…..and Aveez.org

Browsing through these sites I realize I was only half awake and that our planet really IS in an awful lot of trouble. The first task appears to be that we ALL waken up.

And speaking of waking up – I somehow missed this special day about that very thing :

Over the last ten years organizational teams have become more distributed and very complex. Despite the number of technologies available to assist teams and groups, it is still exceedingly difficult to manage teams.

I use the term ‘organizational’ very loosely. By “organizational teams,” I mean teams working within organizations that could be solid, vertically integrated corporate entities, government departments, networked business clusters, ‘not for profit’ communities, informal “task forces,” social groupings and special interest groups.

Individual team members may belong to many of these teams on a part-time and ad hoc basis – they may see each other frequently, or never ever meet physically – conducting all communications electronically or via the web.

And contrary to popular belief, the introduction of all real-time conferencing and collaboration technologies can actually make things worse. It may distract team members from their real business objectives and drive them into ongoing loops of technology experimentations. In these situations, the focus on the work mission is often lost in favor of mastering and attempting to extract ever increasing benefits from the technology itself.

So why is it so difficult to successfully manage teams today? I believe there are two main reasons:

• Teams are using the wrong model to organize themselves
• Teams are not keeping pace with the rapid changes in their business environments’

So says Ken Thompson the author of ‘Bioteams‘. Ken’s book provides a convincing argument that to survive and thrive in to-days rapidly changing environment, teams need to mimic the structure of nature’s most successful designs. For example those found in beehives, anthills, and viruses. This book is a fascinating read for anyone curious about what its going to take to move teams and organizations into the hyper-linked, knowledge economy of the mid-21st century.

The Community Engagement Tool – inspired by nature.

Discover how you can enlist your key audiences – consumers, fans, citizens, staff, members or delegates – and transform them into proactive advocates of your cause, community or product.
Like a lot of the new social networking and collaborative tools – at first glance it takes a few moments to catch onto what they are offering to do for us. However what caught my eye immediately was the concept of turning audiences into communities. Inspired by natural systems SwarmTeams promises much in terms of collaborative possiabilities.

You may have heard me mention in other posts that I am quite convinced that the traditional business model is changing so fast and so drastically that in a few years ‘communities’ will replace ‘brands’ and ‘community members’ will replace ‘consumers’. Social networking /marketing is one of the main forces behind this shift. SwarmTeams is a great concept – and well worth a visit – I would love to hear what others think about.

This is Fritjof Capra has put it: “Detailed study of ecosystems over the past decades has shown quite clearly that most relationships between living organisms are essentially cooperative ones, (my emphasis) characterized by coexistence and interdependence, and symbiotic in various degrees. Although there is competition, it usually takes place within a wider context of cooperation, so that the larger system is kept in balance.”

If natural systems do hold lessons about developing our own resilience, then we have to take a new look at the role competition and cooperation play in human systems (politics, business, etc.)