The Future of Information Work

The September 8, 2008 BusinessWeek is covering IBM through a book extract from Stephen Baker's The Numerati (read it here).

I have to say that this article worries me if it is a trend in consulting. As I sit in the academic advisor offsite for the Institute for Innovation & Information Productivity (IIIP) this type of measurement for productivity is reflective of the over application of industrial age measurement techniques to knowledge economy work. I find it disconcerting that just because something can be measured, that it is seen as important. With all of the information available we tend to count before understanding the relationships between the data.

My biggest issue with the article the emphasis on productivity, not on adaptation and learning. If IBM is focusing on "automating management" then they may do well in the short term, but as the world changes, how will they adapt as they are straight-jacketed to a model of people based on what was important when the model was built?

I think an understanding of the world requires numbers, context and relationships (human and data), social context and processes - ignoring any of these aspects or attributes creates incomplete models and the more the concentration on pure data wins, the more constrained the view becomes. Now of course, some argue that anything can be reduced to a numerical model, but that implies the development of relationships - not just with data, but with time.

Organizations that want to remain adaptive need to go beyond the pure numbers, the counting of things, to the understanding of the relationships between numbers, between strategies and goals and perhaps more importantly, about the gaps between what is known and not known, and what can't be known. In a world focused just on productivity, we will see more-and-more efficiencies around things that may be less-and-less important, especially when the time dimension and the need for continuous learning are factored into the equations.

(By contrast see the 3M story, 3M: Struggle Between Efficiency and Creativity, also a famous cover story from BusinessWeek, about managing the balance between the constraints of Six Sigma and the drive for turning creativity into innovations).

ScienceDaily reports that Neanderthal's were just as efficient at creating stone tools as early Homo Sapiens (New Evidence Debunks 'Stupid' Neanderthal Myth). The problem is that using stone tool production as a proxy for intelligence isn't intelligent: it is misleading. Evolutionary survival is a complex interplay of factors, and obviously Neanderthal's were missing something, either physically or culturally, that caused their demise. As a hypothesis I will posit that it was a cultural issue rather than a physical one (there are arguments on both sides). If I am right, however, the ability to create stone tools was not the determining factor in survival and may not be the best indicator of overall intelligence. Some other innovation, cultural or mechanical, may have been the factor, or set of factors that allowed our ancestors to survive and eventually thrive.

We have the same issue today, often looking for proxies that equate to some directional indicator. The world is a messy place and proxies are hard to find. With computers we may eventually be able to model enough factors to made sense of many things, but we already know that modeling everything would require a computer the size of the universe - makes one really wonder what questions we were intended to answer, or, as David Gerrold's GOD (Graphic Omniscient Device) from When Harlie was One is designed to do, answer those questions, perhaps, that only humans can ask.

(If efficient production was all that mattered, all of our automobile manufacturers would be on near even footing, but we know efficient production isn't enough - brands, financial management, perception of value, etc. are more of a determination of success today than efficiency).

I know it's hard to talk about a move away from nationalism during an election season, but we need to do that in order to create a reasonable dialog.  I remain worried that the Obama campaign keeps talking about bringing back industrial age jobs to the America. Let's get series Barack. Most people don't want low wage jobs back in America, and many aren't willing to embrace the need for lifelong learning that will kick them into high earning brackets. It's a hard conversation to have with America, but its an honest one.

America cannot afford to become protectionist. It can only afford to become more competitive. We need to concentrate on community colleges not for two year degrees, but as the very model of lifelong learning, allowing people to entry and reenter as often as necessary. That behavior is already happening, but the perception remains that 2 year institutions are transitions to vocations or places to shore up skills before attending a four year institution. The Obama campaign needs to retreat from the promises of bringing jobs home, and protecting American industries to helping American industries become competitive by renewing pre-competitive research and fostering more associations to form that can do that work so individual companies don't reap all of the benefits.

