The Culture Table – Request for input

Posted on August 10, 2013 by ThomK

The purpose of this post is to share something I am working on in the hopes of receiving some feedback from people like you.

Back in April I wrote a post entitled “Hold your breath, it’s going to go deep” about the fact that I was presenting a paper at the World Social Science Forum in October, well the deadline is approaching and I am now trying to write the thing. The paper is to examine the cultural and governance implications of horizontally enabling tools like GCpedia. As part of that I would like to have a culture table that compares the two cultures with a focus on the divergent points of potential conflict.

To provide a frame for analysis of the conflicting cultures I have elected to use Schein’s three levels of organizational culture. The draft comparison follows.

Table 1: Points of Conflict

Levels of Culture

Gov2.0

Gov 1.0 (2007-2010)

Artefacts

Visible structures and processes

Observed Behaviour

Principle based guidelines

Loosely coupled networks

Communication based on need and interest (not hierarchy)

Collective learning

Constructive debate

Habitual knowledge sharing

Roles and Histories

Respect shown in disagreement

Prescriptive policy and web of rules

Departmental, Westminster system with legislated silos

Vertical communication patterns

Some cooperation amongst the willing

Territoriality

Established methods that have worked for decades

Respect shown by unquestioning agreement

Generic Job Descriptions

Espoused Beliefs and Values

Ideas, Goals, Values Aspirations

Ideologies

Rationalizations

Open by default

Trust and respect

Wisdom of the crowd

Experiment and learn

We is stronger than me

Authenticity

Design to “Fail fast”

Values and Ethics Code:

Respect for democracy
Respect for people
Integrity
Stewardship
Excellence

Share when ready

Non Partisan truth to power

Stay off the front page of the news

Design for “fail safe”

Basic Underlying Assumptions

Unconscious beliefs and values that determine behaviour, perception thought and feeling

Responsible autonomy is best

Deference to the most respected

Shared sense of purpose

Free information is powerful

Mistakes are learning opportunities

Beg forgiveness

Hierarchy is best

Deference to authority of the position

Entitlement to my job and benefits

What the boss wants

Information Is power

Mistakes are career limiting moves (that end up in the news)

Ask permission

Working for Canadians
(it’s a calling not a job)

This is just a draft and it is based on my perceptions. What do you think, am I being unfair to the Gov 1.0 or too Pollyanna with the Gov 2.0? Maybe something important is missing?

You can comment here, or you can comment on this Google doc version that I will be using as my working copy.

Thank you in advance, I look forward to your input.

Thom

[polldaddy poll=7312241]

Would you attend a Chatham House party for Blueprint 2020?

Posted on July 6, 2013 by ThomK

UPDATE, August 1, 2013

A total of 36 people signed up for invitations. We are now coordinating times and such.
The next update will be a blog post after the event is held.

UPDATE, July 29, 2013

We have reached the magic number of 30 and are now preparing.
The list will close on Thursday, August 1 at noon.

See you soon!

A few weeks ago I posted an idea on this blog about using the Chatham House rule as a way to get some frank and honest input into the Government of Canada’s Blueprint 2020 vision for the public service. I was afraid that some public servants might self censor in an attempt to avoid making a “career limiting move”.

Having barely survived producing the two PS Engage events, I am a little hesitant about jumping back into event management. However the idea generated some interest and as you know I am pretty passionate about making the Public Service better, so…

I have created a mailing list that you can join if you would like to attend a Chatham House event in support of Blueprint 2020. You can sign up using this form. If more than 30 people sign up, I will organize and facilitate at least one event. If others decide to organize events then I will let you know what I know via the mailing list.

That’s all for now, lets see what happens!

Three truths to help you change the culture of the Public Service

Posted on June 26, 2013 by ThomK

This is one of two posts for the GTEC 2013 blog series where we are exploring what it means to be an Agile, Open, Collaborative and Mobile Government. My focus will be on the Cultural, Organizational and Policy Infrastructure that provides the foundation for public service culture. This is a great time to be discussing these topics as the Clerk has recently announced the Blueprint 2020 initiative with a call to action for all Public Servants to participate in shaping the vision for the Public Service of the future.

