Thursday, August 27, 2015
Are music festivals and doofs - a social experiment - solving the need for jobs? A precursor to the new kibbutz?
Wednesday, August 26, 2015
How Institutions can change into an Innovation Entity
On the other hand, as an optimist, I believe it is possible for existing institutions to transform themselves, but not through the classic top down, "big bang" approach to transformation that has proven to have a very high failure rate. Instead, I have been a proponent of a different approach to large scale organizational change that I call "scaling edges" - http://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/pages/center-for-the-edge/articles/scaling-edges-methodology-to-create-growth.html A few of our existing institutions will be able to navigate through the changes using this approach.
Thanks for the heads up on Dans ted Talk
Social Media disrupting the Established Economy
David
Innovation and economics - radical innovation needs radical change
A question by Curt Carlson
I can’t imagine that a society where 85% of the people don’t work would be a good thing. Work is at the heart of being human — ones identity and self worth depend on it. It seems unstable and likely to collapse from terrible policies that the 85% would impose on the 15%. How do you think about that?
Response by Jordan Greenhall
The key to creating an effective innovative economy is to get legacy systems and legacy habits out of the way while making people feel secure that their needs will still be met!
This can be done only with effective communication, connecting and collaboration!
Changing the mindset and creating an innovative economy starts with education - and changing the way our education system links in with our economic institutions.
These linkages make it nearly impossible to radically innovate in jobs without also radically innovating in education.
Human beings don't need work. They need more fundamental things like agency, creativity, community, a sense of material safety, etc. Mileage will vary, but my go to here is Max Neef on human needs.
As it turns out, our civilization model has pushed a great number of these needs into "work". Increasingly so over the past four centuries. Indeed, a big cause of the modern ennui is the fact that work is a poor satisfier for many of the needs that are being piled upon it. Even really creative work, but particularly the kind of stuff that usually goes under the heading "work".
Now, clearly, we can not simply delete work. 85% of the population "just sitting around" is a disaster. What we must do is innovate entirely new satisfiers. Optimally satisfiers that meet human needs much more effectively than our legacy approaches and do so much more efficiently. Neef calls the best of these "synergistic satisfiers".
Obviously a challenge for the ages, but my sense is that we are very well positioned to meet it. To me, the hard part is doing it in the face of and in the midst of the broad institutional dysfunction that is characteristic of the current environment.
For example, take education. When nearly every child, teacher and parent is fully tapped day in and day out by the legacy system, there isn't a lot of room for innovation. Let alone radical innovation.
But, if by some circumstance, the entire educational system shut down all at once and, as a consequence, got out of the way; we would develop a dozen new models that are at least as effective in months. And in a year we'd be well on our way to a set of satisfiers that are 10x more effective.
In general, a move like this is unwise. New is usually a dangerous choice. But as i believe that a decomposition of the legacy system is coming one way or another..... To create a radicL innovative economy one needs radical innovative ideas and action!
Response by David Michaelis
Innovaton and Economics
Kiely Katz talks about the need to shift to a people based economy in order to maintain and sustain jobs in an innovation driven economy. A radical mindset change is needed
A successful shift to a more sustainable employment model needs to involve significant changes in traditional mindsets, attitudes and behaviours. Embedding behaviour change is notoriously difficult. The more deeply embedded the behaviour, the more difficult to shift.
We have worked within the similar operating norm for a very long time. Work is not “life” but the thing people do to “make a living”. For 9 hours every day. Those lucky enough to be employed spend more time with their work colleagues that with their loved ones. Employers expect employees to wear a cloak of the “professional persona” during working hours. Most expect employees to stick rigidly within the confines of their role. Stepping outside these rigid “job” walls, even to share knowledge to help colleagues, is often regarded as disruptive behaviour: and thus a massive chunk of skills, knowledge and experience are kept locked firmly away to avoid upsetting the status quo. Frustrating and bad for productivity - but “that just the way things are.
A shift to a ‘people centred economy” has to start by understanding what makes people tick.
Lets look at this norm through the lens of the the way the brain is wired.
People are most receptive to change (and most productive) when they are in “reward” mode. In this mode, we do our best, most creative thinking, we are open to collaboration and feel secure enough to try new things.
There are six key triggers to this reward state:
Respect: People feel that their opinions are valid. They feel part of decision making processes and that their voices are heard.
Certainty: When there are no unexpected surprises. As an example, Zappos make all of their live data open to everyone across the whole organisation all the time. Nothing is hidden. Everyone knows what is happening. There are no board room secrets.
Autonomy: They don’t want to be watched and micromanaged. People are most productive and most collaborative when they are trusted to do the right thing - especially as part of a community working toward a shared vision.
Connectedness: We are social creatures. We are at our best when we part of connected communities - where we feel safe to share, to give, to be involved. We are most empowered when we are connected by a shared vision or collective mission.
Fairness: People like to know how and why decisions are made.
Empathy: Even a message saying that leadership understands that change is not easy for anyone makes an enormous difference to how change is adopted.
Check back to standard current organisational operating systems.
Employees are expected to keep their opinions to themselves and to tow the line. Leaders see knowledge as power and keep it locked away from prying eyes. Most leaders find the idea of employee autonomy uncomfortable and most workers are accustomed to doing as they are told without question. Sharing and cross silo collaboration is not incentivised, if tolerated. Decisions are made behind closed doors and delivered with not even a nod to the people most affected by them.
The gap between organisational norms and more engaged, and therefore more sustainable, operating systems is enormous. Travelling between one and the other will involve significant change.
Therein lies the rub.
When presented with any kind of significant change, or anything that feels different to the norm, the brain triggers a threat “fight or flight” response. We become distracted as we try to figure out how that threat will affect us.
Faced with change, people start to see threats even where there are no threats. People are less able to focus or think clearly. Memory and decision making is impaired, the field of focus narrows. They become more emotional and stressed, which further impacts ability to perform.
Unfortunately, the threat response is contagious. When one person starts to behave in a defensive way, the people around them react to the change in their behaviour.
While we considering how to innovate employment through the use of technology, we should not underestimate the challenge of introducing and embedding organisational and systemic change. Throughout the brainstorming process we should imagine what kind of frameworks could support organisations and cities (leaders and employees) through the pain on change into a new more sustainable norm.
Access to affordable and pervasive data, neuroscience, social physics and behavioural psychology provide us with an unprecedented understanding of how humans make decisions, what drives action and how behaviour change can be “nudged.” This research should be kept front of mind as we are plotting
Thursday, August 20, 2015
Can innovation disrupt unemployment?
6:00pm: Registration and Refreshments
6:30pm: Opening Remarks with Adiba Barney SVForum CEO and David Nordfors, I4J CEO
6:45pm: Keynote Speaker: John Hagel, Center for the Edge @ Deloitte
7:00pm: Panel Discussion, moderated by Robin Farmanfarmain, President, I4JEco Summit
7:50pm: Q&A
8:00pm: Networking
8:30pm: Program Concludes