This weekend I am “BarCamping” on my home turf, i.e. it’s BarCamp Stuttgart time. Yesterday evening we started with a geeky and joyful get-together at the Ratskeller. You won’t find many pictures of that event, I guess for obvious and sensible reasons.
Today it’s different and very productive but still I only did some tweeting so far. Bad thing, yes, but I was talking to so many people that I didn’t find time to switch on the laptop.
Anyway, others were much more productive than me, see Twemes and the usual suspects under the tag #bc0711. And yes, I will get more productive soon – i.e. next up are both Markus Heurungs session on microblogging and -sharing (yes, will be there, identi.ca/laconi.ca/MBC09) and my very own session on Enterprise 2.0 and organizational culture. Will post show notes on my other blog – see frogpond
Did I ever mention that I’m into comics? And that I even own and have read a book by Scott McCloud (“Comics richtig lesen – Die unsichtbare Kunst”, aka “Understanding comics“)?
You ask Scott, huh? Yes, it’s the Scott that drew the Google Chrome cartooon/storyboard/instruction manual/viral bomb that’s ravaging across the net today (via, via, via, via etc.)
Whatever, till we wait until the world goes chrome, I advise you to stop over at his place and learn about the story behind the story, if only to help kill time waiting for the moment:
Hehe, love this “wiki” in quotation marks, still way to go to real mainstream adoption I guess, whatever Gartner says. But hey, this Studio 360 podcast with Christopher Alexnder is a good listen (mp3). Found via Victor.
His groundbreaking book A Pattern Language urged architects consider emotional and spiritual ideas when designing. It was the beginning of an elaborate, nuts-and-bolts philosophical system. Alexander failed to revolutionize the practice of architecture, but he inspired a movement in computer programming that affects how all of us use the Web. Studio 360′s Lu Olkowski talked to the architect and some of his disciples, including “wiki” inventor Ward Cunningham.
Some notes by me on Wikipatterns over at my consultants blog.
Seems like an interesting read, The Social Origins Of Good Ideas by Ronald Burt, found via Stowe Boyd and his quotation of John Stuart Mills:
„It is hardly possible to overrate the value … of placing human beings in contact with others dissimilar to themselves, and with modes of thought and action unlike those with which they are familiar… Such communication has always been, and particularly in the present age, one of the primary sources of progress.“
I wonder what this tells us about tonights rush of like-minded people to sign up for the upcoming BarCamp Berlin 3:
After ’roundabout 4 hours of open registration all places are taken – yes, I’m in there too, thanks for asking.
Via Paul Williams I learned that CNBC is doing another series on innovation, it’s aimed at C-level and I welcome this quite a lot as it stresses the importance (yet, Paul has some criticisms too). But these episodes are worthwhile anyway, and I appreciate the effort (btw, back then I wrote some posts about their initial series). Some interesting parts are:
The Human Element:
Innovation begins and ends with people, individuals who have the courage to push the boundaries. It also requires a corporate culture that nurtures and rewards creative thinking, where people feel comfortable enough to voice new ideas, no matter how small. That is where successful leadership comes in. A skilled and innovative leader must be a fearless visionary committed to backing bold ideas.
Innovate or Die:
Mel Kamarzin, CEO of Sirius Radio believes “there is no punishment that goes for taking a chance, making a decision”. Yet too often firms don’t take the steps really required to innovate because they want to protect their existing offerings. They seal their fate by doing just enough to get by. Fear of changing the status quo can be paralysing but if you are not moving forward and innovating in today’s challenging economic environment, it’s worse than standing still. You’re effectively moving backwards.
And the third installment – Redefining Innovation:
Innovation can be a hard concept to pin down. That’s why defining what it means to an organisation is the first step towards truly engaging customers. Radical thinking needs to be employed to come up with the blue-sky ideas. To turn those ideas into revenue generators means making a creative leap beyond the nuts and bolts of a product and really connecting with consumers. Ursula Burns, Chief Executive of Xerox says, “Customers can’t really articulate always what they want. They give you a rough outline”.
Yet indifference, hostility, and isolation are common obstacles in organizations that are inhibiting the growth in innovation (by Irving Wladawsky-Berger) – especially collaborative innovation. Yes, orchestrating groups of heterogenous knowledge workers is hard, that’s why there are Enterprise Collaboration Consultants with an innovation management background (hint …).