Recently I was deep into an analysis of how Governments could realize the potential of collaboration and social technologies. As I was mulling over how to synthesise all of the data into a sound bite that could be easily consumed by a busy executive, I was also thinking about how it connected with what I had learned from working in advertising and teaching consumer behaviour. In a rare moment of clarity while waiting for a red light I scribbled down three truths that seem to me to be both obvious and profound.

1. Sharing is good

Sharing is the activity that fuels successful collaboration, knowledge management and communication, which in turn are fundamental to a “capable and high performing” organization. By sharing we become authentic to those around us, sharing preserves hard earned knowledge and makes us more productive, telling stories makes us real, and helps to build the common purpose which is so important to successful change.

Most of the major research firms agree that the biggest challenge organizations face in implementation of social technologies within the enterprise is creating a culture that supports information sharing. Having been involved with over a dozen enterprise collaboration efforts I can say that my personal experience supports those findings. Culture as the saying goes eats strategy for breakfast, apparently it also eats technology.

Right now, in the Public Service many people don’t share because they are afraid of making a Career Limiting Move (CLM), while others, (kudos if you are one), consider sharing part of their responsibility. Unfortunately too many seem to equate sharing with a CLM, and ultimately we need to institutionalize ways of rewarding sharing and punishing information hoarding. That kind of change will probably take decades, so maybe in the meantime maybe there is a need for some responsible anonymous input to Blueprint 2020? What do you say, should we throw a Blueprint 2020 Chatham House Party…err… Workshop?

2. Ego gets in the way

By ego I mean an unhealthy focus on self, we have all come across individuals that try and withhold information and manipulate those around them for personal gain or promotion. When combined with a lack of emotional intelligence I believe this is one of the most destructive forces in the public service today. We need to get our self-worth from something other than the size of our empire, we need to get emotional and career points for collaborating. We need to recognize the common purpose, (serving Canadians anyone?) as more important than our personal gain. Not only is the, “I only do what it good for me” attitude, bad for the organization, its beginning to look like it may be bad for your career as well.

I have worked on enough horizontal files to have come across this issue more than once. No matter how you structure a collaboration the people involved can always sabotage it. While researching the horizontal governance issue a few years ago I came across an Auditor General’s report examining the lack of progress on the climate change file. Without much reading between the lines it was obvious that the real problem was that the primary departments involved could not find a way to collaborate. Now I am not pointing fingers at the senior ranks, you see this kind of behaviour at all levels. I suppose we should not be surprised, given the competitive individualistic socialization most of us have grown up with, but human’s greatest capacity is to learn, and we can learn to work together and set aside personal differences if we set aside our ego once in a while in favour of the common goal.

3. You can’t communicate too much

“You can’t communicate too much”. I posted this comment on twitter during one of the conferences I attended recently and it quickly became one of the most re-tweeted updates, so it seems the sentiment hit a nerve.

Back in my advertising days we used to spend a lot of money on media buys and printing, and one of the worst things that could happen was for a print run or advertisement be published with a mistake. When it did happen it was an expensive and embarrassing lesson. After the first time we began to repeat instructions, in different languages if necessary, we would draw pictures, leave notes on the artwork, call the publisher, even attend press runs to make sure all was understood. Later in my career I worked with a Product Line Manager at a major telecom who told we that for an idea to get traction you had to say the same thing over and over again in as many different ways as you could think of —you can’t communicate too much.

In today’s information intense and dynamic workplace trying to get the attention of the information inundated executive ranks will take more than a little repetition. Going the other way, management can’t communicate too much with staff, especially during times of change. The mushroom school of management (keep them in the dark, and feed them sh*t), simply has no place in an agile and high performing organization.

In dynamic times, perfection is the enemy of communication, waiting for a complete and crafted message simply leads to speculation and fear, while communicating often and openly, even admitting you don’t know everything, leads to trust and understanding. Having a clear and common purpose is more important than knowing the details of how you are going to get there.

