Technology and Organizations

Garvin Thomas is a General Assignments Reporter for NBC Bay Area News.  He was kind enough to join Dan Zoll (Forum, KQED), and Brandon Bailey, San Jose Mercury News at Santa Clara University’s annual media luncheon.  Our three presenters painted an interesting view of their work as modern journalists — modern both in how technology plays a role in how they do their work, and modern in how technology affects the economics of their business.

Garvin’s situation was a perfect example of the interplay between technology capabilities and organizational roles.  He’s been a reporter for over 20 years.  The traditional workflow, as I understand it, is that a reporter and videographer travel to the story, the reporter does the interview while the videographer shoots and edits the material to prepare it for air.  Economic realities and increased technical capabilities have motivated a shift in this process.

Garvin arrived at SCU with a videocamera and a laptop.  He’s now a “one-man-band.”  He describes traveling to the interview (more on that below), shooting the story, and then editing at the local coffee shop.  This is not “YouTube” amateur photography – Garvin works to keep the same production quality we all expect from network news, while dealing with the organizational realities of working on his own.

As I’ve posted before (original overview, more recent examples), the organizational value of technology is realized when both the organizational practices and the technology tools are jointly used to design a new way of working.  In this example, the cameras and editing gear have become more portable (this camera is about half the size of the one my brother used to carry), and Garvin is using his experience and willingness to add new skills to support his expanded role.

As to traveling to sites — yes, both Garvin and Dan specifically mentioned that being face-to-face for interviews is still the way to go (both for the social and the technical/quality aspects).  However, Garvin did mention that he had used Skype video for a recent segment on what the rest of the US was thinking about the California budget crisis.  By making use of Skype he was able to bring in perspectives from Boston, Minneapolis, etc. that he wouldn’t otherwise been able to access.  When I asked about production quality, he noted that he specifically made sure to show the context (webcam) so people would know this was a special opportunity rather than a change in production values.

Again, thanks to Garvin, Dan, and Brandon for taking the time to meet with us.

I agree with Nicholas Thompson. In his Wired article, Too Early to Criticize Obama’s Tech Policy?, he proposes “Not an A. But not a C either” for the grade to give the Obama administration in this first month and a half.

As I noted in an earlier post (also linking to a Wired article), the government is hamstrung by its size, and by a variety of laws meant to provide access and protection to all. Fast prototyping is not as attractive when a mistake is a breach of Federal law and likely to be covered by the national and international press.

I urge us all to give the administration some benefit of the doubt when it comes to technology implementation. However, I also hope our representatives are seriously considering how much of this needs to be specifically covered by law, and whether some of the laws that we have need to be revisited in light of modern technology and its use.

One issue of concern in the new Wired article is where the role of CTO sits. Thompson writes,

The most legitimate complaint so far is that Obama has yet to appoint a CTO. Not only that, but the position appears to have been demoted. The Sunlight Foundation caught an executive order declaring that the CTO will sit in the president’s Domestic Policy Council. That’s better than what some people feared—that the CTO would just be knocked into the Office of Management and Budget—but not nearly as good as people hoped when they had visions of the CTO (Eric Schmidt!? Jeff Bezos?!) sitting in an office down the hall from Obama.

Structure and technology go hand in hand in good organizational design. I’m hoping that we get both a CTO (to guide government technology policy) and a CIO (to guide government technology infrastructure). In the mean time, I’m following the blog, Tech President, described by Thompson as the “best blog for following these issues in depth.”

…but some may be.  Just as your customer service can come from anywhere, so can much other work.  Elancing — a phrase from Thomas  Malone and Robert Laubacher’s 1998 Harvard Business Review article — describes electronic freelancing as well as being the name of a related company — Elance, Inc. (history here).  While that company hasn’t become Google, it has continued to grow and by 2006 had exceeded 7 Billion in services “spend.” In 2006, they sold the services and contractor management part of the business to Click Commerce, retaining the on-line market.  Elance University provides the basics.

I’ve written before about new organizational forms enabled by web-based infrastructure.  The company oDesk was the example I used in that post as I like their management tools (both for buyers and sellers).

Today, Elizabeth Holmes writes in the Wall Street Journal about Selling Expertise On the Internet For Extra Cash.  She presents the provider’s perspective, as well as highlighting tasks such as mental health counseling and article writing, rather than the more commonly discussed information technology jobs.

I’ve been talking about elancing as a possible building block of organizational design since 2000.  Generally, even when I had the chance to have a guest speaker from Elance, my students scoff.  “Another of Prof. Griffith’s Sci Fi ideas….”  The number of companies and capabilities continues to grow, so I’m going to stand by my perspective that elancing, or Internet-enabled freelancing, is a viable option.  Day by day we become more comfortable with virtual work. Day by day we develop better tools for managing and providing visualization into virtual work.  Day by day we build companies with new types of employee relationships.  At least once a month I have a conversation with a colleague about how the job of professor will be different in 20 years.  We’re nine years past when I started talking about this, and 11 years past the HBR article.  The options have been tested and found viable.  What will the next ten years bring?

I wish I knew more. Carol Bartz, new CEO of Yahoo!, today announced her plans for the expected reorganization. Whenever I read of a reorg, I’m interested in seeing how much of the discussion focuses on moving the boxes in the org chart – and the people in those boxes — and how much focuses on the company’s policies, procedures, technology, strategy, etc. As I teach in my org design course, “You can’t change just one thing” – (Skwish toy example)

Neither can you change everything all at once. Better to take small bites (ok, still a big bite in this case), see how it’s working (e.g., track, look for evidence), and make adjustments or renegotiations as needed.

