Change is painful

It seems like we all try the best to avoid change. Change demands to face the uncertain and very few of us like that. Nevertheless, however hopeless, to dare to face change also represent the option to come out stronger. This is very much true in the Internet business at the time we are in.
But now there is no way to avoid it, change is here.

Times are difficult in so many parts of the world these days, for so many people, and are so in most areas of work. What did happen is one question. Another possible question is: What will happen? Both are important to gain knowledge to get out of the state we are in, but still the most important question we all have to ask is what do we want to happen next? and start work towards that goal.

In my line of business I want to use my skills and creativity to improve things. Things in my life and things for the customers I work for. Since change is something happening for all of us as we speak, it’s easier to get change to happen. How can I help others to improve things is the focus of what I want to do at the time. Businesses nowadays have serious topics to solve: How to avoid going bankrupt? How to not have to let people go from their work?

In the public sector there’s a lot to be done, that will ease the workload, and thereby provide more resources available to get more done. Public service need to get most out of the budgets in order to do what the public services are there to do: provide services needed to the public. In the private sector it’s not much different, besides providing a profit for the owners; companies in the end of the value chain are doing that: delivering valuable services and products for people. My part of all this is to contribute as well as I can to provide solutions for customers, to find their best way to contribute to make change happen as fast as possible so we can get back on track again. What’s your best way to contribute? What do you want to happen next?

Innovative digital collaboration?

Being innovative doesn’t mean that you have to invent something totally new. Innovation is being creative and make it happen! Most innovations that works is by connecting some known factors together in a creative way and make use  of it in a new way, and very very few new ideas came frome solitude and a vacum, its almost allways made by groups.

I came across this Blog article at Tech Pulse 360 about collaboration today. Have to say there is very little new in it. The news is that people now start getting it. Collaboration is useful in order to get whatever you do, done!

Cisco have gotten this and are prepared to offer large solutions to large enterprises to a high premium price. Great for Cisco! They have seen what people in the business have seen for a long time. It’s a huge market, and the demand is rising fast. Cisco estimates a 34 billion dollar market, yearly! But they are sticking to “telepresence, and webex conferences, not taking full advantages of collaborative possibilities, both synchrone, and a- synchrone. For most of us, it will be unneededly expensive. Connecting what we see is happening in the “Web 2.0” area, with various collaborative applications can be far more efficient for most of us in all kind of collaborative tasks. The applications are there, security and broadband challenges are solved. The global ressicion is a driver to speed up this developement as well, due to the need to look at cost/benefits and reductions on costs.

Well this is the ‘basics’. Another driver for digital collaboration that becomes innovative is You & I. Yes it is. Open innovation, in collective groups will drive forward a combination of innovation itself, and collaborative solutions as a result motivated by each other. Further reading on this ideas is a great idea. Charles Leadbeater book “We think” is a great start, but if you are as lazy as I am, a link to his blog would maybe be of help? Well just click on his name or the name of the book. In any event thinking alone hasen’t gotten anyone anywhere, action and results are needed in order to get innovation, so what are you waiting for? 

We are all ready, We have the knowledge, the overview of products and services to set up concepts and solutions that are innovative, and we have the fun mix of providing a quick ROI, being quickly adjustable to meet changing needs, easy to produce and most important easy to use. Anyone guessing its not Cisco’s solutions Im thinking of ? It’s more in the line of integrated software/applications, or this clever thing calles SaaS, that enables modern, innovative digital collaboration. All for a cost you earn back fast enough to dare to get started! Not convinsed yet? Well you now have the tools to get independent by large corporations, and can choose between social groups of your choice to get inspired, to get new knowledge and to balance risk between providors of all kinds.

“DIY” Innovation by real people

One of the largest industries on the internet are meeting new challenges. People aren’t buying porn on the web anymore, they are making it themselves and share it for free. Finally some innovation from us, the people, Wow!

