Hi

[Mark Mims]

Hi All,

Don't know some of you yet, but wanted to say hi and share the two cents I've scraped together so far...

This is the future of the collaborative workforce.  I think companies, especially small knowledge-based companies, will almost exclusively move to this model in the near future.  It's a clear step in bootstrapping a small business into life without reliance on raising capital.  I think there are many companies out there, like mine, that have been accidentally built this way without any clue about how it was done.  Anything Conjunctured could do to help smooth that process out for new companies and help smash through that learning curve would make it a great resource for people to use.  Not sure what the best revenue model would be though.

I think of Conjunctured as a movement and an excellent title for a book.  I think the actual company might be better served in supporting this "movement" with talks, training, and promoting the concepts and tools.  Probably chase projects with the same entity... worked for thoughworks and object people etc etc.  Might be muddying the water though, dunno.

Sorry so random, I'm late for a meeting... gotta go!

Later,
Mark


--
Mark Mims, Ph.D.
Agile Dynamics
mark...@agiledynamics.com
Desk: (512)879-6371
Cell: (512)751-5076

[David Walker]

Mark, thanks for the note! I too think this may be the way of future business models---I think that's why everyone is so excited about seeing everything come to fruition. You're spot on about supporting the movement through talks, etc. I'm excited to pass on the knowledge to as many people as possible.

David

[Kevin Koym]

Howard Rheingold's TED talk might be interesting in the context. 

http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/216

he is talking about a new mode of work- Rheingold's work and his book Smart Mobs is one of the original inspirations of my work.

Kevin

--
Kevin Koym
kevin...@enterpriseteaming.com
+1.512.698.9328 mobile

Enterprise Teaming, LLC
http://www.enterpriseteaming.com

"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God" (Matthew 5:9)

[Mark Mims]

Yeah, I guess this all totally fits in line with your book... !viva la revolucion! ( or however that's supposed to look in espanol )

[John Erik Metcalf]

I love that guy. The guys at Radar know him. I'm determined to meet him someday. :)

have you seen his new vblog http://vlog.rheingold.com/  --it's actually not that interested, in my experience. heh

--
John Erik Metcalf
tel: 210.724.3619
fax: 563.405.4275
email: jmetc...@gmail.com
web log: http://blog.think27.com
co-company: http://www.conjunctured.com
resume/cv: http://www.linkedin.com/in/johnerikmetcalf

[ju...@etcee.com]

Drew was talking about two articles in BusinessWeek today on
innovation, or "co-innovation" as Drew called it.

http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/mar2008/id2008035_909480.htm
http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/mar2008/id20080319_656312.htm

The point in both was about building cross-company and cross-industry
innovation teams as a way to find and develop to products and
services.

My point in bringing this up is that collaboration in this way is
going to be a *feature* of industry in the near future.

Learning (and sharing) how to make it work, how to grow it, how to
deliver value with it will be a tremendous benefit.

Todd

--
Todd Sundsted
http://NotAnMBA.com/
http://twitter.com/NotAnMBA
ban...@NotAnMBA.com



On Mar 20, 11:43 am, "David Walker" <david.wal...@302designs.com>
wrote:

> Mark, thanks for the note! I too think this may be the way of future
> business models---I think that's why everyone is so excited about seeing
> everything come to fruition. You're spot on about supporting the movement
> through talks, etc. I'm excited to pass on the knowledge to as many people
> as possible.
>
> David
>

> On Thu, Mar 20, 2008 at 10:13 AM, Mark Mims <mark.m...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hi All,
>
> > Don't know some of you yet, but wanted to say hi and share the two cents
> > I've scraped together so far...
>
> > This is the future of the collaborative workforce. I think companies,
> > especially small knowledge-based companies, will almost exclusively move to
> > this model in the near future. It's a clear step in bootstrapping a small
> > business into life without reliance on raising capital. I think there are
> > many companies out there, like mine, that have been accidentally built this
> > way without any clue about how it was done. Anything Conjunctured could do
> > to help smooth that process out for new companies and help smash through
> > that learning curve would make it a great resource for people to use. Not
> > sure what the best revenue model would be though.
>
> > I think of Conjunctured as a movement and an excellent title for a book.
> > I think the actual company might be better served in supporting this
> > "movement" with talks, training, and promoting the concepts and tools.
> > Probably chase projects with the same entity... worked for thoughworks and
> > object people etc etc. Might be muddying the water though, dunno.
>
> > Sorry so random, I'm late for a meeting... gotta go!
>
> > Later,
> > Mark
>
> > --
> > Mark Mims, Ph.D.
> > Agile Dynamics

> > mark.m...@agiledynamics.com
> > Desk: (512)879-6371
> > Cell: (512)751-5076

[Kevin Koym]

i had heard about the vlog-but have not watched it.  I do keep tabs and read his blog at http://www.smartmobs.com

also, somewhere, there is a set of podcast of his lectures at UC Berkeley. I do not know where they are off the top of my head...  but they are worthwhile.

take care,
kevin

[John Erik Metcalf]

sooo.. what the hell is a design director? at southby i had a long conversation with yahoo!'s director of design. the guy was amazing. --but i couldnt figure out what he did - "he get's paid to think at 80,000 feet" is what he told me.

 

it's amazing how the stuff we talk about everyday, and seems easy and second nature to us, is such a total stretch to these big companies. this is why google can't innovate from within, right?

