Here’s how it works. Flexible Purpose Corporations can write one or more special missions into their articles of incorporation. They can be as ambitious as fighting climate change or as modest as maintaining a park near the company’s office. The law instructs directors to consider the special aims in their decision-making, even when it could mean lower returns for investors. To make the appeal as broad as possible, the law’s authors avoided setting a minimum standard for what a “special purpose” could be.

The twenty-first century capitalist’s agenda, in a nutshell, is to rethink the “capital”—to build organizations that are less machines, and more living networks of the many different kinds of capital, whether natural, human, social, or creative. And, second, to rethink the “ism”: how, when, and where the many different kinds of capital can be most productively seeded, nurtured, allocated, utilized—and renewed. What we need, then, is a new generation of renegades, laying deeper, stronger institutional cornerstones.

Haque’s argument resonates super-powerfully with me. While I certainly don’t have the chops to have written The New Capitalist Manifesto, it articulates many of the arguments I’ve put to people in the past 10 years; business today is no longer sustainable in the way it was before. It can’t go on cannibalising profits and circulating the same money (and making more and more “pretend” money that only exists in a computer somewhere. Business needs to act to add real social value and not only make money but make social goods as well, as Haque suggests, the paradigm needs a shift thus:

• Loss advantage: From value chains to value cycles
• Responsiveness: From value propositions to value conversations
• Resilience: From strategy to philosophy
• Creativity: From protecting a marketplace to completing a marketplace
• Difference: From goods to betters

I can’t recommend The New Capitalist Manifesto strongly enough, and also highly recommend Umair Haque’s new, short ebook, Betterness, which extends his articulation of some of the themes in this book. If it was mathematically possible to give a book 6/5, I would give it here.

We welcome contributions about the issues covered in articles in Inside Story. Well-argued and clearly written comments are more likely to be published, and we’re now asking all contributors to provide their full name for publication. Because all comments are moderated, they will not appear immediately.

It appear that the folk at Inside Story, and their editor, Peter Browne, are taking a fairly robust stance on this matter; at least judging by the email trail Craig has published.

As the recent nymwars over Google’s insistence on real names for Google+ illustrates, insistence on real names is neither useful nor valid, and in fact excludes many for a number of reasons including a desire for anonymity and name structures that don’t meet a perceived level of validity. Either way, the nymwars experience is an object lesson in the harm and potentially chilling effect a real names policy imposes.

Like Craig, I’ve chosen to email the editors of Inside Story, pointing out the harm I think they’re doing. My email is below:

From: Stephen Collins

To: Peter Browne

Peter

I have been alerted to the fact that Inside Story requires real names in order to comment on articles on the site. I wish to express my very strong view that this policy is both misguided and potentially harmful.

Such a policy places at risk the openness of discourse on the site, in terms of it having a chilling effect on commentary by those who for whatever reason (risk of bullying, employment risk, a wish to otherwise protect their identity, etc.) wish to remain anonymous.

There are many options available to a site like Inside Story to ensure that commentary on the site is both validated and non-spam in nature. Demanding real names ought not be one of them.

The recent and well-documented furore over Google insisting on real names for Google+ registrations — what has become known as the “nymwars” — offers a powerful object lesson on the harmfulness of such policies, the public support for anonymous (but validatable) identity and the demonstrable need for such in online (and physical world) public discourse.

You have made an ill-judged decision in imposing this policy and I urge you to reverse this decision and allow anonymous comments on Inside Story.

Stephen Collins
–
Stephen Collins
trib@acidlabs.org | +61 410 680722 | @trib

acidlabs | Conversation. Collaboration. Community. | www.acidlabs.org

I cannot argue any more eloquently than researcher, danah boyd, who posits that real names policies are an abuse of power.

UPDATE (23–1-2012, 10:00AM): In a pleasing development, Peter Brown of Inside Story has responded to me noting that pseudonymous comments are an acceptable alternative to a real name when used on Inside Story. I’m not yet certain how this plays out in practice and in their comment moderation practices, but it’s a good acknowledgement of a viable alternative.

“What if, instead, we practiced consciously, deliberately, and became good at the things we really want to be good at? What if you first, above all skills, learned to be more aware of what you are practicing? What if constant conscious action is the skill you became good at? If you could learn to take conscious action, you could learn to practice other things you want to be good at, rather than the ones you don’t.”

- Life as a Conscious Practice :zenhabits

One of the best explainers we know, Clay Shirky, spoke yesterday at TED’s office in NYC on the same thing. The video is below.

SOPA and PIPA are just another part in the great Internet turf war between those who want to control and dominate and those who want to create, do good and share.

Should this kind of legislation pass in the US, it’s only a matter of time until similar legislation would pass elsewhere, including here in Australia. There are already proposals for laws imposing unreasonable controls and surveillance on Internet activity here; and they are by no means dead.

In today’s Crikey, Bernard Keane takes a good look at the Australian perspective.

“Knowledge is now the property of the network. The smartest person in the room is the room itself.”

David Weinberger, Too Big To Know

Good on you Amanda for being the kind of innovative disruptor we love!

The other day I was reflecting on previous employment experiences and during that reflection I let loose on Twitter with some rather harshly-worded criticisms. I stand by those statements but I did feel to expand upon the topic and incorporate into it a question that was posed to me in a job interview recently “Describe the qualities of your ideal manager”.

