Further to the arguments I proffered in my TED X Melbourne talk and my dangerous idea of the Paradox of Ubiquitous Connectivity.....you may want to read this new book: "The Information Diet" by Clay A Johnson!

Synopsis:

The modern human animal spends upwards of 11 hours out of every 24 in a state of constant consumption. Not eating, but gorging on information ceaselessly spewed from the screens and speakers we hold dear. Just as we have grown morbidly obese on sugar, fat, and flour—so, too, have we become gluttons for texts, instant messages, emails, RSS feeds, downloads, videos, status updates, and tweets.

We're all battling a storm of distractions, buffeted with notifications and tempted by tasty tidbits of information. And just as too much junk food can lead to obesity, too much junk information can lead to cluelessness. The Information Diet shows you how to thrive in this information glut—what to look for, what to avoid, and how to be selective. In the process, author Clay Johnson explains the role information has played throughout history, and why following his prescribed diet is essential for everyone who strives to be smart, productive, and sane.

In The Information Diet, you will:

• Discover why eminent scholars are worried about our state of attention and general intelligence
• Examine how today’s media—Big Info—give us exactly what we want: content that confirms our beliefs
• Learn to take steps to develop data literacy, attention fitness, and a healthy sense of humor
• Become engaged in the economics of information by learning how to reward good information providers
• Just like a normal, healthy food diet, The Information Diet is not about consuming less—it’s about finding a healthy balance that works for you.

Disclosure: I havent read it yet- its on order. 

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See the full gallery on Posterous

This has been a fantastic week where my personal investment of time and money has led to discovery, co-creating and new relationships, as well as deepening existing friendships, many of whom had their genesis in Twitter, Facebook or Ning community discussions.

I arrived into Washington DC late Saturday 22 Oct after a cramped cold and hungry but fascinating daytime flight from Beijing across Siberia and Alaska ( see pics!). Oddly enough, I had not revisited DC since university days about 3 centuries ago and was thrilled to have an opportunity to visit and connect with other Amplify Festival friends too who are based here.

I was to join John Hagel, Robbie Richmond and Rita King as speakers on a panel led by Stephen Dahlberg on Creative Leadership at the Creativity in Business Conference http://www.creativity-conference.com (#cibc11) organized by the effervescent Michelle James of http://www.creativeemergence.com fame. The above image summarizes that session.

Ever on the hunt for messengers of wisdom to lure back to Australia for Amplify, I scurried from session to session to uncover as much as possible- my only regret being that 4 concurrent streams forced trade-offs and I couldn't experience all. But, in the spirit of trusting that the wisdom of the universe will lead you to what you need, I was delighted to come away with much resonance for existing ideas, and the splendid gift of 3 brand-new Eureka moments, thanks to
- a model for the design of work for optimal performance from Carol Sanford,
- the concept of a "memory palace" to memorize large amounts of data with as shared by James Jorasch, and
- a framework called Polarity Thinking to understand duel tensions that are inherently present in most scenarios, as shared by Cliff Kayser who hosted the post-conference retreat. This took place at the intimate and spectacular Kayser Ridge- an awesome timber home sleeping 14 in the Shenandoah Mountains of West Virginia. Cliff Kayser, our host and executive coach, Polarity Thinking facilitator, Tao Master, yoga practitioner, artist and poet built this with love and his own two hands. It is a sanctuary for replenishing mind, body and spirit....and I need to add, Cliff is also an amazing cook and host. A truly beautiful human being and the embodiment of what he teaches.

More images of who joined the retreat and brief bios at http://www.kayserridge.com/cliffs-notes/ and more on the Retreat here....highly recommended;
http://www.kayserridge.com

Thank you both Michelle James, aka @CreatvEmergence for organizing this wonderful gathering of minds and Cliff for your hospitality! A special thanks also to the wonderful new people I got to meet and make deep connections with; Carol Sanford, Gregg Fraley, Jack Richiutto, George Por, Bruce Waltuck at the retreat, and others at the conference and dinners.

