Corporate greed has taken us down this sewage pit path to our shoreline in the gulf..  This is what we’ve become.

To all my free marketplace, no regulation, no taxes friends (I have many, but its getting tougher to listen to you)…

How far will you go now to defend your co-opting ideals brethren: the rock star and iconic oil, pharma, insurance, investment-bank, aerospace-defense, mining, telco-cable-media corporate executives with their high-priced lawyer-lobbyist cheer leaders?  How far?  Will you go into the water?  I don’t think so!

Origins are funny things.  They are never as cleanly isolated as you might believe because nearly everything one is trying to key upon in labeling something “original,” is nearly always derived from so many dependencies, but with a few notable exceptions Dr. Gabor isolates mine.

I have ground much of my own foundational rationale in the work highlighted here and for nearly all the same reasons, the same lineage and common “systemic” threads that would tie Deming, Drucker, Ackoff, and Senge.  Though none of these thought leaders have been necessarily original:  it’s widely understood that for Deming it was Shewhart, for Drucker it was Schumpter and for Ackoff and Senge it was Forrester,  ultimately, it was the how, what and why  Deming, Drucker, Ackoff, and Senge focused their work on, either the systemic-foundational makeup or the systematic interconnection between two or more elements, that these people have so strongly recognized as great contributors to their fields and who strongly guided my own thinking/development.

I urge everyone involved in Capability Systems to read this article!  You will gain a very large share of our founding philosophy in a very short read.

The Big Three: Facebook, Twiiter, LinkedIn have become analogs to the CBS, ABC and NBC in US or the BBC in the UK, etc. of yesteryear’s television era, and even more pervasive/influential in the new globally-connected era on the world-sized platform.  Now, it strongly seems that if you are not participating on Facebook and twitter, you must be considered as being woefully “anti-social,”  and, without a LinkedIn profile you are missing a mandatory prerequisite to be a member of business/the professions.  Without it, you’re just simply not in the game!

The merits of all this are debatable, but the cultural impact is not.  A fully operative, self-sustaining and vital  digital world of profiles and posts and tags, and videos un-detachable from those who will “play” on the increasingly “relevant” digital stage has become institutionalized.  As contributing members of these synthetic societies, we will forever be integrated into this brave new digital world via “social-networking.” (see: Clay Shirky archives)

Yet as influential as the “Big-Three” are, they are not - the full social networking story!

For most people who have been involved for some time, It is customary to belong to many simultaneous social networking sites.  I myself, belong at leaset18 active social networks and some that are no longer active or that I no longer frequent. (see below)

However, I was reminded again today that there is definitely a “long tail” of small yet highly impact-full alternatives today when I found a great little social network called Finance3.0.  The Finance 3.0 network is a shining example of what a community of shared interests can be.  There are sub-practice communities for investing, business operations and personal finance.  The network bundles several news sources and a multitude of high-value resources that seemingly fully address the full breath of financial issues/topics for its members and the resulting community seems to have responded by being very active.

As I look to establish a new practice based on operational execution, I have taken note that social networks like Finance 3.0 are succeeding in this new era. I am taking stock in the fact that the cultural acceptance has taken hold -and-  that with the right shared interest addressed in the right functional manner, a concept like execution may be fostered through the use of social networking.  Our team has been considering this presumption for a while now, but as I find more and more qualitative model examples like Finance 3.0,  I am encouraged to make our resources (constrained as they are) available to begin to build our own such social network.

I’m planning a series of posts to follow our developments in this area.  I can’t wait to share it with you and I hope you’ll follow along as it should be fun!

(partial list of social network participation for tyelmene: Xeesm, Tungle, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Pandora, Delicious, YouTube, SlideShare, My BrightTALK, O’Reilly-Safari, LibraryThing, Rypple, Vator.tv, Flickr, and approx. two dozen more).

These are the Democratic Representatives who took action and publicly co-signed their notice (a submitted letter) to take the side of the ISPs.  These folks have now gone on record.  What appears below is also a matter of public record.  The list includes their name, district represented and (known/public) contributions accepted from the Telco-Cable lobby.

