TeacherMan

Forging the Future #2: Innovating to Cut Costs: Keeping the focus on what really matters
April 2009 
Executive summary –Whether tops down or bottoms up, innovation can be an excellent tool for finding ways to stretch budgets. However, there is no special grace for innovators in tough times. Getting attention, making the work a priority and getting a good idea accepted is still a challenge. There is one advantage, though: people are being forced daily to break out of familiar and comfortable patterns. When things and measures and balance sheets dominate the conversation, turning the focus on people, what they need and how relationships can be established and deepened becomes more essential for anyone wishing to pursue innovation even as shrieking headlines compete for attention.

Innovation is usually thought of in terms of inventions, new offerings and the sizzle that can make old products sell. But when new and improved means savings, it can be more relevant in a tight economy. Such innovation can come from tops down approaches, of course. Consultants have long provided reengineering services aimed at taking the larger view of a department, a division or even a whole firm and determining where there are overlaps and waste. The best of these consultants also look outside the enterprise, or even outside an industry, to adapt best practices for new efficiencies.

Many enterprises have already been through reengineering programs, of course, often with mixed results. If the sensing of potential efficiencies does not become part of the culture, or if there are dramatic changes brought about through acquisitions or outsourcing, some of value gained can go away. However, there's no doubt that many reengineering practices have become part of doing business. Many of the questions that emerged as companies undertook these programs have continued to guide people in decisions that reflect broader possibilities.

Of course, in a lean economy the approach to cost cutting often consists of canceling travel, curtailing research and giving each department a 10% cut in its budget. For the last of these, the assumption seems to be that there is obvious waste, and that the people who are on the ground are the ones who can best find and act on it. Although across-the-board budget cuts in an enterprise can be as ill considered as an across-the-board budget cut in a household (does anyone want to tell their mortgage company that this month's check will be smaller?), there is some sense here. People on the ground really do have a good view of where waste is.

Alan Robinson, in his book Ideas Are Free, makes a strong argument for the superior knowledge of people who are directly creating the value, through work with customers and through building products. When these people are encouraged to find more efficient ways to do their jobs, as they are through systematic approaches in firms like Toyota, they can work wonders. There are, however, critical success factors.

First, coming up with the ideas needs to be an expectation, a regular part of everyone's job. Second, these ideas need to be shared around and developed into tasks that can really accomplish the goal. And, naturally, there must be time for coming up with the good ideas, sharing them and taking on the new tasks. The ideas might be free, but putting them to work to save money requires some investment and some commitment.

Underneath this, is an acknowledgment that ideas may come from anyone, not just from people who are paid to do research or development. This usually means all workers need to be given explicit permission to be innovators. They also may need some training, so their ideas are more consumable. And, as stated above, the company needs to put aside sufficient resources to make these things happen. Surprisingly, Robinson says that an awards program may be counterproductive. The greatest incentive for most people who come up with good ideas is to see those ideas put to work.

Even though this is a bottoms up approach to cost-cutting innovation, leadership can play a role beyond providing resources. For one thing, they often can see from their vantage point target areas where new ideas can really make a difference. By articulating what these target areas are -- say, finding a way to make better use of talent in the company, or reducing solid waste from a plant-- they can help focus the creativity and attention of people who are closest to answers that will really matter. There are also cultural approaches, including celebrating ideas that didn't work, not just those that did.

One of the problems with putting the emphasis on bottoms up innovation is that too often those innovations never become broadly available. Leadership can find the natural ways for people to share ideas and successes across the enterprise, and these can take a small success and multiply it, turning it into something that can have a huge impact.

Similarly, the rise of access to ideas through the Web and in particular through social networks – where ideas are attached to specific people who know their contexts - provide opportunities for organizations to discover the small but powerful ideas that are bubbling up in organizations worldwide.

This points to one of the limiting factors. For all the evidence there might be around the ability of new ideas to increase efficiencies, not everyone is going to buy into them. The things that prevent people from adopting new ideas - concerns about risk, communications, resistance to change and lack of incentive - are not suspended during a bad economy. In fact, except when organizations have reached a desperate state, there's a strong likelihood that even simple changes might not be accepted. The focus for most people is on holding onto their jobs, making sure that they've done what they were specifically assigned, avoiding any sort of screw up that might attract undesirable attention... and otherwise keeping their heads down.

