Artists Wanted
Sometimes, when I am in a hackathon working on an idea, I find myself longing to have a developer around the team that could help us, for example turn our “prototype”-vaguely an excel spreadsheet- into something that looks more like a web app for hacking management. There are other times that I wish to have a filmmaker friend -who also loves to hack management- to help me out produce a killer video for a new hack. That makes me realize that if we want to improve both the impact and the quality of the content we create, we might need to broaden the scope of our community by inviting developers, designers, filmmakers, photographers, cartoonists, and other artists alike, to be part of the family as well, and to work side by side with us. On a second thought, maybe we already have in our community a great deal of those artisans. In that case, the challenge would be how we can provide them opportunities to exercise their skills here.
Hi Alberto, thanks for your input--very helpful. In addition to the importance of having a diverse community of contributors, I'm also taking away your point for creating practical tools that people can use to spur management innovation... something that a lot of other MIXers have pointed out. Message received!
best,
Michele
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That is so true, and thanks for raising it Alberto. As part of a whole brain toolbox - I developed quite recently a jeopardy like game (See http://www.brainleadersandlearners.com/2-footed-question/brain-game-fina... ) that will get whole brain (combination of arts and science) together for better results from both.
Traditionally we separated these Hard and Soft skills and gave far less credence to right brain input. So we ended up with unbalanced organizations and far less innovation that whole brain tools offer.
With a keen developer or game expert - that tool could help opposites at work to join forces for a bigger more productive whole. The fact is that we now know wonderful life-changer facts about human brains that bring arts and science strengths together in what we term as smart skills - which solve problems for new era results.
"Nuff said -- except thanks that you are still listening and we're all still growing:-) It takes tools to bring left and right brained people together for whole brain innovations:-) Ellen
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Dear Ellen,
Thanks so much for your addition. I think that your brain game could also be included in the MIX Toolshed or in the MIX Academy.
Let's keep in touch,
Al
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I totally agree on the value of diversity, Alberto. The more diverse our community, the better.
On how to involve people that are less familiar with management-related issues, maybe we should consider the "language" hurdle, and try to increase the accessibility of our ideas, by using a simpler, more direct and less technical language.
Additionally, we could think about ad-hoc mini-hacks, for instance "innovate management with a photograph" or "paint Management 2.0", expressly addressed to our fellow MIXers who excel in arts.
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Dear Silvia,
I really appreciate your build-up. I agree with you that we need to be very careful about the language that we use. The simple the better, you’re right, and this is something that we tend to forget. On the other hand, I really like and support your idea about ad-hoc mini-hacks. Those hacks or hackathons could also be based not only on broad themes (e.i. disrupt performance management), but also around their passions.
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