Dennis Hamilton has written a short piece describing his experience blogging inside the firewall—he works for an architectural and engineering firm. Dennis mentions three issues which differentiate an internal and external blog: losing support for your blog (your ideas) can be career limiting; mentioning taboo subjects can be career limiting; and criticising your organisation can be career limiting. I can see Dennis’ point. Within an organisation you are blogging for a single culture (and depending on the size of the organisation there might be many sub-cultures) and expressing your thoughts on a taboo subject might very well spell your imminent demise. Internal blogs speak to a mono-culture. A head-on assault will only result in the blogger being the first, and perhaps, only casualty.

While recognising the fraught nature of surfacing taboos, innovative organisation will have a capability for detecting what can’t be said. Internal bloggers might play an important role by probing the company, post by post, and reporting the response. Paul Graham’s excellent essay, ‘What You Can’t Say’, points out that heresies and taboos are either true or could be true, in which case shining a light on them could serve to either dispel myths or confirm the previously unthinkable and then act as a turning point for new ideas and directions.

Power and vulnerability will be at the heart of taboos so high level cover will be required for dissenters. We shouldn’t be running from dissent. Rather dissent should be built into the culture and supported within boundaries. Sure, we can’t have an organisation full of dissenting views; progress would be impossible. Organised dissent, however, should be fostered.

Thanks to Larry Irons on the AOK forum for pointing this reference out.

In a paper entitled, ‘Believe in the Model: Mishandle the Emergency’, Simon French and Carmen Niculae apply the Cynefin framework to three emergencies: Three Mile Island, Chenobyl and mad cow disease. You can access the paper online (http://www.bepress.com/jhsem) by completing the guest reader form. 

French, Simon, and Carmen Niculae. 2005. Believe in the Model: Mishandle the Emergency. Journal of Homeland Security and Emergency Management 2 (1).

The guys (and gal) at CPsquare have created a new blog which will feature discussions about how technology can support communities of practice. Etienne’s original paper is available with a new, totally revised, version published this year (in both French and English). Highly recommended reading for those involved in community of practice development.

I noticed quite a few people arrive at my blog looking for a definition of ‘anecdote’. Well, here is what wikipedia has to say: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anecdote

I’m pleased to announce that I will be running the Introduction to Narrative Techniques Workshop in Canberra on the 11th of May. This workshop was a sellout in Melbourne and once again I will be limiting the numbers to 20, so be sure to book early to secure a place.

The emphasis of the workshop is on gaining a practical understanding of how to use business narratives—those stories told in your organisation which reveal the true values in operation. In the workshop we will practising the techniques, discussing their application and ensuring we have sufficient time to absorb the new concepts which form the basis of the method.

I very much look forward to seeing you there.

Seth Godin believes ‘Yak Shaving’ is the single best phrase he’s learned this year. It describes those situations when you are extremely sidetracked when trying to get something done. Here is the yak shaving incident described by Seth:

I find it interesting that in Seth’s post, and also others such as BL Ochman, the advice is, avoid shaving the yak! While I agree you can waste heaps of time on such sidetracks, there is a time and place for yak shaving; you can discover many useful things on these journeys. Who would have known that pillows can be stuffed with yak hair!

Anecdote circles encourage yak shaving and this is their strength. Each anecdote told triggers memories of past events which, in many cases, haven’t been thought about for years. The stories, in turn, reveal the values of the tellers and through them the organisation they work in. Yak shaving turns our to be the essential process.

Communities of practice are often regarded, with good reason, as self-organising social systems. I was wondering the other day whether some simple rules for a community of practice could encourage beneficial self-organisation, enhancing learning. Here are a few possibilities.

Find others in the community who care about the same things as you, and share an activity with them. Then tell the community what you’ve done.

Learning comes from action, and volunteer activities draw their energy from your enthusiasm or concern. So finding and working with people who are inspired by the same things as you enables a small group to make significant headway. Small, passionate groups operating inside a larger community form the basis for open source communities, such as Linux – a model that has become very successful.

Hold meetings on the same day and time of the month.

Establishing a rhythm of activities helps the community to grow. Knowing that, whatever the topic, there will be like-minded people attending the meeting, gives everyone a reason to turn up, to meet new people, hear fresh perspectives, and learn from the encounter.

Everyone plays a role in organising activities of the community of practice.

Encouraging people to band together to organise activities (speakers, site visits, reviewing articles, workshops) fosters community. This rule doesn’t mean that everyone must join the core team – people on the periphery can contribute by simply making suggestions. But without this rule, it’s easy for the community to rely on the same people to do all those beneficial, community-building, day-to-day activities.

Can you think of other simple rules which might help a community of practice self-organise?

Chris Atkinson has written a book on how to make better presentations using a narrative approach. His blog and website (beyond bullets) brim with practical ideas. Well worth a look.

It’s difficult to hear or see patterns we’re not expecting. This is a big problem for consultants, or anyone else for that matter, who rely on interviews to assess a situation. While an outsider, such as a consultant, can provide new perspectives, they also are constrained by what Umberto Eco calls their background books. We only hear what is in the realm of our possibility. So how do we see and hear the new patterns?

New patterns are only revealed by adopting new perspectives. New perspectives appear when we apply a fresh set of eyes, adopt new frameworks of understanding, create new experiences, propose new questions, adopt new scales or viewpoints, or adopt a new identity. For example, in the process of a project, a fresh perspective may be created by looking at the high-level purpose; this may reveal patterns which were previously hidden at the detail level. We do this naturally in some circumstances while doggedly sticking to ‘the way we do things around here’ for the majority of situations.