There are many other factors that ironically can keep the enterprise from taking the steps in directions that can help people to have enough resources to survive a downturn. For one thing, people with new ideas have to compete for attention in an environment that is filled with anxiety, and often fear. This can be discouraging, (and for anyone undertaking innovation discouragement is part of the bargain and the best of times), but bad times also bring a hunger for good news and hope. Talking about the innovation in terms that encourage (without being unrealistic) becomes part of the job for innovators in a downturn.

Innovation can often be put off. After all, why take on something new when there's so much to be done that's obvious and familiar (and often when there's more to be done, thanks to colleagues heading out the door)? Here an innovator needs to provide the best information available not just on what savings might be achieved, but when they might be achieved. If reluctance to adopt an innovation can be viewed as letting money leak away, it becomes more urgent.

Politics are always part of any attempt to innovate. Someone in the organization is likely to see innovation as a territorial threat, even when a new territory is being created. This stand-and-hold posture will be especially strong when budgets and headcounts are under pressure. It may take some jujitsu, but if a way can be found to show executives and managers that they have a better chance of holding onto their power by adopting an innovation, these enemies can be turned into allies.

Innovations may have one advantage during downturns. Despite their best efforts, many individuals are forced to change. And organizations are forced to change. And when the routine goes away, there is the opportunity for old habits to be broken and new ones to be formed. Though this is most dramatic for organizations that face extinction and must take radical measures, it's also true to some extent for any enterprise that is caught up in a downturn.

A little recognized advantage of shrinking budgets and market challenges is that people are inevitably thrown together in new ways. There's a certain energy generated when this happens. There is the potential for new and stronger relationships. A classic way to build social capital and the trust is necessary for the adoption of any new innovation is doing people favors. And with so many people more dependent on others, there are many new opportunities for building such trust.

Of course, the converse is likely to be true. Some people will see reaching out to others with help as risky. They may even be tempted to mislead others or cut corners to get unfair advantage in a time when they feel personally threatened. In these cases, social capital breaks down, trust is destroyed and there really aren't any opportunities created to do something new.

Keeping both the possibilities for new relationships and the dangers of destroying them in front of people is the responsibility of each individual committed to innovation, no matter where they are located in the organization. Recognizing that human relationships underlie the creation of value and overall efficiency is the most powerful tool for innovators in tough times.

Peter Andrews forgingthefuture@gmail.com
Twitter (@forgingthefutur). 

My news: Innovation Passport is now listed on Amazon and a paper for it has been accepted for October's Atlanta Conference on Science and Innovation Policy.  I'm actively looking for opportunities of all kinds – speeches, podcasts, interviews, workshops – to publicize the book.  If you know of any, please send me a note.

Forging the Future #1: Membership Cards for Avatars: Ideas on accreditation in an online world

