I’m going to ask you to contribute to a crowdfunding campaign, but this time it’s not one of mine.
Having spent some time at a couple of unconferences this week, both of which focused in on the experiences of professionals working in public service (Commscamp for Communications folk, LibCampLdn for library peeps) and preparing (mentally) for next weekend’s mammoth, all-encompassing, UKGovCamp, I’ve noticed a bit of a pattern emerging.
Sessions held at both events this week contained a theme that can be boiled down to: “How do we as professionals who’ve seen the light of digital revolution, survive and thrive in corporate bureaucracies that refuse to change?”
I think it’s allied to what Emer Coleman has written about this week in her valediction to government saying “When you take the red pill everything looks like The Matrix”
I often say that my own “red pill” moment was in the board room of the Audit Commission, with Euan in 2002 but I’d seen others before that who seemed to be able to fly, do things incredibly quickly or smash through walls at will without hurting themselves – there was something going on here, but I didn’t know what it was, did I, Mr Jones?
But what is it really?
Isn’t it “just” that hyperlinks subvert hierarchy? By which I mean, isn’t it that connection through the network is destroying the control and decision-making structures and putting tremendous pressure on organisations to stop pretending that they’re machines and start being more like people?
About a year ago Liam Barrington-Bush, (a regular at #tuttle who started out as Steve Lawson‘s mate whose employers might buy coffee one week, but quickly emerged as a red-pill man through and through) interviewed me about the early days and what I’d been trying to do. He was going to go off to Mexico to write up a book on how social media and social movements can help your organisation to be more like people.
Well he went and he wrote it and he sent me the draft of his chapter that talks about me and #tuttle.
One of the things he wrote that had me cheering was this:
“When we don’t have specific aims, we are freer to be ourselves. When we are freer to be ourselves, we can let our minds wander. Tuttle – like so many naturally occurring conversations in our lives – demonstrates what can emerge when we make the effort to release ourselves from the responsibility of aims, goals, and targets.”
Now, the rest of the book is about other folk much more exciting and interesting than me. Liam is fundraising to publish the book himself – I’m right behind his decision to do this and to keep as much control over the content as possible. It’s really important that truly independent voices like Liam’s are heard without going through the filter of a publishing house, no matter how well-meaning.
So I encourage you to pop some cash in the pot. You know that every little helps, but especially if you can contribute on behalf of an organisation, some of the higher-priced perks that involve conversation with Liam himself would be top-value.