Prof. Robert Appleton of Ryerson University recently told me: “In most fields, the language [of communication] is still dominated by words and numbers.” I think he is right. Think about the daily routine in most organizations. We produce reports and strategy papers. We often forget to convey this knowledge into tangible pictures and stories.
Visualize Business Models
I bought the book Business Model Generation: A Handbook for Visionaries, Game Changers, and Challengers [72 slides free online at SlideShare] by Alexander Osterwalder. First, this book provides and easy understandable and visual approach for capturing the value and the implications of business models. This book is a useful “ready to use” tool to change the way in which you approach your work. Roger Martin, an advocate for design thinking in business says: “Businesspeople don’t just need to understand designers better – they need to become designers.”
Second, the book itself has a new business model. It is co-created by 470 practitioners.
Your smartphone is dumb. Mine is too. I’ve got an iPhone in my pocket, and a Galaxy S III, and an HTC One, and they’re all stupid. The BlackBerry Z10 in my bag is a clot, and the Lumia 920 isn’t just thick in the hand, it’s just plain thick. Today, on the fortieth birthday of the first cellphone call, the gadget that was supposed to liberate us has turned us into plagued, screen-tapping obsessives, in thrall to every buzz and bleep.
Before you say anything – though I understand you may instantly have raced to the comments section before you even reached the period in my first sentence, desperate to berate me – I’m not a luddite. I love smartphones; I like Android, iOS, Windows Phone, and even have a soft spot for BlackBerry 10 in places. I don’t leave the house without at least one phone in my pocket. It – and its ringing alarm – is the first thing I reach for in the morning; with the exception of the light switch it’s probably the last thing at night.
That devotion, or maybe obsession, doesn’t mean I’m blind to the limitations of what we have today, however. The modern smartphone is faster, lighter, runs longer, has more apps, sensors, radios, and gadgetry than any before it, but all that complexity has only served to pull us in closer, to enmesh us more with the digital world on its terms.
One vision for the future of Microsoft – Click to Enlarge
Your phone still, generally, demands you reach for it and proactively consult it. If it has something for you, it’ll beep to let you know, but it’ll generally do that on its own timescale. Many devices have a “do not disturb” mode, which blanks all (or all but the most important) notifications between certain periods, and some can “intelligently” manage alerts depending on what you’re doing at the time, though that tends to amount to little more than bashing calendar entries against the clock and keeping quiet when you’ve remembered to log a meeting taking place.
“Most phones are dumb in how they understand context”
Beyond that, for all their sensors and smarts, most phones are pretty dumb in how they understand context. Right now, they’re portable terminals for the internet, for the most part: a smaller window than our regular browser, or one we view through the medium of function-specific apps. Much of the development we’ve seen from phone software and hardware over the past 3-5 years has been in translating the internet into something that fits onto a smartphone-scale screen.
Humanitarian donors and organizations are increasingly championing innovation and the use of new technologies for humanitarian response. DfID, for example, is committed to using “innovative techniques and technologies more routinely in humanitarian response” (2011). In a more recent strategy paper, DfID confirmed that it would “continue to invest in new technologies” (2012). ALNAP’s important report on “The State of the Humanitarian System” documents the shift towards greater innovation, “with new funds and mechanisms designed to study and support innovation in humanitarian programming” (2012). A forthcoming land-mark study by OCHA makes the strongest case yet for the use and early adoption of new technologies for humanitarian response (2013).
These strategic policy documents are game-changers and pivotal to ushering in the next wave of humanitarian technology and innovation. That said, the reports are limited by the very fact that the authors are humanitarian professionals and thus not necessarily familiar with the field of advanced computing. The purpose of this post is therefore to set out a more detailed research framework for next generation humanitarian technology and innovation—one with a strong focus on information systems for crisis response and management.
If the details about this deal are true, it could be a game-changer for the enterprise cloud market.
That's because Amazon Web Services will help the CIA build a “private cloud” filled with technologies like big data, reports Konkel, citing unnamed sources.
The CIA is pretty closed-lipped about its business, as spies are apt to be. This is no exception. It won't confirm the deal or comment on it, so details are sketchy. But the contract is expected to be for a “private” cloud, which is not what AWS is known for.
AWS is the largest “public” cloud provider. In general, the term “private cloud” means using cloud computing technologies in a company's own data center. Public clouds are in hosted facilities, where the hardware is shared with many users. Sharing the hardware saves money.