I want to be clear and say that I do not believe creative workers should be treated like primadonnas. I do not believe that creative workers should be afforded any more rights or freedoms than other workers. I do believe that creative workers should and do work as hard as other employees and indeed I believe the scope of “creative worker” encompasses more than people who tout the “designer” job description on their business card. I do believe that the outputs of creative workers can be measured and that performance can be evaluated.

I also strongly assert that measuring a creative worker’s value through a spreadsheet of hours worked, pages typed or designs delivered is both foolish and lazy.

Even in factories for which Industrial Era scientific management theory was developed, workers still create, innovate, challenge assumptions, iteratively improve and apply creative thinking techniques. It’s not unique to graphic design or business strategy or industry visionaries. For a good example of such a factory I recommend Maverick! by Ricardo Semler.

If I were remunerated according to the value I have delivered to organisations over the years I would be a rich man today. However, that’s not the way it works and I agree to a salary like most employees. That doesn’t stop me from striving to deliver maximum value in terms of increasing revenue, increasing reputation and customer satisfaction, increasing brand penetration or any of the other factors that I influence in my role as a designer.

Sadly, too often my performance is measured not by these factors that actually matter but by the same measures that workers who churn out widgets in a factory are measured by.

If the average output of workers in a factory is 50 widgets per hour and one worker is outputting 30 widgets per hour then there’s a potential issue there. Notice I don’t jump straight to accusations of underperformance as it’s entirely possible that worker is the only one being sensible and not working himself into an early grave, or could be getting every widget right while everyone else has a 50% failure rate.

Translate that to creative workers and suddenly those measures don’t make sense. What would outputting 2 wireframes per hour as opposed to 2 per day indicate? Does that take into account any of the working or thinking that went into those deliverables? Does the mere quantity of wireframes indicate at all what assumptions have been tested, how many iterations they’ve been through or reflect the skills and expertise of the designer?

Compare this scenario: Two designers work on a design challenge. One designer gets straight into their favourite software application and churns out a bunch of wireframes in an hour. The other designer stares at the ceiling all morning, sketches some ideas in the afternoon and then finally in the last half hour of the day gets into her software application and produces some wireframes. Not as pretty as the other designer, but still valid wireframes.

After implementation, the first designer’s work sees a revenue increase of $5,000 while the other designer sees a revenue increase for their client of $80,000.

According to the sort of dumb metrics that have carried over into the creative industry from the early 1900’s some would judge that the first designer is better. Faster, higher quality outputs … or other such nonsense.

Of course, in reality it never works this way that a designer can be benchmarked against another designer working on the exact same problem … you didn’t think the solution would be easy did you? No.

Research has demonstrated through EEG/fMRI scans that there are no flashes of inspiration and that “Ah ha!” moments are preceded by brain activity that the person is not consciously aware of, thus validating “staring at the ceiling” creative thinking techniques. That said, creative workers should feel completely comfortable with clearing their head, creating cognitive negative space, free-associating or even meditating as part of their creative thinking techniques toolkit.

The answer to the issue of management of creative workers is complex. It starts with solid, rigorous recruitment practices. Forget the designer’s portfolio and look at the business case. What effect did their work have on the bottom line for their clients? Only a few designers are graphic or visual designers so stop looking for pretty pictures and pleasing colour schemes. It doesn’t matter if your favourite colour is blue; what matters is whether those designs worked.

Be open to the idea that a sketch on the back of a napkin can be more valuable than a “high-fidelity” wireframe that some designer has agonised over for hours to get pixel perfect. Be open to the idea that highly-valuable design deliverables can take form in mediums other than visual. I always make a point of advising organisations and clients that some of my best design work takes the form of words rather than designs or concept maps and models rather than screen designs.

Another important principle of managing creative workers and indeed any employee is what I think of as a burger where the employee is the meat in the middle, but the manager is both above ‒ as a leader, visionary and strategist ‒ and below ‒ as enabler, administrator and cutter of red tape. Whilst not always appropriate (Managing the Unexpected has some good thoughts on this) I believe most of the time a manager should also be a leader.

Managers shouldn’t seek to fully understand how a creative worker works or seek to influence individual styles and techniques but they should have a good idea of how to measure outputs. Financial impact is still the ruling metric of the day in our capitalist economy although slowly there are other factors that are beginning to gain prominence such as sustainability, democracy, full disclosure, ethical persuasion, conservation, environment, people’s health and well-being, open source, sharing, supporting developing nations and disadvantaged people, fair trade, education vs exploiting ignorance, long-term views vs short-term gains and so on. I’m not talking about unethical practices of greenwashing; I’m talking about designers really seeking to make a difference rather than just make money for their clients.

These are important attributes that time sheets or productivity tracking software cannot account for. No, I’m not kidding when I tell you that I’ve been the victim on more than one occasion during my career of such software and been told to spend more hours of my day with “productive applications” open and active.

Facepalm.

As I said, it’s a complex issue and I know that it’s a frustration experienced by creative workers who simply want to do good work and managers who struggle with attempts to reconcile the value of outputs with old-school notions of productivity and diligence.

I can type 120 words per minute if you’d like. I can do it all day if you’d like. It’ll be complete bullshit and add no value, but if that’s what you want from me so you can be satisfied that I’m working hard then fine. I’ll be handing in my resignation notice before I go home though.

I invite managers, creative workers and employees who don’t consider themselves “creative” to share their thoughts and stories in the comments.