The Blue Oxen Way
From BlueOxen
Ever since Chris and Eugene founded this company, we've been referring to The Blue Oxen Way, which embodies our philosophy about Collab:Collaboration and how to make the world a better place. Of course, we never bothered defining it. Defining things is hard.
That, of course, is a cop-out, and so this page marks an exploration into what that definition is. You can help by asking questions and challenging what we say.
[edit] Bridges
Collab:T-Shaped People. Multidisciplinary.
[edit] Learning / Doing Partners
We don't tell you what to do. We partner with you to learn and do.
Playing and learning toward greater impact.
[edit] Be Less Dumb
Through Shallow Thinking.
And Deep Thinking.
[edit] Develop Collab:Shared Language
Tools that are good for this:
Bridges -- folks who speak languages of multiple communities -- are a critical prerequisite in developing this Collab:Shared Language. Build community among the bridges, and you make them more effective. Shared Language will follow.
[edit] Bootstrap
- Collab:Dynamic Knowledge Repository
- Organizations with high Bootstrapping Index
[edit] Make the Invisible Visible
Perhaps more appropriately, make the technological systems invisible and the social systems visible.
[edit] Good Strategic Planning Is Itself A Change Process
The planning process itself must be a change process so that the group has ownership over the plan and so the plan has a chance of being implemented.
[edit] People Come First
[edit] Collaborative / Experiential / Experimental Learning is the Best Kind
On experimenting:
[edit] Feed the Ecosystem
Collaboration is a systemic challenge, a WickedProblem. A PatternLanguage offers a collection of named, concrete solutions that help attack different aspect of the challenge.
[edit] Small, Concrete Steps
Go after the low-hanging fruit first. This is true of both tool evolution and of tackling and systems or WickedProblem. By definition, every solution you come up with for a WickedProblem creates ten more problems, so ruminating over long periods of time over the solution is misguided. Attack small problems in parallel rapidly, iterate, and evolve.
[edit] Facilitate / Accelerate / Representation
A play on some principles from the Collab:Compendium community. See also Al Selvin's, "Unity of purpose, communication, and representation."
