Author: Jeremie Averous

Modern collaboration tools… going against the Fourth Revolution!

There is an amusing contradiction.

We could think that all virtual collaboration tools should be bringing us toward the Fourth Revolution, into the Collaborative Age. On the contrary, some virtual tools do in fact keep us in the Industrial Age mindset.

distributing work to be done
distributing work to be done (old fashioned)

Most tools that have been developed to enhance long distance collaboration, in particular when it comes to project management, are in fact deeply ingrained into the Industrial mindset. Look at most tools for virtual collaboration: they enhance this tendency to breakdown the work into tasks and asking individuals to address them based on their competency.

This will never lead to the incredible creativity of people working together, closely, emotionally connected, toward a challenging goal. This makes real, effective teams an impossibility. This makes creating technological ruptures and devising astoundingly clever ideas completely impossible.

Amazingly, a vast array of virtual tools continue to propagate the Industrial Age mindset. When will it stop? When will we understand that these tools are obsolete when it comes to creating the real value of the Fourth Revolution?

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Fourth Revolution at work: who will change first of China or Google?

The fate of Google in China is a very interesting event. Combined with the Arab Revolutions, gives food for thought about the impact of the Fourth Revolution on autocratic governments.

Google in China
Google in China

An article from CNN gives a detailed account of the misfortunes of Google in China. It is a bit long, but it is worth the read. In particular, because it shows how the uncompromising attitude of Google frontally collided with the suspicion of the Chinese officials. That was certainly quite a cultural shock!

 

So, let’s take a high level view looking at what will certainly happen in the future. China will certainly be able to develop on its own tools that will give a similar service to Google, Facebook etc. The Chinese characters help, and China is a big enough country to have everything done in their native tongue. Still, isn’t China taking a path, that on the long term might isolate it from the creativity of the Collaborative Age?

That might be the case. We already see that China being the manufacturer of the planet, had developed services much slowly than India. That is maybe the long term communist mindset (an Industrial-Age oriented mindset). India is democratic, open on the internet, developing myriads of Fourth Revolution applications using the most of long distance communication.

Who will win? I have a guess. On the long term, being isolated from the waves and currents of global creativity is not sustainable. China is large, has its own language, and might resist a bit longer than smaller countries. Still the Fourth Revolution calls for inclusion in the stream of the world.

China will need to change or will crumble. And that might be soon, so quick are the changes of the Fourth Revolution.

And what about Google? It might also need to change, as it seems. Let’s make a guess? Who will change dramatically first? China or Google?

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The e-brain drain of the Fourth Revolution

I just found out that the world is not flat. The leveling of the world with the Fourth Revolution is a myth.

I’m living in an emerging country, Malaysia. With the Fourth Revolution, I feel a citizen of the world. I can connect to blogs and ideas from anywhere in the world. I can correspond with people from everywhere.

e-brain drain
e-brain drain visualized

And then I decided to write a book, and self-publish it so that it can be available worldwide, using those terrific modern tools like Amazon, e-book versions etc. It looks so simple to do that!

Well- that’s probably the case – if you live in a developed country!

Worldwide distribution on e-stores is where the problems started. I discovered that you can’t download Kindle e-books in Malaysia and Singapore. That the Malaysian authority delivering the ISBNs (unique worldwide book numbers) apparently was never asked for ISBN’s for e-books (they are still wondering what to do with that request). That you can’t upload a book as a Kindle if you don’t have a bank account in the US, UK or euro zone (which fortunately, I have). etc etc

Let’s look beyond this simple example. If I’m living in a developing or emerging country today, and want to share my ideas, I can open a blog or a Facebook page. That’s fantastic. Now, if I want to publish and distribute a book or something more tangible, I need to use developed countries’ companies – and there are significant hurdles to overcome.

Effectively, the developed countries still drain the brains the world, now on internet.

Entrepreneurs of the emerging countries, raise to unleash the potential of your countries! Join the Fourth Revolution infrastructure!

What do you think? Did you encounter such issues?

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How to measure the degree of bureaucracy of your organization

How bureaucratic is your organization?

Stack of procedures
bureaucracy at work

Here is the ultimate test.

It’s fairly simple.

It’s based on the fact that bureaucracy is the triumph of the means over the end.

So, take the objectives of your organizations, of your department, or your personal objectives in the organization. What proportion of these objectives are about producing means, for keeping busy (for example, write a policy about… write 3 procedures about… produce one press release every so and so…)

Conversely, what proportion is about real results that matter to other people (clients, stakeholders). Like: increase satisfaction level by so many %, deliver under 3 days…

The proportion of objectives related to means is a good measure of how bureaucratic your organization is. Experience shows that it is generally fairly consistent across the organization, except maybe at the top.

Move! Make sure most of your own objectives are result-driven and that you’re left the choice of the means. And you know what? It’s much more fun!

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Keep out of the dinosaur area

That’s probably the sign we should put on the fence of the large Industrial Age companies.

Dinosaur area - keep out sign
Dinosaur area - keep out sign

For two reasons.

One, you’d better keep out because that’s not going to be fun when they will be overwhelmed by the value generated by the Fourth Revolution. They will resist and fight and destroy what’s too close.

Second, if there is a fence around these organizations, for sure they are not open organizations. And they cannot benefit from the value of collaboration.

So keep out of the dinosaur area. They’re going to be wiped out. The more adaptable and flexible will prevail.

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Great advice for boosting your creativity

Austin Kleon has written a great visual post on boosting creativity: How to steal like an artist (and 9 other things nobody told me). It shows clearly that stealing many ideas from the widest number and types of sources possible is needed to create a new one. And there are a lot of hints about how to boost your own creativity, many of them we have discussed already in the blog.

