This journal holds a trace of my journey of
discovery at least the part that has
nothing directly to do with work with clients).
I write to think, to learn,
to nudge ideas around and find the insights they were hiding...
So, a new characterization for my Trace
emerges -- this is my own personal "maker" space, where what I am building
through exploration, discovery and experimentation is myself, my point of view
on architecture and being an architect. This is, then, a learning
lab/playground of a curious mind... hence it is, well, messy! Consider
yourself warned! :-)
Until December entries mass, you might want to take a look at a past
month... say October? No? I
have been tracing my exploration here for close to SIX years, and the archives are linked in the column on the right, with blogrolls
beneath.
The post title is quoting Bob Dylan, of course. And
they are, aren't they? That 60's feel (I infer) is back with new vigor.
The book format that transformed the world has been transformed, and
that alone is transformative. Think what that means, for a child in
India or Africa. Think what that means for Room to Read! Or the too-many
children living under the poverty line in the USA. Think what this
means, for all of us:
"...the biggest ebook-related
threat to the Big Six is called Amazon.com. Until 2008, ebooks were a tiny
market segment, under 1% and easily overlooked; but in 2009 ebook sales began to
rise exponentially, and ebooks now account for over 20% of all fiction sales. In
some areas ebooks are up to 40% of the market and rising rapidly. (I am not
making that last figure up: I'm speaking from my own sales figures.) And
Amazon have got 80% of the ebook retail market." -- Charlie Stross,
Cutting Their Own Throats, 11/2011
From Jobs and the iPod to Gates and vaccines and Zuckerberg and
social, we see the truth in:
"Here’s the truest definition of
power: When you have the ability to not just solve a problem but also to create
a sustainable market that addresses it." -- Matthew Herper,
With Vaccines, Bill Gates Changes The World Again, 11/2/11
And not just "a market" but a webbed ecosystem, with threaded value
streams that build in mutual vestment in the ecosystem.
12/9/11: Amazon is offering an interesting ebook incentive:
Indeed, the interesting issues in computing are not only technical
and extend to philosophical and ethical questions that need to be
explored. I've pointed to Stanford's Encyclopedia of Philosophy before,
but hadn't seen the page Grady points to on
The
Philosophy of Computer Science.
It is totally cool that
this project is getting its initial capital booster shot through
crowdsourced funding -- one of the things that is made possible by
technology, and really only a rather recent (in the scope of commerce)
phenomenon.
12/5/11: And yet Grady places himself amidst towers of books for his
photo for reddit. Telling the stories of computing is an important
part of this series. The questions that it raises, will, I imagine, be a
huge part of the draw for us.
"But what it's really been is a
strong focus on leveraging both our ability to innovate and to enable
our customers to innovate; enabling them to focus on the global trends,
increasing globalization and focus on customers. When you look at the
major growth agendas, they are all tied to these trends and they are all
driven by software. Software is codified knowledge, and the more you can
place software into services, the more successful you will be because
you can lower the cost of your services and business outcomes."
So, news of the day:
Every Company is a Software Company, David Kirkpatrick, Forbes, Nov
30, 2011. Those who are pointing to it tend to say "what I've been
saying for years." But I have! See the opening paragraph (Introduction
on p. 2) of our
Software Architecture: Central Concerns and Key Decisions paper
written in 2002. ;-) More to the point, the
Fractal and Emergent paper points to technology
underpinning relationships in the various interconnecting value streams
that weave through (and beyond) each business, and the role of business
intelligence in innovation in product (and solution and service) and process. We're all learning --
fast -- and the insights we had years ago have gone through their own
transitions and reformations, along with industry after industry.
Software is codified knowledge. Yes. And the knowledge space is
changing. We're learning, adapting to an ever-changing environment. So
we need to be
experimenting with operating models and the software that
encodes much of them. So we might also say, software also needs to
codify experimentation and adaptation. We use software to simulate our
business, to make projections. We use software to analyze our business
to improve and adapt to forces and changes we can now make visible. We
use software to build the platforms that enable us to relate these
various sources of knowledge, enabling collaboration and insight,
generating inspiration for innovation and the information to motivate
investments in building out these big ideas. Shaping markets. Like
this, but for business mechanisms:
"Essentially, we are harnessing the
principles of evolution -- crossover, mutation, natural selection -- to
speed up the race toward optimal outcome. But where biology takes place
at a geological scale, GAs are running in computer time, microseconds
and milliseconds. So a bunch of variables go in, and after a day or two,
out come some optimized results." -- Kevin Slavin,
How Algorithms Shape Our World, Nov 30, 2011
Sometimes
intentional. A Steve Jobs at the helm, melding serendipity and
intentionality to shape transformative change. But despite all the
nudges of intentionality, effects mass and compound, sparking
evolution without a clear steering hand -- stories without, as Kevin
Slavin puts it, a clear author. Which we sense, and adjust to. And so it goes.
Codified knowledge. That smacks of "legacy"... and inertia. But through
software we also enable an
adaptive, sensing-responding organization. This, of course, is the
exciting "calling" of enterprise architects -- to enable the creation of
more organismic, less mechanistic, organizations where technology
enhances what we can accomplish. More efficient, effective, ...
'"We help companies transform very
complex and burdensome business processes."
...
This is disruptive innovation—making the complicated simple, making the
expensive affordable, driving growth by transforming what exists and
creating what doesn't.'
Or get out of that short term reactive mindset. How? Follow Bezos:
Bezos: "It does fit into my view.
Our first shareholder letter, in 1997, was entitled, “It’s all about the
long term.” If everything you do needs to work on a three-year time
horizon, then you’re competing against a lot of people. But if you’re
willing to invest on a seven-year time horizon, you’re now competing
against a fraction of those people, because very few companies are
willing to do that. Just by lengthening the time horizon, you can engage
in endeavors that you could never otherwise pursue. At Amazon we like
things to work in five to seven years. We’re willing to plant seeds, let
them grow—and we’re very stubborn. We say we’re stubborn on vision and
flexible on details."
Of course, if all our competitors do the same... Ah, but it takes
phenomenal leadership to balk at pressure from the board, ostensibly
looking after shareholder interests. And hence pressure all the way down
the resource stack to your project. Making it hard to take the long
view. But if you don't, will you make a big difference? Don't you have
to see far, and work the near, with what you see in mind? Left
hand, and right hand stuff. Strategy, and tactics. Culture-shaping
conversations, and actions. Planting seeds. And drawing others in to
nurture them.
Here's a great lesson for enterprise architects (and
execs), because it is about design that enables design (without being
too hung up on the word design):
A Victory "For Giving A Damn"
This
ranks high among the most beautiful 7:30 minutes of my life:
Uplifting and Sad...
Too bad
this story wasn't told 6 or 12 months ago....
You've read Steve Jobs quoted on this to the point you glaze over when
you hear it, right? Maybe not. If you read here, you're as skip-happy in
love with the wonder of humanity, and as despairing of the ills it is
capable of, as I am. Still, regardless of whether you are getting jaded
about "Jobs fanboyism" or are still able to view him with awe and joy
and wonder (and your own self that way, and others you love and work
with and study), you should, if you haven't, hear the bicycle analogy from Steve Jobs:
Now that is how to talk about your system! Find how it adds to human
capability and quality of life, and articulate it with that kind of
passion -- looking for the vivid analogy.
As for how to tell your story, this (by way of Dan North) gives me
goosebumps -- such thrilled excitement -- and makes my day shine:
You think this isn't for technical circles? Have you see Linda Rising
in action? I hadn't, but on Dan North's recommendation scouted out a
talk she'd done on Youtube. Sure, different audiences. Different
purposes. And yet, whether it is a small ad hoc presentation at a
meeting, or a more formal presentation to a larger audience, should we
give our audience an occasion to rise to?