I look forward to keeping in touch and hopefully working with many of you in future.

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The nation despairs watching the locking of horns between the Australian Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, and the Leader of the Opposition, Tony Abbott over really important matters of national interest like how to manage the growth of carbon emissions, how to humanely and sensitively deal with the arrival of migrants without visas and refugees, how to navigate the economy at a time of unprecedented chaos in markets. 

So, when I watched this clip on a matter of the utmost national importance....

<p>Measuring Up (3min, 27secs) from Graham Cousens on Vimeo.</p>

....I was hugely relieved to see, for once, they were unanimous and united on the criticality of CREATIVITY to our future, and the importance of investing in this capability. 

How have you nurtured creativity today? Your own? Your childrens? Your colleagues? Please share just one tiny thing....

Me? I wrote someone a thank you card. It was to a temporary PA who helped out while my regular PA was on annual holidays. In the card, I mentioned a few things that I thought was very special- like the way she joined in all the creativity workshops our team organises. For me, it was just a small gesture of appreciation....but her reaction was so huge that I was totally bewildered. With tears in her eyes she came to tell me how much she loved working in my team and if we EVER needed any help, just to say the word.  It was then that I recalled how entranced she was when we were acting out stories with crumpled brown paper fashioned into hand puppets and telling stories through the voices of the inner child...and I understood. 

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That moment was TED. My first. Not as attendee...as SPEAKER! ( Lol...I am willing to put myself through torture again should  anyone think my future ideas worthy of another talk!)

And to be totally honest...it was not quite TED Global, it was TED X Melbourne- an independently organised event licensed by TED. It's like the Teddie Bear version, but it's also the edge of innovation from whence Big Bear TED draws it's next hits, so not exactly a walk in the park! And it's the same sort of crowd...highly intelligent, accomplished change agents, tech savvy, edge-dwelling, hyper-connected, passionate about ideas and with ambition to change the world. As audiences go, I don't think they come any more challenging than that!

The next big hurdle was finding an "IDEA WORTH SPREADING" within the theme of the event: Innovation. Do you know how hard it is to come up with a really NEW idea? Something that is not just an echo chamber? And that you can credibly talk to?

I had my concept very early on, then had to decide how to build it by drawing on tens of millions of accumulated ideas and distilled wisdom since the days humans started fashioning tools and leaving our interpretation of the world on the walls of caves. Then...how to narrow that down! Brevity is a quality I have sought to conquer all my life. Twitter has made an enormous contribution, but I was hugely challenged in picking out what to put in and what to leave out in 18 precious minutes whilst weaving drama and story, tension and resolution, strong beginning and climactic ending, with emotional connection.

I read somewhere that a good speaker on the paid circuit, (ie one who earns a living from conference speaking and does not have another day job on top of it) would spend up to 35 hours to prepare a 1 hour talk.

I would suggest that one can trebble that time for a TED 18 minute talk- especially if it's not something you do day in and day out. 

I had about 1 month notice of the invitation, and early on decided that it wasn't enough time to work with slides. Having attended TED Global twice as an audience member, as well as being the curator for AMPLIFY FESTIVAL and a regular at PICNIC, PopTech, Aspen Ideas Festival and the Business Innovation Factory, I have found that slides blur in my mind after a day of talk after talk after talk....so the presentations that demanded that I listen to only the speaker were somehow retained with greater impact.

But another reason for this decision is that I am accutely aware that as a digital immigrant born in 1961, I simply haven't mastered the mouse flick to sell my shtick effortlessly and slick. So I said: pass. More pressure therefore on ME to keep my audience enthralled- and that in the last slot on a Friday afternoon!

