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I-Open on Livestream: Saul Kaplan's story of building innovation networks in education, health care, and energy
via livestream.com
Saul Kaplan, Founder and Chief Catalyst, Business Innovation Factory in Providence, Rhode Island, talks on I-Open's Livestream channel about his rich experience and present work identifying innovators, building networks and community for new systems to implement new solutions in education, health care, and energy.
You can download the transcription of the interview to your desktop from the I-Open library on Scribd or Slideshare.
Learn more about I-Open innovators like Saul Kaplan in Open Source Economic Development at I-Open's collaborative community space here.
Copyright 2009 Betsey Merkel and I-Open. Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works. Institute for Open Economic Networks (I-Open) 4415 Euclid Ave 3rd Fl Cleveland, Ohio 44103 USA
And what happened to Aaronson?
Has he dropped down the memory how designated for "denialists"?
Mike Flynn's Journal - Mike Flynn's Journal - LiveJournal.comThe Visualization of Data
December 3, 2009 at 7:48 pm This is Kool The link takes you to a network diagram. The blue circle nodes are e-mail addresses that appeared in the now-infamous UEA Dump. Connecting lines are who sent emails to whom. The sizes of the blue circles indicate the amount of e-mail emerging from that node. seadragon.com/view/h0i We can compare that with the social network analysis conducted by Wegman et al of papers authored and co-authored with Mann. See social network graph on p. 41 here: www.climateaudit.org/pdf/others/07142006_Wegman_Report.pdf
"However, it is immediately clear that the Mann, Rutherford, Jones, Osborn, Briffa, Bradley and Hughes form a clique, each interacting with all of the others." (Wegman Report, p. 40)
Homophily
Elizabeth Kolbert has a piece in this week’s New Yorker reviewing Cass Sunstein’s new book, “On Rumors: How Falsehoods Spread, Why We Believe Them, What Can Be Done." In the review she lays out the concept of "group polarization"
More access to information doesn’t bring people together, often it isolates us.People’s tendency to become more extreme after speaking with like-minded others has become known as “group polarization,” and it has been documented in dozens of other experiments. In one, feminists who spoke with other feminists became more adamant in their feminism. In a second, opponents of same-sex marriage became even more opposed to the idea, while proponents shifted further in favor. In a third, doves who were grouped with other doves became more dovish still.The Internet is becoming a vast petri dish for the group polarization phenomena. As Sunstein puts it “The most striking power provided by emerging technologies,” is the “growing power of consumers to ‘filter’ what they see.” (Thanks to Jim Stogdill for surfacing this link via email)
It's often remarked that customisable start-pages, self-selected RSS feed readers and social network dynamics tend to result in:
(a) a lack of conflict. People take their cues from the best-established commentators and simply chime in to agree. The number of 'me-too' posts that appear supporting whatever the top ten blogs say is indicative of this.
(b) delusional hysteria. The recent Twitter campaigns against Jan Moir, Nick Griffen, Retweet changes, etc. seem to suggest that many people believe that a trending hashtag can change the world. It can not.
Ironically, it sometimes seems as though nowhere is there less acceptance of differing points of view than among the social media / social networks crowd, where 'discussions' are largely limited to describing just how much of an idiot a particular opponent is.
I believe that the Internet can make us better people and that it can help us make a better world. But this probably isn't the way forward.
So how can we embrace and foster pluralism, diversity, real democracy in networked society?
Maybe I need more unpleasant people around me.
I'm tempted to argue for some return to anonymous debate, a la Usenet and IRC twenty years ago. They could be ridiculous and frustrating in equal measure, but at least your views got challenged and you were (vigorously) exposed to people who think very differently from yourself.
I think we need to think about ways to divide people's work and their online activity in some way. Often, when I read blogs and tweets, I know that the person writing is doing so because it in some way amplifies or enhances their professional career. A lot of people I connect with are consultants of some description in their jobs. Their job is to be wise and right. That makes them lovely people, by and large, but there are arguably downsides. It can very often have the side-effect of meaning that they are never going to go out on a limb or wish to seem controversial. It's also a job where you need people to want to work with you, so you won't go around telling potential clients or collaborators that they're wrong.
Social Portfolio - flavors.me
Wer durch das Internet surft und das ein oder andere Portfolio eines besonders kreativen angetroffen hat wird es kennen. Es verweist lediglich auf die für den Autor wichtigsten Accounts verschiedener Social Networks.
via (René Fischer)
Facebook's biggest problem is Facebook
One of the biggest problems with Facebook is how much it keeps changing. Change is good, but Facebook is ridiculous. It seems like every six months there’s a new version. Billions of cumulative hours are lost every year as all 350 million users have to search around in order to figure out where things have moved to and what the new features actually do (which is usually nothing).
Facebook started so simply, and every iteration pushes it further from its roots. According to a recent blog post by Mark Zuckerberg, they are now getting rid of regional networks. With every iteration Facebook becomes more like Twitter. It becomes harder to segment your friends into groups. Instead of giving users control Facebook wants to put everything that happens into a single stream and have a magic algorithm tell you what’s important to you. Maybe this time next year Facebook can develop a new tagline, “The largest social network with no networks!”And who knows what other fun changes they’ll make. The only good thing I’ve seen them do in a while is Facebook Lite. It’s fantastic. If tomorrow they decided to get rid of the current version and replace it with Facebook Lite, I could get behind that.
Peter Margolis MD, PhD Co-Director, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Cntr 08-05-09 Interview
via scribd.com
Dr. Peter Margolis MD, PhD, Co-Director, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center in Cincinnati, Ohio shares insights into his work to improve quality care for children in this 08-05-09 Interview.