Enjoy the read. Here it is again: How to steal like an artist (and 9 other things nobody told me).

I’d like to add one. Exercise your creativity. Spend a few minutes each day just being creative. Choose your medium – paper and pencil, computer, writing a text… exercise because that’s a skill that develops over time and exercise.

So, when do you start?

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Talent is overrated

I just read a great book: Talent is overrated, by Geoff Colvin.

It explains where the greatest achievers find the source of their talent. And that’s not from some innate capability or just sheer hard work.

Geoff Colvin identifies the concept of deliberate practice as the key to sustained excellence. Deliberate practice is hard work, because it is still required to go through thousand of hours of practice. But it is more than that:

  • deliberate practice follows a program specifically designed to improve performance by working on what is difficult
  • deliberate practice is repeated a lot
  • feedback on the results is continuously available
  • it is demanding mentally and is not much fun

So it is not just the hours of practice that count. It is also how practice is focused on improvement, it requires feedback to be constantly available. It generally requires somebody else to design the practice program and give the feedback.

coaching in action
Even great sportspeople need a coach for deliberate practice

It is quite straightforward to understand this in the field of sports. What about the field of leadership in an organization? How often do you stretch yourself, repeat difficult actions, and do you get continuous feedback? Do you have a coach to design and force you through the process?

Yet without these elements, excellence will be impossible to reach.

Think about it. Design a deliberate practice program to become the best in what you want to do. That’s worth it.

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The Fourth Revolution Book is printed!

The Fourth Revolution Book cover
The Fourth Revolution Book cover

The Fourth Revolution book is finally printed! I received the first copies today!

While it will be first distributed physically in Malaysia and Singapore, distribution will be soon worldwide with a Print-On-Demand solution.

In this detailed book you’ll find all the concepts of the Fourth Revolution explained in detail. What is most valuable is the historical perspective, looking at what happened in the previous Revolutions, to better understand what is happening.

I look forward to receiving your feedback on the book!

It will be available within one month in most distribution channels – in the meantime directly from me (I still need to figure out the logistics!).

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If you copy from many people, it is research

Recently I heard the following sentence which I liked very much (it is a quote attributed to Wilson Mizner by Wikipedia):

“if you copy from one person, it is plagiarism;

if you copy from two it is research”

Now that’s really a deep insight into what creativity is. It is often the unexpected meeting of two minds coming from different places. Actually, creativity requires the constructive confrontation of ideas.

The Fourth Revolution increases significantly the frequency of confrontation to other’s ideas and significantly increases the world’s creativity. And that way, our collective cognitive capability.

We still need to quote the origin of ideas, but not be frozen with respect and transform them on the spot.

People tweak and rework original ideas, and products, much more often than before.

Why don’t you give it a try and contribute yourself to the Fourth Revolution?

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The new era: we are now in the year 12 A.G. (After Google)

Did you know that the Fourth Revolution marks the beginning of an era?

after google
after google

I mean, a new Era that starts again the Calendar? Like B.C. and A.D.?

Some people now count the years as B.G. (Before Google) and A.G. (After Google).
Google was incorporated in September 1998, do the maths!

That also works the other way round – I was born in 26 A.G.. I really feel like from the past era!

And you, do you feel you belong to the B.G. or to the A.G. generation?

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Social networks and revolutions: the controversy

There is a controversy ongoing about the role of social networks in the recent movements and revolutions in the Arab world.

Everybody agrees that social networks played an important role, but was it decisive? In other words, would these revolutions have happened without social networks?

Refer to this article “Is Social Networking Useless for Social Change? A Response to The New Yorker’s Malcolm Gladwell” to get a sense of the controversy.

My opinion is that Malcolm Gladwell is still in the Industrial Age mindset that expected a group of people to get together to broadcast something to society. Today we are beyond this. We don’t need a small group of people to devise something intelligent and broadcast it as a platform for social change. Everybody is exchanging and coordinating together on social networks and that creates the fertile ground of social change. And governments that are still in the broadcast-control mode will be swept away by the wave of change. Because the control of broadcasting, which was the foundation of power, is now obsolete.

What do you think about this controversy?

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Track your stolen laptop from hundreds miles away and get your social network friends to retrieve it!

Incredible story that only demonstrates the power of the Fourth Revolution and social networks. At the end, social network contacts of the victim retrieve the laptop!!

Man tracks stolen laptop hundreds of miles away, calls thief – Storify. “I watched this all happen on Twitter a few nights ago, and it was thrilling, and while this *actually happened*, it revealed a really exciting possibility for new forms of live, participatory story-telling: Sean Power had his laptop stolen in NYC, but had to return to Montreal. He had a bit of software on the laptop (Project Prey) that can be activated to start recording what’s going on on your laptop, including taking webcam pics of whoever is using it, and broadcasting to you what’s happening on your computer in real time. Sean Tweeted about the stolen laptop, then activated Prey. Clues were immediately revealed, a picture of the thief! (Tweeted) Then the thief logged into Skype – we had a name (Tweeted)! Logged into Gmail! We had an email address! (Tweeted). Using Prey, Sean could also locate his laptop – at resto called Cantina Latina in NYC… a woman Sean doesn’t know, but who follows him on Twitter, went to the resto – Sean called the cops… It was a pretty exciting bit of real-life story-telling, and it shows some wonderful hints about how we might use tools like Twitter for creating new kinds of fiction (an interest of mine)…This link is to a Storify collection of the event.”

Highlighted by Mitch Joel in his regular blog Six pixels of separation post “six links worth of your attention“

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