partum intelligendo

Is this really the most pressing thing?

I think it's always fairly obvious that I like a balance between intelligent, well-thought-through approaches and ideas and practical applications of ideas. I get frustrated by unfounded processes and theories, but probably more so by theoretical approaches that verge on navel-gazing and that actively resist pragmatic usage.

With that in mind, I'm resisting the temptation to voice all that's in my mind about the latest in the series of academic Organisational Storytelling Seminars, coming up in May. Previous ones have been heavy on sociologists divining much abstract information from very little actual material, but there's always a good smattering of interesting thinkers with their feet firmly on the ground and eager to debate. I suspect this one may be an exception:

16th Organisational Storytelling Seminar: Stories we do not tell in organisations: gender, sexuality, heteronormativity and otherness

Organisation studies currently takes it for granted that organisations require their employees to act in ways deemed appropriate for their sex. As Jessica Benjamin argues, organisations, being hierarchical structures, are inescapably places in which (sexed) relationships of domination and submission are played out (Benjamin, 1988; 1995). She suggests that all encounters with others bring with them the potential for relationships of domination and subordination, and such relationships are fundamental to workplace encounters. Whilst feminism and queer theory explore how sex, sexualities and gender identities are achieved in their social, cultural and linguistic dimensions, the explorations of symbolic and imaginary accounts of gendering have had little influence upon organisation studies. Although sexuality is constantly enacted in organisations, it is rarely spoken about except in gossip and allusions. As a result, ‘sexual difference which is one of the most important questions of our age, if not in fact the burning issue… which could be our salvation on intellectual level’, in Luce Irigaray’s (1993) words, becomes an elephant in the room and a pseudo-normalised reality.

In this seminar we would hope to break through some of these silences by exploring stories on sex and sexuality, gender and otherness in organisations, stories located within and beyond compulsory matrices: heterosexual or otherwise. In doing so we will open up a space for creating new symbols, enabling rather then restricting various avenues and possibilities for expressions of sex, sexuality and gender.

Gah!

Random stories or last.fm?

There's an increasing trend I've noticed recently among people looking at stories - to take a brief look at stories to find the ones that "typify" the organisation.  And, because of the perception of storywork being highly resource-intensive, it's generally a very small number of stories that are used.

Somewhat akin to the periodic iPod randomizer memes that crop up (the latest being here) - fun to see what comes up, but from such a small sample it's impossible to tell what's actually the dominant taste.

For example, my five random songs this morning were:

Beachcomber Voodoo by Julee Cruise (The Art of Being a Girl)
Haunted House by Leon Redbone (On the Track)
Better Be Home Soon by Crowded House (Farewell to the World)
Somebody Told Me by The Killers (Hot Fuss)
Losing My Religion by REM (Precious Rarities)

And it would be very easy to see patterns and make assumptions about my musical taste from that.  Even more so if, by chance, an artist were repeated.

Yet a better way of seeing the bigger picture is to look at Last.fm (my profile is here) which builds up a cumulative picture from thousands of pieces.

Similarly, it's more accurate to look at larger volumes of stories and pick out patterns than it is from taking a small sample of stories from within the organisation.  And, despite the assumptions, it doesn't have to be either difficult or expensive - it's relatively straightforward to build systems that gather and collect story material in volume and to be able to see the patterns that emerge. Software like SenseMaker^TM make it very simple to look at thousands of story fragments quickly.

From those patterns, it might be possible to see specific stories that dominate a culture, but they'll be far fewer and not necessarily the ones that come out of a simple sample of a few hundred stories...

Melcrum masterclass details

Details are finalised for the "Storytelling for audience engagement" masterclass with Melcrum.

The date is Thursday 29th January 2009, it'll be 9am-5pm and held at Broadway House, London, opposite St James' Park tube station.

More details here and you can register from the page.

Comments from previous sessions include:

Excellent course. Very relevant, very practical. I have
tools and techniques I can take back to work and use
straight away.

