When we discussed safe-fail probes at CE accreditation course I was struck by the parallels between those and Roger’s characteristics of innovations that influence it’s adoption [from Wikipedia on diffision of innovations]:

Rogers defines several intrinsic characteristics of innovations that influence an individual’s decision to adopt or reject an innovation. The relative advantage is how improved an innovation is over the previous generation. Compatibility is the second characteristic, the level of compatibility that an innovation has to be assimilated into an individual’s life. The complexity of an innovation is a significant factor in whether it is adopted by an individual. If the innovation is too difficult to use an individual will not likely adopt it. The fourth characteristic, trialability, determines how easily an innovation may be experimented with as it is being adopted. If a user has a hard time using and trying an innovation this individual will be less likely to adopt it. The final characteristic, observability, is the extent that an innovation is visible to others. An innovation that is more visible will drive communication among the individual’s peers and personal networks and will in turn create more positive or negative reactions.

Now to safe-fail probes. Dave Snowden describes them as strategies for dealing with complex systems to explore what actually works in a situation where predictions do not work. Dave suggest the following stages for using the approach (bold is mine):

Before opinions harden you create a very simple decision rule. Everyone with an idea that has even the remotest possibility of being true or useful creates a safe fail experiment based on the idea. Critically this does not have to be one that would prove the issue, just consistent with the position adopted.

Next each proposal is fleshed out, costed and subject to challenge and review, but nothing is ruled out unless rationing of resource is required. This is rarely the case by the way as you keep the experiments small, designed for fast feedback/evolution.

For each experiment to be valid its outcome must be observable, not to measure necessarily but to allow the simple rule of amplification or dampening of good or bad patterns to be put into operation. There is no point in an experiment where you can not observe what is happening.

The experiments are then reviewed for common elements and resourced along with set up of monitoring and review processes.

In addition to these there is a practice criteria that suggests that the ideas for the experiment should be comparable with the current practice (bold is mine):

Note that in validating an experiment it is not necessary to prove that it will work, but ”it is” necessary to show that it is consistent with a view of what has happened and what could happen in the future.

So, if you compare the quotes (and stretch a bit ;) then there are a lot of similarities. I would think of Roger’s successfully adopted innovations are safe-fail probes that worked and became amplified…

And then the question that is bothering me is that safe-fail probes that didn’t work also show those characteristics of successful innovations :)

• Channeling Innovation
• Preaching to the converted: PKM is not about methods and tools, but about attitude change
• BlogTalk paper: motivation and assumptions

It could be amasing how easily you can get drawn into mistakes you made before while having necessary knowledge to avoid them…

Let me first tell you about one of the things I has been doing while not blogging :)

I’m coordinating a European project focused on supporting collaboration of innovative small and medium enterprises (iSMEs) in Russia (official title is RUSMECO – Enhancing Russian SME collaboration and business development through COmmunities of practice). It’s two year project with business/academic partners in four EU countries and three Russian regions.

The first phase of the project is focused on understanding specific problems Russian innovative SMEs have and then figuring out which of them could be addressed in via “communities” (which is a way to address solutions on information sharing/ learning/ networking/ collaboration spectrum). The original plan was pretty straightforward – start from the literature and doing in-depth interviews with selected iSMEs, use insights to develop and run survey to reach a bigger group and then invite participants for the workshops that provide feedback on the results and discussion on solutions that could work (and then work on developing them).

It didn’t work that way – we found out that it was very difficult to motivate iSME representatives to spend their time on interviews and questionnaires. Not only because they are busy anyway, manoeuvring in transitioning economy and changing regulations, but because it was very difficult to explain to them what the project is about because the whole idea of communities was new to them.

Necessary detour. Many KM concepts and practices still have not reached Russian business world (and academia as well) – apart from a few exceptions most of the KM talk there is still about why it could be useful to invest in something like that, rather then deciding what and how to do. Communities of practice, while there as a reality, is not part of conceptual thinking about management and not a format that organisations would deliberately support with some business gains in mind. [more on this]

While dealing with the problem I realised there is something we overlooked during the planning stage: the relation between the degree of understanding the value of communities in business settings and project planning we had laid out. At that moment I thought of a similar mistake I did 6 years ago while planning for e-learning introduction in a university. Similar to 6 years ago I thought of an instrument that could help to prevent it – stages of innovation acceptance by Diane Dormant.

