Tell me more about this, because most of it seems stated in the reverse of what I’d expect. I’m trying to make sure I understand what you’re saying and why.

Collaboration, and tributaries, can only fit into processes when they are considered as a whole, not as contextual interactions or built around informal ever-evolving artifacts. Those are built layer upon layer, and cannot -shouldn’t- be rationalized at global level.

Not only are processes a vestige of how business operates, but they also a reminder of how closed businesses used to be. Socializing processes means optimizing internal operations, up to the point where we get perfect black boxes. As Martijn said, directly facing (I don’t like the word BTW) customers involves adopting new behaviors. ‘Internal’ is more and more losing any meaning, as business changes focus from production to knowledge flows exchange.

are you constructing a framework for the Unknown Unknowns?
I agree it all should be able to be Organised so it fits into an Orgnaisation – E1.0 or hiveminded network or anything in between

I’m a hardcore linguist and fairly ignorant in science and physics, but I get your point. Attraction is a fine word I think! But, to please you, I did some reading and came up with Strong Interaction (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strong_interaction) as the New Force

And, by the way, Jo Jordan has made some very fine comments and points here indeed. She is @jobucks on Twitter (http://twitter.com/jobucks)

I’m only discovering details of the same right now as I go through one case. For knowledge work the goal is to facilitate the formation of tributaries — flows of conversation upon which work can travel. While you can choose to start in a variety of places one place to start is with critical knowledge artifacts — things people rely on to get their job done. In manufacturing it might be designs.

Then you have to determine the “context of use” for these artifacts and establish a framework whereby these artifacts can be served up in various contexts without having to be locked into a process. They can flow through states using tags/metadata and can otherwise be ‘raised to attention’ by various means.

We seem to forget that process is a vestige of the business and how it operates. We’re shifting to the realm of the individual and how they operate.

Martin: A HUGE issue with the book “Pull” — the concept of the title is flawed (everything else is great, buy it, but translate it as you read). In physics push/pull are equal exertions of energy. The more useful, meaningful term would be “Draw”, where the elements attract one another or repel one another, as is relevant to their respective goals. In the realm of complexity, it’s “energy for free”.

And who is this Jo Jordan? I’m completely smitten. Wearing sunglasses to tolerate the brilliance.

Let’s rewrite this. Let’s imagine I am the HR Director in a consortium. My job is to anticipate skill needs and to figure out how to source those skills on the external market and to grow them within.

Skills are growing so fast they are outdated even before students graduate. So I need a critical mass of people interacting. I don’t just need them to be available. I also need them interacting to produce the skills. I don’t just need them to keep up either. They are going to produce skills presently unknown so I have to give them their head and arrange quite peripheral parameters to encourage interaction.

How do I secure their attention? Do I have enough money to say ‘drop everything else you are doing. Come here everyday “(physically or online – it scarcely matters).

And if I have this concentration of capital, where does it come from? Whose surplus have I extracted and how? What are these businesses that create such high levels of profitability and under what terms do they operate to be so profitable? Does BP make its profits from oil or from financial arbitrage for example? And what is protecting these businesses? You can see where this going. This isn’t a business that rests on developing skill. It is a business that rests on protecting privilege. They’ll survive a while but their fundamental drive is not excellence. There efforts go to the seige which is real because they defined it so. Bit like apartheid South Africa.

So lets get real. How do we relate to businesses that we work with? With good but limited and iterative contracts up and down the supply chain. We don’t want the contracs long term because they hobble creativity and slow down the reallocation of capital (they are one player of many.) Someone signing to a long term contract is mad. They will be deskilling so fast within a year or two they have little to offer anyone else. You see this in employment. Almost all jobs above entry level are hiring you for a) your client list or b) you willingness to use force against subordinates.

So what happens to individuals? They need to be drivers of their own prosperity. They are not small one person outfits but they chose each project because they are inspired by the interactions with others and see something, still undefined, emerging. At a certain point, they “pass the parcel” and work on another projec.

What happens to taxes, social security, pensions, etc.? Those are downstream from a model of business. Always have been. The process of choosing, investing doesn’t stop on a predetermined age. It carries on till the day we die – like the Queen of England for example! Though of course she has huge personal wealth in property. But even her “employment income” and “expenses budget” is plummeting!

Thierry, big organizations will fail because their fundamental social model privileges capital. Capital is now concentrated in the hands of the few. They don’t know what to do with it. If money doesn’t circulate, like blood it rots.

A strong country and economy is strong in the middle. A few very rich for us to entertain us with their antics. A few casualities whom we can protect at the level of family. And a deep rich middle where we trade and trade and trade. There are differences in wealth but they should be as fluid as a sports game -one way one minute the other way the next. Up one season down another but all still playing each other and collectively getting better.

How do we get from A to B? I would say be example. Do it. Govts will take their taxes from you and continue to provide welfare. But to wait for a grand plan? That won’t happen. And then it will be too late.

A big company who is inclined to move in your direction will seek you out when you are successful. That is their nature. They don’t develop. They take. They will only listen with that motivation. Make them jealous, in other words.