Tom Graves / Tetradian » Business

An Enterprise Canvas update: ‘value-governance’

Tom G — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 19:09:19 +0000

An important email for me this morning, from management consultant Ray McKenzie, that’s triggered off a significant re-think on the role and label for one of the nine main cells in the Enterprise Canvas model:

While you labelled the bottom row of ‘Enterprise Canvas’ as Value, somehow as I read through the material I kept thinking ‘Governance’, not sure if this was your intent or just my imagination.

And yes, he’s right: of course it’s ‘Value-Governance’ – of course! Why on earth didn’t I see that before? I knew that ‘Management’ wasn’t right when I wrote it, but I couldn’t find the right alternative. Yet there it is, staring me right in the face: of course it’s ‘value-governance’! – in fact, given its role, at the intersection of ‘our value’ and ‘the past’, it really couldn’t be anything else. Using the term ‘value-management’ for that single cell gives it completely the wrong flavour – in fact that’s the main function of the ‘value-direction’ cell in the somewhat-external ‘guidance’ group, so it’s already covered elsewhere. Management is something that happens throughout the service, not just in one place – but it is fair enough to say that overall governance-activities for a service tend to be concentrated in one subdomain of that service, enacted via its own domain-specific roles.

Value-governance makes sense here in both directions on the Canvas’ grid. On the vertical ‘our value’ axis, ‘value-proposition’ deals mainly with what we will do (future); ‘value-creation’ is concerned with what we are doing (present); whilst ‘value-governance’ looks at what we will do, but perhaps even more at what we have done (past), to ensure that they match up correctly. And in the horizontal value-web axis, ‘value-governance’ sits on the backchannel – completions and the past – to hold the balance between what comes in as ‘value-return’ from the customer-side of transactions, and what goes out as ‘value-outlay’ on the supplier-side.

Hence duly-amended versions of the key diagrams – first, the ’service-cross’ version of the ‘brick’:

…and the ‘robot-chicken’:

Not many people use the shorthand two-letter codes for cells and flows, but these should change from VM to VG (for the cell-label), and XM to XG (for the flow-label). The XG flow now focusses primarily on matters relating to governance between the layers (rather than getting mixed up with overall management and direction, which should probably be associated more with the XD guidance-flow).

In all, this cleans up an inconsistency that had been bugging me for ages in the structure of the Canvas, but I hadn’t been able to see what was wrong or why. Hence, once again, many thanks to Ray McKenzie for this.

A week in Tweets: 22-28 August 2010

Tom G — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 16:35:13 +0000

Another week, another twittering of Tweets and other connective coincidences of the … oh, whatever you want to call it. Usual categories, usual possibly-useful items, usual ‘Read more…’ link:

Enterprise architecture, business-architecture, strategy, dynamics, directions and other such stuff:

SAlhir: “purpose of org is to enable ordinary humans to do extraordinary things” Drucker (via @richardveryard @roundtrip @gagan_s) http://bit.ly/cWq0GE

SAlhir: RT @umairh: Chinese shoe counterfeiter on 20th century marketing: “the shoes are original. It’s just the brands that are fake”. Perfectly said. is a different entity than the shoe itself #entarch

tetradian: [post] Enabling enterprise-architecture conversations http://bit.ly/9S390R #entarch #bizarch #collaboration

oscarberg: RT @gigaom: Why Labor as a Service is as Cloudy as it Gets http://dlvr.it/46GMX huge risks of rip-offs on a massive scale – e.g. Amazon’s Mechanical Turk often paying effective far below minimum-wage

theopengroup: RT @bmichelson: new post: You’re not really an enterprise architect if… http://bit.ly/aimxvC #entarch

SAlhir: RT @goonth: “Work is the manifestation of value…”—> HBR: Worry Isn’t Work http://j.mp/cNdcFm via @marketingveep #career #orgarch

eatraining: A good decision is based on Enterprise Architecture http://hub.am/9T9yJV <@adrianrcampbell on #entarch as decision-support

SAlhir: RT @ChrisPRodgers: Behaviour in orgs is, at the same time, patterned & unique; structured & emergent; predictable & unpredictable #complexity

eatraining: U.S. GAO – Organizational Transformation: A Framework for Assessing and Improving Enterprise Architecture Management (V2.0, Aug 2010) http://bit.ly/bFstAJ

trevorsnaith: HBR: The Four Phases of Design Thinking http://bit.ly/dweckc

SAlhir: RT @jorgebarba: RT @coopscience: WSJ: Who holds the key to innovation. The answer: #Innovation Communities http://bit.ly/cGPYR5

aojensen: RT @ChuckHall: RT @aritikka Ackoff 1974: Participation in design succeeds if: 1 it makes difference for participants, 2 implementation is likely 3 it’s fun

SAlhir: RT @umairh @allantear i believe we need, more than ever, “minimum viable management”

oscarberg: (via @letterpress_se @wacka) Customer Service Manifesto: Consumer Satisfaction is the Future of Business http://bit.ly/cgYEbW

aojensen: One word: enterprise modelling as an emergent, autopoietic process of self-design. Key concept of thesis yet to write. #entarch

oscarberg: Seth’s Blog: Moving on http://bit.ly/bnn7J7 “Linchpin will be the last book I publish in a traditional way”

SystemsWiki: Yes, the map is not the territory though I find Comapping quite helpful in sorting out the journey. http://lnkd.in/6vScbk

SAlhir: RT @saugustine RT @lithespeed: David Bulkin: User Story versus Requirement and Specification http://bit.ly/a0PTrk #agile #lean

toddbiske: RT @mikerollings: New blog post “Uncertainty is the key that opens a closed mind” http://bit.ly/cIEFdP #entarch #gartnerea #transformation #innovation

hebsgaard: It’s A Cultural Thing (You Wouldn’t Understand) http://tinyurl.com/2a4k4q4

ChristineArena: Blog post: Trust and Consequences http://bit.ly/aD6hGK

SAlhir: RT @umairh: if U haven’t read it,check @profhamel’s “hole in soul of management”. one of the best biz blog posts ever. http://bit.ly/59kfSB

AG_Mag: RT @cdetzel: EAs: Eat Your Own Dog Food | Forrester Blogs http://bit.ly/c0ZiUt #EntArch #CTO #IT #EATools

jdevoo: Ecosystem service taxonomy by Millennium Ecosystems Assessment http://bit.ly/cDXkFs

oscarberg: RT @cecildijoux: Four Keys to Managing Emergence – MIT Sloan Management Review (2006) http://goo.gl/TWjT #entarch #bizarch

oscarberg: #Wikileaks business idea is extreme openness, but to operate they need to be masters at keeping secrets

pallega: Blog: Future State First, Current State Last http://tinyurl.com/2frh2cr #entarch #GartnerEA

pallega: How you would hope that every Board Chairman and CEO would talk about IT http://bit.ly/9mU0xb Mark shows it’s all about the business outcome

pallega: More proof that there’s life in EA – It’s not dying!: The Rise of the Chief Architect – Computerworld http://bit.ly/d2l5DU #entarch IT Architect’, not ‘Chief Architect’ – this is IT-architecture, not enterprise-architecture…

AG_Mag: New blog post from @gparasEA: CIO’s and EA – Leadership Challenges in IT: http://bit.ly/bE4Yrt #entarch #CIO

trevorsnaith: Architects are fed up with people in the technology field using their title http://bit.ly/8YQvXd

oscarberg: RT @raesmaa: Economist: An interview with C.K. Prahalad “Conventional strategy didn’t even consider individuals.” http://bit.ly/dlxx2e

via @oscarberg @raesmaa: Strategy+Business: ‘Life’s Work Of A Thought-Leader’ – interview with CK Prahalad http://bit.ly/dqQFPr

Cybersal: Fast Company:IDEO’s axioms for starting disruptive new businesses http://bit.ly/cNflhu

SAlhir: RT @innovate: 10 Questions to Determine Your Innovation Style – http://su.pr/6iCpQj – Luis Solis #innovation #strategy #process #style #mgmt

toddbiske: Good short PDF by Linda Catlin on what an organizational anthropologist does http://bit.ly/9tCGmb

trevorsnaith: Should an Enterprise Architect Have an MBA? http://bit.ly/b5Stwn

toddbiske: Back on the MBA thread… instead of enrolling in an MBA, what are good books for #entarch to read to build business acumen?

AG_Mag: RT @gparasEA: 7 Truths About Change to Lead By http://bit.ly/cTixKY – Good advice for Ent Architects and other change agents #entarch #cio

SAlhir: How Diversity Overcomes “Fixedness” in Problem Solving http://bit.ly/9TKt2P via @SemiraSK @joegerstandt @hypios

aojensen: In the debate on efficiency vs. effectiveness—where is efficacy? #peterdrucker

adrianrcampbell: Evolution of the Business Model concept http://tinyurl.com/27jcy8l #BMgen #BizArch #EntArch really useful infographic from The Business Model Database

SystemsWiki: Developing a systemic perspective (reposted as it evolves) http://lnkd.in/9hW4CE
via @SystemsWiki: “In the end, it seems that power has less to do with pushing leverage points than it does with strategically, profoundly, madly letting go.” – Donella Meadows

via @SystemsWiki: Donella Meadows ‘12 Points to Intervene in a System’ (1999) [PDF] http://bit.ly/wuiXA Wikipedia summary http://bit.ly/c0slAU

taotwit: Reflecting on a client meeting last night: I think I’m seeing a trend towards ‘Event-&-Flow-centric’ Information Architecture – hooray!

eatraining: How coaching does/does not fit in the Enterprise Architecture http://bit.ly/9DVtpT

Eclectopedic: Interesting piece on economic signaling vs. the Dunning-Kruger effect: http://bit.ly/9VMj2L

eatraining: Who is the CIO (Chief Innovation Officer)? http://bit.ly/dgVNjK

BillIves: Useful post on creating a great customer experience? http://t.co/XFyBx8a

kcoreresearch: Thought provoking read from 2004 – does technology really matter anymore? http://bit.ly/9e5r6O #Km #KMers <”How you use technology, not the technology itself, is the crucial variable.” #entarch #bizarch #itarch

SAlhir: Think Different http://youtu.be/No1MxAnHuJM per @arnoldbeekes

davidcushman: Thinking about biz models which are less about aggressive growth and more about delivering joy for all parties.

SAlhir: RT @VenessaMiemis: Business Models Beyond Profit – Social Entrepreneurship lecture [slideshare] http://slidesha.re/brQT76

SAlhir: RT @mikemyatt @thinkBIG_blog: Marketing is a department. Branding is a culture. > All about Identity – who are We…

SAlhir: The Creative Ethos: Powering the great ongoing changes of our time is the rise of human creativity as the defining feature of economic life. // Creativity is essential to the way we live and work today, and in many senses always has been. // Human creativity is multifaceted and multidimensional. // The Biggest issue at stake in this emerging age is the ongoing tension between creativity and organization.

A brief discussion on various continuous-action/continuous-improvement frames:

aojensen: Wondering why #johnseddon chose Check->Plan->Do rather than Deming’s PDCA cycle. #mystified

glynlumley: @aojensen #mystified Seddon says “Deming wrote about PDCA in the assumption managers who started at ‘plan’ were already systems thinkers” // Seddon goes on to say “I start at ‘check’ because the managers first need to ’see’ things they cannot currently see’

richardveryard: @aojensen @glynlumley Also compare #PDCA with Boyd’s #OODA , which includes orientation (=sensemaking). #Deming #JohnSeddon #orgintelligence

aojensen: Suffering from identity crisis. OODA should have been integrated at an earlier stage in my thesis. I mainly touch upon #johnseddon. #fail

Narrative-knowledge, knowledge-management, creativity, leadership and in-person collaboration:

SAlhir: RT @davelogan1: only people who say “let’s drill down on this” are the people with the drill. Paraphrase of an interview with Peter Block

CreatvEmergence: to cultivate creativity – an organic process – in an org, we need to let go of mechanistic words to describe the process < #entarch #e20

SAlhir: The Storytelling Organization – Mechanistic and Organic – http://bit.ly/a1DA59

kcoreresearch: ‘Human and Organization Studies: The Discipline of Human Resource Development’ http://icio.us/p0zahn

Cybersal: @taotwit I have the first edition of Back of the Napkin. Dan Roam’s website is good, too http://bit.ly/M2H3j

kcoreresearch: ‘Organizational models for collaboration in the new economy’ (2002) http://icio.us/xb4oau

CreatvEmergence: Obligatory responsibility maintains. Resonant responsibility – wh/comes w/commitment to larger purpose – creates.

CreatvEmergence: Glossary of Improv Terms: http://bit.ly/cHQtrO – relateable to all of life

Bonifer: @CreatvEmergence Narrative = the flow of events over time. A scene is a snapshot of narrative at a moment in time. < #storyb4br?

unorder: @tetradian @bonifer @creatvemergence a scene can be a full story in small ’s’ storytelling. Makes up majority of stories told in workplace

Bonifer: @unorder not differentiating betw scene and story, but betw scene and narrative, scene (beg/mid/end) is newtonian, narrative (flow) quantum

CreatvEmergence: 25 Definitions of Innovation – http://bit.ly/dqJ3TS

Eclectopedic: Innovation Grows Among Older Workers http://bit.ly/bIDdgM /This is a surprise? #bizarch #innovation

unorder: Difference between story and opinion: people will repeat their opinion in a sitting over and over; a story is only told once.

oscarberg: We’ve all been programmed that work is something visible, repeatable & something you can learn by reading a manual // Fact is, when I think of “work” (in general) I picture a factory worker. Is there any way I can delete this image in my mind?

CreatvEmergence: Yes! Huff post article: Temporarily Unplug to Foster Creativity – http://huff.to/cm1wYZ (via @shareideas)

Bonifer: #gamechangers glossary A to G http://bit.ly/cy7MHz // H to N http://bit.ly/bnF9mc // O to Z http://bit.ly/9PPzGM

CreatvEmergence: Information is free. Knowledge is acquired. Wisdom is earned. Creativity is cultivated.

SAlhir: RT @zenext: RT @valdiskrebs Information does NOT want to be free, it wants to be re-combined! Yea man

SAlhir: NPR: Autism Gives Woman An ‘Alien View’ Of Social Brains http://n.pr/9lopvi

getstoried: Bringing Your Back-Story into the Light http://bit.ly/c69Vg3 < #bizstory

taotwit: RT @DavidMillen2: This has @dtapscott written all over it..Very cool video. 21st Century Education http://youtu.be/EjJg9NfTXos

via @taotwit: Nice collection of ‘moral-tale’ stories with a business-oriented interpretation to each. http://bit.ly/4m4hE2 #bizstory

tebbo: I quite like this little tale. Brings ‘millennials’ to life: http://bit.ly/bPRs1x from @pgillin

getstoried: RT @greggvm: @getstoried Right up your alley with #storytelling & chocolate. http://j.mp/bwyvhb human-ness of the business-story #bizarch #entarch

(via @getstoried) many #entarch / #bizarch insights in this video on architecture-firm Roman&Williams http://vimeo.com/10452010 <”It’s a shame to only have dreams at night. You should have a few opportunities during the day.” – the importance of texture, sounds, touch, interaction

getstoried: Provocative vid on publishing/truth/perception, and the Gutenberg Parenthesis – http://t.co/ZqBXxXT #storytelling via @jim_jacobs

Bonifer: analysis of the Trapped Chilean Miner Game http://bit.ly/cHgN7k #improvisation

SAlhir: RT @GoCollaboration: Mike Gotta: The Human Network: Adding Social Context To EA http://bit.ly/9qx22m

oscarberg: RT @KRCraft: Defining Data, Content, Experience, Information And Knowledge: http://tinyurl.com/25octwu > aha, you found that old post

oscarberg: RT @KRCraft: …we can’t manage knowledge, but we can conceptualize information & present it so users apply it as knowledge << Precisely!

DavidGurteen: RT @vernaallee Conversations are the songs we “sing” for the same reason flocks of birds do it – food, family, fighting, fun, flirting!

Cybersal: RT @tquinlan Making sense of thousands of stories…. http://bit.ly/a2FfJ3 >on Cognitive Edge approach to examining complexity

CreatvEmergence: Play – The Elixir of Creativity – http://bit.ly/9veP2g via @bizprov @pmeyerphd #improv #bizstory #entarch

CreatvEmergence: RT @lindanaiman @artizencoaching @DanielleLaPorte: What do people thank you for most often? (therein lies your genius.) <- Nice!