Lawrence Krauss is worried about the brain drain taking place in America and other industrialized countries (See: Science is losing out to the allure of Wall Street in NewScientist). I'm not worried, about Wall Street or industry, because I'm a globalist. Big companies will do just fine because they can afford to tap the global talent pool. What America needs to worry about is being a talent pool worthy of being tapped. This isn't about being nationalistic it is about being perceived as a environment conducive to creativity and innovation - to execution focused individuals and productivity. It is about the character of the workforce and creating an environment in which they will invent and excel. The American work ethic, our creativity, is or was the envy of the world, which means we have exported our own challenges, and that is a good thing. We have raised the level of wealth around the world, and now we need to kick it up a notch. And that doesn't just mean American being home to all of the smart people. It also, and I think this is often overlooked, means being home to the smartest consumers on the market. Our willingness to buy and our easy boredom forces invention. Even if not all of that invention happens here, we continue to drive much of the consumer economy (though China is working on that too).

Sure, it would be great to have the best scientists in the world, but the best science is already not about nations. The International Space Station (did you catch the name) and the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) are international by nature. We need to not only teach science, but cooperation, collaboration and negotiation. America will prosper much better as part of the great networked economy. If Obama is truly a man for this moment in history as Bill Clinton said last week, then he needs to be a man of the networked economy, not just the text message communication era. And the economy, if it is the economy stupid, is a much more complex thing that most of the American electorate wants to realize. I get politics. I've run campaigns and I know you need to get elected before you can do anything, but I just don't see this very of reality in either campaign, and any level, and that worries me that the next four years, at least as far as our leadership in the global economy goes, may well be more of the same, or something different, but no less useful or effective than current policy.

The August 18-25, 2008 U.S. News & World Report ran a debate on freedom of the press between Lucy Dalglish and assistant attorney general Elisebeth C. Cook. You can read their thoughts here:

• Two Takes: Since Free Press Benefits the Public, We Need a Media Shield
• Two Takes: A Media Shield Would Imperil Our National Security

Dalglish's argument can be augmented with the view of freedom as a deterrent to terrorism. In a country where the press works in partnership with government on the issues that matter: corruption, poverty and terror, a free press can be a powerful weapon and proof point. The partnership is often seen in disarray when the press concentrates on celebrity loves and habits more than it does on key issues. But from Watergate to revelations about corporate corruption, the press has played a vital role in the discovery of threats to Americans in their pocket books, in schools and in the streets.

In an environment where freedom of the press is protected, terrorists should be worried about their exposure, about the information given to people about actions they can take, or signs they should watch for. When I say partnership with government, I don't mean that the press acts on behalf of the government, but it complements and supplements the government through its own investigations. A free press, one unimpeded to question both those in power and those asserting chaos, is part of the shield against ignorance that leads to the triumph of ideology.

We may question our press, its motives, even its facts, certainly its choices of what to cover, but that too is part of the freedom we enjoy. People who attentively and critically read are well aware of the bias in what they read, and that too is a choice. If we give people the choice to be ignorant, or informed, conservative or liberal. We should also ensure that our press has the freedom, unimpeded and protected by the constitution, to investigate and report. A terrorist organization with its operations meticulously detailed on the cover of the New York Times is a better deterrent to terrorism that an obscure reference to a cell disbanded because of wiretap information. Chaos theory suggests that anything too tightly held will find a way to unravel. With a free press we have a distributed system that can cast a wide net. The institution of a free press can be not only a representative of our freedom, an icon, but also an active part, as it was always intended, in helping protect everyone's freedom.

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Leave it to Wired to catch the latest buzz: author Ken Thompson says we should learn from nature (bugs) how to manage. (read the Wired article What Your Boss Can Learn From Birds and Bees - Titled "What Bugs Can Teach Bosses in the print edition here).

I have to agree with Ken. I believe much of our work life is overly deconstructed to the point that when we put it back together we leave instinct lying on the floor with other recyclables.

I do have to disagree with the report a little, in that it says broadcast e-mail is good. As an information device, sure: managers like little bees twitching to send their signals. The problem though is that within corporations we have also disconnected the value proposition of the message from the need to transmit it, so we have everybody sending messages, most of them with one of three values: read me as soon as you can, don't read me if you don't want to and read me now or the world will come to an end. The ants and bees know what they want to communicate and it is critical to their survival. All of the e-mail we receive, and need to delete is not keyed to our survival, real or political. So lesson hear for managers: get in touch with your inner bee and only send out those one way tomes when they really matter.

