Essential Unity

Sant Kabir had said ... and, it has been said in the Guru Granth Sahib ...

Awwal Allah Noor Upaya, Qudrat ke sab Bande
Ek Noor ke sab Jag Upjeya, Kon Bhale, Ko Mande!

The one, the All-Encompassing Allah, in His Light, from Hid Light, came forth the men of God, from Nature. And, from this very Light of Allah, all the worlds emerged, so who is Good, and who Bad?

Eternal Truth ... Though, do we even think about this? Do we even look at the very truth of this couplet? If we did ... would we not recognize all as part of a single Spirituality?

Communities and Collective Identity

There is a nice post by Dave Snowden about Aggregative or emergent identity? Rethinking Communities. Quite an interesting read, and thought provoking, too ... Something I have been thinking about, for some time. One important thing that Dave highlights ...

My take on that issue by the way is that while all communities are networks, not all networks are communities.

This rings a bell. We network a lot with folks we like to interact with, but that couldnt necessarily be called as a community. Whats the difference? Basic difference ... Shared goal. Which is why, networks that we find on social networking sites, and networks we find in organizations should not be equated, and should be studied as two distinct identities. This distinction derives from the goal ... OK, so we could argue that a lot of times, communities dont necessarily share the same goal. But then, more often than not, they do. Whether mutually decided by the community, or imposed by the environment, the goal is there.

And this, to my mind, is where quite a few of us are erring. The dynamics of communities, regardless of the parallels, are different within and outside the organizational context. And, this organizational context is what makes the difference. Communities within the organization, for example, need some kind of organizational support. This is a paradox of communities that I have written about earlier. Its important we stopped seeing this as a paradox, though, and consider this an important part of the creation and sustenance of communities in the organization.

Whither Humanity?

An incident is being reported from Assam ... Somewhere around 3000 Adivasi students were marching in the capital, Guwahati. They were walking towards the Vidhan Sabha, when the Police stopped them. They got angry ... went on a rampage. Burnt quite a few vehicles, looted and tried to damage shops, when the local people retaliated ... and beat to death, with bare hands, around 60 of these youths. The point? Simple ... What makes people take out their frustration by burning vehicles, looting and pillaging? What kinds of political activists are these? Seems to be the dominant activity most such rallies end up doing ... no matter which part of the country. This was demonstrated in Kolkata, and this was demonstrated in Guwahati.

Another, more important point ... What makes a man so heartless? What makes a man heartless enough to beat another human being to death? Its not as though you are shooting someone ... this is beating someone on and on and on ... the victim could be bleeding all over, and still getting beaten. How can someone be so insensitive to a fellow human being? One part is the ethics, and the other sensitivity. The question is larger ... What is making us, as a society, so intolerant? Across the world, we have less and less time ... we talk more (cellphones, land lines, email, RSS feeds ...), but we communicate less. I had got a mail a few days ago, and it summed it up quite well ...

People are meant to be loved, and things to be used.
Today, we love things, and use people!

Shall this be the way humanity will evolve? Are we increasing the level of sophistication of our civilization, or reverting to barbarism?

Guru Nanak Dev Ji

Today is Guru Nanak Dev Ji Janma Tithi ... Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji, one of those Eternally Free ... those who come to this world to teach us ... people like us, who are still either trying to find our way out, or not even trying.

Has been said ... The True Guru shall lead you to the path of Enlightenment. As Sri Yogananda Paramahansa was told, that His Guru was yet to come ... that, there is The Guru, who shall delight you with the Eternal Peace ... acquaint you with the Eternal. And, take you on your journey.

As Sri Ramakrishna said ... there are three types of people ... the ignorant, whome He equated with the fish who, when caught in the fisherman's net, burrow into the mud, and think they are safe, then there are the striving, whome He equated to those fish who, when caught in the net, try hard to come out and break free (some succeed, others dont ...), then there are the Eternally Free ... those who refuse to get trapped in the net. The True Guru shall be Eternally Free ... Those who come upon this world to guide us ... at the least, who who are seeking, who are striving ...

But shall we strive, shall we seek the Ultimate Answers on the foundation of violence? Shall we not find liberation in love? For, what we seek is Eternal Love. Or, shall we believe violence and intolerance will liberate us? The Teachings of Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji tell us that the only way to liberation is Eternal Love ... and, attain that we must. Or, shall we have lived in vain?

