RE:THINK

I still have a lot of session summaries to write up (or perhaps I won’t as it’s pretty easy to find great alternatives to me, such as my new friend,Chel O’Reilly).

But what I will do is try to summarize what this ride has been like.

I first became aware of TED around 5 years ago, a little before they began publishing the TED Talks videos. I’m a big believer in the power of big thinking - whether it’s a desire to change the world, or advance medicine, or solve issues of urban renewal, or rebuild natural environments, or to give great art a place outside the established museums and galleries and concert halls.

Indeed, seeking a place where big, brave thinking - a place of possibility, a place where “no” isn’t an option - has been a significant part of what took me to start acidlabs two years ago this month. For too long I worked at places bound in bureaucracy, in “dumbplexity”, in a mindset where policy and procedure are the only possibility.

I’m just not wired like that. And so it seems, this new family of mine, the TEDsters (or, as was proposed this week, TEDizens) aren’t wired that way either.

This week has been a wild ride. From the lowest lows of the horrors of the war in Afghanistan, the disaster that is the global economy (obviously they didn’t listen to Nassim Nicholas Taleb last year) to the highest, ecstatic heights of hearing Jose Antonio Abreu’s amazing orchestra conducted by Gustavo Dudamel and singing along to Jamie Cullum playing John Lennon’s Imaginewith 1900 others as TED closed.

Back in March, my friend, Stephen Dann wrote of attending his first BarCamp that it was:

“…like coming home to old friends I’ve never met.”

And thus was TED for me.

I met doctors, lawyers, philanthropists, marketers, designers, musicians, artists, baristas (I taught them to make a decent long black), serious hacker geeks (hey,Chris!) and more, all with a common purpose. To think beyond the now, to dream of possibility and reject anger and resignation and to act as individuals and communities in order to make a better world.

There’s a point at the end of TED, where everyone knows it’s over but nobody wants to leave. Many of us simply hung around in the hotel gardens yesterday, continuing our discussions, affirming each others plans and ideas, and sometimes sharing astoundingly intimate details of our personal lives and the things that brought us to TED. Around us, the hotel staff continued to pack down the convention center. You reach a point where you know you have to go back and just breathe out as you enter your room, as we all did (and then we cheated and had dinner together to reignite the buzz).

The infamous post-TED slump is something I will strive to avoid. I will be very deliberate in maintaining contact with some of the new friends I’ve made. I have a swirling mix of vague and crystal clear thoughts about what I need to do when I return home - both in terms of acidlabs and in my life (and there will be changes in both).

I want so much to share this experience with my friends back home, and so I will - over coffee, or dinner or a call. And just maybe, we can have more than 15 Aussies at TED Palm Springs next time.

 

Related articles by Zemanta

• “Imagine” on the iPhone: Needs more cowbell (crunchgear.com)
• The end of TED 2009 (ethanzuckerman.com)

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I’ve talked about this issue ad nauseum in the past but it’s reared its head again in this article in the News Limited press (Brisbane’s Courier Mail, to be accurate). So, what am I talking about?

Businesses blocking access to social tools in the workplace. In this case, Facebook gets a mention, but it applies to social networks generally.

I’m firmly of the view that this is a foolish approach by business. For several reasons:

• it assumes staff are going to abuse the privilege of Internet access at work rather than treating them like adults
• it disconnects people from the very thing that makes them people - theirnetworks of other people
• it denies people the opportunity to reach out to peers, clients and customers in the places they might be which very well could be Facebook, or MySpace or LinkedIn or a Ning community, etc.
• it abrogates responsibility for managing staff and imposes kindergarten-level, easily bypassed rules
• it fails to recognise that a smart and workable Acceptable Use Policy for social networks might work better than just blocking or banning
• it’s demoralising, demotivating and belittles the maturity inherent in your people when you treat them well and trust them

There’s more than enough research in existence (just two there from McKinsey, but there are many more) to indicate that allowing access to social networks at work, coupled with a functional and well-considered policy on what is and isn’t okay makes for a more engaged, more motivated and potentially more innovative work force.

The example I use frequently when asked this question is Facebook related. I’d suggest that it’s very okay to use Facebook to stay in contact with industry peer groups at work, but demonstrably not okay to use Facebook to play zombie games or Scrabble at work.

Which would your employer prefer? A happy worker, connected tightly into industry best practice and able to reach out for help when needed, or the proverbial mushroom - in the dark and fed on the crap that isolation produces? I know which I’d prefer if you were my employee.

Not to mention, this blocking argument has been seen before. First it was telephones on desks, then long-distance calls, then PCs, then email, then IM, etc., etc. The issue is no different with social networks.

Social networks are just another tool that have incredible potential to help your business if used in the right way. As such, here are the four things I’d suggest you and your business do today to make sure your staff are empowered to use social tools at work but also understand with crystal clarity what is and isn’t acceptable:

• Start with an acceptable use policy - get everyone’s feedback into it, get it drafted and in place on your intranet so everyone can read it. Make sure that your staff know their acces can be monitored and that there are consequences for repeated abuse of the policy (which may range from a warning to dismissal, depending on the abuse).
• Have an internal social network - of some sort. Ensure people can connect to each other within your organisation so that they build familiarity and expertise with the way social tools work.
• Open the firewall - blocking is both unneccessary and a workplace form of the Nanny State. If you trust your people, leading and managing them well, they will be more likely to trust you in return and also be more likely to feel inclined to follow the policies you introduce.
• Encourage use - not only allow it, but actively encourage your people to connect online (as well as more traditional ways) with each other, their peers and your clients and customers. Opening these channels offers fantastic opportunity to increase inputs to the thinking done in your business, offering an attendant potential for increased innovation

There are no perfect answers to this issue, but I think this offers a decent start.

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