Organisations need to build their toolbox of techniques. Obviously I see narrative as an important tool and closely related is the use of metaphor. But there are a myriad of other approaches we will need to become familiar with which will feel uncomfortable at first but will be essential in helping us fully harness the complexity we currently inhabit. We need to get ready to get out of our comfort zone.

Sue Huckson of the National Institute of Clinical Studies pointed out to me the other day just how negative the term ‘lurker’ is and suggested that we refer to those community of practice members who dwell at the periphery of our communities as ‘tourists’. I like the term. Perhaps we can apply the following metaphor. Those who visit infrequently are tourists (or travellers), those that are there for most of the time are residents, active participants are citizens and the core team become the elected officials. Hmmm, all metaphors break down as some point and I’m uncomfortable with the last step. 

Yesterday I presented at the 11th Annual Electronic Documents & Records Management conference (on change management) and heard a remarkable presentation by Chris Scullin from Department of Education, Science and Training. Chris recounted the initially unsuccessful implementation of their electronic records management system (it appeared to be implemented as a technology solution) and how the users were bitterly disappointed with what they received.

It seems that Chris and his team have reversed the fortunes of the project. It is now heading in the right direction. This turn around, however, required rebuilding trust, which, from Chris account, was almost zero 18 months after beginning the project. I imagine there must be many projects like this that have failed to delivery. Therefore the issue of how to rebuild trust must be an important one.

One place to look for answers is the South African reconciliation process. At the end of apartheid trust in South Africa was, at best, paltry. Now I’m recalling this from memory but the process that was used to rebuilt trust had three steps: 1) admit to the aggrieved that what was done was wrong; 2) offer to recompense for the wrong doing; and 3) follow through on promises. I will dig out the description and set this right if I have made a gross error. But my point here is simply that I think we can learn much from what happened during the South African reconciliation process and turn these lessons into guidelines for system implementers who find themselves bitterly disappointing their users.  

Successful anecdote circle facilitation hinges on the judicious use of open, story-eliciting questions. I’ve dashed off this short guide on how to create effective questions for anecdote circles. Let me know if it’s useful. 

My first ‘real’ job had me helping a few really talented guys build a software system designed to book cars for our parliamentarians. Not all of our ideas were implemented. I remember suggesting we fit each car with a global positioning system to enhance booking accuracies. This suggestion was howled down by our client because for some reason parliamentarians weren’t too keen on the idea of people knowing the exact location of their chauffeured-driven car—go figure.

Bruce Mcleod was our leader in this venture and was influential in introducing the team to Hunter S. Thompson—a great ideas man. A couple of weeks go Hunter died and Bruce tracked down what he thinks might be Hunter’s last published piece.

ESPN.com: Page 2 : Shotgun Golf with Bill Murray

James Dellow made the following comment:

I think there are some barriers to blogging inside corporates that Shawn's paper skims overs. For example, IT architecture, business culture and security. I mean we've had groupware for years and some organisations still find it hard to use it well.

Your right James, I did skim over those issues (I was concentrating on getting the basic idea described) but they are important. I couldn't comment on the architectural and security issues (not really my area), accept to say many companies have introduced blogging (on the intranet), so I guess it can be done and the architectural and security issues can be addressed.

The more difficult issue, I think, is getting a group of people to blog in the first place. As I suggest in the paper, sales people are unlikely to blog but pre-sales folk are more likely if the right environment (culture, recognition, WIFM) exists. I think there are 4 hurdles you need to jump to address motivation:

1) start with understanding people's basic needs (narrative is a good technique here);

2) think about how much activity is required to create an output (in this case, blogging--if it's too much of a chore people wont do it);

3) think about the how blogging is evaluated (by the blogger and others--if those that matter don't care, it wont happen); and

4) does the result of the evaluation help meet the individual's needs?

Every organisation will be different so some work is required up front to assess the environment. This should be done by those people who need to enhance how knowledge is shared and accessed (ie. the people in the organisation) and not by an outsider (ie.consultant), mainly because there are no right or wrong answers here and the organisation's decision-makers must use their judgement.

Until recently (yesterday actually) I have differentiated two types of organisational stories: those crafted to persuade an audience—this approach is typified by Steve Denning's work at the World Bank and is called 'Organisational Storytelling'; and stories that retell the day-to-day events which occur in a workplace—Dave Snowden popularised this view of narrative in his work on organic knowledge management and calls it 'Organisational Narrative'.

The third type is a subset of Organisational Narrative and occurs when a person retells an experience so often that it becomes a performance piece. Let's call this Rehearsed Narrative'. Rehearsed narratives come from natural storytellers who revel in honing their repertoire of anecdotes to achieve maximum effect.

The problems with this type of narrative are twofold:

1. the stories become polished over time and the messiness which might have existed at the outset is removed; and

2. other people in an anecdote circle, on hearing a rehearsed narrative, think they have to provide something similar and either attempt to match the performance or decline to provide any anecdotes.

Here are a couple of ways to deal with rehearsed narratives.

Make it clear from the outset of your anecdote circle that you are seeking the day-to-day experiences of what happens in the workplace. When you do hear what sounds like a rehearsed narrative, ask the other participants whether they recall the event and whether they would like to share their recollection.

While you don't want to discourage the occasional performance piece, you don't want it to scare off the rest of the group.

When extracting archetypes from a body of narrative, I have found it useful to give the workshop participants a large list of character traits to increase the richness of the process. Here is the poster I use.