• Learn Linux, 302 (Mixed environments): Print services – In this article, learn to:
  Create and configure printer sharing
  Configure integration between Samba and the Common UNIX® Print System (CUPS)
  Manage Windows® print drivers, and configure downloads of print drivers
  Configure the [print$] share
  Understand security concerns with printer sharing
  Set up and manage print accounting
• Chaos und Ordnung – zur Aktualität der Selbstorganisation – Zum 100 Geburtstag von Heinz von Foerster | Forschung und Gesellschaft | Deutschlandradio Kultur – Was haben ein Ameisenstaat, das Finanzsystem oder gar die Evolution gemeinsam? Sie alle können als Selbstorganisationsphänomene betrachtet werden. Die Theorie der Selbstorganisation erfährt gerade heute in verschiedenen sozial- und medienwissenschaftlichen Disziplinen eine Art Comeback.
  Wichtige Erkenntnisse für diese Theorie lieferte der österreichisch-amerikanische Kybernetiker Heinz von Foerster, der – vor 100 Jahren – am 13. November 1911 geboren wurde. Sein Verdienst ist es, immer wieder auf die unvermeidlichen blinden Flecken des wissenschaftlichen Beobachters aufmerksam gemacht zu haben.
• Social Networks: What Maslow Misses | Psychology Today – Maslow's model needs rewiring so it matches our brains. Belongingness is the driving force of human behavior, not a third tier activity. The system of human needs from bottom to top, shelter, safety,sex, leadership, community, competence and trust, are dependent on our ability to connect with others. Belonging to a community provides the sense of security and agency that makes our brains happy and helps keep us safe.
• Why Peter Drucker Distrusted Facts – Stephen Wunker – Harvard Business Review – Consider how Drucker's view contrasts with the typical corporate process. Decision makers may have a general sense of stakeholders' opinions, but in their eagerness to act and to avoid controversy they do not probe to understand these perspectives fully. Rather, they quickly make a decision and then marshal facts to support it. Indeed, one top consulting firm has boasted for decades of an approach that develops an early hypothesis and refines it over the course of an engagement — rather than testing many competing hypotheses in the search for the one that best represents the truth.
• Is Rational Thinking in Business Always Better than Instinct? – Forbes – This challenge of learning an art is essentially a process of internalizing the decision-making process framed to a very specific context. How you get better at it is by learning to accelerate how you recognize known (often complex) patterns. The higher your skill level the more complex the pattern you can perform and make decisions on without having to consciously think about it. It is in effect non-rational because you are so attuned to the habit that your body may act or react before you even realize you are doing it.

• The Science of Change – The key is that we need to change ourselves. We need to transform, not them. We don’t need to occupy Wall Street, we simply need to occupy Main Street because that is where they occupy us. It is not enough to marvel at our numbers, civil disobedience, and cardboard signs. We need a Science of change so that we can do so.
• steve jobs and the no @$$hole rule – Bottom line: I still believe in Sutton’s rule, but Jobs was exceptional. Almost no one had his deep knowledge of the high tech business or such an acute sense of style and design. Few can build an organization tailored to their personality. Most @$$holes will never be in Jobs’ league and will merely make our lives miserable. Long live the no @$$hole rule!
• live.hackr : Reader- – die gesamte dontdoevil-narration ist natürlich so viel wert wie klopapier, wenn sie sich mit facebook – und also das erste mal mit einem echten herausforderer – konfrontiert in einen moron verwandeln, der seine infomonopolistischen marktmacht ohne rücksicht auf verluste (auf seiten der user, wohin sollen sie den gehen, muhaha) ausnützt, um dem eigenen hoffnungsträger g+ ein gewisses momentum zu verleihen; wobei sie das alleine natürlich nicht evil macht, aber – wie diplix schön sagt – billig, schlampig und doof.
• Reader redesign: Terrible decision, or worst decision? – >* – Fantastic post that articulates all my views on the matter better than I could ahve. I was looking forward to G+ integration and was appalled to find they just ripped my friends' shares out completely.
  The red subscribe button is hilarious in comparison to the rest of the monochrome scheme.
  I just hope they're soaking up feedback and prepared to move quickly on it
• Warum Sharing nun schlechter ist und wie man Vieles besser machen könnte | Google Reader schlanker und plussiger | News-Foren – Das für mich dominanteste Beispiel: Ich konnte bislang sehr bequem
  einigen Leuten *im Reader* folgen, ohne deren sonstige (für mich
  größtenteil irrelevanten) G+ Posts lesen zu müssen.

  Nun muss ich mir die für mich interessanten Teile aus deren weitaus
  umfangreicheren G+ Streams herausfiltern. Das ist mir persönlich zu
  zeitraubend und blöd.

  Ich verzichte nun komplett auf das Sharing und das Konsumieren von
  gesharten Inhalten.

• Unklartext – Das Schmidt-Steinbrück-Buch hält nicht, was der Hype verspricht. Anja Höfer im Gespräch mit Reinhard Hübsch. SWR2 Journal am Morgen vom 27.10.2011
• Kuchen für Alle! – Wir sind die 90%
• More Than Facebook: The Time Is Right For Social Business – Forbes – What’s keeping other companies from following their lead? Many executives recognize that social media is powerful, even if they still wonder in the back of their minds whether it’s just a time sink. Yet, even when they decide that there is potential, these execs get hung up on trying to figure how to apply social technologies to their companies, how to engage and empower their employees to participate.

  Here’s the trick with social business: Focus on people and culture.

