The organisational zoology of Wellington (and other places)

It's been a pretty busy week, despite its unstructured beginnings, and I've been meeting people from all kinds of organisations while I'm here. Instead of organisations, you could say, "beasts" - as in, that's a strange beast - and then the title of this post will make sense.

The main two groups have been public sector organisations and startups. Very different beasts indeed!

Public Sector organisations...

• Large (some would say oversized)
• Uncomfortably comfortable (ie everyone gets paid market salaries, but as the recession bites they are getting budgetary pressure)
• Reactive (especially in the comms department, and knowing that it's good to be proactive, but there's just so much to do!) As Jason Ryan told me today, there's always a crisis.
• Siloed - perhaps even more than corporations, although I think they'd have some competition from some not-so-old but pretty traditional sectors (film industry, anyone?). Sam Farrow had some good thoughts on why this is endemic for public sector agencies - they're just mirroring the structure of Westminster democracy, which is founded on the separation of powers. Collaboration sort of goes against that, and it's hard to strike a balance.
• Necessarily inclusive - while a business can decide to drop a particular audience or market, a public sector org must reach all its stakeholders. That's tough!
• Not cool. While a business or a political party can gather passionate fans, evangelists even, a public sector org just has a job to do. While brands have pressure to stand for something, to have a point of view, public sector orgs are prevented by law from doing so.
  

Startups...

• Focused. Focused on audience, on revenue, on what will achieve their big goal. If they don't have this, they won't succeed. It's about survival.
• Passionate. This ties in with the focus piece. You focus on what you're passionate about.
• Changing ... actually this is just the same for larger orgs, but startups are more aware, and more responsive, to change. Again, it's about survival.
• But when I say survival, it's sometimes ok to quit, and sometimes okay to let some parts of the business go. It's quick. It's exciting!

It's been an interesting trip, and my brain is just about full up with raw material ... I need to get some thinking done over the next few days while the raw material settles. I've been camping out at the spare desk at startup Ponoko, and I've let them convince me to make something before the end of the week - which is coming up pretty fast! :)

Awards of Unease

Good morning from sunny Wellington, where I’m preparing to chair a roundtable this afternoon at the 6th Annual Media Relations Conference.

All things going well, I’ll post about it tomorrow. For today, I’ve got some residual thoughts about national identity from the weekend.

This thought had three spurs:

1. The book Marie’s reading, Caught Between Cultures by Jemima Tiatia (couldn’t find it on the Internet). It looks at the experiences of New Zealand-born Pacific Islanders, who are caught between the communal, “young-people-are-seen-and-not-heard” culture of the islands, and the individualistic, challenge authority ideals of the West. Thoughts: NZ-born Pacific Islanders often feel out of place in both settings, but where they excel is on the sports field - often in teams, with rare exceptions (eg Valerie Vili). There’s still the team aspect to the culture, and the collectivism, but the rules actually make sense, unlike many of the rules of Fa’aSamoa (I can’t speak for other island cultures but I have experienced the world of Samoan culture close up!)
2. We watched the Qantas TV and Film Awards and it was … kind of weird. What are we kiwis about? When we watch the Oscars, we “get” what Hollywood is about. When we watch the Baftas, we get a taste of the slightly more cynical British culture. But with us, everyone bar a few such as Wendy Petrie and Geraldine Brophy, came across as uncomfortable and out of place. The clothes and setting looked right, but the confidence, the magic wasn’t there.
3. We watched snippets of the rugby (oh how I wish now we’d watched the whole match!) where we fought off the Wallabies to win the Tri-Nations and Bledisloe Cups. Got home after the match was over, had to ask Twitter for the score, and got it from (among other places) our friend Ron, who’s in Ecuador at the moment!

What connects these three things? I don’t know. That’s why this is a blog post and not an article Good luck seeing if you can find a connection!

Movie Review: Taken

Even though I was pretty sick on Friday, I needed to get out of the house, so I saw Taken with Marie.