Most people who know me would think I am very comfortable with public speaking. I do a lot of it and I have overcome shyness...but this time, I was throwing up for two days- the last time 5 minutes before I went on the stage! Whether it was stress or if I caught the same viral enteritis that brought down my 13 year old daughter's friend who flew to Melbourne with us, I dont know. The poor kid was so ill and feverish that I had to arrange for a chauffeured car to take her to the airport to fly back to her mum as I took off for the Melbourne Convention Centre 30 minutes before my speaking slot. All in a day's work for a working mum!

But it's true what the experts say: "It all comes together when you go live on stage!

When I walked onto that big round red rug and saw the clock ticking....18:00, 17:59, 17:58, 17:57..instead of the choking anxiety that debilitated me moments before, an invisible fairy godmother cloaked me in a beam of light and confidence from who knows where! In practising, I did an early version of the talk to two of my team members, and the only other practise audience I had was my daughter and her sick friend in the hotel room- the rest was me in the bathroom mirror! So I was quite taken aback when the audience actually laughed....I hadn't anticipated that....my kids always say my jokes are "SO LAME"!

I had taken a bit of a risk with a message that was truly heartfelt, but that many of the social media and internet junkies ( of whom I am an honorary member!) could construe as being anti social media or anti-computers. And indeed, some did. But I was relieved when by and large, the feedback I had at the post TED cocktail party and ever since then in a constant stream of tweets, blogposts and LinkedIn requests, that my talk HAD provoked reflection and stimulated people to think more deeply. ( The video is not yet available, and I will insert it when it's up, but my talk was about The Maker Instinct- the relationship of how we learn by making things in a physical sense and how using ALL our senses and intelligences, underpin our ability to create and innovate.)

My final reflection on this experience I could not include in my TED Talk....I needed the reflection time after for its message to crystallise although it did pop into my conscious mind as I was in the process.....and that is:

The "MAKING" of a speech is in itself an enormous act of personal ( and professional) innovation and courage.

It forces you to let go of fear, to find courage, to hold opposable ideas in your mind, to anticipate objections, to think with both reason and emotion, to experiment, to fail, to stand up and try again.

(The proviso is that you do it yourself...don't outsource it! )

And THAT's why I'd jump at another opportunity like this. Speeches are a pain...they take HOURS to prepare, can totally tank if you misread your brief, but you learn so much about how to communicate and engage others in the process.

So here's my next big idea:

I think delivering an 18 minute speech on a big idea or value should be a mandatory hiring test for all people leaders!  

( Hint: That may be an idea worth spreading! What do you think? Shall I start working on that in case someone wants to give me another go at this? )

(On 25 Nov I received the video link to YOUTUBE- so now you can see me in my imperfect glory...and you can see I'm actually having fun!) 

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In preparation for a proposed talk at TED X Melbourne, I have been doing a bit of reading and research on creative emergence, complex systems, interconnectedness, strategic decisions, community, sustainability and change ! Yip, just the sort of stuff that will keep you indoors on a beautiful sunny Spring morning in Sydney, when the rest of your family is frolicking on the beach. 

I also found this poem, which I think I may use to illustrate a point about the role of leaders in times of rapidly accelerating change and ambiguity....that sometimes, evil and good present in indistinguishable form- aided by an abundance of information channels, which means anyone can peddle any story, and people don't know who or what to believe. 

Take any big and complex issue....or dilemmas if you like, because whichever course of action taken to address these issues, there's a trade-off choice- one bad thing instead of a badder thing, or one bitter pill to swallow for the greater good...Global Climate Change, Carbon Tax, Mining Tax, Coal Seam Gas drilling, Illegal immigration.....a long list of complex interconnected systems and not a lot of consensus between good and evil.

Populist leaders exploit these scenarios for short-term gains by polarising communities and playing fear-mongering cards instead of encouraging enquiry, questioning and debate. A confused electorate can be easily swayed by a simplistic reduction of a complex issue that appears to provide certainty, clarity and convenience that fit with what people want to hear, no matter how ill-informed or cancerous to the greater good.

