Snippets of an Incomplete Mind

?You have been klouted?: Expression that is used to refer to situations whereby your Klout score suddenly decreases or increases in a way that cannot be understood by normal human beings but apparently, is perfectly normal for the inner workings of the Klout algorithm.
Related expression: ?You have been dead for a while?.

This afternoon, Umair Haque (@umairh), Director of Havas Media Labs, posted the following question on Twitter: ?What makes us human? One word, preferably.?

As could be expected, he got quite a bit of reactions, most of them the usual suspects referring to positive characteristics that are seen as being ?human?, such as: altruism, consciously social, foresight, conscience, compassion, empathy, etc.

As said, these are the usual suspects. However, are they really differentiators? Or is it simply so that the smaller and less developed brains of the other creatures do not allow for the development of such more complex behavioural constructs?

Also in this group of non-human creatures, there are extreme differences in size, abilities and intelligence. So, since we all classify them as non-human, what gives us the right to call us a class apart simply because our brain is a bit bigger?

No, if you really want to look at it in a very objective way, then the only difference between the two groups is that the humans are still an ?imperfect? species. And that was the answer we gave.

Of course, this asks for a word of explanation.

Well, if you look at animals, whatever their size, it seems as if they all have reached their ?final stage? of evolution. They seem to have settled for a final balance. Making abstraction of changes in their environment, there seems to be little reason to expect any further self-initiated evolution of the species.

Even the more complex, ?social? animals such as ants, bees, termites, etc. seem to have settled for such equilibrium point. It is as if they have found the ?best deal?, taking into account their physical and intellectual capabilities in combination with the environment they have to live in.

Not so for humans. The size and the level of development of our brain are still giving us a myriad of options and paths to explore. The final equilibrium point is nowhere near to be seen. We still are on our road to perfection and as long as we are on that road, there still is hope. Nothing worse than reaching perfection.

Of course, during this journey, we also might cross the path of extinction.

Which today, unfortunately, is the more likely scenario.

As we announced last month, we have moved the ?Snippets Of An Incomplete Mind? blog to Tumblr. In the coming days, the old Posterous account will be closed down.

In case you previously subscribed to the RSS feed of the Posterous blog and still want to continue receiving updates, please subscribe to the new Tumblr RSS feed that can be found at http://snippets-of-an-incomplete-mind.tumblr.com/rss.

We just read this post by Nova Spivack about the volume of messages he is receiving every day and how he tries to keep up with it: ?I Get 13,000 Messages/Day via Different Streams ? Here?s the Analysis? http://www.novaspivack.com/technology/i-get-13000-messagesday-via-different-streams-heres-the-analysis.

OK, Spivack?s post is somewhat biased, since he wants to promote his own Bottlenose http://www.bottlenose.com/ solution. However, the post is also revealing.

Before the social media era, life was rather straightforward. We simply knew (or thought we knew) the things that would move our (professional) life forward.

However, today, we connect, we follow, we befriend and we subscribe to a myriad of information streams and somewhere, we hope that these streams will point us to the meaning of our life.

Of course, given the multitude of messages we receive, we have to filter and what better tool to filter than a piece of software, such as Bottlenose?

So, we finally accepted that the meaning of our life will be determined by some donut filter programmer somewhere offshore who thinks he is great in writing if-then constructs.

And we called it progress.

Small garden in Tokyo, Japan, where business people, on their way to work, take a last cigarette break before the work starts. Japan has strict rules regarding smoking in public places, offices, and also, on the street and places like this are more or less the last possibility when not being at home.
Most likely, these people are from very different businesses, but while smoking here, they have a very strong bond. Who knows what will come out of it?
Interactions matter.

Today, we read a post where someone described a ?wrong? situation, whereby a key element of the argumentation was ?that the tool being used wasn?t social?.

Sigh?

Of course, what was really meant was that the tool didn?t support communication or the exchange and distribution of information between the different actors. As we wrote before, language is a poor representation of our thinking and it gets only worse when we write it down.

However, we also must abandon this fundamentally flawed thinking that more communication and more exchange and distribution of information between actors are, by definition, good things.

They are not. At least, not always. They are only to the extent that they facilitate and enriche ?wanted interactions? between the actors. Otherwise, they just create noise. Communication and the exchange of information are never the purpose. The interaction is.

