After contemplating the day spent at a seminar on developing digital arts I realised just how much we are doing right. At first I was a little impatient with the event as I felt it was aimed a lot lower than my current knowledge of the area. But after a very inspirational talk by Esko Reinikainen I am left feeling “Yes! We are on the right track!”
Image, courtesy of Adrian Barber
As an organisation we rejected the typical hierarchical structure most businesses employ. This was a risk because often the first question people ask is “who is the company manager?” or “who is your CEO?”. When you reply “we are non hierarchical organisation we have no manager”, you can see first confusion, then scepticism on their faces.
For the past two years as an organisation we have been trialling an agile structure with shared responsibility. Although agile enterprises by definition include numerous, constantly co-evolving and moving parts, they do require some structure. We work to our strengths with each staff member having an overall responsibility for different aspects of our work. This work is then shadowed by a second staff member providing support and the sharing of knowledge. So far it’s working well but we know we have a lot further to go in convincing the general populace of it’s dynamic value.
Esko Reinikainen 's talk and a recent radio 4 piece on similar socially aware business models made me realise that it may be risky to innovate but it’s worth it if you know it’s the right thing to do.
As a new team in an old organisation we have a lot to do and a very short time to prove ourselves, so watch this space.
