Dreams 2002, Ralph Perrine,
Mixed media on drawing paper, 6 x 9 inches

The Random Occurence of Insights

The most vital survival factor for large distributed organizations is this: The random occurrence of Insights, and how well the organization identifies Pivotal Insights and manages them.

The following points explain this in more detail, and lay out an organizational strategy for the efficient circulation and refinement of Pivotal Insights.

1. Pivotal Insights occur randomly in a given population. I use the term “Insights” to refer to all of the following:

Crystallized perspectives on situations

Foresight on emerging trends or changes that must be prepared for

Useful ideas which offer a unique opportunity

Critical knowledge about tasks which must be done, or

Memes which if refined and spread would have a desirable effect

All of these insights are considered pivotal since they have a potentially large impact on the success or failure of the organization. Hence the use of the term "Pivotal Insight."

2. Not every person or team will have the same insight at the same time, and it takes time to educate and convince the entire organization/population about the validity of a given insight.

3. Insights must be acted upon within a specific window of time - otherwise we fail to benefit from them, or worse, we fail prevent an undesirable outcome.

4. For the group to enjoy any degree of unity, insights must be commonly understood by the group at large, before action is taken.

5. But this is typically never achieved because insights are not circulated efficiently:

5.1 Instead insights remain isolated near their point of origin, either within entities who have power, or entities who are not in any position of authority. They do not get matched up with additional insights that could correct or strengthen them, and they do not get sufficiently scrutinized by all of the population. This means that later on, the insight will have unforeseen consequences for the whole or part of the organization's employees, constituents, or partners.

5.2 Often the window for necessary action will come and go before the entire population has been convinced of the validity of the insight. Those with authority are faced with the dilemma, either act without consensus within the necessary timeframe, or wait to build consensus but risk missing the timeframe when effective action is required.

6. This inefficient circulation of insights frustrates both those in power and those not in power:

6.1 Frustration for those not in power: the feeling that one has no voice, that one's input is never acknowledged or followed. Those experiencing this frustration can become increasingly alienated (as many employees and voters for example often do).

6.2 Frustration for those in power: Continuous untimely discoveries. To those in positions of responsibility it appears that in every project there are critical Pivotal Insights that will remain undiscovered until the most inopportune moment - when a course correction will cost the most money or disappoint the most people.

7. Throughout the history of business (and politics) the desire to avoid untimely discoveries has propelled experimentation with an evolving series of organizational structures and communication methods. The objectives to date have been more or less as follows:

implement a management structure which matches the business model and culture of the organization, then

populate it with individuals trained to prioritize issues and communicate up and down through a local or global hierarchy.

Any casual survey of employees or voters will suggest that this approach leaves much to be desired.

But this prioritization of issues is an economic necessity. No group or firm has the collective attention or finances necessary to pay attention to all issues - or even to the ones necessary to their success! Why? because resources for managing insights are consumed inefficiently when we rely on the current set of tools. Improper tools tend to force the inefficient consumption/dissipation of resources.

8. Today’s social computing applications are beginning to allow us to manage insights on a whole new level of effectiveness. We can quickly and cheaply deploy social collaboration tools: - things like wikis, collaborative documents, and networked apps like Skype, even apps like Facebook and Twitter. Unlike traditional management structures these networks do not require you to guess ahead of time about the organizational purpose, size, or the subject of its collaboration. This is due to their design characteristics:

They are organization-neutral: Facebook, Skype, Twitter, and Wikia can provide benefits for your organization no matter what size it is or what industry you’re in.

They are scalable, and can grow as your organization grows - with virtually no thought or planning on your part.

They have blurry borders which facilitate cross pollination as well as viral marketing. For example if you create a Facebook group, its members will likely have overlapping memberships in regional and other Facebook communities.

They facilitate realtime interaction and information gathering - and consequently, realtime decision making.

9. The organization's objective then, should be to cultivate a communications mesh made up of one or more of these collaboration tools and to tune this mesh until it allows the fastest most efficient circulation of insights possible. This mesh needs to make room for and accomodate 3 types of participants:

The members who are in positions of authority/responsibility

Those members of the population who are not in positions of authority.

The Other Sources of Pivotal Insights. For example: business partners, service providers, stakeholders in the greater community around you, government entities responsible for the regulation of certain aspects of your operation, and others.

In other words pretty much everyone, because they can be/will be the source of a Pivotal Insight at least on some facet of an issue or decision.

So, what does this look like in real practice? It could involve ideas such as the following:

Figuring out how/where it makes sense to deploy and manage a set of collaborative documents (docs.google.com) for the development of specific agendas or community statements/ guidance etc.

Setting up one or more appropriately managed wikis (wetpaint.com or wikia.com) to facilitate an ongoing community information source, or even community consultation (where we constantly are consulting with them on specific questions and trying to learn more about their needs and preferences.

Setting up a Facebook.com group (or something similar) and having it relate appropriately to the your closest regional network in Facebook (already exists…Facebook as one for each major city).

Using something like Twitter.com to foster constant awareness among the team or community of each other and how we’re doing what we’re doing.

Setting up an enterprise wiki (like Atlassian.com) if its appropriate for your needs and strategic goals …this would require justification of a budget etc. The rest of the items above are free.

From here, its currently uncharted territory. Over the next 2-5 years a new generation of collaborative processes will be defined, as we gain experience in utilizing social computing tools and applications. It will be fascinating to see what is possible from there, but in the meantime, plenty of benefit can be derived from the sensible application of these tools.

Ralph Perrine
Ralph Perrine is the author of America 2076: Pop Technology and the New Future of Democracy and the 2007 monthly calendar 12 Drawings that will change your Life.