In the full memo to the employees (thanks CNET and Steven Shankland) she says,

I know you guys have reorg fatigue. Hang in there–our intention is to leave this structure in place for two to four years. We’ll continue to make adjustments as needed, but we expect this core structure to stay put.

I’m loving the dynamic.

I also love that in the memo she touches on the full organizational design, including their own technology infrastructure — not just that which is customer facing:

Service Engineering & Operations: This new team is responsible for delivering common technology services at scale, including application management and infrastructure. No matter how cool our products are, the customer’s experience won’t be great unless our applications consistently deliver. Note that we’re bringing Service Engineering together as one group because these engineers bring expertise that is best applied horizontally. Leading this organization is David Dibble, who joined Yahoo! in December. David’s team also will be accountable for delivering more effective corporate IT systems.

… and finally, she understands how to manage the whitespace — that part of the organization chart that isn’t between the lines:

Also, as you know, no organizational structure is a substitute for collaboration, communication and trust. We’ll all need to evolve our behavior a bit–as teams and as individuals–to make this structure work the way it’s designed.

I wish them all the best.  And, yes, I do love purple….

In The Devil in the White City, Erik Larson provides a fictionalized account of the architecture tasks (as well as serial killing) related to the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. Trains (a crucial technology in the modernization of business), enabled a distributed group of architects to participate in this world changing event (e.g., extension of the “raft” foundation enabling skyscrapers, the ultimate choice of AC v DC electricity). Modern technology has enabled a thinning of physical organizational boundaries. I’d like to highlight three organizations that use modern technology infrastructure to enable creative organizational forms by reducing traditional space and time constraints. These examples may be useful in your own settings, or spur you to consider additional opportunities – which I hope you will share with the rest of us via the comments section below.

The Internet is likely a more valuable lever to most of us than are the trains mentioned above. Many modern jobs include work process/product that is amenable to electronic presentation/transport. The point is that technology can provide access to the market and reduce transaction costs, but that this is even easier to the extent that the work itself has a strong electronic component.

I met the principals of oDesk, my first example company, at the 2007 Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco. The 2008 Web 2.0 Expo was last week and I was happy to see them again. They describe oDesk as “..an online staffing marketplace and management platform that provides a convenient way to hire, manage, and pay individuals no matter where they are located.” “Certified professionals. Verified work.”

What initially caught my eye was their “filmstrip view of work performed.” In 1984 I started studying telecommuting. A common lament among managers was that they couldn’t manage without being able to see the work being done – and thus an increased emphasis on electronic monitoring (my term, not oDesk’s). I think the “The Work Diary” – that’s oDesk’s term – provides monitoring as a service versus a more punitive form of monitoring. (For more on the distinctions, see my chapter on monitoring entitled “Social and Technical Aspects of Electronic Monitoring: To Protect and To Serve,” paraphrasing the motto of the LA PD.)

oDesk uses the Internet as a foundation to enable virtual work. They bring together organizations and web/software developers, QA specialists, etc by providing a platform for hiring, managing, and paying professionals from around the world. They are happy to share their results (including a live “oConomy” tracker), so expect to see more about oDesk as I get to know them better.

Pixel Corps, a guild of media developers is my second example. As a “guild” they train both face to face and in a distributed form. They provide low cost licenses of expensive software to their membership via relationships with vendors. Their infrastructure allows for global distribution of the work – including to the developing world. They create on-line “challenges” to extend learning and allow the guild members to get experience working on group projects through “peer to peer learning”. Their website provides a clear description of their approach and goals “Production companies have already begun to use the Pixel Corps as a resource for staffing. As we grow and if we are successful in our training and networking, we could become the most direct route to work. Our growing membership alone offers a building network of freelancers able to trade work among themselves.” “The Pixel Corps is not about simply collecting current computer artists… It’s about providing access to anyone interested in the field…Enthusiasts with little interest in a fulltime career, graphic artists migrating to greener pastures, visual effects artists keeping up with an ever-changing field, educators staying current with industry trends, Students augmenting their schooling, and those who can’t afford traditional schooling but still have the will and drive to enter the industry.”

“We are committed to collecting these individuals, training them to be the best in the world, organizing them to work more efficiently than any other group in the world, providing them with the benefits of collected effort and, together, taking over the industry… and while many will struggle in a changing economy and quickly shifting market, our members will drive the change rather than wait for it to come to them.”

And this perfect statement regarding the social construction of this style of learning and work: “The easiest way to predict the future is to create it.” Guilds are foundational to skilled work. The Oxford English Dictionary places the origin in medieval times. Pixel Corps has reinvigorated this organizational form based on the ability to learn and work virtually.

But even televised sports coverage, something which requires the camera and the action to be physically together, has been enabled by Internet infrastructures. At the Pacific Life Open in Palm Springs, CA, I had the pleasure of a seat directly behind the baseline, such a good seat that it was also where the main TV camera was set up on that court. After four hours of great tennis, I’d had ample opportunity to study the equipment and chat with the cameraman. What made the experience interesting in terms of this post was the European phone numbers on the camera which was being operated by a local freelance cameraman. Each piece of the equipment had a barcode and the name of the equipment rental company, in this case from the UK. A TV network had rented the gear, hired the contractor, and was then providing the video from this secondary court (often where the best action is) to other networks. Contracting was enabled via the Internet. While this contracting approach to media has been around for decades, it is facilitated and spread via current technologies.

Questions: What other organizational forms are offered by broadly available technologies? What are the trade-offs and/or management shifts your firm has had to make to gain value from these new forms? What happens when you try to make a change to a new style of technology-enabled work, but do not make changes in how the work is managed?