"Be the best, it's the only market
that's not crowded." -- George Whalin
12/5/11: When we point our personal development at a need we perceive,
at an opportunity to add unique value, and work hard at that, with
creativity and the sparkle of passionate intensity, we bring will and
smarts to do battle with the vicissitudes of chance or, if you prefer,
stand prepared for the hand of Destiny to work through us. Grin. Less
flowery: we shape and hone ourselves, and with the unique talent and
skill we bring, we shape our business from the inside. We gain more
power over decisions that shape the course of our business. We gain
influence. We do bigger things.
I "quoted" Jan Bosch's slide in November, but I'll refresh your
memory:
In hard times, the cautious retrench, abetting the negative spiral. It takes
leadership to find the compelling need around which differentiating
value can be created, and to assemble resources and minds to create
exciting ecosystem-reshaping products and services (smarts that
magnify and add value).
The future is in your hands. The future is in your hands. Doesn't
that just reverberate through you? Whether your company is around in
even five years depends on what you do. The collective you, but
importantly also the personal you. Today, tomorrow. Every
day. You. Because it isn't just about the CEO. CEO's need to be led.
Do we learn anything from Steve Jobs? Some of the things he was most
led by, were the things he characterized as excrement on his first
encounter with them. Now he was a remarkable man. Because he knew,
probably not consciously, that the things we most resist are the
surprising things that threaten the way things are. Now. So they are things that hold
promise for disrupting the way things are. Now.
If you're a leader, you're compelled -- driven -- to perceive
needs and generate ideas. Some you will find don't have much life in
them. They don't compel you beyond a blip of excitement. Others grab
hold. Seeds of ideas, that root themselves. In you, and through you.
Reaching through you, to captivate others with the power of the
idea. Formulating how to realize the idea. Shaping it. Adapting it.
So, what's your story going to be? You think it is not your
job? I see trees in your path.
Businesses fade to black when
no one, and no all, step it up. Take on the challenge of being
different. Differentiated that is.
Yes, I know. Being
different costs. It is a road strewn also with failures. Being
different for its own sake is not the point. Being perceptive
enough to see what could be done to give people a new way they
would like their lives to be, being creative enough to glimpse
how to make it so, being resourceful enough to pull together the
people who can help make it real, being resilient and creative
and persuasive and ... getting it done. Doing this in the
context of a company takes interpersonal skill, and
determination creating luck, and more. Leading in your pool of
influence.
Taking the initiative. Getting past the fear of failing.
Recognizing that the failure we'll regret is failing to try.
Trying has its knocks, its wrong turns, its dead ends. If we're
persistent, we can turn trying into succeeding -- through
learning, through flexing, and adapting and reorienting until we
succeed. But not starting, not doing the thing we see needs to
be done, that's a source of regret we will find harder to live
with than "I tried. I gave it my best."
Stuart Boardman asked for discussion on his
The
Times Are a' Changing in 2011 (I think) post, and I'm more comfortable
writing where I can edit, so I will respond here. :-)
What I tried to do with fractals in
The Art of Change: Fractal and Emergent
was give organizations a migration strategy. ;-) Bezos said that strategy
is set fractally in Amazon, meaning that strategy is explored and set at various
scopes throughout the organization. Now, if we reform our mental model of
organizations from strategy set centrally and issued out through the
organizational power tree, to one that borrows from Bezos' notion of fractal
strategy, we can bring with us what is good about strategy (identity, including
culture and values, and direction, including "what to say no to") and blend it
with the responsiveness that comes from setting strategy closer to the action.
But it may be worth bearing in mind that the key idea isn't just fractal (as
important as that is), it is "fractal and emergent." Recognizing that
organizational design is some part intentional and some part emergent for people
are mutable, relationships are plastic, and the environment throws curve balls,
etc.
As I understand it, a highly
podular organization has identity and values but minimal other "common code"
rippled throughout the organization. A highly bureaucratic/mechanistic
hierarchical organization has more of that "common code" centralized and rippled
out to all organizational sub-entities. By simply adopting Jeff Bezos "ah ha"
about fractal strategy, the organization gains a more fluid path to moving
different parts of the organization at different speeds and with different
levels of intentionality versus responsiveness. Thus, not only do we embrace the
diversity of organizational forms across the organizational landscape, but this
mental model also allows for diversity within a large organization -- a
diversity that responds to the particular needs, culture and maturity of the
market that a piece of the business is in.
Of course, we might think that all
organizations, in all markets, at all stages ought to be entirely podular, and
the fractal and emergent model allows for that -- it is just at the highly
emergent end of the strategy spectrum.
Dana Rocks!
Three very different sources of feedback last night and today,
three very different styles in conveying in it. Each saying, in essence, Dana
rocks. Cool. I think so too. Making a difference to architect's careers means so
very much to us, and it is wonderful when people take the trouble to write and
share the value they got.
Manufacturing as performance art -- Steve Jobs would have loved
it!!
The ballet of assembly... (Ok, not mass production, but still.
The direction we're headed is towards less, and so possibly more to spend on
that less. Then smaller volume directed to more individual tastes will be more
the new normal. Craftsmanship manufacturing.)
Ok. Ok. But could you have imagined that VW would do that? Sounds
like April 1, or The Onion, doesn't it? So. What do we learn from our own
incredulity? The remarkable happens! If we just do the remarkable! In our pool
of influence. Seeing what is needed, seeing what is possible, and doing what can
be done -- strategically, sometimes patiently, sometimes not. Nudging,
stretching, extending our notions of what can be done. Even within the
confines of our organization's culture and, in too many cases, conservative
stance, even risk intolerance, given the times.
It seems, sometimes, that petty jealousy has more social vetting
than admiration for what people accomplish in themselves and hence in the world.
What they do, is the result of what they have made themselves able to do; the
mastery they have attained comes at a high price.
If we don't want so intense and laser-focused a life, we should
not begrudge and undermine those who work hard to attain their sphere of
excellence.
"Etzioni says a good data
scientist can write algorithms that filter data, understand what they're telling
you, and then graphically represent the information. The end result is like
getting a bird's-eye view of a vast territory of information. "
Facebook:
time to fix those security flaws...
Zuck with food (incl. meat he killed himself?) and puppies... and wow, for
Obama he wears a suit .. though not for the
British PM? ;-) Yeah, Facebook, fix those flaws!
:-) (via grady_booch)
How often do you have front row seats to
something really big in
our times? If you missed the chance to be among the first 100 to support
Computing, you can still
pitch in your dollars and be among those who will be able
to say "I helped make that happen" when you and your children sit down to hear
tell of stories that date you (wink). No, no, I mean when you sit down to hear
the stories that help your parents understand -- at last -- what it is you do,
and get your teenage squids to look at you -- at last -- with stunned amazement.
;-)
Dana and I have commented on the remarkable uniqueness of human
expression. Here we all are. 7 billion of us. And yet take a 4 or 5 word phrase
you've written and google it. Or google "remarkable uniqueness of human expression"! Ok. So it struck me when
two architects in different contexts told me they wished they'd worked in
a field that was more visible, something that had substance in the world. I was
taken by surprise by their sense that because software is intangible and ever
changing people don't see it as substantive and evident like a bridge or a
cathedral. Of course, we know that software transports us, connects us as
importantly as bridges connect. And more. But the architects unease was at how
few others understand this. I hadn't thought of that. But we see how true it is
when we read something like this:
Anyway, if there is a feeling in our field that what we do is
invisible and unappreciated, that can erode our sense of meaning and purpose.