So, in this case, noise it was.

We just watched a couple of TED videos this afternoon. And we must say, some of these speeches were really great. However, each time we also have this question: ?is it the message or the messenger??

Indeed, some of these people are really great presenters, captivating their audience with a great story.

Storytelling. One of these newer ideas that makes sure that the message is received. It is an old, traditional technique that has proven its worth.

However, it is a technique and therefore, when skilfully used, it can likely deliver any message.

So, are we judging based upon the message or based upon the messenger?

?There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that “my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.?

Isaac Asimov

Yesterday, we discovered this (older) Youtube video via one of the tweets in our timeline: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bdry7_5qck. The video shows how fire ants when put into water manage to create some kind of ?ant raft?, allowing all ants to survive. The tweet read: ?fire ant colonies organize themselves without a leader and get things done. #collaboration?. The company that tweeted this is somewhere active in the social business space.

Sigh.

Of course, it is fascinating what these ants are able to do and for scientists it is still an open question how they manage.

However, let us please stop (ab)using examples of ?collaboration? in nature as the proof for the validity of the social business message.

Let?s face it; this capability of the ants has likely been developed over a period of hundreds of years. Countless less-able ants were drowned before finally, they got it right. And now, it is hard-wired into their brain: ?Detect water; build raft!?

A great achievement for the ants, but let?s not confuse this with human collaboration.

When you?re standing there at the border of the river with your team and you have to cross it, asking for a couple of hundred years to get it right is not an option; not to mention the casualties. And of course, asking your colleague to go first to see what it gives might be a better approach but is not really an example of what we call ?collaboration?.

In some situations, we just have to admit that ants are better.

We just read this post by Mark Fidelman on Forbes regarding Microsoft?s planned next steps in the social enterprise game: FINALLY, Microsoft Embraces Social ? And It?s Going to be Big http://www.forbes.com/sites/markfidelman/2012/03/13/finally-microsoft-embraces-social-and-its-going-to-be-big/. Overall, little real facts, but this quote is worth some further thinking:

Because when they look at the key challenges organizations face today, they don?t see any of their competitors offering realistic solutions to any of them.

All done. We just completed the migration of our Posterous blog to Tumblr. You can now follow us at http://snippets-of-an-incomplete-mind.tumblr.com/. Still some cleaning to do on our website, but that can wait.

The move follows the recent announcement of the acquisition of Posterous by Twitter, an announcement that clearly suggested that the Posterous platform will not live forever (read: until the end of this year).

It is unfortunate. We liked the Posterous solution, although the Tumblr alternative seems to be equally good for our needs. However, it highlights once again this issue of safeguarding your digital identity in a world of competing social platforms: http://snippets-of-an-incomplete-mind.tumblr.com/post/19239463351/the-problem-is-the-platform.

Not likely to change very soon, but since our digital footprint is continuously increasing, our potential loss also does.

Starting to test Tumblr as a replacement for Posterous, just acquired by
Twitter. Looks OK so far.

Today, we published another post. It?s one of these things that we have been doing now for more than ten years. However, we are not very productive. On average, two posts a month.

Luckily so. Because, over the past five years or so, things have become a bit more complicated.

Previously, we just published the post on our website and we created RSS feeds that were then picked up by Feedburner and spread to the rest of the world.

In those days, the world was smaller, of course.

These days, thanks to social media progress, we now have to publish and promote our stuff on platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, etc. All with their own little quirks. Quite a progress!

Today, social networks claim ownership of all the content you publish on their site and you are forced to replicate this content on every single social network you think is important for your needs.

In the better world, you only would have to publish your content once and social networks would come to get it so that, eventually, they might make some money with it.

False hope of course, since the only reason it doesn?t work like that is that then, you would no longer see the ads.

And we called it progress.

We have been using Dropbox for quite some time now. It really is a great product. We use it to synchronise content between multiple PC?s, allowing us access to some important content wherever we work.

One of the many good things of Dropbox is that it is free. At least, as your storage needs remain below 2 GB, which is more than enough for our personal needs.

However, you can get more. Also for free. But then, you have to like them.