Forging the Future #1: Membership Cards for Avatars: Ideas on accreditation in an online world
March 2009
Executive summary – Confidence in how we credential people in online environments still lags behind those we have in the face-to-face world. However, looking more closely had how we establish credentials in both places, what the consequences are and what benefits we get when we have a good credentialing system, can point to options. In particular, effective means of assessing the real risks and developing ways to effectively connect proof points together may provide a path toward getting access to the talent, skills and perspectives of people wherever they are.
There are many ways that we give and get credit within our lives. Credit can be in the form of descriptors, characterizations and honors. For instance, a person might be described as male, be characterized as a scientist and be honored as a Nobel Prize winner. Each of these creates privileges, rights, and responsibilities. For those who acknowledge these credentials as true, they create expectations, allegiance, and trust (or the opposites).
Even though it is not 100% effective, we are familiar with and tend to be comfortable with mechanisms for credentialing people face-to-face. The same cannot be said, in many cases for the electronic environment. Yet, more and more, we rely on online “experts” when we buy stocks, get medical advice, explore careers and make decisions on products and services. The biggest promise of effective online credentialing – if we get this right -- may be that people will have better access to talent. And talented people will have broader markets for the value that they can produce.
And better online credentialing of people online can help support better credentialing in general. This will be especially true as access to information systems via cell phones and PDAs becomes more broad. To quickly be able to check the credentials of salespeople, authorities, professionals, and speakers... while they're standing in front of you -- will give people access to means to establish trust that goes beyond a firm handshake and a look in the eye. This may make it much more difficult for frauds and fakers to get away with their crimes.
Stepping through credentialing
To better explore online credentialing, let's look a very common credential, the college degree. Being a college graduate to be an aspect of a person's identity. That person he is credited with capabilities, knowledge, discipline and a certain amount of association, say, with other alumni. The person is a college graduate by virtue of having taken and passed required courses. The degree is conferred by the University and its board.
Ultimately, the degree means something to employers, peers, clients and many others. The evidence for the degree is usually a simple declaration on a resume. Formally, other documentation may be required, such as a diploma or a transcript. There also will be some people who can accredit the degree because they shared the person's college experience, either as classmates or as family members. These people can all vouch for a college graduate. Essentially, they put their own credibility on the line. It may be that people with less direct experience, such as an employer or business associate, may also vouch for the person. The corporate business card can declare directly to the person has, for instance, a Ph.D.
In general, a college degree is public. It is part of the official record. The consequences of giving a person credit for having a college degree are important. The personally may get access to certain groups, to certain opportunities and certain powers. In particular, with degrees in medicine and law, a certain amount of authority may be conferred upon someone with a degree.
Proofs
For anyone who's seen the movie or read the book, “Catch Me if You Can,” the book, might have some skepticism regarding the ability of the face-to-face world to properly credential people with degrees. We often rely on documents that might be faked, or on other cues, such as language, demonstrated knowledge and even a uniform. In fact, it is the job of con artists to provide us with an array of hints and “proofs” so they keep us from probing too deeply.
How does a person prove something as basic as whether or not they have a degree when they're operating in an online environment? While the set of proofs available in a face-to-face environment are far from perfect, they seem even more tenuous online. Online, proofs are largely confined to language, although the pictures, avatars, URLs and more may also be provided. This is probably one reason why people are, quite reasonably, more cautious in dealing with people electronically.
Still, a lot of proofs online are not much different from those that are available face-to-face. If you credit yourself or get someone to vouch for you in either case, you are likely to take people at their word. The level of proof demanded, as a rule from, is proportional to the risk involved. So if not much is at stake and we don't see something contradictory in the way they present themselves, many people will assume the other person is telling the truth.
For instance, the worst that can happen if you are tricked into buying the book on Amazon because of a glowing review by someone who claims to be an authority is that you'll lose the money you spent on the book. And even here, the reviewer needs to be sufficiently articulate to convince you of his or her authority. In fact, the voice, diction, grammar, arguments and grasp of the facts are all pretty good protections in many instances.
But there are places where credentialing counts. If you need a quick medical opinion, and the claim by a person that they have an M.D. is false, they can be lost of life or health. If you are trying to get education to build a marketable skill and the person providing it doesn't know what they're talking about, you can end up wasting time and money. You can also put your own reputation at risk. If you need people on your virtual team to assume certain roles to take advantage of a business opportunity, and the resumes of one or more party are false, your work, your wealth, your business and your good name can all be put at risk if you partner with them. So things get more difficult when the stakes are raised. And this is where current online accreditation runs into problems.
Toward better online credentials
Why should we care about improving mechanisms for online accreditation? Primarily because, across the spectrum of credentials, there are possibilities for expanding accessible value. There are opportunities for more diverse teams, for accessing talents in distant places and for creating unheard of synergies if online credentialing can be better manage. Looking just at the simple case of a college degree, we can see the good accreditation system will give us some confidence in hiring people, listening to their advice or giving them access to knowledge or people with which they can create value. Is this sort of utility that is the real endgame of accreditation. Today's online accreditation systems only allow us to realize small fraction of the potential that others could offer.