SAlhir: RT @GrahamHill @ariegoldshlager: Collaboration, Co-Creation, & #Innovation Jams: http://bit.ly/bmVrkE Via: @liamcleaver #openinnovation

Social-media, ‘enterprise 2.0′, user-experience and related matters of online-collaboration:

oscarberg: Intranets could (and probably should) serve as a hub for employee-to-employee interactions & exchange // A social intranet is a strategic component in an #e20-driven business transformation // It’s logical (and necessary) for intranet, KM, Collaboration, CRM & ECM disciplines to find common ground in #e20

oscarberg: Blogged: The business case for social intranets http://goo.gl/fb/nzHNB

SAlhir: not immediacy… We are building connection, belonging, and shared meaning, and that takes time. Via @stoweboyd http://sto.ly/bmJ0EH <”It is not a waste of time, but the weight of time” #socmedia

hebsgaard: Mitch Joel: The End Of Conversation In Social Media http://tinyurl.com/2bs83b7 #socmedia #e20

hebsgaard: Bertrand Duperrin: Engage with customers. And then ? #e20 #crm http://tinyurl.com/39esvkt

oscarberg: RT @JoachimNiemeier: Enterprise 2.0 Team Dynamics – http://post.ly/tQeT #enterprise20

jdevoo: Steve Waddell’s blog Networking Action http://bit.ly/96p3PN #SNA #change

thoughttrans: I wonder how many companies lose great applicants because of their very bad online application app! WOW saw a really bad one today. < #ux impacts on #bizarch #entarch, even creates anti-clients

SAlhir: RT @bhc3 @bduperrin: Does your enterprise social network really make you more productive ? http://bit.ly/9qCLQP #e20 #orgarch

SAlhir: RT @VenessaMiemis @cole_tucker The #Junto Matrix. Vision Protocol & Interview w/ @gabrielshalom & @notthisbody http://bit.ly/biTh8G

ChristineArena: Great post> RT @ScottMonty Why develop a social personality? Trust. That’s why. http://bit.ly/dmrMnz #e20 #socmedia – also #bizarch?

getstoried: Awesome free ebook supports social media #storytelling RT @pr2020 How 2 Build Ur Inbound Marketing GamePlan http://bit.ly/8qj0va #mediajedi

oscarberg: RT @dineshtantri: A very balanced view on Enterprise 2.0 adoption – http://bit.ly/a11Pxk > “Readiness is vital” #e20 not to do an #e20 development

CreatvEmergence: RT @MartijnLinssen: The Evolving Social Organization by @hjarche & @tdebaillon http://bit.ly/cuNIJh #socmedia #e20

getstoried: Here’s a relevant perspective for #mediajedi RT @chrisbrogan Distribution Points for Your Blog http://bit.ly/cIlUly #socmedia

DavidGurteen: Sal Khan is Bill Gates’ favorite teacher http://bit.ly/d2eHco

IT-architecture, systems-architecture, software-development and related themes:

AussiMike: How to Use Amazon Web Services to Make a Video on Demand Service http://bit.ly/bvsSXW

jdevoo: RT @itraor @shanselman @redditflipboard: Some lesser known truths about programming. http://bit.ly/ab45Pv >> particularly good for non-tech

hebsgaard: How To Secure Wordpress Against Disasters & Being Hacked http://bit.ly/9Gbjp9

kvistgaard: BPMN2 spec assumes all r well aware a/t WHY & HOW and just puts in the middle a clumsy WHAT #bpmn

eatraining: Managing the EA function http://bit.ly/cjmrfk

josvanoosten: RT @SystemsThinker: Met Police IT … Doing more of the wrong thing quicker? http://bit.ly/dz8IRt Alternative view http://bit.ly/di41kO

Society, culture, economics, corporate social responsibility and suchlike:

aojensen: RT @rosenstand: To most Christians, the Bible is like a software license. Nobody actually reads it. They just scroll to the bottom and click “I agree.”

CreatvEmergence: RSA Animate – 21st century enlightenment http://bit.ly/bABGF7 via @CoCreatr @mgusek555

oscarberg: “Evolution” is wrong way to describe today’s changes. We’re not just adding another level on the past – we’re rethinking it // If current changes were just a step in an evolution, why then are we so having such a hard time defining this step?

SAlhir: We are all prisoners of our paradigms. – Gary Hamel

tetradian: [post] Margaret Mead on gender-equality http://bit.ly/br9JDh #society #gender #responsibility

jdevoo: RT @MorelFourman: http://tinyurl.com/35ce5gf “A City in the Cloud” Living PlanIT Redefines Cities as Software >> not too technocentric?

tebbo: O2 explains its approach to planetary care. http://www.o2.co.uk/thinkbig/planet ht @altepper

jdevoo: BP’s #CSR toolkit: AA1000, ISA100, GRI, ISO14001, UN GC and GHG Protocol. Did one of these give an early warning? Is there a study on this? < #entarch #sustainability

ChristineArena: RT @makower: Brewing possibilities: Do We Need a Green Tea Party? http://bit.ly/9aQbpx

Eclectopedic: RT @JacquesR: Eusocial behaviour can evolve through standard natural-selection processes. From Nature: http://is.gd/eEPY6 #society #nature

And, without further ado, the multitudinous masteries of the miscellaneous:

BillIves: RT @socialmedia2day: Top 19 Free Photo Sites For Bloggers http://goo.gl/fb/lVpux #sm

taotwit: must stop tweeting before awake… typo-feast!

kvistgaard: RT @brainpicker: 7 fascinating experimental music instruments – from solar guitars to salt songs http://is.gd/eyg1g

tebbo: Via @Sharedinterest – a small machine to get 1 litre oil from 1kg plastic http://bit.ly/bgpNo9

cfkurtz: Twitter is amazing. I have never before realized how little I have to say.

getstoried: RT @pushingsocial: Why You Must Write Your Boogie Man Post http://bit.ly/aKR3Fr Thanks @greggvm

Next-generation toolsets for enterprise-architecture?

Tom G — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 09:29:14 +0000

One of the most essential tasks in enterprise-architecture is that of enabling conversations on architectural issues, with any groups of stakeholders, anywhere across the enterprise.

Our toolsets play an important role in those conversations. The right tool used in the right way can really help the conversation, help create new shared understandings across the silos and the specifics of each distinct discipline.

But the wrong tool – or even the right tool used in the wrong way – may instead act as a real barrier against awareness and understanding. Getting the balance right is critical to creating the clarity we need – yet the requirements, and the balance, are different for every type of architecture-conversation.

We’ve long had a good range of frameworks and toolsets for IT-oriented architectures. Some were aimed more at systems-development; others more at taxonomy and ontology and metamodel-development; others again at modelling dependencies across IT systems and ‘business/IT-alignment’; and yet others at requirements-traceability, governance and project-management. Yet they all had one thing in common: their whole focus was about precision, about certainty – because that’s what system design and development really needs.

But as enterprise-architecture at last begins to break out of the IT-centric box that it’s been trapped in for the past couple of decades, we start to hit up against some real limitations of those toolsets:

most of the underlying metamodels and model-types are still very IT-centric

user-interfaces are usually complicated, abstract, often intolerant of error, and in some cases even downright ‘user-hostile’

most of the tools – especially at the high-end – are too expensive for general use

diagramming is usually abstract (‘boxes and lines’) rather than ‘real-world’ (trucks, people, machines, servers, cables etc)

support for versioning and for tentative ‘what-if’ experiments ranges from poor to non-existent

none of the user-interfaces are well-suited for use in real-time exploratory conversations

There’s also still no common exchange-language to transfer architecture-information between the tools that we already have – and even when we get one, we’ll need it to go wider than that, anyway. A lot wider.

When we look at how we actually work with executives or process-designers or security-architects or the like, the tools we most often use at present are a whiteboard or a sketchbook – nothing else has the flexibility that we need. None of the existing tools allow us to play ‘what-if?’ as well as we can on a whiteboard; and the precise formal rigour of model-validation is far more of a hindrance than a help in this kind of work, where half the time we don’t even know what kinds of architectural-entities are involved – the whole point is that that’s what we’re aiming to find out!

But we still need some kind of toolset-help here: images on whiteboards and sketchbooks aren’t easy to share – I’ve often seen people simply photograph the results and pass the image-files around as ‘the model’ – whilst office tools such as Visio and Powerpoint give a spurious illusion that the results have been captured with enough rigour to be re-usable (which they’re not), and are usually too slow and cumbersome for an across-the-table discussion anyway.

So here’s our challenge: develop a toolset for the ‘conversations’ end of the enterprise-architecture spectrum – one that will work on laptops and netbooks, on the new tablet and touchpad systems, and preferably right down to smartphones as well.

It needs to be able to cover any aspect of enterprise-architecture – from business-models to skills to security to process to disaster-recovery to operations to knowledge-management to applications to service-management to IT-infrastructure to building-infrastructure and anything in between.

It needs to be able to adapt itself to the needs and worldviews and language of each of those groups of stakeholders – and provide some means of translation between each group, too.

It needs to be fast, easy to use, engaging, enjoyable, preferably tactile too – yet have a fully-structured methodology and metamodel behind it.

It needs to allow freeform development of models and diagrams – yet still be capable of linking to the formal rigour of the ‘top end’ systems.

Coming the other way, it needs to help us explain the structures and reference-models that we already have in our ‘top-end’ systems – and explain the reasoning behind those models, too – whilst still keeping people actively engaged in the conversation.

And more and more, architects are beginning to recognise that spurious certainty is a real risk for the enterprise – so this also toolset needs to help our stakeholders become more comfortable with uncertainty and change.

Working with a loose consortium of colleagues – including Adrian Campbell, Kevin Smith, Milan Guenther, Nigel Green and others – we’ve done a fair bit of work on this already:

preliminary metamodels and file-structures

probable user-interface workflows on tablet (mouse/stylus) and touchpad (finger) interfaces

probable user-experience interactions in multi-stakeholder conversations

some suggested methodologies

some key features, such as AudioNote-style synchronised voice-recording and Prezi-style zooming ‘infinite’ workspace

support for a broad user-extensible range of model-types – potentially-unlimited, including user-defined types

support for indefinite nesting/layering of models and model-types

support for freeform-drawing, notes, embedding of user-selected icons and images

support for reports that enable us to describe some or all of the enterprise as a story

There’s a lot more to do to get this even to an alpha-release state in any format or platform; and whilst all of us, in the group so far, have ‘done our time’ in software-development and the like, none of us is sufficiently available (or, in my case at least, really up to the speed or quality needed) for professional-level app-development on current systems. So we’re going to need help to make this happen.

I for one would prefer to see this as an Open Source or at least freeware/shareware type of development, so as to get this out into as general a usage as possible. (As I see it, this kind of toolset should have many other applications outside of enterprise-architecture, such as in strategy-development, tactical planning etc.) But if some commercial developer wants to take it on, that would be fine too, as long as we can keep the final end-user cost down to app-levels (perhaps $10-30 at most) rather than the three-, four-, five- or even six-digit sums we sometimes see for other toolsets.

So: over to you. Any offers of help or advice? Any other comments or suggestions?

A week in Tweets: 15-21 August 2010

Tom G — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 16:29:28 +0000

I fear I’ve overdone it this week – almost twice as many as usual. Still, that’s what I collected as the week’s Tweets and links, so here y’is, y’all. Usual categories, after the usual ‘Read more…’ link.

Enterprise-architecture, business-architecture, business strategy and other related business-ish matters:

oscarberg: RT @robots_dreams: RT @leolaporte: Welcome to the new decade: Java is a restricted platform, Google is evil, Apple is a monopoly & Microsoft are the underdogs

oscarberg: RT @aadjemonkeyrock: Openness or How Do You Design for the Loss of Control? http://ff.im/-peARU

oscarberg: Social software isn’t creating behavior such as openness, sharing & dialog. It “just” amplifies them & makes them contagious

SAlhir: RT @ideahive Orgs will need to plan for increasingly chaotic environments that are out of their direct control http://tinyurl.com/2vobp49 <”Gartner says the world of work will witness 10 changes in the next 10 years” (de-routinisation of work; work swarms; weak links; working with the collective; work sketch-ups; spontaneous work; simulation and experimentation; pattern sensitivity; hyper-connected; my place) #entarch #bizarch

DavidGurteen: RT @johnniemoore: ‘Self-organisation, traffic lights and empathy’ Getting rid of traffic lights (videos) “Road capacity might be limited but empathy is boundless.” http://bit.ly/9lSYpg

SAlhir: The Power of Culture http://t.co/FKXnIrD

SAlhir: RT @zenext: It is through our defining “who belongs” that we marginalize those we declare as not belonging

eatraining: Jeff Scott (Forrester): A Multitude Of Challenges For Business Architects http://bit.ly/9q3jiG

tetradian: [post] ‘Why Economics 101 is bad for enterprise-architecture’ http://bit.ly/cnnRhv #entarch #economics

SAlhir: Purpose-idea plus Social-object RT @gapingvoid “the object-idea”: the future of what used to be called advertising http://bit.ly/cO7JO5

joemckendrick: For startups, enterprise technology now available for pennies. Fuel for explosion in new business formation. http://tinyurl.com/36n8jlq

SAlhir: Culture is the platform for our social experience, not organizational structure or processes, those are mere adornment of a culture.

greblhad: If your #entarch can not be illustrated in 3D using LEGO then you have a problem

DavidGurteen: What do you think of the term Human Capital? http://linkd.in/ag7Lrf

SAlhir: RT @innovate Patience: Strategic Advantage or Disadvantage? http://su.pr/1lWf3t Mike Brown #innovation #strategy #patience #leadership #mgmt

blomr: RT @krismeukens: ISO/IEC 42010:2010 underway http://icio.us/ojpkkm [PDF]

DavidGurteen: RT @MarkRaganCEO Are community coffee shops the newsrooms of the future? I love this concept: http://bit.ly/dilDll /so do I

toddbiske: RT @mikerollings: New blog post “Enterprise Architecture enters Rehab” http://bit.ly/b4AxVg #gartnerea #entarch

oscarberg: Blogged: Be good http://goo.gl/fb/JF2Sr

business_design: Monetization time RT @benparr: Slideshare Is Going Freemium http://mash.to/2qtjh

SAlhir: era of permanent uncertainty RT @JenniferSertl: RT @HarvardBiz How Are You Coping with Uncertainty? http://s.hbr.org/9pSM7u

SAlhir: RT @NurtureGirl @CreatvEmergence U can fear uncertainty, “deal” w/it, try to “manage” it..or.. engage it as a co-creative partner.Ur choice

SAlhir: RT @JenniferSertl @DavidHolzmer: Map of Complexity Science http://dlvr.it/3sxZg #complexity RT @storiedstrategy @jurgenappelo

taotwit: Useful session with @tetradian yesterday – have woken-up this morning with some improvements to my Storyboarding project // Contrasting/comparing Scenario Planning, Use Case Modeling with Storyboarding and coming to some nice insights // Having fun playing with Storyboarding tools from creative writing & TV/Movie ind: “Form-Concept-to-Production” focus useful // Describing the journey from Top-Dwn ’strategic wish’ or Bot-Up ‘unstructured story’ to rigorous & implementable models #storyb4br

kdierc: sometimes i wonder how enterprises would be run if Excel would not exist #entarch

craighepburn: (via @artojoensuu @anssimakela) Slidedeck by Rob va Alphen: A story on convers(at)ion http://bit.ly/9rXwxL #socmedia #marketing

tetradian: [post] ‘LEGO as an enterprise-architecture modelling tool?’ http://bit.ly/9YRdOQ #entarch (for @greblhad)

tetradian: Follow @taotwit and #storyb4br for important new concept in requirements-elicitation – strong recommend #entarch #bizarch #orgchange #itarch

pallega: Blog: EA Dying? No! Let’s Get Ready to Rumble! http://tinyurl.com/26v3rvm #entarch #GartnerEA #enterprisearchitecture

rettema: The development of the teleological perspective of children two articles for Architects http://is.gd/em3qR and http://is.gd/em3tt #entarch

eatraining: How to Become an Enterprise Architect http://bit.ly/9N8Dzd <”As an enterprise architect you will be responsible for designing, developing and maintaining computer applications software or specialized utility programs” – waaaahhh!!! nooo!!! who wrote this garbage?? (it’s not Craig Martin/@eatraining, anyway) – it’s about as wrong as it can get, about the real nature of #entarch…

oscarberg: RT @jhagel: Six provocative propositions from The Power of Pull – my latest blog posting on HBR http://bit.ly/94o2xo #bizarch #entarch

getstoried: RT @greggvm: Limor Shiponi: #Storytelling critique http://t.co/1dENhci

SAlhir: RT @sinkra: The Inelasticity of Reality in the Life Sciences:.. http://bit.ly/dqWmeK

SAlhir: RT @umairh: The really valuable stuff isn’t products, plans, & spreadsheets. Principles, values, passion. That’s where real advantage begins.

SAlhir: RT @Kallokain: The Great False Dichotomy – Pay for Performance http://bit.ly/9D2ADp #bizarch #norewards

SAlhir: RT @Kallokain: Five ways Pixar Makes Better Decisions http://bit.ly/aMbe6O #bizarch #entarch (I may have posted this before, but it’s worth repeating anyway)

oscarberg: RT @letterpress_se: What matters is location as a service. Not location as a game, or a check-in. http://tinyurl.com/37nfy6f

taotwit: Complexity in a system is like cholesterol levels: Good HDL (Wanted) and Bad LDL (Unwanted). Lower Bad helps focus on outcomes.