This is interessting, just read what Sergio Messina says. Another interessting book on the subject is “The Porn report” from Australia. The names for the innovative engagement of real people is “DIY” ( Do it yourself) and “Realcore”. Got this knowledge from the newspaper Dagbladet. Well, the porn industry used to be innovative (just remember the struggle of home video format), maybe not so anymore. The positive side of ordinary people taking power of the internet porn is that it’s free, it’s democratic, it present real humans with normal bodies, in all ages and shapes, with “normal” actons and/or more kinky stuff presented, and the audiens find this more interessting than the “pro versions of porn” It’s also an interessting phenomen because this helps “destroying” a lucreative and cynical business that has exploited far to many people. Its like the burning of bra’s in the seventies, but with a modern twist, or is it?
It’s not only a shunshine story; we’ve all heard about private videos and images, that was never ment to be published, and tragic stories of people that got their most intimate parts of their lives exposed on the net. Well, everybody knew that Sex and Porn are two of the most seached words on the internet, or didn’t everybody know this ? For the qurious of you I have placed a free video clip on my Miscellaneous page. Was that evil of me ?

Why is the web flat?

I’ve been wondering for more than ten years now; why does web sites on internet seems so “flat”? It’s like transferring paper to the screen.

Updated comments below article

When I ask this question to designers, they often get very defensive. Its like we all believe that a web shall have a global menu, sub menus, a logo on top, a lot of informative text and if creative some great images to follow. Isn’t that recipy like a soup in a bag? Just add water…. But do not misinterpret me, there is a lot going on and internet and the web is still only in the early phase of evolving into what we will see in the future. There are a lot of interesting blogs out there discussing and talking (writing?) about this kind of topics, one interesting is this one: 360

Inventions, phenomena’s and ideas tend to keep a pattern we have to accept; they all tend to be loyal to the origin they came from. “The world is flat” we all know this postulate, and it took centuries to evolve from this idea to the one we have now (what ever that is these days..), even after the fact was stated people continued wanting to believe that the world is flat for decades. Web sites (pages!) has a lot of it’s idea created around the idea of print. I always found this interesting, since the computer screen is digital, and factually resembles the TV set more.

Even designers used to defend the fact that designing web pages frequently seems like a “forced electronic paper version” instead of a medium of visual communication with  another fact:  “3D is to expensive in most cases” or “live images can’t get quality due to lack of broadband capacity” This statements are now less true than before, and designers are working hard to evolve the web.

The idea of (and knowledge to) create a perspective in an image was developed during the Renaissance , you don’t need 3D technology to draw diagonal lines to a center point! You need knowledge, and you need a basis for your idea world. Lot’s of interesting things are happening, but far to much of it seems to me to be “experimental”…. And I don’t get it. Experimental?? what is so experimental by implementing what art, cinema and, radio/TV has done for years? What’s so experimental by doing what PR and commercials have been for years? There is less experimenting on the web, than in most new media the last centuries!

Since the “history” of the web is, in my opinion, based upon an “electronic paper”, and the idea has been to provide knowledge and information spread, it’s hard to get out of the thinking patterns that we have to use a lot of text, mainly a form of one way communication, we will still have that as a major direction of how a web page will look, and function. Even web 2.0, social media, interactive solutions keep producing “flat web sites” If one wants’ to get out of this, one will need to take the bull by its horns, and questioning the basic of the idea of what a web site really is, for whom and to do what.

• It came to my mind that Itera group uses the term “the world is flat” from the book: “The World Is Flat – The Globalized World in the Twenty-First Century, by Thomas L. Friedman
  There are two major points in my opinion on this use of term. First, using such terminology; To me it sounds typical American (excuse me my US friends) to simplify a phenomena by the wording that much so that the complexity disappear, it’s in fact a dangerous rhetoric trick of (amongst others)politicians to do so, and thereby avoid that the public focus is at more troublesome sides of the case.
  Thomas L Friedman’s book, tries to speak of a “flatter” (read less hierarchic world) but argue in fact of new business models, new technologies and how to achieve this – but, in my opinion naively overlook that it’s not very likely that e.g. poor / common people in the world (so called third world) are the one to enable this. Maybe the commercial corporation Itera group didn’t overlook this and see possibilities for profit in this term ?
  I would rather have a far more Holistic world, than a “flatter” one.
  