Today, online accreditation is conferred in a variety of ways. There does not seem to be an organized, rigorous and well thought out approach that is generally accepted. Even with something as basic as taking courses online. Even after many years, it still is in business as usual. Compare traditional college courses with online courses: People have a pretty good comfort level -- even though they know there is cheating and there are gut courses -- with acknowledging that courses taken and passed face-to-face have legitimacy. Put those same courses online, and even the conferring institution seem to have some doubts. They try to introduce checks to make sure that the work is being done and that it is being done by the person who is enrolled in the class. But there is evidence that they are not satisfied with these checks.
Online courses aren't quite real courses, it seems. In many cases, the college insists the people come in to a facility to take a test or that they otherwise provide some form of validation. (It should be pointed out that there is no universal way in use to satisfy the requirements for the credibility of online courses.) Of course, for nontraditional colleges that are totally or mostly online, it is not unusual for employers and others who need to accept the credential to express doubts.
Ultimately, the way people put together credentialing will vary. It is likely that in the future there will be standards for education, for jobs, for citizenship, and for claims on property and on other artifacts, such as works of art. New technologies (especially authentication technologies, such as biometrics) are likely to play a role here, but they're unlikely to provide the whole solution.
Certainly we don't want to leave behind any of the options that have already been developed. After all, many of these reflect the natural ways that people establish trust and to test capabilities. We will never get away from a world of social networks, attention to language, and third-party validation. All of these have value.
And we will continue to have people accepted at their word. We will continue to have people judged on the basis of a language and a knowledge. And people will vouch for each other and provide references just as they do in the face-to-face world. There's a good reason for all this. It's a terrific timesaver. It's a lot easier to ask a friend than it is to put private investigator to work. Of course, as the risk rises, the likelihood of bringing in a third-party goes up.
But there are other mechanisms, both technical and social that might be brought into play. For instance, an avatar might be used to provide a level of credentialing at a glance. Within Second Life, many IBMers have their credentials, in the form of their belonging to specific teams, hovering as text over their heads. One can imagine badges, T-shirts, hats and all sorts of tokens providing quick means for determining a person's claims were true. And since artificial worlds provide rich contexts, there could be ways, such as meta-queries and even something as simple as a facsimile college degree on wall to provide the assurances people need.
Ten key questions
Ten questions might be worth considering as we explore credentialing another person or organization:
What is the risk? To answer this, it is worthwhile to think about both what the bad consequences might be and their probability of occurrence. (In the online world, it's especially important to remember that there may be an aggregate risk.)
What is the benefit? And here again, magnitude and probability are important.
What are the points of validation? Here the number of points, how they link up and how each stands on its own can provide guidance.
What are the benefits and the risks for the person who wants to be credentialed? This is more subtle. It involves putting yourself in the other person's shoes. If that person is at tremendous risk if they are misrepresenting themselves, it may be more reasonable to trust them. This is one of the felicitous effects of having the other party vulnerable to law enforcement.
Do I understand my risk profile? Will I be able to sleep at night after clicking on that okay button?
What remedies are available to me after the fact? If things go wrong, can I get out of it, at least in part?
What are the risks that go beyond me as an individual? Does my credentialing this person reach beyond to my friends, my family, and my community? If I trust this person, will others follow my lead? (Bernie Madoff created a network of trust that was ultimately betrayed.)
Are there other hidden parties I should know about? In other words, and my one degree or two degrees away from a fraud? Are my friends savvy or naïve?
Of course, underneath all this you must ask, is this person who he or she claims to be?
Are the points of authentication, as well as accreditation, compelling?
While this is not an exhaustive list of questions, it might be useful in thinking around the issue. Just as walking the trail specified above (credential, credited by, because of, for this audience, by way of this evidence, with these consequences and this utility) in exploring one credential, the college degree, may be useful in exploring other credentials more rigorously.
Coherence
A few words about the potential role of coherence: Pattern recognition has been used by banks and retailers to detect fraud for many years. In fact, part of the promotion for certain credit cards, has been that they will keep you safe by checking with you personally if unusual charges are made. What's looked for is the consistency of behavior. We do this ourselves as we develop trust or mistrust and others. If something about them -- their clothes, their speech, or overall appearance and, especially, their behavior -- does not ring true, we are less likely to credential them. But if each of the points of evidence is coherent and continues to be coherent, we tend to believe in them.
The points of evidence gathered electronically, sometimes an astounding array of points, can be collected and analyzed in an online environment. (So many points can be pulled together that this is become a privacy concern.) This ability to detect anomalies or to confirm coherence offers a lot of hope as a way to move forward to both improve online accreditation and to expand access to tell.
Ultimately, there probably are parallels between credentialing online in providing security online. With security, the level of testing and investment (for instance, not just in encryption, but in biometrics, scanning, pattern recognition, etc.) is balanced against potential risks and benefits. Such a balance makes sense for credentialing, as well. Layers and cross checks are also important for security, providing backups into making it more difficult for malefactors to succeed. And the same could be true for credentials in the virtual world.
There are many opportunities for making online credentialing stronger and more consistent. This will open up new possibilities and make it safer for those who are more naïve and believe too much of what they read. In addition, as our worlds are blended, an easy check of that person with the ingratiating smile may save some people for falling for a line that feels right, but isn't.