The framework is simple and it’s one of the most useful leadership instruments for me (I blogged it three years ago ;). It suggests that in their acceptance of an innovation people move through several stages and that if you want to promote new practices you need a strategy that corresponds to the stage where people are (check the original post for more details on stages and strategies):

In our project most of the planned efforts were focused on demonstrating-training-supporting communities for innovative SMEs while people in our target group were hardly aware of what a community could be for them. After bumping into a number of problems we had to adjust our strategies to advertising and informing, but it would be much smarter to think about it in advance.

So, given that it’s a repeated mistake I should make a note to myself to think in terms of innovation acceptance stages for every new project I start. Hopefully it will become a routine while working on planning…

Archived version of this entry is available at http://blog.mathemagenic.com/2005/12/16.html#a1714; comments are here.

• Blog as a nexus of multimembership and accidental brokering
• WiFi in St.Petersburg – Cafe Soiree
• Research on lurking

“WBC04″ people and papers I found interesting, but didn’t have time to blog about. Just some quick notes, let me know if you are interested to know more…

Alex Schröder

A blogger I didn’t know :) See his notes on WBC04.

Alex is a developer (of EmacsWiki) who seems to understand users :))) And he knows where to get good sweets in Lisbon. Check for: conversation tracking tool.

Monica Andre

Passionate Portuguese blogger who knows more than she thinks and asks sharp questions.

Bronwyn Stuckey – Sustaining communities of practice and Making the most of the good advice: Meta-analysis of guidelines for establishing an internet-mediated community of practice

I guess titles speak for themselves :) The first one is based on interviews with community moderators, the second one is a literature overview. Good read.

Ken Newman – Using a non-linear narrative framework in an online community

Ken told an amazing story about six month motorbike ride from Singapore to London to engage kids in the hospital into online community (I wasn’t at the presentation, but did signtseeing with Ken :)

More about it: See also notes by Alex, Come ride with me project page and another paper, Taking the Community for a Ride.

George Kuk – Selection, cliques and knowledge sharing in open source software development communities

For: literature on “group think” (re: blogging echo-chambers :) and a way to study innovative characteristics of a community (re: innovation in weblog communities).

Alastair Weakley – Web-based support for creative collaboration

About web-Interactive Scrapbook System which makes work in progress visible and shared. For: literature overview on (online) creativity and thinking about the role of artefacts.

Archived version of this entry is available at http://blog.mathemagenic.com/2004/03/28.html#a1146; comments are here.

• Note to myself: think in terms of innovation acceptance stages for every new project
• Personal ways of doing things in public
• WBC04: day 3 morning

Martin Roell cites unknown author:

To think outside the box, you can’t look inside the box for instructions.

Archived version of this entry is available at http://blog.mathemagenic.com/2003/09/17.html#a750; comments are here.

• Fubini’s Law: interplay between technologies and our practices
• Learning: communities vs. courses (4) – learners’ skills and motivation
• Preaching to the converted: PKM is not about methods and tools, but about attitude change

Just to make sure that this one is captured: Innovative Measures [via SynapShots]

Archived version of this entry is available at http://blog.mathemagenic.com/2002/12/19.html#a402; comments are here.

• Channeling Innovation
• Knowledge networker
• News aggregator attic

Recent SynapShots with Channeling Innovation link:
 

Channeling Innovation : By James L. Fahey; Published October 14, 2002 – “Despite its importance to business, innovation can be a confusing distraction. An effective process for managing innovation allows organizations to respond to markets while remaining focused on business objectives … Seven Steps for Channeling Innovation:
1. Clearly articulate business objectives and priorities
2. Include all the right people
3. Pick a leader and an administrator
4. Create a list of recommended innovations
5. Publish the list and give all participants access
6. Meet regularly with a clear objective
7. Stick to the lists
Although the process for channeling innovation appears somewhat elaborate, it is actually quite efficient and consumes relatively little human resource time.

Archived version of this entry is available at http://blog.mathemagenic.com/2002/10/16.html#a279; comments are here.

• Time is the currency in the knowledge economy
• KMSS02: Day 1
• Innovation with