Fear of The Digital runs deep. (….) Our fears are nowhere more visible than in our idiosyncratic compulsion to repeatedly study the same tired, settled questions. Do computers improve writing? Do links improve reading?….

(…) This is neither necessary nor acceptable. We hold in our hands the literary machines for which we have striven for a generation and for which past generations longed. We should use them without fear, and if we cannot, we should take care that the children do not see the irrational fears we cannot control but of which we are, or should be, ashamed.

Perhaps the essence of the Liberal outlook could be summed up in a new decalogue, not intended to replace the old one but only to supplement it. The Ten Commandments that, as a teacher, I should wish to promulgate, might be set forth as follows:

1. Do not feel absolutely certain of anything.

2. Do not think it worth while to proceed by concealing evidence, for the evidence is sure to come to light.

3. Never try to discourage thinking for you are sure to succeed.

4. When you meet with opposition, even if it should be from your husband or your children, endeavor to overcome it by argument and not by authority, for a victory dependent upon authority is unreal and illusory.

5. Have no respect for the authority of others, for there are always contrary authorities to be found.

6. Do not use power to suppress opinions you think pernicious, for if you do the opinions will suppress you.

7. Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.

8. Find more pleasure in intelligent dissent than in passive agreement, for, if you value intelligence as you should, the former implies a deeper agreement than the latter.

9. Be scrupulously truthful, even if the truth is inconvenient, for it is more inconvenient when you try to conceal it.

10. Do not feel envious of the happiness of those who live in a fool’s paradise, for only a fool will think that it is happiness.

This piece on a HBR blog by Simon Rucker articulates this view quite well:

I’ve been advising organizations on transformational innovation for a decade now, and in my opinion, the lack of a singular, visionary — and frankly autocratic — someone in charge is one of the biggest reasons why transformational initiatives lose focus, seek the lowest common denominator, and ultimately fall short.

Steve Jobs clearly wasn’t the easiest of people to work with. But he was the sort of
brilliant, visionary, entrepreneurial individual organizations need, now more than ever.
The real challenge for organizations trying to innovate transformationally is not finding better insights or developing better intellectual property. The real challenge is providing the type of structure, resources, governance, and culture that actually enable the abrasive, original Steve Jobses of the world to do what they’re great at.

And that is a transformation that most modern organizations are seemingly unable to make.

However, I think he probably puts the cart before the horse. What’s becoming clearer as anatomies of Jobs’ leadership come to the surface is that he fashioned a highly autocratic and disciplined organisation that allow his creative vision to be realised. Many other companies entrust the work of innovation to the wider workforce but then don’t have the structural form or cultural norms in place to harness it. Ideas flourish but focus is never realised. Oceans of innovative thinking sit unconstrained throughout an organisation but there’s no organisational form to contain and channel it.

The genius of Jobs was his discipline not his creativity.

“When people write critically about Facebook, they often say that “you are the product being sold,” but I think that by now we all get that. The digital substance of our friendships belongs to these companies, and they are loath to share it with others. So we build our little content farms within, friending and upthumbing, learning to accept that our new landlords are people who grew up on Power Rangers. This is, after all, the way of our new product-based civilization — in order to participate as a citizen of the social web, you must yourself manufacture content. Progress requires that forms must be filled. Thus it is a critical choice of any adult as to where they will perform their free labor. Tens of millions of people made a decision to spend their time with the simple, mobile photo-sharing application that was not Facebook because they liked its subtle interface and little filters. And so Facebook bought the thing that is hardest to fake. It bought sincerity.”

The article inspires some rather fierce criticisms. One thread is about Ford’s comments on the code Facebook uses, namely PHP, and includes this nice profile of different coding communities:

PHP programmers are the unwashed masses who nail wooden wheel-barrows to the back of their jalopies to haul their monstrous piles of spaghetti code

Perl Programmers are escaped insane asylum inmates who travel by inflatable unicycle and speak in backwards esperanto

Python programmers are snobbish Montessori schoolers who drink imported coffee and smell their own farts while critiquing Phillip Glass music.

2010 AAA Inno-vent: “Silence and Silos: The Problems of Fractured Thought in Finance” by Dr. Gillian Tett, Financial Times from American Anthropological Assn. on Vimeo.

The open secret of the new electronic media, the decisive political factor, which has been waiting, suppressed or crippled, for its moment to come is their mobilizing power. When I say mobilize, I mean mobilize, make men more mobile than they are. As free as dances, as aware as football players, as surprising as guerillas…For the first time in history, the media are making possible mass participation in a social and socialized productive process, the practical means of which are in the hands of the masses themselves.