There is no applause for the system that behind the scenes routes packages and
minimizes costs. And ever so many examples like that. Computing will -- I
do expect -- give our field its standing ovation, share stories about how we got
here, and raise questions about what we are positioned to launch humanity into.
The good. And the bad.
I'll chip in my pennies before d-day. But the other important
thing to do is talk and blog it up, tweet it out, share some of the burden with Grady and
Jan Booch for getting the word out.
And in the meantime, here's a chilling story, and a caution at
the end, for automated systems designers to bear in mind:
Better understanding what we have done and how we came to do it,
informs our choices and raises challenging questions about the future. I'm sure
that the Booch team will do this with Grace. Grady brings incredible
intelligence, knowledge, experience and insight into the computing field, while
Jan's background is in psychology, social work and theology, preparing her well
to attend to the spiritual, personal and social impacts of computing, and both
Grady and Jan bring deep caring. Moderated with a healthy degree of
playfulness. :-)
12/8/11: More support for Grady's mission Imperative:
Computing: The Human Experience,
Peter Cripps, Dec 8, 2011 -- I especially like the way Peter positions the
personal point (bullet 2).
Grady Booch’s Human Experience,
Jonno, Dec 2, 2011 -- "We see a
world within the world, populated with interesting characters and a rich
history of success, failure and even tragedy. We see the philosophical,
sociological and political ramifications of technological advancement that
others don’t." -- Jonno <-- Well put!!
I
hear tell that Grady turned down a chance to "save"* Microsoft, so
Bill Gates may have to take that on. On the side, along with
designing next-gen nuclear reactors and rescuing American kids from the
education deficit and African kids from malaria. So you really have to believe
that this is a big deal. And I do. I really do! We need Grady's keen lens
turned upon those
Critical Dichotomies of Design to set up the issues, and bring us his
perspective and his unique ability to set context in terms ever so many people
will be able to understand and apply their talent to.
12/9/11: This is what I
wrote last month,
but I think it bears repeating:
The lives of fantasy and fiction serve us in ways I
much appreciate. But the real lives, the contributions and
challenges faced and surmounted, the serendipities and the unintended
consequences, the warp and woof of computing's human and technical stories --
these are just as important to have put before us. And Grady Booch is a
wonderful writer and storyteller. Helping him make this happen will make Grady
happy because he will get to make this contribution to our field and our world
-- it is a contribution he has spent his life preparing for, not explicitly, but
Destiny has its way of finding us when we have made ourselves ready. It
should also make us happy, because it is our story that Grady is telling. If
Grady gets to "do a happy dance," it will be because people in the computing
community give him encouragement and support that demonstrates that we care
about this mission -- it is meaningful to us; it serves us and we see that.
Here are some threads that get me, at least,
thinking about the possibilities, amazingly wonderful and dreadfully scary, in where
computing is poised to take us:
I am tremendously excited about what the future holds, but it
sure is going to behoove humanity to "grow up" fast, and to get ethics and
caring better sorted out. We've seen
instance after
instance of betrayal of
public trust and that just doesn't bode all that well.
* As for Microsoft, they're doing a bunch of cool stuff. I wish I
could waltz in and pull different threads into the "insanely great" vision I
have. ;-) In the meantime, we have such an exciting project on the burner. Dana
has a prototype for a key piece coded, and I'm.... Oh, yeah. Shhh.
"Using automated analysis tools, Cast’s Report on Application Software Health
(CRASH) analysed 365 million lines of code within 745 large software
applications belonging to 160 companies in 10 countries. The company revealed an average cost
(technical debt) of £2.23 per line of code to fix.
...
With every release cycle we run the
very real risk of adding technical debt that we must pay back, it’s just a
question of when. This is the ticking time bomb for the 21st century."
I'll be launching a new channel for my writing habit soon, so do watch
for that. ;-) It is very exciting! Well, I think so! I might just use my Trace
for advance note taking for that channel, so that'd be something to look forward
to. No doubt. ;-)
Oh, and. One book is in that "flow" state, and another in design,
so when I hit a "stall cycle" on one, I spin out on the other. The gestation
time has served well, I think. Stay tuned.
In the meantime, I'll take this opportunity to thank Peter
Bakker, Doug Newdick, Kris Meukens and Niklas Schlimm for recommending this
Trace as a resource to peer architects. And thank you, too, Kris Meukens and
Stuart Boardman for mentioning specific posts in tweets. That camaraderie has
been encouraging and is much appreciated!
Totally Inspiring!
"Zhang spent more than 1,000 hours
researching and developing the particle since 2009, which is impressive
considering that at that point in our own lives, most of the rest of us were
worried more about grades and prom than the shape of nanoparticles and rates of
cancer remission."
Grady Booch is asking for a short video of your stories of experiences with
computing, what you have done with it, and what it has meant, and does mean, to
you, etc. You can frame this up as helping Grady at a crucial early moment of
gathering momentum for the Computing project, but it is also your story
and worth sharing. For example, you can cross post your video on your blog and
retweet Grady's announcement of
your video, thereby letting your circle know how your story connects with
Computing while becoming more visibly part of the transmedia fabric of the
Computing story -- weaving personal meaning into a bigger tapestry of
meaning.
More really wonderful feedback to Dana. I'm looking forward to
co-leading a workshop with him in January. I'm sure I'll learn a lot! :-)
And I got a nice little boost with this comment on the Bredemeyer
site:
"well written material" -- Alan,
comment on Bredemeyer mailing list signup, 12/16/11
Busy, busy!
So, this is a great time to go back and read past month's entries. ;-) No? Ok.
Let me recommend
Charlie Alfred's blog. I've learned much from Charlie.
If you
celebrate Christmas, I hope yours is blessed indeed with love and joy and
gratitude.
Bragging
Rights Going Cheap!
Yep,bragging rights are going cheap over at Grady and Jan Booch's
Computing Kickstarter. For as little as a dollar, you can give yourself the gift of knowing you helped
make something important happen this Christmas -- and if we all pitch in a
little, perhaps we could even put the Booch's project
over 25k on the 25th -- or at least by the deadline on January 3rd! We can do it. Tell your
friends. Tell your boss. Tell your mother! Blog it. Tweet it. See if you can make it happen!
Why?
The story of our field needs to be told. The threads of software
are so interwoven now, that we depend on it in immensely positive, but also
quite fragile, ways. We insiders have our own immersed view of the field, and
would benefit from Grady's insight and perspective. This is all the more true
for those who see software as a mystery -- not always a friendly one.
Even those
disconcerted by the commercial element of Christmas, surely also see that Christmas is
very much about kindness and bringing joy to others. Personally, among people
who are most meaningful to and beloved by us. And touching others we don't know,
also with kindness. Making dreams come true. So, here is a big dream. An
awe-inspiringly big dream. And we can play a part. This is not just about the
funds but about a demonstration of great expectations and support for this
vision; it takes great passion and dedication to make a big idea such as this
one real.
12/25/11:
Mankind is doing such amazing things. We saw the Hubble Imax movie and it is
astonishing. The Universe is wondrous indeed. The movie also reminds
us that when people work together, we can do the remarkable. And yet it is often
the simple moments of human kindness that so touch us. The people who respond to
us, and let us know we are not alone, not unnoticed, not meaningless and
insignificant. Sara gave me a box of "Christmas spirit" for Christmas. I pass
some of it on to you. Show someone they are meaningful. And if you can't think
of how, here's a hint -- Grady Booch and his wife Jan could
use your support. Let's show that this field cares about itself and the
people in it!