Open standards and collaboration

Well, why not apply the “KISS” (Keep It Simple Stupid) model? Microsoft says they are focusing on open standards and pinpoint the great benefits of collaboration and interoperationality. In Digi.no there is an interessting article today.

That’s great news, even though I doubt Microsoft has what it takes to give the market just that. But one never knows. Microsoft has to change, they know it, what remains to see if they are just talking the talk, or walking the walk.

Collaboration is a huge area of business models, concepts, technologies and organizational implementing systems. Intermobility is as well. The offers on the market is large, and not very easy to  have a clear view of. Why not simplify the task at hand, and use the web as the front end? Not Microsoft, not SAP, not Polycom or Tandberg, but simply the web. The web is an open standard; the web is simple and familiar for all users. The web is accessible from where ever. The broadband capacity is increasing as we speak mobile networks as well. So why not? The answer is in the business models created a long time ago. This goes for Microsoft, Tandberg, Telenor and the lot. They are all reluctant to change, that’s one of the main reasons the KISS model aren’t implemented already. They are afraid to loose market shares, and want to lock their customers into their own proprietary hardware/ software. This is old fashioned, and can in the most simple way be described as a mild form of bondage, and who want to be that submissive in business?

But there is hope! There are alternatives for web based solutions that are open for all ( this includes software from e.g. Microsoft, like Sharpeoint) where one can integrate web meeting solutions (like meetcon in scandinavia/ Wiredred in Europe and the US), project management solutions and so forth into a complete, simple web based interface tailor-made for your organization and business. It can easily be scaled for small businesses, and for large cooperatives. Safety is not a topic, it can all be managed. 

For a while yet, the large companies, like the ones mentioned above will keep argue that it’s not true that the web can solve the collaboration and intermobility challenge. At the same time the very same corps. are the already working very hard to try to change, before google snap the market shares in front of their eyes.

PS: Latest news: Speculations on Tandberg being in a a possible buy up situation Read more here (in Norwegian)

Scared of recession?

World economics are falling into recession. There is no need to discuss if this is what is happening. Everything is “falling”: The stock exchange, The Dollar, Banking, Real estate, and so forth. The cost of a oil barrel isn’t though..

What does this tell us in the digital communication business? Normally that revenue will drop. Both private enterprise and the public sector tends to stop investments and sit put, till someone shout out; the danger is over – go spend money again! Is this a wise strategy?

What is important when economics slows down? In my opinion it’s important to look at new opportunities, to look at means to become more efficient, to get more value out of the same or less input; in short to be clever. Good times seem to, at all times, favor laziness! “Harder times” seems to split organizations and businesses into two major groups. The scared ones –  and the creative ones. The digital business and internet companies has a lot to offer to the market in this situation. Producing new business models that are cost saving, increase efficiency , build stabile and secure solutions that avoid high cost rescue actions, and provide the public with internet services that are easy to use, that gives them correct information and empower people to take the best actions in the society and in their personal lives. 

It’s kind of obvious, in times of recession all things tend to get cheaper. That’s when it’s clever to buy stuff, to invest – simply because one get more value for the  money! That’s when people tends to get more creative, in order to find solutions they can afford, this gives the market effect that providers of goods and services have to adapt and have to become attractive by getting better, more creative and keep being competitive.

