I just love it something great coalesces from the ether, out of creative people’s minds, off the paper, and into reality. I especially love it when an idea that I have been ranting and raving about passionately for a while, magically arrives in my browser, courtesy of some equally passionate people on the other side of the world.
I firmly believe that we need to change how business is generally conducted, that paradigms shifts in social structures and technology have exposed inherent weaknesses in our aged, creaking and disproven corporate hierarchies. Speed to market, ability to adapt, and connectedness are now more important than they have ever been … concepts like agility, innovation, social business, sustainability, and accessibility coming to the fore.
It’s all about people and behaviour, hence my immediate affinity with ON-Brand Partners when we had the good fortune to be introduced (thanks to Kate and Paul from Blacksmith).
I am a big supporter of using technology to help deliver value, and the power of technology to support the above concepts, to help us forge new and more effective, people-centric ways of conducting business. In particular, the ability of the Internet and social media platforms to transform how we work and interact, and even where the borders of our company exist. That’s why SlapFu was created, and our co-working network, the Biz Dojo.
Over the last few months I have regaled many a glassy-eyed punter about all of this over a drink. Mixing in a bit of sociology, stirring it all up with some popular opinion and references (Starfish and the Spider, anyone? No? I’ve got plenty more where that came from), waving my arms, spilling my drink, and covering every available whiteboard with enthusiastic, albeit sometimes indecipherable, diagrams and plans for change.
I love how agile software development has effected such a positive change on so many people’s lives, and I often wonder how we could turn the same concepts around and apply them to other areas of business, and life in general.
In fact, I was only last week wishing that someone would take a tool like Pivotal Tracker (awesome, lightweight SaaS tool for managing projects in an agile way) and pimp it out with organisational and community features. Why, if they did … the sky would be the limit. We could have open and transparent projects and organisations, and develop networks, nay, ecosystems of awesomeness that boldly stride where no small-minded corporation has dared step before.
Imagine my surprise when the guys at Enspiral I had been preaching to IM’d me a link to exactly that.
Yes, indeed. Someone, somewhere had exactly the same vision, and only last month had launched the beta of their platform – based on Pivotal Tracker plus some wiki, conversation, and social business goodness – to power the “Open Enterprise”. Wow.
Take a look. BetterMeans is a potential game-changer for start-ups, free-lancers and collectives right now, but if they continue to develop and deliver on the promise of the platform, it could also be a game-changer in coming years for community organisations, local government, and even that bastion of resistance to change, the generic corporation.
