Tag: taxonomy

Pandaemonium

Pandaemonium
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I’m currently reading ‘Pandaemonium 1660-1886: The Coming of the Machine as Seen by Contemporary Observers’ (by Humphrey Jennings, co-founder of the Mass Observation movement of the 1930s)  

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Pandaemonium-1660-1886-Machine-Contemporary-Observers…

It fascinates me to compare the benefits and dangers of the industrial revolution with today’s digital revolution.

Pandaemonium collects texts taken from letters, diaries, literature, scientific journals and reports of the time, and traces the development of the machine age in Britain. Covering the years between 1660 and 1886, it offers a rich tapestry of human experience, from eyewitness reports of the Luddite Riots and the Peterloo Massacre to more intimate accounts of child labour, Utopian communities, the desecration of the natural world, ground-breaking scientific experiments, and the coming of the railways. Pandomonium was originally published in 1985, and in 2012 it was the inspiration behind Danny Boyle’s Opening Ceremony for the London Olympic Games.

Interestingly (for me anyway) is the book is divided into 4 sections:

 Observations and reports

  • Exploitation
  • Revolution
  • Confusion

I spend much of my time looking at how organisations introduce and sustain knowledge sharing, collaboration and communication technology and associated behaviours.  

If we get adoption and adaption right these are disruptive technologies that can assist in changing the nature of the way colleagues engage, communicate, share, learn, nurture and collaborate with each other.

If we get adoption and adaption wrong organisations, and the people / networks within them, go through the trials and pains articulated in the chapter titles above (quick reality check – I’m not comparing the suffering of the industrial revolution with that of an employee who can’t work out the # function on their enterprise social network).

We have seen the observations and reports of how a more open and transparent environment can enhance both employees and organisations.

We are at the exploitation stage where there is a mad rush to social without the analysis or change management processes needed to create the value.

We will soon have the revolution as organisations and employees fight, struggle, resist or forge ahead in the use and value of this new way of working. Many organisations will embrace, while many will fail to get value and asset it’s the technology and / or culture that is the issue.

For those that forge ahead confusion will be created if we lose interest in the on-going stewardship of these tools and behaviours and at worst we see employees burdened with another deafening channel in an already noisy eco-system or technology.

Coffee and content on the move

Been working in a number of clients offices over the last few weeks and it dawned on me, not sure why – it just did, that nearly everyone was carrying around cups of coffee with them. It’s one of those behavioural shifts that creeps up on you and must have been part of the corporate culture now for quite a few years. It has replaced the notepad or the corporate brochure as that ‘comfort blanket’ that we carry around to us between meetings and offices (the iPad will soon replace this so maybe a coffee holder fitted into the iPad or tablet will be the next round of innovation!).

Anyway, the point of my musing is that it also dawned on me that we treat coffee the way we now treat content (or ‘big data’ – not sure what that is about but didn’t we always deal with structured and unstructured data or content from many sources?).  Many years ago (sounds like a nursery rhyme) coffee shops would be few and far between on the high street and squeezed in between the purpose of the visit to the high street, shopping (or browsing). We sat down in the coffee shop, consumed the drink in crockery provided, with spoons, napkins etc. Once finished these were then removed, washed and ready for the next customer. We left the shop with our business conducted and there was finality to the ‘event’ with no residue effecting the environment.

Now coffee shops are everywhere. In many cases they mask the reason for a visit to the high street. We have coffee on the move; it’s a mobile experience that requires more accessories that are thrown-away items. We leave litter and rush taking slurps that leave a bad feeling at the end of the day.

Content is providing a similar experience. It becomes more easily available and consumable everywhere; it’s rushed and starts to create more noise; it leaves us with litter and residue that someone eventually we need to clear up; and I sense it provides a far less rewarding experience.

I’m sensing that as we start to look at the consequences to the environment of millions of coffee cups and accessories that litter our high streets we will see the demand that we change our behaviour for the benefit of the environment. Indeed we may even start to savour it more.  The same with content. As organisations move towards enabling the workforce to contribute and generate content and data we will be looking at how we introduce behavioural change to ensure we don’t become lost in the noise, clutter and litter of content everywhere.