Points of Contexture

Thriving in the Age of Complexity - With no answers, only choices

You are hearing more and more that the current recession has bottomed out, that the economic crisis is easing as job losses slow and we are beginning to see confidence return to the marketplace.  This is good news indeed as we turn from survival and begin to look forward.

 Nevertheless, the global business environment is becoming more and more interconnected and complex.

The future will see new uncertainties, ambiguities and even more surprises.  Our world is acting as a complex system, and what we are now experiencing is just a taste of what will undoubtedly come.

Climate Change, Global Warming, et al: What’s missing in the public debate?

As Congress considers the "American Clean Energy and Security Act" this week (the house has narrowly passed their version 219-212 as of this writing), you would think that by now there would be a clear and general consensus on the issue in the USA - its challenges, implications for our future well-being (survival?) and focused actions.  And by now, you would think that Climate Change (or Global Warming if you prefer) would be top of mind in this country.

Well, at least from what I see, there is no consensus, and the issue ranks dead last in the minds of voters.  That’s what happens when an issue has not been made personal and timely.

When I talk to friends about climate change (global warming or any other name you choose), the conversation usually comes around to “How will it affect me”?  For those who are still on the fence about it, the question is always preceded by “If it is real…”

And when I ask them (on either side of the issue) how they think it will affect them, they simply can’t describe that future for themselves, and don’t even try for their children or grandchildren.

So I have been thinking about some things:

1. What’s keeping so many people on the fence about the issue?
2. What’s causing so many people not to feel an imperative for immediate action?
3. What’s preventing people from understanding the issue?

I suddenly realized last week that three things are clouding the ability of people to come to grips with the issue:

1. The issue is huge - so big that most people can’t get their arms around it, much less understand it
2. The issue is still abstract - understanding and dealing with abstract concepts is something people don’t want to do and is very difficult to do when they do
3. The issue is simply not personal yet – and this might just be the biggest reason of all

Personal Work Space: to Order, or not to Order?

Since I posted "To Study, Perchance to Dream?" on April 29th,  I have received a number of email and phone comments - enough to know I am not the only one thinking about the issue of personal work space, and how to deal with it, especially in the home.

I came across this article, "An Orderly Office? That's Personal" by Sara Rimer in the New York Times (and yes, it was in one of those "stacks" in a very neat blue file folder, along with some others I had forgotten about!). A well narrated story of one person's struggle, considerations, discoveries and solution.  It rang true for me, and I bet it will for most of you all too. Enjoy!

To Study, Perchance to Dream?

I was reading in my den a few nights ago and realized I had stacks of papers, articles, books and magazines lying in a semi-circle around my chair.  Looking around, I noticed that I had two “current reading” folders of things printed off the Web (I still like to read off paper) brought down from my upstairs office.

And these weren’t just the typical current reading one usually has lying around the favorite chair – some of them were more than three months old.  I realized this when my wife hinted rather subtly that perhaps it was time to shorten the stacks, or better yet, move them to the upstairs office – something about dusting and vacuuming being hindered by the piles (now no longer “stacks”).

I thought I should go upstairs and make room before I started the heavy lifting (yep, there was that much).  To my surprise, I had no reading of any kind on my desk, only client, project and other files I was working on.  Even I could see that something’s going on here I hadn’t thought about before.

Knowledge Tense: Past, Present and Future

One of the concepts Steve Barth and I have been developing is the idea of Knowledge Tense. We spoke to it at KM World in 2007, and then again I used it in the context of innovation at KM World 2008 in a workshop.

We wanted to distinguish between past, present and future tense knowledge, not having seen or heard this distinction before. Needless to say, we are just beginning to think about knowledge this way. 

Strategy in the Current Crisis: Thinking and Acting in the Recession

One of the more interesting topics of recent conversation is the idea that this economic crisis really has no model or pattern that is discernable from past downturns and crises.

 

I was listening to Nassim Taleb (The Black Swan) this past Sunday morning on Fareed Zakaria's (The Post-America World) GPS show: He and the other roundtable members made some very compelling points about the unique nature of the current crisis.  And after listening to some other folks, and thinking about some recent work I have done, there are some critical new ways of thinking you need in this crisis.

Inutition's Role in Decision Making-Redux

At KM World 2007 last week, after my presentation with Steve Barth, I was asked about an apparent conflict in the way intuitive sensing, sense making and decision making works compared to decision making using business intelligence (BI) systems. Actually they don't conflict at all, unless we make or let them - they all work together!

Accelerating Decisions and Innovations

Steve Barth and I will be presenting our latest work and thoughts on Sensing and Sense Making at our sesison at the 11th annual KMWorld & Intranets Conference and Exhibition on Wednesday, November 7th, 2007 at 10:30am. We'll be focusing on the practical implications and applications for Innovation with some new ideas on Decision Making:

This session draws on insights from cognitive psychology and complexity science to reconsider how knowledge workers individually and collectively interact with their information environments and share their perceptions and opinions with important implications for how to support knowledge work. Knowledge, information and data are everywhere in business ecosystems, but the challenge of synthesizing fragmentary signals into actionable intelligence is really more about human cognition and organizational culture than business technologies and organizational structures.

The conference and exhibition runs November 6-8, 2007, at the McEnery Convention Center in San Jose, CA.

The Other Side of the Board Room

A corporate board’s traditional role has been that of looking at, advising and consenting on a company’s strategic focus and growth. Sub-groups (committees) of the traditional board are usually charged with oversight on compensation, audits, compliance, etc., and are comprised of board members with experience and knowledge of those areas. Rarely, if ever, do these types of boards bother themselves with operating issues, especially those of day-to-day activities.

Relatively recent spectacular corporate failures related to financial issues, governance or both (Enron, HP, WorldCom, et al), have caused boards to become more focused and almost solely concerned with compliance, like Sarbanes Oxley, and other legal issues. At the same time, low priority (or none at all) is placed on strategic focus and growth. This approach has become so pervasive that many boards are losing key members in resignations or choosing not to stand for re-election. HP recently lost two key board members (Tom Perkins and George Keyworth), both of whom cited this very issue as one of their reasons for resigning.

Early Warning Signals: A Conversation for Exploration - Part 1

From 2005, but even more relevant today:
In the past four years (Author's note: now 6-1/2 years since September 11, 2001) we have been inundated with variations on the theme of “early warning signals”, “connecting the dots”, “hindsight” and “foresight”. We see and hear them almost daily – in newspapers, magazines, learned journals, books, television news and shows (24, anyone?).
What we really want from information, intelligence and knowledge is asymmetry. We want to know things others don’t, or at least to know things before others do. We want and need early warning signals to be able to connect the dots and provide foresight of future events and the early identification of threat.