March 13, 2010 at 2:22 pm
Comments posted to this topic are about the item The Corporate Borg
March 13, 2010 at 3:25 pm
Information and knowledge sharing is one thing. At the other end of the spectrum is being mindlessly assimilated like the borg. You just do as you are told, nod 'yes' to the boss and do your job. Sure you might be able to share some info that way - but that isn't teaching.
We need to share in a fashion where we teach and don't simply just display the knowledge - like the borg.
Jason...AKA CirqueDeSQLeil
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March 15, 2010 at 6:26 am
The editorial refers to "this article", but it doesn't appear to have a link to the article referenced, so I can't judge that.
One of the key problems with information is filtering. Data is only valuable once it has been given a correct relative importance. Far too many BI "solutions" assume all data is equally valuable and equally important. If you can avoid that, then data/knowledge sharing has value. If not, it's just noise.
- Gus "GSquared", RSVP, OODA, MAP, NMVP, FAQ, SAT, SQL, DNA, RNA, UOI, IOU, AM, PM, AD, BC, BCE, USA, UN, CF, ROFL, LOL, ETC
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"Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everyone agrees it's old enough to know better." - Anon
March 15, 2010 at 6:42 am
Wisdom is a combination of experience, knowledge and gut feeling. I haven't seen a data type for gut feeling, yet.
Can you provide a link to the article?
March 15, 2010 at 6:57 am
Whoops, the article is here: http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9160118/Tap_the_wisdom_of_employees_and_boost_the_bottom_line_
March 15, 2010 at 7:22 am
Okay. Now that I've read the article, I have to say I like some of the ideas in it.
It's nothing particularly original, but it's a good expression of the idea. The Pfizer program, for example, is pretty much what every online tech forum does, but for managers instead of techies. Basically, someone posts a question or problem, and other people suggest solutions, and there's a discussion on the merits of the various solutions, and you hopefully end up with a good idea on how to solve something. Nothing new there, but their version of it is a nice evolution of the concept.
- Gus "GSquared", RSVP, OODA, MAP, NMVP, FAQ, SAT, SQL, DNA, RNA, UOI, IOU, AM, PM, AD, BC, BCE, USA, UN, CF, ROFL, LOL, ETC
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"Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everyone agrees it's old enough to know better." - Anon
March 15, 2010 at 7:33 am
I think this is a great idea. I have yet to work somewhere that the executives or managers were the only ones who came up with ideas that would help the business run more efficiently. Most often, it's the folks in the trenches who know where the pain points are, and only when those are clearly explained can the management do what they do best, give time, money and support to the best ideas to help the company get where it needs to go.
Not sure about the reward approach, be interested on more info as to why Pfizer thinks monetary rewards are counter-productive.
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March 15, 2010 at 7:39 am
jcrawf02 (3/15/2010)
I think this is a great idea. I have yet to work somewhere that the executives or managers were the only ones who came up with ideas that would help the business run more efficiently. Most often, it's the folks in the trenches who know where the pain points are, and only when those are clearly explained can the management do what they do best, give time, money and support to the best ideas to help the company get where it needs to go.Not sure about the reward approach, be interested on more info as to why Pfizer thinks monetary rewards are counter-productive.
One of the problems with monetary rewards for this kind of thing is it makes it more competitive, less team-building.
If two people suggest solutions, and then discussion by them and a dozen other people result in a hybrid solution that's better than either of the two original ideas, who gets paid? If it's only one of the original suggesters, it discourages healthy discussion and evolution on ideas. If it's everyone involved, then that encourages "me too" posts and such.
If, however, there's merely a recognition award, and perhaps something that gets included in job reviews, based on actual value to the discussions and suggestions, then it encourages more team-building colaboration.
Not sure if that's Pfizer's reason for this, but it's something that's been proven by a number of analyses of "suggestion box" systems for businesses.
Another problem with monetary rewards is it can turn into quite a source of corruption, if the rewards are big enough. The managers pick the solution posted by the person they want to reward, for whatever reason, instead of the solution that's best for the business. Even if it doesn't actually work that way, all it takes is someone creating a rumor that it does, and the whole system becomes more of a problem than a solution.
It's like the "points" systems that some tech forums use. Rarely do they result in an actual improvement in the quality of the solutions being presented.
- Gus "GSquared", RSVP, OODA, MAP, NMVP, FAQ, SAT, SQL, DNA, RNA, UOI, IOU, AM, PM, AD, BC, BCE, USA, UN, CF, ROFL, LOL, ETC
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"Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everyone agrees it's old enough to know better." - Anon
March 15, 2010 at 8:28 am
Not sure how the monetary rewards would change things, but as Gus mentioned, it would introduce issues.
I like the idea of somehow mining knowledge and putting it together in new ways, maybe helping to determine where employees might better fit inside a company.
March 15, 2010 at 12:00 pm
Instead of an SSAS Data Cube we could have a SSBS Borg Cube...
March 15, 2010 at 6:56 pm
On the last page:
"Normally it might have taken weeks for the researcher to find out about that report, if he found out about it at all," Asher says. "We're not ready to put a dollar figure on that, although we will, but we're really speeding velocity here. We're getting things done faster."
Yes, please DO put a dollar figure on it so that when 30% of the workforce is right-sized shareholders can quantify how much "collective intelligence" the organisation has lost - or how much more stupid it has become.
James Stover, McDBA
March 22, 2010 at 7:24 am
This was already a good idea back in the 1960s. Of course people had to communicate by telex or paper mail back then, but it was already known that involving a lot of people early on produced good results, and it was mentioned in books on business. It has been presented as the new wisdom I guess once or twice per decade for the last half century. Things like suggestion schemes and works committees and quality work parties have been with us at least since the 1920s and are based on the same collective intelligence concept, which I suspect was already very old then - perhaps we've had the concept for thousands of years, with its execution constrained by available means of communication.
Tom
March 22, 2010 at 8:42 am
Tom.Thomson (3/22/2010)
This was already a good idea back in the 1960s. Of course people had to communicate by telex or paper mail back then, but it was already known that involving a lot of people early on produced good results, and it was mentioned in books on business. It has been presented as the new wisdom I guess once or twice per decade for the last half century. Things like suggestion schemes and works committees and quality work parties have been with us at least since the 1920s and are based on the same collective intelligence concept, which I suspect was already very old then - perhaps we've had the concept for thousands of years, with its execution constrained by available means of communication.
Yep. It goes WAY back. Versions like getting a second opinion from another doctor, having a thesis reviewed by a committee of people who already have a degree, and juries of one's peers, are all versions of it, and go back quite a few centuries at the very least.
- Gus "GSquared", RSVP, OODA, MAP, NMVP, FAQ, SAT, SQL, DNA, RNA, UOI, IOU, AM, PM, AD, BC, BCE, USA, UN, CF, ROFL, LOL, ETC
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"Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everyone agrees it's old enough to know better." - Anon
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