Knowledge Economy: business as PART OF (not apart from) community

I you are at all “read” in the broad subject of complexity you may already be aware of the established links between: information – learning – intelligence – complexity – innovation. If not, this recent article from Wall Street Journal, about  a report, “The Atlas of Economic Complexity” may be of interest.

But elements of this blog item (apart from a useful infographic) really struck home and I wanted to share it. We have had the usual ham-fisted attempt by Politicians to promote the “Big Society” as if, by sticking a label on it, they could lay claim to a successful strategy…or blame citizens and society if/when it doesn’t work as hoped! In truth, whilst the “spirit” is sound, when delivered by Government against a backdrop of Austerity, it sounded and smelt like more “top down” BS!

I’ve been looking at ways to explain why social learning is so important for business today. It comes down to the fact that what we know and do inside our organizations is insufficient to address external complexity or to be innovative

Connecting the diversity of markets and society to the organization, instead of creating firewalls, is a major challenge for leadership today. How do you maintain the integrity of the organization while embracing the chaos beyond? Part of the answer is in supporting communities of practice as a bridge between external networks and those doing the work.

I wholeheartedly believe that communities NEED a “Big Society” mentality and that this is the platform upon which a new, more resilient, economy can be built. But it is a “bottom up” process to be borne out of a deeper understanding of our shared futures and how much more can be achieved by working interdependently: with and for each other.

We now have access to communications tools that enable us to share trivia about our daily lives but similar tools can facilitate new, dynamic, business models that bring socially responsible people, from every area of society, together for “the greater good”. Working smarter, sharing knowledge about both problems and solutions from a range of perspectives and diverse fields.

As many “Open Source” development successes in IT demonstrate people can achieve an enormous amount even when they are carrying out interesting and challenging “work” for nothing. Sharing the task(s), workload and the rewards amongst a community of diverse contributors is something that can…MUST…happen. What we need is to share the vision, to identify and to cultivate a new breed of leader who embrace transparency and sharing as a means of minimising complexity and maximising, sustainable, societal benefits.

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