In Australia we have a famous example of an outspoken politician stating publicly that "Climate Change is crap!", only to be haunted by that statement when the leadership tables were upturned and,in the full glare of the media, he found himself as Leader of the Opposition with a lot of explaining to do for THAT remark. Reducing the complex by oversimplication is a strategy that works well in mobilizing the ignorant (confused, overloaded) masses for a short-term gain, but its a poisoned chalice. 

Far harder is it to take time out for questioning, fact-gathering and reflection to understand the complex relationships between things and set a vision for a pathway through a complex issue. It doesn't work well as a slogan or as a 140 character tweet! 

In an age of interconnectedness and abundant information, citizens will have to do much more personal homework to inform themselves and to hold decisionmakers accountable for short-term decisions with long term consequences that will prove poisonous to our future, our environment and our economy. 

Leaders who face up to tough messages, who understand the interconnectedness of complex systems....they have to be the sensemakers. They have to connect the dots for people and paint the pictures of change through their words - through stories that change hearts and minds- one by one. Truth is the new scarcity. And integrity right alongside! 

As volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity increase, people are looking for leadership that can:

• See through the messes and contradictions
• See a future that others cannot yet see
• Find a viable direction by which to proceed
• See hope on the other side of trouble
• Inspire with their message, attract followers and build momentum for change

It's not easy, but it matters.

And for the record, I am opposed to Coal Seam Gas Mining because in spite of its apparent good in terms of job creation and clean energy in the form of gas, its the permanent damage to water tables ( see report http://lockthegate.org.au/documents/doc-279-scoping-study -groundwater-impacts-of-csg.pdf) in a land dogged by drought that I cannot get beyond.  We have many alternative sources for energy- there is none for water. Not blind opposition to progress, but opposition to BLIND progress.

And I am prepared to speak out. My question to all decision-makers and voters is: How will the future judge you if you don't?  

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THEM

By Cliff Crego

Along a trail

through a high
cottonwood meadow,

horsemint and death camas

grow side by side,

the one healing herb,

the other poison root.

Such is the strangeness

of the way things are.

Sure sign of "evil"

as a dark

force of nature,

out
to do us in?

Quite doubtful . . .

More the ever-present possibility,

as we cross paths with the good,

and the bad,

of not knowing the difference 
between them.

Horsemint

/> Death Camas

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I presented this topic at the IQPC Reputation Management conference in Sydney today, with special reference to the Amplify Festival as a case study that encapsulates much of the established, proven ingredients for cultivating innovation, and demonstrating the impact on reputation.  (Drawn on research of MIT Sloan School of business and the Innovators DNA).  Regarding the problem with organisational structures and silo thinking that impedes enterprise collaboration in the digital era of abundant information, I referenced the most recent McKinsey Quarterly, Q3, 2011- an article called We are all marketers now, and also interviews with 3 executives leading the adaptation of their businesses to an era of social engagement. I linked that back to the Onnovation Festival and how we use that as a testbed to demonstrate the power of connected platforms and drawing on diversity of talent- including partners, customers....and even competitors! 

Here are my slides- it's been fun creating the story for you. Obviously, it works best if I accompany it with story! 

I have removed all the embedded video from the slide show and instead will just provide embed links to the ones I used. They are all saved on the YouTube channel of AMPLIFYfestival. 

Amplify Festival 2011: What is it? Highights

Yammer- a connective platform for real-time collaboration and serendipidous discovery

Apart for sharing all of the AMPLIFY FESTIVAL content with the Australian public via free live audio feed and published video content, we also created the world's first Smartphone famine to raise awareness of those who are not able to enjoy the connectibity we take for granted. We raised $40 000 after dollar-matching by the AMP Foundation. 