Conclusion

Changing the culture of something as big as the Public Service is a daunting task, I applaud the sentiment behind Blueprint 2020 and encourage everyone to get involved. But it is also important to remember that an organization is people, and an organization’s people are who make the culture. The three lessons that I have shared can and should be applied from the top down, but more importantly they can be applied by individuals regardless of rank, when you think about that, it this means you have the power to change culture.

A final note:

I am writing this on Father’s day, 2013 and as it happens this date is also the anniversary of my father’s passing at the age of 89. A child of the depression and a jet setter of the 60’s he lived his life with an ethos of “doing the best you can, with what you have”. In these uncertain times it is easy to blame others for inaction, but I say, do what you can, with what you have.

What do you say?

Image Source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Triskele-Symbol-spiral-five-thirds-turns.png

“Dreams of a digital nirvana don’t come true, but all is not lost.”

Posted on June 7, 2013 by ThomK

https://nusum.wordpress.com/2013/06/07/reflections-of-a-participant-observer/ 746px-Tesla_colorado

When I was asked to write a post comparing technology and tools across time, I was intrigued because I believe that the tools and technology we choose shape the culture of our workplace.

Twenty pages of draft text later, I decided that the topic was more suitable for a book than a blog post. So instead, here are a few reflections on technology and collaboration from someone who has been around a bit.

Collaboration to me, means a group of people working together towards a common goal. Technology helps or hinders us in that collaboration by finding the people to collaborate with, in sharing stuff we are working on, in co-creating stuff and in measuring our progress towards a common goal.

The past

Before the existence of writing, collaboration was strictly a face-to-face affair and probably centred around survival. About 5000 years ago writing came along, and information could now be preserved and shared independent of a human to remember it. For the next 45 centuries written information was the domain of the elite.

When the printing press was invented, rooms full of scribes were gradually replaced with new technology – machines that could accurately reproduce information at an accelerated rate. Ideas could now spread further and faster than ever before. Collaboration over distance was possible although it took a long time. Information was very physical and real.

Around this time, Information geeks the world over began a quest for the ultimate classification system. Every great power had a great library.

More recently, the Cold War and quantum physics research produced the internet and the web. The “interweb” changed everything if you wanted it to. Information could now be in more than one place at once, and it could literally travel at the speed of light. Physical artifacts became digital—making it at once more accessible and more vulnerable. Everything became miscellaneous. Digital networks evolved into complex adaptive systems, and Digimon appeared in popular culture.

The web was a new frontier, unregulated and exciting, a new crop of 20 something techno wizards rose in business fame. Apple was born. The Cluetrain Manifesto was written and there was a boom in tech stocks. At the end of the millennium we panicked over a couple of missing digits (Y2K), and spent billions correcting the short sightedness of the previous decades.

In the GC, Government On-Line occurred and the Funding Fairy provided the means for departments to put their information on-line. Canada became a world leader, but the paper-based mentality that prevailed caused many to completely miss the opportunity presented by hyperlinks and digital logic, instead “brochure-ware” prevailed.

At the top of the hype curve, the tech bubble goes pop and we are reminded that gravity works. After the crash, the Web was reborn as Web 2.0 with user-created content and social networking taking centre stage. The Long Tail made its appearance and command and control hierarchies began to sense a threat, while the educated masses saw opportunity.

Government CIOs scrambled to keep the information plumbing from backing up while Amazon and Google raised the bar of citizen expectations for on-line service.

Tagging and folksonomies entered the vocabulary of information professionals, curating became something anyone could do. Librarians and archivists struggled to catalogue and preserve some of the exponential growth while the cognitive surplus emerged to build things like Wikipedia—making human knowledge more accessible than ever before. CIOs were either bewildered or excited at the possibilities.

GTEC played an important role by bringing together examples and people. It became an annual, milestone event. It was at GTEC 2007 that Ken Cochrane announced that the GC was going to build a “Collaborative Library” and it was at GTEC a year later that we launched GCPEDIA —bringing people and technology together.

