Social Glass

I’m not usually off topic when I post here, but I thought I’d expand a bit on my Life in Oz post from last month. I went back to Colorado for Christmas last year and barely made it home in time because of a bloody snow storm. Once I made it I spent a lot of time shoveling snow (hence the picture) as a series of storms came past once I’d arrived.

I don’t think it snows here in Melbourne as it barely gets below 8C (about 46F) in the winter. And yet when one takes a look around the train station on a “cold winter’s morning” one sees scarves, gloves, beanies, ski coats etc. When I first got to Melbourne I couldn’t believe how bundled up people got for 45F. But now that I’ve been here for a while I understand. 8C is bloody freezing.

They say I’ve been “climatized”. I’d say I’ve been “wussified”. Regardless, I’d never let my Colorado friends know.

I wrote a while ago about the “Innovation Maturity Model” and how ECM etc. is required to harness innovative ideas and turn them into corporate policy and strategy. What I didn’t focus on was all of those innovative ideas that don’t mature and the people behind them.

Essentially, businesses don’t have enough energy or resources to commercialize every innovative idea that knowledge workers might come up with. Innovative ideas must be assessed against corporate direction and market needs. Of those candidate ideas that make business sense only a few will get actual business focus.

This means discouragement - a lot of people with good ideas will never see them realized (at least with their current employer), and this poses a problem for the enterprise as continued discouragement often leads to high attrition rates.

How, then, does the enterprise create an ecosystem that produces innovative ideas when it can adopt so few? How does the enterprise keep from discouraging its bright and innovative knowledge workers?

I’m afraid I don’t know the answer to these questions and I see this as a real threat to the longevity of an Enterprise 2.0 ecosystem within a given corporation.  Thoughts on this topic are most welcome.