And here is the Amplify Effect measurement tool we designed and built. Expressed as a single number, the algorithm behind it counts the physical attendance (captured by RFID swipes), and the online engagement generated.  The video explains it! And we are white labelling it for commercial use by conferences and events- all profits will be ploughed back into growing and innovating Amplify! Contact @maverickwoman via Twitter for more information or write to annalie Killian at amplify (at) amp.com.au

 If you missed it, I will be talking again on the subject of culture at The Internet Show at the Sydney Convention Centre on 27-28 October. If you're in the USA, I will be speaking at the Business Creativity conference in Washington DC on 23 October. There's a fantastic line-up of speakers- so I am thrilled to be able to participate! 

Innovation is my passion and working on culture is my specialty. I am always interested to learn from other people and likewise, happy to share my experiences. We learn most when we have to explain! 

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Along with expensive CRM systems, every brand under the sun, including local chicken take-away shop,Pet-products, several coffee shops that I frequent all the way to 4 different airline programmes have been issuing me with loyalty cards....and somehow neither Marketing Departments nor wallet designers give any thought to how customers are meant to carry that many cards with them. Handbags are growing bigger and heavier as we carry more cards, more devices ( yes, no point to the handbag if it can't fit my iPad thanks!) amongst the other stuff that women have to carry around....like the kitchen sink, and everything inbetween on behalf of all other family members. 

In a handbag clean-up tonight, I counted 51 of the plastic cards loyalty cards and a further 18 paper cards- and this did NOT include a driver's license, Medicare, Private Health Fund,  2 credit cards and 3 ATM cards. There is no wallet/ purse that can hold all of these AS WELL AS coins and cash. 

So, if you're in marketing....I just wanted to let you know....get ahead of the rest and give me a solution I don't have to carry around in my wallet....can't I just wave my mobile phone or something? 

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[View the story "AmplifyFest Resources" on Storify]

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[View the story "Amplify - Everything Connects" on Storify]

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Enormous thanks and gratitude to Ralf Lippold, Blogger in residence, for this record and synthesis created of Amplify Festival 2011.  I am sure that Ralf's prolific tweeting was a large contributor to our humble efforts resulted in us being the top trending hashtage on Twitter several times during the week!

http://leanthinkers.blogspot.com/2011/06/work-in-progress-when-reality-hits.html

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[View the story "AmplifyFest Highlights" on Storify]

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via amplifyeffect.com.au

The Amplify Festival team designed and developed the Amplify Effect- a meme tracker that can follow how ideas from all your speakers, hashtags and RFID registrations are spread via the internet. It's simple- just like you might hide a smiley or emoticon to a piece of text, you add a "badge" for an idea inspired by a speaker. Et voila!

Want to use this for your next conference? Contact amplify at amp dot com dot au

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In the next 24 hours, I'll be dead …dead silent that is…and I just wanted to let you know why.

Together with my team at AMP, we have created the world's first Smartphone famine as an innovative fundraiser for the Amplify Festival community project we are supporting- One laptop per Child.

So……don't send me flowers when I'm dead!

Instead….

Sponsor me for the 24 hour Smartphone famine for every hour I last without my smart phone. I'm planning to do 25 hours- so you could  start with a $25 pledge (or more if you are feeling generous) Click through to 

http://amplify11.wufoo.com/forms/the-24-hour-smartphone-famine-annalie-killian/

We are silencing the airwaves, our twittering fingers, and cold-turkeyeing our digital addiction in a symbolic act of abstinence. Enforced reflection on the privilege of what connectedness means in our quest to raise money for "One laptop per Child" Australia. Our project goal is to equip every child in a classroom at Acacia Primary School outside Alice Springs in the Red Centre of the Australian Outback with their own connectivity- a  laptop.  We need to raise $14000, and I am hoping to raise $1000.

By way of reward, you can laugh at me on YouTube anticipating the lockdown of my phone from midday tomorrow for 24 hours, and dreading the consequences of what it feels like to be "disconnected" and unable to participate in the digital life and economy which we've come to take for granted. The digital divide is real, and in Australia 400 000 children are condemned to life in the slow lane - with disconnectedness and digital illiteracy a new poverty trap that they are unlikely to escape for every day they are left outside of the loop.

