The Maker Generation in the Enterprise – confused of calcutta

In this post JP Rangaswami brilliantly, I think, captures many of the essences of the institutional and inter-personal culture of creative knowledge work that is emerging - from empowering people with control over their own tools; to the relationship between strong shared values and free choice of work tasks (loosely coupled, strongly aligned!); to the true implications of cross-functional collaboration and collective intelligence - it’s good thought-provoking stuff and I recommend it.

It did, (and I may be biased about this ;) make me think of the role ‘innovation’ plays in this emerging negotiation between organisation and individual. In the ways I conceive of innovation, I think it operates on at least four fronts:

Firstly, as a general effect it demonstrates to people that ideas are valued, and by extension that they personally are valued, and helps to inform the ethical structure that motivates, attracts and retains creative people.

Secondly, it equips individuals to participate in solving problems and creating things by teaching them problem-solving, facilitation and visualisation techniques and approaches.

Thirdly, it helps people work together collectively by seeking to optimise their environments - physical, institutional, cultural and informational - for creativity, knowledge-sharing and the generation of good ideas.

Finally, in its institutional form, it provides a focus by generating projects that involve cross-functional and inter-organisational teams and create value for the business as well for those involved in the initiatives.

This is pretty important stuff I’d say :-)