I ordered the de Geus after seeing it mentioned in your book, and a copy of Senge is winging its way to me as I type. Thanks for the pointers.

Interesting about de Geus’ attitudes to the internet – perhaps thinkers have a set view of their theories and what they mean, and when technology – or something else – disrupts them and changes their direction it can be threatening?

I think this is such a great area for development of understanding and I’ll keep sharing my thoughts and findings here, of course. Am wondering if ‘The Read/Write Organisation’ is a better label, though it’s a bit techy…

Would love to come to the event on the 20th, if you can wangle it!

@davidwilcox thanks 4 flagging up @davebriggs [link to post] Valuable discussion! Have pitched in my tuppence worth #monkeystype

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The issues you discuss here are important across the board and one of the key aspects of the ‘new’ collaboration is how public, private and third sectors can share, learn from and support each other. As David kindly points out, “Monkeys with Typewriters” is an attempt to tease out some of the wider implications.

Dave, it’s interesting you mention the ‘learning’ organisation – Peter Senge’s book was the starting point for my “Leadership 2.0″ research (which began in 2005 and finally evolved into “Monkeys with Typewriters”): Senge and former Shell executive, Arie de Geus (author of “The Living Company”) were largely responsible for the trend towards distributed, enabling leadership which emerged in the 1990s. Today’s collaborative technologies seem to be a natural progression – and concrete realisation – of many of their ideas.

Sadly I didn’t interview Senge for the book, but I did speak to de Geus, and he’s very distrustful of the Internet. It may be a generational thing, but certainly a sign of the many (but not insurmountable) stumbling blocks to progress. The point you raise about social technologies always being assigned to the ICT department rather than corporate governance (or similar) is another key issue.

Peter Senge set up SoL, the Society for Organisational Learning, in 1997, and Arie de Geus is the current UK president. As it happens, I’m due to discuss “Monkeys with Typewriters” with members of Sol UK (http://www.sol-uk.org) at One Alfred Place on 20 January – I believe SoL are charging for the event, but I might be able to wangle a freebie if either of you were interested?

Cheers,
Jemima

Cheers,

@ElaineWalton Thanks Elaine! This is the important one for me, I think [link to post]

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