Michael Edson, Resource Sharing Remixed

Resource Sharing Remixed for the Rethinking Resource Sharing IV Forum OCLC, Dublin, OH Michael Edson Director, Web and New Media Strategy Smithsonian Institution, Office of the CIO 5/13/2009

Preamble
Twitter @mpedson (note the #si20 tag!)
slideshare.net/edsonm
[email_address]
smithsonian20.typepad.com
usingdata.typepad.com
Beware…The opinions in this presentation are mine, not the official policy/strategy of the Smithsonian…

Two Talks for the Price of One!
A pitch for a Commons as the answer to the Smithsonian’s digital-resource sharing challenges
Practical advice tied to Rethinking Resource Forum’s goals/challenges
How to affect change in slow-moving organizations
Local actions that make a difference

The 5-Minute Shakespeare Version
We’re working on a Web and New Media Strategy
I talk a lot about a “Smithsonian Commons”
I haven’t the foggiest idea how to catalyze institutional change

The 5-Minute Shakespeare Version
We’re working on a Web and New Media Strategy
I talk a lot about a “Smithsonian Commons”
I haven’t the foggiest idea how to catalyze institutional change
Now Discuss…

A Model Institution

Imagining a Smithsonian Commons
The full, written-out version is on slideshare, http://slideshare.net/edsonm (Both PowerPoint and text versions, with references and footnotes!)

Vexatious Phenomena

Smithsonian Web and New Media Strategy Process

Smithsonian Web and New Media Strategy Process
Currently underway http://smithsonian-webstrategy.wikispaces.com All work on public-facing wiki
Internal workshops are “wiki-cast”
Twitter, #si20 tag
http://search.twitter.com/search?q=&ands=&phrase=&ors=&nots=&tag=si20&lang=all&from=&to=&ref=&near=&within=15&units=mi&since=&until=&rpp=15
Radically open, transparent, fast
Alternative to traditional committee process
Expand internal brain trust

Organizational Change
10 things I’m thinking about

1. Urgency
John P. Kotter, A Sense of Urgency
HBR “Ideacast” clip, 2:30
Audio clip plays for 2:30. Advance through next 7 slides manually

1. Urgency
Thoughts, feelings and behaviors

1. Urgency
Thoughts…
Great opportunities/hazards

1. Urgency
Feelings…
Gut level determination that we’ll do something now

1. Urgency
Behavior…
Hyper-alertness… commitment to making something happen with the important issues

1. Urgency
Behavior…
We gotta get going with this because it’s so important.

1. Urgency
Determination and movement that’s smart and that wins

1. Urgency
The rate of change is going up.

2. Disruptive Innovation
Clayton M. Christensen: The Innovators Dilemma

Clayton M. Christensen: The Innovator’s Dilemma
Sustaining Technologies vs. Disruptive Technologies

Sears was at the top if the world in the 1960’s

Sears was at the top if the world in the 1960’s
They missed discount retailing.

“ You’ve got about three years until you’re locked into being just a museum of stuff on the mall”
Executive from a national media/educational brand, about the Smithsonian’s digital strategy

This is one of the Innovators Dilemmas: Blindly following the maxim that good managers should keep close to their customers can sometimes be a fatal mistake.
Clayton M. Christensen The Innovator’s Dilemma

3. Darwin’s True Greatness
… Wasn’t that he figured out modification-with-descent but that he wrote it down—tied it down— in a way that ensured the idea would never drift away again.
Can’t find source! (Bill Bryson?)

3. Darwin’s True Greatness
So, when you figure something out, tie it down!
Examples
Imagining a Smithsonian Commons
Written-out with notes, references, links on slideshare. http://slideshare.net/edsonm
Web-Strategy “workshop-to-wiki” process
All workshops are “wiki-cast” so what’s said doesn’t drift away. http://smithsonian-webstrategy.wikispaces.com

4. Axiom: The Third Way
Don’t get too attached to predicting outcomes to big presentations, confrontations, decisions.
I always think “It’s either going to go this way or that way” but it’s always some third way I couldn’t predict.
Example: “Smithsonian 2.0 event”

5. Know What to Leave Out
From a series of tweets @ Smithsonian Web and New Media Strategy workshops.
Excruciating process of boiling down the Smithsonian to its essence.

