The Fuzzy Tail

Tomorrow I'm off to Toronto to attend "Summer Event".  Every year, Critical Mass holds a 2 day "festival" complete with creative exercises, music and lots of beer.  I am going to be part of the "speaker series"—so I had to come up with something to talk about.

I guess I could have blathered on about "2.0" stuff.  Social Networks this and community that...  I could have dazzled the audience with my knowledge of the newest lingo like Pounce, Ziggs and of course BouGie.

What I opted to do instead is talk about something much more subtle.  The changes that we are all feeling in the workplace and within our industries which are requiring us to think and work slightly differently.   We can no longer afford to over-analyze our challenges.  We must try to get things launched—learn from these experiences and refine.  We must define ourselves and what we do more broadly while retaining the potency of our our crafts.  It's about going from left brain to right brain and ending up on "light brain".  We must become "fuzzy".

Being fuzzy as I outline in the deck is about unlearning everything we think we know—so we can actually learn and adapt.  It's about less focus on rigid tasks and job descriptions and more focus on bringing our efforts together in the overlaps—where our skills compliment each other.  It's about being more nimble and adopting "fuzzy" processes to compliment our tried and true methods that have served us well in the past.

The Fuzzy Tail is my way of saying "we won't become the blacksmiths of our time".  It's about pushing past the commodity—the end product or service which can be outsourced.  It's about putting aside egos, getting out of silos and mixing it up with each other—I mean really mixing it up.  Planners who think like designers—designers who obsess about business—information architects who write—writers who act like strategists—project managers who can direct creative and creative directors who are willing to let them.  People who are willing to let others play in their sandbox. 

Fuzzy people.

Well' that's the thinking anyway.  We'll see how it goes over.

Comments

[Madhu]

Wonderful !!

I really like 'light-brained' concept: In dynamic / uncertain/ fuzzy world, one needs to be agile...adaptive...

That was the main reason why humans survived while dinosaurs vanished... adaptive rather than powerful.. lives longer.

[Matthijs Roumen]

Great thoughts! Let's get fuzzy! ;D To bad I can't attend your presentation tomorrow.

[Ryan Karpeles]

Looks awesome David. Interested to hear the reactions/discussions/etc.

BTW, are you saying that specialization is going out the door? Or do we need to specialize in many different areas? Or there's no such thing as specialization?

Or maybe my thinking is just a little fuzzy...

Anyway, enjoy Toronto and best of luck on the presentation :)

[Jeff]

David:

You've hit the nail on the head (or maybe I should say the anvil on the head?). Exceptionally well-said, with the usual outstanding illustrations.

It's not about expertise, nor about specialization - it's about the experience that we (individually, collectively, in our community) create.

Businesses are, for the most part, not prepared to take on the challenge of experimentation (or as Tom Peters put these ideas so well: a bias for action), learning, refinement and continuous progress through what was once called trial-and-error.

The challenge is to change the mind and hearts of the people in those organizations who need to learn new ways to manage, and new ways to incent this kind of action and allow people and organizations to learn from this kind of action.

I can't wait to hear your report on the reactions, discussions, and repercussions of these ideas.

Have fun in Toronto!

[Roger von Oech]

I absolutely adore slide #35.

[Doug Meacham]

Hey David,

I really like this. It's a much bigger topic than the impact of Web 2.0 and it has much wider applicability for businesses ready to listen. The ability to adapt is a critical competency for modern organizations. That requires a new organizational framework. To Ryan's question, I don't think you are saying that there's no need for specialists, but rather that in addition to your specialty, you need to be able to wear other hats, often at the same time.

[Matt MacQueen]

I can't add much past the previous 5 comments that wouldn't be repetitive... so let me just say thanks for de-fuzzing a bit some of my own thoughts about this topic and clarifying. It really is more about the types of teams you want to build and work as a part of people who can compliment yet challenge your own skills to make something better. cheers

[DA]

Hi everyone. Sorry for not getting back sooner. Busy day—lots of practical stuff to get done and of course a deadline. But I think you all see where I'm going with this. It's less about specialist vs. generalist and more about doing more of what works and less of what doesn't despite our processes, titles and job descriptions.

And it's definitely about trying—inventing, and reinventing ourselves and our team dynamics. But most importantly it's about re-tooling the machine. Sometimes the machine has to crank out the widgets But how long will we be operating that machine? And do we want to?

[Lewis Green]

David,

This is a perfect subject for you to speak on. You are extremely intuitive and sensitive to the work environment and what it takes to be better, possibly great. I wish I could be in Toronto to hear your presentation.

