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Read about
Charles Savage Metaphors
'Read how
metalayer has become the business critical platform for Critical
Care Europe - Elli Lilly, their partners and customers.'
Over
the years I have studied, used, implemented and even tried
selling a number of different groupware platforms. Some are
wonderful for threaded discussions, others have paid attention
to layout and graphical aids, and others, well, forget it.
Who is going to wait a week for IT to make a change in the
setup? Unfortunately, I have always found missing an appreciation
for the social dynamics of electronic conferencing.
That
is, until Niki Flandorfer, co-founder and CKO of metalayer,
realizing the connection between online communities and corporate
culture, discovered Elisabeth Sundrum’s web site, www.ecultureteam.com.
Elisabeth and I have both become fascinated by and enthusiastic
supporters of metalayer and the work Niki and Markus Hegi,
Founder and President, have been doing with their talented
team in India and Zurich.
I’d
like to share my own personal impressions about what metalayer
presently offers and ways it may well develop. I am writing
this section in appreciation for what Markus, Niki and the
team have done in a very short amount of time, and as an invitation
for continued co-creative dialogue around the next versions
of metalayer, which is now being, prepared.
Many
companies and other organizations are in the painful transition
process from the sterile and rigid communication patterns
of our Industrial Era hierarchies to a more open, dynamic
and co-creative knowledge environment. Unfortunately, they
try the “silver bullet” approach without understanding that
these investments pay off only when there are equal investments
in liberating the creativity in the company.
As
Elisabeth and I have tested out metalayer, we have come to
realize that they are offering organizations a dynamic Knowledge-based
Layer, very much in the spirit of Nonaka and Takeuchi. True,
other groupware platforms offer this, but there is something
special about their creation. metalayer does not have slick
graphics like Groove or the high-powered marketing capabilities
of eRoom, but there is something simple, logical and direct
about the metalayer environment.
Initially
conceived in 1999 as the "metalayer" between the
Presentation Layer above, and the Application and Data layers
below, Markus and Niki envisioned this metalayer as creating
the necessary contextual space for community conversations,
allowing people in business organizations to connect around
innovative ideas, rather than just between boxes in a hierarchical
organization. They are only now coming to understand that
Nonaka and Takeuchi’s, "The Knowledge Creating Company"can
best explain their intuitive vision with the wonderful metaphor
of the hypertext organization in the book. This understanding
reveals how two brilliant technologists can see beyond technology
to the dynamics of human communities in the business world.
Nonaka
and Takeuchi document a very interactive process between tacit
and explicit knowledge. In addition they suggest companies
come to understand the "middle-up-down management"process.
Middle managers work the gap between the visions of top executives
and the down to earth experiences of front-line employees.
In
their understanding of organizations there are three layers,
the hierarchy, the task forces and the "living knowledge
base".Markus and Niki are now realizing that when they
established metalayer, they were seeking to enable companies
and other organizations to tap into and leverage their living
knowledge base.
As I indicated above, we realized they were creating the third
element in organizations, the community layer where "authority
of knowledge"is so much more important than "authority
of position".Therefore, Elisabeth and I are using this
section to engage Markus, Niki and their team, in a co-creative
effort to discover the dynamic interrelationships between
the best in "community enhancing technology AND co-creative
corporate culture".As everyone will quickly recognize,
the book is still being written on this topic.
We sincerely appreciate the comments and input from Markus,
Niki and the Team on earlier drafts of this section. We are
all learning together about what is being created in community.
The thoughts here come out of our own attempt to understand
metalayer both technically and socially.
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