Name                 District       Industry/Lobby Money

Rep. Bobby Bright     AL-02     $35,000

Rep. Mike Ross     AR-04         $65,000

Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick     AZ-01     $10,500

Rep. Ed Pastor     AZ-04     $33,500

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords     AZ-8     $27,000

Rep. Dennis Cardoza     CA-18     $34,500

Rep. Jim Costa     CA-20     $35,500

Rep. Laura Richardson     CA-37     $29,000

Rep. Joe Baca     CA-43     $92,000

Rep. Loretta Sanchez     CA-47     $77,000

Rep. Allen Boyd     FL-02     $58,500

Rep. Corrine Brown     FL-03     $20,500

Rep. Alcee Hastings     FL-23     $28,000

Rep. Suzanne Kosmas     FL-24     $25,000

Rep. Sanford D Bishop, Jr.     GA-02     $52,000

Rep. John Barrow     GA-12     $87,500

Rep. David Scott     GA-13     $32,500

Rep. Leonard Boswell     IA-03     $53,500

Rep. Bobby Rush     IL-01     $128,799

Rep. Debbie Halvorson     IL-11     $5,500

Rep. Baron P Hill     IN-09     $87,374

Rep. Dennis Moore     KS-03     D     $55,500

Rep. Charlie Melancon     LA-03     $55,000

Rep. Frank Kratovil, Jr.     MD-01     $44,500

Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger     MD-2     $47,000

Rep. Elijah Cummings     MD-07     $56,250

Rep. Gary Peters     MI-9    $21,500

Rep. William Lacy Clay Jr     MO-01    $40,000

Rep. Russ Carnahan     MO-03     $38,000

Rep. Travis Childers     MS-01    $42,500

Rep. Bennie G Thompson     MS-02     $46,500

Rep. Gene Taylor     MS-04    $14,500

Rep. G. K. Butterfield     NC-01     $33,500

Rep. Heath Shuler     NC-11     $23,000

Rep. Gene Taylor     MS-04     $14,500

Rep. John Adler     NJ-3    $29,000

Rep. Albio Sires     NJ-13     $28,500

Rep. Harry Teague     NM-2     $8,000

Rep. Gregory Meeks     NY-06     $66,000

Rep. Joseph Crowley     NY-07     $55,000

Rep. Yvette Clarke     NY-11     $15,000

Rep. Michael McMahon     NY-13     $27,000

Rep. Scott Murphy     NY-20     $17,000

Rep. Bill Owens     NY-23     $3,000

Rep. Michael Arcuri     NY-24     $30,000

Rep. Daniel Maffei     NY-25     $29,000

Rep. Steve Driehaus     OH-01     $6,000

Rep. Charlie Wilson     OH-06     $29,000

Rep. Marcia Fudge     OH-11     $11,000

Rep. Zachary T. Space     OH-18     $39,500

Rep. Dan Boren     OK-02     $31,500

Rep. Kurt Schrader     OR-05     $25,000

Rep. Robert Brady     PA-01     $56,100

Rep. Chaka Fattah     PA-02    $46,500

Rep. Kathleen Dahlkemper     PA-03     $20,500

Rep. Jason Altmire     PA-04     $39,500

Rep. Allyson Schwartz     PA-13     $58,250

Rep. Tim Holden     PA-17     $47,500

Rep. Lincoln Davis     TN-04     $29,500

Rep. John Tanner     TN-08      $61,300

Rep. Al Green     TX-09      $36,000

Rep. Ruben Hinojosa     TX-15     $35,500

Rep. Charlie Gonzalez     TX-20     $33,500

Rep. Ciro Rodriguez     TX-23     $36,750

Rep. Solomon Ortiz     TX-27      $31,500

Rep. Henry Cuellar     TX-28     $23,000

Rep. Gene Green     TX-29     $111,199

Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson     TX-30     $32,500

Rep. Glenn Nye     VA-02     $24,833

Rep. Rick Larsen     WA-02    $29,500

Rep. Nick Rahall     WV-03    $32,000

(source:  https://secure.freepress.net/site/SPageNavigator/NN_members)

In my last post, I highlighted the reports of the Telco-Cable industry lobbying efforts toward the outright purchase of rule re-rights that would enable monopolistic power, the elimination of consumer protection and the end of freedom for internet users.