There is no need for a genius mind to figure this out, still, why do so many get scared and run down in their caves and hide, hoping for everything to vanish, to not be this way anymore? And why is the media so in love with crisis? Just look at the media, in Norway; Dagens næringsliv, Dagbladet, VG, and Aftenposten, and also in the internet media like Digi.no, to name some examples. They are all shouting out headlines like bankrupcy, crisis, regression, in any business segment you can imagine. Worldwide media is no better. There is nothing that sell better than fear! Media knows this and do their best to make use of it.

The interesting part to watch in the coming months and year will not be the ones that sit put and wait; it will be the one that start acting now. That’s the winners of tomorrow. For private enterprises, my hope is that environmental solutions for energy, transport, fair trade, ecological production of food, seafood and so forth is the ones investors now will put their eyes on and give finanical support  to grow and be even more inventive and strong in the marketplace for the best of us all, including the return of investments and branding value for the investors. I hope for the best for us all that we will have a lot of clever, creative, innovative leaders especially in the public sector, because that will give the effect that the living standard will not suffer for the poorest, instead we will have the opportunity to make far better solutions and services for the general public that will save a lot on budgets to spend on the ones in our societies that doesn’t have the economic strength to live thru the “harder times” ahead.

Where is TV heading?

It’s often said that no media has ever died. The book, art painting, photography, the movie, the radio all have survived new media and technology arriving. But that was before YouTube!

 

Internet and broadcasting is merging and at some point I believe that TV becomes seamlessly integrated with next generation of home media systems in a scale that changes everything within broadcasting as we know it. That doesn’t necessarily mean that broadcast corporations will die. But I do believe that broadcasters should look closely at how they brand themselves. In my opinion a broadcaster that uses its brand and transform from a large channel enterprise more toward a knowledge and competence brand will survive into the future. Maybe its time for broadcasters to get far more serious about their websites and how to use them in their core business, instead of being very protective and separate broadcasts and Internet activities as much as they do at the moment. Is that a clever policy?

If we look at it: What is the business of broadcasting? For Public service broadcasters it’s like the morning paper you get on your door every morning, core business is to deliver as interesting content as you can to an as large amount of subscribers as possible. For a commercial broadcaster it’s to gather as many viewers as possible, and sell them to advertisers. Is there anyone that can see the similarities to the core of Internet business? Content and a large amount of people gathered around a specific subject. I believe that broadcasting and Internet has a lot in common of what they can offer, and with business models that is very suited for at close cooperation. The best of TV and the best of Internet is a hit in my opinion. While waiting for the broadband development, I believe that conceptual connection between the TV programs, and Internet e.g. communities is very interesting aspects of how to create a win-win situation. Internet has the options to interact far better with the audience and to connect the knowledge of the user and take advantages of that both in a commercial way, and in an editorial way also for the content creation of TV programs.

Digital collaboration is for everyone

It seems like when people start talking about collaboration and digital solutions, one start thinking; That’s for large organizations, It’s complicated or it’s expensive and not for my office/company. This is not true anymore.

 
Everything we do at work is to collaborate. We work in teams, we exchange information, share knowledge, solve problems, discuss, attend to a lot of meetings, run projects, develop and sell products, offer a wide range of services and we interact in almost every activity we do. This is absolutely valid for both public and private sector. The concepts for digital solutions for collaboration are developing rapidly. Main drivers for this is the broadband capacities that are increasing world wide, and also everything that goes on in social media, Web 2.0 and so forth. It’s a common prediction that these markets will be one of the top five growth markets the next coming years.

Flexibility and integration are two important key words for the concepts that will become the standard for collaboration services. The benefits is as we know them on beforehand is; faster production / development cycles, cost savings, closer relations with team members and customers, better public services and so on. New aspects are that the web interface, the kind of functionalities that are included and better integrations of them is improving a lot. Another aspect is that getting started is easy, also for very small companies and units in an organization. “Out of the box” is just fine, as a start. At the other end of the scale, highly complex systems that seamless integrate all kind of back end systems and present it in a single interface – or, as in the image in this article, virtual workspaces on a wall that enables multitasking collaboration tasks where e.g. time frame is of extreme importance. (e.g. solutions for handling crisis and emergencies, or industrial processes) now is available technologies for a cost one wouldn’t dream of just a few years ago

Still the most important is of course not ‘collaboration’ in it self, but what you need to do, and how to do that most effective. The best solutions for digital collaboration will be those where the user don’t even think of it as digital collaboration, but just the way we work!

