This article was just posted on Forbes.com

I read The Checklist Manifesto eager to be enlightened.  I wasn’t.  Don’t get me wrong… it is a good book and likely a worthwhile read for almost anyone outside of industries that have a long history with project management.    The red-thread of the book is this:  simple checklists can dramatically improve results of complex projects – even those that require a high degree of operator expertise (doctors, structural engineers etc.).   Successful checklists detail both the sequence of necessary activities as well as the  communication checkpoints to ensure dialog among project participants…

Read the full article here

I’ve come to the conclusion that meetings are good.   And we need more of them – not less.

Most executives have a knee-jerk reaction against meetings; they are a waste of time.   Employees couldn’t agree more; let us get work done.

And yet if you are a manager, a major portion of your job is dedicated to communication… your time is  spent either in meetings or preparing for meetings.   Most meetings are a mashed-up bag of confusion that leaves people with the mistaken impression that meetings are the problem.  They aren’t.  It is the way we have meetings that is a problem.  The failure of meetings is an indictment of process and leadership… not of the concept.

A well organized meeting  in which people are prepared, the process has structure and the desired outcomes are clear (we need to decide X) is second to none in terms of efficiency.   Our businesses are the sum product of decision-making; “this is our business”, “this is our customer”, “this is how we reach them”, “this is how we measure value creation” and so on.   These decisions are constantly being reassessed and are rarely made alone, they are made in meetings.

I cannot count the number of times in which I have realized after the fact (why do you think I am writing this today?) that a two-week back and forth over email could have been resolved in an hour during a structured meeting.  Just as often I am aware that (as a consultant) I have tried to go extremely light on the meetings due the fact that my client(s) hate meetings.

Finally, despite my full embrace of social technologies, we still do not have a surrogate for face to face contact.  It  contains a density of actionable information that can’t be rivaled.  In that regard the most successful technology yet developed for collaboration is the table and chair.

Flickr image: mnadi

I received an email today letting me know that a friend had just passed away after complications arose during her surgery last week.   She was part of the community of friends Yvette and I have made after we bought our home in France and while we were not intimate; she was always someone I looked forward to seeing.   She will be greatly missed.

I was set on the path of buying that home in France after a business lunch about four years ago.  There was nothing remarkable or unusual about the lunch, the company or the circumstances – but after a conversation about travel, I realized in an instant that I no longer lived  life with spontaneity or adventure.   Rather, I lived a life of plans… long term plans stretching years into the future and centered on career, financial stability and one-week vacations.   These are all worthy things but they aren’t the only things worth consideration when living a life.

We get lost in our planning; thinking that we can control the future if we can just find the right method – be it the Atkins diet or Six Sigma.  Of course this is folly.  There are too many unknown unknowns that evade the best of plans.  In that battle for the future we often lose the present, timeless joys that are almost always near at hand – a well-cooked meal, conversation with friends, a quiet, lazy afternoon with a book.

We also labor hard without really knowing why.   Our work life increasingly consumes our attention and, like ants working on a project whose outer precincts we cannot conceive, we toil for some obscure institutional good that isn’t personally gratifying and that takes us away from the immediacy of life.

So with that jolt that only a death seems to initiate, I am recommitting to planning my life in months – not years; and to finding the good things near-at-hand.

A few months ago I wrote a post for Mashable titled: Why Social Media Isn’t For Everyone.   I wrote it out of direct experience counseling clients who were rightly concerned about the  risks of exposing their brand to direct and visible customer feedback.

The main point of the article was this:

…when an organization makes an investment in social media it is a constructive opportunity to consider not only what could go wrong, but why it could go wrong. In other words, what are the valid criticisms that customers and employees might have and what you are willing to do about it. If you aren’t willing to consider the former and have no power concerning the latter, social media might not be your best bet. All too often the person making the social media investment has little control over (1) the quality of the product, (2) the pricing strategy, (3) the terms of use, (4) the company’s stance on cause-based issues (political, environmental, etc.), (5) the quality of customer service, and the list goes on. Yet these are often exactly what the customer wants to talk about.