Today

High speed wireless saturates the urban environment and ubiquitous network access is a reality. Digital natives experience continuous instant communication as part of everyday life while Government workplaces seem antiquated by comparison. The web and the collective forces that it enables are transforming all parts of connected society. Recorded information is produced at an accelerating rate.

Open source software matures and becomes a viable option for enterprise applications. Governments around the world join the Open Government Partnership, in Canada the Federal Government publishes the Open Government Action plan.

Holistic User Centred Design begins to challenge solutions approaches to designing technology. Humanists and engineers are learning to work together.

The digital divide becomes a social issue, web accessibility becomes law and massive resources are assembled to ensure all GC organizations become compliant.

Bureaucracies built to manage people, work and information over the last couple of hundred years are beginning to show their age. New groups emerge in the evolutionary sea of information we know as the internet. Powerful forces compete to control the new territory – Anonymous becomes an entity.

The GC invests heavily in GCDOCS, SharePoint and other technologies designed to manage/control documents. The idea of knowledge as a product of interconnected networks and not just documents takes shape. Social innovation tools appear in pockets. GCPEDIA, GCFORUMS, GCCONNEX and other grass roots tools struggle for institutional support while gaining users.

Examples of the power of social in communicating across silos and traditional boundaries accumulate. The idea of social networks in government becomes acceptable – as long as we call them “professional networks”.

Future – Sometime after tomorrow

There is no Web 3.0, but something else emerges— a diverse, complex adaptive system, no, a network of complex adaptive systems.

Control of information becomes less important, the cultural default is to share knowledge. Government is a platform and publicly funded data is routinely visualized by an army of professional and amateur big data analysts.
In the GC, Shared Services Canada provides reliable infrastructure, we share one email address across government, secure wireless is everywhere, non-government partners can easily and securely collaborate, the government cloud is a reality. Departmental CIOs become focused on transition and business improvement—information plumbing is rarely an issue. The government-wide technical architecture focuses on standards and interoperability, a diverse range of technologies and tools work together in relative harmony, vendors with “lock-in” strategies are shunned.

GC Ideas is in constant use, the GC App Store is the first place departments look when they need software. Government developers routinely contribute to open source projects. The Open Knowledge policy is promulgated across governments around the world. The Marvelous Mistakes page on GCPEDIA competes with the Fabulous Failures page for most valuable lessons. Risk aversion all but disappears in an organizational culture that embraces experimentation and sharing lessons learned.

Tablet computers are everywhere, briefing binders disappear. The Golden Tablet program maintains a knowledge connection with departing employees. The GC20 suite of tools is adequately funded.

Dreams of a digital nirvana don’t come true, but all is not lost. Networks of people who are comfortable connecting virtually emerge and disperse continuously. The definition of Public Service changes as the lines blur between indeterminate employees and partners. The GovCloud becomes a reality. Agility is an operational requirement, and government organizations re-invent themselves.

Leadership learns to work with the nebulous “crowd.” Connections are made and governance structures adapt to include interfaces to the crowd. The focus shifts from one of command and control towards engaging with self-identified stakeholders.

Serendipity becomes a business principle, the internet of things emerges, power

shifts to those who control the algorithms but a balance is maintained by the digital collective. The Virtual Government Network is an international network 200,000 members strong where new and innovative methods are shared. Public Servants feel more connected with each other, and with the publics they serve.

Global government becomes possible as a global consciousness emerges. The collective intelligence gets a handle on our wicked problems. Technology serves the three Ps of Profit, People and the Planet. Yes, life is good in my fantasy future.

Conclusion

The Government Organizations and leadership types we have today are a product of the technology and tools of the past. The challenge now is how to incorporate things like ubiquitous network access and dynamic peer networks into serving a self-organizing public.

In times like these it is important that executives demonstrate a willingness to experiment and learn. We are lucky these days to have a disruptor like @alexbenay in the CIO chair at the GC, but he is only

Collaboration is a popular word these days. But collaboration is not a technology or a tool. Collaboration is people working together towards a common goal. Collaboration is more about values than it is about tech. We should be discussing exactly what those values are, here are four that I can think of, what do you think?