The story of a loan from London to USA to via Kiva

Via Tim Kitchin, who put me onto Kiva in the first place:

A Fistful Of Dollars: The Story of a Kiva.org Loan from Kieran Ball on Vimeo.

Diverse hearts and minds

(Tomorrow I'll confirm the Melcrum masterclass details and how to register.)

I notice in the CommsNetwork mailing list there are recent emails asking for advice on how to "engage people in values".  My inference (and I think most correspondents' implication) is that they're actually asking how they get everyone to conform to the values as best as possible.

Responses cover the usual sins and techniques, focusing on events, comms vehicles, etc.  Nowhere is there the helpful response of "You'll never make them all sign up to the values and behave accordingly".  And even less so the addition "And if they did, it would be disastrous for the organisation"

Why do we continue to indulge this lazy thinking and idealistic, managerial way of working?  There are legal requirements around diversity in the workforce - diversity of colour, gender, ability, age, etc.  Assuming that you've got people who are different in their experiences, their outward qualities, what on earth makes you think they should think the same?

You want people who think and act differently - it's how you make the business effective, robust and innovative.  The real challenge for communicators should be how you enable conversations, dissent and then action from the diverse population.

Upcoming conference

I've agreed a couple of further public engagements in the first quarter of 2009, and won't be taking any more conferences/internal events now until after April/May, although I'm happy to talk now about later events.

One public one that's agreed now is the Ark Group's European conference: "4th annual internal communications: a vital business function in difficult financial times".  I'll be chairing for the two days 11th-12th February 2009 in London.

Further details on Ark Group's website at www.ark-group.com

 

I will be re-running the Narrative Tools masterclass with Melcrum later this month, but there's some confusion over dates - I'll put details up once it's confirmed.

Kiva

One of the great things about being part of the Medinge group is hearing about new social ventures.  And being able to recognise some of them in the annual Brands with a Conscience awards.

I have some reservations about the rigour of the process by which we decide on these awards, but some organisations speak for themselves.  One such this year was Kiva, an organisation that facilitates small loans from individuals to teams and people in developing countries.

Nominated by Tim Kitchin and Johnnie Moore, I hadn't heard of it, but have subsequently signed up and got involved, making loans to groups in Cambodia and Tajikistan.

At a time when banks aren't making loans to solid prospects, it's nice to be able to take matters into my own hands and help more directly where it will do more good.

Brass dolphins

I don't think I've ever seen this before - the fountains in Trafalgar Square frozen over...

Although not as funny as the sight that those waiting for the bus got this morning as, in reaching to pull my mobile out of my pocket, I lost my balance.  Icy Letchworth pavements + laptop on my back = upended Tony.

 

 

 

 

It's a sharp contrast with the weather when I left Penang on Sunday morning:

Killing two industries with one email

From the Thinking Allowed email from yesterday, mention of Lawrie Taylor's experience of years earlier when asked to help with a piece of market research:

I’d always assumed these big companies – and this was one of the biggest – must be entirely independent bodies.  Not at all.  The first question their representative asked could hardly have been less objective.  ‘What sort of results are you looking for?’ he asked.   ‘Well’ said my man from the PR company.  ‘We’d rather like to find that the public would welcome more retail facilities on forecourts.’

 

‘Good’ said the polling man, making a note.  ‘And will you need a cover organisation to publish the results?’ ‘Preferably’ said my man. 

 

In no more than sixty seconds I’d been give a perfect demonstration of how the PR industry works. 

And people in the market research and PR industries wonder why we don't get more respect.

 

I know that there are many (not most, but many) people in the industries that would blanch at this as I do, but until there is a visible, conscious and concerted effort to change these practices, we're always going to be tarred with the same brush.   

From the horse's mouth.

From Jasper Fforde's "First Among Sequels", two horses talking together while their book is being repaired:

"So what's this Pride and Prejudice all about, then?"

"It's about a horse that pulls a carriage for the Bennets."

Which seems to tie in neatly to those companies that offer poor customer service that I posted about earlier.