And in case you haven't heard of Tiffany Shlain' s "CONNECTED: The Film" that premiered at Sundance Festival earlier this year, its worth checking it out.  Here were here goals in making the movie:

So...will you help please?

Thanks...;-))) knew you would!

ANNALIE KILLIAN, Catalyst for Magic

@maverickwoman

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The above sentence has 4 of my favourite words in it (the only two missing would be serendipity and laughter).  

That sentence could suffice as my epitaph....it sums up my life's work.

So imagine how joyful the serendipitous discovery of a video link featuring design genius Michael Wolff- via Facebook in a post on the wall of John Hagel ( discovered via a comment by Mark Zawacki on another of John's posts about how red wine and chocolate are scientifically endorsed brain foods in which I was tagged seeing we are all three connected via the upcoming Amplify Festival that I am producing) in which he talks about these very words as "muscles" that he can't operate without.

Without much further digression...let's get straight to it. Wonderful stuff.

It's Mother's Day in Sydney today, and I have already had a sensory wake-up in the form of the cry of my next-door neghbour's new-born baby. I was not grumpy....just reminded of what Motherhood means. ( And kids are taking me to see the new French film, Babies, for Mother's Day!) 

This Mother has been spending far too much time connecting dots digitally lately ( blame the above-mentioned Amplify Festival) that this video's visual imagery and messages reminded me of how I enjoy looking at the world from the scale of walking with my own two feet and appreciating what is there in front of my eyes. I am going outside right now to enjoy in the crisp autumn air on my skin, look at the ants scurrying on the pavement in and out of cracks delivering breakfast, smell the scent of the waves breaking on Balmoral beach and enjoy the sounds of my home suburb waking up. 

Have a beautiful Sunday, wherever you are. And thank you for taking the time to share a little magic via my blog. Hopefully, I have catalysed your curiosity to take a little exploration too on this day! 

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Professor Roel Vertegaal's PaperPhone is best described as a flexible iPhone. The world’s first interactive paper computer is set to revolutionize the world of interactive computing. “This is the future. Everything is going to look and feel like this within five years,” says creator Roel Vertegaal, the director of Queen’s University Human Media Lab,. “This computer looks, feels and operates like a small sheet of interactive paper. You interact with it by bending it into a cell phone, flipping the corner to turn pages, or writing on it with a pen.” The smartphone prototype, called PaperPhone is best described as a flexible iPhone – it does everything a smartphone does, like store books, play music or make phone calls. But its display consists of a 9.5 cm diagonal thin film flexible E Ink display. The flexible form of the display makes it much more portable that any current mobile computer: it will shape with your pocket. The Queen's University human media lab has more information.

And while on the subject of variations on a theme....check out this a raft of new innovations in materials and applications through which to make computing pervasive and ubiquitous! 

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I woke up this Easter Sunday to a fabulous post on Facebook by one of the top 10 Future of Mankind thought leaders I refer to, JP Rangaswami, Chief Scientist at Salesforce, who in turn lists his top thought leaders- all of whom I have read too, including Emergence by Steven Johnson - a somewhat challenging read because it is a lot of science! 

I love organic analogies....it helps explain technological evolution as just a natural and normal part of human evolution, and not some cold evil force that takes our humanity away as some people believe...which is why I love how he explains how Twitter, Chatter (and of course he couldn't mention Yammer seeing it's a competitor to Salesforce's Chatter), acts as pheromones that enable "ambient findability" for us all in the Networked Economy.  "Ambient findability" - the word in itself is one that has surfaced heavily in the last 3 months across a number of channels, so yes, I would say it's a buzzword on the rise. 

