Comments on: on transparency

By: ForwardMarkets

ForwardMarkets — Thu, 02 Jun 2005 08:51:58 +0000

Take Two Pills and Trust me in the Morning

Hey look Sig, Hugh: instant trust without software!

By: projectified

projectified — Fri, 06 May 2005 14:02:42 +0000

Trust

Hugh at GapingVoid has some interesting things to add to Sigurd Rinde’s (at Forthcoming) post about Trust which I think, at least for me, relates to their earlier comments on culture and technology which I talk about here. Sigurd says:Fact #1:Trust i…

By: Rockster

Rockster — Fri, 06 May 2005 13:12:12 +0000

I knew those 5 years would pay off…

Finally… all of those obscure journals… the really long words… the endless discussions are worth something! I found 3 bloggers blog blog bloggin’ away on org theory… though I’m not sure they really see it as such… but it is. Hey! I’m actu…

By: hugh macleod

hugh macleod — Fri, 06 May 2005 11:14:44 +0000

I agree with both Lee and Jon…

By: Jon Husband

Jon Husband — Fri, 06 May 2005 09:05:51 +0000

Great points, Lee.
I think everyone gets all juiced about *transparency* because it’s essentially a new set of conditions (or at least this degree and volume of transparency seem to be completely new for us) compared to the hundreds or thousands of years of controlling knowledge (the “knowledge is power” thing) that has come before. The structures that have come before have enabled much the “knowledge is power” dynamic. Our behaviours have been affected at the near-DNA level, psychologically and socially, by the various forms of hierarchical (or parent-child, or whatever else we want to call it) types of oprganizational and community interactions we have all grown up in as we become / became adult humans.
As has been said before, hierarchy in and of itself is not evil .. and there are places and times to be more and/or less opne, or transparent. as we probably all know, there is a thing such as “too much information”, and many things we wish others would keep to themselves.
But it will be very interesting to watch how people continue to adapt to, learn new ways of being and doing, and create new social architecture in these new conditions. personally, i don’t think it’s going to be as simple as all teams, all the time, or just loosely confederated groups of humans (which tend to fall apart at the merest of obstacles unless there are effective leaders and a purpose to the activity).
While it may not be rocket science, it may well be some form of complexity/chaos theory meets the need to get things done whilst not killing others or yourself. And it may be more difficult than we think, given how random and variable each of us humans are .. there’s probably a reason why there are so very many psychologists, therapists, coaches, consultants and various forms of self-improvement and self-help resources that seem to stay in business.
A core premise to which i continue to cling is that the reason the leadership and mangement development industries are so large and lucrative is that people don’t actually want to come to terms with these new and continuing-to-grow-and-spread conditions of interlinkedness, increased visibility of their actions and of what they and others know, say and do.
Often, they want more prescriptive and formualic “do-this-and-it’ll be-allright” answers given to them .. at least the evidence suggests that there is a sizeable market for that.

By: Lee Bryant

Lee Bryant — Fri, 06 May 2005 06:15:20 +0000

Hi Hugh,
In a very general sense transparency is good, and of course we need more of it in order to connect with other people, whether as customers or whatever.
But .… too much transparency can sometimes be a bad thing on both sides of any relationship. Sometimes people want certainty or just not more hassle — this just seems to be common sense.
Transparency as in being honest and open is good. Transparency as in “hey, this is the story of our funky day bringing you your product” can be like an American therapy victim, if you known what I mean — too much information, too little intuition. Do I want great wine, service, etc. from a restaurant? Yes. Do I want to read on their real time internal blog that my waiter nearly threw my soup over the head of the chef? No thanks.
Also, you might to think about your interest in the idea of the SIV (or, more amusingly, SPIV as it was momentarily called What do stories need? Heroism, redemption, narrative structure, themes, lost love, etc. Stories, like marketing BS, are interpretations of reality for a purpose, which means they are selective. As in not-100%-transparent all the time.
I have gigabytes of 100% transparent stories of the life of our servers at work (Hell — they even TXT me several times a day), but we call them “logs”.
I only say this because I often hear people talk about transparency without recognising their own and other peoples’ tendencies to conceal, or re-interpret, or re-frame information as a natural part of their communication.
Not you and me, of course, ‘cos we’re nice. Naturlich. But you know what I mean, I suppose

By: Jon Husband

Jon Husband — Fri, 06 May 2005 05:29:07 +0000

Eliot Spitzer presumably calls to the CEO, and what happens *down below* most often reflects the culture and practices determined or prescribed bythe CEO, no ?
Kinda like Lynndie England taking the fall for Abu Ghraib, instead of the generals or Rumsfeld ?

By: Jim Wilde

Jim Wilde — Fri, 06 May 2005 04:29:28 +0000

Eliot Spitzer on line 1!

By: larry borsato

larry borsato — Fri, 06 May 2005 03:00:06 +0000

Transparency.

Hugh Macleod at gapingvoid points to a friend who is asking “What level of transparency can a company live with?”:At the company you work for, how afraid is the average person of making a mistake? Of not being right? Of…

By: Timbo

Timbo — Fri, 06 May 2005 01:24:23 +0000

The transparency can also inspire confidence if it provides valuable information that leads to smarter decisions.
Often, the fear of screwing up comes from having to make a choice based on incomplete info or incorrect assumptions about company direction or customer needs. Then you’ve got no back-up when some higher-up asks, “Why did we do this?”
Meat puppets hoarde information for just that reason: so others don’t come up with a great ideas w/out their input. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot…

By: ForwardMarkets

ForwardMarkets — Fri, 06 May 2005 01:05:07 +0000

Trust = Benevolent Disinformation

I’ve been having a conversation with Sig over at thingmy, as well as following other discussion over at gapingvoid regarding transparency and trust in the evolution of information systems and enterprise software. The thing that strikes me about all the

By: Jon Husband

Jon Husband — Fri, 06 May 2005 01:04:37 +0000

Re: Bruce’s comment / question above .. I would think smaller, unless the organization wants to spin and work its *transparency* …
… and arguably, its employees and the way(s) the company interacts with customers becomes a part of its ongoing *PR*.

By: Bruce DeBoer

Bruce DeBoer — Fri, 06 May 2005 00:16:02 +0000

Hmmmm, I’m wondering …
If a company increases it’s transparency, does it also find the need for a larger public relations department or a smaller one?

By: DJ Coffman

DJ Coffman — Thu, 05 May 2005 23:06:30 +0000

Hugh– what are your thoughts on transparency when it comes to profits or future business dealings. For instance– recently, I was in touch with a big humor magazine about doing some columns articles for them, and I didn’t name them in my blog– I thought about transparency for a moment, but I have a lot of other people who seem to read my blog to look for jobs themselves and might swoop in or beat me to an angle I’m working.
Also, on profits– Should I be open and say how much I’ve sold of something. I mean, if I’m writing and thinking about these things should i just be honest and post– for instance, my one print book had lackluster performance. Maybe I SHOULD have told what it sold– but some things are just embarrasing. So– I guess you should let them see you fail as well as accompish things.
Thats going to be the REAL challenge for people writing blogs. Just HOW open can they be? Because anything else just smells like a line of bullshit. Know what I mean?

By: Ric

Ric — Thu, 05 May 2005 22:36:03 +0000

Hey Sig — good morning! (It’s just gone midnight here …)
Courage? or integrity? (I know — both would help …)