Call me the Dr

Here I am at the Brightstar 8th Annual Intranet and Portals Conference in Wellington, New Zealand.
Nearing the end of day 1 of the conference. I have given a presentation on Modelling Collaboration using the current work for the World Wide Fund for Nature, facilitated a 1-day workshop on the Intranet Hive and have only one round table this afternoon before my work is done.

Michael Sampson is speaking, largely off the cuff (as he says this is the way he now likes to present).

The title slide has 4 big circles with a number in each: 2013.

2 moving to one, the internet as a place to read versus the internet as a place to work
0 Zero tolerance for cool stuff: Business outcomes
1 bright future: all of that maligned cool stuff
3 ideas for making use of the things you already have

Michael is currently using the movie The Dark Knight to bring intranet concepts to life.

Capability, Possibility, Applicability, Changeability. The Dark Knight (Batman) drives his car, the car blows up… a few more steps along the way… and he turns this all into a motorbike (changeability) and off he goes. Michael is so smart!

Michael says, “people hate change being done to them, but they like to take it on themselves. People like to improve as they go.” This is a concept that I can relate to, yet people continue to ‘do change’ to others. I wonder if this is just human nature? And for those of us who are lucky enough to live in a peaceful corner of the earth is this how we play out those tribal instincts, swapping fisticuffs for a big change stick?

As I tidy up my notes the room flares up into GrUps talking about the online interactions of their kids, ironically bemoaning their use of the very tools which they are evangelising in their online practices They talk about mode of it, the language and how locked out they (the grown-ups) are from this. As my own son nears his teenage years I wonder if I will forget what it was like to be a teenager, and how important it was to connect to other teenagers, as much as possible, hanging on the phone in the study all night, saying nothing of consequence… just feeling connected. And as much as possible being connected without the grown-ups putting the glass against the wall of our lives, which of course these things, instant messaging et al are great for!

According to Michael, we can only collaborate when we have shared mental models, cognition, working practices. While our parents grew up with a small group of common experiences, 1 TV channel etc, etc, today we have a myriad of opportunities: 100 TV channels, many movies and dvds, the internet, you tube etc. This has created great opportunity for each of us to pursue our own particular interests and at the same time it has made it more difficult, or has isolated us from others with common experiences. The internet moves the field allowing us to find people from the farther reaches of the planet.

And call Mr Sampson the Dr (fingers crossed) very soon as he has completed his thesis.