WHAT DO “WISE DEMOCRACY” AND POWERFUL DIALOGUE AND DELIBERATION PROCESSES HAVE TO DO WITH PEERNESS?
P2P systems generate self-organization out of similarities and power equity: People eagerly move into productive/enjoyable relationships because of passions or needs they share with similar others when their interactions are not unduly hindered by arbitrary power-over dynamics. These relationships form naturally, needing little if any management and only simple forums to facilitate the connections.
Tom Atlee:
“There is a seeming contradiction between p2p systems and the approaches to wise democracy that I've been advocating.
P2P systems generate self-organization out of similarities and power equity: People eagerly move into productive/enjoyable relationships because of passions or needs they share with similar others when their interactions are not unduly hindered by arbitrary power-over dynamics. These relationships form naturally, needing little if any management and only simple forums to facilitate the connections.
Certain high quality group processes generate collective wisdom out of diverse people who may or may not have diverse levels of power in hierarchical systems: Such people need to be consciously brought together because they are normally and willingly separate. We actively seek people with different views, interests, roles, personalities, demographic characteristics, etc., because it is the positive use of that diversity that generates the wisdom (a “wholeness” to the resulting decision or understanding).
Yet both of these innovations – p2p systems and wisdom-generating forums – are leading edge social developments. Can some shared logic or coherent synergistic potency be found between them?
The majority of businesses aren’t run efficiently and employees lack the tools and equipment necessary to do their jobs. Quite a wide sweeping statement, I know. But I’ve also been in the trenches. And I realize it’s not for lack of trying. I’ve worked with companies who hired consultant after consultant to help with productivity recommendations, workflow suggestions and overall team building — all in the name of doing better business. These investments never quite had the impact leadership hoped for.
Why?
Because they lacked a fundamental commitment to launch an entire culture overhaul (more about this later). Not necessarily “cleaning house,” but changing the WAY people work individually, collaboratively and publicly. The key lies in this trifecta, partnered with the right people on board.
Now, predictions and estimates show that social collaboration tools will start to rule the roost in 2013. This comes after worldwide enterprise social software revenue surpassed $769 Million in 2011. That only hits one area of professional workflow — those who manage social media. Social software doesn’t include the rest of the work force, requiring some companies to use multiple collaboration tools that:
1. Don’t “talk” to one another or interdepartmentally;
2. Require massive amounts of training, and staff to upkeep software; or
3. Aren’t available for customers and clients to use.
It’s estimated that 75 percent of enterprise-level organizations will adopt a social collaboration platform in 2013. That adoption rate could very well be accurate, but long term use could be hindered if these tools and platforms are implemented ineffectively.
Disaster response apps have multiplied in recent years. I’ve been reviewing the most promising ones and have found that many cater to professional responders and organizations. While empowering paid professionals is a must, there has been little focus on empowering the real first responders, i.e., the disaster-affected communities themselves. To this end, there is always a dramatic mismatch in demand for responder services versus supply, which is why crises are brutal audits for humanitarian organizations. Take this Red Cross survey, which found that 74% of people who post a need on social media during a disaster expect a response within an hour. But paid responders cannot be everywhere at the same time during a disaster. The response needs to be decentralized and crowdsourced.
In contrast to paid responders, the crowd is always there. And most survivals following a disaster are thanks to local volunteers and resources, not external aid or relief. This explains why FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate has called on the public to become a member of the team. Decentralization is probably the only way for emergency response organizations to improve their disaster audits. As many seasoned humanitarian colleagues of mine have noted over the years, the majority of needs that materialize during (and after) a disaster do not require the attention of paid disaster responders with an advanced degree in humanitarian relief and 10 years of experience in Haiti. We are not all affected in the same way when disaster strikes, and those less affected are often very motivated and capable at responding to the basic needs of those around them. After all, the real first responders are—and have always been—the local communities themselves, not the Search and Rescue Team sthat parachutes in 36 hours later.
In other words, local self-organized action is a natural response to disasters. Facilitated by social capital, self-organized action can accelerate both response & recovery. A resilient community is therefore one with ample capacity for self-organization. To be sure, if a neighborhood can rapidly identify local needs and quickly match these with available resources, they’ll rebound more quickly than those areas with less capacity for self-organized action. The process is a bit like building a large jigsaw puzzle, with some pieces standing for needs and others for resources. Unlike an actual jigsaw puzzle, however, there can be hundreds of thousands of pieces and very limited time to put them together correctly.