Open Sourcing ...

I am reding the chapter on Peer Production in Wikinomics ... And they are taking peer production to the next level with the Wikinomics Playbook. I am joining up there. This post is about two things ...

1. They have written about some of the ground rules of open-sourcing ... primarily from the IBM experience ... In this regard, I have already written earlier, that participating in open-source initiatives is one thing, and being an open-source modelled organization (if there is any such thing ... if there isnt, maybe i could coin the term?) is another. Though, this is not the point I am writing about here. One point that seems to come out of the discussion in the book is that open-sourcing be the port of last call ... when you dont see anything coming coming out of an initiative (read OS/2, or the Barrick Challenge), open-source it, and see if you can extract something out of it. I dont think this is the best way of doing this. With diverse companies showing the way, too. With companies as diverse as Lego and (cant find the link where I read it) ... Unilever, with their Dove brand of soaps ... (correct me if I am wrong, though ...), and I think theres much more to open-sourcing than meets the eye. This aspect of open-sourcing needs to be explored further.

2. The chapter also talks about open-sourced ERP ... thats interesting. One of the things that ERP implementations today entail is lengthy implementation cycles ... whether it be SAP, or one of the Oracle products ... Open-source ERP would be an interesting thing ... small components which can be downloaded, and modified as per the requirements of the company ... with small consulting firms creating the ecosystem around the software, tweakin the software, and implementing updates on an ongoing basis (and I am sure there would be lots ...). This should keep the IT folks into the loop, and involved completely as well. But, this is a huge deviation from the existing model. What I am talking about here, is open-source ERP software, with a clutch of innovative consulting firms providing implementation and support services around these. Considering that the ERP wars are now being fought in the "SMB" segment, with the biggie segment already saturated, this could be the road forward for enterprise software. Oracle has already done this, with making their documentation, and software available for download, with some terms and conditions, of course ... Anyone interested in open-sourcing ERP software, please feel free to contact me! :-)

Volunteered Wikinomics

I am reading a nice book ... Wikinomics ... they even have a website now. Its quite an interesting read ... and, gives you a convincing view of the way things are shaping up ... and, not just in the trendy hi-tech, or publishing, media, or entertainment industries ... but, something as "old world" as mining ... read the Barrick Challenge. I am currently reading the chapter on Peer Production. Quite an interesting reading. The key word here is collaboration, as we know by now ... Another word which stands out in the discussion, but doesnt really get discussed too often is voluntary.

And, this has some interesting connotations. If a large part of the changing landscape is based on voluntary work (no, this is not in the sense of social service, but rather, the individuals also stand to gain a lot by participation in the effort ... think Linux?), then this raises a few thoughts on two different levels.

1. This has massive implications on the future of business. While this means that there is a lot of value that can be realized by bringing on the power of collaboration. While this is a very nice thing, I am trying to understand the implications of this in the current organizational scenario. Lets face it ... How many folks would volunteer for an open source project on-the-job? In the organizational context, there are not many volunteers. Which means, that this entire idea of collaborating to the extent of creating an operating system is probably not going to happen within the organizational context, skunkworks notwithstanding.

2. If this model sustains ... There is the usual set of detractors of the model (lots of folks tout IBM's success with open source ... but, not many who mention that IBM doesnt create open source ... they create business models to make money from there ... and, end of the day, IBM is a corporate, much like a lot of others). This is the part which we need to watch out for ... Something I have written about earlier. What this implies is that there is a fundamental friction between the form of the organization as we see it today, and the form of the organization which is emerging. One school of thought believes that if you are able to show value to managers, they would embrace this change. After all, its a more efficient way of doing business. But, managers are not such rational beings. Which is why, this friction is here to stay, at least in the near to medium term.

Putting these two thoughts together ... unless the contradictions of both these thoughts are resolved, I dont think the power of collaboration can be harnessed to a large degree within today's organizations. Its still early days yet, and organizations do evolve, and this is where I agree with Don Tapscott and Anthony Williams is that this wave of collaboration is going to grow ... and, those companies who try to resist this, would not be right there, at the forefront of business.

Taslima in Kolkata

THere are parts of the city which suddenly seem to have gone up in arms ... while the rest of the city looks on ... in horror. Is this the Kolkata of yore? Is this the Kolkata that we love? I wouldnt like to believe that, but does one have an option except to believe? That maybe theres a method to the madness ... that somewhere, some kind of human expression will arise. But, we wait, and we wait ... in vain. Not for long, Hopefully?