The recent posterchild for ” Social-Media-Gone-Wrong” is Nestle.     I have been following the story at a distance and just read a post on the subject from BG Creative:

The short version of the Facebook disaster is this: Greenpeace is mad at Nestle over palm oil and a bunch of their members began taking to Facebook to express their outrage. They covered the Nestle Facebook Fan Page with wall posts and changed their profile pictures to altered versions of the Nestle logo to further make their point. The moderator of  Nestles Facebook page became flustered by the outpouring of hatred, and responded in a manner that was just a little too human. Comments such as: “Thanks for the lesson in manners. Consider yourself embraced. But it’s our page, we set the rules” certainly didn’t win him/her any fans.

The article goes on to suggest some ways Nestle could have dealt with the “crisis.”  In essence, “ignore it” “thank them and move on” or “respond with humor”  –This is solid enough counsel now that the cat is out of the bag but to me there is a much bigger point to be made: Nestle should have seen this coming a mile away. Did they not know that they engage in practices that have given rise to activist communities?  Did they not know that these activist groups are also very active on social media?

Deciding to get into Social Media should be directly related to a company’s willingness to either (1) defend a controversial position by having a direct and open conversation about it or (2) change policies to align with customer expectations.   If the company is unwilling to go with either of those options – then perhaps Social Media isn’t the right choice.   Specific to Nestle:  If they believe that Palm Oil is the best choice of ingredient and can defend it (economics, politics, environment etc.) then they should do so openly.  If they feel it is a policy that, when fully measured, does have serious negatives, then perhaps they should consider a shift in policy.  If Nestle neither wishes to change or defend itself on the merits – then they shouldn’t be operating in social media.

A Tale of Two Cities and Lessons for the Social Business.

About three years ago my wife and I made the rash (and wise) decision to buy a 17^th century home in Southwestern France .  Puy L’Eveque is a 13^th century medieval town situated on a hill overlooking the Lot River.    Its narrow streets all lead upward to the summit – where the Mairie (the mayor’s office) and the church occupy the high ground (Puy L’Eveque translates as  “Bishops Hill”).   It is beautiful in the way of most towns built to withstand the long-passed threat of siege.  But  Puy L’Eveque is unmistakably struggling.  Its shops are anemic and situated between empty storefronts.  Its farmer’s markets and vidi greniers are lean affairs and it recently canceled its yearly medieval festival.  It’s population still remains below pre-World War One levels.  From the tourist office brochure:

“In 1880 the community consisted of 2950 inhabitants, boasted 4 hotels, 6 bars, 9 café’s, a mounted brigade of gendarmes, a charity office, a city toll booth, a ferry-boat at Escafignoux, a flour mill and a suspension bridge!  The 1999 census registered 2159 inhabitants.”

Three kilometers away lies the rather bland town of Prayssac; with ancient roots but clearly developed in the 19^th century.  Lying on the flat plain of the Lot valley, its nothing special to behold but its cafes, markets and festivals are bustling.  It was something of a mystery to us when we moved here.

Why is picturesque Puy L’Eveque struggling while Prayssac  thrives?

This is the topic of many dinner discussions among the expatriates here.   Usually the blame is laid at the hands of incapable administrators.   I believe the problem goes deeper.  It is a question of architecture and urban planning.   Puy L’Eveque’s siege architecture just isn’t built for the modern age.   It’s positioning on a hillside was chosen for its unassailability.   The medieval town privileges control of all traffic (human and material) with choke points at top and bottom.   Until very recently there was a single, one-way street leading up to the summit; a stoplight at top and bottom alternated the flow of traffic – for five minutes traffic led upward – the next five minutes, down.  The prime vantage points are held by church and state.   Puy L’Eveque is lovely but it is relic of the past: privilege of place, control from the top, constricted material flows, and strict regulation of its borders.