Commercial options as “Co- Martial Arts”

I’m playing with words, but still; I just thought of it. Commercials, isn’t really something people want, is it?
Still as consumers we do want and need things, when we want and need them, and most of us would love to get a great offer, just at the right time and place.

 

If my toaster broke down – or car. I’d be happy to get a solution to my problem. But it’s annoying to be bombarded with toaster or car repair ads when everything is just fine. As we have seen, advertisers have discovered this idea, like we can observe it at e.g. Amazon.com.
What’s the clue? Amazon knows something about you! (and more than you might like to know) and Amazon guess what else they can offer you. At times we think of this as great, and at other times we think it sucks. It all depend on our needs and motivations when we are exposed to the suggestions they make. But all what they really do is to make a qualified guess.

This is getting far better/worse (depending on perspective) in the web 2.0 development as we speak about it. But no doubt, connecting user Profiles to Content and Ads. is increasing rapidly. This triangle has enormous possibilities. Up till now web communities have been able to get “filthy rich”, selling their “flat” databases with a very simple concept; ‘Set up a community – get loads of users – sell – Success!’ And the revenue stream is basically made out of very traditional wide spread advertisements – Throw adds over people! No segmentation, no thought what so ever – if this is something that pleases users or pisses them off. The buyer of the community doesn’t really care, if he has 1(or 10) mill. daily users in his database to sell to advertisers he’s happy chap. This trend will not last for long!

But what if ? What if we can create concepts that take full advantages over the holistic paradigm of Content, Adds and user Profiles and make use of the input/output from that? And we can ! Then we can provide a “Martial Art advertisement concept” for the user (and also for the advertisers BTW): The concept is to take the force from the opponent and use that energy to achieve our goal – or defend us towards unwanted attacks. We are able to give users a community where they have common interests in content and social networking,to give them control over what ads they want to be exposed to and by that increase the likeliness of being able to provide individuals with accurate advertisement, based upon the Content they choose, and their user profile on that site. Any one that doesn’t think this looks wonderful ? It also works the reversed way, where advertisers can segment perfectly, and know the user pattern and interessts of a user, and usergroups in detail, and automatically provide the correct ad at the correct time and place on the site.  – Oh, did I just give away a great business idea? *grin* I don’t think so. It’s like Martial Art, you need quite a lot of talent, knowledge and training to get it right !

Collaboration beyond knowledge management

We are familiar with the traditional collaboration and knowledge management software solutions and “heavy” solutions for the web. To gather, sort and make data available for groups. We have gotten familiar with some of the social network solutions like LinkedIn, facebook, MySpace and so forth. But we have a lot in front of us when these – and real time communication solutions melt into seamless web 2.0 and web 3.0 concepts.

The essence of collaboration is; by doing things together we get a better outcome, than the effort done by the same amount of individuals would alone. The essence of digital collaboration is to achieve this in a virtual environment where there is no boundaries of location for the participants. Hardware, Software, Portals, web applications, API’s, and not to forget broadband connections and so forth enables a totally new set of possibilities. We can rapidly move from old fashioned (and kind of “static”) Knowledge Management software and server solutions locked in to the company’s IT environment, and move toward open engines where you can both structure your input and collect your output, team based, and go far beyond that and increase work flow processes, speed up projects and make use of your time line far better. Just as we all knew on beforehand; the most interesting discussions and biggest “breakthrough’s” in problem solving happens at the coffee machine, or over a beer in the pub. The trick is to set up a digital environment that support common human behavior, where the technology becomes as invisible as possible. In order to achieve the optimal of all the possibilities the most important factor is may be not not the digital boundaries, but the organizational ability to change from an old fashioned work flow, towards new and improved processes. Defining accurate and flexible concepts for your organizational collaboration and how to implement this in your organization is maybe a bigger challenge than the actual Digital bit of it.

