There's nothing like a feisty little tweet-fest to get a girl going in the morning. I had a great conversation earlier today with some of my favorite tweeters - Mark Oehlert (@moehlert), Dave Ferguson (@Dave_Ferguson), Clark Quinn (@quinnovator) and Steve Howard (@stevehoward999) - about the relative value of what our friend Lance Dublin refers to as "creative abrasion".
What got me going was Donald Clark's blog post about the Open Learning Innovation Fund. Donald is unhappy about the organizations that are going to be involved in implementing some of the recommendations of the recent Digital Britain report. He's unhappy that the head of the British Library - "a librarian" - will be driving the agenda. (Does he really not know that librarians are the quintessential "chief information officers" of the new digital world order??) I know the real concern is about the lack of confidence in how the fund is going to be spent. But when ranting is personal and mean it seems pretty obvious that it gets in the way and can even even obscure the important points he is trying to share.
Mark Oehlert reminded me that it is critical to have loud and honest voices asking tough questions. Clark Quinn gently suggested that sometimes caustics can eat away hype, reveal real value, and that it can be instructive, if done right. I don't disagree. But I DO believe in civility in professional dialogue because it's not ideas that bring about change - PEOPLE bring about change when the value of making the change is self-evident. In my experiences of implementing systemic change at enterprise levels I have observed time and time again that it's typically more productive if one doesn't begin the discussion by saying things like "You couldn’t have gathered a more useless, backward looking bunch of laggards if you tried." Organizational change is not likely to emerge if execs in charge want to kill the messenger.
I'd like to propose that we quit getting mad, and start getting even by thinking about how to make sure our "canary in the coal mine" tendencies of tweeting our brains out can actually be the catalyst for the the change that we all want to create when it comes to learning and technology innovation.
So. Back to "Innovation Diffusion 101". Let's revisit the Roger's Diffusion of Innovation Adoption distribution curve. Looks like this:
When one considers the points in the adoption process where organizations can begin bringing about systemic change it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that that hostile voices coming from the 2nd and 3rd standard deviation from the left (the innovator side of the distribution) can be just as non-productive and hard to capitalize on for those of us in the mushy middle of enterprise innovation adoption as the whimpering that comes from the 2nd and 3rd standard deviation from the right (the laggard side of the distribution).
But what it also tells us is that, just as Clark and Mark and Lance have reminded me, there is an important place for the creative abrasionist. Let's think about how we can help those of us who really are doing their best to keep us all on the bright and shining path of innovation diffusion to be heard by those who can take things to the next step.
This suggests the value of a Taxonomy for Creative Abrasion - a stepwise model that focuses our efforts to abrade at the points where the friction we create is likely to produce energy and action, and not just burn down the house.
More on a first draft of my Taxonomy in my next post. I'm only sort of kidding. And thanks for letting me share. I may choose to be civil in my discourse, but that doesn't mean I feel any less emotion then those who are wearing the cranky pants.
I was told two things a long time ago. I've remembered them as important rules ever since. Occasionally I have the good sense to practice them:-
- Always be civil. "Please" and "thank you" extend beyond buying a sandwich (although apparently most people think there's no place for such niceties in Subway etc.), and go a long way towards keeping people willing to listen to your ideas and opinions.
- If you identify a problem and bring it to someone's attention, offer a solution too. If you don't, then you sound like a whiner, a disgruntled employee, a customer who just wants a free dinner - or an angry blogger looking for something to scream about. Don't worry so much about whether it's a bad idea to do what you are about to suggest. Concern yourself instead with the knowledge that sharing your thoughts should spark conversation and new ideas will surely follow.
Posted by: Steve Howard | June 29, 2009 at 11:16 AM