Comments on: “free the battery humans!’

By: Lee Bryant

Lee Bryant — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 13:25:32 +0000

Thanks Hugh and Hi.
Deannie: the phrase you quote basically means that the process of consumerisation of IT (ie backward internal IT culture being influenced by more rapid change in the consumer sphere) presents a unqiue opportunity for us to embed better, more human values in the next generation of internal IT systems and thinking. Hope that helps a bit. It is sad that people in your sphere are not interested in the conversation. I think the change is happening, but everybody has their own reasons or drivers for adoption.

By: deannie

deannie — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 12:12:58 +0000

I enjoyed the slide presentation but slide #15 has me stumped — what does this mean: “consumerisation of enterprise IT is our chance to think about codifyng new human, connected values for the future”.
In any case, it is truly the rare team or even individual in my sphere that is even interested in the conversation, let alone contemplating making any substantive change for the very reason you state: This is hard!

By: knackeredhack

knackeredhack — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 10:15:07 +0000

Lee’s essay was fascinating for its breadth and depth. I’d recommend Gerd Gigerenzer’s work on heuristics in this context. He speaks to the areas of decision-making under conditions of uncertainty/complexity, how to create effective collaboration, the role of leadership and particularly the impact past leadership can have on corporate cultures long after an executive has departed.
Short-termism, which is the enemy of collaboration and a more expansive relationship between corporation and staff, often starts with the need to hit quarterly earnings targets and how the CEO operates tactically versus strategically in that context.
Diverse groups and hiring more unorthodox employees are shown to trump more conventional approaches in the longer term, but both require more deft management and bedding in. So in hiring, too often the line manager expectation is for people to hit the ground running and the candidate choice in effect is sub-optimal. Business schools too have tended to breed conformity of approaches.
Tim

By: RKR

RKR — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 01:01:55 +0000

To over simplify my point of view, (as I usually do):
Most corporations are a fortress full of managers who like to kill the messengers…