Prayssac makes no such assumptions or attempt to control – people and goods move freely in and out of its borders.  Prayssac is a social town – it welcomes outsiders.  Its hierarchies form naturally through assembly at any of a number of town squares and the town dissolves naturally into the surrounding countryside.   There are no fortress walls.   The Mairie and Church are discreetly nestled amidst the other edifices.

In short, Puy L’Eveque was not architected for the modern world where goods and people follow an accelerated flow… where commerce privileges open exchange and more porous, natural borders between town and countryside.  The very thing that made Puy L’Eveque thrive in the 14^th century makes it hard to survive in the 21^st; its architecture.

Many of our 20^th century behemoths resemble Puy L’Eveque .   They are closed fortresses with strict, forbidding hierarchies.   While information flow outside has radically accelerated (everyone has a real-time broadcast tower) the modern organization is marked by glacial response times and chokeholds on who is an “authorized” spokesperson.   The world is divided between those inside (employees) with very fixed roles and responsibilities and those “outside” (everyone else) who can’t be trusted.

Hendrik Hertzberg’s insightful comment on healthcare as a by-product of the system of legislation rather than Obama, Nancy Pelosi or even (or especially) Joe Lieberman, provides a lesson not just for government but for business on how architecture is destiny:

The American government has its human aspects—it is staffed by human beings, mostly—but its atomized, at-odds-with-itself legislative structure (House and Senate, each with its arcane rules, its semi-feudal committee chairs, and its independently elected members, none of whom are accountable or fully responsible for outcomes) makes it more like an inanimate object.

We tend to blame people and let architecture off the hook.  But the structures we live within shape our behavior and govern what is possible just as the physical architecture of our towns both emerge from and reinforce the way we see world.

As the social norms set by the Social Web – openness, sharing, participation, become the norms of business (this to me is the key insight behind the new term “social business”)  and as the information flow outside accelerates, organizations will need  rethink their structures.   They will need to think about whether or not they are designed like Puy L’Eveque or Prayssac.

Architecture is destiny.

This is a cross-post from Radar.

I am coming to believe that the most successful posture in business is best described as “Confident Vulnerability.” In most organizations we are terrified of saying something stupid, something that doesn’t make sense or of looking like we don’t know where we are headed with an idea.   But in order to get anywhere new you need to accept getting lost sometimes – you need to risk the stupid comment.  How do you manage the tension?  Screw the former and embrace the latter.

Perhaps the only substantive difference between a strategist and anyone else in the room is that we open our mouths first.   The more experience and modest success I have in business the more that experience reinforces this singular lesson. Be confident.  Make yourself vulnerable.   You will be well rewarded by doing so.

We learn by doing.

It is a blinding glimpse of the obvious but somehow this point gets missed over and over as big companies approach social media by rolling out training.   Don’t get me wrong – training is good.  Training is necessary.  But training isn’t enough.

We learn very little through training because most training is conducted over a small window of time, has no follow up and is conducted in a general absence of real-world context.  In training you do not get to see the product of your thinking meet real-world conditions.  You do not get to learn from failure, or make adjustments.

If you want your staff to grasp the operating principles inherent in social media it is definitely good to set up a training program.  But don’t stop there.   Create apprenticeship models, conduct reverse mentoring sessions and get your employees actually using these tools.

I am reading Tournament of Shadows – a history of Russia, England, India and the “Great Game” for empire in Central Asia.   I just came across this quote and fancied it too good not to share.   This is Lord Salsibury’s advice to an increasingly alarmist Viceroy in India:

I think you listen too much to the soldiers.  No lesson seems to be so deeply inculcated  by the experience of life as that your should never trust experts.  If you believe the doctors nothing is wholesome: if you believe the theologians, nothing is innocent: if you believe the soldiers, nothing is safe.  They all require to have their strong wine diluted by a very large admixture of insipid common sense.

