Random Collisions
Beware of random collisions with unusual suspects. Unless, of course, if you want to learn something new. In that case seek out innovators from across every imaginable silo and listen, really listen, to their stories. New ideas, perspectives, and the big value creating opportunities are in the gray areas between the unusual suspects. It seems so obvious and yet we spend most of our time with the usual suspects in our respective silos. We need to get out of our silos more.
It is human nature to surround ourselves with people who are exactly like us. We connect and spend time with people who share a common world-view, look the same, enjoy the same activities, and speak the same language. We join clubs to be with others like us. I want to belong to the non-club club. The only tribe I want to be in is a tribe of unusual suspects who can challenge my world-view, expose me to new ideas, and teach me something new. Our tribe of unusual suspects can change the world if we connect in purposeful ways.
As an “accidental bureaucrat” over the last six years I had a front row seat to observe the silos in action. Every week went something like this; On Monday I met with the health care crowd, on Tuesday it was the education crowd, on Wednesday the energy crowd and so on, you get the idea. This cycle repeated over and over again. Each crowd was comprised of the usual suspects, well-intentioned people rehashing the same discussion incessantly. The scene is right out of Groundhog Day. Most of the participants were there to represent institutional perspectives and to protect their respective interests. In each crowd there are always a few innovators that want to change the conversation but they make little progress. At the end of each week I always came away with the same conclusion. If only we could take the innovators from across each of the silos and bring them together to enable more random collisions.
Maybe we could change the conversation if we connect the unusual suspects in purposeful ways. Maybe then we can make progress on the real issues of our time, little things like health care, education, and energy. It will take cross silo collaboration and breaking down the boundaries between industries, sectors, and disciplines.
People always ask me how I could have worked in the public sector after being in the private sector all of my career. Doesn’t it move too slowly? I don’t know about that. I worked with many large companies, during my road warrior consulting days, and I don’t remember them changing so quickly. You are right, I would say, government agencies move pretty slowly too. I can’t resist adding, I am certain that academic institutions move the slowest of all! The point is few organizations across both the public and private sector have the capacity to innovate and change because they are working hard pedaling the bicycle of their current business model and trying to stay alive and competitive.
In this heads down mode, public and private organizations staying within their silos, do not work and play nicely together across boundaries. Collaboration is an unnatural act. Attempts are mostly under resourced and under supported by sponsors. That’s a shame because the issues we deal with as a community including, health care, education, and energy, will only be fixed it we can experiment with new system approaches that cut across all of our protected silos. We need to think and act more horizontally.
Maybe we don’t need institutions to be the catalyst for change. Maybe in the shiny new networked world we live in, with mega bandwidth and social media platforms, we can self organize to design and test new system approaches that deliver more value to the patient, student, and citizen. It is time to try more stuff and take advantage of the disruptive innovation potential of all the technology we have within reach. We have more technology available to us than we know how to absorb. It isn’t technology that gets in our way. It is our fault. Humans, and the organizations we live in, are both stubbornly resistant to change.
Institutions are moving too slowly. Most were designed for a different century. We have to catalyze change ourselves. Let’s go.
Wanted: Innovators to join a non-club club and tribe of unusual suspects. Bring on more random collisions.
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Comments
Charlie Harding
Saul,
I greatly enjoyed this latest post. As an undergraduate I was constantly frustrated that student groups were more interactive and interdisciplinary than the classroom. We started the Social Innovation Initiative http://siihub.wordpress.com/ attempting to bring people together from different social change projects to share and learn from each other.
As you said, collaboration is unnatural action. In my work I've found that if you can find areas of affinity that bring unlikely actors together, the higher likelihood of connection. The Providence Geeks and AS220 are good examples of this. Developers and Artists work in many different mediums, but share their passion for creation.
If people gather in a shared space and have the right prompt (area of affinity), the dialogue can turn to real action. So many conferences start conversations, people trying to prove one way over the other. It seems like BIF engages dialogue, an exchange of ideas to meat a mutually agreed upon solution. I'm trying to figure out how technology augments this process in a positive way, not an unnecessarily confusing way.
all the best,
Charlie
Fri, 08/14/2009 - 18:35
Julia Fischer Baumgartner
Saul -
Great post. I agree that the synergy of bumping up against the ideas, values and points of view of people unlike ourselves, or who are experts in domains outside our own experience, is a necessary catalyst for breakthrough innovation. I've long wanted to create a think tank made up of radical innovators across domains who come together to tackle the tough issues of our time and create new models for solving those problems. If you are interested, please see our posts on the topic, such as http://bit.ly/1FQTN. Read more at www.art-cm.com. Thanks for the great article.