Talk about "Ambient findability":  Look at this article on which odours bees respond to that I found whilst searching for an image to go with this blogpost! Another proofpoint!  

Seeing you may not be able to access JP's post which was posted on Facebook, I am reproducing it in full hereunder with credits. Enjoy! 

Annalie

Introduction: Background and influences

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, then you’d have come across the name of Clay Spinuzzi. I’ve been following his work for about five years now, and had the privilege of meeting him for breakfast while vacationing in Austin in the summer of 2008. Clay introduced the term “ambient signalling” into my thought process, a key ingredient in the thought process that led to this post. It made me read his work on organisational genres and on participatory design, often within the perspective of networks.

A number of other people have also influenced me considerably when it comes to this particular post, and I’d like to declare my debt to them at the outset. Howard Rheingold(whom I was meant to meet earlier this week, but couldn’t, as a result of my unwisely choosing to tear ankle ligaments rather than fall down) really set the scene for me over two decades ago in his Whole Earth Review and WELL writings, followed by his excellent book on The Virtual Community in the early 1990s; one of his other books, Smart Mobs, which I read nearly a decade ago, was also a key influence.

The next breakthrough came when, as a subscriber to Chris “Rageboy” Locke’s Entropy Gradient Reversals, I was taken on my first ride on the Cluetrain. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve read The Cluetrain Manifesto, but it’s in double digits. [Disclosure: I met Chris soon after the book was published, Doc soon after that, David shortly after that and Rick a few years later; they remain good friends of mine, and I was deeply honoured when they asked me to contribute a guest chapter to the 10th Anniversary edition of the book.] Cluetrain really got me thinking about community interaction from a business perspective, beyond the fortress-like walls of the corporation.

Around the same time, I had the opportunity to read Amy Jo Kim’s excellent Community Building on the Web. Over the years I’ve bought at least five copies of the book, it’s one of those regularly borrowed, rarely returned; I had the opportunity to meet her at Supernova some years ago. The book sparked my personal interest in game design and game mechanics from a business perspective, something Amy Jo continues to work on with her usual flair.

Shortly after that, I read Steven Johnson’s Emergence, deepening my understanding of slime mould and ants and swarming, all against the context I’ve described above. I’ve had the opportunity to meet Steven since, and continue to follow his work as well; he really helped me understand something about headlessness, how everything is a node in the network.

The final, and critical, influence was that of Clay Shirky, whose blog I followed religiously over the years, even when his output shifted more to books and speeches. It was he who helped me bring all this together with the trenchancy of his analysis of how communities work. Insights from him on three aspects helped establish my thinking: to create sustainable commons material, the cost of repair should be at least as low as the cost of damage (the undo button in Wikipedia is an example); that there is no such thing as information overload, only filter failure (which helped me understand something about the recommending, curating, filtering roles of network members); and that in the age of knowledge workers, much good can be achieved by effective use of what Clay termsCognitive Surplus, the title of his most recent book. I’ve known Clay for some time as well. We had a delightful lunch together in Davis this year, and I visited him at Tisch when I was last in New York, a wonderful set-up.

Why am I telling you all this? Two reasons. Firstly, to give thanks where thanks is due, to point out the people who have influenced and inspired me in this particular context. Secondly, as a consequence, to give you the opportunity to go deeper into the influences, research things for yourself. Some of you obviously know all this, have read all the books, met the authors; for you, this may seem onerous and repetitive, and you’ve probably skipped all this anyway. This introductory section is for the rest of the readers.

Pheromones

For a few years now, I’ve been looking at information systems and services as if they were biological in origin, serene in the attitude that, if the 20th century was meant to be the age of physics, the century we live in will be characterised as the age of biology. Using that perspective, it was only a matter of time before the “ambient signalling” spoken about by Clay Spinuzzi would start feeling like the pheromones laid down by ants as they go about their chores. Which, unsurprisingly, led me to Wikipedia, to start reading up on pheromones.