It came with her sister's recommendation - and this is a sister whose favourite film is Legally Blonde. Not an action flick fan.

But there was action aplenty. It was kind of strange - like Kramer vs Kramer meets James Bond. That's strange in a really good way - it's good to see an action film with 3-dimensional characters and believable backstories - and in a bad way, too - once the action was over it reverted to a "family issues" film, and that kind of felt unsatisfactory.



I also found myself overthinking the whole thing - a bad habit of mine - and wondering what message the film was sending.

In many ways it was a typical hero story - that our protagonist is the only guy who knows how to save his daughter, that the whole system is against him, he can trust no one and must rely on his wits and his fists (used in equal amounts, and very proficiently) to get through.

It was extremely exciting, and yes, the hero wasn't completely invincible (only 99%). But it made me reflect on why I enjoyed Signs so much. Hero movies where the main guy is always in control are sheer escapism. Life can be much more like Signs - overwhelming and confusing, and a reason to turn to one another for help.

So my verdict on Taken - a terrific ride, but reflective of an individualistic mindset that is gradually fading away as we all seek to rediscover what it means to live in a society.

Health workers are amazing

It's been a weird week. In the midst of great busy-ness at work, we've had a sobering dose of reality.

Marie's cousin and his wife are over from the islands with their 8-week old baby. He has a hole in his heart, and complications which make it really difficult for him to breathe - and difficult to operate.

It's a crazy situation, and I really feel for the parents who have to choose between two impossible options - not operating, and possibly letting the baby die, and operating, and possibly making the baby suffer even more.

We had a family meeting this afternoon, with the cardiology team, a support worker and a Samoan interpreter.

Marie was in full advocacy mode, asking the questions that others couldn't think of how to ask. Meanwhile I was being invisible, observing. There was a lot to observe. Including:

• Doctors have a huge job - heads of department even more so. Not only do you have to be really really good at your craft, you also have to be an expert communicator with people from different cultures. You have to display openness, break down complex information into simple ideas, and be ready to apologise when you need to.
• Good interpreters are worth their weight in gold. Language is not like currency - it doesn't convert with a quick formula. Our interpreter today not only translated what was actually said, but more importantly helped ensure the whole family understood what was going on, and what their options were. She understood nuance, and was able to balance respectful politeness with bold questioning. I could learn a lot from this lady.
• Getting sick in New Zealand (probably in any country) is a ridiculously inconvenient and expensive exercise. Doubly so when you're coming from overseas. Some social entrepreneur needs to apply the freeconomy thinking to the New Zealand health system.

Thanks very much to ortizmj12 for capturing how even the brightest of hospitals feel sometimes.

Coathangers, open source and the individual

Last week, these coathangers spoke to me.

They said, "We don't trust you."

Not at all like the friendly coathangers at Booklovers Bed & Breakfast, where you'll find the kind of coathangers you could easily stow in your luggage.

But you wouldn't steal coathangers from Booklovers (at least most wouldn't) because you'd be stealing direct from Jane Tolerton. And even those who steal from faceless corporations will think twice before taking from another individual.

It got me thinking about how brands relate to people, and how ultimately we're all brands and all individuals, and how the zeitgeist of the early 21st century is swinging right back towards to the individual, as found in community.

My thoughts were further consolidated in an engrossing conversation with Sigund Magnusson, cofounder of Silverstripe, a company that open sourced their CMS software earlier this year.

In brief (it was a long conversation), open source is not so much about free software as it is about recognising individual contributions. (There was more - just keep your eyes peeled on the Idealog.co.nz site - but that was a key message I got from the conversation).

And because we're less likely to steal from someone we know, open source is theoretically free for the taking, but our desire to relate to one another in community means we want to give credit where credit is due - whether that credit is cash or just acknowledgement.

It's a line of thought I'm probably going to pursue in future blog posts. Stay tuned.