SAlhir: RT @ChrisPRodgers @ComplexitySol: “Mgt 3.0 will be Era of Complexity” post at http://bit.ly/cdilmB – but complex processes not systems #bizarch #entarch #orgarch

oscarberg: RT @GeorgeDearing: ecological transparency will change “value basis” for products & force corps to “rethink” products to protect brand | http://bit.ly/9frmbG #bizarch #entarch

theopengroup: RT @industryleaders: First Enterprise Architecture Community for Spanish-speaking countries. EA + TOGAF + Industry Models www.aogea.com.co #itarch #entarch

joemckendrick: Hyper-Social Enterprise: What it Takes to Lead One: Behave like a human and demand your people do too http://ow.ly/2rBsf

bartleeten: RT @bmichelson: http://www.chrisonea.com/2010/08/05/is-enterprise-architecture-even-worthwhile/ <–good post by @chrisonea #entarch #metrics

DavidGurteen: How Your Smartphone Will Transform Your Elevator Pitch http://bit.ly/9zcA6z

(via @eatraining) The Essential EA Toolkit (Part 2): Refrence Architecture & Standards Repository http://bit.ly/92YIxx #entarch #itarch

SAlhir: Riders on a swarm: “purposeful collective activity of ants & other social insects does look intelligent on the surface. http://bit.ly/aRzsT1 // also (same magazine-theme) RT @jorgebarba @carbonOutreach: #Behavior change possible Using “incrementalism” to move consumers http://bit.ly/dx1SXS via @davidcoethica

chrisdpotts: Why #entarch needs to shift focus: what we, the public, most admire about great architecture isn’t the efficient operating costs effectiveness, not just local efficiency

chrisdpotts: Rather than trying to define “Enterprise Architecture” let’s understand what executives hear in those two words. #entarch

bartleeten: Think “in the market,” not “go to market” http://j.mp/d7fxhL
BillIves: post: @MindTouch 2010 Provides Intelligent Product & Services Documentation http://bit.ly/9areT0

theopengroup: RT @perlengquist: In #entarch complexity thwarts agility. Therefore need a continuous focus on cutting stuff out. This is surprisingly hard.

thoughttrans: How to Walk the Line http://bit.ly/aPmYtM

pallega: Blog: Applying EA to Your Life http://tinyurl.com/2w9heaz #entarch #GartnerEA

adrianrcampbell: RT @BiZZdesign: check out our whitepapers on #ArchiMate and #TOGAF. http://miniurl.org/r5W

adrianrcampbell: RT @EA_Consultant: Component-Oriented Approach for Designing Enterprise Architecture http://bit.ly/bTOSdj

SAlhir: RT @jorgebarba: HBR: By @work_matters: Forgive and Remember: How a Good Boss Responds to Mistakes http://icio.us/lusysz #bizarch

SAlhir: RT @Wildcat2030 RT @andymiah: Welcome to the Age of Engagement | Age of Engagement | Big Think http://bit.ly/bEeltQ #science

oscarberg: RT @redutten: “The single biggest reason companies fail is that they overinvest in what is, as opposed to what might be.” [Gary Hamel] #bizarch #entarch

oscarberg: The End of Management | WSJ http://bit.ly/avvCKG /via @dhinchcliffe “old methods won’t last much longer.”

SAlhir: Contagious Enthusiasm – must read! RT @chrisbrogan Can one person change the entire business? http://bit.ly/bymaZg #bizarch #e20

SAlhir: RT @jorgebarba People Pay For Value – Their Value, Not Yours by @mitchjoel http://icio.us/ruuez4

joemckendrick: Making a business meaningful for customers and employees, to the point they say ‘wow’ …. @tom_peters http://tinyurl.com/2ckaqt3 #bizarch #entarch #strategy

A brief exchange about ‘Theory X’ and ‘Theory Y’ managers:

taotwit: Obs. frm @tetradian on X & Y: CxOs & Doers often need to think Y whereas Middle-management focus on X #storyb4br http://tinyurl.com/3488rlj // X and Y Theory: http://bit.ly/dqooS2 – Storyboards must work for both Y and X Starts with Y but is reality-checked by X #storyb4br

Cybersal: @taotwit I haven’t honestly come across that many X (authoritarian) managers in my working life – perhaps I have been fortunate.

taotwit: @Cybersal I’m using X & Y as a shorthand to also refer to Roger Martin’s design PoV Validity (Y) v Reliability(X) http://bit.ly/92yOGa // ..and information system types a la Cynefin Adaptive ‘Y’ and Complicated ‘X’

Cybersal: @taotwit Yes I like that Roger Martin characterisation. I have certainly come across a lot of ‘reliability-oriented’ managers.

A happily-silly series of Tweets about ‘You might be an enterprise-architect if…’:

Cybersal: @bmichelson You’re not really an enterprise architect if the whiteboard is still blank at the end of the meeting #entarch #posers

pallega: When Larry DeBoever hired METAs EA team, the 1st qualification to be in #entarch was to “give good whiteboard” – true story!

kdierc: RT @bmichelson: you’re not really an enterprise architect if… change scares you #entarch #posers // you’re not really an enterprise architect if… you can’t envision and speak at conceptual level #entarch #posers

toddbiske: RT @EricStephens You might b an [EA] if you have used UML/SysML/ArchiMate to diagram/discuss issues w/your family. #entarch <– that’s scary

theopengroup: RT @EricStephens: You might be an enterprise architect if you hoard all the dry erase markers at the beginning of a meeting #entarch

Narrative knowledge, knowledge-management, creativity, leadership and in-person collaboration:

oscarberg: All humans are followers. Some both follow & lead. A small minority think they only lead, but in reality they are lost

SAlhir: RT @SemiraSK Excellent! RT @ralph_ohr: Bob Sutton: Why #Leadership Can Be a Dangerous Idea (by @work_matters) http://bit.ly/a7ygGJ

SAlhir: RT @jorgebarba @Jabaldaia @nedkumar New Science of #Leadership: Interview with Margaret Wheatley http://bit.ly/dmMOnL (via @ToughLoveforX) <”the real eye-opener for me was to realize how control and order were two different things, and that you could have order without control”

via @CreatvEmergence: By @zen_habits: Best goal is no goal http://bit.ly/a4s79c [original tweet: RT @CreatvEmergence: Kind of how creative emergence works (w/inherent directionality) -> Blog post by @zen_habits: Best goal is no goal - http://bit.ly/a4s79c // There is an inherent, coherent directionality of an emergence, along with the unpredictability...the both-and... // There's a diff. bet. boxing self in2 pre-set goals & structuring ur aliveness into something functional as it emerges ]

SAlhir: RT @evangineer Coming to the conclusion scattiness & flakiness may not always be what they seem but maybe symptoms of information overload!

unorder: New Anecdote post: Putting stories to work is more than storytelling http://bit.ly/deWlIS #bizstory

CreatvEmergence: Knowledge allows one to talk about creativity. Embodiment allows one to also cultivate it or facilitate it.

Eclectopedic: RT @glynlumley: ‘A leader must understand that the system is composed of people, not mere machinery, nor activities, nor organisation charts’ #Deming #hr

thoughttrans: @oscarberg key to successful management is building commitment over compliance.

SAlhir: RT @jhagel: ‘What makes great scientists great?’ Path to becoming excellent is messy and ambiguous – love this posting and the 5 working rules http://bit.ly/a9hjwT <5 rules are essential the same as in Agile: embrace ambiguity; stay specific; tinker often, but not too often; seek resistance; revel in the craftsmanship

(via @SAlhir) Richard Hamming: ‘You and your research’ (lecture, 1986) http://bit.ly/3RCuIx
DavidGurteen: 90% of knowledge needed to get work done is not supported by enterprise software or learning departments http://bit.ly/dmQl3b #KM #e20

oscarberg: Blogged: What some managers like to do most http://goo.gl/fb/5f5bV

unorder: [video] For anyone who manages a large collection of stories. http://bit.ly/bjxmpW How Joan Rivers does it. #bizstory

DavidGurteen: Without a strategy to deliver growth or increase margins information systems will be unfocused and unused http://bit.ly/bUYNwe #KM

DavidGurteen: John Cleese on Open And Closed Thinking Modes « Steps & Leaps http://bit.ly/at8yzH @davidpottinger #KM

SAlhir: RT @tangcov RT @mcottmeyer: Interesting Post… Top 10 Signs You’re In a Fear-Based Workplace http://dlvr.it/3xdB9

SAlhir: RT @EskoKilpi A community is a pattern that emerges in our interaction // Organizations change when local interaction changes – not through new plans

taotwit: It’s funny the older I get the more I revert to my fascinations & interests of my mid-to-late twenties.. // … I’ve just realised how much I liked being a Business Analyst in a developing global business.

unorder: RT @makingstories: Recording of webinar with Shawn @unorder Deliberate Practice Approach to Biz Storytelling http://bit.ly/c5n2UM #bizstory <1hr+ video of webinar

AussiMike: Where to Get the Best Free Education Online [Back To School] http://ff.im/-poGOw

oscarberg: “We have disparaged the “soft” social skills of relationship building as being un-businesslike” – by @euan http://bit.ly/a8Jyj3 #bizarch #entarch

DavidGurteen: RT @knowledgetank: The authentic voice of Experience http://bit.ly/bKAcAx #KM

SAlhir: RT @ChrisPRodgers @richardlalleman: #Change .. is continuous process-rooted in human interaction not plans/programs/etc http://icio.us/bwbauc

SAlhir: Motivation is not about getting you to sign-on to a purpose, but about energy to overcome obstacles along the journey.

DavidGurteen: RT @knowledgetank: Don’t Call Me a Guru, Dammit! http://bit.ly/92jh9M #km

unorder: Leaders learning storytelling are often surprised how easy it is to remember a new story. It’s so different to learning facts. #bizstory

SAlhir: RT @umairh: Don’t look for your path. When you immerse your mind, focus your will, engage your heart, feel your passion – it will find you.

Bonifer: CUT TO: @InvisibleWork @cfnoble: People in LA use the phrase “Cut to” in conversation, instead of “then”, to signify narrative tranx

joyce_hostyn: storytelling is big picture, engagement is focused on micro level follow-up to story http://bit.ly/9QOr6L via @storytellin

SAlhir: RT @katebennet: RT @raesmaa: Six Characteristics of Highly Effective change Leaders http://bit.ly/aNKiAB /by @innovate

thoughttrans: RT @estherderby: Why is it so many mgrs want 2 measure individual productivity of workers, but don’t think abt measuring their own productivity? #orgarch #entarch

CreatvEmergence: 25 Marks of Innovative Brainpower at Work – http://bit.ly/demwwH – via @ArnoldBeekes

CreatvEmergence: When 1 connects w/the vast creative source w/in oneself, the need 4 validation by expert opinions drops considerably

CreatvEmergence: The more ambiguity u can hold, the more “wishy-washy” u can appear. But it’s an essential part of the creative process.

DavidGurteen: [Wikipedia] List of cognitive biases http://bit.ly/dxsHJx /gulp! so many

hebsgaard (via @DavidGurteen): Media File: Video: Nick Milton on Best Practice http://bit.ly/9v9AMq

unorder: RT @douglipman: New article: Beware the “#Storytelling Voice”! This artificial tone of voice hurts #storytellers, listeners, all of us http://inc.nu/beware

kcoreresearch: ‘Do individuals change from learning, as well as learn from changing?’ [PDF] http://icio.us/qapwko #sensemaking etc

kcoreresearch: Nonaka: The Concept of ‘Ba’ (1998) [PDF] http://icio.us/k3gyib

oscarberg: RT @flowchainsensei: Fulfilled in your work? Zen, Buddhism and Kaizen: http://t.co/eU9yW8P

oscarberg: RT @ConnectIrmeli: “The extent to which we are honest and open about conflict gives a dimension of organizational culture” http://bit.ly/92rEeV #KM

kcoreresearch: Chris Argyris: Double-Loop Learning in Orgs (1977) http://icio.us/cti4j2

Social-media, ‘enterprise 2.0′, user-experience and online collaboration:

tetradian: [post] ‘On Twitter-follows: policy and (optional) apology’ http://bit.ly/bnp2LZ #twitter

SAlhir: RT @ideahive RT @timekord: By @VenessaMiemis: Guidelines for Group Collaboration and Emergence http://bit.ly/axYy1j

oscarberg: RT @roundtrip: Let’s send out signals with #sociology #anthropology and other tags to find who to talk to on #e20 & organizational behavior!

SAlhir: RT @GrahamHill RT @glfceo: @notthisbody: On Social Learning Sensemaking Capacity & Collective Intelligence http://goo.gl/fb/9aeQP

kvistgaard: RT @danyellg: Software Industry gave us “feature creep,” now the Blogosphere gives us “Knowledge Creep” http://spuri.us/cuCxz0

oscarberg: Will social intranets create more social businesses? http://bit.ly/9IJuuX #e20 #intranet #collaboration

oscarberg: Blogged: Why Twitter is hard to use | Enterprise 2.0 Blogs http://t.co/pzlHKu1 #e20

oscarberg: RT @Demeto: Excellent post on putting #social media & #e20 security into perspective by @elsua http://is.gd/elh2S > +1

BillIves: Making sense of social-media ROI with Olivier Blanchard http://bit.ly/aXxPly via @SBoSM

oscarberg: On Twitter, content is the real currency. Interaction and visibility is a bonus. // On Facebook, content matters less. Interaction and being seen is the currency #socialmedia

SAlhir: RT @ConversationAge How social networks reshape business by reshaping us http://ow.ly/2r3m5

davidcushman: RT @neilperkin: Crikey RT @leemcewan UK Treasury publishes list of 100,000 citizen-generated ideas for spending cuts http://bit.ly/957pHF

oscarberg: RT @weknowmore: Social Strategies for Hard Times | Psychology Today http://ow.ly/2qvjG >Importance of connecting #e20 #social

hebsgaard: Collaborative Culture: On Reinventing the Social Enterprise http://tinyurl.com/2admwm5

hebsgaard: 4 Ways To Build Instant & Sustainable Trust Online http://tinyurl.com/2vt345s <..by which he means marketing-type trust in terms of design of a website landing-page – but hey, it’s a start…

oscarberg: Email Usage Drops 28% in Past 12 Months! | Enterprise 2.0 Blogs http://t.co/pgaDohY by @mattcccc // I hardly ever email friends. I use sms, IM, Facebook & phone. When will I be able to do same shift at work? // Fact is, I email less at work too. But email is still people’s default way of communicating at work, which affects my behavior // Today I’ve used sms, IM, Skype, phone, Yammer, Twitter, e-mail. Different comm tool for different situations. // Just forgot…I used Facebook as well, but not really for work

Eclectopedic: RT @Pathfinder: I just posted a new blog entry: “How the Metaverse was Won” http://bit.ly/91ez0P

SAlhir: RT @VenessaMiemis 50+ Tools for Online Storytelling http://bit.ly/12bFT via @hrheingold

SAlhir: RT @Annemcx RT @__contagious__ Brandon Murphy: True Value of Social Media http://bit.ly/d7bgat

IT-architecture, systems-development and technology in general:

SAlhir: RT @jorgebarba: Google to open ‘Google Ideas’ global technology think tank – Google 24/7 – Fortune Tech http://bit.ly/99KMT7

greblhad: Let’s just say that most people in #entarch have not read the #TOGAF 9 specification and those that have should probably read it again have read it, and my annotations in my copy of the printed book on the fundamental problems and flaws in the specification probably total nearly that of the original text…

pallega: RT @RSessions: @pallega Doursat seeks to understand IT complexity. I seek to get rid of it. See my recent patent in this area: http://bit.ly/drgQ5t

craighepburn: RT @amcafee: The McKinsey article on 10 tech-enabled biz trends includes a reading list for each, which is cool: http://bit.ly/9f1wFW

davidcushman: RT @freecloud: @amcafee @davidcushman I found the 10 McKinsey trends “curates egg” in nature (some v good, some not so) – my riposte http://bit.ly/9lKQCp

taotwit: RT @mkrigsman: I published “Creating an Enterprise Software Business Case” @Focus at http://bit.ly/deNpdK >> nice intro to the topic #itarch

joemckendrick: Outsourcing: goodbye, multi-million-$ IT ops handovers. Hello, service-oriented micro-outsourcing http://twiq.de/sUL #cloud #cloudcomputing #itarch #bizarch #entarch

theopengroup: RT @DB211178: There is an interesting whitepaper by OGC for using TOGAF and ITIL next to each other at http://bit.ly/98yxij (PDF!) #itarch #entarch

BillIves: via @MarkEggleston Transforming Collaboration Through Strategy & Architecture http://bit.ly/bzmUBh

Society, culture and corporate social responsibility:

SAlhir: RT @umairh: An incisive, poignant article detailing the death of the american dream. Do not miss. http://bit.ly/bfCPBG not happening from government or most sectors of business

SAlhir: RT @CoCreatr RT @simbeckhampson: The ONLY Social Currency Is Time http://ping.fm/QPDu6 @ingenesist << universal currency is Time no form of currency will work for the purpose for which currencies are the purported ’solution’

kcoreresearch: A monkey economy as irrational as ours:People and decision making – excellent TED presentation – http://bit.ly/9BMQxk

tebbo: “Rapid advance in addressing climate change is now possible … because global climate policy crashed in 2009″ http://bit.ly/9fHpND

oscarberg: “The truth is all we have” – From today’s chat with #Wikileaks Julian Assange on Swedish news site #DN http://bit.ly/b4LLRt // “If we are to get anywhere as a civilization, we must understand the world and how it operates” – Julian Assange, #Wikileaks

Eclectopedic: Race to the ethical bottom and other consequences of Capitalist myopia: http://bit.ly/bEpbJi by @MaxineUdall

Bonifer: RT @ericgarcetti: Obama: when you want to move your car forward, you put it in “D”. When you want to move backwards, you put it in “R”.

