Exploring the Social Age
Issue #128
The Social Age is the term i use to describe the new context of our Organisations, and society more broadly. It is a time of radical connectivity, a general rebalancing of power between formal and social systems, and the rise of community. Individually some changes are small (the democratisation of publishing, or the synchronicity of communication), but at scale they speak to a paradigmatic shift.
In a new type of context, we will need new types of Organisation, and indeed new structures of society more broadly. Almost everything is changing, from the nature of how our democracies operate, to the need for high streets and malls, from our understanding of how we ‘own’ cars, to the distance at which a single voice can be heard.
My work is held in a principle of #WorkingOutLoud, by which i share my evolving thinking, founded upon research and practice. The nature of this approach is that i am often wrong, frequently confused, and occasionally able to ‘join the dots’.
In my world, this is enough: if answers are found easily they are not necessarily correct. Most likely there is no ‘answer’, but there is great value in knowing how to quest, how to experiment, prototype and learn.
And within this rapidly evolving space, our own certainty may be our biggest challenge and barrier to change.
Individual voices are held within broader societal narratives: say something that deviates too far from the ‘norm’ and you risk being cast aside. The averaging effect of our communities tells us one things clearly: that we need diversification and interconnection. The most spaces that we sit in, the more likely we are to be able to hear different voices and perspectives, and to learn whether, and how, to change.
If we are lucky, we will manage to fracture our own certainty.
In the context of the Social Age we are most likely seeing a shift towards connected capability, a very dynamic network effect, which challenges the impermeability of Organisations. We are effective within the arms of communities that are not employed directly.
It’s likely that we will see a revision of the fundamental structures of society, something i explored in this writing a few weeks ago.
https://julianstodd.wordpress.com/2022/09/26/paradigms/
This space, this community, and the parallel ones that i inhabit, for me these are exploratory spaces. Chances to catch a glimpse of our new truths, but places to stumble as well.
To explore, together.
My Writing
My writing has been more varied this week, ranging from exploring ‘power’, through ‘culture’, and into a consideration of our systems of ‘learning’ and how they must evolve.
If you reduce any human or organisational system to it’s core, a useful lens to use is that of ‘power’. To understand who has it, how it operates, and the different parallel systems that we inhabit.
https://julianstodd.wordpress.com/2022/10/13/all-about-power/
Power is one feature of how our social systems are tribal: granular structures of individuals bonded by trust, need, pride, purpose and so on. Organisational change can be viewed in this way: as a shift of formal structures (the things you can see) and underlying social ones (which you may not). Hence we can end up with islands: legacy structures that have not truly ‘changed’. So the new Organisation can end up with ‘islands’.
https://julianstodd.wordpress.com/2022/10/11/islands-of-culture/
These last two pieces are both, in their way, about disaggregation and revolution:
This first considers how the formal structures of our legacy Organisations may be outdated.
https://julianstodd.wordpress.com/2022/10/10/system-and-structure/
And this second looks specifically at Learning - as a function - and how it may need to be re-written. This was spurred in part by my time at the World of Learning conference this week.
https://julianstodd.wordpress.com/2022/10/12/learning-fragments-fracturing-the-learning-function/
Whilst varied, overall i have felt that i’ve had a good tempo with writing and illustration this week.
With best wishes
Julian