Inspired post by Dave Pollard today on the challenge of scale and the confusion of control. Complicated systems require few connections in order to be manageable: It is because business and government systems are wedded to the orthodoxy of hierarchy that as they become larger and larger (which such systems tend to do) they become more and more dysfunctional. Simply put, complicated hierarchical systems don’t scale. That is why we have runaway bureaucracy, governments that everyone hates, and the massive, bloated and inept Department of Homeland Security. But, you say, what about “economies of scale”? Why are we constantly merging …
Dan Pallotta at a TED talk on why overhead matters in non-profits. Here is the essence of the talk: Non-profits exist to alleviate social problems for which there is no market. Working at the level of causes means needing to take work to scale. Going to scale means that we need to grow the resources available (without using commerical or profit making methods). What is called “overhead” is actually the capacity to do this. Perlotta makes a compelling argument for increasing overhead in the non-profit sector and talks about why we have to change our mindsets in order to …
It’s an old saw with me, but Dave Snowdon puts it very nicely and succinctly: Numbers are good, but they are never the whole picture. Its easy to focus on them, they give the comfort of apparent objectivity and used to support human judgement they have high utility. The problem is when they replace judgement rather than supporting it. Of course in the ordered aspects of any enterprise statistics and numbers can do a lot of the work for you, but in a complex situation they can be dangerous. Applied to ordered aspects (boundary conditions, probes and the like) they …
Very interesting little article from David Wilcox about the differences between social entrepreneurs and social innovators. Here is how he describes those differences, from a tactical perspective: 4 Differences Between Social Entrepreneurs & Social Innovators Here are four reasons why social entrepreneurs are significantly different than nonprofit social innovators: 1. Two Worlds Most foundations and many nonprofits came into existence through a significant donor or donation. The people who shepherd the outcomes for those donors must be attentive and accommodating. Quite simply, donors drive much of the nonprofit world’s activities. Most social entrepreneurs start with their very personal …
Here is a case of getting seduced by the numbers and sucked into the wrong thinking. This article is looking for interesting ways to measure the growth of the global middle class. It does a generally poor job of it. The whole article is a bit of a dodge. Using made up numbers to render a quantifiable mark for an abstract concept, concluding in a blithe statement about a billion car pile up. But the money quote I think is in the conclusion, about what this materialist and upwardly mobile trend in the world says: The people of this burgeoning …