12/26/11: Just
$5,000.00 to go to reach the $25,000.00 goal. But there is only 1 week left. And
it is a quiet week at that. So your help moving the word along, encouraging
people, and contributing, will be noticed and appreciated, I have no doubt.
12/27/11:
Peter Bakker showed that he cares. Not only did he pledge a contribution to the
Computing Kickstarter project, he got back on Twitter to help spread the
word! I am so inspired by Peter's kindness and energetic, joyfilled approach to
life and where his curious questing takes him.
Alright! The
project just went over $25,000! So, how far we can we take this? I'd like to see
that timeline app. :-) Think we could get this thing to top $50k in 6 days? At
this rate (over $5k today), it could!
The
photo of Grady Booch's emotion and humility in the post on the Kickstarter
project updates page today is touching.
"So,keep
spreading the word to your circle of influence!The
more backers we have and the greater the diversity of location, age, lifestyle,
beliefs, etc. and the further we go over our goal, the better buzz we'll have
as Computing moves
forward, and the more confidence foundations and other major backers will have
in supporting Computing:
The Human Experience." --
Grady Booch, 12/27/11
For a Fortune
article on advice leading CEO's live by,
Indra Nooyi shared her father's advice to always "assume positive intent."
That so struck me, and whenever (I have sufficient command of my resources and)
I feel myself collapsing inwardly at what seems like a confrontational response
from someone, I (try to) remember those words.
The brackets?
That's the more honest of my inner voices chipping in. ;-)
The assumption
of goodwill or positive intent allows us to get by using words in the intuitive
sense we've gathered over our lifetimes, even though we all have different
experiences and encounters with formal and informal uses that implicitly grow
meaning within our minds.
From strategic
planning to purpose and resilience : Prompts thought. I saw a tweet
today along the lines of "don't blame Powerpoint, blame the driver." Has the
same kind of misattribution been applied to strategy? Besides, I tend
to think of resilience as a quality, and one among many an organization may
strategically choose to focus on. Placing the focus on resilience emphasizes
the uncertainty and fragility of our economic and socio-political world --
reasonable in a world of "fractured
certainties and battered trust" to be sure. We could choose to
emphasize value creation (and achieve resilience by virtue of doing
good for our extended value community). Strategy is about direction and
focus. Hence choices, in a resource constrained world. It is about saying
no, as much as (or more than?) it is about saying yes. Strategy shapes
active interventions in the ecosystem/value network. Purpose is a pivotal
facet of strategy. In
our view, strategy includes more enduring elements like identity (culture,
including values, and purpose) that shape an organization's presence and
contribution to an ecosystem (or ecosystems), and more dynamic elements like understanding
of the current context [value networks or ecosystem(s)], shaping forces and
trends, and projections, as well as choices about what differentiating value
to create and what interventions (relationships, value provision, etc.) to
make to reshape (to competitive advantage), contribute to and stabilize the ecosystem.
“It’s not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most
intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” -- Charles
Darwin
Recovering the Lost Art of Note Taking : In several of our recent
workshops of late, we've handed out Moleskine notebooks along with our
workshop materials -- it is a cue that, alas, not everyone follows but we
acknowledge and respect different styles, including different styles and
choices when it comes to paying attention and aiding memory. On the subject
of note taking, when Peter
Bakker first responded to my journal, he remarked on my extensive note taking
in this Trace. I
hadn't seen my journal in that light, but he was right. Of course. These
notes stand testament to that. :-) In the paper-based reading age, I had so
much relied on marginalia, but my journal has become the place where I trace
of thoughts other people's (public) work stimulates.
Keep Hoping Machine
Running
Woody Guthrie's 1942 New Year's Resolutions (via Maria Popova) are
charmingly full of human foible and aspiration -- and illustrations! I was
delighted by that. Maria Popova characterizes herself as a "curator" but I
characterize her as a most excellent agent of Serendipity. Serendipity, you no
doubt recall, is the name I give to the angel who tends my mind. ;-) Perhaps I
am being too playful, but it is a deep philosophical point, should anyone wish
to treat it seriously. Anyway, it was neat to see those two pages of Woody
Guthrie's journal and now I need to find more of it! As you
no doubt recall, we are rather partial to Woody Guthrie -- and the boy he
has so influenced and inspired, socio-politically and musically. Ah, that "A
Beautiful Life" piece fits so well with
Woody Guthrie's 1942 New Year's Resolutions doesn't it? Serendipity works
wonders. ;-) [Ok, Serendipity in cahoots with Bliss, the name I give to the
angel of passion... Ok, ok, serendipity along with an actively filtering,
connecting mind. We listen at the feet of angels, and wrestle with demons.
Demons? You know, like pessimism and grumpiness. ;-) To me, our spiritual life
is enriched with empathy, tolerance, and humor at the petty side to our nature.
]
And
the need to "keep the hoping machine running" fits the times we're in so well.
With that prompting, here's fuel for hoping:
IBM
Reveals Five Innovations That Will Change Our Lives within Five Years,
12/19/2011. How well can we do on predictions? Here's ☼how
well IBM did with their 5 in 5 from 2006; around minute 9 on that clip
Mayerson talks about the role of the VP of Innovation at IBM and it is a
good description of broad scoped, cross-cutting
innovation/system(-of-system) design roles (like architect ;-) Here's
another demonstration of remarkable prediction accuracy:
Well, as hope
goes... I was totally miffed that no-one missed me/my Trace. Oh, I do
understand! After almost 6 years of journaling here, even I need a break from
myself! So... should my "New Year's Rulin" rule out this Trace? Or... should I
write another fiction. One that doesn't involve the creation of my mind, but
rather another cast of characters? ;-)
Via
SmartTalks TV. (Tweeted by Jon Pierce. Retweeted by Dan Bricklin.)
Ok, my
response was clichéd, but sometimes a cliché is precisely what the moment calls
for -- an emblematic hallmark of shared state.
There are so
very many strategy and design gems in that video! (And an earlier use of the
bicycle for the mind notion.)
As things "Wow.
Just wow!" go, this is one:
The Art of Complex Problem
Solving. (It is a wonderful dynamic visualization of visualization
applied to complex problem solving. Well done!!)
Indeed, the
discussion prodded me out of my usual shy reticence. :-) And I by no means think
the discussion has run its course. Well, I'm not done with it. ;-)
Dave Gray
kicked it off:
I responded:
I was being
playful; I hope it didn't seem flippant. Anyway, I was paraphrasing:
"Everyone designs who devises
courses of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones.”
-- Herbert A. Simon, The Sciences of the
Artificial, 1969 (p.129 of 1981 MIT press 2nd edition)
Which could
perhaps be used to declare that strategy is design. :-)
But the point
I was attempting to make is
that design is intentional, or at least has a strong intentional component. [The
caveat there acknowledging that our intentions reshape as we make discoveries in
design -- discoveries about the context (which is itself dynamically reshaping
in response to the evolving system and other forces and factors), the (emerging,
evolving) system in context, and the system itself (what is seeming
insurmountable, what is challenging, what is serendipitously simple, and more).]
And I was suggesting that strategy determines,
broadly speaking, that intent.
Tom Graves
made a similar point:
Anyway, in
choosing a playfully simple-minded phrasing, I was also indicating that teasing
the concepts apart at that natural split between setting strategic intent and
design for realization of intent has the advantage of being
simple. We should just "leave it there,"
shouldn't we? [Rhetorical answer: Of course not! Who dya think ya tawkin to?]
