I work in Toronto (Ontario Region) so there’s challenges involved in participating with a group based out of Ottawa. Thankfully we have technology and today I was able to use Skype to participate in a conference call, on a day I had booked off from work.

Which sort of brings me to part of my point. Things that are well designed should be simple to use. Well designed technology (Skype and a MacBook) made it simple and exciting to take part in this discussion.

Lets apply this to something else, like policy.

Everyone’s been in roped off queues that zig-zag in front of a service counter, forcing you to walk back and forth just to reach the front of an empty line, right? That’s what policy can feel like when it’s created as a protectionist measure. People get frustrated and they try to find shortcuts and loopholes. Or, people just let things slide, and nothing gets done because the system is too complex for them to grasp effectively. When this happens, the policy becomes defunct anyways. Much like the roped line that you just completely bypassed.

But how can we take something like HR Policy, and make it as easy and effective for the user as my MacBook and Skype are for me? That’s what we’re attempting to tackle with our working group. The really hard part, is not only does it need to be simple, but it also needs to be able to do everything that’s required of it.

The meeting today was spent beginning to define clear goals and objectives of the group. We’re young employees without the benefit of decades of experience with the subject, so this will probably be the most laborious part of the consultation process. That said, I think once we define the problem and set out real objectives, we’ll be able to propose some great solutions.

As a communicator, I’m excited to be part of a team working to simplify things. Simple is how we ensure more people will pay attention, comprehend, and act using the system and tools to do their job more effectively, and more efficiently.

Much like using my MacBook at home in my kitchen, on my day off, to work with colleagues hundreds of kilometres away. If technology hadn’t made it so simple to do, I probably would not have done it.

I’ll end this post with a video of something else that’s a brilliantly conceived, simple and fun solution to a problem.

Crowdsourcing is not a formal process. It’s a process of inviting input from a crowd, not to take credit for the outcome but to get things done. It’s an informal focus group, or a hi-tech suggestion box.

BusinessWeek published an article in June 2009 about Crowdsourcing and innovation and how, during an economic downturn, it allows people and companies to do more with less.

People don’t contribute because they want recognition, but because they want to contribute their knowledge to help produce a valuable outcome that can be further shared. They want to be part of a community and a goal. They add their two cents because they can’t take on the project themselves, but are happy to contribute in some small way. Crowdsourcing works for these reasons and more.

Formalizing the process too much takes the umph out of it. It sucks the wind out of the sails.

So how do things work when someone needs to be formally accountable for a project that incorporates some form of crowdsourcing? Can “tried-and-true” methods of top-down accountability be adapted to horizontal practices like these? Or do some new hybrid models for accountability need to be used?

I’ve loved to experiment since I was knee-high to a grasshopper, so I say new models need to be tried. Of course good judgment needs to be exercised, but there are always newer and better ways to do things. The more a culture is open to trying ideas, the sooner they can be tested, refined and incorporated in to our books of best practices.

Imagine wide-scale horizontal participation from within your organization, and maybe from without as well, with the singular goal of making things better. It makes me bristle with anticipation and excitement because together, who knows what we can achieve?

The article in BusinessWeek brings up some important considerations around the potential devaluation of the work talented individuals do within certain industries. I’m confident that solutions will be found and balance reached.

What do you think? Can we capture opportunities to test new models of governance and focus the collective expertise within organizations, customer bases and groups of citizens?

It’s a goofy little question. There’s no real answer to it, but at the same time the question struck me as profound.

Am I doing as much as I could to benefit myself and those in my life? I’m proud of nearly everything I do. But if I had a doppelganger, could he figure out how to do more? And do it better, faster and stronger? It gets me thinking…

How about you? Have you read Microserfs? Did this question stand out for you too?

If you’ve read my blog for a while, you may know that I’ve been anxiously awaiting the launch of StarCraft II since the game was announced in May 2007.

Now, I just read on Wikipedia that StarCraft II is being set four years after the events of the first StarCraft installments. Why would Blizzard set it four years after when releasing the sequel 12 years after the first?

Anyone else find this odd? Why not set the new story 12 years later, and have some correlation with the time that’s passed? I’m 12 years older than when I planted my first Spawning Pool on a field of creep. Why has Jim Raynor gotten away with growing only four years older? How are we supposed to relate to him? (joking)

I am curious to know what you think of this. I like when game and movie sequels are set the same number of years in the future as it’s been since the original was released (in real-world years). It’s a nice touch.

Senior and executive management have a huge effect on the culture of the organization, especially one that is built on a highly hierarchical structure.

When it comes up that staff have lost (or never had) faith in their leadership, what can those leaders do to change it?

These are four behaviors that I think can lead to situations like this:

• Lack of honesty in staffing changes (internal hiring, promotions, temporary assignments, etc)
• Exhibiting a cynical attitude during meetings, presentations and staff interactions.
• Back-handed comments about their colleagues in front of staff.
• Being disconnected from middle-management, not recognizing a manager’s job well done (this trickles down to staff level).

The damage caused by these types of behavior can be hard to undo. It takes time, but these behaviors need to stop before trust can be rebuilt.