Peter Andrews forgingthefuture@gmail.com

Remote Leadership: the problem of oversight

Is anybody out there?  Are they doing any work?  The people on your staff may be out of sight, but they can’t be out of mind.  Whether they are down the hall, across town, at home or on the other side of the globe, they still need to be managed, coached and motivated.  You still need to measure and review their performances.  And they still need to work together as an effective team. 

Here are a few thoughts (and we can explore this further, depending on interest):

For presence, many chat applications indicate availability.  I like the ones that allow you to show a level of attention.  Not just here or not here, but here (in a meeting), here (do not disturb), etc.  Effective presence, even in a face-to-face environment, must  allow for a measure of interruption management.  Walk down the hall, and not every door is open all the time.  And you can see some folks are on the phone.  So don't leave that out in your virtual environment.  Also, managing expectations of availability (especially across timezones) is essential.

Keeping track work is trickier.  There are lots of tools available for routine work, such as that done by call centers.  And well-motivated professionals in a good environment usually are doing MORE than they are asked.  It is the many jobs in between that are tougher to keep an eye on.  Here a mix of jointly determined measures and motivation, with lots of communications makes sense.  Why?  Because the two biggest problems are clarity and trust.  Much has been written on clarity, and I won't go into detail here.  The problem of clarity grows across timezones, time, cultures and complexity of operations.  When people need to work together or authority is delegated, it gets even harder.  This means that you need to plan for clarity, measure clarity and never assume you have the problem solved.

Trust is the great simplifier.  With deep enough trust and commitment, in fact, most of the problems of leadership and teaming shrink to a manageable size.  There are obvious things that must be done, such as keeping all commitments, working on the others behalf and building social capital.  At the root, trust is based on two things: I believe you are competent, and I believe you are working for my best interests.  Now that might not be enough for a marriage, but it is good enough for business in most cases.  Do you agree?  Do you have your own methods of developing trust?

Web 2.0: Organizing feeds and posting while offline

During our session, we talked about subscribing to Blog, Wikis and other online feeds via RSS or Atom.  In the case of Blogs, you oftencan subscribe to the Blog itself or just the comment.  You only need to push the orange button in most cases to get to a page that instructs you to push a button or provides a URL to add to your aggregator.  So what is an aggregator?  It's  a Web application that puts syndicated content -- news headlines, blogs, podcasts, and vlogs -- into a single location.  (Wikipedia has a good explanation.)   In other words, you get a page of links.
You can choose from many aggregators, but Luis Suarez recommends Google Reader for external feeds.  Their sight offers a tour and features include recommending feeds to your friends and colleagues. Luis recommends Spectacular for subscriptions by IBMers to feeds behind the firewall. 

Those of you who make blogging part of your life may want to explore ScribeFire, which, according to Mozilla is "a full-featured blog editor that integrates with your browser and lets you easily post to your blog. You can drag and drop formatted text from pages you are browsing, take notes, and post to your blog."  Qumana and Windows Live Writer (which I haven't tried) are other offline blogging tools Luis recommends. 
Questions?  Comments?  Successes?  Learnings?  Just let me know. 

Web 2.0 pilot: where can I blog?

Obviously, this is one place.  I believe they give a two-week free trial.  Blogger is one of the most popular, and not a bad place to start blogging (though it lacks cachet). 
I myself poked around for a free place to post.  I discovered some bloggers with intelligence at Worldpress, and it was easy for me to find a good looking design and get going right away.
I guess that's the best advice:  Go out.  Read Blogs.  Find good ones.  Comment and see how people react.  When it feels like it's home, start blogging. 
BTW, Blogging for Dummies is a good clear book with lots of illustrations.  And, with the usual caveats, Wikipedia is a good source of basic information. 
When you set up a blog, mention it here.  I'll come and make a comment.  :)

Next...  I'll say a bit more about syndication/subscription.

Web 2.0 pilot

This blog will feature references, questions and discussion associated with the Harnessing the Power of the Web pilot session.