In the early morning session, Andrew McAfee talked at length about organisational norms and how these are exemplified in social science studies. He told the story where seminary trainees were asked to give a sermon on the parable of the Good Samaritan but were also told they had very little time to prepare. A person was dressed up as a down and out drunk and positioned along the route to the sermon area. Without exception, the seminary trainees walked over the person as thought he didn’t exist.
In the Zimbardo experiment, people were separated into guards and prisoners. the guards were given free rein to mistreat the prisoners. Over time, otherwise normal, well adjusted people became increasingly violent to the ‘prisoners’ right to the point where the experiment had to be halted.
In real life, people were observed standing by and watching as a woman was savagely attacked – an event which subsequently led to the theory of Bystander Apathy. In the business sense, these examples can loosely be translated to ‘not getting involved’ and ‘doing as you’re told.’ But these traits don’t sit well with the idea of innovation because by its nature, innovation is disruptive.
In the afternoon session, a panel that included Tara Hunt and Rod Boothby talked about the challenges of introducing new social computing technologies into the workspace. Tara said it’s hard in large organisations because a number of the services are free or very low cost. Large companies expect big ticket software and think there is something inherently wrong if there isn’t a big price ticket. Strange but true.
Rod challenged the notion of compliance, arguing that SOX for example doesn’t cater for change and therefore the compliance excuse for not adopting technology doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. He suggested what he calls ‘cab fare’ expensing of low cost software. No-one queries the cost of a taxi expense – the level at which new technologies can be acquired. He is, in other words, suggesting a stealth approach that avoids the objections he sees coming from IT and other gatekeepers, which want to control the environment.
While I see what Rod says as making sense if you want to force fit change, it cannot be the right approach. No manager likes to be duped and while ‘under the radar’ approaches have worked, it is based on the dangerous assumption that social computing IS a good that delivers value. This is not from proven, even though intuitively it seems right.
Unfortunately, we don’t have many answers at this time. Social software presents special challenges. What happens if…and the list is pretty long (people tell company secrets to the wider world, release embarrassing facts…). This is very different from other software where the issues are more around ‘does it work?’
I think we’re approaching this in the wrong way. We already know that only a small fraction of people are likely to be highly active. These are the people we need to discover and allow free expression. The question companies have to ask themselves then is not can we allow this new ‘stuff’ but can we afford not to? Innovation is never easy, but, handled with care, it can work.
Technorati Tags: enterprise irregulars, innovation