• The Connected Company: Environment and Organization Come First « Dachis Group Collaboratory – Technology solutions will be applied to management challenges in time. Market forces make it nearly inevitable.  It remains to be seen if they’ll be effective without management interventions that consider the culture and human side of the equation.  It’s important to allow for new roles and ways of thinking to grow organically within an organization as a foundation for this transition.

  Our collaborative discovery sessions with clients reveal patterns to the environmental needs of major organizations. We’ve found that is helpful to share with clients a list of socially calibrated attributes that may prompt internal evaluation and change.

  How does your organization compare with this list? Are you ready to make a transition to managing a socially calibrated organization?

Go tiger, grab the mp3.

To mark his recent death, Peter Day revisits an interview he did 2 years ago with Russell Ackoff, Professor Emeritus of the Wharton School in Operations Research and Systems Theory. His f-Laws expose the common flaws in both the practice of leadership and in the established beliefs that surround it

Get the mp3 here, subversive ideas and uncomfortable truths included, the limits of operations research, social systems science and much more.

I like this notion of “business regularities” and this tongue-in-cheek thing of “F-laws as truths about organizations that we might wish to deny or ignore, [and that serve as] as simple and more reliable guides to managers’ everyday behavior [...]“

Some newly found and earmarked innovation podcasts, starting with the Forrester Information & Knowledge Management podcast (RSS), then a Swiss radio podcast and to finish a Business Week Innovation of the week

• Good Strategic Planning Will Outlast A Downturn, Don’t Cut Here (mp3)
  Rob Koplowitz warns against cutting funding for planning and strategy in an economic downturn. Keep in mind that, while the recession dominates the current business conversation, strategy decisions transcend the short term – your company will have to stick with them for the long haul.
• Business Intelligence Belt Tightening In A Tough Economic Climate (mp3)
  More and more we’re seeing smart enterprises turn to Business Intelligence (BI) as a corporate asset to help them prevail through the tough economic times. Boris Evelson recommends taking a specific targeted approach to scaling back BI to help your company do more with less rather than employing whole-sale cutbacks.
• Novartis Campus – schöne, neue Arbeitswelt (mp3)
  Der neue Campus des Pharmamulti Novartis in Basel ist ein Versuch, städteplanerisch auf die Arbeitskultur einzuwirken. Das Gelände ist so gebaut, dass darin neue Arbeitsmodelle verwirklicht werden können. Innovation ist das oberste Ziel. Auch soll der Campus eine kleine Stadt werden, in der den Mitarbeiter fast alles geboten wird – Fitness-Studio und Kinderkrippe inklusive. Schöne, neue Arbeitswelten auf einem 20 Hektar grossen Industriegelände – wie diese aussehen, hat die Basler Historikerin und Kulturwissenschaftlerin Madeleine Fahrländer in einer Studie unter die Lupe genommen.
• Michael Raynor, co-author of The Innovator’s Dilemma and author of The Strategy Paradox, outlines his theory of “the new contrarianism.” In a downturn, says Raynor, “companies need to look beyond belt-tightening to focus obsessively on their customers” (mp3). Well, focussing obsessively sounds kind of zealous, if not to say narrow-minded, whatever happened to the idea of serendipidity and exploration? Looking for the current needs of customers sounds good, yet it must be balanced with a concern for the future … but Raynor is making a good argument for “new contrarianism” putting forth simplicity and “easy services” with reasonable value.

Add to all this audio content at least one of the videos from the 4th European Futurists Conference (found via Webonomy) , like e.g. “Open Innovation – Do we still need Patents?” (pdf) with Ciaran McGinley, Project Initiator EPO Scenarios for the Future at the European Patent Office:

In a world where knowledge is increasingly shared and innovation becomes a collaborative process, are traditional forms of intellectual property protection still appropriate? This presentation explores how the paradigm shift to open and collaborative innovation which is already eminent today will impact the role of patents and intellectual property tomorrow. By applying the scenario methodology and using the four “EPO Scenarios for the Future” as different possible environments, the potential drivers which might encourage the development of open innovation models are identified. How businesses and other stakeholders might adapt their IP strategies will also vary substantially from one scenario to the next.

Simon Blake arbeitet an der D-School am privat finanzierten Hasso-Plattner-Institut der Uni Potsdam. Das “Design Thinking” will für große Probleme schnell praktische Lösungen finden. Wie das geht und was bisher gelöst wurde [...]

Here’s the mp3 (yes, german language).

Then via Michael Altendorf I found this video of Matthew, VP of the Design Services Team at SAP, who discusses the Five Challenges of Design-led Organizations:

This video courtesy of the Institute of Design Strategy Conference Site. I really like their approach that combines design, creativity and business thinking. Check out some of my posts on design-thinking here.

Something I wanted to blog about since long and that fits the mold is next. Matt Balara did some interviews at reboot10 asking people what design means to them, second in the row is his interview with Andy Budd outside the Kedelhallen. The question’s the same every other time: “What is design to you?”:

Great thinking and some great quotes to stumble upon in Matt’s blog, go there and check it out, it’s a whole series.

One last goody to be recommended is Matt’s interview with Thomas Vander Wal:

So what’s design mean to you, Thomas?

It’s the layer on top of things that are used, that makes them comfortable and gives them more ease of use. It’s adding experience but taking away the hard edges, and allow people to embrace the tool or service in a closer interaction.

And last, but not least, Ideo (and CEO Tim Browne) are now blogging too (via Matthias and Anol). Check out the new blogs (at Ideo Labs and Design Thinking respectively) for fresh insights. Besides, Tim’s article in the June 2008 HBR is a good introduction to design thinking too:

“Thinking like a designer can transform the way you develop products, services, processes—and even strategy”

Badly, got the german language paper version only, but Victor and others have written extensively about it.

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.

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 …).