Mass-socialization: a threat to hierarchy and control
Jon Husband in Wirearchies applies principles of Inspector Lohmann’s building invisible comic community to the blogosphere:
[Inspector Lohmann] explores one of the central reasons why (IMO) blogging and connecting with each other to work at building new relationships is so important now, and why it will grow in importance.
Hierarchies have always worked through the control of information and power, hence the well-known adage “Knowledge Is Power”. It is the core of how hierarchy works (don’t believe me? Take a quick look at any work design methodologies in use by corporations around the world, and you’ll quickly see that almost all decisions are guided by assessments of hierarchically-arranged knowledge).
It takes a lot of effort to keep the majority of the population in fetters, and the greatest fear of the power elite is that one day the subordinate population will remove the rheum from their eyes and see the ways in which they are manacled, and they will see that they have the power of numbers on their side.
Social justice is inevitable. In our time, the world cannot sustain corporate globalization’s grotesque injustices and insane exploitation of people and land - humanity will not permit it if it seeks to survive. There’s only so long a society can continue to enslave and repress the vast majority of its citizens before they rise up and demand that they be allowed to live their own life.
The world is smaller now. The world is connected now. We cannot but see how we are all connected, and that we have a responsibility to each other.
I don’t agree that corporation leaders actually want to “keep the majority of the population in fetters” (indeed they have a duty to harness the initiative of their workers, and its rather a waste in today’s war for talent) and I don’t need to comment on the many injustices in our society, but I do stress that social software decimates the fundamental assumption that transmitting information is expensive. Social Software technologies such as blogs and wiki make communicating and negotiating ridiculously and fantastically cheap.
This inversion, from explicit to implicit communication, shifts organizational transparency thus creating a paradigm of mass-socialization. In turn, this enables flatter team structures and allows a transient workforce to function effectively. Giving voice to a despondent workforce using these tools creates both accountability and engagement at both the corporate and individual levels.
If knowledge is power, one might surmise that unfettered access to knowledge, i.e. mass-socialization, will let loose the power. In fact, it might indeed unseat a few paranoid control-centric managers (who would surely think that their actions would be effective or useful in blocking this earthquake of change) and it won’t replace the need for effective processes needed for compliance purposes.
Collaboration is the new competitive paradigm. When we can see how we are all connected, and ideas flow around those who don’t want to work with them, ideas can speed to innovation at a faster rate.
Canada should hear this call. Other countries such as the UK have.
If your organization needs wiki consulting, or you want to be part of a team that makes it happen, contact me. I’m only a phone call (416 786 6752), or blog comment, away.