Open and continuous communication
Shared understanding of purpose/vision
Commitment to the greater good
Freedom from fear – respect and tolerance

New technology can open doors to new behaviour, but it is the people who share the value of collaboration who will deliver the outcomes.

Technology in and of itself will not save us. But if we take advantage of the opportunities it presents and if we shape the tools we choose to use in a way that reflects the values of collaboration then I believe anything is possible. What do you believe?

Thom Kearney can be found on the internet or in the crowd at GTEC.

This post originally appeared as part of the GTEC 2012 conference blog, I have updated it a little bit for 2017.

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Potential

Posted on June 3, 2012 by ThomK

This was written and performed as slam poetry by my son for his grade 12 English class. I thought it was pretty insightful and ultimately a positive message.

By Sam Kearney

We start off in life with the world at our fingertips,
with the words: “You can do anything” coming out of our parents very lips
And for years these words of motivation stick with you
fueling dreams of being celebrities, astronauts and rock stars too
The World seemed so big, so vast so full of adventure
Those in dentures would give us such a lecture
And so we believe with all our hearts and happy thoughts
That life is a happy place where only in movies are battles fought

But then comes adolescence, and with it comes the many doubts
For many once seemingly perfect family lives become full of arguments and shouts
You see atrocities every day on the television
at first these stories hurt you, on your heart they make an incision
But with this reality creates an invisible division
Your idea of the world has toppled like a house of cards
And with this destruction of an old understanding
sprouts a negative ideology against which we should guard

With this newfound negativity come new thoughts and mindsets
we make bets with ourselves, putting money against us
We kill that old saying “You can do anything”
Thinking “I could never do this, i’m not good enough, i’m not good at anything”
When really these are just excuses to take the easy path
I mean if we’ve already given up then why put in the effort and try
It’s on that cheesy poster it’s simple math
“You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take” It’s true, in life you either take a shot, or sit and wait to die.

It’s what many of us do, we’re all addicted to it, an entire nation
strangled by what we joke about – procrastination
We need to release from the shackles, locked up by ourselves
Take OUR selves off of the shelves
Stop skimming on the top of the waters of life and delve
deep into the depths of it and discover our full potential
Unleash our inner thoughts and dreams and stop keeping them confidential.

Call for expressions of interest PS Engage 2012

Posted on April 29, 2012 by ThomK

Do you care about making the Public Service better? Would you like to participate in the planning for PS Engage 2012? As you may recall PS Engage 2011 was our Public Service renewal conference last year with the theme of a Tapestry of People and Ideas. Based on the overwhelming positive feedback and interest, we’re now gearing up for the 2012 event!

We’re currently developing this year’s theme but I expect it will have something to do with frugality and working across boundaries. There are a number of ways you can take part, some of which are listed below. If you are interested and have a little time to dedicate to a worthy and fun event, we would love to hear from you, simply reply to this message with your preferred coordinates and good times to meet, and we will arrange a virtual get together.

PS Engage 2012 Planning Committee Roles

These are the roles that have been identified, they may be performed by a single person or a small group. You can volunteer to lead or participate in any of these activities.

Sponsorship

Develop sponsorship package with communications, develop pricing and marketing strategy. Manage target list and sales funnel. Prepare and sign contracts. Make presentations. Arrange for sponsor material for web site, and day of distribution.

Program & Speakers

Articulate the theme, plan the daily program, arrange for speakers, take part in developing promotional material. Coordinate with speakers. Create conference overview document and later versions as it evolves.

Communications

Develop promotional plan, create communications material, write and produce web site, design logo and promotional cards. Manage web cast and twitter feed. Develop and produce posters, manage distribution. Evaluate web analytics, prepare and conduct post event evaluation.

Prepare and distribute regular emails. Manage list on SalesForce.

Floor Manager

Plan sponsor physical presence, manage floor space on the day of, coordinate with venue and suppliers.

Stage Manager

Work with Program group on content and manage stage the day of.

Logistics

Coordinate with speakers, make travel and accommodation arrangements, manage all vendor contracts, act as single point of contact. Arrange for meetings and take notes.