Geese: divide and distribute knowledge. OK, duh. I tell people when I remember back to knowing almost everything about computers from TRS-80s to CPM to early MS-DOS, even Sinclair/Timex. Then the world got crazy. "Computer People" are now as specialized as doctors (yes, in ancient times, like the US Civil War, "surgeons" knew about as much as could be known). Many disciplines suffer or benefit from that fate. Here's a thought: let's save the expense of the November election and let Obama and McCain run the country together. We seem pretty divided down the middle still. Many countries have a dual leader role. Perhaps we can learn from the Geese.

And finally, worms. Hub people, networkers - derived from the way C. elegans uses its 302 and neurons. Good in theory, unless you also read NewScientist and read that hierarchies may actually be more resilient in the face of change, precisely because of their duplication - the network's downfall is the hub people, who, if taken out, collapse the network, whereas a hierarchy taken down is just replaced with a duplicate (read more in NewScientist: Why the demise of civilisation may be inevitable). The hierarchy may not be innovative, but it takes a licking and keeps on ticking.

Good thoughts Ken, even if the analysis, reported in Wired, may be a bit buggy.

The broad success of communities on the Internet can be a bit baffling to those charged with helping facilitate knowledge sharing and transfer inside of organizations. In reality, although the technology may be the same, the cultural atmosphere holds almost nothing in common. The Internet consists of millions of users who self-select for a community. Out of those millions, a thousand, sometimes less (and certainly more), can make for a thriving community. If you create the right forum, people will come. As the community grows, it creates it own attraction and momentum.

That can happen inside of a company, but only in broad areas though, like HR policy. Most organizations want specific things from their knowledge management investments, like lessons learned around a particular topic or collaborative content development.

The problem is inside of a company, on project work, the groups don't self-select - they are often assigned and they have competing priorities. They often don't have a passion for the assignment, feeling more a pressure based on obligation than any kind of pleasure in participation. In these situations, a completely different approach must be taken that one sees on the Internet.

Here are some actions to take to ensure that an internal organization community meets its goals, perhaps at the expense of true community, at least on the front end.

• The executive sponsor can't just be a sponsor, they must be an active user of the community site. That means:
  • Not accepting e-mail or other channels as a means to gaining knowledge about the community's topic
  • Driving meetings and conversations off the community site rather than some other channel
  • Actively participating in feedback and contribution
• Incentives, tied to internal management objectives (MBOs) must be used in order to link the community's goals (e.g., capturing best practices) to the definitions of personal performance
• The site should provide clear value to the participants independent of incentives
• Hold a meeting, in person, in a web meeting or on the phone to kick off the community. Let people discuss their issues before starting the software aspect of the site. Make sure the meeting facilitator drives toward commitment and consensus about the objectives. Be clear about learning and expectations. If it isn't baked, don't sell it as baked. In communities, disappointment can come swiftly, so make sure you manage expectations, management them some more, and that you are able to define progress and success.

Further recommendations

• Start with a small project. Don't attempt solve all of your collaboration issues at once. Work with the participants until you have a formula that works for your organization, then expand - incrementally.
• Define the platform. Don't let the participants get distracted debating tools and technologies.
• The platform should be as integrated into current workstyles as possible
• Create a learning back channel. If the community isn't established, you can't assume people will go there to tell you why they aren't going there. The community manager should have a e-mail back channel for understanding issues. Eventually this can go away, but you need to be practical at the start.

Inside an organization, the goal should be to create a platform for teamwork, not an emergent community with its own rules and goals. Organizations have goals and objectives and people fulfill those objectives with the work they do. If the community is disconnected from the value equation, it won't work. Make sure you align your community with your strategy, and that those involved understand clearly how it will be used and how participating will aggregate to their personal reviews. If the management community is consistent in how it interacts with a nascent community, you have a chance at success. Any distraction, or waver in commitment from leadership will create false starts and faltering adoption.

A successful community needs to be nurtured, it needs structure and it needs attention.