CreatvEmergence: RT @davidhodgson – Becoming Part of Global Mind – http://tinyurl.com/24wamum

Eclectopedic: Funny how something described as a ‘win-win’ situation by one group so often turns out to be a ‘lose-lose’ situation for another.

davidcushman: “@BR3NDA: poor people are experts on poor people. rich people don’t know jack about being poor. << the failure of gov in a nutshell

aojensen: Journalism Warning Labels: http://bit.ly/aOLVs0

tetradian: [post] Economics, currency and time http://bit.ly/cwKzjk #economics #society #entarch

oscarberg: RT @weknowmore: Interactive Infographic of the World’s Best Countries – Newsweek http://ow.ly/2rfof

SAlhir: RT @Billy_Cox: The true meaning of life is to plant trees under whose shade you do not expect to sit. Nelson Henderson

jdevoo: BP Sustainability Report 2009 by Ernst & Young http://bit.ly/9l0bzt #AA1000 #GRI #looksgood is committed to ‘green’ – a point missed in the anti-BP furore

SAlhir: The Economic Collapse Is Fundamentally a Failure of Leadership http://bit.ly/aT2djf

tebbo: Via @tpemurphy CSR Communications 101 – My Take: http://bit.ly/9pf0lL HT @susanmcp1 << Point 2 is number 1 IMHO

tetradian: [post] From rights to responsibilities http://bit.ly/dp1Lay #entarch #economics #society

SAlhir: RT @DanielPink RT @deb_lavoy: More emotionally intelligent signage? http://tweetphoto.com/40450623

And, peradventure, the mellifluous morass of miscellanea:

SAlhir: RT @thebrandbuilder: “The difference between humility and passivity” – A post by Steven Pressfield: http://bit.ly/dlwT7C

josvanoosten: RT @TEDchris: As a kid, I flew kites in Kabul. I absolutely love this picture: http://bit.ly/aYwUYk

CreatvEmergence: LOVE this! Draw…create…play…enjoy!! http://www.openrise.com/lab/FlowerPower/ (via @jhagel)

aojensen: Amazing photos from far away: http://bit.ly/dsxPJ7 <22 stunning images of people by Steve McCurry

Eclectopedic: RT @hrheingold via @jaycross Millennium Whole Earth Catalog (& all the others) scanned & online now: http://bit.ly/9S54bX /Oh, the memories!

(via @thoughttrans) “You’re Damn Right It Sucks” http://bit.ly/aNMGPb

CreatvEmergence: Rupert Sheldrake’s theory of morphic fields & morphic resonance: http://twm.co.nz/shel-int2.htm – via @h1brian

ironick: I favorited a YouTube video — Jane Austen’s Fight Club http://youtu.be/r2PM0om2El8?a

jdevoo: RT @Werner: over 50 years of back issues of Physics Today are online! http://bit.ly/9swYtY #science

Enabling enterprise-architecture conversations

Tom G — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 16:01:51 +0000

Architects are designers too. Application-architecture designs link across an array of applications, process-architects design ways to link processes together, business-architects design business-models and their linkage into the everyday practices of the organisation. That much should be obvious, I would presume.

Yet in practice – and certainly as the scope widens – more and more of our actual day-to-day work consists of creating and enabling new conversations: architectural conversations between business and IT and anyone and everyone else in the overall enterprise. The ‘one idea’ of all architecture is that things work better when they work together, with efficiency, with clarity, on purpose: and to make that happen, we need to get people to talk with each other. Simple as that, really.

One practical problem we face is that the architecture tools that we have available to us at present are not that well-suited to that purpose. For some conversations, yes – but those tend to be the most technical of the conversations. For the ordinary-yet-important conversations with everyday stakeholders, we’re not well-served at all. And as we move more and more out of the purely technical domains and towards a true ‘architecture of the enterprise’, the more that gap is going to get in our way.

One tool to rule them all?

What we really need is something that’s probably impossible in practice: a single tool that will cover the whole spectrum from the loose, freehand sketching and storyboarding of architectural issues and requirements, all the way through to the tight rigour and discipline that we need in specifications for real-world design and implementation.

We also need that imaginary ‘one tool’ to cover another whole spectrum of usages, from centralised repositories and very large ’scorecard/analysis’ displays through to multi-screen desktops to single-screen laptops to tablets and touchpads right down to handhelds and smartphones.

The big, expensive enterprise-architecture toolsets such as System Architect or ARIS or Troux Metis tend to sit over in one corner of the matrix between those two spectra: they embody the formal rigour of software-, system- or process-design and simulation, and they need big repositories, big servers and big displays to deliver their best performance. These are also definitely not tools that should (or even can) be used by general users – a fact I know from painful first-hand experience of the months we had to spend tidying up the mess that our business-managers made of our repository after we’d foolishly allowed them to play with it for a single week…

Then there’s the mid-range: toolsets such as Avolution or BizzDesign Architect or Sparx Enterprise Architect, or Alfabet or Essential. All of these are well suited to laptops and other larger single-screen systems, and each tend to emphasise particular themes: metamodelling with Avolution or Essential, for example, or Archimate business/IT-alignment with BizzDesign or Sparx, or IT-infrastucture configuration with Alfabet. They all have some kind of internal repository, which in turn supports some kind of diagramming; but it’s not always easy to share – especially across a whole multi-organisation enterprise. And these are still tools for specialists – not something that we can use with everyday business-folk, as I discovered the hard way when I presented a set of BPMN diagrams at an executive-meeting…

Down in the far corner, though, there’s almost nothing: no usable toolsets for idea-thrashing with ops-staff, developers, executives and all the other myriad non-specialists. Office tools such as Powerpoint and Visio are just-about-okay for documentation after the event – though they provide little to no support for architecture-rigour at all – but they’re far too slow and cumbersome for real-time discussion. So it’s no surprise that for most architects I know, their most important tools are a whiteboard and a sketchpad – and not only do those provide no linkage to formal architecture-rigour, but it’s usual not even possible to record and share the results. Which means that we have almost nothing with which we can engage people in the architecture itself – in the discipline of the architecture.

But what would such a toolset look like? What aspects of architecture-discussions could it cover?

Enabling interactive conversations on architectures

One project that I’ve been involved in (as a member of its alpha-test team) is Alex Osterwalder’s iPad app for his Business Model Canvas framework – perhaps take a look at the videos on Alex’s post. That’s also a key reason why I developed the Enterprise Canvas concept, to extend the same basic idea to the whole-of-enterprise scope. And there’s also a swathe of iPad or smartphone apps that cover themes such as sketching or mindmapping or outlining or project-management, that do at least enable us to record in a form which can be stored and re-used later.

The real aim, though, is to get to some kind of toolset that is freeform enough to be used in live discussions, yet beneath the surface embeds at least some of the rigour needed for architecture-development. There are some great hints towards this in an article in HBR by Michael Schrage, ‘How Your Smartphone Will Transform Your Elevator Pitch‘, which are worth noting in some detail here:

… His [business-idea] was undeniably clever, but aspects of his business model weren’t clear to me. He had his elevator pitch answers down pat, but I wanted to learn more. Unprompted by me, Osman whipped out his smartphone and handed it over. I was watching a decent video clip illustrating his product’s features and functionality. I could tap to hear testimonials. I could tap to play with a simulation of the software. In a matter of moments, the device had transformed Osman from an entrepreneur I was having a conversation with to a guide and narrator of an interactive experience. My focus and attention alternated between what he said and what appeared onscreen. Sometimes he’d take, touch, and hand back the device; other times, I’d point to something onscreen and ask another question.

The object — and our interaction with it — became an intimate part of our conversation. We couldn’t have discussed either [his product] or his answers to my questions the same way without it. An idle part of me wondered how cool it would be if our conversation (and my questions) could be recorded and time-stamped along with what was appearing onscreen. Osman refused to allow his smartphone to decay into a sales tool or product pitch — although those elements were baked into the material — and instead used the device as a medium to both reinforce his conversation points and invite new questions and comments from me.

I can say without hesitation that this felt technically and interpersonally different from “laptop-on-the-table” presentations I’d experienced 1,000 times. We were standing up, drinking coffee, chatting, and taking turns holding, viewing, and manipulating this device. The kinesthetics, eye contact, questions, and interruptions revolved as much around the device as us. We would have been worse off without it.

And, further on in the article:

Elevator pitches are important. The ability to boil down the essence of your innovation into a tasty forty-second sound-bite remains essential. Only now, the pervasiveness, ubiquity, and visuality of mobile devices quantitatively and qualitatively changes the ecology of interpersonal interaction. It’s no longer about what you say and how you say it; it’s increasingly about what you hand over.

What do you hand over that transforms the conversation? What do you hand over that visually and interactively adds value to your spoken words? What do you hand over that complements and supplements your pitch? What do you hand over that invites and inspires the curiosity you want? What do you hand over that makes you more persuasive?

… “Hand-it-over” innovation pitches can be seamlessly slipped wherever your prospects desire. Indeed, an excellent measure of “hand-it-over” effectiveness is whether the person who you “hand-it-over” to actually asks you to send what they’ve been seeing and interacting with.

So let’s summarise some of the key themes there:

it’s not a presentation, it’s an interaction – a two-way or multiway conversation

the interaction is kinesthetic – it involves touch (ie. handling and interacting with the device) as well as listening and seeing

if practicable, the interaction itself should be recorded, as an annotation on the original presentation

if practicable, it should be possible that the whole interaction can be shared

Beyond the whiteboard

That’s what we need for that part of our enterprise-architecture work – a toolset that enables us to engage directly with our stakeholders. And it needs to go both ways, too: to take a model or diagram from the formal ‘big-system’ part of the toolset-spectrum and share it and discuss it; and also enable and capture discussions about requirements, about trade-offs, about different understandings and paradigms and worldviews and expectations and assumptions across all the myriad of different perspectives in the enterprise. Both ways. About anything – about any aspect of the architecture.

Which also means that we must have some kind of language to enable us to move information up and down through that spectrum, across different devices, different systems, different toolsets. (It seems very unlikely that one vendor will ever cover the whole range that we need – but the information itself must be able to move around in any form that we need, yet always anchored back to the formal rigour required by each architecture-domain.) So that’s another hurdle to cross, because no such language exists at present.

So, given all of this, how could we improve on the venerable whiteboard and sketchpad? How could or would we record that kind of interaction? And how can we support a form of diagramming that is as interactive and illustrative as a whiteboard-session, yet still enables the underlying rigour? The specialist EA toolsets may be too cumbersome for this kind of interactive use, but surely we can create something with more rigour than Powerpoint or Visio?

That’s our challenge here. Comments/suggestions, anyone?

From rights to responsibilities

Tom G — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 20:45:08 +0000

In part this is a follow-on from the previous post on the fundamental flaws underlying all forms of currency, but it also has many implications for businesses, enterprise-architectures, societal models, corporate social responsibility and much else besides.

And don’t worry, I’ll aim to keep this one short(ish) [later: turns out it's another long one - sorry...] – though I’ll probably return to the theme quite a bit in subsequent posts.

The key point in the previous post was that no ‘alternative-currency’ would solve the socioeconomic problems that we currently face: the all-too-evident failures and failings of the money-economy are merely at the symptom level, and attempting to replace conventional state-issued currency with some other kind of home-grown alternative would be merely one more variant on the theme of ’shifting deckchairs on the Titanic‘.

Yet clearly we do need something that will enable us to operate the kind of global-scale exchanges that our current economic models allow – because without that, it’s obvious that the city-based cultures especially could quickly collapse into anarchy of the worst possible kind.

It might perhaps be a surprise that what I’m suggesting here as an alternative actually is anarchy – but anarchy only in a strict technical sense, and of a radically different form.

Let me explain.

In the previous post I hope I made it clear that there is no way in which a possession-based economy can be made sustainable. Therein lies the real economic problem: possession is a classic example of the antipattern that “for every complex problem there’s a least one clear, easily-understood wrong answer”.

Underpinning that ‘wrong answer’ is another even deeper ‘wrong answer’: the notion of rights. Possession is defined as a right – the right to personal property, and so on. (In British law it’s more subtle again, in that it’s actually defined as a right to exclude others from access to resources that they may need: as the 18th-century jurist William Blackstone put it, “that “sole and despotic dominion which one man claims and exercises over the external things of the world, in total exclusion of the right of any other individual in the universe”.) But there’s a catch – a very important catch. To paraphrase Margaret Mead:

Rights are a social fiction; responsibilities are a social fact.

More to the point, it’s probable that responsibilities are the ’social fact’ – that the structure of a society is actually an emergent property that arises from the intermeshing of mutual responsibilities. A society – and hence that society’s economics – arise from those mutual responsibilities. A society’s economics represent its recognised means and controls via which its available resources are shared, exchanged and used – and those ‘means and controls’ are, in effect, defined and circumscribed by mutual responsibilities.

You might ask “So where do rights come into this?” But that’s the whole point: they don’t. Rights don’t even exist in any real sense: they’re just a convenient social fiction, useful for some circumstances – as we’ll see in a moment – but dangerously misleading in others. And economics and purported ‘rights of possession’ are a good example of where the rights-discourse is indeed dangerously misleading – as all of us are discovering right now…

In principle, and in practice, a possession-based economics sort-of makes sense with exchangeable, ‘alienable’ assets: the simplest way to put it is that the fiction of ‘personal property’ provides a very convenient shorthand in modelling economic transactions with those types of assets. It doesn’t work properly, ever, with any other type of asset – which is why most current notions of ‘intellectual property’, for example, are best described as a very expensive bad-joke. But even for ‘alienable’ assets, when we follow the respective trails of provenance – the history of transfer of ‘rights of possession’, such as a title-deed for so-called ‘real-estate’ – we almost invariably find that the ultimate anchor of that trail is an arbitrary act of expropriation, an arbitrary and ultimately-indefensible “claim” of “sole and despotic dominion”. In that sense, in most cases, the old anarchist slogan is probably all too accurate: “all property is theft”. In other words, our economics has no defensible basis at all: the whole thing is a fiction of the worst possible kind.

Oops…

So what do we possess? Anything at all? Is there anything on which a real economy can actually be built?

I’ll admit that this next point is arguable, but as I understand it, there are only two things that we each truly possess: our own time, and own responsibility. Everything else devolves from that.

The catch with time is that it’s our own time, embedded in us, part of us – it’s not something that we can exchange as such with anyone else, in currency-like fashion. (The failure to understand that point is what renders all would-be time-based currencies inherently invalid even before they start.) Our own time – literally ‘life-time’ – is also inherently uncertain; and our ability to use that time within our allotted span – or whatever you want to call it – is also highly variable and highly contextual. Which in practice means that the only thing that is real – the only thing upon which we could build an economics – is responsibility. To be more precise, each person’s responsibility for self, and – in a societal context – mutual-responsibility to and about others.

(An aside: what this means in practice is that we are only responsible for self – a point which might make this seem somewhat more palatable to Libertarians and their ilk. But Libertarians and neoliberals alike tend to forget about the corollary: that the only person responsible for self is the self. In practice, this means that those same Libertarians and neoliberals would soon starve if the mutual responsibilities of a society – something that so many of them so patently despise – did not in fact exist. To be blunt, the sole basis of those particular philosophies is a fundamentally dishonest attempt to ‘have their cake and eat it’ – to demand have the ‘rights’ that arise from those mutual responsibilities, but without actually engaging in any of those responsibilities themselves. More on that in a moment.)

In a functioning society – and, in turn, its functioning economy – we are each responsible for ourself, and to and/or about each other. Among other things, this also means that there is no ‘They’, who are somehow responsible for fixing everything: there is only ever ‘Us’. And if there are only responsibilities, ultimately there are no rules to hide behind, no places in which we can evade responsibility: we are each personally responsible for the effective and sustainable running of everything. Which, in effect, is a kind of anarchy – but one that is the almost exact antithesis of the ‘me-first’ form of anarchy that typifies a possession-economy run wild.

In fact I won’t even describe that maelstrom of self-centredness as ‘anarchy’, because it isn’t actually a functional society at all. Instead, I tend to use the term ‘paediarchy‘: rule by, for and on behalf of the childish. In essence, a possession-economy is a paediarchy: the antithesis of ‘economy’ in the literal sense, and typified by – in fact dependent on – the pointless wastefulness and petty vanity of an overly-pandered-to two-year-old on the rampage.

The crucial theme of the ‘terrible twos’ stage in child-development is the slow realisation that there is such a thing or one as ‘the Other’ – which fact is countered by an almost desperate demand to be reinstated and reassured as ‘the sole Centre of the world’. A very strong sense of entitlement to that position that we fear we’ve lost – hence the temper-tantrums that arise whenever that certainty is challenged. That’s where the notion of ‘rights’ comes from: it’s a child’s demand that the world be in our control, yet be responsible for us in every possible way. In that sense, ‘rights’ are an artefact of childish immaturity: as children grow up, they usually grow out of that stage, and recognise that the world is much more complex – much more interesting, too – and that relationships need to be created, negotiated, maintained, rather than based on indefensible demands of ‘entitlement’. In practice, though, some children never grow out of that childish stage, or more accurately cling on to the purported ‘rights’ of that childish stage – and that is actually the true source of the possession-economy.

