The Hyperlinked Organization

• self-deprecation and a sense of humor are important in transmitting the idea that you don't take yourself too seriously online; after all, we're in a post-expert day.
• Your voice will identify you; once you get used to listening, other voices will become distinct as well.

 

Intranet Apacalypso

"Statistics and industry surveys are lobbed like anti-aircraft fire to disguise the fact that while we have lots of data, we have no understanding." p 117

 

• The web + hyperlinks remove the organizational chart from daily communication; the hierarchy of the past goes away with one company directory.
• Wired people now expect a direct connection...and a response...from everyone else in the company. A lack of response brings with it the idea of an "old" company; a corporate response will be ignored.

 

"Without play, only Shit Happens. With play, Serendipity Happens," p 118

 

Inside Fort Business

The Web is much larger than business; it's build on a platform that has nothing to do with business. The fact that business occurs on it has, at the end of the day, very little to do with what much of the Web is about.

 

Hyperlinks Subvert Hierarchy

"The Web...puts everyone in touch with every piece of information and with everyone else inside the organization and beyond," p 121

 

This is the first section where Weinberger begins to lay out the treatise for his later book, Small Pieces, Loosely Joined (a phrase he uses in the next section): the Web is predicated not on one conversation, but a series of loosely conjoined conversations from which meaning CAN be derived.

 

Interconnectedness doesn't hide our flaws, but it corrects the flaws which -- by our very nature -- keep us from venturing forward because of our fear of failure.

 

This creates a new type of worker -- the knowledge worker -- whose job it is simply to be involved in the conversations and the flow of information; it's from this stream (messy) that work gets finished (clean).

 

Bottom-Up

The idea that you can create a detailed and specific WAY for people to use these tools, that you can control it and monitor it, AND still have it work is a fallacy. 

 

These conversations will -- like a river -- look for the easiest way to get out. (Remember: Information wants to be free.)

 

If you create a sandbox for people, you can watch + monitor what is going on without pushing those conversations into corners where they do nobody any good.

 

The Character of the Web

1. Hyperlinked
2. Decentralized
3. Hypertime (think RSS)
4. Open, direct access
5. Rich Data (humans add context)
6. Broken
7. Borderless

 

The Character of the Web

1. Hyperlinked
2. Decentralized
3. Hypertime (think RSS)
4. Open, direct access
5. Rich Data (humans add context)
6. Broken
7. Borderless

 

The Hyperlinking of the Organization

Links have value by making it easier to navigate to your site, but they have the most value by linking to OTHER sites; this is counter-intuitive. Landlocking people on your site, though, will drive people away. 

• Experts are people who contain a lot of information; in a networked work, an expert is someone who has access to information -- hyperlinks, search and social media create that

 

The hyperlinked organization moves that Web thinking into the physical world: you create a framwork and toolset for people to use + then you create incentives for them to work. There is a sense of self-reliance and control, which people naturally embrace.

 

The result is a group more intent upon finishing their work and their customers/products, but less engaged in traditional business endeavors.

 

HyperTime

Distributed teams who are closely tied to the work AND who have a sense of when things need to be finished can set more realistic (although fluid) timelines.

 

The personal is professional. Time doesn't exist in a conventional 8-5 pm setting anymore (and it likely never did). The world -- and the Web -- are flexible.

 

The distributed communication mean that we can scan and skim MORE information than if we're stuck trying to make one-to-many reports.

 

Open Access to Everything

Your employees + YOU have to figure out how to evaluate information, figure out what goes where and what gets thrown out. It's a big Rubic's Cube puzzle that needs to be constantly monitored.

 

Yet keeping documents under lock + key assumes that you have information that must be hidden. Some information is key to a company's success, but -- as it was with blogs and other control mechanisms -- information that isn't a trade secret tends to get out.

 

The question is: do you think YOU are smarter than everyone?

 

There's a few great books on this: Here Comes Everybody and Wisdom of Crowds; the basic premise is that groups, when run correctly, are smarter than any one node.

 

Unmanaging Rich Data