The Internet Nominated for 2010 Nobel Peace Prize

By Ker Than, TechNewsDaily Managing Editor
posted: 11 March 2010 11:53 am ET

If some people have their way, you could be the winner of this year's Nobel Peace Prize. "You" in this case being used broadly to mean the billions of people who log online daily.

Yes, the Internet is one of a record 237 nominations for the coveted prize this year.

Some groups have been advocating the Internet for the prize for months, but the nomination was officially accepted only this week, during the first meeting of the Norwegian Nobel Committee on March 9.

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According to the BBC, the Internet submission was backed by Shirin Ebadi, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003 for her human rights work, and by Nicholas Negroponte, founder of the $100 laptop project, One Laptop per Child.

Read more...

Virtual Collaboration in Organizations: A Change Issue

If you want to build a wiki, don’t drum up people by sending them emails and adding them as users. Rather make them long for access to the important information your wiki contains. (Juliane Neumann, Radical Inclusion)

Lately, our group has been reflecting on what it takes from an organization to implement effective Virtual Collaboration (VC) processes. The question is not a new one – the idea of collective Knowledge Management (KM) has been around since the dawn of the WWW (and even before), but the great visions have turned out to be disappointingly shallow promises. We have come to the point where the tools have reached such maturity, adaptability, and user-friendliness that we all cannot help but rub our eyes asking why the adoption rates of virtual collaboration are far below even the most pessimistic expectations.

How does KM fit into the concept of VC? Wikipedia gives the following definitions:

Knowledge management (KM) comprises a range of strategies and practices used in an organization to identify, create, represent, distribute, and enable adoption of insights and experiences. Such insights and experiences comprise knowledge, either embodied in individuals or embedded in organizational processes or practice. (Source: Wikipedia).

Virtual Collaboration – Originated with the advent of video conferencing technologies provided over the internet. Two or more people working together to accomplish a task without the use of face to face interaction. Early examples of virtual collaboration include Audio Conferencing, Video Conferencing, or Computer mediated communication. With the advent of web 2.0 interactive capabilities virtual collaboration took on a much broader meaning, allowing for the full spectrum of activities and behaviors that are required for two or more people to come together and co-create new work through a process similar to stigmergy in living systems. (Source: Wikipedia)

We believe that this definition of VC is not broad enough. For us in Radical Inclusion, VC encompasses the whole spectrum of synchronous, near time and asynchronous tools and methods with which people can creat content, exchange ideas, work together on documents, make decisions, etc. without meeting face-to-face. In this sense, KM is mainly covering the asynchronous parts of VC.

So, the tools are there but people just don’t use them – why is that so? We believe it is for a multitude of reasons, including the following:

• People driving VC and KM projects are not the potential beneficiaries of the VC tools. VC and KM are categorized as “IT issues”, and the users are rarely involved in design and implementation of the collaboration tools.
• Knowledge and information are organizational currencies, and they are not given away for free. We share information when we get something in return, and knowledge can be a powerful asset in power play situations.
• Collaboration is a question of trust and loyalties, and these ties don’t often follow official organizational structures. People have contradicting loyalties as most organizations have implicit and explicit organizational structures. Also, organizational boundaries in collaboration are not that clear as people adhere to and trust individuals and groups outside of the organization.
• Collaboration is not encouraged. Few organizations have reward systems that encourage collaboration, and even fewer have a collaboration strategy.
• Effective physical collaboration is different from effective virtual collaboration. Most organizations try to translate traditional forms of collaboration, i.e. face-to-face meetings, into virtual collaboration. Thinking that a face-to-face meeting is a pinnacle of collaboration neglects to take into account the new and different opportunities that synchronous, near time, and asynchronous VC tools offer. Virtual meetings that mirror face-to-face meeting processes end up being frustrating experiences because of technical shortcomings and poor virtual process skills.
• General attitudes towards virtual collaboration are not favourable. VC is usually considered as a second-hand substitute for physical face-to-face meetings. Few people believe that they can be effective, efficient, and most of all, fun!

