Another interesting book

I recently had a great conversation with a local inventor. Full disclosure, I was being interviewed for a position in her company. Nevertheless, a good conversation.

Out of that good conversation, came a good book recommendation. I interviewed on Friday, went from the office to the bookstore to pick it up, and now Sunday night am two thirds of the way through. Enough with the suspense, what is the name of the book! Not so fast(I do realize you could easily scroll down to the part where I tell you the name, but it would be more fun if you don't just yet, honest).

A book of mystery and intrigue.... nope.
What some would call "fun" reading.... nope.

It is about Starfish (that was a hint, google that if you dare, but still not enough to go on yet!)

But seriously, it was about organizations, and how really good ones have thrived without a figurehead at the helm. It is helping me to understand how Linux has come about, and what I want to do when I grow up. The subtext of the title states (nother hint coming) "The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations".

Now I disagree with the that subtext to some extent. The authors go on to clarify the roles that people play in these organizations, and there are leaders, they just do not look like the typical leader one would think of (one being a mythical person that thinks exactly what the majority thinks, or something silly like that) when one thinks of a leader.

Instead of leader, the authors look at one position in these groups that they studied, that they call the catalyst person. The catalyst helps the organization to adapt and change, is comfortable with ambiguity, make loose connections between people and ideas, and other interesting things. The one interesting thing, is that the hierarchical organization this person is in, does not always like the way the catalyst is stirring things up. I remember hearing of a Gorilla Award at the wheelchair manufacturing company Quickie. They gave the gorilla award to someone who was always advocating for positive change, and who was a pain to work with, or always rocked the boat, but absolutely necessary for the organization.

I have wanted to be a Gorilla for a while, but have not been able to articulate what it looked like, or why a company should have me. Who wants things to get stirred up, changed, the boat rocked (besides me).

Well, now that I have almost read all of...... gasp...


"The Starfish and the Spider" *releases breath that I have been holding the whole time*
I have a better understanding of what I believe are my natural talents. Making things messy, asking tough questions, pushing organizations, tools, resources to their furthest limit, and loving every second of it. I have written about it in the past, and I think I may have to devote a whole blog to chronicling people in recent and ancient past (before cellphones and beyond) that had these catalytic traits.

The Book, the book, get back to the book *voice in my head telling me what to do*
Ok... Fine... It is good. If you wondered why the Apache Indians, or the Apache servers did so well, back in the day, check it out. Even if you have never thought about those separate but similar stories, the book parallels many old organizations with current incarnations of "Leaderless Organizations" (think AA or Abolitionists for old, and Wikipedia or Napster for new).

Marketing Websites using Blogs

Blog Carnivals are an interesting idea I stumbled upon recently. The following quote talks about what they are, but I really see them as a way to interact with the online community that is interested in that specific topic they have organized around, and a way to increase awareness of blogs and websites people may have on a particular subject.

clipped from blog.coldtobi.de A blog carnival is a type of blog event. It is similar to a magazine, in that it is dedicated to a particular topic, and is published on a regular schedule, often weekly or monthly. Each edition of a blog carnival is in the form of a blog article that contains permalinks links to other blog articles on the particular topic. There are many variations, but typically, someone who wants to organize a carnival posts details of the theme or topic to their blog, and asks readers to submit relevant articles for inclusion in an upcoming edition. The host then collects links to these submissions, edits and annotates them (often in very creative ways), and publishes the resulting round-up to his or her blog. Many carnivals have a home page or principal organizer, who lines up guest bloggers to host each edition. This means that the carnival travels, appearing on a different blog each time. (From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

Non Profit Idea

I love not having to recreate the wheel. I have been searching for what kind of business to start, that would have an impact on the community, but would also allow me to do the things I have a passion for doing (being around like minded people, playing on computers).

The answer to my dilema? Free Geek

In case you were curious, I am using Bitty Browser link to embed the web page of Free Geek into my blog.

So they take computers, use volunteers to take the donated computers apart, get the working parts out, recycle the bad parts, and all get to hang out and get better at computers.

There are individual value propositions that I could get into, but most anyone can see that it is a cool idea, with lots of benefits. Now the only problems will be getting the space to use, and setting up the non-profit organization. My goal is to partner with a club on campus called SIFE (Students In Free Enterprise) to market, organize, and ensure a large impact on the community (while making it a sustainable concept).

College Business Web Consultants

You are a web guru, and want to build a profile, but you need projects, what do you do?