As the dollar rises and oil price weaken, we are seeing market forces at work (see Oil resumes plunge as dollar strengthens on MSNBC). Not the complaining of consumers, but their behavior changes. The prices at the pump were driving down demand, which eventually drives down prices. If we have, as some have speculated, reached peak oil, then this is a very temporary respite from the market for an every scarcer commodity.

Five things people need to do to keep oil prices down:

• Continue or start using alternative forms of energy and products with low energy profiles
• Keep acting as though you are worried about energy prices even if they ease
• Stay local, stay low and buy small (enjoy your region, drive a fuel efficient car - no SUVs)
• Keep using public transportation
• Vote for candidates who will create rational monetary policy in the US

We need to stop acting like we can consume what we want when we want it. The future of energy will be a story of innovation.We are not out of energy and we aren't out of ideas - we've just become complacent about a few forms of energy. If you ask sunburned kids at a pool about energy issues, they won't complain, except about how the sun melted their ice cream - and hey, it takes energy to do that.

How long can a public stay outraged by the inept handling of data. No long it seems, but the latest in the salmonella investigations should cause the public to demand that growers and distributors start voluntarily tracking where their produce originates. It should be easy to scan a bar code on a package of salad and have a map light up with all of its components clearly highlighted - cabbage, lettuce, carrots and other components can be traced back from the cleaning and assembly processes to the grower. With single items, this should even be easier (read  Salmonella 'smoking gun' found on Mexican farm in the LA Times).

Source: LA Times

We need voluntary transparency, and from television interviews I saw, it looks like the industry is starting to get it. The toy industry, however, waited for legislation (See Congress sends Bush  bill banning lead in toys on MSNBC). Industries complain about regulation but they don't try to actively avoid it by creating and enforcing their own standards. Some create them, but don't regulate them. Others plead ignorance. In the Internet era, neither is acceptable, because the government isn't the ultimate place that for profit businesses need to look for risk. In the age of the Internet, it will increasingly be consumers that drive behavior - because consumers make choices every day about who they associate with and not associating with a company that can't control its processes will become a major lever for change.

In a world where trust and loyalty will be redefined by reputation, businesses need to start putting reputation management on the front burner. And by this, I don't mean hire image consultants to resparkle the brand, but that they take meaningful action to demonstrate responsibility, both social and economic, and that they follow through with those actions - and yes, talk about it when they do - but talk isn't enough when poor management causes injury and death to consumers.

Several years ago, when working with researchers at MIT on wearable computing, I coined the term Digital Autism to describe the effect wearable computers had on people's focus on attention. They tended to pay more attention to the information in front of them than the world around them, even if the technology allowed them to see through the data (a little bit on an issue in Dark Knight with Batman's sonar eye pieces caused similar issues). The same was true of relationships. When people were wearing devices they tended to focus more on the relationships in the data, or those they were interacting with in cyberspace, than those in the room around them.

Well, today I woke up to a North West Cable News story (read it here) about a new warning from the American College of Emergency Physicians (http://www.acep.org/) that warns of the danger from serious accidents involving oblivious texters (read the warning here). Digital autism without the immersive experience. The issue was, and is, that people get into their information and start forgetting about the world. This doesn't happen as much with audio, because people talk and walk all of the time. There visual perception centers can continue to scan, even if they are processing auditory information.

This is not the case with visual information. If visual information is in front of your eyes, or if you are concentrating on the visual aspects of something, like a phone, you can't see what you aren't looking at. Even when looking through information, with a strong field of view, the proximity of the information to the eye overwhelmed the background information (much like you not reacting to a speeding car in the distance going away from you).

Although it is not dangerous to text from a couch, I have also observed digital autism behaviors with young people in safe social settings, where they tend to have more of a relationship with people through their phone than through the physical environment -- and sometimes that means texting people who are in the same room.

As with many pieces of technology, we need to understand the limits of our human bodies and our human minds. Just because we can do something, doesn't mean we should. And deaths from distractions is a good warning sign that even though we think we can multitask, we may be playing mind games with ourselves on multiple levels. And for those of you on a couch texting your friend in the kitchen: get up and dance!