Comments on: Of shoes and money …. and information

By: Cognitive Surplus: Did TV Kill the Book? « Becoming A Woman

Cognitive Surplus: Did TV Kill the Book? « Becoming A Woman — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 20:14:31 +0000

[...] that both laymen/women and the well connected canunderstand it, speaks to the power of information. JP of Confusedof Calcutta recently posted on how information is power and thatit is bound to be shared and attempts to stop [...]

By: Pictures and words: musing about open multisided platforms

Pictures and words: musing about open multisided platforms — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 18:12:37 +0000

[...] platforms. Open source people don’t go looking for monetisation models, they solve problems. They make shoes, not money. So it was with open platforms. Whenever you mentioned them in conversation, the first question was [...]

By: Ramble On - Quotes of the Day

Ramble On - Quotes of the Day — Thu, 08 May 2008 02:09:21 +0000

[...] JP Rangaswami I have found the following to be true of large organisations: [...]

By: businessmodel innovation _ design » Sharing information and Collaboration

businessmodel innovation _ design » Sharing information and Collaboration — Wed, 07 May 2008 19:09:16 +0000

[...] I stumbled upon some good thoughts by JP Rangaswami (”Of shoes and money …. and information“) on trust, collaboration, free flow of information and more. Sad but true, but that’s [...]

By: Rhys Jones

Rhys Jones — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 11:00:27 +0000

Its an interesting theme. The change in behaviour outside the organisation to use search as the predominant way of getting information rather than the paper generation model of file and retreive my own information hasnt yet caught on in organisations. Im sure it will change in time but quite slowly. Information is still believed to give power in many organisations and lots of people are still actively rewarded for not sharing.

A couple of examples. As a salesperson, are my customer relationships mine or the company’s? The former benefits me the latter the company but takes away some of my (perceived) value. As an IT system owner do I make information in my system available to everyone freely though search or do I keep it closed to “drive usage”? Unless there is a culture of sharing already, its sometimes hard to do the right thing if there is personal benefit in not sharing (real or perceived).

I see this only changing by 2 mechanisms. The most powerful is your new employees who grew up with search approach to accessing information to whom the old paper-age way doesn’t make sense. The other mechanism could be by a benevolent dictator in the organisation re-aligning the reward structure to eliminate the conflict.

Until then, many of us will be frustrated and impatient for the rules to change in our day jobs…

By: Alice Bachini-Smith

Alice Bachini-Smith — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 20:08:01 +0000

The valuable commodity now is understanding/ wisdom, isn’t it? Everyone wants it because people will pay for it. Takes time and effort to acquire, even on a small scale (eg how to blog for your business). Originally, only the wise had access to information. Now we all do, but our wisdom still has a way to go to catch up (in many cases)! But good wise people have always given information away for free to genuine seekers.

By: Frymaster

Frymaster — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 17:47:27 +0000

You prove once again, JP, that some people deserve more than one weekend per week.

But please clarify for me. Are you saying that this process will directly de-couple power and information? Does power now accrue around the sharing of information?

Also, digging the new theme.

PS. Search Maeda on this blog for a long ago comment with a link to the RISD blog where he posts. Of my resources, he’s the “you” of design.

By: Brad

Brad — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 13:41:28 +0000

C.S. Lewis once wrote, “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
This is how I feel that people try to use information (power) in the world today. They try to say that how they handle their business is for the betterment of the company, country, etc. Just a thought.

By: juhi

juhi — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 11:02:20 +0000

this is off-topic but I couldn’t find any other way of asking – how do I subscribe to your feeds?

Really like the new elegant, neat look of your blog but the RSS feeds subscription from your previous avtar shows error and I’m unable to figure out how to re-subscribe!

Thanks.

P.S. I love your posts and how they unravel the influence of technology on our behaviour, thought patterns, interactions.