Dr. Margolis offers insights from his twenty year perspective of sharing knowledge and successful practices across networks of physicians.
He describes steps to connect local physicians, patients and families to collaborative care networks strengthened by social networks and technology platforms.
By combining 'soft' and 'hard' infrastructure, a single physician can offer patients truly universal care by benefiting from the collective knowledge of hundreds to possibly thousands of researchers and practitioners, something never before possible.
With such an understanding of systems and network infrastructure, individuals and small groups sharing success stories in health care can affect entire demographics of populations across state and regional boundaries quickly changing economic prosperity at scale.
You can listen to the full interview (about 30 minutes) with Dr. Margolis at I-Open and here on this blog.
Additional interview transcriptions are available at Betsey Merkel on Scribd.
Take a look at our photo collection of our visit to the Medical Center campus on Flickr.
This interview is copyright 2009 Betsey Merkel and I-Open. Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works. Institute for Open Economic Networks (I-Open) 4415 Euclid Ave 3rd Fl Cleveland, Ohio 44103 USA
Jim Barker's Cartoon of the Week
I've been subscribing to Jim Barker's cartoons for a long time for the LeaderValues site ... so thought I'd share this one with another audience, especially given the "network" theme!
If you would like permission to use Jim's work and join his cartoon circle, please contact him. Please respect his copyright.
Interview: Dr. Peter Margolis, M.D., Ph.D., Co-Director, Center for Health Care Quality, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center
Dr. Peter Margolis, M.D., Ph.D. talks about his work in collaborative medicine as Co-Director of the The Center for Health Care Quality at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center. He shares an overview of his efforts over the last twenty years to improve quality systems health care delivery for children.
Dr. Margolis discusses health care systems, and the value strengthening social network practice, mapping, and analysis bring to improving innovative practices and knowledge sharing. His research is discovering the value of networks, collaboration, communication and community to advance medical innovation and health care service amongst large networks of health care center staff, patients, and their families.
By discovering new collaborative practices, people and institutions can advance new forms of health care quickly.
As you listen to this interview [00:29:46] be sure to watch the slide show and videos on Flickr. Photos by Alice Merkel.
Related post at I-Open: Interview: Dr. Peter Margolis, M.D., Ph.D., Co-Director, Center for Health Care Quality, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center
Copyright 2009 Betsey Merkel and I-Open. Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works. Institute for Open Economic Networks (I-Open) 4415 Euclid Ave 3rd Fl Cleveland, Ohio 44103 USA
Simply Effective: " How to Cut Through Complexity in Your Organization and Get Things Done"
ISBN 978 1 4221 8114 0
Ron Ashkenas is the co-author of The Boundaryless Organization and The GE Work-Out - both fascinating reviews of how major Companies make things happen in an increasingly complicated world. In the new book, published December 2009, Ashkenas sets out a set of diagnostics, tools and processes to help us deal with complexity on a day-to-day basis.
He identifies 4 major causes of complexity:
- Structural Mitosis - constant change in the way organizations are structured
- Management Behaviour - which wastes time and which confuses the issues
- Product & Service Proliferation - which makes focusing and thus managing the whole ever more difficult
- Process Evolution - as businesses use new and varying approaches to solve problems - processes need streamlining
By his own admission, Ashkenas does not set out to create lots of new tools. Rather, he is focused on ensuring that we have the context for simplicity clearly understood so that we start to create effective response strategies - and then applying the most proven approaches to help get results. The book is liberally laced with good case studies, from GE, Conagra, Cisco, J&J and others. And at the end of each chapter there is a helpful checklist of actions that can be taken.
For example, in the chapter on "Product and Service Proliferation", Ashkenas encourages us to use effective Portfolio Analysis to identify where to focus, rationalise our brand SKU's, and use Customer Design Partnering to be sure we are meeting the most important needs. And in "Streamlining Processes", Ashkenas urges us to use Best Practice, Process Mapping (to make explicit what is implicit or taken for granted in an organization) and, of course, proven techniques such as Six Sigma and Lean. You've also got to smile when you read about "Death by PowerPoint" when he is discussing ineffective Management behaviour.
Stepping back, Ashkenas proposes a "Simple Strategy for Simplicity", in a five step loop.
- Declare Simplicity a Business Imperative
- Restructure the work and consequent organization structure to reduce complexity
- Achieve early results ("quick wins") through process and product simplification
- Sustain Momentum through clear and constant Communication
- Repeat over time
This is a good, clear and helpful book, and the action plans suggested will definitely start to clear away the organizational clutter that we all face every day.
If I have a critique it is that Ashkenas could have gone further in two areas. First, to make even more of the power of Customer Insight in driving better business decisions and thus helping to design more effective processes. Using a "customer lens" can really break through some of the old paradigms. I have especially seen this applied in retailing, where getting the entire enterprise focused on and rewarded by customer results can be a breakthrough strategy and a clear focus for operational excellence.
And, secondly, Ashkenas only deals lightly with the emerging knowledge we have on how Social Networks create highly efficient and effective communication vehicles. He is not alone in this, as most writers still follow the "Structure follows Strategy" dictum. Yet network science is beginning to suggest common approaches that can be used independently of the actual purpose of the Enterprise.
Still, that is for future books. For today, I can fully recommend "Simply Effective" as a well-researched, well-written book packed with helpful ideas for action. A quick read, but a useful handbook to have on your desk to dip into as your work progresses.