There I found the definition of “pheromone” to be: a secreted or excreted chemical factor that triggers a social response in members of the same species. Now that interested me greatly. A “social response” as opposed to any other kind of response. So I looked further, and Wikipedia informed me that Peter Karlson and Martin Luscher introduced the term “pheromone” in 1959, to influence specific behaviours from two or more “conspecifics”, members of the same species. The intended etymology of the neologism was itself of interest: they formed this word from the Greek roots pherein (to transport, to bear) andhormone (stimulus, impetus): so a pheromone became something that was a carrier of stimuli. Hmmm.

Types of pheromones

It turns out that there are many types of pheromones, classified in different ways. You have the concept of primer, releaser and information pheromones: primers kick off changes in development events, releasers make you change your behaviour, and information pheromones just tell you things. If you look further, you find far more detailed classifications of pheromones: aggregation, alarm, epideictic, signal, terrotorial, trail, sex, and so on. If you’re interested, please read the Wikipedia article on pheromones yourself, which gives you the basics on pheromone types.

Intriguingly, “there are physical limits on the practical size of organisms employing pheromones”.

Twitter, Chatter and their pub-sub nature

I’ve always thought of Twitter as a publish-subscribe mechanism, and, in similar vein, ofChatter as an enterprise bus with pub-sub built in. [Disclosure: I'm Chief Scientist atSalesforce, the people behind Chatter. It's one of the key reasons I joined the company]. I’ve been lucky enough to work with people who’ve believed in bus-based architectures for some time now; and, ever since delving into EDI in the early 1980s, I’ve been a convert to recipient “beneficiary” driven transaction and messaging systems.

Over the years, as I’ve continued to play with Twitter and with Chatter, their innate strength-from-simplicity has become more apparent to me. Which is why I wrote posts describing Twitter as a “submarine in the ocean of the web” some years ago. I’ve been able to use Twitter to rescue hamsters lost down holes in floorboards, to get visas for foreign travel, to collect hand-me-down recipes for ragu, to acquire limited-release CDs in the city of origin, the list goes on and on. And, now that I’ve been using Chatter in anger for the past six months, I’ve been able to learn something about its differentiated value. How following “things” as well as people becomes valuable in a business context. How exception handling becoming the norm is no longer a frightening thought. How closed and open groups can overlap and coexist. How institutional memory is established and rekindled, how new forms of knowledge leadership emerge as a result.

Tweets as pheromones, and their Chatter equivalents

Nearly a year ago, I spent some time looking at why we share and what we share, using tools like Twitter. More recently, I took this further, in a three-part post looking at social objects and their role in such communal enterprise activities, which you can read here, hereand here. And a few weeks ago, I tried to put all this in the context of why sharing is important in the enterprise, a theme I looked at tongue-in-cheek here.

Which brings me to the nub of this post.

“Birds do it, bees do it, even educated fleas do it”

Like falling in love, providing signals meant for sharing is normal and natural. We have to start thinking of tweets as the knowledge worker’s pheromones. Signalling. Alerting. Marking out “territory”. Warning off. Pointing towards food or shelter. Looking for relationship. Sometimes preparatory, sometimes catalytic, sometimes just plain old informative.

But always social, always designed to share.

Sometimes only visible to your “conspecifics”, to those belonging to your own species.

Sometimes visible to all.

Sometimes reinforced by repeated overlays and relays.

But always always social, always always designed to share.

More later, as I extend this theme into compound and multi-authored shared signals, and of the immense value in being able to record, replay, aggregate, analyse.

That’s for my next post….that’s if I find the comments and feedback such that writing a next post becomes worth the while. [Reminds me of an apocryphal Churchill-Bernard Shaw story. Shaw is meant to have sent Churchill a pair of tickets to the opening night of one of his plays, saying “bring a friend… if you have one”. Churchill is meant to have replied, returning the tickets, “can’t make opening night. will make second. if you have one.”

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