I asked on Twitter earlier today, “What are some things Sr. Managers / Directors can do to gain trust from their staff?”

One response I received from @brianjbradley was:

@RickWeiss honesty, knowing their names, empathy, being genuine

I think these are definitely a few things Senior Managers can do to start down the road towards trust.

Now the hard question is; what can an organization do if Senior Managers are genuinely cynical, unhappy, backstabbing people?

I had a discussion the other day that was far more complicated than it should have been. The person I was talking to was over-complicating the idea they were trying to convey and seemed to like it that way.

Remember word-problems from math class? I bet he hated them – I should ask next chance I get. How were you at word problems? I remember being one of the few in my classes who actually liked them.

Word-problems are all about taking information, simplifying it down to the core data, pushing all the unimportant details aside and crunching the facts to reach a conclusion.

It’s a useful life skill that can serve well in any profession; communications included. Brothers Chip and Dan Heath say in their book “Made to Stick”, that simplifying ideas is an important way of making them sticky. Just not over-simplifying to the point of being below your audience.

How do you practice developing this skill? Should we all go back to grade 9 math for a week?

I usually unfollow people who do this immediately. They’ve already completed their goal of sharing whatever URL it was that they put in the auto-DM. Their objective was to get the follow-back, because they almost always followed me first. Their profile looked interesting enough to give them a chance but typically I was already on the fence.

The Auto-DM tells me that this is a one-shot interaction. Deliver the link and that’s it. And that’s not how I use Twitter.

Sometimes I get an auto-DM that’s just a friendly greeting. I’m ok with this, though I feel it unnecessary. I don’t expect immediate interaction from everyone I follow, nor do I immediately interact with someone who follows me. There’s no reason to rush. Most of us already understand that social media isn’t an overnight endeavor.

What do you think when you get an Auto-DM? Do you respond? Do you unfollow?

What happened to words like “honest”, “candid” and “sincere”? They’re great for describing human exchanges, and they’re not used disingenuously by CEOs, elected officials and spokespeople to describe their relationships with stakeholders.

I feel like honesty, sincerity, and candidness are more closely connected with ideas of human morality. Transparency has to do with optimization; finding a balance between sharing information and protecting proprietary knowledge in order to maximize trust and minimize loss of competitive advantage or stakeholder’s personal information.

Why am I saying this?

I noticed a status post on Facebook today by a well-known person in social media who I’m friends with. They were mentioning that they tend to make the occasional negative post, or share personal thoughts differently on Facebook, because they see it as a more personal channel than Twitter. They were asking honestly if their friends and “friendz” minded this.

One of the comments in the thread beneath it thanked them for being “Transparent”.

I shook my head. I hope that it was said in jest, but for some reason I get the impression it wasn’t.

Put up your hand if your response to your spouse or significant other saying “I love you” has ever been “Thanks for being transparent”? I don’t expect to see many hands.

What about this scenario:

A good friend says “Thanks for helping out, I was having a tough day.”

Which of the following would you respond to this sincere thank-you with:

1. It’s my pleasure, you’ve been there for me in the past.
2. Don’t mention it, I was maximizing your shareholder value!
3. Hey, what’re friends for?

It’s a bit of a ridiculous example, but you probably get my point. You’d most likely answer with 1) or 3) but not 2).

Keep the formal corp-speak for the boardroom.

Am I the only one getting tired of terms frequently used in government and corporate mission statements being used to describe social exchanges? Am I overreacting here?  I’d like to hear your take.

(Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/amandang/)

If you have some time, I recommend watching it.

A couple of years ago, I was in a relationship with a fascinating girl. Our compatibility aside, I learned a lot from her. She’s a very smart girl, and she was (and I assume still is) very serious about her nutrition. She’s vegetarian, and since we lived together, I adopted a vegetarian diet as well. It was easier, and I quite enjoyed it. I’d still take a tasty vegetable curry over a burger any day.

Over the months we lived together, I lost 30lbs. Almost all of the weight I gained since I stopped swimming competitively and started university. It was because we didn’t consume many heavily processed foods, and we certainly didn’t buy everyday products with added fructose.

PWGSC is the Federal Department I work for.

I replied “@ruk Don’t know how much I can do about helping you find an interviewee, but if you tell me more, I’m willing to try to help.”

I was too late to actually help; Mr. Rukavina had gotten an interview and produced a great video profile of the Jean Canfield building in Charlottetown, PEI. The Jean Canfield building, as I just learned, is  a really cool ‘green’ building that was built by Public Works and Government Services Canada. The interview was not with a PWGSC representative but an architect from the design firm contracted by PWGSC. He does a fantastic job of explaining the many features of the building that reduce it’s environmental footprint. The Jean Canfield building is 60% more energy efficient than similar buildings in its class.

I can only imagine that time was the issue with not giving the interview to @ruk, since his video is really good press.

The video is very interesting.  I’m glad I messaged @ruk and learned about it. If nothing else, I know a little more about a project that happened outside Ontario Region where I work.

I used to monitor PWGSC on Twitter, but stopped because a) it was ‘tumbleweed’ quiet b) I switched twitter clients and forgot to set up the keyword for a live search. That’s how interesting the search had been. I’ve since resumed my monitoring.