We hardly ever visit the Dropbox website since, in general, we are allowed installing the PC software wherever we work. However yesterday, we did. And we discovered that we were able to increase our free storage space by following them on Twitter; liking them on Facebook, etc.

We like Dropbox very much, but we don?t like these types of practices. What is worth an on-line reputation these days? Quite a bit, we assume. However, how reliable are the metrics that ?create? this reputation?

Apparently, reputation is being built in increments of 128K free storage. Quite a reliable metric, we think.

As a (very) small business owner, we regularly receive invitations to participate in some form of survey. In general, we are not interested, unless the subject is really close to our own activities or interests. However, there is one exception to this rule: we always respond to invitations for participation in a survey sent to us by students, as part of the final work they have to deliver.

So we did today. In this case, the subject was the outsourcing of bookkeeping activities, which we do.

There were 36 questions, but everything was very straightforward and clear and we progressed well and fast, until we reached the question ?What date your company was founded??

Not simply the year, but the exact date. There even was a pop-up with a calendar to select the right date.

Frankly, we don?t know. We know the year, but after all these years, we aren?t even sure about the month. Let alone the exact date.

And for what purpose? They might as well have asked us whether we liked strawberries. Very likely also an important element in the context of the outsourcing of bookkeeping activities.

Exit survey.

Now we have the problem of wondering what date it really was?

Perhaps normal people know these kind of things?

We just read this post by Dion Hinchcliffe on the Social business success of CEMEX (http://www.zdnet.com/blog/hinchcliffe/social-business-success-cemex/1927).

We already follow Hinchcliffe for some time and we value his insight, but here, he is wrong.

Not that his statements are incorrect! We assume that everything he wrote is absolutely correct. However, does it suggest the correct thing?

Already for decades, CEMEX is a poster example of successful business. In all types of business publications they feature as a company that, in a not so ?traditional? business segment, excels in all aspects of business management.

So, now they are successful in Social Business. What a surprise!

The problem with such publications is that they suggest that Social Business as a solution is a must, a thing to do. This can be so, but the observed success is not the result of the choice of the solution. The success is always the result of the capability of the using company.

The tool is never what makes the thing happen.

Quote: ?Organizational Change Practitioners group on LinkedIn reaches 21.444 members.?

And change is still a major problem.

Perhaps they are trying to change the wrong things?

We just read this interesting post by Harold Jarche: http://www.jarche.com/2011/12/collective-sense-making/ ?Collective sense-making?.

There is a lot of truth in this post. At least, it really describes how our search for ?knowledge and understanding? is evolving. However, what remains an open question is to what extent this really will be the better approach in the long run.

In theory, it should.

However, whatever we might think about it, reality is that today?s ?Crap Detection? still is largely done by individuals who were educated, trained and, if you want, conditioned ?the old way?. Apparently, even combined with today?s crappy tools for the identification of relevancy, reputation, influence, etc. this still seems to deliver a ?better? result.

However, can we simply assume that this still will be the case once the knowledge scene has been replaced by the new generation of ?collective sense-makers??

Not so sure about that.

Real collaboration involves a fair amount of uncertainty and risk, since major parts of the task at hands are unknown and the same goes for the ?partners? we will have to work with. And apparently, we humans have difficulty handling these aspects of risk and potential failure.

This said, our personal life itself is the clear proof that we can handle a fair amount of risk. Otherwise, nobody would get married, or get kids or buy a house.

So, the main difference, we think, is that in our private life, we THINK that we have control, so we are willing to take the risk (sometimes with the help of a bit of pheromones). But in the enterprise context, we KNOW that we don?t have control.

We just read this post by Andrew McAfee about the increasing difficulty to restore job levels after a recession: http://andrewmcafee.org/2011/11/mcafee-my-scariest-graph/.

An interesting graph indeed. However, its message is not about the increasing difficulty to recover from a recession. Its message is about how our society has become the society it is today.

Increasingly, our society has become less labour intensive. So, maintaining identical job levels requires GDP growth. If not, a decrease of employment is a natural thing and when growth restarts, the time to recover the job gap only increases. Exponentially, a logical consequence of our digital era.

The problem has nothing to do with recessions. It is a logical consequence of our society dynamics that favour maximizing the return for the few, instead of maximizing the jobs for the many. Recessions only highlight this chasm but are not the cause for it.