For those who don’t know, I took on a new job in late October.  I am now the SVP of Digital Strategy at Fleishman Hillard.  These are still early days but what has become immediately clear to me is that Fleishman has “a culture of invitation.”  (to borrow a phrase from my friend, Ilya).  What does that mean?  Well, in any job that employs a large workforce and demands a lot of creativity and collaboration, work doesn’t just come to you by way of your title, you need to earn a seat at the table by building strong, trust-based relationships.   Knowledge work is highly social and you need to be invited in.   I am not complaining.  This is as it should be.

While pondering this truism I realized it is also an apt way to describe the Social Web.  The Social Web is a Culture of Invitation.  It has its own norms just like  any other social group, be it a workplace, a chess club or a church.  The same rules apply:  You earn your way to invitation through fitting in (sensitive to the culture), standing out (demonstrating capability) and slowly building trust (repeating the above two).  Now the fact that trust is currency on the Social Web should come as no revelation – it is more like a cliché.    What I like is that this phrase, “culture of invitation” provides a lens through which to analyze how companies extend themselves into social media.   All the social qualities that make a person desirable and “invited” in the context of a company or a dinner party apply on the social web.

Advertising and marketing (increasingly) fails when it is uninvited.

Cross-posted in its entirety from a series I just finished on Radar:

In the circles that I travel the Internet is often breathlessly embraced as the herald of all things good; the bringer of increased choice, personal empowerment, social harmony…and the list goes on.  And yet, as with any powerful technology,  the truth of its consequences eludes such a singular and happy narrative.

Here are three paradoxes of the Internet Age.  I would love to see  readers point out others.

One:  More access to information doesn’t bring people together, often it isolates us.

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”

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)

Two: Individual perception of increased choice can occur while the overall choice pool is getting smaller

This gem from Whimsley makes the point – with extensive statistical modeling supporting the argument – that our algorithm-obsessed, long tail merchants are actually depleting the overall choice pool despite the fact that as individuals we may be experiencing a sense of more choice through recommendations engines…

Online merchants such as Amazon, iTunes and Netflix may stock more items than your local book, CD, or video store, but they are no friend to “niche culture”. Internet sharing mechanisms such as YouTube and Google PageRank, which distil the clicks of millions of people into recommendations, may also be promoting an online monoculture. Even word of mouth recommendations such as blogging links may exert a homogenizing pressure and lead to an online culture that is less democratic and less equitable, than offline culture.

In short, the long tail has gangrene at its extremity – the niche.  More disarming is the conclusion that it isn’t just the output of our recommendation algorithms that is leading to what the author calls “monopoly populism”and the end of niche culture:

“The recommender “system” could be anything that tends to build on its own popularity, including word of mouth…Our online experiences are heavily correlated, and we end up with monopoly populism…A “niche”, remember, is a protected and hidden recess or cranny, not just another row in a big database. Ecological niches need protection from the surrounding harsh environment if they are to thrive. Simply putting lots of music into a single online iTunes store is no recipe for a broad, niche-friendly culture.

Three: The myth of personal empowerment takes root amidst a massive loss of personal control.

Social technologies are cloaked in a rhetoric of liberation (customers are in control, the internet fosters democracy, social technologies propagate truth etc.) that tend to obscure the fact that never before have we handed so much personal information over in exchange for so little in return.  As we move from the “web of information” to the “web of people” (aka the Social Web) the output of all of this social participation is massive dossiers on individual behavior (your social network profiles, photos, location, status updates, searches etc.) and social activity.  This loss of control over personal information is on a collision course with the law of unintended consequences:  MIT’s Project Gaydar can spot your sexual preference by your social ties, Facebook checks are occurring customs and every quiz you take on Facebook delivers a shocking amount of personally identifiable information to third parties.   Amidst this barrage of good news for how much power we wield in the transaction of commerce one has to wonder if we are giving away something quite precious in the bargain.

What are other paradoxes of the Internet Age?  What did I get wrong above?