What is beyond traditional knowledge management, and project management systems? We see concepts that includes both a- syncrone and syncrone collaboration in one and the same solutions, we see an increased interests in integrated services instead of singular software. Services that add, and include e.g. instant messaging, presence management, predefined web based web conference solutions (instead of heavy duty videoconferencing hard/software ) like meetcon are emerging. We see that complete collaboration portals (tailor made) that make real sense to reaching goals like; cost savings, time saving, rapid product development (time to market) real time meetings and e learning, increased contact with customers and so forth . All this is a reality of combined and integrated services that takes collaboration to new levels. The best part is that all the technology is at hand right now, it’s not science fiction! Sharepoint from MS, IBM collaboration and a lot of other have improved solutions during the last couples of years. It’s also easy to make solutions that are totally web based without the traditional software solution and need for download of heavy clients. We are no longer dependent on one kind of system, but can “shop” from a lot of systems, services and integrate them into our own needs.

And it gets even more interesting when you start looking at combining this kind of collaboration concepts with communities and add “mash up” concepts. Can you imagine this kind of concepts in a “transparency” environment? How this can influence your work force? What kind of innovative organization you can build and grow? I’m looking forward to see some of the upcoming project that I bet is already in work several places around the world. This is the wonderful part of innovation, it often seem to be a “collective consciousness” worldwide. The next few years will surely be interesting in terms of re-newing the way we work in both a global and local sense. Mobility, cross country and cross culture workflow will increase, and with it – the level of innovation will rise.

From mass communication to communicaton between the masses.

The paradigm shift from mass communication to communication between the masses is just at its beginning. We have seen some examples of how to make this a profitable business, but I believe that we only have seen the top of an ice berg.

There are so many implications to this that you will find whole book stores trying to cover the subject. The shift within the Internet industry has gone from sending out information, like documents presented as HTML text, toward broader one way communications, like commercials, PR, campaigns and so forth, further on to enabling the options for giving feedback, comments, newsgroups, dating services, chat, web conferencing etc. etc. It’s a wide field with a lot of phenomena working in parallel.

There is confusion, and there is chaos. But as the Zen Buddhists’ say: From chaos comes order. In a business perspective companies have struggled to find business models that fit the demands to interact via the web and via other channels as well. This is now changing rapidly. I think it can be interesting to divide the two way communication area into three main arena; Consumer power solutions, Democracy increasing possibilities and Social networks.

The reason for me not to define this as interactivity is that there is a difference between two way communication and interactivity, (not all two way communication is interactive) which can lead to even more confusion, so let’s stick to the broader definition; two way communication.

Consumer power or it could also be defined as commercial exploration of individuals on the market. This is two sides of the coin. Is all about how the customer want to deal with the seller, how to get products and services easier, faster and cheaper. For the seller, its all about how to get enough knowledge about the customer to streamline the sales process, and enable a larger sale, added sales opportunities, build loyalty. Cross sales, cross channels, mixed business models can be implemented with a great result for both customer, and provider. One the one hand the customer can get more “power” – and so it is also for the provider. Interactive options, in voting, polling, response options, chat, customer web conferencing as support etc. is putting two way communication into real life on the web, TV, mobile phone and in the car. The collection of customer base, the knowledge and behavior patterns all create fundamentally increased possibilities for increased profit.

Democracy increasing possibilities is all about enable us all in stating our opinions on the one hand, and gathers groups that provide and produce content on the other hand. As we see it can be used for non-profit purposes, but also commercially. Blogs, discussion boards, magazines where everyone can publish, net meetings, adding comments of articles are examples of how to work with this kind of two way communication. For individuals this is great opportunities to participate in the public discourse in, or to get tailor made service from the commercial arena.

