Emerging Management Paradigms, Spring 11

In this article in NYT, Google’s analytical approach to management is explained. They use data to figure out what works.

H.R. has long run on gut instincts more than hard data. But a growing number of companies are trying to apply a data-driven approach to the unpredictable world of human interactions.

GOOGLE executives say they aren’t crunching all this data to develop some algorithm of successful management. The point, they say, is to provide the data and to make people aware of it, so that managers can understand what works and, just as important, what doesn’t.

I just got an invitation today to sign up for the Enterprise 2.0 conference that will take place in Boston in June. Some of the vendors that we have been talking about in class, such as Microsoft, Jive, Yammer and Spigit, will be presenting there.

Some of the workshops that will be happening there look interesting:

I was particularly intrigued by the concept of the Enterprise 2.0 Black Belt Practitioner. It reminds of the time Six Sigma–and that doesn’t look differentiating anymore.

Anyway, if you want to register for the expo you can do so here:

http://www.e2conf.com/boston/registration/?_mc=CPDNEB01

I had always thought of Lotus Notes as the good ol’ email and database software that big consultancies and professional services firms use. It seems to have stellar access control tools and traceability and that’s why auditors and consultants love (and hate) it.

Well, today received and email that made me change my mind. IBM is re-positioning Lotus as a “network for communities” to “work, share and innovate”. It’d be interested to see how this plays out. The folks that tend to use Lotus aren’t the most forward-thinking ones and I’m not sure if this will be a stretch for them. I guess I’ll watch their webcast and see if this is true.

Here is a good source on info on the new collaboration tools. Morten

http://www.technologyreview.com/business/32444/?p1=BI

My team and I have been doing some interviews recently for our final project. We are trying to understand how different organizations come up with innovative ideas. We wanted to see whether aha! moments are only happy accidents or a product of the process.

Interestingly enough, we found out that the single most mentioned innovation source in our interviews was the random hallway conversation. We discovered that creativity sparks during lunch conversations or when employees sneak into someone else’s screen. Once meetings are over, employees have a chance to quickly chat in the hallway and jump into others. It looks like virtual teams could miss a lot of these opportunities. Once the Telepresence meeting is over, there is no chance to quickly chat about something or grab something for lunch.