nature works and the way man thinks.” – Gregory Bateson

Roger Martin, Dean of Rotman Business School puts all of this best. He describes the process of human innovation in three steps, something he calls the ‘knowledge funnel:

Mystery – At the top of the funnel he sees humans as staring into a mystery – which contains the random and chaotic ‘situation’ in which we find ourselves much of the time – and is of course where opportunity lies.
Heuristic – In the middle of the narrowing funnel he sees human endeavor as coming up with a heuristic, or rule of thumb, that allows us, especially an enterprise, to address the mystery and manage it in some way
Algorithm – And at the thinnest point of the funnel – the most codified part of the continuum – systematizing and automating the solution – The Algorithm. And in Roger Martin’s words our preoccupation is with turning the heuristic into an algorithm.

“The title “Vice President of Marketing” denotes a permanent position with a set of ongoing tasks. As well suited as that construct is for running known heuristics and algorithms, it is not an effective way to move along the knowledge funnel. That activity is by definition a project; it is a finite effort to move something from mystery to heuristic or from heuristic to algorithm.” – Roger Martin

NB: Worth noting also that this process according to Roger Martin is also the way to define Design Thinking.

It is worth noting that there are lots of mysteries that don’t lend themselves to heuristics, and lots of heuristics that can’t turn into algorithms. There are lots of failures on the way to the next great business algorithm. Not only that, there are lots of successful businesses built on heuristics alone – example, the world of music and theatre, the arts, your favorite restaurant – (if it’s not part of a chain) Roger Martin alludes – in the book ‘The Design Of Business’ – that you can’t build large businesses without this transition to algorithms. You can’t have McDonald’s without a cooking and serving system. You couldn’t have Wal-Mart without its distribution model.

Introducing the Heuristic Framework

The other important framework against which to understand what is actually going on is the lack of balance in our lives and in the world as it has become. It is the preoccupation the west has with purely analytical (left brain thinking). But optimistically what follows is the basis of the way out – the way and in our view the means of Thinking Differently. 21st Century Thinking.
Read more »

“Watch your thoughts, for they become words. Watch your words, for they become actions. Watch your actions, for they become habits. Watch your habits, for they become character. Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.” – Frank Outlaw

We are silently observing the failure of our systems. We are in deep like never before. Our systems are in meltdown and everyone is just watching. Everywhere we look we see and hear the anguish and squealing of the death throes of corporations, institutions and governments. Our nostrils twitch with the reeking stench of rotting enterprise and political disgrace. We see it on the news every day, school shootings, workers striking, wars – terrorism that we are becoming numb about. Train smash TV is the norm. We are complicit. We all know the Earth is being pillaged to feed and cool or heat, move, clothe and entertain 7 Billion and growing and we know it can’t.

“The major problems in the world are the result of the difference between the way nature works and the way man thinks.” – Gregory Bateson

But wait a New York minute. What on Earth is going on here. Nothing gets learned? Haven’t we been at this rodeo before? We are stunning at complaining about the system, we keep sucking in our breath and pontificating about the stupidity of it all and then we pump another few billion back into the same stupid institutions. Is it because we just like to complain about them or have we got used to the soundtrack and just keep humming?

Are we the stupidest species on earth? Who the hell are WE anyway?

Agony.

Why? What? Err..? Well in organizations all over the world the song remains the same. The reason for the repeating neurosis. The same debate in the same way at what might as well be the same meeting in the same room. Living hell. The same conversation, week after week. People talking past each other. The usual nodding and polite chit chat. These dull rooms where we can feel the lack of energy in the pits of our stomachs. Everyone hoping for something different to happen – but wait – that would mean change. That’s scary.

In so many ways we sense the contempt for anything new, the disregard for new perspectives with risky positions. If you have the ability (or is it death wish?) to observe important meetings then frankly you know there is actually little agreement or stuff of value going on in the conversations anyway. They may as well not be happening really. But they do, and that is what scares the stuffing out of me and so the same old same old carries on. Witness sheer determined denial. Firm commitment to no meaningful change.

Worse, these ritual dances our institutions and corporations undertake – when there would be an agreement you just know it probably signals impending doom – a rocky road ahead. There can be immediate problems. “What just happened? How can this be? I thought you meant this… I saw it like that… “ Throw a few well meaning experts in there and catastrophe. Either everyone breathes a sigh and awaits the final bell. Litigation against swathes of contractors, mass sackings and strife – resignations and scandal. Blame and defensiveness. Everyone senses the subtle weaponry being secured – forming defensive battlements and arguments for what is about to come. For what we are about to receive.

“Here’s the important thing to say about meetings – nothing important ever got decided in meeting. The place to get your own way is over lunch, in someone’s office, over drinks, dinner, anywhere but in a fucking meeting. What meetings are good for, however, is stitching people up – undermining, belittling and humiliating them.” John Niven. Kill Your Friends

So I offer a framework of optimism on the basis that if we can describe the reality then we might ‘bust’ the stupidity. We might shine light on what is actually going on and rebuild a different system. I call the framework:

The 7 Sacred Pillars of Inertia.

1. Myopia. Dystopia. Cornucopia: The Behavioral Mindset – Stuckness – Small Thinking
2. Tyrannical Pyramids: The Org Chart – Command & Control – FUD
3. 800lbs of Permafrost: Cultural Inertia – Unwritten Code – but we all know its ‘there’
4. Expert – Devil Syndrome: Standard/Best Practice – Outdated Doctrine built on dubious data.
5. Dumb. Founded: No Cognition – Thinking, Reasoning, Analysing
6. Idea Vacuums: No Ignition – Inspiration, Creativity, Energy
7. Death: Amnesia & Anaesthesia – What Burning Platform?

Read more »

Well, this could change a lot of things we are thinking about just now. Collaboration with images and communicating in a very much more creative way…I could really get quite excited about this…

About Google Wave

Google Wave is an online tool for real-time communication and collaboration. A wave can be both a conversation and a document where people can discuss and work together using richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more.

What is a wave?

A wave is equal parts conversation and document. People can communicate and work together with richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more. A wave is shared. Any participant can reply anywhere in the message, edit the content and add participants at any point in the process. Then playback lets anyone rewind the wave to see who said what and when.

A wave is live. With live transmission as you type, participants on a wave can have faster conversations, see edits and interact with extensions in real-time.

So…

I really think this could be very significant, remove the need for multiple platforms, aggregate easily, API’s will be enormously developed and well almost everything you could imagine.

Very interesting but terrible video and very long and unnecessarily so…

Enjoy

Why do programs of work fail?

Well a whole bunch of reasons right? But at the root lies one very pernicious and irritable devil. Meaning. How many times have you heard “I didn’t think that’s what you meant…!” Think about that for more than a second. Our mind imagines – in images – what every word, phrase and definition means. It fires up visual representations of our minds interpretation of the idea it hears in our brains and bingo off we go.

Well that is a very high risk right there.

Now go back. Think about how complex programs get kicked off. How did the strategy and vision get started in the first place. Were all the critical definitions shared? Did we really have the same meaning as we developed and designed these things? The answer is very definitely no! Increasingly apparent in the failure of these transformative programs, complex implementations and failed operational strategies is shared meaning. Critical parts of the team thought other parts of the team were working to the same end. Wrong.

Why?

Crazily simple. The idea and its definition – ‘meaning – was subtly different in everyone’s head, the emphasis, the priorities, the motivation, the stuff that folk work at. It all meant different things in different ways to different people and fundamentally so. READ THE FULL CONTEXT HERE _ CLICKY

“Vision without action is merely a dream. Action without vision just passes the time. Vision with action can change the world.” – Joel A. Barker