Add to this the statement of Mr. Biman Bose ... simply put, he says ... if peace in the city is endangered, then Taslima Nasrin should leave. Does this mean the Left Front believes that anyone who is not liked by someone else should leave? Or, is this simply because there is a certain vote bank, and that vote bank needs to be pampered? Either way ... does this mean the Government shall abdicate its duty to maintain law and order? Or, shall the Government be dictated to by one section of society? Not to say that the section may not even be civil society.

Taslima and Nandigram

I was reading on the site of NDTV that the Army has been asked to come outin Kolkata. Sad enough state of affairs ... What is even more surprising is that the protestors, who were protesting against what happened at Nandigram, were demanding that the visa for Taslima Nasreen be revoked ...

Not sure what Taslima Nasreen has to do with Nandigram. Was she there? Nobody said so. Then, why are two things being confused? Some say she is un-Islamic ... Lets assume she is ... Is the issue here not Nandigram?

KM -- Tool or Function

I was at the KM India Summit last week. Which explains the long time since the last post. Well well ... Traffic in Delhi can have that effect. As you can see, the who's who of the knowledge fraternity in India were there ... and talking. Dr. Rory Chase delivered some interesting insights. And, Dave Snowden was there ... via telephone. A little bit of a disappointment not being able to meet him, but he did deliver a talk which was very insightful (had read a bit of it on his blog, which should go to show the power of web 2.0 ...).

Well ... one theme which came out of the summit throughout, and something which you couldnt help observing was this ... More and more people were talking about KM being used to achieve a particular thing ... Which is the way it should be ... End of the day, KM cannot be the end in itself, but has to be a means towards a larger business goal. Having said this, there are two things which I thought need a little more reflection ... Not because I disagree with the idea of KM being a means to a larger business objective, but because the larger discussions threw up a few questions in my mind ...

1. It seems to me that in a lot of scenarios, KM is encroaching ... on the domains which used to be those of other functions in the organization. It could be production, or operations, or it could be quality, or it could be sales, or finance, or hr ... Its one thing that KM enables these functions, and another thing to have things being drawn from other functions, packaged together, and labelled KM. Having said that, it is also a fact that the business demarcations between functions are blurring as the world around us getting more and more multi-disciplinary. But, somewhere I think there is a little bit of confusion about where KM should fit into the jigsaw. Of course this would be different for different contexts, and for different problems, but KM cant be all things to all people.

2. Taking the previous point forward, and the logical conclusion from this is ... KM can either be a function, or a tool. As a function, I think the definition of KM is blurred in the current applicability context, which leaves us with one option ... a tool. The question this then throws up, is that if KM is a tool, and this is something which explains a lot of the things and practices taken up by KM practitioners, is how does one measure a tool? Does this then mean that our efforts to look at measurement of the effectiveness of our KM efforts are misguided?

Virtual Worlds in the Organization

Jessie Paul wrote a comment a comment on my previous post about virtual worlds. The idea she is putting forth is that in all probability, the evolution and adoption of virtual worlds would occur over a period of time much in a way similar to the way the web was first adopted in organizations, and that virtual worlds would evolve, as organizations try to meet more of their requirements with the virtual world environment. For example, today, virtual worlds have caught the attention of the marketing fraternity, or of support functions, but not in the mainstream of the business. Nor was the web mainstream initially.

The way I see it, the emergence of virtual worlds, at one level, could be quite similar to the emergence of web 2.0 technologies. There is a basic similarity between the two ... That of their participative and collaborative nature ... With the development of content, and the posting of thoughts moving out from the realm of the webmaster, to the realm of the users. And something that is collaborative in nature would, by definition, be adopted by individuals first. And it is from the experiences of these individuals that organizations would learn, and develop a plan for adoption.

And here lies the key ... Adoption by individuals ... and, this is primarily going to be for non-work related purposes. And, as we use these platforms, these platforms would also evolve and become more sophisticated, such that they can move into the organizational context. Something like we have seen with web 2.0 technologies ... Evolving into a space where the adoption can be far simpler from the organizational perspective.

More later in the week ... Will be writing about the KM India Summit, that I am going to, the next three days.