Social Media, Web 2.0 & Org 2.0

Generative Business Practice: Questions from Harvard’s Digital Initiative

November 25, 2014

Tweet I got lots of feedback from the folks who participated in the HBS Digital Initiative seminar where I presented some big picture ideas about generative practices.   As promised, I’m summarizing what they shared with me on the index cards we used to gather up ideas. While I was so. glad. that I asked […]

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Growth Hacking To Scale Generosity

August 14, 2014

Tweet When a startup like Harrys.com launches with an outreach campaign that that gets 85K potential customers to share their email address, people are impressed. When the cofounder of that company writes a 3,700 word explanation of what they did to achieve those results, and then posts it on one of America’s most popular business blogs […]

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Three Design Principles for Generative Business

March 20, 2014

Tweet As I was being nudged to consider whether the term “boost” really captured the central dynamic of generative businesses, I realized that it actually only represented the very first element of what it takes to be generative. Note: Since this is more like an essay than a post, I’ve added some jumps so that […]

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What Makes Digital Tech Companies Models of Generativity?

March 13, 2014

Tweet Buffer, WordPress, AirBnB, Waze, LoveWithFood, ModCloth, Etsy— so many of the organizations I’m using as examples of generative businesses share a similar profile: They are relatively small, young, organized around a core software process or product, filled with coders and developers, and part of a specific tech community. Why is generativity such a defining […]

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Hacking the Code of Misogynist Media: #HackItBack

March 9, 2014

Tweet I love it when worlds elide, and you find yourself in a space that contains your hopes and dreams. I had a little bit of that yesterday, when I got to participate in the #HackItBack event — the brainchild of artist/advocate Patricia Zablah— at the LowerEastSide Girls Club. #HackItBack Patricia and her team created #HackItBack, a workshop […]

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Working Out Loud In Public: A Boost Practice

November 21, 2013

Tweet One of the easiest ways for your organization to be generous and create opportunities for others is to share your learning. Keeping all your learning inside your own organization is a stingy behavior. It’s the organization’s form of knowledge hiding or knowledge hoarding. Sure, keeping your knowledge inside your own business’s walls keeps other […]

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“Data Shame”: Can It Actually Boost Business-to-Business Relationships?

March 13, 2013

Tweet Data shame It’s such a striking concept, it’s hard to believe that “data shame” gets only two legit google hits — one in a blog post and another in a glossary. I only heard the term a few weeks ago in a presentation at Social Media Week NYC about Open Data for the Public […]

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Self-Reliance Versus Interdependence in The Boost Economy

June 15, 2012

Tweet Being independent and “going it alone” can feel very satisfying. Our culture prizes independent initiative, so much so that we often overlook the importance of working with each other to help each other. I see this bias towards independence when gurus talk about leaders as though followers don’t exist. And, I see this bias […]

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“Add Women and Stir” Won’t Keep Women In Tech

May 16, 2012

Tweet How do we get and keep more women in technology-related careers? How do we increase the number of women creators, makers, designers, and coders? Why not just add more women to the mix, and go from there?  When all we do is “add women and stir”, without simultaneously and deliberately changing that system, we aren’t going to […]

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What Level of Social Business Change Do You Really Want?

March 29, 2012

Tweet What level of change do you really want from social business? Do you want a little bit, or a whole lot? Do you want process improvement? Or, Do you want organizational transformation? Social technology means organizational change. Social Business and social technologies are indeed bringing changes into your organization. That we know. But what […]

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