C'mon now, what's the back end of that lyric couplet, from a song by the Dave Clark Five, circa mid-60's ??

Hang on a sec .. Google ?

"Over and over and over again Dave Clark Five"

So ...

"Over and over and over again ... this dance is gonna be a drag"

I am not using the last half of this phrase as any indicator if what is to follow, other than to note  that in some important senses a type of conversation has been occurring and re-occurring related to the "social" in this new term and very vaguely defined term "social media".

Doc Searls summarizes some of his key observations during the course of a range of meetings and conferences he's been attending, and participating in ... concluding with a focus on participation,  engagement and interaction ...

Anyway, the message I'll be bringing is one I got from Steve. It's about participation. Engagement. Seems to me that public broadcasting is way too long on policy and bureaucracy and way too short on engagement.

The WNYC spam Dave wrote about a couple days ago is a perfect example of a system that has no idea how to actually relate to customers. I listen to WNYC every morning — among a variety of other stations. And I hate the way the station insists on running a commercial message (usually from the New School) or pitching me on something-or-other as soon as I tune in. I pay WNYC not to be a commercial station, not to behave like its lessers on the radio dial.

I'll be putting up some ideas about how to facilitate better participation. Like to hear yours too. I'll pass them along.

This quote from Doc's observations about the route he is traveling these days reminds me, once again, of the growing realization that many of the issues being encountered during this massive shift towards participation and interaction are essentially the same issues that have been on the table for the organizational development / learning organization field for the last 40 years or so ... minus the hyperlinks, which have really just exacerbated, accelerated and made much more visible the ongoing pressure to make knowledge-work organizations more people-centric (a term I hate).  Another way of saying this (and an example of where context is so very important) is one of the basic principles of the Web's impact on established institutions and practices ... "hyperlinks subvert hierarchy".

The phrase begs much unpacking and interpretation, because each hierarchical situation wherein hyperlinks are potentially subversive represents a potential meeting point between the older, lacking-hyperlinks, vertically arranged information processing and decision making structure and the new, still-forming, dense networks of links between information and people.  The experience at each meeting point represents observable data about how the use of hyperlinks is being or eventual will be integrated into organized sets of activities where information is already flowing along in-forming routes.

Anyway. not to unpack or interpret too much ...

It reminds me of conversations with Chris Corrigan, wherein we found ourselves in agreement that processes and meeting designs that incorporate Open Space principles, or knowledge cafe methods, or ways of creating containers for deep and probably-unsettling reflection (such as Future Search or Narrative Capture and Sensemaking) will become fundamental means groups of people that face the need to unpack and re-form complexity.

David Weinberger once said something along the lines for " ...  the digital environment cuts out or eliminates opportunities for (human) slack that we are used to ... " and in relation to Doc's call for the facilitation of better participation, we will do well to remember an ever-present polarity from the OD field - that of "loose / tight".

The "loose / tight" polarity fits very well with the often observed "both / and" nature of our experience on the Web, and also lets us retrieve from organizational structure orthodoxy the usefulness of moving outside existing structures to stimulate possibilities for innovation.  Dave Snowden recently mentioned the ongoing mania in many organizations for the "lean six-sigmafication" of many business processes, and one naturally wonders how this loose / tight polarity can be effectively put to use in such an environment.  Presumably one does not look for innovation in a six-sigma site so much as lock down best practices and tighten the gaskets.

Maybe now that we are moving into an environment where the need for intelligent innovation is becoming constant, and essential ... we will see a speeding up of something that's been under way for a while ... managers as coaches and facilitators, engaged in the wholesale adoption of techniques and core principles from the organizational development field.

While I clearly think that these forces for changing what management means are important, and that the responses that are emerging are overdue, I also can't help grinning at all the images that come to mind from all the engagement I used to watch on the BBC's brilliant The Office ... Ricky facilitating and coaching Tim's wavering engagement in this classic moment ;-)

Tags: Doc Searls, social media, engagment, facilitation, Open Space. David Weinberger, Chris Corrigan, Future search, organizational development, coaching, wirearchy

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