Wow. Man. Oh. Man. If you are at all interested in seeing where business is going, if you are a total non-believer and think innovation means cutesy chairs and justly died with the dot com 90s, or if you need some inspiration and hope, this weeks BW is a must read. The pull-out section mid-magazine talks about innovation and is designed to be innovative--right down to a different look and feel to give a totally different user experience for the reader. What's the bottom line? Collaboration, fusion of ideas and disciplines, and the need to aggregate seemingly disparate facts, notions, ideas, and observations in order to create new wholes. I personally feel like I have hit the Golden Age for people like myself who don't fit into one container. This issue is a perfect supplement to Daniel Pink's "A Whole New Mind" book which, if you know me, you know that I absolutely adore. Wes Monroe's brother--Bro Monroe--if you will, is a perfect example of the combination of thought-skill that is providing innovative solutions to problems. The only thing I get down on myself about is all of these people have favorite blogs and websites and I honestly barely ever use the stuff--I know you don't believe it, but it is totally true. I really need to find more time per day to peruse. Can you tell me how much time you spend reading blogs, etc online?

Article: 10 Questions to Ask Before Purchasing BPM Software"

A lot of people have been talking about Web 2.0 lately in the virtual halls of ASI it seems. Happened to see this on BW Online--nice collection of info about the topic if you aren't familiar with it and want to be.

Article:
Web 2.0 Has Corporate America Spinning

Just thought of this: people that don't get transparency absolutely HATE tagging. These aren't the people to help create taxonomies--move on and find someone else. Tagging is inherently (and structurally transparent though not necessarily by design, but I am buying my own spin) transparent because you can see the entire tag list in one fell swoop. If you can see everything than an organization covers, you can easily see what they don't.

Am here at iNNOVATIONS conference and reflecting on Don Robertson's session on the imis community site. He made mention of the concept of transparency and I was wondering how people think of transparency as a practice, but almost more importantly (in my mind), how does transparency become inculcated into your worldview so that you are operating from a transparent frame of mind. With Sarbanes-Oxley one of the hottest and most contentious topics in for-profit companies due to strict new financial reporting requirements and non-profits all worrying if SOX is going to be expanded to effect them and if so, how, transparency is becoming a very common term. I wonder the degree of flippancy associated with the term as it is bandied about. Is there a true understanding of what it means, or is it just the new buzz term to drop into convo so that you can eat at the cool kids' table?

Okay people, let's not underestimate the power of personal communication, especially that which comes from individuals that you respect. I was recently persuaded today to "get blogging or else" (okay, I mentally added the 'or else' part, but I could feel the threat between the lines. Some negative interaction with a baseball bat or other blunt instrument might have been in my near future if I hadn't heeded the advice and posted this). So, as with donations, membership, getting timesheets in (remember the power of the tag team duo in Office Space asking Peter where his TPS reports were?), and everything else, it is a lot more effective to get someone that you already know to get you over the inertia hump and into the land of action. Why is it key to keep this in mind? We need to make sure that we are always conscious of the fact that we, humans, are normally lazy and in a state of inertia and maintenance mode by default and rarely want to take the effort to learn something new, change, modify, and let's face it--evolve.