Strategy explores the organization's context [the competitive landscape,
the value networks, the ecosystem(s)] to find and assess opportunities to create
differentiating value (and avoid threats). I'm not entirely happy with "strategy
shapes the context; design shapes the system" but I think it touches on
something important. Strategy assesses opportunities and decides what to design
(create or evolve) and how to compete (including whether to compete by dominance or by creating
collaborative relationship networks that thrive through mutual interdependence),
versus what to influence and what to accept in the ecosystem. Strategy assigns
resources and provides other enablers (such as the creation of strategic
relationships). Business strategy works at the scope of the ecosystem(s) and
even beyond, and can set
processes and forces in motion that reshape the ecosystem or create a new one.
Business design works at the scope of the business in its context -- responding
to its context, adapting to it, shaping changes in it, to be sure. Strategy
determines what and how much to take under the organization's design scope (or
"umbrella"), articulates desired outcomes and (broadly) shapes
approaches to achieving them including choices about what capabilities to
build/evolve and where to allocate resources.
I drew
emergence into the discussion because I thought it worth exploring in the
context of feeling out the overlap and distinctions between (business) strategy
and (business) design. We understand that the effected design can be quite
different from the intended design for many reasons. Interactions in complex
systems in complex contexts produce functions and qualities and consequences we
could not possibly entirely conceive and seek to shape in advance (though we
generally/hopefully reduce the damage/fail in smaller ways if we take an
incremental and evolutionary approach).
Decentralized
strategy setting also creates webs of interacting intentions, hence emergent
strategy. Which begs the next question -- is it reasonable to think of strategy
as intent and effected strategy. If our strategy is the approach we choose to
achieving strategic advantage, and the approach we actually take is at least in
part emergent, then wouldn't the answer be "yes"?
Anyway,
strategy, like design, is not a done once deal. It is ongoing, though different
activities and different fields of view come into play pulsing to different
strategic rhythms.
Ok. That said.
I could also argue that strategy is design for it applies "design thinking."
To further muddy the waters, our software architecture decision model has an
architecture strategy facet where we set technical context (including team
values and architecture principles) and direction. (We follow Bezos lead in
thinking of strategy as happening
fractally throughout the organization.) We set
strategy at broader scope than our current design focus. If we're designing
architectural elements (parts) and relationships and mechanisms, we set
(technical) strategy at the level of the system in its context (of use,
operation and development/evolution).
Then strategy
is design at the most broadly scoped and abstract level that makes sense for the
system under design, and sets (strategic) context and desired outcomes, and may
outline approaches to achieving them, for (the remainder of) (more focused)
design. And
"Everyone designs who devises
courses of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones.”
-- Herbert A. Simon, The Sciences of the
Artificial, 1969 (p.129 of 1981 MIT press 2nd edition)
Hm. Smile
tolerantly please. Really, in these things I find it most useful to consider
what are the central concerns and key decisions. Cycling us back to the
paragraph beginning "Strategy explores." ;-)
Um. Dave doing
that #toldya dance? :-)
For what it is
worth, I think that (business) strategy setting should have a design mindset --
where the canvas under design is the entire ecosystem or web of ecosystems. The
distinction I (am trying to) make has to do with applying the design mindset
beyond one's boundaries of "control" or decision scope and thinking more broadly
about what to influence and what to bring into the design scope of the
organization. Strategy encompasses considering and initiating design
(intentional) interventions (like influencing through relationships) in the
ecosystem, as well as investing in design to deliver value/build or evolve a
capability (or set thereof). I have to go back to the Apple iPod/iTunes example,
because it conveys this so well. Briefly, the decision to get into the portable
music device business expanded in scope to reshaping the entire music ecosystem
by bringing not just iPods/devices under the design umbrella but digital music
distribution too, and hence digital rights management and relationships and...
The entire ecosystem wasn't under the design control (I'm using the word
loosely) of Apple, but strategic scope had to expand to consider what design
interventions (I'm using that term to indicate initiating actions without
bringing the design under Apple's direct aegis) to undertake, and what to (and
what not to) bring
under more close control, affected more closely by bringing intent, investment
and attention (to realizing designs) if not in-house then at least under
contractual control (restrictions, stipulations and guidance).
Aside: I
hadn't seen Dave's earlier question until today:
I do agree
that core to strategy is deciding how to differentiate (seeking the difference
that makes a difference that we care to build). Even non-profits compete in
ecosystems with limited resources (e.g., there is but limited attention, and
attention of the media and public translates into
funding), which behooves them to focus on compelling and distinctive value. Of
course, the distinction may come of being embedded in sets of relationships, but
it is just as well to be self-aware about what value flows through and creates
the thriving network of relationships. Etc.
An observation
about Twitter -- it becomes very hard (impossible!) to keep people in the loop with the
character limit. Nick Malik and Mike Rollings connected on a different
thread of the discussion. Mike pointed to his post titled
Luck, Serendipity, and the Contextual Strategist.
An observation
about my annoying use of brackets -- this is tentative and exploratory... so I
keep trying to explain myself... to myself, even. Read the sentences without the
bracketed phrases. If you grok the point without the clarifying bracketed
clauses well and good. :-)
12/31/11: Tom
Graves wove together various threads of the discussion and posted them along
with some further links and discussion
on his
blog.
1/1/12: It
might be worth saying something about design and reification. But ... I'm going
to leave it there.
Tom Graves
tweeted a pointer to
The Art of Scientific Investigation. It was my first encounter with it,
and what a wonderful book it is! Tom had pointed to the
chapter on Chance, and I
read that first, savoring the serendipity and the stories. Chance may favor the
prepared mind, but serendipity favors the curious mind that seeks out diverse
wise minds. [And objectivity deserts the self-justifying mind. ;-) ]
Much of the work we
do on ourselves in the pursuit of excellence is quite solitary, but that we
pursue excellence has an importantly social dimension. If we didn't have an
audience, didn't earn esteem, we would probably still have that internal drive
to achieve excellence. Probably. But the social connection of a warm response is
hugely important to the aspiring spirit.
PS. This also
via Tom Graves:
TOGAF 9.1 for mobile. Tom Graves is a wonderful source of thought provoking
writing of his own, liberally
sprinkled with the most remarkably diverse, interesting, and just-right snippets
and other illustrative pointers. I've
noted Tom's influence before, but his work bears more regular mention.
A Failure
of Optimism; Right Then, We Can Fix That!
I was
wondering if the Recession had to do with two huge factors coinciding -- the
delicate financial bubble burst and a failure of optimism.
Many factors conspired to crash optimism. A
surge in awareness of climate change (in the wake of increasing climate
disasters, along with awareness raising through circles of influence) left us
feeling like not only did we have to reign in our materialism, but we are far
from being an ascendant and capable species; rather we are an awesomely bumbling
bunch of self-centered, short-sighted close relatives of barbarians, really.
Neuroscience, behavioral economics and more further eroded our confidence in the
rationality of the species. Corporate imperialism rose as ugly in our
social-consciousness as national imperialism and bullying by nation states.
Well, so much for the liberal minded. Even the more conservative started to
think that innovation had reached a stall-point because we'd done it all, pretty
much. We'd automated what we could, and off-shored what was left. We'd invented
all the cool devices consumers could want, and liberals could conscience. There
was not that much growth left.
"A recession that left the United
States with 10% unemployment and tens of thousands of people under-skilled or
under-trained to compete for jobs in 2012 has scarred many people. Those scars
have manifested into insecurities that have changed the psychological state of
the workforce. Additionally, companies with stockpiles of cash in their coffers,
but with CEOs unwilling to spend it on hiring new employees or investing in
current ones are not inspiring employee confidence." -- Don McPherson,
People Leave Companies Not Managers, 12/27/2011
Crushing
pessimism took root. But not everywhere. Witness Apple and IBM, for example.