Ouch…

In their most functional form, ‘rights’ are a kind of ‘declaration of desired outcome’ – though without giving any indication of how we might arrive at that desired outcome. So far so good – probably – but it becomes dysfunctional very quickly if anyone starts to believe that providing the conditions in which those ‘rights’ are achieved is solely ‘Somebody Else’s Problem‘. This leads to a downward spiral in which we see more and more specious assertions that we have rights, whilst others – such as the mysterious, seemingly-omnipotent yet always-indefinite ‘They’ – have the sole responsibility for providing us with our rights.

In other words, it’s not so much that we claim to have ‘rights’, but that we claim to have the absence of responsibilities.

Each ‘right’ is a claim that someone else is responsible, someone else is to blame – but not us. We expect – in fact demand – the outcomes that would arise from interlocking mutual responsibilities; but we refuse to accept the necessary mutuality of those responsibilities, or even to acknowledge our own responsibilities at all.

If that was actually the case throughout a society – perfect selfishness, perfect absence of mutuality – then the society could not function at all. In practice, it limps along as an increasingly-severe paediarchy, where selfishness is actively rewarded, and responsibility in almost any form is actively punished. Slowly yet surely, the disincentives for responsibility pile up until the society is in danger of collapse – yet because ‘rights’ are deemed to be the basis of the society, the centrality of selfishness itself can never be challenged. The only remaining option is try to put in some kind of ‘rules’ that supposedly apply to everyone: and yet because the ‘rights’ have primacy, and the reality of Chaos Department means that there’s always some circumstance that doesn’t fit the rule, there will almost always be a way to find some exception, some loophole, in order to continue to evade that responsibility and offload it onto others instead. (In mainstream economics this is referred to as ‘externalities‘.) The result is that any rights-based model slowly suffocates in an ever-expanding morass of would-be law that tries to plug every possible loophole and anticipate every eventuality – an endeavour which by definition can never succeed. The notion that “ignorance is no defence within the law” is patently absurd when the law itself runs to thousands upon thousands of pages every year, such that even full-time specialist cannot keep up with all the changes. And in the meantime, the social structure falls ever deeper into a spiral of destruction and self-destruction…

For anyone who’s actually looked in any depth at the histories and economics of different cultures over the past few millennia or so, this picture should be frighteningly familiar: there is no means by which a rights-based society can be made sustainable. It can’t be done. Period.

A rights-based model actively supports childish self-centredness, and actively penalises altruism, social mutuality and mature responsibility. It’s not just that rights need to be balanced by responsibilities: the very notion of rights itself will create this imbalance, every time. Given the nature of human nature, that’s what a rights-based model will always do: and it always leads to the slow, painful, chaotic death of the respective society.

Ouch…

I’m well aware that the notion of ‘rights’ itself is close to a sacred item of faith for both the political-left and political-right, and probably many in the middle-ground of politics too. But unfortunately the blunt reality is that a Bill of Rights is a declaration of societal suicide – and there’s no possible way round that fact. If we are to have any chance of survival as a society, or even as a species, that whole concept of ‘rights’ has got to go. Completely. Permanently. Gone. Finito.

A possession-based economy will kill us all. Possession will kill us all. Rights will kill us all. So I’m sorry, but there really is no other way to put it but this:

There are no rights. In any form. Anywhere. Ever. For anyone.

There are no rights.

To find something that does work, we need to come back to those other points we’ve seen earlier:

Rights are a social fiction; responsibilities are a (or the) social fact. Or, to put it another way round, rights are imaginary, responsibilities are real.

Mutuality implies mutual responsibility. The society can only succeed when those responsibilities are fully mutual: hence there is no ‘They’, there is only ‘Us’.

Mutuality implies mutual responsibility: and blame – whether of others, or of self – is itself an evasion of responsibility. Since everyone is responsible, there is no space for blame: instead, each ‘failure’ represents, for everyone, an opportunity to learn, to improve responsibility as ‘response-ability’.

A purported ‘right’ is, at best, a declaration of a desired outcome, but without indicating how that outcome will be achieved.

Which (at last?) is where we start to change ‘rights’ into responsibilities:

Every ‘right’ can be expressed (and arguably must be expressed) in terms of the mutual responsibilities that are needed to deliver the desired outcome.

In each case, the defined responsibilities demonstrably must be mutual – otherwise we automatically fall back into the slow suicide of paediarchy.

The only defensible form of non-mutuality is when there are differing degrees of ‘response-ability’ – the ability to choose appropriate responses to the context. Children, the elderly, disabled or infirm are some examples of ‘diminished responsibility’. Any inappropriate claim of ‘diminished responsibility’ indicates another attempted form of paediarchy.

One of the main aims of a rights-based model is to create non-mutuality of responsibilities. Hence in transitioning from a rights-based model to a responsibility-based one, we can expect to see many such asymmetries of mutuality. And we can expect fierce attacks each we challenge them, too: but it must be done – otherwise, again, we fall back into promoting and protecting paediarchy, which is not a good idea.

The worst examples of this – and the most aggressively-defended, too – are when the purported ‘rights’ are inherently asymmetric, asserting that some selected (or, usually, self-selected) group has an inherent ‘right’ to priority and privilege over all others. We see this, for example, in domains such as purported women’s rights (whilst actively denigrating any validity that there might might be equivalent ‘men’s rights’), or the ‘rights’ of the wealthy to avoid paying taxes (whilst deriding those who have in effect been stolen from, as ‘the undeserving poor’), or the ‘right’ of the poor to welfare (whilst demanding that an unspecified ‘Other’ should pay for it and/or provide it), or the right to health (ditto), or the right to education (ditto), or the right of access to telecommunications (ditto), or the right to ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ (ditto), or the chaotic cacophony of victims’ rights versus accuseds’ rights versus judicial rights versus the right to silence versus the right to surveillance versus the right to sousveillance and so on that dominate the shambles that is the so-called ‘justice’-system. In every single case, every one of the desired outcomes of ‘rights’ can be achieved far more effectively by reframing the context in terms of mutual responsibilities – and in each case, doing so will highlight the dishonesties of those so-defended asymmetries, and eventually enforce their dismantling, and the return to true mutuality. This is the only way that will work in real-world practice.

Let’s take just one of those examples: the highly contentious area of so-called ‘women’s rights’. At its most dysfunctional – and there’s a lot of serious dysfunctionality in that domain and its ‘rights-discourse’ – much of it consists of attempts to enshrine in law an absence of responsibility for women, and/or an offloading of all responsibility for that context onto others (usually but not always men, and usually on the sole ground that they are men). Societal mechanisms for resolution of domestic-violence, for example, have been crippled for decades by a term-hijack that purports that all violence in the home is the sole fault and responsibility of men (hence, for example, the explicit asymmetry of the US ‘Violence Against Women Act’), when in fact all of the reliable hard-data in the domain indicate a very high probability that both sexes are equally at fault. The blunt reality is that personal responsibility and personal power are inextricably interlinked: hence far from empowering women, this asymmetry actively disempowers them, trapping many into a passive ‘victim’ status, and denying to women the anger-management techniques and other services that would enable them to reach their own functional power. The resultant disempowerment of women is thus taken as further ‘proof’ that all of the dysfunctionality is the sole fault of men, reinforcing a downward spiral from which everyone loses.

Even the less-dysfunctional end of the ‘women’s rights’ discourse is riddled with fundamental errors and misunderstandings about the nature of rights and responsibilities, or even about nature itself. For example, the well-meant slogan “we demand the right / to walk the streets at night / without the fear of rape” is doomed to failure right from the start: fear is personal, not social, hence ‘freedom from fear’ is not something that anyone else can provide – and the demand that it should be otherwise is actually a serious form of societal other-abuse. It’s true that there are a few examples of ‘women’s rights’ that do sort-of make sense in practice: but in most cases those are best described as reasonable attempts at protection against others’ so-called ‘rights’ – hence, again, we’d actually be much better off dropping the rights-discourse altogether, and focussing instead on the mutuality of all of the respective societal and interpersonal responsibilities.

Again, I ought to emphasise that what I’ve said above about the ‘women’s rights’ domain is just one example of a generic problem: one example of how the right-discourse misleads us into creating structures that not only cannot work, but in most cases make the problems much, much worse, whilst at the same time preventing us from seeing why they don’t work. There are plenty of other examples of this: the exact same as above could be said, and a similar analysis done, for so-called childrens’ rights, parents’ rights, workers’ rights, prisoners’ rights, patients’ rights, stockholders’ rights, in fact every domain that purports to be entitled to any kind of ‘rights’. It’s not that ‘women’s rights’ doesn’t work, but that the concept of ‘rights’ itself does not work.

In practice, of course, there will always be asymmetries of responsibility in some form or other, simply because every context is different – requiring a different response – and every person has different ‘response-abilities’. But as long as we hold to the core principle of responsibility as mutual, social, symmetric ‘response-ability’, it does all work out over time, and/or across the whole social context, without requiring explicit rules to enforce it: this is a key idea behind concepts such as ‘pay it forward‘, for example.

Replacing spurious ‘rights’ with real and clearly-described responsibilities enables us to return to a real simplicity. Simplicity supports emergence; in turn, emergence supports a true simplicity. This has very important implications in practice. For example, simplicity combined with responsibility enables us to return to a primacy of ‘the spirit of the law’ over ‘the letter of the law’, in turn allowing us to return to a context in which the phrase ‘ignorance is no defence in the law’ can at last make practical sense. As a result, we can dispose of virtually all of the detail-laden dross of current legislation: vast legal tomes shrink down to simple core principles. And since blame is explicitly blocked as itself being a form of evasion of responsibility, we’re then able to move forward on practical processes of restitution and repair.

Another point is about property itself: a responsibility-based model of economics, as we can see in traditional responsibility-based legal systems such as many of the Australian Aboriginal models, does in fact have a very strong concept of personal property, and one that for most practical purposes does closely resemble what we already have in a possession-based model. The big difference is that ownership is not based on ‘rights’ to exclude others, but a declared responsibility for the item itself (whatever that item may be). This is actually what we already use within business when we talk about project-owner or process-owner: all that we’re talking about here is extending the same principle across the whole of the economy. In reality, it’s nothing new, it’s what we already do in our families, in our homes, in neighbourhoods, in businesses and much else beside, for the simple reason that from long practical experience we all know that it’s what works.

The catch, of course, is that to do this at a whole-economy scope would require a level of maturity which has been explicitly locked out of the mainstream culture for centuries, if not millennia: it’s not going to be an easy task, and there’s likely to be a vast amount of rearguard-action to attempt to cling on to the spurious ‘rights’ of ‘possession’. The fact that we know that possession doesn’t work is probably not going to make all that much difference, because the paediarchal ‘need’ for possession is not exactly rational anyway… Probably the only hope we have, despite the real urgency, is a slow, quiet process of education via practical example.

One of the best examples for this would be traffic law. The commonsense view of traffic-law is that it’s all based on ‘right of way‘. And in the US it may well be so – which to me at least would might why there’s so much emphasis on stop-signs in the US, because in practice the only way to make a rights-based model for traffic-management work is get people to stop at every possible point of conflict, so that they can then renegotiate who has ‘right of way’. (In my experience of US traffic, the most common solution to symmetric rights – i.e. identical priority in law – ends up being some variation of ‘might is right’…) But in British traffic-law, interestingly no-one ever has exclusive right-of-way. Instead, the entire law is structured around responsibility to give way. In practice, we end up with something looks almost identical to ‘right of way’ – but the huge difference is that we know exactly how we get there, in terms of the intermesh of mutual responsibilities.

The simplicity of responsibilities means that there’s space for emergence – the real events that happen in real-world contexts. We give way at a stop-sign. We give way at a ‘Give Way’ sign (of course ). We give way to traffic that’s already on a roundabout [US: rotary]. We give way at a red traffic light. All of those are obvious. But we are also required to give way to traffic that could come through across us if we’re on a roundabout and can’t move because our exit is blocked by other traffic. We’re required to give way at a ‘box junction’ – in fact we shouldn’t enter the box at all if our exit isn’t clear, in case the lights change and the cross-traffic needs to come past. We give way at a green traffic-light to another vehicle that’s been stuck halfway across the lights; and we also give way there anyway if an emergency-vehicle needs to come through. We give way to other vehicles, stepwise – what the Germans call the ‘zipper-system’ – to allow other vehicles to filter in from a side-turning. We give way to cyclists and pedestrians, too. And we’ll also find quite a few examples where we may technically break the law – such as pulling part-way out at a red-light, or stopping and pulling over on a no-stop clearway – so as to give way to someone else who needs it (again, typically an emergency-vehicle). Above all of this is one simple over-riding principle: we are always responsible to give way if there’s any risk of collision – regardless of any other apparent ‘rule of the road’. All of this works – and the traffic keeps flowing – precisely because no-one has exclusive right of way, ever.

Yet to make it work well – to make it work even better – as designers we need to do quite a lot of careful thinking. This is classic complexity-territory: find the patterns, identify the triggers that ‘make sense’ in practical terms, test and refine, test and refine. Yet we don’t plan, we don’t try to control: all we do is propose, and perhaps prune a little, provide a few suitable seed-conditions, and then carefully, quietly, respectfully, sit back and let the principles and the emergence work their own weird magic to give us what we need.

If you think this is unrealistic, think again: take a look at the real-world example of traffic-management described in Johnnie Moore’s blog-post ‘Self-organisation, traffic-lights and empathy‘. Watch the two videos there – especially the second one, which shows a real before-and-after at a notorious junction at Portishead, near Bristol in western England. Notice that wonderful dialogue-line right at the end of the second video: “Road capacity might be limited but empathy is boundless”. And notice what actually happens here: because once we drop the notion of ‘right of way’, we can remove all the clunky mechanisms that we have to put into place in order to manage the complications that are created by those misleading notions of ‘right of way’ – and the result is that everyone wins. Or, to put it the other way round, the inevitable result of ‘rights’ is that everyone loses – including the person who believes that they alone have ‘rights’.

So that’s the principle here: every time we come across any notion of ‘rights’, we look beneath those purported ‘rights’ for the real responsibilities that underpin them. We look for the mutuality that’s needed to make the responsibilities work in any real-world context – and find ways to repair the damage created by any existing non-mutualities.

It’s all very simple. Even in practice, it’s all very simple – and it makes everything much simpler. What it isn’t, though, is easy… in fact it’s usually downright hard, not least because of all of the intense emotional investment that currently exists in all of those imaginary ‘rights’ – even though they don’t work.

That’s our challenge, as enterprise architects, as business architects, as economists, as change-managers, as just plain ordinary everyday folk. Perhaps the most severe challenge we’ve ever had to face. Interesting, though, isn’t it?

Economics, currency and time

Tom G — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 14:25:36 +0000

Any competent observer of economics would acknowledge that the money-based model on which most current economics is based is in deep trouble right now: somewhere between seriously-dysfunctional and completely broken. Many of the purported key-metrics such as GDP and GNP don’t really tell us anything useful at all about the actual functioning of the economy: all they describe, really, is the potential tax-base, in monetary terms – and the distortions that this introduces into the economic picture are the direct cause of many economic problems. Banking and, especially, finance have moved so far from their functional roots that they’re now little more than engines for embezzlement on an almost unimaginable scale. And the preferred ’solution’ to the fact that many, many things cannot be meaningfully described in monetary terms is simply to declare that such things do not exist or, if they do, they cannot conceivably matter within the overall economy.

(I won’t give links for any of those assertions above: we’d be here all day. They’re all well-known and long-proven problems, as a few hours’ worth of careful web-searches will demonstrate all too clearly. Just take it as read for the moment that that’s so, because the details as such aren’t that relevant right here.)

Given that there’s a perceived problem with the ‘money-economy’, what can we do about it? Well, the usual ’solution’ – and I use that term advisedly – is to rush out and devise some form of alternative-currency. I’ve seen dozens of these so far, and apparently there are actually thousands of these projects, across a whole spectrum from simple barter to community-based currencies to time-based currencies. But they all have one thing in common: they won’t work.

Not just ‘won’t work’: they actually can’t work. They can’t solve the problems that we face.

No form of currency will satisfy all of the requirements for managing an economy, without requiring distortions to the economy itself that will render that economy non-viable or non-sustainable, especially over the longer term.

And there’s no way round that fact.

My apologies if that fact offends anyone, but it is indeed a fact. And refusing to face that fact is not going to help anyone. Sorry.

Which point often makes me kind of unpopular with the proponents of such ‘alternative-currencies’ – the latest being a none-too-happy run-in with something called the Ingenesist Project, whose spokesman Dan Robles asserts loudly that ‘The ONLY Social Currency Is Time‘:

Thousands of social currencies are emerging as people lose confidence in the ability of the dollar to store value. At the end of the day, a currency is a social agreement. People need to agree that whatever they use for the storage and exchange of value accurately represents their productivity – otherwise they will not work for it.

Of course this is much easier said than done. Alternate currency advocates continue to stumble across substantial structural issue is defining their currency; It must be scarce, it must be difficult to forge, debase, or counterfeit and it must be accepted by everyone.