You are a graphics designer, need things to try out new graphics programs, and build your portfolio, what do you design?

You are an Entrepreneurship student, need graphics designers and website designers, but do not have the money to pay people, but need guys that know their stuff to give you advice, and create cool sites for you, what do you do?

Well, bring these groups together of course!!

I think it would be great to setup a "business" bringing these separate groups together for added benefit to all. The web and graphics guys get to see the business side of starting a company, whilst creating cool stuff for their portfolio, and the entrepreneurship students get a free website design, with the caveat of paying for the services rendered if they choose to launch their venture.

There is a greater benefit than just website development. The entrepreneurship students may need technical advice for their projects, or "experts" to go with them to meetings with advisers or potential investors to explain how some technology would work, or the time/cost commitment needed for x project.

Non-Profit Meets For-Profit, Cool!

I want to change the world, but I want to make money also (provide for my family, have influence to do cool stuff). How do you create a socially responsible company, that really provides benefit, yet also becomes profitable?

Answer:

If you are familiar with what has been happening in the Linux world (I skim the surface of this with my rss reader), then you have heard of Ubuntu. There are plenty of sites that talk about Ubuntu, but I am looking at it from the way they have chosen to structure their company.

So from my understanding of it, there is a commercial side, Canonical, and a non-profit side, Ubuntu and others(Kbuntu, Edbuntu, Xbuntu).

Another cool company that has a similar business model, but kind of opposite, is SpikeSource. So it is good to see that there are companies out there that can use open source as a foundation of their business model (either building on it, or building it).

Social Networking

Fortune cookie promotes social networking
Originally uploaded by BigBlue.

Social Networking

How Can we fit popular sites like Myspace and Facebook into the teaching curricula, and culture of school? I think the idea here is of a digital self. Online there are many aspects that define who your are perceived. On myspace you are the drunk college kid, flicker you are the artistic photographer, and Monster.com you are the perfect employee who lives to work. There is a kind of balance in "real life" how much information you give people access to, and how much you tell someone at one time. I think this same concept applies to a persons online digital self.
In business, a common form of communication is the business card. It has some information, but not everything. You could research more with that info, but it would take time. The same can be applied to the digital identity of a person or business. A business can have a my space page, and use that as a medium to communicate about their goals, vision, and the such. Or it could be brief with lots of flash but little content, begging the viewer to find another aspect of that businesses digital existence. Just like in real life, these are decisions students and teachers should be aware of, but will have to apply differently to each circumstance.

As these new technologies and means of communication, there will come a standard of what information is commonly provided, and in what way, just like the company, title, cell and email address, printed on that specific sized business card (who in the world thought of that size business card anyway?)

Building an "Online" company

How do you build an "online" company? One where most of the workers call Starbucks, the office?

How do you have meetings?
What do you do if a laptop gets stolen?
Do you need face time?

I may or may not answer all of these questions. But they are interesting. Lets approach these backwards. From a brick and mortar company.

What would starbucks look like as an online company(more integrated into new tools, not digital cups of coffee). Their star partners(employees for those of you not up on the lingo) would blog about what it was like to work there. They would write comments about their favorite customers. It could be a door into deepining that 1 min a day conversation with those interesting artistic (or whatever) folks.

Maybe they would have a wiki for secret shopping excursions, and have people who know alot about coffee go in and do their snapshots (secret shoping) for the company, in exchange for a free cup of joe (you economists can ponder the principal agent problems of this, but it could work).

The key here is that it is user generated content, and categorization (more on the categorization in my tags post, and future folksonomies posts) of that content. It has the potential of a huge network of information, and a kind of grass roots marketing, while building the lifetime value of a customer by deepening the connections with those customers. It would also make recent new additions to the neighborhood (metephorical social "neighborhood", or whatever..... you know what I mean).

Internally there could be wikis for all kinds of stuff. Best practices of the coffee masters for how to make the best french press, repairmen sharing the latest problems and bootstrap solutions to fixing the latest brewer. By having the people "in the trenches" create and update the info, you always have current info. Sure there are problems, pr issues and whatnot, but that is where the corporate wiki could champion the good contributors, and discourage the bad ones (not sure what this all looks like yet, but who does?)

So none of those questions got answered, but I think going from what currently could work is a good start. How do you know what is on the other side of that mountain, unless you start writing erp, crm, charts and graphs of the best possible route..... I mean try and put two feet forward to climb that mountain?