Investing in innovation -- capitalizing optimism -- catapulted them to the
forefront as indicated in spheres as diverse as prototypical consumer tribalism and
traditional media evaluations of business success. For all our fault and
foibles, we've managed to collaborate and pool and build knowledge to the point
of tremendous capability and paradigm changing innovations and breakthroughs in
understanding from the structure and dynamics of the cosmos to the atom! The
opportunities to create value and solutions to everything from what plagues the
planet to nurturing and building our very identity as glorious individual and
social creatures abound! The hoping machine has much to keep it running... even
if we need to be more careful to feed it with renewable energy. ;-)
Big Challenges Beget Big
Opportunities
"The pessimist sees difficulty in
every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty" --
Winston Churchill
Education:
We're going to move more and more into automation, computing, AI. We just are.
So we have to prepare the next generation -- and all the adults whose skills are
being made not just redundant and uncompetitive but obsolete -- for that. This
is a huge opportunity! We have several big ideas for this space
(and we're prototyping one of them). I'm sure you do too. There will be enormous
shifts in the landscape of education, employment and recreational-education as a
result of what technology and human capacity makes possible, combined with what
we can imagine!
"If one is lucky, a solitary
fantasy can totally transform one million realities." -- Maya Angelou
Lucky. Yes.
But one has to work hard to be in the right place to take advantage of luck when
it lands (the
Chapter on Chance comes to mind). Dana recounts seeing this sign:
"Good things cometh to he who
waiteth, so long as he worketh like hell while he waiteth"
on the desk of
one of the wealthy clients of his personal financial management software he
wrote back in the 80's.
But I digress.
Here's a glimpse of what's already happening to disrupt (in the Christensen
sense) education:
Who's to blame?, Stuart Boardman, December 28, 2011 (this timely post is
about shifting from a blame mindset to creating opportunities)
In this
video (via Dave Gray)
Edward Deming is advocating transforming our socio-economic landscape away from
competition and extrinsic motivation to one of intrinsic motivation and cooperation
(or collaboration) that both expand opportunity:
Daniel Goleman
(of Emotional Intelligence fame) wrote a post titled "Motivation:
What Moves Us?" in which he make points about the need for power that
does not have to be ego-centric:
The
other is a socially beneficial power, where you take
pleasure in influencing people for the better or for
the common good.
and the
need to affiliate. These are synergistic with Deming's point about
cooperation and motivation, and points Stuart is making in the post referenced
above.
Here's Clay
Shirky's TED talk on cognitive surplus and collaboration/cooperation for social
good:
Shirky focuses
on cognitive surplus -- meaning applying the cognitive power that is left after
we do our day jobs. But shouldn't we think more in terms of organizations
designed around a culture of generosity and meaning that produce value enough to
offer good living
wages too?
“Don’t just retweet other
people’s revolutions. Start your own. Apply the big ideas to real problems at
your company and change the work.”
Tides turned
for RIM, Netflix and GoDaddy just as surely as they were turned by the Arab
Spring and for the likes of the US Davis Chancellor. Working together we can do
amazing things. And destructive things. We need to work together to regroove our
homes, communities, organizations and world for more planet-sustaining and
humanity uplifting lives.
Tangential
observation on the Deming video: At one
point the video cuts to a few in the audience and I was struck by the
listeners. How respectfully closely they are listening. Yes, indeed Deming has
earned that respect. A wise tribal elder. But it strikes me again that in this
age of TED and "Powerpoint is Evil," audiences have adopted an "entitlement"
stance where they expect to be dazzled rather than to pay close attention to a
sparkling mind conveying wisdom in not so glitzy a presentation form and pacing.
This story should help you understand my concern. Yes, it is good to learn
how to communicate better, including in situations where we have an audience and
to pay them the respect of being prepared. But there is another side to the
interpersonal "contract" we need to make, and that is to be an audience that
gets as much as it can from a speaker, and the foundation for that is to give
the speaker the grace of a respectful, actively engaged listening mind.
This from
Nelson
Mandela's Conversations with Myself,comes
again to mind:
Two Roads Diverged
This time it matters which one we take!
Enterprise
Architecture
From the tweet
stream (I didn't track the origin; sorry!):
Continuing the
theme of competition and co-operation, this is one of the classics that created
the field (and raised business consciousness) of business ecology:
Strategy
invests in discovering and nurturing innovation seeds, strategy explores and
identifies value propositions to pursue, and strategy decides what to design and
provides high level guidance for that design, including desired outcomes,
assigning resources and setting constraints. Um. I wrote that declaratively, but
I mean it tentatively -- which is to say, I invite collaboration on pushing and
prodding at the concept to explore where it firms up and where it remains
fuzzily ambiguous. Now, I like some
amount of ambiguity in rich concepts like strategy, because there is -- and
there is need for -- great diversity in its use/application. And that diversity
allows for different interpretations, which guide different explorations and
actualizations, which allows for great diversity in the organizational
landscape. Which is goodness, in ecological terms. :-)
Porter
distilled (wonderful list of Porter's key strategy insights):
My family
teases me about the amount I indulge in neologizing, and I tell them I've been
given permission
by
an authority. What does that have to do with definitions? Oh, my dear
Watson, it allows me to sidestep the problem of gaining agreement. ;-) I jest.
Even though it is hard to reach agreement on definitions for complex concepts
like "enterprise architecture" -- we each experience them differently, after all
-- it is valuable to discuss them. I think. It helps to draw in the experiences
and perspectives of others, and enrich each other's views. Which in turn shapes
how we view and practice enterprise architecture or software architecture, etc.
For example, if I focus my definition of software architecture on structure, I'm
not going to be prompted by the definition to design critical system dynamics.
My views would focus on the "anatomy" of the system, and ignore the
interplay between "physiology" and "anatomy" in system design and
evolutionary adaptation. And I would focus on the system and it's sub-structure, not the
system and its interactions with the context, and the mutual influence of system
and context. We may not reach agreement on a characterization, and we may have
to be guarded when it comes to how much time we sink into such discussion. With
regards to managing time productively in a classroom discussion, it helps to
have an actively investigated and clarified point of view with respect to what
enterprise or software architecture encompasses. With regards to ongoing
learning, it helps to remain open to discussing and amending our understanding.
Did you notice
my shift from "definition" to " characterization", and "encompasses" rather than
"is"? Deft, huh. ;-) Yep, I'm definitely a "central concerns and key decisions"
rather than a definitions kind of person. ;-) I do like space to roam and
explore the concept. And I value the succinctness of a definition. If nothing
else, it gives something to push against as we probe the meaning of some complex
concept.
(That
TED
talk is a gem. Take special note of what Erin says at minute 4:41. :-)
Actually, the link "Easter eggs" are generally the
best part of this
journal. ;-)
As for characterizing enterprise
architecture, we've written 4 meaty EA Executive Reports for
Cutter, and by no means have it all nailed down, but it's a
start:
12/31/11: Yesterday Richard Veryard started a conversation on
the subject of whether it is important to define EA on LinkedIn. Martin
Howitt makes a point we need to bear in mind -- EA is viewed and chartered
differently in different organizations, and enterprise architects who have to
live within a charter set by and reporting to the CIO are going to have their
responsibilities conscribed by that charter. They can work their influence, but
it can seem like power-mongering to motivate a broadening in the responsibility
scope, and hence organizational conversations. I am sensitive to that, and part
of what we need to do is articulate the value of a broader scope. This helps to
provide a vision and to grant credibility when those designated "enterprise
architect" try to fill that designation more fully. But, I also have to say,
quite often "enterprise architects" are quite happy to be simply broad-scope IT
architects, focusing on technology. Which, after all, is demanding and consuming
enough. The reason to pull more in the direction of embracing the full potential
of the enterprise architecture concept is the value in a more systemic, holistic
role in organizations that are rather fragmented, with poor conception of
interactions, unintended consequences and other system effects.