Hence, effective Virtual Collaboration is a question of organizational change, and in order to become an organization with effective VC processes, the organization needs to start from catalyzing a change process. However, there is no blueprint for a process of complex change, and no shortcut around the need to facilitate such a process. Here are a few principles that apply to a change journey:

1. People do not resist change as a given. However, all people have concerns, purposes and circumstances that matter to them. If people feel that their issues are acknowledged and respected, they will support change.
2. Change has its boundaries and limits. Change is partly given to us, and everything is not negotiable. There will always be conditions that we need to accept and work around. Also, we have to respect that usually the entire organization will not change.
3. Problems become our friends little by little. We need to start small in the beginning of our change journey and improve the process along the way.
4. Everybody needs to become an innovator. Widen the circle of involvement as much as possible and get people to buy in. Identify or create containers where new thinking emerges and smart systems can multiply.
5. Multilevel communication about change is essential. Connect people to the content of the change and to each other by virtual and face-to-face means.

We have only just begun to understand what it takes to catalyze effective collaboration – in both the real and the virtual world!

(originally published at http://radical-inclusion.com/)

What is the Change Journey Map?

The Journey Map is the tool for facilitating a team dialogue on how to create a design for the Change Journey, is unique for each organization. The Map which is based on laws of complexity has 23+ places that symbolize different aspects of change that teams and organizations might need to consider during their journey. For example, some organizations might believe that they have to focus on creating sustainable actions first. Others might want to start with creating trust in teams. Others, in turn, might want to revisit their goal of the change. Only people involved in the change process can answer the question "Where to go next?". This simple question reveals the start of the journey. Once the first steps are defined, change leaders can bring in all their tools to master the specific part of the journey. The Change Journey is neutral when it comes to application of other change methodologies and frameworks. The Map comes along with a set of cards which offer questions for deeper exploration of the places.

We will reveal the Map step by step. Watch out for our upcoming webinars and global workshops. Do you want to be involved?

Watch an Introduction Video

How to Use the Map
Watch the places on the map and explore them individually or collectively, in a small meeting or a large workshop. Good questions are your guides, and for each of the places on the Map, you will find some good questions in our Exploration Cards that come along with the Map.

You might find the following procedure helpful:

1) Have a dialogue about where you are currently on the map. Compare different perspectives of individuals. Adhere to the the principles of The Change Journey.
2) Reflect on where you came from and how you got here. Was it a journey full of pain or full of joy? Was it a planned journey or was the route taken by coincidence?
3) Find common ground on what should be the next destination of your journey.
4) Explore the new destination(s) with the questions you find in the materials section. Find your own questions. Define new places if needed.
5) Define the activities and resources you need for the next step.
6) Repeat the Journey cycle as often as needed and develop your own change strategy. Write this strategy down and make it visible to all. Get feedback from those who were not involved.
7) Agree on a reflection process that helps you to learn from the journey. Adapt your journey along the way.

The Places
There are 23+ places on the Map and some empty spots to define new places. One by one, we will show you all the places, and you will have the chance to define your own ones. So, please make sure that you revisit this page frequently.

The Mall of Human Needs: A place to explore people's aspirations and potential reasons for resistance (added March 1, 2010)

The Laboratory: In the Laboratory, teams create small pilot projects to experiment with new processes, procedures, principles etc. (added March 1, 2010)

The Light House of Common Principles: Share the values that you hold in common for the Journey (added March 1, 2010)

The Arena of Leadership: Define what are the leadership patterns that move your organization forward (added March 2, 2010)

The Gym of Skilly and Capabilities: In the Gym, we identify and grow the essential skills we need for the future.(added March 2, 2010)

The Change Journey Starts Today

Today is the day of the official inauguration of the Change Journey.

Vesa Purokuru and I have worked for the last year to present you this meta model to change processes. It does not replace any other model or tool - it incorporates the entire wisdom and knowledge that exists on the dynamics of change processes.

What will happen today
Become a member of the crew at www.changejourney.org.
At 15.00 CET / 10 AM EST, we will have a 20-30 minutes short web introduction on the map concept. If you want to join, please write me an email at holger@change-facilitation.org.
Over the entire day, I will be twittering (#changejourney), facebooking, adding to various blogs, expanding the text base of this website, etc. You are invited to join me by giving your inputs.
Please join this community and also become a fan on Facebook.