Volunteer Coordination

Manage volunteer list and assignments. Manage volunteer meetings.

Delegate Promotion and Sales

Work with communications on web site and other promotional material. Manage registrations.

Other

Whatever we have forgotten.

The bigger picture

PS Engage is a conference, PS Leader is an emerging non-profit organization with the mission:

To facilitate and advance collaboration, learning & innovation across all levels of government and geographies in support of connected, efficient, and open government.

If you think PS Leader is a good idea and would like to be part of the development of the organization drop us a line and we will invite you to the formation meeting.

PS Leader will engage in a number of activities in addition to PS Engage such as #GovChat , PS Leader Blog, Training, and the Virtual Government Network. If you are interested in participating in any of these specific initiatives, please let us know.

Thanks, we look forward to your interest and participation as these initiatives proceed.

Thom

Report from #PSE2011 – Five things you can do today

Posted on November 25, 2011 by ThomK

At the recent PS Engage Conference I had the honour of channelling ideas from participants into 5 things you can do tomorrow. With the flip chart paper spread out in my office, here is my report:

1. Read the Social Media guidelinesannounced by the Minister and take advantage of whatever authority they give you. Hold your department accountable for applying the guidelines in an effective way.

2. Reach out to a colleague, it may be someone you know but have not spoken to lately, or it might be someone you know by reputation. Ask them what they are up to, tell them what you are doing. Just a quick 15 minute status check. You never know…

3. When you find a solution to a problem, SHARE IT! Take the time to quickly document the problem and solution and put it in a place where others that might have that problem can find it. A good default location for Federal Public Servants is GCPedia, but any place where those that need it will find it is good.

4. High Five!
When you see something good, even just a little good thing – celebrate it! Let the individuals involved know you noticed, and let others know who the good guys are.

5. Connect – access Federal Youth Network, govloop, linkedin, gcconnex, yammer, or whatever network is appropriate for you to extend your connections and learn new stuff.

6. Rewrite your job description. Hell, re-write your team’s job descriptions. Make learning and adaptability an important part of it.

7. Narrate your work. By keeping a log of your work as you do it, you are creating a recorded history that can be invaluable for those that come after you. If you do it publicly though status reports to your network you are also contributing to 2, 3 and 5 above.

8. Add conferences like PS Engage to your learning plan. Make sure they are in your team’s learning plan. Make learning to learn a priority.

So there are eight ideas not five, what can I say? You are a productive bunch.

See you again soon.

Thom

Post PS Engage Activities

Posted on November 25, 2011 by ThomK

A huge thank you to the delegates, sponsors and volunteers that make #PSE2011 such a success. We are getting asked when 2012 is going to happen, and hearing stories of enthusiastic teams returning to work full of the spirit of renewal, so I guess it was a success.The big question now is do we do it again? And if we do, what do we do differently?

To answer those questions we are going to need your help. Look for an invitation to join a PS Engage collective intelligence site hosted by Chaordix , Intersol and Rowanwood, Assuming we can get it together in our spare time, we will be looking to get your opinion on the 2011 event as well as ideas for a 2012 event. Who knows? We might even extend the conversation around the Learning Circle Issues or the Tapestries of ideas that Jennifer created for us. Or perhaps we can work on the Virtual Government Network concept if there is enough interest. Maybe Delta Partners will get involved with a little of their awesome thought leadership. Whatever it is, it will be your opportunity to influence the future of PS Engage.

In the coming weeks and months we will be releasing material generated by the conference on the PS Leader Site. It is our intention to make the video, presentations, photographs and tapestries available. There is work to make that happen and everyone at the moment there are clients to satisfy, so it may take a while.

PS Engage never would have happened without the fabulous cadre of volunteers that materialized. You know you are appreciated.

Speaking of volunteers, right now, web-savy volunteers are welcome to apply for positions helping out with the current activities. This includes things like posting material to the PS Leader blog and perhaps editing photos and preparing presentations for publication, creating descriptive posts to go with each item, text and image.