The only thing that fits all of those criteria is ‘Time’.

(See the video on that post for more details. To give some idea, their proposed currency-unit has the revoltingly-’cutesy’ name of ‘rallod’, being the inverse of ‘dollar’… Oh well…)

Dan Robles’ article was a guest-post on Jay Deragon’s ‘Relationship Economy‘ weblog, which has the tagline “You cannot see what you do not understand”. Which is unfortunate, because what’s being displayed in this case is a serious lack of understanding of the real nature of economics. But this is by no means the fault of one writer, one group: it’s a fault that’s common to all proponents of ‘alternative-currencies’.

The problem isn’t in the detail of the currency: that’s literally just detail. The problem is deeper than that – much deeper.

To use the over-worn metaphor, all the different would-be currencies are just different-shaped deckchairs on the Titanic. The real problem is that the ‘unsinkable ship’ of current economics is in the process of disembowelling itself against an immoveable iceberg – meeting up with a world-scale ‘mythquake‘, to use another metaphor – and right now that entire structure is in the process of coming apart at the seams. Shifting deckchairs around and arguing about which deckchair is ‘best’ is not going to make much difference to that: and the deckchairs themselves are not going to be much use for keeping anything afloat when the structure itself has sunk beneath the waves.

In other words, the arguments about currencies and the like are all at the wrong level: they build everything outward from a specific assumption, but the reality is that it’s only an assumption, one that only works in certain special-cases, and we’re now in the process of moving beyond the conditions under which it can work.

As to what that assumption is, and what we can do instead, is something that I’ll come back to in a moment. But right now it’s worth noting that there’s an almost exact parallel here between currencies in relation to economics, and IT and the like in relation to enterprise-architectures.

In both cases, the entire requirements-analysis process is run backwards. Instead of trying to understand the problem-space, currency-proponents and IT-system proponents alike will start in solution-space, clarify their own understanding of the solution-space, and only then turn to look at the problem. Everything about the problem-space is viewed in terms of the assumptions and preferences of the chosen ’solution’: “This is the solution! We can solve every problem with this solution!” The result is that the problem-space is distorted, often to extremes, in order to fit in with the constraints and limitations and inadequacies and assumptions of the ’solution’: all too frequently the attitude is that if the world doesn’t match up with the ’solution’, it’s the world that’s at fault, and should and must change itself to suit the ’solution’ – as in the old joke about Levine the Genius Tailor.

We come across this problem all the time in enterprise-architectures. Vendor-driven ‘architectures’ are probably the worst examples: ERP systems, CRM systems, cloud-systems, intranet ‘information-management’ portals that make it almost impossible to share information, and so on. In process-architectures, Six Sigma and other so-called ‘best-practices’ frequently fall into much the same kind of category. Even enterprise-architecture itself is still near-crippled by a term-hijack that purports that the whole domain of EA is primarily or even exclusively about IT, when in reality IT represents only a very small proportion of the overall enterprise. These daft back-to-front attitudes are a routinely recurrent and really serious menace that cause untold damage, loss and risk throughout every type of enterprise.

So too with currencies and economics. At its base, every proposed ‘currency’ is a predefined ’solution’ looking for a problem that will fit its own assumptions and constraints. The result, again, is that the world is forced to distort itself to fit those constraints. In monetarist economics many of these distortions are so bizarre as to be laughable: for example, every aspect of human relationships must either be defined as a form of prostitution (“what price is a hug today? could I get one cheaper from someone else?”) or is deemed not to exist. The latter particularly applies to emergent ‘network effects’ that cannot be associated with a single transaction – hence Margaret Thatcher’s infamous assertion that “there is no such thing as society”. But the same distortions also in all of the would-be ‘alternative-currencies’ – as can be seen clearly in Dan Robles’ response to a critique by Stephen Smith:

Steven Smith: I respectfully disagree, as people will always make time for things that they care about and believe in. Trust and Passion are equally important Social Currencies.

Dan Robles: @stephen true, but you may have it backwards. Passion and reputation are derivatives of Time currency. Passion is what a person does with their time that is how the spend their time (note currency = spend) Reputation is how a person has spent their time. Influence is the ability to save time or increase the value of the time for another person. A person with a good reputation makes a recommendation to 1000 people saves 1000 people time in having to research or distrust the words of someone else. It boils down to time. Time is the only real scarce commodity. Like money, you can’t take it with you….spend it wisely.

In this case it’s not that “Passion and reputation are derivatives of Time currency”, but that passion and reputation and influence and the like have all been reinterpreted in the terms of the chosen ’solution’ (‘Time currency). They’re are no longer viewed or even acknowledged as existing within their own terms – in other words, as orthogonal entities or attributes – but solely through the arbitrary filter of time, as supposed subsidiary ‘derivatives’.

Note also the artificial usage of scarcity as the defining factor for the currency. Scarcity does indeed apply to physical resources – but does not apply to any other type of resources. One of the key reasons why the money-economy is breaking down is because of the mismatch between its assumptions about scarcity on one side, and the effective infinity of virtual-resources (including money itself) on the other side. A time-based currency that focusses on linear-scarcity as the controlling factor misses out on many other crucial aspects of time – synergy, serendipity, perceived relative-time and much else besides.

(I also find it both intriguing and annoying that any critique of a proposed ‘alternative-currency’ is usually met by an aggressive and/or mocking “Show us your solution, then!” This can be seen in Dan Robles’ response to my critique in the comments section of that ‘The Only Social Currency’ post; another example in a comment to an earlier post of mine can be seen here. Disappointing, but there ’tis – though it certainly doesn’t help…)

To me, and I would imagine to anyone who actually thinks about this in any depth at all, the domain that a currency attempts to operate in is a ‘wicked problem‘. To quote the CogNexus website:

A wicked problem is one for which each attempt to create a solution changes the understanding of the problem. Wicked problems cannot be solved in a traditional linear fashion, because the problem definition evolves as new possible solutions are considered and/or implemented. The term was originally coined by Horst Rittel.

Wicked problems always occur in a social context — the wickedness of the problem reflects the diversity among the stakeholders in the problem.

Most projects in organizations — and virtually all technology-related projects these days — are about wicked problems. Indeed, it is the social complexity of these problems, not their technical complexity, that overwhelms most current problem solving and project management approaches.

A currency is a technical ’solution’ to a societal problem. But the point is that there is no single ’solution’ to a wicked-problem – they cannot be solved in the same sense that, say, a mathematical equation or a crossword-puzzle can be solved. Yet that’s exactly what a currency purports to do, and in fact must do if it is to succeed in practice: namely ’solve’ every facet of the wicked-problem of resource-management in a highly-complex social context. It promises to provide a means to control ‘double-entry life-keeping’ in every aspect of everyone’s life, not just in the present but indefinitely into the future: an aim and assertion which, given that this is a wicked-problem, is patently absurd in practice. Which is one of the core reasons why a currency cannot work: not just a specific currency, but any currency.

In wicked-problems, the main purpose of ’solutions’ is to provide some kind of working-anchor, in order to trigger responses from the real-world context so as to aid understanding: if we assume that a currency or whatever is ‘the solution’, we actually prevent further understanding of the (wicked)-problem from taking place. Worse, as above, the ’solution’ requires that the real-world must distort itself to fit the expectations of the ’solution’, which is then taken as ‘proof’ that the solution itself is correct – otherwise known as circular-reasoning. This is not a good approach to use when attempting to tackle a wicked-problem…

Yet the core failure of the concept of currency goes deeper than this.

To make sense of this, we need look past the filter that each type of currency represents, and instead explore what that whole category of currencies is a solution for. If we do that, working deeper at each step, what we come to is this:

a currency represents rights to societal resources

the resources must be exchangeable resources – resources that can be linked to and valued in terms of the currency, that are considered to be ‘held by right’ by an individual or collective, and that is capable of being transferred to another individual or collective in an identifiable and meaningful fashion

(this type of model assumes that we may safely ignore any ‘non-exchangeable assets’ such as relationships or feelings, or ‘non-possessable’ resources such as time itself – note that this is an assumption which, within this model itself, it is impossible to test or prove)

simple point-to-point exchanges (barter) require that each side of the transaction has an exchangeable resource that the other would value

the currency is a form of token and metric agreed and accepted across the whole of a social context, which can be used as an intermediate abstract ‘exchangeable resource’, and that can therefore bypass the barter-requirement that transactions may only be point-to-point direct exchange, enabling indirect exchange

in some forms of currency, the ‘rights’ represented by the currency may be stored and aggregated as capital

Other than the questionable assumptions about ‘non-exchangeable’ and ‘non-possessable’ resources, that might all seem fair enough so far – except that we then walk straight into the morass of methods by which the structure may be ‘gamed’. The classic example is scarcity being used to push up a purported ‘value’ of a resource, leading to artificial manufacture of purported ’scarcity’ in order to game the value. Printing money is the inverse of this: in effect, it dilutes the value of every other item of that currency. But in each case, the key point is that the currency represents purported rights to resources, which in turn rest upon a core concept of right of possession.

Which has no functional basis at all. It’s a fiction.

Oops…

Worse, it’s a fiction that’s held together by other fictions, which in turn rest on other fictions, frequently rooted in nothing more than a socially-sanctioned theft, often historically accompanied by extreme violence. (Ask the descendants of any past-colony about their experience of this…) In short, the rights are actually little more than robbery-with-menaces. If nothing else, many of the resources – as again we can see all too clearly – are being stolen from the future, since those people are being offered no possible option to object to the current possession and exploitation of that resource.

Oops…

Then we get into fun items such as intellectual-property (a fraud held together by lawyers-bluff and an array of smoke-and-mirrors), or the notion of ‘buying’ a company (which in effect asserts that the people who make up that company are themselves ‘exchangeable resources’ that may be sold to a third-party – otherwise known as slavery), or branding (which classes belief and hope and aspirations of others as, again, an ‘exchangeable resource’). None of which works, in any viable, functioning sense, other than bluff, belief, myopia, wishful-thinking and self-delusion.

Oops…

And no form of currency will resolve any of those issues at all. Those fundamental flaws in reasoning are the foundations of virtually all current so-called ‘economics’.

Oops…

In short, there is no way in which a possession-based economy can be made sustainable. That’s it. Period. There is no way to do it. It does not, cannot, and never has worked.

So how come it seems to work? Because clearly it does – or at least it appears to, doesn’t it?

The crucial term there is ‘appears to’. A possession-based economy – in other words, what is expressed in a practice as a currency-based economy – does sort-of work quite well in a very specific context: a certain type of closed-system, in which all values are fixed and there are no possibilities to ‘game’ the system. (Those models have existed in the past in a few societies, but are very rare, and usual embed some kind of periodic ‘reset’ mechanism to invalidate the gains from ‘gaming’ and hence dissuade any form of ‘gaming’ – the ancient Jewish concept of the ‘jubilee’ is one such example.) A possession-based economy does also deliver better short-term results than the alternatives – but only because it sidesteps all of the societal costs of managing the long-term, which is what inevitably renders it unsustainable.

So to make a possession-based economy appear to work, it can only be run as a kind of pyramid-game, a complex multi-way bluff in which it purports to be a closed-system in order to leverage ‘gaming’ via artificial-scarcities, yet also be an open-system in which it assumes resources are infinite. It can sort-of keep going as long as it can continue to pull resources into the base of the pyramid – otherwise we get what is known as an ‘economic crash’, a period in which the pyramid in effect is forced to feed off itself. That was the reason for colonial-expansion – to re-open a pyramid-game that was in danger of reaching closure. And the reason why this whole structure is failing right now is because we’re hitting up against real, absolute, non-negotiable limits: the carrying-capacity and resource-capacity of the entire planet. A possession-based economy can only be run as a pyramid-game. Colonialism put off this limit for a while; then the re-engagement of women in the paid-workforce (after the women’s-movement had spent a full century trying to get them out of the paid-workforce…) put it off for another while; and the delusions about the ‘infinity’ of the virtual-economy put it off for another couple of decades; but we’re now reaching the point where putting off ‘the day of reckoning’ any further is only going to make it worse – much worse.

So what’s the alternative? Well, this is where it starts to get messy – particularly for US citizens, unfortunately, because the first thing that has to go is the entire concept of ‘rights’. The Bill of Rights is a really nice idea, but is unfortunately it is fundamentally and fatally flawed in real-world practice – and there is no possible way to escape that fact, other than by a pretence that in essence comes down to ‘might is right’. It’s not just that the concept of ‘right of possession’ is a problem – it’s the entire concept of ‘rights’, the belief in ‘entitlement’ to resources (in any of a myriad of forms) that accompanies that notion of ‘rights’.

Rights are an illusion: only responsibilities are real. Specifically, mutually-interlocking responsibilities, because they are the actual source of everything that we think of as ‘property’, or ‘possession’, or ‘rights’, or anything else in social or environmental context. The only way that works is the acknowledgement that everyone and everything is dependent on and responsible to everyone and everything else. Even the very concept of ‘rights’ is redundant once we understand what ‘mutual responsibility’ really means: in fact the outcomes are almost exactly the same, except that in a responsibility-based model we know how we get there, whereas in a possession-based model it’s supposedly ‘Somebody Else’s Problem‘ to create the conditions and context in which we achieve our ‘rights’.

Possession does not work: it’s not sustainable, hence sooner or later – and at this stage, it’s ’sooner’ rather than ‘later’ – it will literally kill us all. Futzing around with different currency-models will not change that fact by one iota: it’s just shifting deckchairs on the Titanic. The only way that will work will require us to go right back to the roots, in mutual-responsibilities.

At which point someone always says: “But that’ll never work! Possession is human nature: you can’t fight against human nature!” And, yes, that’s entirely true. However, Kropotkin is just as valid as Darwin: altruism, mutual respect and empathy are human nature, just as much as are possessiveness and selfishness. Perhaps the most important difference is that the latter tend to be typical attributes of an immature child; the former are those that we associate with maturity. So what we currently have, in a possession-based economy, is a model that is designed to appeal to and support the most childish and dysfunctional aspects of human nature, and actively penalise and punish maturity in any form: it’s kind of embarrassing to realise that ‘ideal’ aim of our entire economy is to pander to a possessive toddler’s temper-tantrum. Might it perhaps be more sensible instead to provide active support for mature behaviours, and gently dissuade the dysfunctional ones? Because that’s all that we mean when we talk about a shift from a possession-based to responsibility-based economy.

It’s true that there are some big challenges that we’ll face in creating a shift to a responsibility-based economic model. But we do already know how to do it within organisations, and in many other societal contexts: for example, when we talk about a ‘process owner’ or ‘project owner’, we mean the person who’s responsible for that item – and in fact it’s when someone tries to ‘possess’ it that it all goes wrong. But we don’t know much as yet about how to apply all of this at a societal scale: our main examples are the often-damaged remnants of traditional societies – Aboriginal systems of law in Australia, for example, or the native-American Six Nations model on which the first federation of the United States was based – and there are many serious hurdles to face in adapting those concepts to a modern global and largely city-based context. And Dunbar’s Number – the practical limit to personal social-connections – is a real human constraint which has far more severe impacts in a large, static, city-based culture than in a society made of small groups of nomadic hunter-gatherers. Yet all of these challenges must be overcome somehow – we don’t have much choice about that, because the blunt fact is that we will not survive the alternative.

A currency is a kludge to try to make a possession-based economy seem to work. But there’s no way it can work anyway, so there’s really not much point in futzing about with currency-models, whether based on time, barter or anything else. We would be much wiser to stop pretending that we can make them work, and instead turn to the real problem of how to wean ourselves off our addiction to the delectable delusions of the possession-economy, and onto a responsibility-based model that has some future chance of sustainable, survivable success.

LEGO as an enterprise-architecture modelling tool?

Tom G — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 15:51:17 +0000

One of those happily-bizarre conversations about enterprise-architecture that happens on Twitter from time to time.

It started with a Tweet from Jörgen Dalhberg (@greblhad), to which I duly threw in a lighthearted reply:

greblhad: If your #entarch can not be illustrated in 3D using LEGO then you have a problem.

tetradian: RT @greblhad: If your #entarch can not be illustrated in 3D using LEGO then you have a problem

I’d presumed that Jörgen was being reasonably serious about it – as in fact he was, as will become clear later. But I was also fairly serious about it too, because a couple of years back the CTO at one of my clients had done a beautiful physical ‘demonstrator’ for her overall infrastructure/applications-architecture, built as a three-layer wooden jigsaw-puzzle, which she’d presented to the organisation’s executive. By making all the trade-offs and dependencies visible – and literally tangible – in this way, she’d finally given them a means to understand what was going in their systems, and what they needed to do to help her bring it into a more sustainable state.

