Community

How Generosity At Work Saved a Local Business

April 26, 2016

Tweet  ~ crossposted from cvharquail.com ~ A story from my own hometown… When I was getting my start-of-the-semester haircut in February, I was surprised to see Hannah, the woman who cuts my teenagers’ hair, working in the hair salon I go to. Hannah normally works at Parlor, which has a hipster clientele. Yet here she […]

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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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From Generativity to Generosity: What’s at the core of these new business practices?

October 2, 2014

Tweet I’m experimenting with shifting from generativity to generosity to describe what’s unique about the business processes I’ve been studying, trying to distill these ideas into a form that’s simple and easy to convey. Can the term generosity carry these ideas well? At the very core of generativity is the concept of generosity. It’s not for […]

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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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Generativity, in General

March 28, 2014

Tweet The word ‘generative’ may be unfamiliar to many business people, but the quality of generativity is something we’ve sought in our companies and our work practices for a long time.   Something is generative when it’s able to create something new, something original, or something alive. A generative idea produces new ideas, a generative process […]

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Don’t Tell Esty That Authenticity Is Getting “Old” — The Social Dynamic Between Crafters and Buyers is Timeless

October 27, 2011

Tweet “A deluge of vintage and artisanal products is now available online and through mass-market retailers. Has authenticity become just another fad?”   Here’s a quick response to today’s New York Times article by Emily Weinstein, All That Authenticity May Be Getting Old, about the flood of ‘authentic’, handmade and one-of-a-kind-ish items on the home […]

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How to Design Social Business Systems For Engaged, Social Organizations

June 23, 2011

Tweet Organizations are social — they always have been. But, organizations have rarely been designed intentionally to help us flourish as social beings while we work together. Neither our analog systems nor our digital systems have been designed to help us bring more of our social selves to our work together. But, it’s not that […]

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5 Ways That Systems of Engagement Bring Out Our Full Social Selves

June 22, 2011

Tweet Technology has a way of sucking the humanity right out of us. Consider how we describe, design and deploy ‘enterprise 2.0’ and work system technologies in our organizations: — When we talk about technology systems, we talk about machines, platforms, inputs and outputs.  We forget about values, emotion, flourishing, meaning and purpose. — When […]

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7 Ways That Social Business Advice is Wrong for Your Organization

June 9, 2011

Tweet “Social Business” is coming to your organization, whether you’re ready or not. Social business tools, also known as enterprise social media or systems of engagement, are increasingly being advocated by vendors and consultants as tools that help any organization do its work better. But, while the influx of social tools could really benefit your […]

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An Agenda for Management Innovation: 25 Challenges

January 27, 2009

Tweet 1. Ensure that management’s work serves a higher purpose. Management, both in theory and practice, must orient itself to the achievement of noble, socially significant goals. 2. Fully embed the ideas of community and citizenship in management systems. There’s a need for processes and practices that reflect the interdependence of all stakeholder groups. 3. […]

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