Highlights
of My Year in Tracing
No, I'm not
going to identify "top posts." ;-) Instead, I want to express thank you [[hugs]]
to some really generous-kind gentlemen in this architecture community: Peter
Bakker, Doug Newdick and Niklas
Schlimm characterized my Trace as a useful resource for architects in
tweets. And
Kris Meukens recommended it in a blog post. Stuart
Boardman tweeted a remark on the good thinking about (thinking and writing and)
architecture. And Grady Booch mentioned my work here in his IEEE column On
Architecture. Why is this so heartwarming and remarkable? Well, last year,
Mary Vantyne mentioned this Trace in a SATURN blog link roundup, but otherwise
during the preceding 5 years of journaling here, no-one had recommended it.
NO-ONE!!! Well, to be fair, two people had blogrolled it, and a few had
mentioned specific posts. Anyway, I think of the recommendations and mentions as
gestures of community inclusion, of camaraderie, and goodwill.
And while I'm
on the subject of mentions: It was also a bumper year for kind mentions of EA
executive reports we did for Cutter, with Peter Bakker, Doug Newdick, Kris
Meukens and Stuart Boardman tweeting about them. Prior years had likewise seen
scant mention of these reports, so the tweets stand out as kindnesses indeed.
Thank you for this support and inclusion in the conversations of our field.
I would also
like to thank everyone who reads here. You inspire me and keep me company, and
that is important.
"If you were
all alone in the universe with no one to talk to, no one with which to share the
beauty of the stars, to laugh with, to touch, what would be your purpose in
life? It is other life, it is love, which gives your life meaning. This is
harmony. We must discover the joy of each other, the joy of challenge, the joy
of growth." -- Mitsuge Saotome
(I used that
quote
here, and Dana
responded with a story about Saotome.)
1/1/2012: When
one takes risks, does big things, it is encouraging when others see one as
capable of doing the remarkable. We are all flawed, and having people in our
lives who are able to see past, or despite, those flaws the remarkable person we
are, and what we are capable of, is of immense value to us. I suspect that when
Mutawa said "I gave my sister a small part
of the company for asking the right question" (quoted by Jewel Topsfield
in
Wham! Bam!, December 31, 2011), he really meant "for seeing what I was
capable of, and encouraging my tentative, fragile aspiration." It also struck me
how Mutawa and Miyazaki both have girl/women heroes, and both make similar
points about our imperfect selves:
''The whole is more than the sum
of its parts, even if the parts are flawed. I think having a role model that's
perfect does a disservice to kids. The moment they have something that is not
perfect they think something is wrong with themselves, rather than something
being wrong with the flaws in human design.'' -- Mutawa,
quoted by Jewel Topsfield in
Wham! Bam!, December 31, 2011
One of the key insights that
Howl's Moving Castle magically conveys, is that people are complex bundles
of good and evil, strength and weakness. Good people are such bundles, just with
more good than bad, and in their internal battles between good and evil, the
good generally wins out. The contrary for evil people. And good and evil in the
world is the externalization of these internal battles. And the reaching out of
good in one person magnifies and assists the forces for good in another, and
changes the balance of their internal battle. When looked at that way, there's
so much more scope for compassion and empathy! And so much more reason to reach
out!
In
Miyazaki's Howl's Moving Castle, the girl/old woman sees the
beauty and ability in others, overlooking their flaws.
And she too comes to be loved not in
spite of her appearance but for the best in her, which includes what she is capable of being and becoming.
Her appearance is irrelevant to those who come to love her, and she becomes
as beautiful as they know her to be. She manifests herself.
Aside: Miyazaki didn't write the novel Howl's Moving Castle, but his other movies have similar themes.
Politics
and Politicians
Charles
Krauthammer's
Are we alone in the universe? (Dec 29, 2011) article is provocative. This
from the ending ought to galvanize every last one of us:
"There could be no greater
irony: For all the sublimity of art, physics, music, mathematics and other
manifestations of human genius, everything depends on the mundane, frustrating,
often debased vocation known as politics (and its most exacting subspecialty —
statecraft). Because if we don’t get politics right, everything else risks
extinction. We grow justly weary of our politics. But we must remember this:
Politics — in all its grubby, grasping, corrupt, contemptible manifestations —
is sovereign in human affairs. Everything ultimately rests upon it.
Fairly or not, politics is the driver of history."
"Johnson writes about this
challenge in his new book The Information Diet. The most dangerous
special interest in Washington, he argues, is the electorate that’s completely
disconnected from the levers of power in the capital. Activists and voters tend
to write off their representatives as cloistered sell-outs who only listen to
lobbyists with the largest checkbooks. But in their cynicism, they decline to
engage representatives themselves — and this of course only leaves more empty
scheduling time and attention bandwidth for lobbyists to fill."
Do we too
little deign to engage the politics of our business, let alone the politics of
our nations? It is a charge we should at least reflect on seriously. Oh, I do
know that entrenched power resists -- this is all too vividly scorched into
our consciousness this year with the heavy-handed responses to occupy
demonstrations. Such response breeds intimidation; such is its purpose. But it
only works if we let ourselves become cynical. At which point we've become an
agent of suppression and we've bowed out playing a role in bringing about
peaceful, co-operative change.
Eb Rechtin
said "If the politics don't fly, the system
never will." So, this applies to the planet too! We have to embrace the
need to become technology statesmen and system statesmen (and women).
And if you have been disappointed in Obama too,
this image
may explain a lot. Staggering! (It is a great illustration of the power of a
simple Venn Diagram.) PayPal, in its early years, hired top-school PhD
drop-outs with the expectation that this meant they were very smart and
headstrong, independent thinkers. Obama (/his administration) hires graduates
from the Goldman Sachs school of power? As I said, if it is true and accurate,
it explains a lot. But, I'd like to know, what did Obama tell himself he
was getting? We know what Goldman Sachs was getting with hires that went the
other direction (that would be useful to have depicted).
I was wondering how much to give to the
Computing Kickstarter project, knowing I couldn't afford as
much as I'd like to be able to give in support of something this important to
our field. But when being backer number 245 and giving $45 would bring the total
to $20,000.00, the amount and the timing was clear! Grady, in his generous-kind
way characterized that as "the snowflake that started an avalanche" of goodwill, and the total jumped from $20,000
(with just 7
days to go) to the $25,000 goal (and minimum amount need to turn pledges into
gifts) and blew right on past it, to $26k. Today I noticed that if I changed my
contribution to a symbolic $99, it would put 301 contributions at $28,000.00.
Leaving a lot of headroom for others in the 99% -- as well as those in the 1% --
to bring the Computing total to $50,000.00 and the timeline app! Hey, I
want to see those lectures Grady is promising to do as a stepping stone to the
TV series, but I want that timeline app too!
There are only
with 64 hours to go! Time is running out for you to pitch in and claim your
bragging rights! Bragging rights? Oh come, you do want to be able to say you
knew about this when it was just getting going, and you took your place among
the small circle (just 301 so far?!!!) of people who overcame inertia and did
something, don't you? It is actually really easy if you already buy stuff on
Amazon (it uses Amazon payments). So, $1. Or $99. Or get your business to kick
in $20k and you can get to be first to hear one of Grady's great new talks!
Seriously, I can't imagine why Google, and anyone else who wants to demonstrate
that they look back and outward, not just at their navel, for inspiration,
hasn't jumped at this!
Time is
running out. On the year. And on Grady's request for support. Let's show
up!
