May 16, 2005
the porous membrane (cont.)
[Each company’s market is divided into two parts, (A) the internal conversation within the company, and (B) the external conversation with the outside world. The ideally porous “x-membrane” seperates the two.]
Recently I wrote about “The Porous Membrane– Why Corporate Blogging Works”. And I went on to talk about the porous “x-membrane”, the imaginary line that divides the conversation about your product and market between your company (A) and the outside world (B).
13. The more porous your membrane (“x”), the easier it is for the internal conversation to inform and align with the external conversation, and vice versa.
I also said:
15. Of course this begs the question, why have a membrane “x” at all? Why bother with such a hierarchy?
Since then I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about that. Exactly. Why divide the conversation into two bits, A and B. Is it really necessary?
Could “Complete Alignment” render the x-membrane obsolete?
And what about the sub-membranes? Membranes that divide ‘A’ into litle subdivisions? Must there be a membrane seperating, for example, accounting from marketing etc. etc.?
Food for thought etc. Meanwhile, I’m off to catch a train to London at lunchtime, where I’ll be till Friday. More later…
The challenge for some companies is that a completely porous membrane may lead to far more issues than it solves. My industry is highly regulated. Open conversation from employees on forums etc may be (and has been) used against us in lawsuites. For that reason, all communications have to go through a legal review.
Internal alignment, reduction of the internal walls may be one way of reducing this risk — having blogging employees fully aware of the latest language/legal issues. It’s a pity — because there are a lot of very passionate people about our products and they cannot spread the word!
Geek Dinner in London — June 7th
Justification for Blogging on the job
Ideas are EVERYWHERE! Although, to the uninitiated they may be hard to find. As any serious blogger knows, Ideascaping takes time. Gathering information from RSS feeds, technorati, del.icio.us, the blogosphere is hard work. Yet an
Justification for Blogging on the job
Ideas are EVERYWHERE! Although, to the uninitiated they may be hard to find. As any serious blogger knows, Ideascaping takes time. Gathering information from RSS feeds, technorati, del.icio.us, the blogosphere is hard work. Yet an
sub-membranes are needed for any company unless there is no specialization or defined roles. a sub-membraneless model would work in a VERY small company where everyone knows how to do everyone else’s job.
in any larger company the little subdivisions are there for a good reason. if you hired someone to do accounting then you expect them to do accounting and not be keeping up on the inards of the latest marketing campaign. you would hopefully expect that your accounting folk would know that marketing is spending money on project X and not that they were trying to decide on red or orange text for some print ad.
sharing information is good. sharing information relevant to a given role or assignment is better.
Why Corporate Blogs Work
According to Hugh Macleod at Gaping Void, it’s as simple as that! For a complete break down of what the above represents, read his interesting article the porous membrane: why corporate blogging works.
I suppose anybody who talks about his penis as much as you do, Hugh, wouldn’t understand the meaning of privacy, but most of us still see some value in the concept. Just because some things are held for private discussion, that doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing. I doubt your mother would have wanted you blabbing everything that happened in the family all over the neighborhood when you were growing up.
Oh, yeah. I forgot you grew up in a boarding school. Maybe that’s why you have a problem with intimacy as well as privacy. You can pretend to have the former without the latter, but that’s doesn’t last now, does it? AS intimate as you are with your readers, I’m sure there’s all kinds of things you wouldn’t tell. And certainly not tell you. It might show up on tomorrows blog.
What I am more interested in is if you, who have given up much privacy would want yor readers own initimate thoughts. Or is this albout you, really, just a monolougue, not a dialogue at all.
It is interesting to think about.
Oooh Barb — bit snarly!
I think that personal privacy and corporate transparency are somewhat different things — they call them “public” companies for a reason. And do you have some greater personal knowledge of Hugh that qualifies you to comment on his possible problems with intimacy — if so, pactice what you preach and ‘fess up. This sounds like an ad hominem attack, rather than a criticism of the ‘membrane’ idea.
That said, I see the points made in the first two comments — it is a BIG step, and potentially dangerous, for a company to say externally everything they currently keep inside, and I doubt that it works in a large organisation, for reasons pointed out by Rachel and Sayten. SO — if transparency is a ‘good thing’, but doesn’t work in a large organisation, why not break up/down the organisation?
In a connected age, where geography and size matter less, is it not possible for a loose ‘conherderation’* of smaller companies (where “everybody knows everybody else’s job”) to fill the space currently occupied by ossified giants?
