Technological & Cultural Changes

I’m exhausted and ready to hit the sack but I just had another thought that I wanted to get down before I forget. The more I think about what I’d like to achieve here with this idea of connected communities the more I realize that technology alone won’t achieve this. These are my exact same thoughts I had before when I spoke of businesses trying to blog. I said that just because you are using blogging software isn’t doesn’t mean you are blogging. Spewing out a business press release on a blog isn’t going to make your business look and sound any better, no matter how you package it. For the change to occur it has to come from inside of your company. In other words, it isn’t so much a technological change as much as a cultural change that needs to take place. And as difficult as that technological change is to undertake, the cultural change will be ten times harder. That is why so many companies just don’t get it and, more importantly, don’t want to get it. They don’t want to accept the cultural change which will totally change how their business will work and operate.

So what am I talking about when I speak of a cultural change? Well, I hinted at this before in my post entitled I Work For The Web where I said that “I work for a daring, imaginative, adventurous, sharing, caring, diverse, open, trusting, honest, flexible, responsible, and connected company.” I’m talking about how the Web works and also the type of company I’d like to work for. If you break down those traits and look at them closely, they’ll show you a way for groups of people to work collectively together as equals on shared goals to achieve things that we never dreamed possible before. More than anything, this type of culture breeds passion, something that every Fortune 500 company dreams of creating in their employees because of the efficiency and productivity it creates. But that’s the problem with these companies again. They just don’t get it. You can’t force passion into a person. It has to grow from within them. Their surroundings, the culture of the company that they are immersed within, will help that passion to breed and grow. Therefore to breed this passion, you need to literally change the culture of your company and effectively alter how you work and operate.

Now the thing to realize is that I’m not just talking about businesses here, I’m talking about any organizational structure in our society, be it business, political, whatever. In effect, yes I’m talking about a new way of working and collaborating with one another. Pretty radical to some I’m sure but not as radical when you think about it. I’ve already seen hints of this change underway and groups of people in organizations and businesses already working in this general direction (and talking about it). Over time I think we’ll start seeing more and more of it. As usual, change often doesn’t happen overnight but is like a snowball rolling down a hill, building slowly up until at the last minute it comes out of nowhere and bowls you over! 🙂

And now if I tell you that my psuedo name that I use when playing online is “Gentle Nova”, maybe you’ll understand why I called myself that. You see, yes, change is constant but it may not always be evident. Yet if you stop and listen, more often than not you’ll feel the ground gently rumbling beneath your feet and see the signs of it as it approaches from across the horizon. By then you’d better brace yourself though, because once it arrives there’s no stopping it. 🙂