So I’d seen how such models really do work in practice – and was a lot more inclined to take Jörgen at his word. But for various reasons, others perhaps weren’t, as the following Twitter-conversation shows:

oscarberg: RT @greblhad: If your #entarch can not be illustrated in 3D using LEGO then you have a problem > Static view only. How show interactions?

oscarberg: @tetradian @greblhad 3D LEGO is better suited to describe a physical architecture than for #entarch

richardveryard: @oscarberg @tetradian @greblhad LEGO (even with people figures) shows momentary instantiation of an architecture, wrong level of abstraction

tetradian: @richardveryard @oscarberg @greblhad yeah, true, but playing with those little LEGO-people is *fun*!

oscarberg: @tetradian @richardveryard @greblhad I play a lot with LEGO with my kids, but it doesn’t make it suited for describing #entarch

greblhad: @tetradian @richardveryard @oscarberg you should all check out http://www.seriousplay.com/ that’s part of what has inspired me #entarch

greblhad: @richardveryard @oscarberg @tetradian LEGO … wrong level of abstraction < all illustrations are momentary, still useful though

oscarberg: @greblhad @richardveryard @tetradian would agree 3D Lego can be used to describe certain aspects of an #entarch, but not complete

greblhad: @oscarberg @richardveryard @tetradian Oscar what aspects of an #entarch are you referring to as not possible to model with Lego?

oscarberg: @greblhad @richardveryard @tetradian perhaps “not possible” is not what i mean, but rather “not usable” // a model is a communication tool. We need different ways to communicate different things

greblhad: I am so sure any #entarch in production today could be expressed perfectly well in a Lego model, I’d probably bet a 100.000 GBP on it.

jenshoffmann: @oscarberg @tetradian @greblhad we have succesfuly used LEGO #entarch modells in early stages to dev. a shared view of the stakeholders // you wouldn’t document/manage an #entarch with Lego, but as a tool for critical discussions.

oscarberg: @greblhad @hypergogue original discussion was about describing entire #entarch with Lego. Lego as a comm tool is another question

greblhad: @oscarberg @hypergogue original discussion was about describing #entarch with Lego. < which is a one way of communicating intention

oscarberg: @greblhad @hypergogue yes, but using one tool to communicate every aspect of an #entarch is unlikely to be effective

greblhad: @oscarberg @hypergogue yes, but using one tool to communicate every aspect of an #entarch is unlikely to be effective < I agree

There the conversation seemed to languish for a while, so whilst writing this I tossed in a request for more information:

tetradian: .@greblhad would love to see some LEGO models of #entarch – even just for communication purposes – a blog-post w photo examples, please?

What I hadn’t realised, until following up the Serious Play link, is that this really is a serious part of the Lego domain, with serious registered-trademarks and all. Via a network of licensed facilitators they’ve in fact been running Serious Play workshops for the past five years or so – I remember now that I’d once heard of it somewhen, but had long since forgotten about it. But they’ve now (as of June 2010) opened it up as a kind of ‘open source’ toolset: take a look at the LEGO® Serious Play® Open Source page, for a download document describing the principles, and then perhaps take a wander round the website itself. Will admit I’m surprised, and impressed: ’serious play’ indeed.

No further information as yet from Jörgen or any of the others in that conversation - will post an update here if any comes past. Watch This Space?

Why Economics 101 is bad for enterprise-architecture

Tom G — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 20:08:35 +0000

Been having a fairly intense (but good ) discussion on the LinkedIn Enterprise Architecture group, about standard economics and its impact on enterprise architecture. This is one of the many side-threads popping up off Kevin Smith’s now long-running discussion on “EA is not the glue between IT and ‘The Business’, EA is the glue between strategy and execution”. I don’t know whether this set of posts from various participants will make much sense to anyone else, but it seems worthwhile to post it where others can see it if they wish.

(Note that I’ve done a small amount of editing of the original posts by trimming and snipping ['...'] and, in one case, concatenating posts from the same person. I believe I’ve kept the sense intact in each case, but if not, please let me know straight away? Thanks.)

For me, in this case, the start-point was a post by Harold ‘Hal’ Stull:

When in doubt I always think Econ 101. An organization manages three resources (capital, labor, and material) to produce a product. If a customer pays more for the product more than the value of the resources consumed, the company shows a profit for its risk and will continue operating. As an architect of any kind, I have to discover the “Who, what, when, how, where, and why” of the client’s operation and add something that may possibly increase the perceived value of the product to his customer or reduce the resources needed to produce it.

I also try to stay away from absolutes: Truth, Best, Optimum, Consistent, etc. I can do a whole lot with organizational and interface symantics. I would never say “ontology” in front of a client, but being able to work with higher abstractions helps me choose and squeeze value from tool kits. (But I see there is another thread for that topic).

As you’d probably guess, given some of the other posts on this weblog (such as ‘Economics: the worst term-hijack ever?’), I kind of jumped at Hal’s comment about ”When in doubt I always think Econ 101.”:

Hmm. That assumes that ‘Econ 101′ makes sense and works in the real world, which it doesn’t. That’s the problem.

You say: “An organization manages three resources (capital, labor, and material) to produce a product.”

The answer would be “Sort-of…”. More accurately, Econ 101 treats all of those items (including non-financial capital, such as conceptual and/or social capital) as ‘possessable objects’ that are the ‘property’ or ‘possession’ of an individual or of an organisation-as-corporate-person. Unfortunately this would take a long post to explain, but in essence the ‘possession’-based concept of economics is a parasitic overlay on the actual economy, which operates on mutual-responsibility rather than possession. The quickest summary is that Econ 101 is inherently dysfunctional and inherently unsustainable: so if we’re to build an enterprise-architecture that will work for an organisation, we need to focus on the responsibility-based economy behind the possession-based delusions of Econ 101, and not allow ourselves to be distracted by those delusions.

To give one very quick example, most conventional ‘business-models’ that I’ve seen assume a very simple Econ 101 market-sequence of:

attention (via advertising) > transaction (via sales) > profit

For enterprise-architecture, we need to deal with a much broader range (e.g. including non-active stakeholders [e.g. government, community, non-clients] and also anti-clients and others who are active participants but who are not involved in sales-transactions), and a much more complex market-sequence, such as:

reputation > trust > respect > attention > conversation > relationship > transaction [ > profit] > reputation > …

We also need to understand that ‘the enterprise’ is not the same as ‘the organisation’: an organisation is bounded by rules, roles and responsibilities (e.g. legal responsibilities), whereas an enterprise is bounded by vision, values and commitments (see my presentation ‘What is an enterprise?‘)

True, an organisation is a type of enterprise, but for most enterprise-architecture the relevant enterprise is typically at least three steps larger in scope than that of the organisation in scope. (We develop an architecture about an enterprise for an organisation.)

Using the assumptions of Econ 101 will guarantee that we will deliver an ‘enterprise’-architecture that will fail in the longer term. To build an architecture that works, we must think wider than that.

Like perhaps most business-oriented architects, Harold was clearly doubtful:

I’m a practical guy. “Econ 101″ is a paradigm I use for analysis. It fits the way businesses operate and helps ground clients in terms they understand. …

I can use analysis patterns like “Econ 101″ and others to check the Business Plan for completeness and consistency. Does that mean that “Econ 101″ is true, right or real? No, it’s just useful.

JD Beckingham jojned in with a similar comment that suggested that, as in another lengthy discussion on values-architecture that I’d had on LinkedIn some months back, he thought I was somehow arguing for what a more equitable economics or suchlike, and wanting to impose that view on business-organisations:

Normative economic philosophy is a fascinating topic for discussion and speculation. (Wikipedia – “Normative economics is that part of economics that expresses value judgments (normative judgments) about economic fairness or what the economy ought to be like”)

I have to do the best I can for my employers and clients in an economic milieu which is grounded in free-enterprise economic competition. In order to survive and prosper they need to create sustainable competitive advantage by all the means available to them.

As an EA working within the context of the existing competitive economic milieu, I need to understand how best to advise on effective business strategy; and how to create the business architectures, technology architectures, and enterprise cultures necessary sustainable competitive advantage.

Guess that makes me ‘practical guy’ and an adherent to Econ 101.

To me, that reference to ‘normative economic philosophy’ indicated that he’d missed the point completely – after all, I’m an architect, not a politician! – and that we need to keep the focus on the architecture:

Why on earth do you think I’m talking about ‘normative economic philosophy’ when I say that Econ101 doesn’t work? (This isn’t the first time this has happened – I remember I ran into a similar loop with Cliff Berg and others a while back.)

I’m not saying Econ101 is ‘bad’ or ‘good’ (i.e. value-judgements), I’m saying it doesn’t work. Yes, it has its own logic: but as with all (or most?) formal theory, its logic is based on a series of assumptions (‘premises’), and for the purposes of its reasoning, it must assume that those premises are correct. “Given those assumptions, then this must be true”, etc etc. But it cannot test those assumptions within itself – that’s the nature of logic. (If you do try to use a logical model in bootstrap fashion to test its own assumptions, what you get is the fundamental logic-error of circular-reasoning – which is very common in e.g. IT-centric ‘enterprise’-architectures.)

To test Econ101 in the real world, we first have to put aside the assumption that it is ‘the truth’, and then look very carefully at the context of those assumptions. I’m not going to go into detail (“hooray!”, they say? ), but in essence it turns out that its assumptions only work – in other words, give meaningful, complete and valid predictions – in a very narrow subset of a possession-based economy, which itself is a subset of the actual economy, which in turn is easiest understood as based on mutual interlocking responsibilities. In other words, Econ101 is a term-hijack – much like IT-centric ‘enterprise’-architecture is a term-hijack.

We here all know the dangers of building an architecture for an entire enterprise that assumes that the IT is the sole reason for that enterprise to exist: well, it’s the exact same that happens when you build an enterprise model on Econ101. It’s wrong – very wrong – but only in the sense that it doesn’t work.

Econ101 is a subset of a subset pretending that it’s the whole: there’s no way that it can possibly work well. You can only make it seem to work by shoving everything not-Econ101 into a ‘it doesn’t matter therefore it doesn’t exist’ basket – much like most so-called ‘business-architecture’ is treated in IT-centric ‘enterprise’-architecture. (In economics, the technical term for this is ‘externalities’.) Again as with IT-centric architecture, it’’s a crude kludge that’s sort-of worked up until now, which is why many folks delude themselves into thinking that it works. But the catch, right now, is that there are a whole bunch of reasons why this is starting to fall apart, not just in the wider societal context but within organisations and their business-models as well. (Details available if you want them, but probably best not here? ) Which means that we have to design our enterprise-architectures on the knowledge that Econ101 doesn’t work.

That’s what I’d aimed to explain with the difference between the two views of the ‘market sequence’, for example. Econ101 shows an oversimplified subset that shows where the direct profit-figures come from. But if you design based on that subset (as many people do) you end up with something that doesn’t work, but have no means to explain why. To design something that does work, you need to understand the whole market-sequence – even though the visible parts of your design may in practice act only on the Econ101 subset.

Yes, I’m ‘a practical guy’ too: and it’s true that most people believe (or want to believe?) that Econ101 works, even though we know it doesn’t. So we do exactly what we’ve always done: we lie. Or rather, we give those clients a palatable subset of the truth, something that ‘makes sense’ etc – just like we’ve always done with all the other parts of the architecture. (For example, don’t show executives a bunch of BPMN diagrams if you don’t want to be laughed out of the room…) But we don’t make the mistake of believing that that subset is the whole truth of the architecture.

That’s all that I’m saying: nothing more ‘normative’ than that – okay?

Whilst I was writing that post, Ron Segal posted another comment, essentially lining up with Hal and JD on the ‘practical guy’ theme:

Hal, your description of the use of Econ 101makes sense to me, particularly having been involved in startups, where the initial concern is simply to get the lights switched on. Reminds me of the scenario experiment we ran in another discussion, where we were trying to get a consensus on the ‘core’ scope of business architecture, which was based around identifying the chapter headings of a startup manual for a car hire business.

And Hal did at least leave us with: ‘Does that mean that “Econ 101″ is true, right or real? No, it’s just useful.’ Which might also be interpreted as your ‘crude kludge’.

To me, yes, this is all well and good, but it still misses the point about the dangers of relying too much on the ‘Economics 101′ paradigm, and that although on the surface we may have to pretend that we’ve held to that paradigm, beneath the surface the architecture must be based on something more real:

This is actually a really good illustration of the difference between business-architecture and (whole-of)-enterprise-architecture, and why it’s essential not to treat them as the same.

In a business-architecture we probably do need to assume (or pretend, rather) that Econ101 is correct and complete, because that’s the basis on which most of the business operates. Hence, to use Hal’s example, we model in terms of capital, material and labour.

(To go back to another long-running discussion with Cliff Berg and others, here we would probably also have to pretend that the only reason that that business exists is to provide returns to its stockholders. It’s really important, even in business-architecture, to recognise that it is only a pretence, a delusion, and to remember to build the architecture in accordance with the more nuanced reality that does work, e.g. around enterprise-scope vision and values rather than solely on organisation-centric business-imperatives.)

But at the enterprise-architecture level – in other words, the architecture of the entirety of the context in which the business operates – Econ101 does not work: its assumptions are based on a subset of a subset of a functioning economy. For example, Econ101 assumes that everything can be described in monetary terms; at the enterprise-level it’s really obvious that we can’t – and if we do attempt to do so, we again create a model that has all sorts of ‘inexplicable’ problems that seemingly cannot be resolved, because the drivers for those problems are actually outside of the scope of Econ101’s assumptions. It’s only possible to make Econ101 seem to work if we run it as a pyramid-game, a Ponzi-scheme – and the blunt fact is that although that’s how it’s been run for the past five thousand years or so, we ran out of room at the base of the pyramid somewhen in the mid-20th century, and right now the whole thing is coming apart at the seams. Enterprise-architectures that fail to take these kinds of facts into account cannot work, certainly in the longer term: it’s as simple as that.

Okay, we now come back to the architecture of ‘the business of the business’ – business-models and org-structures and so on. Almost all business-folk believe in Econ101: to be blunt, it’s essentially a form of religion, held together by faith rather than fact. (I’m not knocking religion – it has a really important social function – but an insistence on faith over fact is not a good basis for a functional economy…) Our enterprise-architecture shows us that Econ101 doesn’t work in the real world: but business-architectures operate mostly in the imaginary world of business anyway. So, to again put it bluntly, we lie: we provide a bowdlerised, more-palatable version of the facts to keep them happy. We show them all of the linkages that satisfy all of the Econ101 assumptions – and we make sure that we satisfy all of those assumptions, too. But in the background, we actually build an architecture based on what works – not on Econ101.

Like IT-architecture, or data-architecture, or security-architecture, or process-architecture, business-architecture is just one more subset of enterprise-architecture, one more set of views into the ‘holograph’ that is the whole-of-enterprise architecture. The business-architecture describes the architecture of the business of the business; yet it only exists in the context of the enterprise-architecture, just as the business itself only exists within the context of a much broader extended-enterprise.

Anyway, that’s it for now, though no doubt this particular debate will ‘run and run’, as they usually do. Hope it’s of some use to someone – comments/suggestions, perhaps?

A week in Tweets: 8-14 August 2010

Tom G — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 16:46:18 +0000

Another week’s worth of Tweets and links – rather more than usual, this time. Same categories as usual, though, following the usual ‘More info…’ link:

Enterprise-architecture, business-architecture, business-strategy and similar ‘big-picture’ business themes:

SAlhir: RT @rotkapchen “Self-reference,according to complexity biologists,is the essential life-giving outcome of communication.” http://ow.ly/2mjaZ <”Dialogue as Social Self-Organization: An Introduction” – part of ‘Emergence: A Journal of Complexity Studies in Organizations and Management’ [PDF, c.100pp]

bartleeten: Joe McKendrick: Three reasons why automation doesn’t quite cut it http://j.mp/covETu

kvistgaard: RT @bartleeten : Three reasons why automation doesn’t quite cut it http://j.mp/covETu <- good ones to start w/ but I could easily add 7 more

SAlhir: RT @Kallokain Re-imagining Agile Part 2 http://bit.ly/aq266o

theopengroup: Global Trends in Enterprise Architecture. Podcast: Download here: http://ow.ly/2lQ2p

SAlhir: RT @arun4: ‘Dear United’: Airline feels wrath of forsaken 9-yr-old left on ice at O’Hare http://bit.ly/8Y2fsi

oscarberg: RT @JustinDerrick: “It’s hard to innovate when even trivial ideas are patented – you’re either forced into mediocrity, or risk being ruined”

(via @rsarasua) By @nurturegirl: ‘Goals, values and trust’ – trust is contextual http://bit.ly/dpM9xf

SAlhir: RT @storiedstrategy @ComplexitySol: John Seddon: Management by doing the right thing http://bit.ly/dtrg6b #complexity #entarch

SAlhir: RT @storiedstrategy @tnvora ‘Metrics: are they mapped to your business objectives?’ http://bit.ly/9YMTx7 #quality #metrics <”Measurement is a means to an end, not an end in itself” – useful reminder for #entarch

CreatvEmergence: RT @juneholley: Video on self-organizing [4mins] http://bit.ly/cNKDdv

thoughttrans: RT @bmichelson Is competing goals between IT and the business an all-too-common anti-pattern? <
SAlhir: RT @rachelbotsman: 10 Ways to Start Building a Collaborative Brand http://bit.ly/aXW1tq including @zopa @etsy @threadless @airbnb @thredup #bizarch #bmgen

CreatvEmergence: Everything needs its opposite…ie, flow needs structure. Comfort w/this paradox expands your creative playing field.