> > Desk: (512)879-6371
> > Cell: (512)751-5076

[Matt Revelle]

Framed by PG's essay, one could say that this director of design is
needed because everyone doing the work is caught in a hierarchy and
only considered 1/b^(h+1) of a person. But the director is considered
one whole person on the top-tier and is able to communicate with and
influence other directors while the craftsman are working many floors
down.

Google would suffer from the same cost of hierarchy, but I think they
have another problem. They predominantly hire from academia and
creativity is frequently absent in that realm. This will probably be
Google's undoing, they hire PhDs to tweak their search/ad algorithms
but the gains are diminishing -- some startup of a handful of really
smart and creative folks are going to use their imagination to come up
with a different system that performs significantly better. But, then
again, I'm writing this message in GoogleMail, sending it to a
GoogleGroups list, while secretly wishing that I would get a chance to
work at Google. =D

[Matt Revelle]

That's 1/b^h of a person, and it's not really that because companies
usually aren't trees with a single root node and a constant branching
factor.

(Sorry for error, just got up and haven't imbibed caffeine.)

</ocd>

[ju...@etcee.com]

I don't know what the right model is for large companies. Maybe the
current model (small companies predominantly innovate, large companies
predominantly acquire) _is_ the model. Google certainly seems to be
doing a lot of acquiring. Part of our goal (big goal, not the get-the-
book-done next goal) is to explore the space between the two to see if
we can find other/better models.

Todd

--
Todd Sundsted
http://NotAnMBA.com/
http://twitter.com/NotAnMBA
ban...@NotAnMBA.com

On Mar 21, 10:36 pm, "John Erik Metcalf" <jmetcal...@gmail.com> wrote:
> sooo.. what the hell is a design director? at southby i had a long
> conversation with yahoo!'s director of design. the guy was amazing. --but i
> couldnt figure out what he did - "he get's paid to think at 80,000 feet" is
> what he told me.
>
> it's amazing how the stuff we talk about everyday, and seems easy and second
> nature to us, is such a total stretch to these big companies. this is why
> google can't innovate from within, right?
>

> On Thu, Mar 20, 2008 at 9:41 PM, todd.sunds...@gmail.com <j...@etcee.com>

> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > Drew was talking about two articles in BusinessWeek today on
> > innovation, or "co-innovation" as Drew called it.
>

> >http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/mar2008/id2008035_909480...
> >http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/mar2008/id20080319_65631...

>
> > The point in both was about building cross-company and cross-industry
> > innovation teams as a way to find and develop to products and
> > services.
>
> > My point in bringing this up is that collaboration in this way is
> > going to be a *feature* of industry in the near future.
>
> > Learning (and sharing) how to make it work, how to grow it, how to
> > deliver value with it will be a tremendous benefit.
>
> > Todd
>
> > --
> > Todd Sundsted

> >http://NotAnMBA.com/<http://notanmba.com/>

> --
> John Erik Metcalf
> tel: 210.724.3619
> fax: 563.405.4275

> email: jmetcal...@gmail.com

[Matt Revelle]

I think someone on the list may have already mentioned it, but SEMCO (http://semco.locaweb.com.br/en/
) makes for an interesting study. They're a large Brazilian
conglomerate with policies such as: set your own salary, define your
own work schedule, and organization-wide profit sharing. There's also
a book, "Maverick" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maverick_%28book%29),
written about their organization.

Innovation requires risk so many people avoid it. A large
organization could envelop many high-risk teams -- provide support in
exchange for a percentage of profit. This is what the new wave of VCs
are doing: give less to more.

[John Erik Metcalf]

i dont think anyone has mentioned Semco. i'm now very interested in reading Maverick and The Seven-Day Weekend: Changing the Way Work Works. (didnt find either in wikisummaries.org - dang it)

email: jmetc...@gmail.com

[ju...@etcee.com]

Strategy+Business did great coverage of Semco and Ricardo Semler

http://www.strategy-business.com/press/16635507/05408

It's all about giving people the ability to make decisions and
committing to yourself (and to them) that you'll live with the
outcomes--good and bad.

I can speak from experience--it's hard when the "people" are 7 of your
friends who you know well--it's harrowing when it's a large team,
department or a company. Because most places, it's your job on the
line if it goes down wrong.

Todd

On Mar 23, 10:58 pm, "John Erik Metcalf" <jmetcal...@gmail.com> wrote:
> i dont think anyone has mentioned Semco. i'm now very interested in reading
> Maverick and The Seven-Day Weekend: Changing the Way Work Works. (didnt find
> either in wikisummaries.org - dang it)
>
>
>
> On Sun, Mar 23, 2008 at 12:57 PM, Matt Revelle <mreve...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I think someone on the list may have already mentioned it, but SEMCO (
> >http://semco.locaweb.com.br/en/
> > ) makes for an interesting study. They're a large Brazilian
> > conglomerate with policies such as: set your own salary, define your
> > own work schedule, and organization-wide profit sharing. There's also
> > a book, "Maverick" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maverick_%28book%29),
> > written about their organization.
>
> > Innovation requires risk so many people avoid it. A large
> > organization could envelop many high-risk teams -- provide support in
> > exchange for a percentage of profit. This is what the new wave of VCs
> > are doing: give less to more.
>