Of course, I have no way of knowing about any correlations which can be drawn from this data.  I’ll let the reader to draw her/his own conclusions.  My only statement is that as internet users, perhaps we should all be mindful of the old wisdom; “if you want to know what’s going on, follow the money!”

The research presented in today’s ZDNet - Government article; “Apple vs. Google vs. Microsoft: who’s spending more to influence Congress?” by David Gewirtz makes this fact abundantly clear.  The big-spending “carrier”: lobbyists want the rules to allow then (the ISPs ATT&T/Comcast)  to charge multiple times and at multiple rates for the services they have, up until now, been only able to charge once for.  This is awful, but even worse,  the American  ISPs rate scales are already 4.25X higher on average than their European/Asian counterparts!  (see the fine May 16th NY Times Editorial) Now the ISPs want rules that disallow the free markets that would bring down those rates and that allow then to steal even more!

However the ISP carries have even worse intentions for the influence of these new rule changes they want.  As was evidenced by the Comcast action that prompted the now famous case and subsequent ruling that caused the current flash point for the FCC, the ISP are engaging in the control over the types of traffic THEY will ALLOW over the internet.  This included the functions such as eliminating Skype and Bit Torrent to the incredibly offensive control over  free speech that would disallow descent regarding these rule changes.

Theses actions clearly indicated that there is no limit to the greed and corruption from these ISP carrier corporations and as Americans we are duty-bound to oppose the threat their lobbing spend has created.

It’s important to note that though this corruption is rampant in Washington, it is not exclusive to the Beltway.  Here in our state of Wisconsin, we have an AT&T funded/backed lobbying organization that serves its master at every turn to influence the national, state and local debate about every issue that would corrupt our own approach to broadband, the internet and the means by which its free use would be protected.  As residents here, we too have to work to defeat this extreme and un-American purchase of power.  I challenge those who occupy pubic office and those who hold the public’s interest as office holders to rise about these filthy tends and restore our collective faith in a system of the people and for the people and by the people.  Don’t let it be you who allowed/caused our freedom-based system to no longer stand!

Thank you.

-Two views of the future:
H. Sapiens Digital ( http://www.wisdompage.com/Prensky01.html  )
KnowledgeWorks Foundation, Forecast: 2020 ( http://www.futureofed.org/ )

It is my belief, that if this plays out as the press is currently reporting, America will have lost something more valuable than nearly any other treasure we value; an important piece of the “people’s voice” and we will be made less.

-  Bursts -

I encourage everyone to check this out, participate and “think”  with -and-  about the aspects of social interactivity, knowledge construction and of course, the underlying roles of interconnected networking that supports this concept.

More by:  Albert-László Barabási

- also -
tyelmene reference:  dual network dimensions of knowledge development -

First, its important to freely admit that I found myself with head bobbing up and down in complete agreement with Mr. Suarez as I read his post when he wrote, “I’m one of those folks with a traditional KM background that never believed in them (best practices). In fact, I can recall having an immediate visceral reaction to the term “best practices” when I first heard it.

I recall first hearing the term/about the notion of best practices in the very early 1990’s.  At that time I was developing more rigorous approaches to model business processes (moving from IDEF0/1/2/3 to a tool called PTech) as the original BPR (business process re-engineering) practice and was proving more difficult than I originally thought it was going to be.   And, even though Jay Bitsack (my mentor/collaborator at the time) and I were working in the much more defined “process” level of detail,  we were still missing the contextual setting aspect how to employ/re-employ process.  So, to me, the more broad, composite-notion of “practices” in the best practice activity seemed less sophisticated, less rigorous and much less able than the methods we were using.  Don’t get me wrong, the notions behind the Balanced Scorecard (which was being used at that time to generically rate practices) had been developed a couple years before by good/smart people at Nolan/Norton and had already been proving to be valuable in many distinctive ways (which were better than the BPR ideas coming out of Index- where Jay Bitsack was coming from and Hammer/Champy fame), but the methods were not capable of including the “context” from which the snapshot scoring was taken and I realized that had to be flawed due to the problems I was facing for the same reason.  So,  even then, the “best practices” notion seemed flawed to me.   In fact, all the difficulties I was observing with all engineering-oriented approaches were among some of the strongest drivers that had me developing my interest in the extremely counter-cultured alternative (at the time) called organizational learning and it’s more nebulous mainstream reference “intellectual capital.” (the term “knowledge management hadn’t emerged yet).

