Play Nice

Competitors (President at Atlassian, founder of SocialText)
Originally uploaded by Robert Scoble

Robert Scoble took this picture of erstwhile competitors (Jeff Walker President at Atlassian, and me, founder of SocialText) at the Web 2.0 Summit Lobby.

Comments

[Tercume]

nice shot, i liked the wikiway tshort.

[Syven]

After reading this, I did go to the Atlassian Blog where I reviewed a piece by Stewart Mader about how to respond to two arguments against Wiki use. I personally believe that in the collaborative space the OODA loop has more power than the intellectual boxing or the scientific method of adversarial positioning - observation trumps argument in this regard because it is about enabling us to think rather than solve. Solutions are very important when creating very product, but personal observation is extremely important IMHO when it comes to creating a life. So what follows are observations related to Stewart Mader's posting. Stewart Mader's posting Of course, I would not have linked to it, had I not followed through from this portal description of two collaborative fella's standing in a Web 2.0 summit lobby.

I think it comes down to that aphorism "Great Oaks from Little Acorns Grow". The key here is therefore one of patience rather than simply looking out for early adopters or tracing Wiki's through the course of an adoption cycle. The Edison quote is interesting because Edison does represent the quintessential high-tech entrepreneur. In that regard this Rutger's piece on Edison is informative this Rutger's piece on Edison. This piece however differs from how Peter Drucker contrasted the new technology of entrepreneurial management with high-tech enterprise. Drucker wrote in "Innovation and Entrepreneurship":

" But for the "high-tech" entrepreneur, the archetype sitll seems to be Thomas Edison. Edison, the nineteenth century's most successful inventor, converted invention into the discipline we now call research. His real ambition, however, was to be a business builder and to become a tycoon. Yet he so totally mismanaged the businesses he started that he had to be removed from every one of them to save it. Much, if not most high tech is still being managed, or more accurately mismanaged, Edison's way. This explains, first, why the high-tech industries follow the traditional pattern of great excitement, rapid expansion, and then sudden shakeout and collapse...but most high tech companies...are still inventors rather than innovators, still speculators rather than entrepreneurs"

Google fits Drucker's model of entrepreneurial management and the mindset required here isn't as much the brand power of Thomas Edison, but in part the patience Edison demonstrated in the discovery and research process, but he also promoted the "DC" current, when Nikola Tesla was promoting the "AC" current - (Westinghouse in particular should be thankful to Tesla). Nikola Tesla himself represents all those who contribute to technology who never get the thanks or respect they truly deserve. There is in my mind a Tesla in every open source enthusiast, but the Tesla method of collaboration is vastly different to the Edison way.

The "Great Oaks" of Tesla were the inventions that were critical to the 20th Century, the "Great Oaks" of Edison however where GE and Westinghouse, the very corporate culture that the collaborative environment seeks to change. We do know that Tesla died in an impoverished state and that Edison was highly glorified and yet in comparison it is Tesla who should command the greater respect. These acorns therefore are about mindset and the "Great Oaks" continue to be that which is life changing for the 21st Century rather than the monuments of the 20th Century.

The world will change for the better under our feet because collaborative technology gives back the arms, feet and bodies, the very down to earth construct that Marshall McLuhan once warned would disappear when our central nervous system is extended. Indeed McLuhan served to provide us this warning so we can shift our mindsets to make technology a progressive asset. There are those that died in the pauper's grave who did change the world, apart from Tesla, Thomas Paine comes to mind - but Paine and Tesla still represent the revolutionary acorn - not a sixties mindset but a 21st Century one, a mindset that transforms forty years into the future and not one which is based on ideologies created forty years in the past.

As I think these things through the aphorism is about the Acorn - for it is the Acorn that we are. If this acorn leads to an intelligent means of living, we have served collaboration well, if it leads to the worship of Great Oaks, then not only have we done technological progress a great disservice, but we failed to do the one thing that patience demands from us - the ability to change the way we individually think and adapt to create a new promising future.

M.

[PS Above written as a part of my own personal explorative thinking process]