AG_Mag: RT @pallega: Blog: EA coming OUT of trough of disillusionment http://tinyurl.com/34qjkms #entarch #enterprisearchitecture #GartnerEA

eatraining: Life after ITIL – creating a culture of continual service improvement http://bit.ly/9bjDSU

tetradian: [post] ‘Hoist by their own petard’ http://bit.ly/debFiN #entarch #bizarch

Cybersal: Jeff Scott of Forrester lists the challenges faced by EA people when doing business architecture http://bit.ly/dfGW5M #entarch #bizarch

thoughttrans: RT @ThisIsSethsBlog Seth’s Blog: The places you go http://bit.ly/df5j38
craighepburn: RT @wunderman: Purpose – the weekly ramble http://j.mp/9Ndul9

kvistgaard: BPMN2 loose concept of lanes create artificial gap b/ #bpm & #entarch. Should have at least type attr.(Or alt ways 2 link act w/ role & sys)

chrisdpotts: It’s a common & unfortunate error to assume that enterprise architecture only began with the emergence of “Enterprise Architecture” #entarch

craighepburn: CoIT: How an accidental future is becoming reality http://zd.net/cqakhK huge unacknowledged risks there for #entarch #itarch etc…

greblhad: In reality every business connection or product feature you add is a cost that needs to be balanced and tracked. Thats why we need #entarch.

trevorsnaith: A challenge to enterprise architects: Think innovation http://bit.ly/adVqgl

DavidGurteen: Rethinking Fundraising http://bit.ly/aZHts6 #socialgood

joemckendrick: Simpler, faster, better, cheaper — 7 principles of ‘lean integration’, and why it needs to be applied: http://tinyurl.com/24ho5sa

SAlhir: RT @PaulaGray: New white paper: Business Anthropology and the Culture of Product Managers http://twurl.nl/14wczp #prodmgmt // “The big bang & the evolution of brand & product management culture” http://twurl.nl/dpwp2l #branding #prodmgmt

SAlhir: RT @Annemcx: Making Sense of The Big Society http://ff.im/-p2Wal

davidcushman: RT @GrahamHill: Kumar on why being the first in your industry to focus on customers pays long-term dividends http://tinyurl.com/2dgthjq [note: 50+pg PDF]

taotwit: Starting work on training material for “Storyboarding business requirements” = people like to tell & listen to stories … // .. Storyboarding makes capturing ‘requirements’ fun! “We’re going to make a movie about what you do – you’re the director” … // .. Real-world events are the starting point for storyboards – the most important are ‘Keyframes’ in the stakeholders ‘Movie’ // Storyboards are the antidote to context-free requirements laundry-lists *and* overly techie requirements models // Storyboards express values, policies, content and trust in the context of unfolding business events – are easy to visualize #storyb4br

nickmalik: Blogged about general mission and specific capabilities for Enterprise Architecture http://bit.ly/9eyyWF #entarch #bizarch

tetradian: [post] ‘CoIT: another architectural disaster unfolds?’ (on cloud and mobile-computing) http://bit.ly/9cIRN3 #entarch #itarch #svcmgmt

5Di: Some great resources on Business Requirements here: http://bit.ly/ahtRR5 [PDF, 12pg]

SAlhir: If the only thing binding people with an organization is a pay-check, expect the results to reflect it!

thoughttrans: RT @bmichelson: The Mission, Capabilities, and Business Output of Enterprise Architecture – http://bit.ly/9KShPF <– @nickmalik responds to my EA re-think ?

thoughttrans: Is a social community an #entarch ?

toddbiske: New blog post: Addressing Business/Enterprise Architecture Challenges http://www.biske.com/blog/?p=788

toddbiske: RT @grifmon: Maybe first issue is calling out IT as separate from the business which creates alignment issues right off the bat.#ea

pallega: Blog: Hype about the EA Hype Cycle http://tinyurl.com/2vb3krs #entarch #GartnerEA

theopengroup: Southbeach examples: Creating TOGAF Checklists http://ow.ly/2nxrG

eatraining: Enterprise Architect social networking group EA People | LinkedIn http://linkd.in/aRA3p9

BillIves: The Evolution Of User Manuals by @roebot and @mindtouch http://bit.ly/cq10rZ

Cybersal: @pallega I read free Hybrid paper (interesting), but I found Roger Martin’s latest book [on design-thinking in business] more synergistic with EA http://amzn.to/9bmbEx // to amplify: Book emphasis is on overall design of business, Hybrid thinking paper about ’solving wicked problems’ // That’s not to say that EA’s should not get involved in solving wicked problems, of course.

eatraining: Gartner report about the hype cycle for EA. Two generations of EA. One dealing with commodity and the other with differentiators. // Problem with the differentiation layer of EA is that it won’t work effectively without the commodity layer. New generation of EA’s need both

eatraining: Gartner recommends a strawman anchor model to frame the business. EA recommends the Business Model Canvas as a tool to document your anchor.

business_design: Strategy – yesterday’s strategy process: the cathedral / tomorrow’s: a bazaar (liberally borrowed from Open Source Software Development)

miket0181: @tetradian IMO, use of the word “business” is a strong indication of IT-centric strategic planning / visioning. // and I agree with your assessment that we are 10 years behind the Gartner timings for evolution towards “full” EA

pallega: Nice reminder from McKinsey that business should shape IT #entarch, but what about the business itself? http://tinyurl.com/39luhc4 <(requires free registration)

pallega: RT @twestbrockEA: Does anyone create/maintain an EA charter anymore? Why do I ask? You should! Agree upon WHY and WHAT. #entarch #ea #enterprisearchitecture

pallega: Blog: My Mother has an EA definition http://tinyurl.com/2vwugdu supports @twestbrockEA advice for EA charter for #entarch < #gartner – a tongue-in-cheek review of the state-of-play in EA roles and frameworks

toddbiske: New blog post: Be an Enterprise Activist, not Archivist http://www.biske.com/blog/?p=789

tetradian: [post] ‘Business-architect or enterprise-architect?’ (for @chrisdpotts and others) http://bit.ly/bYNeDH #entarch #bizarch

tetradian: [post] ‘Architecture disaster? – we have an app for that!’ http://bit.ly/ccQ53h #entarch #itarch

eatraining: Anatomy of an EA Charter http://bit.ly/bo89Fs

CreatvEmergence: NYT improv article – Trust Us, This is All Made Up – http://nyti.ms/c17JXy

SAlhir: RT @umairh: HBR video-blog: Why Economic Recovery Hinges On Values http://bit.ly/cA57oQ > Meaning & values and purpose & cause

SAlhir: Meaninglessly Purposeless = No value // Meaninglessly Purposeful = Extrinsic value only // Meaningfully Purposeless = Intrinsic value only // Meaningfully Purposeful = Intrinsic and extrinsic value

SAlhir: How we are is a function of What we are, which is a function of Why we are.

eatraining: TRAK. A lightweight GNU style Architecture Framework with a good collection of viewpoints extracted from MODAF. Anyone compared it to PEAF? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRAK or search ‘TRAK architecture’ for more details – looks very interesting… #entarch

tetradian: [post] ‘Slidedeck: Introduction to SCORE’ (alternative to SWOT) http://bit.ly/a4pORE #entarch #strategy

tetradian: [post] ‘Slidedeck: What is effectiveness?’ http://bit.ly/dyEl91 #entarch #bizarch #strategy

SAlhir: RT @NotGodinREPOSTs Resilience and the incredible power of slow change http://ff.im/-pbMD1

kcoreresearch: RT @AnjaHoffmann: The Economist: Social innovation: Let’s hear those ideas http://bit.ly/9C0yov #entarch #km #society

pallega: Blog: Are Enterprise Architects Left-Handed? http://tinyurl.com/2423fu2 #entarch #GartnerEA

oscarberg: What nature teaches us about building better human organizations http://bit.ly/9UVOL5 > Now on my reading list

oscarberg: Managing vs. Innovating “Social” http://bit.ly/cHKRKR #innovation #social

oscarberg: Anecdote – Does your organisation have strategic clarity? http://bit.ly/9VCwRO

practicingEA: The EA Tools Part 2 – Reference Architecture and Standards http://lnkd.in/777mAa

trevorsnaith: RT @mentoraxis: Why is enterprise architecture dying? Great summary of linkedin discussion Http://bit.ly/9nEWoW #entarch

SAlhir: RT @agiletoolkit: Agile is not something U become…but become more of. @MikeCohn #Agile2010 >Excellent! for more.. http://bit.ly/ihKbI

SAlhir: “reverse positioning” and “reverse brands” RT @jorgebarba: Escape the competitive herd – BW #strategy http://icio.us/vb4zjq

business_design: thinking of a business model database that cross-pollinates ideas across industries…

business_design: When teams criticize business model ideas they often fail to distinguish between the potential of the model and its implementation risk

oscarberg: RT @strategicsense: When a company acquires another company for their product, they need to know that the people ARE the product – #Leadership #ChangeManagement

craighepburn: Anyone else with me on kicking off a name and shame list for hotels who charge for wifi? Would make a great #4square badge for hotels

tetradian: [post] Ideafarming http://bit.ly/bwTtNy #innovation #creativity #knowledge #narrative

ConnectIrmeli: #Ideafarming by @tetradian http://bit.ly/bwTtNy “..isn’t a job, it’s more a way of life, a way of being..” – Something I’ve wanted to say.. // great post on #ideafarming -I’m one too Social networks help us become more social and practical – to get out of the farm..

tetradian: @ConnectIrmeli what would be the #ideafarming equivalent of a farmer’s-market? or a barn-raising? or a barn-dance? (fun analogies!)

DavidGurteen: Embracing the Chaotic: Cynefin and Humanitarian Response http://bit.ly/clcByw

tetradian: [post] ‘How to get enterprise-architecture on TRAK’ (with thx to @eatraining) http://bit.ly/9b59zq #entarch #metamodel #TRAK

ChristineArena: RT @maxgladwell: Hell Hath No Fury Like a Mom With Blog (2008) http://bit.ly/cQK7gm < #anticlients in action #entarch

SAlhir: Olivier Blanchard (@thebrandbuilder): Love: How the essence of a brand fuels its purpose http://bit.ly/bZXx2B

Narrative-knowledge, knowledge-management, creativity and in-person collaboration:

SAlhir: “Words Capture Ideas; Images Free Them” RT @visualinsight: RT @SaraaBrown: http://bit.ly/cPT3f5 Great site <”Shape of Thought” – visual-thinking through the ages

tetradian: [post] ‘On self-doubt’ http://bit.ly/9XWiBv #innovation #skillsdevelopment

getstoried: RT @Bizprov: @CreatvEmergence at TEDxCreativeCoast: ‘Improv for Creativity’ http://youtu.be/OhaKB-0pYLw?a #entarch

getstoried: Brilliant frameworks and illustrations: #Transmedia #Storytelling: Getting Started http://bit.ly/91EiOU

SAlhir: RT @ccesetti @TheTransitioner @NurtureGirl: How Language Influences the Way We View the World http://bit.ly/93Yldt #CollectiveIntelligence

CreatvEmergence: The Creators Project’s an awesome new global network 4 celebration of creativity & culture across media: http://bit.ly/cuRG5n

unorder: Benjamin Franklin and deliberate practice. http://bit.ly/b7cOIl #bizstoryfinder

tetradian: [post] Intimations of hubris http://bit.ly/a7j7y3 #entarch (about avoiding hubris in professional critique)

SAlhir: RT @ideahive: RT @lindanaiman: What is the connection between leaders and artists? http://bit.ly/bXBChB

SAlhir: RT @jorgebarba: Getting Down to the Business of #Creativity – HBS Working Knowledge http://icio.us/evqncj

unorder: You can apply common plot structures to org activities eg small vs big, revealing a secret etc. #wwsw #bizstorytelling

unorder: Our blog has had a facelift http://bit.ly/asTlHY

oscarberg: RT @bduhon: #E20 is about transforming business by @robgray http://ow.ly/2poQ0 #AIIM
SAlhir: RT @tim_hurson: People ask me, What’s a magic bullet for creativity? Try asking ELSE questions: what, how, why, who, where ELSE.

SAlhir: RT @ConversationAge You cannot fake connection http://ow.ly/2pFiE http://sidewise.biz/2009/07/relationship-as-asset/

DavidGurteen: The Importance of Connecting with Colleagues http://bit.ly/cWeFWN

Social-media, ‘Enterprise 2.0′, user-experience and online-collaboration:

tetradian: [post] ‘Social media and the work/play split’ (for @oscarberg) http://bit.ly/bR8oRV #e20 #socialmedia #entarch

AussiMike: RT @AskAaronLee: Very cool! Tweet-o-Meter shows Twitter activity around the world http://j.mp/d9gshp /via @chirrps @TweetSmarter @KshrGirl @NikkiD66

thoughttrans: RT @copyblogger 60 Ways to Increase Your Influence Online http://bit.ly/bZXKoQ <60 oneliners from 60 real socmedia experts – a real goldmine of diversity

oscarberg: How to convince CEOs to adopt #e20 by @demeto http://is.gd/e7zXq

mikejwalker: RT @mashable HOW TO: Avoid a Social Media Disaster http://bit.ly/9XXf2l

DavidGurteen: The Demise Of The Internet Generation? http://bit.ly/b6WM2x /agree!

getstoried: Awesome to see @conspiracy4good evolving as a transmedia #storytelling platform. Rock on! http://bit.ly/cBEFsW

davidcushman: Guiding principles for success in the networked world http://bit.ly/dpcWgy #e20 #socialmedia

kcoreresearch: #KM Interesting- The BBC Knowledge Multiplatform Strategy http://www.bbc.co.uk/commissioning/tv/network/genres/knowledge_multiplatform.shtml

SAlhir: RT @jhagel: The 2010 Social Business Landscape from @dhinchcliffe – all together in one place http://bit.ly/ai00I0 #entarch #e20

joemckendrick: RT @rww Very cool: How the Internet would look as a subway map. http://rww.tw/9sV61m <
oscarberg: RT @dhinchcliffe: Enterprise 2.0: All Social Software is Not Created Equal http://bit.ly/aCJAXk #e20

oscarberg: Enterprise 2.0 Implementations Limit Collaborative ROI http://bit.ly/c3KXZh #e20

DavidGurteen: Why Groups Fail to Share Information Effectively http://bit.ly/aXO54c #KM

oscarberg: RT @seanrnicholson: 50 days to a social Intranet http://bit.ly/bQCpTq <– Great case study!

IT-architecture, systems-development and IT-related themes in general:

bartleeten: InfoQ: Ars Magna: the revolution is overdue http://j.mp/95p0×6 fundamentally different approach to software – this one will require several readings to get my fully round it, but it looks worth the effort…

bartleeten: IT Support Conversation Manager: A Conversation-Centered Approach and Tool for Managing Best Practice IT Processes http://j.mp/cdaEB0

bergmart: McKinsey: Clouds, big data, and smart assets: Ten tech-enabled business trends to watch. http://twurl.nl/maj0e4

theopengroup: Using a combined SOA and TOGAF environment: Part 2. Service-oriented architecture from top to bottom http://ow.ly/2lQcy

davidsprott: David Sprott’s Blog: When Policy Should be Mandatory http://tinyurl.com/22tvm4w

Society, culture, corporate social responsibility and suchlike themes:

SAlhir: RT @valdiskrebs @blogbrevity: But Will It Make You Happy? http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/08/business/08consume.html?_r=1&8dpc/ #minimalist

SAlhir: RT @ken_homer: via @iyeshe: ‘Three Seeds’ – fascinating read on how wisdom & knowledge survive over space & time: http://bit.ly/d8sbj4

CreatvEmergence: “The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Game” – HuffPost, by @Bonifer http://bit.ly/bQ1SVA

SAlhir: RT @Annemcx: Brain works more like internet than ‘top down’ company. BBC News http://ff.im/-p2HLX had a ‘top-down’ concept of brain-function – it makes no sense at all…

Eclectopedic: Interesting series on social economics: http://www.ingenesist.com/introduction Prediction of parallel econ. reminds me of Czech 2nd culture. not a viable approach in the longer term

SAlhir: Monkeysphere http://bit.ly/237Mm

kcoreresearch: Good BBC Article – Metaphor and storytelling – Teaching philosophy with Spider-Man http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-10900068

SAlhir: RT @Jabaldaia @sciam Can Money Buy Happiness? http://bit.ly/9ZDnFJ

And, without fail, the multifarious miscellany:

SAlhir: “The more whole and integrated each person the chances for choices are increased…” (via @technoshaman) http://bit.ly/9jAJMA

craighepburn: Check out http://www.wefeelfine.org An exploration of human emotion, in six movements, very nice visual representations of information!

getstoried: 1, 2, and 8 are pretty awesome #mediajedi RT @mashable 10 Beautiful and Free WordPress 3.0-Ready Themes http://bit.ly/anGDwB

kvistgaard: RT: @5tevenw Veni, Vidi, Velcro. I came, I saw, I stuck around.

thinksmith: Sitting next to a bookshelf of books unknown to you is surefire inspiration/distraction.

BillIves: HOW TO: Get Tweetable Moments from Your Presentations http://bit.ly/8YpSR4

AussiMike: RT @chatteringakuma: Check this out for a new internet address book that allows friends to find you but hides your contact details http://WikiWorldBook.com/