I know, I
know. Everyone does things in their own way with their own timing, and there are
many good causes to contribute to and channel attention toward. But if you enjoy
and value Grady's on architecture podcasts and his books, then you know
more than other people how very much Grady brings to this project. Grady has the
ability to be joy-fully inspired and inspiring, and he will touch others with
his love for this field we each have poured our lives into. He will help others
make sense of what it is we do, and he will help us answer questions we have
about its very meaning, to us personally, socially, technically and
historically. Grady and Jan Booch, and the rest of the amazing team they have
assembled around them, have taken on an ambitious project, a big idea. Big,
important, transformative.
We can stand
impervious to that. Or we can let its importance call us to a small act of
service. It is each of our choice. And my choice is to coax and cajole, even as
I risk your impatient rejection. :-)
Organizations Are People Too
Well, the
Supreme Court thinks so. But this is not about that. :-) I just wanted to
capture a thought triggered by Leo de Sousa's questions as he preps a module on
EA for a course for business students.
Leo is asking,
I think, for help with how to sell, or articulate the value of, EA to broaden
the option slate of a new generation of managers. One of the great values, I
think, of EA is better organizational self-knowledge, and just as
self-reflection and self-knowledge are enablers of growth for individuals, so
too are they enablers for organizations.
I wouldn't
generally call what we do
Socratic (enough
people are leery of philosophy -- "where's the actionable business value in
that, let alone the value for architect-developers?" you can just hear them ask,
even sneer -- that I don't even get close to organizational therapy and
behavioral psychology -- in name; that's where head fakes and Trojan
horses come in; wink), but... behind the scenes, let's just say that Aristotle
and Socrates, and a parade of great minds since, were on to something.
So EA is about
gaining self-knowledge where it is both most lacking and most strategic --
looking across the organization's boundaries and seeing the organization in
larger context, including looking to the past to see what forces are massing
that will shape the future, but also gaining understanding of and mapping the value
streams and ecosystems the organization participates in; and looking across
sub-entities and value streams within the organization.
Helping the
organization know itself is but
one dimension, but it is an important one to draw on as we advocate and position
EA to managers.
That is a warm
and wise characterization. And it stood in contrast, in my reading today, to
Christopher Hitchens characterization of the public intellectual (he's the last
panelist) in
The Future of the Public Intellectual: A Forum. Should we not accept that
there are many ways to be, in this world -- including to be outraged without
being enraged, to be intellectual without being elitist, to connect without
succumbing to the erosive potential of populism, and more? We can
ask for acceptance of the bellicose intellectual. But to suggest that that is
the only way to lead an intellectual life of significance is absurd and
oppressive. Oppressive? Should we accept the suggestion that anger and
combativeness are the only valid recourse of the intellectual who decries ill in
the world? Why not gentle action? Why do we think "contemptuously
and critically and furiously" is so laudable as to proffer it at the
expense or to the exclusion of more subtle, more gentle, more empathetic and
inclusive modes of intellectual discourse that changes minds (literally, as
Howard Gardner points out, by changing the content of minds) and, rippling
changes through the interwoven lattice of minds, changing worlds.
My sense is
that we are at an interesting junction, where collaborative network facilitative
styles are an organizational alternative to dominance hierarchical styles. But I
wouldn't advocate one (exclusively) over the other. I think our pack-animal-past
lives still too much within our brains to ignore -- we live, for example, with
powerful undercurrents of innate dominance and submission cues. I think we
need to embrace diversity, even as we seek to understand various styles and how
to co-exist without undermining and oppressing those whose style has a different
combination of preponderances and nuances than ours.
1/1/12: Tough
doesn't have to be pugnacious. Being offensive puts people on the defensive. Is
that how we get people to really consider a tough situation with their resources
at their disposal? A discussion that furthers value doesn't have to be a
contentious, confrontational debate. I'm not saying there can't be value in more
contrarian stances, but I do know that it cues dominance and those of us who
don't want to play the game that way, don't.
Elitism in
the Mirror
As rants on
elitism go, here's one
I gave vent to (that might serve as some counterpoint to Hitchens):
As
we feel our glorious earth under threat, the love of Nature that the Romantic
poets expressed, has a new kind of draw for us. As for me, I've always been
quite happy to flout the snobs and follow my instincts, loving Heaney
(sanctioned by the literary elitists) and Wordsworth (not so) too. I believe
that the joy of man's desiring, the joy of our aspiring, is a blessing, and if
we allow ourselves to be arrogant and dismissive, we wear blinkers. We have to
filter, but to filter based on a sense of our own cleverness is a kind of
sham--a twist on the vanities of position that Charles Dickens goes after in
Little Dorrit, and F. Scott Fitzgerald in The Great Gatsby ... and
plenty more, a body of literature devoted to the folly of our various vanities.
This I say with a deep sense of my own fallibility! And even where I can route
out my prejudice, I find one can also be a snob about trying not to be an
intellectual elitist! Which naturally implies an intellectual bent together with
deep principles. ;-) My internal critic has its work cut out dealing with me,
but self-(d)effacing satire is the low-hanging fruit of its sharp-tongued labor.
I'm far from
perfect. Which gives me lots to work on, hopefully keeping arrogance from
rooting itself in me, for (from
another post):
...
arrogance is not gentle. It is insidiously oppressive. It is a Procrustean
approach to human spirits, diminishing people by imposing a
small mental frame upon them.
Happy New
Year!
We took some
time to recharge our batteries with awe in New York City the week before Christmas.
Usually we like to do that in great open spaces, but the kids and I had never
been to New York and Dana was eager to go back. I framed the trip up to myself
as a chance to be awed by man's accomplishments -- the great buildings (the
story of the building of the Empire State Building has long drawn me), the art
and the live performances. And a visit to the Apple store. ;-) But what struck
me, time and again, were the acts of human kindness that make that city
personal. I'll share one story. Latish the second night, we asked the PATH
supervisor for his advice on what subway card to get and where. He sent Dana up
to the newsagent and directed the children and me to stand under the heaters,
bought us a pocket to put the PATH pass in, and showed Dana how it worked. It
was so nice to be shown such warm hospitality in the great cavernous space of
the underground PATH station. Last year we went to a live performance of Charles Dickens'
A Christmas Carol, and the
year before to the movie of the same. This gentleman reminded me of Bob
Cratchit, I think because his kindness was warm and thoughtful and contrasted
with the rushing-by of general commuters sheltering themselves from brushing too
closely up against the needs of others. (We stayed on the Jersey City side,
looking across the Hudson at the Manhattan skyline, with a distant view of the
Statue of Liberty -- which made for great sunrises and sunsets! That's why we
needed to use PATH.) Anyway, time and again people broke the shrouding
envelope of "stranger," for example to notice we needed directions and simply
offer them. The trip reaffirmed for me the meaningfulness of moments of Grace --
contemplations before a great work of art and the magnitude of what man achieves
when working in concert, and moments that sparkle in the tapestry of our
lives, embedding memory gems of simple, touching kindness. So, on a grand scale and on a very personal
scale, it was an inspiring few days.
Anyway, I
thought I'd offer that little piece of what inspired me as I wish you an inspiring New Year and a
2012 that is full of wonder and Grace!
I haven't made
a New Year's Resolution (yet -- still 51 minutes to go), but I did put Woody
Guthrie's New Year's Rulins on my desktop background. :-)
Feedback:
I welcome input, discussion and feedback on any of the topics in this
Trace in The Sand Journal,
my blog, and the
Resources for Architects website, or, for that matter, anything relevant
to architects, architecting and architecture! I can be reached
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A
Trace in the Sand