6. Capability Maturity Models
A framework for understanding what kinds of projects you are capable of doing successfully in the future!

6. Capability Maturity Models 1. Initial 2. Managed 3. Defined 4. Quantitatively Managed 5. Optimizing

Understanding the levels People Processes Measurement Technology 1 2 3 4 5

Understanding the levels People Processes Measurement Technology 1 2 3 4 5 Success depends on individual heroics

Understanding the levels People Processes Measurement Technology 1 2 3 4 5 “ Fire fighting” is a way of life

Understanding the levels People Processes Measurement Technology 1 2 3 4 5 Relationships between disciplines are uncoordinated, perhaps even adversarial

Understanding the levels People Processes Measurement Technology 1 2 3 4 5 Success depends on individuals Commitments are understood and managed People are trained

Understanding the levels People Processes Measurement Technology 1 2 3 4 5 Project groups work together, perhaps as an integrated team Training is planned and provided according to rolesv

Understanding the levels People Processes Measurement Technology 1 2 3 4 5 Strong sense of teamwork exists within each project

Understanding the levels People Processes Measurement Technology 1 2 3 4 5 Strong sense of teamwork exists across the organization Everyone is involved in process improvement

6. Capability Maturity Models
More in “Good Projects Gone Bad” on SlideShare
http://www.slideshare.net/edsonm/good-projects-gone-bad-an-introduction-to-process-maturity-1384375

7. Thor Hyerdahl & Shark Wrestling

On the Kon Tiki raft, he did an outrageous thing “just to show everyone why he was the captain” (As remembered from a speech at the National Geographic.)
Sometimes you have to do crazy things

Web Tech Guy and Angry Staff Person
http://smithsonian20.typepad.com/blog/2009/03/web-t.html

8. Do Stuff that Matters

Tim O’Reilly http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/01/work-on-stuff-that-matters-fir.html
Work on something that matters more than money
Create more value than you capture
Take the long view

Cutting the “let’s collaborate more” crap
We don’t get paid to collaborate, we get paid to do important stuff— stuff that matters!
Dedicate yourself to important work, measure progress towards those goals, and fix anything that gets in the way. Collaboration is a means to an end.

Don't be afraid to fail. There's a wonderful poem by Rainer Maria Rilke that talks about the biblical story of Jacob wrestling with an angel, being defeated, but coming away stronger from the fight. It ends with an exhortation that goes something like this: "What we fight with is so small, and when we win, it makes us small. What we want is to be defeated, decisively, by successively greater things."
Tim O’Reilly

What Failure Looks Like
Today's session was appalling to me. The topics that curators were there to discuss -- especially open access vs. curatorial control -- were never on the table, and it seemed engineered so that would happen. It seemed clear that you had marching orders and were asking "leading" questions to point the audience toward centralization as the solution…
--Post-workshop evaluation
http://smithsonian-webstrategy.wikispaces.com/Curation+and+Resarch+Post-Workshop+Evaluation

Do Stuff that Matters
Tim O’Reilly http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/01/work-on-stuff-that-matters-fir.html
Don’t be afraid to think big
Success as a byproduct of your goals
Let others make more of/with your ideas, assets, work

9. The Majestic Vision
We’ve drifted from the Majestic Vision (Peter Schwartz’s term)
And it’s needed now, in a time of great change
A lot of organizations looking hard at their mission statements now
Widsom-making? The Increase and Diffusion of Knowledge?

10. Give Courage to Others
The difference between leading and managing
What you do and say gives me courage to push a little farther, be a little bolder, have confidence that I’m not a fraud or crazy
My job is, in part, to give others around me confidence to take a stand, speak out, and move forward.

[Clip available on request]

Thank you!
Michael Edson
Smithsonian Institution

Michael Edson, Resource Sharing Remixed

by Michael Edson on May 13, 2009

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