Julia
Mon, 08/17/2009 - 09:19
Jim Damicis
Great post. I work in economic development and come across a lot of efforts of government and organizations attempting to bring together and network innovators. These include efforts by government service providers, chambers of commerce, and industry associations. What I am finding is that time and time again these efforts fall short. While there are many reasons as to why success in generating successful networking opportunities for innovators eludes government and organizations, I have recently observed several.
First, it is difficult to define and identify who is a true innovator. Government and organizations are typically inviting persons to these events based on their own lists of members, grantees, or persons that have received services. In other words they are remaining inside the silos you speak of. In doing so, they are both inviting many people that are not wired for innovation and also missing many that are who do not appear on their lists. The latter is in my opinion is a more crucial mistake.
Second and related to the definitional problem is that often there is an over-focus of government entities and organizations on the one person start-up. The belief in doing so is that with some networking these one person start-ups will quickly turn into large successful companies. While this makes a sexy story and I am not against one person startups having been one myself, it is important to recognize that innovators are not only those people involved in start-ups trying to make new products leading to growth into large companies. There are many innovators out there that are hard at work using new ideas and techniques to improve existing products, services and processes and many of them work in existing companies and organizations both large and small. There are also many innovators out there with no intention of growing large companies.
Finally, networking like innovation involves a certain level of spontaneity. Like parties, often times the best networking events are unplanned and unstructured. Government and organizations tend to work within plans and structures (again within the silos your reference) and therefore generally don’t do well at spontaneity
How to change all this: go beyond your typical contact list and invite only process; keep networking efforts and events open to all; use social media to spread the word and keep communications going; and most importantly don’t try to control the interaction as control ultimately kills the innovative spirit.
Sat, 08/22/2009 - 23:48
Stephanie Gerson
as a long-time espouser (spouse?) of systems theory and admirer of systems thinkers like Fritjof Capra, I'm naturally inclined to be in wholehearted agreement.
(in fact, I once decided that students should be required to double-major, and as their thesis, discover a gem that was lost when we separated industrial engineering from ecology, or evolutionary biology from psychology. of course the fields of industrial ecology and evolutionary psychology are now happily emerging.)
but.
(and certainly there's gotta be a "but" – otherwise I’d just be another usual suspect landing on your blog and responding with wholehearted agreement.)
it took considerable time and resources to evolve the silos, and fill them with ever-narrowing specialized knowledge. and now we get to permeate the silos' boundaries and orchestrate random collisions by creating interdisciplinary programs and models and interesting things like this (http://byassoc.com/manifesto/), which we wouldn't be able to do unless there were silos in the first place. so it's not that we wish silos never existed; it is because they exist that we can use their specialized ingredients to make evermore innovative dishes! (and lucky for us that we're hanging out in the now, when it's becoming fashionable make innovative dishes rather than the same ol' – everyone Loves to Love fusion cuisine, n'est ce pas?)
ultimately we are articulating the range between silos and non-silos.
ultimately we are expanding our portfolio of types of collisions.
ultimately we are birthing diversity.
I call this promiscuous pragmatic pluralism (my worldview).
put simply, I'm so open-minded, that I'm even open to being close-minded...sometimes (within the meta-intention of being open-minded).
beware of boomeritis (unless it's useful).
even non-club club is a club (which is ok).
which means, I'd Love to join a non-club club and tribe of unusual suspects, as long as we promise to dissolve ourselves if we become a club and tribe of usual suspects. i.e. as long as we promise to unconditionally create conditions conducive to the emergence of random collisions.
"Maybe we don't need institutions to be the catalyst for change. Maybe in the shiny new networked world we live in, with mega bandwidth and social media platforms, we can self organize to design and test new system approaches that deliver more value to the patient, student, and citizen. It is time to try more stuff and take advantage of the disruptive innovation potential of all the technology we have within reach. We have more technology available to us than we know how to absorb. It isn't technology that gets in our way. It is our fault. Humans, and the organizations we live in, are both stubbornly resistant to change."
on this tip, a few inspirational examples:
• traffic alleviation (clevercommute.com)
• financial lending (KickStart, Fundable, Prosper)
• local community governance (seeclickfix.com)
• consumer governance (carrotmob.org)
Tue, 08/25/2009 - 15:47
Maxx57
Many languages use the systems redundantly, for instance German, with its rich gender and case systems, moderate use of agreement, and fairly strong constraints on phrase order. ,
Thu, 10/22/2009 - 08:55
Pol58
Thus, the government has finally achieved the power to control and direct the inflation of the banking system. ,
Fri, 10/23/2009 - 07:33
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