It’s easy to view collaboration skills as part of an individual’s capabilities; we all know people who’re plain easy to work with. While individual skills are important, and we can all work to develop better collaboration skills, there are other major factors to consider. Successful collaboration often has less to do with individual skills, and more to do with the dynamics of the system in which the collaboration is taking place.

Systems language and analysis can be an immediate turn off. I sometimes tune out when consultants drift into the stratosphere of nebulous day dreamy org fluff. Other times though it’s worth paying attention - understanding basic systems thinking can improve your ability to make good business decisions.

Here’s a useful tip from Eugene Eric Kim that can help you to apply systems thinking skills to improve workplace collaboration. Consider:

“To be good at collaboration, you have to treat it as a system. That system includes things like communication, community, KnowledgeManagement, learning, and leadership.”

“Most CollaborativeTools companies are either in the communication or the KnowledgeManagement business. They’re usually selling pipes, PIMs, or document management tools. All of those things have something to do with collaboration, but they are not in and of themselves collaboration. Then again, no tools are. A hammer is a tool for hammering, but it is not itself hammering.”

Pipes = process integration technology, PIMs = personal information management systems. Also, I’d add “context” to the list of key system variables.

[tags]collaboration, applied systems thinking[/tags]

There’s been a shift taking place in the world of diesel vehicles. We’re seeing a growth in awareness of certain technological advantages to diesel engines, especially as relates to fuel efficiency. Part of this change has come as a result of successful efforts to redefine diesel’s public image. Diesel isn’t only about farming equipment, supersized Cummins V12 grocerygetters, or radar jamming longhaul convoys.

Exhibit 1: Opel Eco Speedster (via Treehugger). Will GM bring these ultra-efficient diesel racers to the US?

Exhibit 2: Mercedes BLUETEC (via Jeff Nolan). Silicon Valley software executive Jeff Nolan makes a public request for this diesel engine technology to be made available in California. Link through Nolan’s site to check out the BLUETEC blog.

Exhibit 3: Diesel Technology Forum. An online community where corporate diesel enthusiasts share news and opinion including outlines of “each company’s greenhouse gas reduction activities, research related to their environmental initiatives and products, and memberships with environmental organizations and programs.”
[tags]diesel engine technology, diesel public image[/tags]

Mankiw’s blog has a link to a NY Times article on prediction markets. More interesting, in my opinion, is his link to an impressive piece of prediction markets research and analysis by Justin Wolfers and Eric Zitzewitz (Journal of Economic Perspectives, Spring 2004).

Who wants to predict how much time they’ll spend in 2007 digging through archived material from the Journal of Economic Perspectives?

[tags]prediction markets[/tags]

Reading about water shortages is a bit of a drag. Times like this you’ll find endless inspiration in the pages of classic literature. An excerpt to cheer you:

“Life did not seem to him to be like a storm-tossed sea, as the poets describe it. No. He imagined that sea to be smooth and unruffled, calm as a millpond and transparent to it’s darkest bottom; he himself sat in a small, unsteady boat, and down below on that dark, slimy bottom he could just make out the shapes of hideous monsters, looking like huge fishes: all the maladies and infirmities of life - grief, madness, poverty, blindness… Even while he looked, one of the monsters detached itself from the darkness, rose higher and higher, became more and more distinct, more and more horribly distinct… Another moment and the boat that bore him would be overturned. But then it seemed to grow indistinct again, it withdrew further and further, it sank to the bottom, and there it lay stirring the water round it faintly… But the appointed hour would come, and it would overturn the boat.”

- Ivan Turgenev, Torrents of Spring

Cheerful now? Ha.
[tags]Ivan Turgenev, Torrents of Spring[/tags]

Quote from a National Academy of Science news release that caught my attention:

“The combination of limited water supplies, rapidly increasing populations, warmer regional temperatures, and the specter of recurrent drought point to a future in which the potential for conflict among existing and prospective new water users will prove endemic, the report concludes. This will inevitably lead to increasingly costly, controversial, and unavoidable trade-offs among water managers, policymakers, and their constituents.”

“It was therefore a welcome development when the seven Colorado River basin states presented preliminary proposals for managing water shortages in a letter last February to the U.S. secretary of the interior, the committee said. Such interstate cooperation will prove increasingly valuable, and likely essential, in coping with future droughts and water demands. Likewise, a commitment to two-way communication between scientists and water managers will be critical. In addition, the federal government should ensure that the U.S. Geological Survey has the resources to maintain and expand the Colorado River gaging system, which collects streamflow measurements essential for sound water-management decisions.”

Water problems certainly do highlight how some types of complex problems are affected by decisions from huge numbers of stakeholders. We all need water.

When the NAS stresses the importance of “two way communication between scientists and water managers” it sounds like they’re considering an investment in telephone technology. Maybe it’s just a point of language. Maybe not. Either way I think we’d all agree that two way communication isn’t the type of communication needed to address a water problem affecting all residents of 7 states (and arguably many more).

How do you organize the participation of broad groups of stakeholders? It’s awful easy to use blogs and wikis.

If you’re learning about wikis I recommend listening to this conversation between Dan Bricklin and Asheesh Birla.

[tags]National Academy of Science, many to many communication, wikis[/tags]

Kevin Rowell (back) and Mark Mazziotti (fore) building a clever bamboo chicken coop at Emerald Earth, June 2005.

I’ve written a few times in the past year about natural building. I’ve been lucky to learn about it through the work of friends, and workshops at Emerald Earth and the Solar Living Institute [nice website design] in Hopland.

The natural building community is often portrayed as a fringe movement. In terms of sheer numbers you could call it a fringe aspect of the green building community. But the term fringe carries connotations that in this case don’t apply. The natural building movement is perhaps better described as the leading edge of the green building industry. These are people who really put their whole selves into solving large, complex problems.

Was thrilled to hear about this David Gelles earthen floor article in the New York Times (thanks for the link Michele). Congratulations to Marisha Farnsworth and Kevin Rowell in El Cerrito, to Michael Smith in Boonville, and especially to my buddy Mark Mazziotti, one of the builders at Marisha and Kevin’s place.

It’s great exposure for people who deserve the recognition. Good work for everyone involved.
[tags]natural building[/tags]