User talk:Martin

Inventing that Helps Tiny Businesses

In general I am a student of “process”. I try to observe and understand what really makes things tick. This has relevance to transparency, democracy, and empowerment issues. Sometimes the most important things for the populace to know, are things that some relatively “few” people within the populace don’t want others to know. When students of process are observing and trying to understand your process, they risk being viewed as a pain in the neck – it’s not an activity where one should expect to get lots of “high fives”.

Some subjects that catch my interest are listed below:

BetterAutomation

Martin, word to the wise, give a link when sending a message asking someone to look at something, like this: IncomePilotProject. It's now on my watchlist.

consensus

We haven't actually started the WhoWeAre process yet. I think it was a mistake that someone invited every active member there. It's like inviting people to a pool party when the pool's not been dug yet. Conensus is work, that's for sure. All decision-making methods are work. The great thing about a wiki is we can sweep up after ourselves once we've made progress, and all that's left is the result, without the process weighing us down. I haven't actually been following the WhoWeAre page itself yet, because we haven't started the consensus poll. I've been working on Projects:WhoWeAre. I know you've been reading that too. It's been frustrating for me to see all the round and round in circles without any clear proposals. I've been working with folks to see if we could get clear. How do you like the 3 stage idea I posted? TedErnst

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"OPPS we made a mistake. There are people at the WhoWeAre page that assume the consensus poll process is already underway (Ted, I myself had this impression). In contrast there are some folks still trying to figure out how to make this consensus poll process more efficient at Projects:WhoWeAre. After we work out some of the bugs then we plan to start the WhoWeAre consensus poll process. Please forgive us for for this misunderstanding, we are learning as we go."

Ted, I think something like the above needs posting at the WhoWeAre page, or people that continue to contribute to this page, under the assumption that the polling process is already underway, are going to get mad if they discover their work was premature. In fact one posting I read already has one person mad for this reason, claming that those that now want to go back and start all over again, are actually hi-jacking the process – which itself is problematic.

In terms of process what this reveals is never ever never invite people to a consensus poll process until it is actually started – or people are going to get mad, and then you have to go back and figure out how to make them happy again.

In contrast if you want to invite people to participate in making the consensus polling process better and more efficient, do not even mention a potential polling topic such as “WhoWeAre” within such invitations, because then people tend to associate the topic with the underlying polling process, when in fact they are actually two completely different beasts. The underlying process can be brainstormed outside of any particular topic. Once people are within this brainstorming polling process area, then one can bring up issues like, “how might this process we have now devised work for this or that type of topic?” – in this context people are less likely to get confused about what is actually happening and the participation role they want to take on.

I think if this issue is not addressed soon on the WhoWeAre page more people might arrive, and more people might end up getting mad. I see no purposeful ill intend, rather just misunderstanding, which I think most people will forgive, since all of this “stuff” is so new and we are learning as we go. My point is somebody needs to make a posting on WhoWeAre and in effect beg for some forgiveness – or don’t you think a mole hole might turn into a mountain?

Ted, below is what I think about your 3 stage idea:

The outcome of this process will be a document for AboutUs.org that says WhoWeAre as a community. Once we agree to this stage 1 document , stage 2 begins which will contain Solution Pieces. Stage 2 - Solution Pieces • This stage definition and framework are modifiable in stage 1. Stage 2 is designed to get all the different "pieces" out in the open.

The above is confusing to me. It states, “stage 2 is designed to get all the different pieces out in the open?" Great! but it seems to me that what is so quickly breezed over is stage one, stating (as I understand it), “the outcome of the stage one process will produce a document for AboutUS.org, that says “WhoWeAre as a community. Once we agree on this initial version we move on to stage 2”

Seems to me that to do stage 1, one must also get “different pieces out in the open” – so to me, this raises the question, "in terms of the process how is stage 1 “openness” different than stage 2 “openness”?"

Also I think your noble attempt to gain process clarity in others also raises an issue that I see repeatedly raising its head, but we seem to sweep under the carpet (I think I know why). As mentioned some time back, one can classify how people’s brains work in perhaps 3 to 5 different ways.

For example some brain types like a quick overview first to put everything into context. Other brain types view that explanatory process as too much verbiage and initial complexity, rather just want to be steered through the process one step at a time, keeping the next step invisible until they get there. Other brain types don’t like all the text in any sense and would prefer things like flow charts or visual images, etc.

We are dealing with process issues (consensus details) that are foreign or never previously considered by many people, thus there is an underlying learning curve. Make the learning process painful and most folks will stop doing it. An important way to reduce learning curve “pain” is to better tailor explanations to one “brain type”. In this way one does not have to figure out explanations that will make everybody happy and gain more efficient clarity, which from my life experiences is simply not possible (somebody is always left short changed).

In such regard the bigger issue I don’t see being addressed by the aboutus staff and management is, “are we going to spend some of the company's start up money to figure out how to determine peoples' brain types at early stages of visiting our web site?" I argue if this is not done, then over and over again this “how do we best explain this or that” problem will continue to rear its head. In contrast if some basic brain types were determined early on, then people like us, trying to figure out how to better explain process issues, could tailor different explanations or tours, for perhaps 3 to 5 different brain types.

This approach obviously requires more work by people with different skill sets. Content creation folks like us, might produce tour content, but I sure don’t have the smarts to figure out the automation needed to initially filter out the brain types in the first place. Ideally automation would peg each person with some type of code. Then anywhere they go on the web site after this, when an explanation or tour is given, the computer automatically recognizes the person it is dealing with, and they automatically get the tour for their brain type (rather than each time and explanation is needed or wanted having to tell the computer what is their brain type). I know that given enough money and resources this could be made to work – it is a matter of management priorities.

In the world of “explaining” and “learning” and “gaining clarity” the underlying process issue that I bring up is actually the elephant in the room. Not everybody's brain type is the same - first figure out what brain type one is dealing with. Prior to computer automation this process problem was simply not possible to solve, now it is – if relevant resources are committed.

Ibesi.org

Martin, while I was updating some entries on AboutUs last week I found I was unable to access the website for IBESI.org. Kristina also left a note she was unable to access it. Is this group still in existence? Or did the server simply fall over & needs someone to help it up? -- Llywrch 08:46, 14 August 2007 (PDT)

WikiWork

Martin, I'd like to return to WikiWork soon, and see if I can summarize some useful points out of the great ideas you've posted there.

WhoWeAre

Hi Martin. I left you a message here: WhoWeAre:Stage2Status/MartinPfahler TedErnst | talk 13:12, 15 November 2007 (PST)

long tail

thought you might be interested in this: http://howtosplitanatom.com/news/lessons-from-entrepreneur-morten-blaabjerg/ TedErnst (talk) 16:30, 8 June 2008 (PDT)