Tag: Communication

Visual data – a social graph

Another quick look at visual data today. I hosted a very interesting evening discussion around service in a social world earlier this week. I’ll write in more detail about what was spoken and sung about later, but for now I just want to share some emerging visual data I’m playing with.

social graph
social graph

The bubbles show a variety of social tools and the higher the bubble has risen, the more in use the tool is among the community. We looked at usage as an introduction to the extent to which social tools are (and are not) shifting the relationships between employees, employers, and customers. I want to have another play with this and try altering the size of the bubble to reflect usage. I think I can create an equally informative and more visually appealing image this way. Watch this space.

There weren’t many surprises in the data – except perhaps the low usage of RSS readers? I would have expected more people to take their news this way. What do you think? Does the idea work or not? Is there anything in there that prompts a question from you?

PS – here is the raw material, hand drawn style, which I used to kick off the conversation:

raw material 1
hand drawn conversation starter

Playing With Time

One day last week I spotted someone dragging a huge sheet of brown paper around with them. Being curious I followed this guy and started talking with him. Turns out that Ed, for that is the name of the brown paper guy, is helping people to play with time. A bit like Doctor Who, but with fewer Daleks (although I’m sure I’ve spotted the odd alien lurking…) and much more focus on practical application. So what is Ed up to?

playing with time
playing with time

Ed is helping people to sequence and prioritise stuff in a participative way. So he fixes this great long piece of brown paper on the wall, and teams use it as a timeline to stick up notes about what they want and need to do, with whom and by when. Once every one has flung their stuff at the wall, so to speak, the team then thinks about the resourcing of the work and the timing of the work. Then they play with all the stickies and try to reach agreement about what to do, when to do it and how to do it.

What emerges is a useful plan which sets things out for the next few months. Importantly the playing and discussion creates a sense of collective ownership. That’s not to say that everyone owns everything – all the stickies are the responsibility of individual people. And because the timeline has been played with by everyone and the tensions which originally appear are discussed by everyone, there is a sense of community about the outcome. I was going to say a sense of “we’re all in this together” but HM Government has shattered the delightful High School Musical association I previously had with this phrase and forever made it a no go zone.

I’d not seen this method before and I quite like what Ed has helped to make happen here. It’s certainly a whole lot more fun that staring at a spreadsheet! Have you got any examples of enjoyable and effective planning you’d like to share?

Dalek image c/o Jim’s Dalek Site

I’m worried

I’m involved in a really interesting project that combines HR, engagement and communication for a customer. We’re all learning loads from it, we’re loving it and together we’re helping to make work better. And I’m worried.

Increasingly people are saying to me things like “if anyone can fix this, you can” or “you can sort this, you’ve got clout around here”. I leave here soon, and an over reliance on me could mean that the good work everyone has sponsored and been involved with goes to waste if people wrongly associate my departure with the end of this stuff. If the customer believes that staff engagement and employee communication are worthwhile I think it’s important that they act to formalise and resource this position quickly, and ideally before I go so that I might share my knowledge and findings with whoever wants to pick up the baton.

Perhaps the most difficult thing to sustain will be the sense of independence the board has lent me and the sense of ignorance I’ve brought with me. I’ve used these, and my natural curiosity to ask “dumb questions”, the kind of questions people forget to ask, or even worse, assume someone else is dealing with.

Becoming reliant on people like me sucks. I love putting myself out of one piece of work and on to the next one and I hate the dependency model many consultancy firms (particularly the larger ones in my experience), peddle. What do you think? How can companies benefit from the ignorance and independence of consultants and not become reliant on them? Or am I worrying about nothing?