Social networks meet a fundamental human wish/need – to belong to a group. Via the Internet (or cell phone or other channels for that matter, social networks has a direct appeal for everyone that can find some sort of group they can identify and belong to. For the participants there are a lot of benefits and “things to do” either private “entertainment” or as a professional network building outcome. The value and possibilities at hand when you have such a group, or have made a system where those kinds of “groupings” can happen in a large scale, there are many business models that work. Adds is one, selling services is another, selling behavior patterns of your member base are a third, and there are a lot of options combining models.

What’s happening at the moment is that these ideas and concepts are refined, and gets more advanced as the months goes by. The business models as well as the services provided. There is a lot of creativity, and the best part is that a lot of it is driven by the participants, so there is an effect of a collective product development rarely seen before. The most interesting part of what is happening at the moment is when ideas gets mixed and new concepts arrive. Some of the mix is within the areas I have written about in this posting, and the former post “ About transparency”, even more interesting is the mixes that have started to arise, with other concepts, established long ago for other purposes, that’s when two plus two becomes more than five.

About transparency

Until recently we all have spoken about the Internet as a channel for the external communication, and the Intranet as the internal channel for communication.

More interesting is the development we see today, where the ideas of transparency and two way communication becomes the standard. Even TV is moving very quickly in that direction. What does this mean? Transparency? Two way communication? It’s to very different concepts, and adding them together creates a third. For now I’ll write a little about transparency.

 

The word “transparency” invites you to think of the idea that what is communicated is open for all to see. Who is the messenger and who is the receiver? Towards whom is the message meant for? and so forth. It’s by far a more horizontal form of communication, and can be a more honest kind of communication.

One example could be; “in our company all communication that is possible to be open and free, shall be open and free for all. Only information that has to be hidden for most will be opened towards groups or individuals. If you implement this idea, you get a combined inter- and intranet where there is a conceptual point in letting everyone outside and inside the organisation be exposed to the same communication flow. You give access for “added internal information/ communication flow” only to those who really needs it. It leads to less double communication, and allows the company / organisation to increase efficiency and reduce cost and double exposure of information elements. In addition everyone in the organization become well aware of how and what the company are communicating externally. The marketing and branding gets internalized in the organization. It’s great way of building a common culture in the company.

Another example of taking transparency into the real world and live by it could be if your company / org. decide to show directly what activities the employees are involved in, to show externally what the company really are doing, what they are spending time on. I discussed this with my friend Gavin Bargus today, as he asked me: “What do transpaerency really mean to management in companies?” My question is also: “Do managements really mean it if they state it ?” or does it just become some sort of “show of statement?” As a customer I would really like to know this, because it would show me where my money goes. Gavin asked : “If you connect every employee to the hour reporting system in a company, presented it as a bar/graph on the website, wouldn’t that be real transparency?” The result could be that every one could see that e.g. Geir(me), as a consultant (or the consultant group) spent e.g. 18% of his time in meetings with customers, 42% writing strategies for 2 customers. He also spent 5% to increase his knowledge and 12% administrational time. 13% of his time was spent in sales activities. A set of bars presenting the total of the whole company would show how efficient the company is as we speak. The question “Where did my money go?” would be answered at all times. That is transparency! It is an option to be in front of competition on the marketplace, to be honest and it would build an organisation that really works as a team to win on the marketplace.

But I can hear the CEO’s out there, shouting; “Is this man crazy?” We can never show this in real time, it’s madness!” It’s “illegal” “our staff would go wild and hang us!”

I would say: Nop, they wouldn’t – nor would the customers! It all depends on the intention, and the purpose and how it’s done. To be honest, to be open and transparent, has to involve the braveness to show what the reality is, to put integrity into ones actions, daringly and without the temptation to manipulate with facts. Not to do so, should at least give the consequence that one stop using the term transparency uncritically.