Heard from a friend at the RSC (Royal Shakespeare Company) today, and was reminded of what the author Tom Wolf recently said regarding the current world economy and who we look to for influence.

Wolf said: "Wall Street is like Broadway. Nothing new happens there anymore".

Here's to the people at the RSC who work so hard to carry on the work of theatre. The way Shakespeare was, and is, always current.

Here's to the RSC's willingness to confront the search for truth, humanity and politics.

In today's world, they are a very old company brave enough to work in earnest.

Sal

Interesting Article About Facebook Use

I am working with some grad students who make the point that much of what we so urgently here about now regarding networking issues is old news to them.

They wonder "why did it take so long for people to talk about this stuff?"

Sal

By RANDY COHEN
Published: July 1, 2009

My friend is a popular eighth-grade teacher. She has a Facebook account and has been “friended” by many of her students, who make their pages available to her. Consequently, she has learned a lot about them, including the inevitable under-age drinking and drug use and occasional school-related mischief like cheating on tests or plagiarizing assignments. Must she report any of this to the school, the police or the parents? The school has no policy for dealing with this modern problem. A.S., NEW YORK

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/05/magazine/05FOB-ethicist-t.html

What's New and Good and Bad

Today, for the first time in the history of the work place, we have a small army of workers who are skilled at creating and using visual media. An arena that was previously held for "experts".

And, I understand that visual media dates back to the cave days. Every tribe has it's story tellers. Now, everyone has a pallet.

I was listening to a radio discussion about cruelty on U Tube. How people actually find humor in human suffering with certain videos.

One response regarding a video apparently showing someone in mental and physical torment was: "I did not even think the person was real".

This got me to thinking. I spend considerable time developing and observing social networks and social network analysis. It is becoming clear to me that the very same mechanisms for creating community also can and do build arenas totally absent of empathy.

This lack of empathy was a notion put forth by the commentator during his interview.

I also began to think that the ability to network is new, but then again, is it? And, it seems that many people, build networks, text one another and use abbreviated language to build a sense of home. A home that is theirs. Not their parent's home, or their relative's home, but their own home.

Historically, there are many references to arenas without empathy. In Ancient Rome for example, empathy was a vote by the aristocracy and a cry from the public for yes or no.

Our ability to network is deeper than the social marketing hype we are experiencing today.

It has something to do with our nature. And that, we must always recognize as good and capable of what is bad.
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Sal

Lost a friend this week

Gerald Frisch died the other day. Jerry was the inventor of The Three Way Validation process.

Simply put, Jerry's process was developed long before technology would exist to accomplish what his system identified.

Jerry was committed to concepts like:

• No proposals. Only Action Plans.

• Helping CEOs discover if their intentions were really communicated and acted upon by managers, workers and associated communication strategies.

Jerry was in his early ninety's when he provoked me to attend several meetings with NYC hospital executives. He would leave these meetings with a clear notion of who was the real activist and who was the complacent buyer who would not act on anything valuable.

He started his career in the Armed Forces, went on to U.S. News and World Report and then formed his own company.

I learned a great deal from him. I will miss his difficult self and the challenges he gave me to keep up with his thinking.

Sal

A Great Deal is Being Missed in My Neighborhood

Today, several imperatives exist to create ethical, meaningful and profitable business

• Transparency of intentions and expectations. People need to understand what you are about and what’s in it for them, in order to engage during a stressful time.

• Statements like “added value” can be interpreted as bromides unless there is some visible example of what you are talking about

• In today’s networked environment, connecting to underlying issues and related community needs will support decisions to stimulate the buying of services. This must be understood as foundational and not theoretical.

Small businesses with BIG problems and Big businesses with many SMALL problems that will become enormous. Information, communication and transformation, using any media that creates a Network of useful change

In February, during The Ideas to Help NYC's Economy event sponsored by Crains, it was stated that re-vitalizing the economy of New York City is “dependent upon the development of small businesses…small business cannot make the mistakes of big business”. It’s true, we must support the small business community and we cannot afford the “big” mistakes.

There is however, a current and curious imbalance

Too many small businesses are closing, due to sudden and unusually high rent increases in areas like Greenwich Village. And, even before that terrible surprise occurs, these owners may not have had the finances or ability to have developed fundamental business plans.

In larger organizations, silos act like neighborhoods or fiefdoms, avoiding collaboration and resulting in lost ROI. A walk along Hudson Street in NYC, is an alarming example of businesses that are gone forever with a significant number of these properties abandoned for several years.

Interestingly, we now have a small army of experienced advisers who have no work. Included are business transformation, IT, financial services and web development experts. Small businesses represent neighborhoods in need. We are not connecting these work seeking experts with those neighborhood needs and the relationship to the larger economy.

Neighborhood degeneration is costly in every way

Financial, cultural and security issues are all at question. What’s missing and what I believe in offering, is a proven methodology based on rapid discovery with the ability to align intentions, strategy and results.

It’s not traditional or costly consulting. This approach helps to contemporize and accelerate the work of everyone who is involved. I am interested in getting business for myself and with my colleagues, by helping others find meaningful work, using a networked approach to help one another.

It's important today, to collect real data to dissect significant problems and provide actual communication steps that can be used immediately, to create measurable improvement.

Small businesses create conversations that define our commerce and culture

Today, I had several conversations with store owners who live for their family business. The conversations were deeply moving and totally relevant to the vitality of NYC's economy and life.

Sal

"It's noboby. Just the IT guy"

A new Turner Broadcast television show called Trust Me, is set in a traditional Chicago big scale advertising company.

The show has a ring of giving life to a dinosaur and not really connected to today's business environment.

I though it was an ironic moment tonight, when I caught this comment.

The senior creative director was hiding his boss in the creative director's office. Seems that his boss had been sent home to calm down after an intramural altercation.

When a copy writer (and the show has some pretty solid work place stereotypes), asked the creative director - "who's in there?" - the response was : "Oh, that's nobody. It's the IT guy".

Now, that rang true. And maybe, the only moment of the show that did.

Out of touch dinosaurs in all industries, always give themselves away with the simple language of exclusion and silo behavior.

How many organizations still think of IT as the help desk?

While it is not uncommon to respect and even publicize the IT functions of a company, it's another thing to collaborate with IT to achieve business objectives and strategies.

I am not saying anything new. In fact, that's the point.

Sometimes, pop-culture TV is more insightful than intended.

Sal

Olympus Medical Center (WA) gets approval for a $2 million GE Centricity practice EMR purchase. This board member must know hospital IT: "There are going to be changes. I just feel them. And I think all of them are going to cost money."

Posted on HIStalk today.

http://histalk2.com/2009/03/28/monday-morning-update-33009/