A Tale of Two Hope Machines, 9.0

The Power of Pull, initially published in 2010, just now out in paperback, is one of my favorite books of the last few years. In this section, I'd first like to overview it broadly-shallowly-quickly and then relate two of its big ideas narrowly-deeply-deliberately to Red Treehouse and UCP. 

Here’s how I see things unfolding:

9.1: OVERVIEW /KEY CONCEPTS

Thesis. “To get better faster at whatever it is you do, you’ve got to be supported by a broad array of complementary people and resources from which you can pull what you need to raise your rate of performance improvement.” 

Three levels of pull. Pulling is about accessing (searching), attracting (making serendipitous connections), and achieving (collaborating). The last set of practices entails participating in what the authors call creation spaces -- which are akin to Gartner’s collaborative communities. 

Success formula. Use pull techniques to: (1) define compelling trajectories for change, (2) provide leverage to the passionate individuals who are attracted to these trajectories, and (3) amplify the impact of these individuals. 

9.2: SHAPING STRATEGIES

"By grasping how pull works we can build institutions that can act as platforms to catapult change, and maybe even transform the world in necessary and far-reaching ways." 

Should UCP pursue a shaping strategy, i.e., should it attempt to reshape the CP arena on a global scale? Based on the BIG SKY PROJECT vision of the future for people with disabilitiles, is UCP already moving in this direction?  

Inquiring minds want to know. 

9.3: KNOWLEDGE STOCKS AND FLOWS

The authors contend that the sources of economic value are moving from "stocks" of knowledge to "flows" of new knowledge, and that we must "accelerate a shift to a very different mindset and to practices that treat knowledge flows as the central opportunity and knowledge stocks as a useful by-product and key enabler." 

What are the implications for UCP and Red Treehouse?

I can say already that the implications are huge. Our new ways of knowing impact everything these organizations do. In posts 9.3+, I'd like to look closely at UCP's Public Education & Outreach (PEO) efforts -- and then use that as a springboard for exploring David Weinberger's new book about "networked knowledge" (Too Big To Know) in section ten.

Getting Smarter Faster

We thus do not yet have any good idea 

of what cannot be done by connected humans 

when working at the scale of the Net.*

Sure would be nice to be able to broadcast to the world “Here’s a description of my precious little girl. She wants to live a life without limits.** We’re looking for knowledge and related resources we can use.” -- and to have what she needs come streamin’ in: automatically, continuously, and right on target.

What kinds of knowledge and resources? Well, answers to all the questions I have in mind to ask; ideas and information that hadn't previously occurred to me to look for; opportunities to collaborate with others to create new knowledge...

I want my daughter to be an epicenter for these heady things. 

I’ve read enough books filled with enough accounts of effective, real-world "pulling" to believe she could be. Here's a wee bit about three (3) such books worth noting as they relate to our discussion:

• Pull: The Power of the Semantic Web to Transform Your Business [2009] by David Siegel. The so-called semantic web is “a new way of packaging information to make it much more useful and reusable.” It represents a vision (at this point) of what the Net could become, i.e., an extremely powerful tool for getting what we need when we need it.

• Too Big To Know [2011] by David Weinberger. Everything you ever wanted to know about knowledge in our new networked world. Among many other things pull-related, Mr. Weinberger writes thoughtfully about strategies for filtering knowledge (forward) in order to successfully keep on keepin’ on. 

• The Power of Pull [2010] by John Hagel, John Seely Brown and Lang Davison. About ways individuals, teams and other groups are using pull techniques to their advantage. I’m most interested in what they have to say about "shaping strategies," which have to do with motivating big groups of people and institutions to work together to solve problems.

The notion that we can use the Net to perform better -- i.e., be more efficient, learn faster, and have greater impact -- runs through each book. Hagel, Brown and Davison, in particular, talk in terms of “increasing the rate at which we can improve performance.”

How might "performance" enter in when we're talking about CP? In countless ways, I'm sure, but what matters most is how well our kids are performing.

I wonder: 

• Can we use the Net to help more kids with CP achieve more than anyone's ever dreamed possible?

• How quickly can we get to the point where we’re laughing at the very things that are limiting our kids today? 

• Could it be that what holds our kids back the most are our limited capacities as adults to learn and imagine better ways of doing things?

*from Too Big To Know
** "For people with a spectrum of disabilities, life should be without limits" comes from United Cerebral Palsy (UCP).