Eventually if we decide to do another event, we will be looking for folks ready to make a slightly larger commitment and join the planning committee. If you are interested in any of that, please let us know by joining the LinkedIn group.

Thanks again to everyone involved. You make it happen.

Thom

Weaving a tapestry of ideas and people

Posted on September 26, 2011 by ThomK

Update: For results from the 2011 and 2012 conferences please see the PS Engage Resources post.

As many of you know I am helping to put together a networking and learning event as part of the @PSLeader initiative started by Jeff Ashcroft, Jeff is the same guy that got me into doing the #GovChat series of twitter chats, it all started with a comment on a blog post here.

Anyway, when I was part of the Public Service I was involved in the first Collaborative Management day and was excited about it, basically I think the whole #w2p #goc3 thing is awesome. Sadly, now that I am Private Sector I can’t participate in the same way, so that got me to thinking and…

…a while ago, a group of us in the shadow public service were chatting and felt that it might be a good idea to create an event that builds on the #goc3 momentum for collaborative management. Of course if we were going to do something it had to have value over and above what an internal conference could provide. The logic we came up with goes something like this:

If the focus of the Collaborative Management events is learning from others inside the Public Service, (and there’s lots to learn), then PS Engage distinguishes itself by emphasizing relevant ideas from outside the Government of Canada. Strategically this makes sense because exposing yourself to ideas outside of your norm is an essential ingredient for innovation. So the focus for us became about bringing new and relevant ideas to the table.

When we started to reach out for speakers, the response was overwhelming with the likes of Mr. GovLoop, Steve Ressler and Ina Parvanova, Director of Public Affairs for the Mayo Clinic, among the luminaries agreeing to share their stories with us. Just recently, TBS President, Tony Clement’s office confirmed that he will be giving the opening address—for a conference focused on bringing lessons of change to Ottawa, I can’t think of a more relevant opening speaker.

Speaking of fiscal restraint, lets not panic about cut backs and such. To my way of thinking, financial pressure is a tremendous opportunity when it forces us to look for new ways of doing things. After all, necessity is the mother of invention, or at least that is what my mother used to say—so come to PS Engage and help invent something great.

As a privately funded event we have to charge, the cost of bringing speaker’s in from out-of-town is significant, however we have managed to keep the price reasonable at $499.00. Any profit from the event will go towards funding further exploration of the Virtual Government Network Concept.

Group discounts are available, (5 for the price of 4), and if you are student who really wants to go, tell me why you need to attend and how much you can afford, and I will see what we can do.

As an educator, it is great to be part of putting this together, and between the speakers and the networking opportunities I am pretty confident that the conference will be a high impact/low-cost learning event. PS Engage, a tapestry of ideas and people, the perfect complement to Collaborative Management Day and a great way to get ready for change—what do you think?

Registration is open now, so get out your corporate credit card and go to www.psengage.org, if you need to put it in your learning plan you will find some learning objectives on the site to help you out with the words.

Hope to see you there, if you have any thoughts about this event or ideas for a future one, please share.

Thom

Of course you can follow along on twitter @psengage and #pse2011

Why do we collaborate?

Posted on November 12, 2010 by ThomK

As part of a presentation I am preparing for a public health forum exploring enabling technologies, I have created a slide that I think summarizes why people collaborate. It was a bit of epiphany when it came to me so I thought I would share it in case it had value to you.

What I am proposing is that there are essentially three reasons people collaborate, and these can be connected to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs .

I really should be working on something else at the moment, so here are very brief explanations for the three reasons:

1. Get’er done! No this is not just for rednecks, anyone with a specific deliverable or project to complete will collaborate if it helps them complete the work. This is your typical work oriented motivation. I align it with the lower part of Maslow’s Hierarchy because it usually related to work and earning money which is what we generally use to fulfill most of our lower level needs.

2. The second reason is essentially social combined with a belief that maybe many minds are more powerful than one. I align this with the middle of Maslow.

3. The final reason we collaborate has to do with Self Actualization, that nirvana state we presumably all strive for and which is often considered the underlying motivation for continued learning.

Well there you have it, what do you think? Does this ring true? Is it useful?