My FASTForward blogging colleague Bill Ives has an informative post up at the FASTForward blog titled "Deloitte Declares We Are in a Media Democracy", Deloitte of course being the major global consulting firm Deloitte Touche.
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Deloitte Declares We Are in a “Media Democracy”
Bill IvesDean Takahashi at Venture Beat shared with us a summary of a recent Deloitte survey on the state of media. The report concludes that, “We’re living in a media democracy, where no single form of media dominates the attention of Americans. It’s also an age where everyone contributes to the media, not just traditional media companies.” The last part is old news but I find the first part more interesting.
There has been discussion about whether blogging will continue in the age of Twitter. I have mentioned, as have others, that they have different functions and complement each other. Twitter may take away a few of the functions of blogs but there are many left that cannot be handled by Twitter.
There have been very few times where a new media actually completely replaces an old one. Each new advance in communication technology expands the possibilities for knowledge capture and distribution. In each case it took a while to understand the possibilities and the requirements to enable them. Take text or writing for example: the invention of the phonetic alphabet around 700 B.C. enabled a number of unforeseen and unintended capabilities.
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Deloitte’s organisational consulting has for some time now been involved in employee engagement and organisational change, and so its practitioners in those areas will understand more of the emerging sociology of the networked workplace environment than the other major consulting firms. And of course, not to miss a beat, all the other major firms will all be out there now telling customers they have found a new ball to kick around, i,e, social computing. They will come up with logical responses wherever there seems to be a growing market. But beware of these firms’ response, in my opinion. If you want to know why, email me.
Is the general awareness of the effects of using computers, the Web and the easy sharing and consumption of information flows beginning to reach a critical mass ? Bill’s blog post would seem to suggest so.
And I’ll argue, as I have done for some time now, that the spread and penetration of social media use into organisations large and small will lead to some major changes in the practice of leadership and management (Will Enterprise 2.0 Drive Management Innovation?, FASTForward, January 10, 2008) and slowly but surely the impact will be (or should be) the increased democratisation of many organisations.
My favourite astrologer does not agree … but we all know horoscope forecasts are somewhat suspect, right ? But short-term, I can see the logic … in uncertain and ambiguous times, many people like the feeling of increased certainty offered by direction and control. Just ask Lou Gertner what was the hardest part of the IBM turnaround in the early 90’s .. he’ll tell you "upward delegation"
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"In 2009, hierarchies will grow, democracy will ebb–"might is right" and pragmatic choices win."
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But indeed some form of democratisation reaching through a wide range of human activities, including work in an enterprise, seems inevitable. The only alternative, I suggest, is the eventual use of information technology to control almost everything knowledge workers do, reducing computing activities to completing forms and updating various reports. That does not seem too likely, but I suppose its true that you can’t predict the future.
Do you want your workplace to become more democratic than it is today ? How will your workplace engage you a year from now … two years from now … five years from now ?
I was interviewed a bit more than a year ago by WorldBlu (Annual World’s Most Democratic Workplaces) founder Traci Fenton about the impact of social computing on organisational democracy. If we believe that "knowledge is power" and that the days of a few people at the top of organisations taking all the decisions and telling everyone else how to do things are numbered (John Cambers of Cisco clearly believes that’s the case, and is not sacrificing organisational effectiveness with that belief), then it’s clear that eventually shifts in traditional organisational power will be more frequent, more observable, and carry more implications for major changes in the ways people are led and managed. Gary Hamel clearly believes this is the case, as he outlines in his most recent book The Future of Management.
I’ve used this quote from business strategist and futurist Stan Davis, but in this context I am not ashamed to repeat it, because there are some very long term shifts underway for all of, as the Deloitte study is beginning to recognize. The media we use to work and interact with others is fundamentally different than it was at the end of the do com boom, and it ain’t going away.
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While there wasn’t something called social media or social computing back then, here’s Stan Davis on organizing in the future, from the 1987 book Future Perfect:
"Electronic information systems enable parts of the whole organization to communicate directly with each other, where the hierarchy wouldn’t otherwise permit it.
What the hierarchy proscribes, the network facilitates: each part in simultaneous contact with all other parts and with the company as a whole. The organization can be centralized and decentralized simultaneously: the decentralizing mechanism in the structure, and the coordinating mechanism in the systems.
Networks will not replace or supplement hierarchies; rather the two will be encompassed within a broader conception that embraces both. We are still a long way from figuring out the appropriate and encompassing organization models for the economy we are now in."
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Here’s Stan catching up to the Web 2.0 world ("catching up" isn’t quite the right term … outlining what he think with respect to the most recent development so n the Web is probably better
Decision-making over the past quarter-century has continually moved from the center to periphery, down hierarchies to
where decisions are carried out. Current technologies, especially of the Web 2.0 world, have moved that decision-making even further, overwhelmingly beyond firms’ boundaries and into the physical and mental space of the customer.The differences between the two worlds are striking.
Whereas information is still hoarded and protected in companies, it is freely shared and reused in the connected Web 2.0 world. Hierarchy and command still rule the day in most organizations, while individuals are self-organizing, loose and flat.
Other shifts are from command & control to adapt & evolve, from provider-generated to consumer-generated content, from vertical to horizontal organization, and from an ‘audience-‘ to a ‘community-‘ approach to customers.
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It would be interesting to learn what you think.
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Jon – Thanks for expanding on what I wrote. I agree that an increasing democratic and open workplace will be the result of enterprise 2.0. The firms that recognize and support their employees will be the winners. I was struck recently by a very old example of how treating your workers can make the difference. As depicted in the movie, Mongol, the ancient Mongolian culture was one of very top down control, with the khan having absolute power of life and death over his followers. However, there was also bottom-up pressures and the khan had to conform to certain traditions. Most importantly, the Mongols had a right to choose their masters and to switch masters. Genghis Khan used this to his advantage by treating his warriors better than anyone else, he gave a greater share of the plunder among other things. This caused loyalty in his army and defections in his rivals. He also brought the ordinary warriors of defeated armies into his own army, a practice not done then. These innovations, along with his ability to handle long distance supply logistics were the reason for his success. Bill
Jon
An interesting post. Many thanks. Two observations (for now):
1. I am still struck by the persistent firewalls across organisations prohibiting employees from accessing web 2.0 type social networking sites. How long will (or can) this be tolerated?
2. I am also reminded of a client who recently told me about when he took on his parents’ engineering firm, he chose to set the design team free to innovate and create by managing the team with a ‘light touch’. A subsequent review by an external HR consultancy reported bad news – the design team were unhappy and demotivated. Why? Because they felt like little lost sheep with no sense of direction or reassurance provided by constant feedback.
This suggests that more support than we might initially think will be necessary to transition existing workers through this evolution – Generation Y may not need so much help….
Thanks for stopping by, Bill. And thanks for your excellent post relating the past to the present re: democratisation.
Strict control and top-down (rigid) control in a reasonably open and highly (and increasingly) connected society and workplaces would seem to me to be an unintelligent strategic response to the conditions 😉
I do not think most organisations will become democracies, but I think virtually all organisation would (will) do well to adopt some core democratic principles in areas that make obvious good sense.
Such as .. everyone having a voice and role in crafting the ultimate (and thus shared) vision and objectives will clearly be more engaged with making it happen. It also seems common-sensically clear that you want everyone” feeding back market and business intelligence, and having central and highly visible and open places to put that intelligence for all to share.