[Bud Caddell]

You could say I'm pliable, a fuzzy person too perhaps. I like the term "permeable"

[Joiakim]

Amazing ! I really like this. Could be great to show it to 95% of managers, even in the marketing and communication industry which is sometimes a bit rigid. I hate hearing things like "we always do things this way"... It's not because something works that it doesn't have to change at all !

[Freddie Sirmans]

Just browsing the internet, very interesting blog

[Cam Beck]

Hey David - If you have your delivery of the presentation recorded, I'd love to see it posted with your commentary here: http://zentation.com/index.php

[Alex Nisbett]

Nice post, nice thoughts David. Speaks to me about 'T-shaped' people, empathy and being a bit of a square peg in a round hole.

So having just seen your Twit about showing the pres in Toronto tomorrow...

What I'm interested in (and this is a little oblique) is how your co-workers *feel* about us (those that follow and comment on your posts), seeing *their* presentation before they do?

Maybe this is all open and explicitly your style. Maybe you're beta testing? Anyway, I guess this speaks to the very subject of the presentation.

Just a thought.

[DA]

"What I'm interested in (and this is a little oblique) is how your co-workers *feel* about us (those that follow and comment on your posts), seeing *their* presentation before they do?"

Good question Alex. Those at Critical Mass who have followed the blog seem to expect this way of working. Actually, one of the managers who I indirectly report to saw the presentation on this blog, I never e-mailed it to him. And it's definitely beta as I would make a change if a comment inspired one.

Even if I don't explicitly ask for feedback—if I see good feedback, I'll use it.

But to your question, everyone at CM seems cool with the way I operate and has been supportive.

[Jared M. Spool]

This is exactly where our research on Successful Experience Design Practices is taking us.

I wrote about the economics of specialists last year. http://tinyurl.com/2oba65

Going to be writing more soon. Stay tuned.

[courtney]

Beautiful. Exactly why I recently took my passion for digital communications planning from a media agency to a creative agency - with the hopes of blurring the lines (at least on my desk). T shaped thinking needs to occur not just internally (eliminating 'digital dungeons' within traditional "ATL" structures/processes ; eradicating egos of digital "specialists"), but also externally - media, PR, creative agency partners working together/sharing more on projects vs. always fighting for favorite child status with the clients. I realize that fuzzy remits/roles/business models make my ambitions for collaboration challenging, or maybe even naive, but I can't see any other way to communicate effectively. Thanks for defending the generalists. Specialisms offer much-needed focus, but I, for one, am trying to make mine opensource.

[Chris Bernard]

Ok just seeing this. Fantastic. I was half way through doing my own presentation on this. Now I'm just pointing people to yours. Another victory for social media.

-Chris

[Graham Hill]

David

Another challenging post.

I agree with you about the importance of trial and error in modern business. This is what some call 'small-i' innovation, versus more traditional 'LARGE-I' R&D. In reality, most organisations of any size need a combination of both.

They are quite different. Small-i innovation is fluid, adaptive and often highly network-driven. In contrast, LARGE-I R&D is more often structured, planned and hierarchy-driven. Todd Zenger has done a lot of excellent work on the 'hybrid organisations' that are needed to manage both simultaneously.

So, sorry, the rize of fuzzy isn't going to do away with the harder edges of business innovation any time soon. And job specialistaion is in no real danger of becoming replaced with fuzzy crowds either. Both will have to coexist in tomorrow's hybrid organisations.

Graham Hill
Independent CRM Consultant
Interim CRM Manager

[Pernille Fruensgaard]

I love this post! Working in a media agency I think this approach could solve some of the problems we're facing - everyday. Account people keep clients close and out specialists dare ot give their opinion on everything else than their field. Working as a comms planner I fight to make people work together, share and listen to each other. But it is hard when we spend the last decade teaching people that asking for help (or just somebody elses second opinion) equals failure.
Basically as the world is changing, if we do not reevaluate this approach to our world - the media agencies are f%€#ed. We need to get more fuzzy!
I think I'll put fuzziness as an issue on our next internal meeting agenda..

Thanks for another inspiring post!

[Angela Maiers]

David-amazing stuff! Speaking of sandboxes...I have been talking to educators about this very point. If teachers could just step away from their "have to do's" and "checklists", we could learn a lot from students. Children are great at playing freely in the sandbox, creating, innovating, adapting. Children relish the "fuzziness" in life. Your post helps me extend this conversation. Thanks for another inspiring post!