At any rate, as a previously successful TQM person, who was now a failing BPR practitioner (failing as we all were at the time), and a rapidly developing convert to a softer/more systemic organizational learning mindset, I freely admit never liking  the concept of the less rigorously contextualized, but seemingly more accepted term: “best practices.”

Now with a nearly twenty year perspective and considering the many difficulties I have had with the best practices concept in the context of the knowledge management movement that followed and I have participated in,  I’d like to respond to the two primary assertions I find in these blog posts -

For me, the two assertions are:

1. To characterize a “business practice” as being: “best,” is to “codify” it and therefore to define it as and/or in a defacto way, make it; “static,” and therefore render it impotent in the face of constant business change.
2. The very nature of knowledge as a constantly evolving, adapting, and malleable design of contextually constructed meaning makes any reference to “best practice” within the domain of knowledge work; incompatible.

While I agree, that the notion  “best practice”  has nearly always meant that an activity and series/sequence of activities should be emulated as it exists (statically), it may not always be the case.  A possible exception may be the notion of an open-ended generative knowledge development accruing in one or more communities of practice/interest.  If the “best practice” is the activity of establishing such a knowledge evolving  CoP, it may well well represent the best practice for the period of evolution the implementors possess at this time.

My point is that though the common notion of “best practice” is undoubtedly flawed, all organized activity exists due to some element of structure.  The structure may be as simple as the way teams are picked to compete, or as complex as a large multinational enterprise governance process, but to coordinate any activity is to work in structure.  We need it and we need to get things done and to advance performance.  So structures exist whether or not a given structure temporarily produces some attribute(s) consider superior at any given time.

After considering this for a bit, I am ready to test a different hypothesis.  I propose a further qualifying  of “best practice” to the variation “most appropriate practice” to “best meet” the context of the current scenario. I think that distinction satisfies all the flaws that Berg and Suarez have yet make the absolute most of the potential benefits of what a truly best practice might be.  I believe that when viewed in this broader context the knowledge development activity itself can be adopted and refined as an actionable practice at the optimal structure attainable at the time, then be advanced into refined structures into the future.  From this “higher order viewpoint” I see “best practice” in a whole new light!

Proposition  - most appropriate practice to best meet current situation/need -  is that right?  What say you?

This is why the Christian Coalition of America, the Gunowners of America, the National Religious Broadcasters, and the Parents Television Council, very conservative organizations all… support “Net Neutrality.”  (see the Christian Coalition post)

However, Comcast, AT&T and Verizon are spending millions to bribe every aspect of government in an effort to buy away your freedom, my freedom - all American citizen’s freedom.  They do it by direct purchase of legislators votes in Washinton and state’s capitals and they do it by indirect public persuasion through puppet organizations like Wired Wisconsin.  We should not allow these corporations to make a purchase which disallows us as US citizens the freedoms/rights which have been won over our history with blood and tears.

I urge all Americans to get involved now.  Tell their elected officials that the price we all will pay for their greed it just too high!  Let them know that AT&T’s money is not the form of speech that will make the difference in our voting.  If AT&T provides $10B for political ads to be purchased from now until doomsday, we will still vote out any incumbent politician/all politicians that that seek to strip us of our rights in favor of the ISPs who seek to shut us up with censorship and to double charge us for the same single “last mile” service they already provide (the real reason they are seeking to defeat the freedom protections known as Net Neutrality).

This is Very Important:  I also urge everyone to directly contact the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and its Chairman: Julius Genachowski (email) to make your voice heard and let them know that the FCC needs to re-establish its oversight authority over broadband, then needs to pass Net Neutrality rules under its National Broadband Plan.  The FCC needs to show political courage – something that is often in short supply in D.C. – and do the right thing to protect the public interest.

I urge my conservative friends to become engaged in this fight.  We all need each other to stand united against the corporate ISP enemies of freedom!