Members’ connections to Orgs

Negotiating From A Leader’s Perspective

February 27, 2013

Tweet There’s a lot of terrific advice out there to help you negotiate your total compensation package when you’re accepting a new job. While this advice helps you as an individual get what you personally need, most negotiation advice overlooks how you can transform your personal compensation negotiation into a demonstration of your leadership. This […]

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Why Zipcar Is Not the “Sharing Economy”

January 9, 2013

Zipcar isn’t a sharing business, so it can’t create the sharing economy. Who can? Businesses that support customer-to-customer relationships and reciprocal caring.

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Boost Economies Don’t Unleash Potential — They Channel It

September 19, 2012

Tweet Conversations with Traci Fenton of WorldBlu and Paul Carlile at Boston University have me thinking about the link between the Boost economy and human potential. When Traci describes the value of organizational democracy, she explains that it unleashes human potential and helps to change the world. When Paul describes decision-making processes designed to facilitate […]

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Sharing Success in Etsy’s Community of Commerce

March 30, 2012

Tweet The most promising feature of a community of commerce is the way that members in that community work to ensure each other’s success, even if helping others costs them something. When members in a community help each other, we often don’t notice that there is a real cost in giving that help. Instead, because […]

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“Social” Media Make “Voice” and Contribution Possible

February 22, 2012

Tweet What does it mean for organizations to become more “social”? Becoming “social” means that more people across the organization can contribute their ideas and have influence. Why? Because social technologies make it possible for more people to have Voice. What is Voice? Voice is having a say with the expectation that you will also […]

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Extended Organizations: Finding the Boundaries and Naming the Contents

February 1, 2012

Tweet Can you help me out with a messy research-related question? What are the best ways to set boundaries around subsets of an “extended organization”, and then give these subsets names so that they are easy to talk about? The problem seems on the surface looks like a question of semantics (i.e., what to call […]

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Communities of Commerce: Where the Marketplace is also the Meaning Place

January 11, 2012

Tweet Networks of people and organizations are usually either “markets” or “communities”. It bothers us that networks fit one or the other model of working together, because we envision something more –something both market and community —  in one network. We are often disappointed when markets don’t exhibit a commitment to any values other than […]

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Connecting to the Company Story: Coding is Crafting for Etsy’s Engineers

November 21, 2011

Tweet Every organization has a story. Any group that wants to be an important part of that organization needs to craft a place for itself in that story. The story an organization tells itself and shares with others helps everyone make sense of who the organization is. For members, the organization’s story helps them articulate […]

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The “New” Crisis of Meaning?

October 4, 2011

Tweet What’s up with the word “new” in the phrase “meaning is the new motivator”? From all corners of the interwebz conversation about ‘business’, I see mention of this idea that meaning at work is something new, something that we have just begun to desire. Seriously. It seems to come as a surprise, or as […]

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Pay Attention to How Social Media Communities Create ‘the Organization’

September 20, 2011

Tweet Why do so many social business advocates overlook the organizational value of online communities? Too many people dismiss online communities for not being central to the organizations they serve.  These critics dismiss communities for being merely social, just another way to chat or swap tips. Even when they acknowledge how communities can be critical […]

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