(* — can’t remember who coined that term recently, but it’s a beauty!)
Well, Barb, transparency is scary, it requires integrity and courage.
And if you’re dependent on an indentity created by a ‘position’ (Hi, I’m a VP…), an ‘image’ carefully crafted over years, or the control of information (You have to go through me as I’m the only one in know…) — then of course transparency is a no-no.
transparency is scary
A comment to Hugh’s latest Porous membranes prompted a small discussion on transparency: So far I’ve argued for the good sides of transparency, like..Transparency equals trust.Leadership requires transparency (or visibility).Why fight it? Is leadership…
C’mon now. Don’t jump all over Barb.
Hugh … show her how this elimination of the membrane thing works and articulate how the following Hughtrain philosophies align with $3,000 suits:
* We are here to find meaning. We are here to help other people do the same. Everything else is secondary.
* Product benefit doesn’t excite us. Belief in humanity and human potential excites us.
* Think less about what your product does, and think more about human potential.
* What statement about humanity does your product make?
* People are not just getting more demanding as consumers, they are getting more demanding as spiritual entities. Branding is a spiritual exercise. These are The New Realities, this is the Spiritual Republic we now live in.
Just found the ‘conherderation’ source — it was Jon Husband (of http://blog.wirearchy.com/ fame) in the comments to http://www.gapingvoid.com/Moveable_Type/archives/001576.html
Sorry it took this long to find, Jon.
The porous membrane
Accounting is what my accounting guy is getting paid for, and presumably what he is good at. Marketing is what my marketing guy is getting paid for, and presumably what he is good at. Membranes exist in the first place so that specialists can focus on their expertise without having to worry about what everyone else is doing.
Crosspollination and conversations are good. Flooding people with more information than they need or want is bad. Membranes exist to maintain the balance between the two. Too porous a membrane is just as harmful as one that’s not porous enough.
Katherine, the problem is membranes whose sole justification for existence is the maintenance of hegemony. In other words, the reason all membranes exist.
The porosity conversation is really about making availability of XYZ (data, information, knowledge, business intel, etc.) the default rather than the exception. If a one group/faction or another doesn’t want the XYZ they won’t consume. But they’d always have the option.
a public corporation couldn’t possibly do this. shareholders are very tempermental and must be pleased. telling them the WHOLE truth would lead to huge swings in value that spiral out of control. they’re too delicate.
Sloan, I beg to differ (not taking SEC etc. into account):
Giving the investors a balanced, regulated and limited diet like today works to a certain degree.
Letting them have an ad-hoc part truth is no good whichever way.
But the whole (really everything) truth? I wonder if not that would be better, although hard on the investor class.
At least it would rid us of any attempt to ‘cook’ books even within the framework of Sarbanes-Oxley, end-of-quarter sell-ins, mark-to-market and what else that is conductive to financials but not to long term operations.
And it is after all long term operations that is the base, not the finance department?
Porous?
Hugh MacLeod writes:[Each company’s market is divided into two parts, (A) the internal conversation within the company, and (B) the external conversation with the outside world. The ideally porous “x-membrane” seperates the two.]Go there for further ex…
Sig has a point. What’s good for the shareholders isn’t always good for the business.
Hugh, allow me an expansion of that:
Shareholders are twofold (dept. of simplified definitions): Long term ‘part owners’ and short term ‘market players’. Suspect the first category should have nicely aligned interests with the company, the latter though may have completely different plans
Let’s just start ith bettermore real conversations with customers, instead of trying to figure out how everything works first ? And is it fair or reasonable to say that what works in one situation or for one company is likely to be different at another, or that enhanced transparency, as a principle, is clearly a useful context in a number of important areas where it can be argued that customers and employees are really only separated by mouse clicks, links and interfaces ? The whys. the hows, the psychology and the language will follow — and keep being argued about.
most investors lack the TIME to fully understand whats going on in their companies. they read the semi-annual reports and thats about it. the everyday problems aren’t of consequence to the investor, the bottom-line is: continued success. for many, this success is evaluted based on net profit, return on investment, inventory turnover, etc… the well-being of a corporation is quantified with these financial insturments.
i simply cannot imagine the general public being able to see past these figures and understanding the entire business.
Hello Again, Barb,
http://www.gapingvoid.com/Moveable_Type/archives/001172.html
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the porous membrane (cont.)
the porous membrane (c…