Social Capital Journal

In 1960, Kevin Lynch published “The Image of the City” and established how people perceive and create mental models of the cities they inhabit. Place Pulse is a website that allows anybody to quickly run a perception study and visualize the results in powerful ways. Developed at the MIT Media Lab by the Macro Connections group, Place Pulse crowdsources surveys to internet participants, asking binary perception questions across a large number of geotagged images. Think about your own neighborhood – how is it perceived and why?

Wemind was represented at the Dave Snowden seminar of CognitiveEdge in Copenhagen last week – here are some reflections from the seminar:

http://www.socialfactory.com/blog/index.php/09/04/2011/seminar-with-dave-snowden-in-copenhagen

There have been conflicting reports on the the level of actual radiation in Japan, both in the area immediately surrounding Fukushima and in other Japanese cities.

RDTN.org uses crowdsourcing as a way of gathering information on radiation.

View this inspiring speech by Marc Lesser!

Chris Brogan explains how sending business to others can help you gain social capital.

In a new HBR Column, Rosabeth Moss Kanter explains how future producers will be held “accountable for the supplies you use and where they came from, what the customers do with their purchase and whether it improves their lives, and the costs and benefits to the countries and communities touched along the way”

http://hbr.org/2010/10/column-its-time-to-take-full-responsibility/ar/1

I his legendary article, “Organizational design, fashion or fit?”, Henry Mintzberg described the interaction between the external environments and organizational structure – and how organizations must adapt their structure to handle environmental pressure.

As explained by Dave Snowden, an increasing number of industries are facing complex and dynamic environments, which according to Mintzberg would drive organizations towards adhocratic structures with a high degree of decentralization and coordination based on mutual adjustment.

Mintzberg and Snowden – coming from very different backgrounds – seem to have reached the same conclusion. When enviroments turn complex and dynamic, organizations need to respond by reflecting this complexity and dynamism in their structure.

However, many organizations seem to retain hierarchical and bureaucratical structures,  based on the need for economies of scale and managable spans of control

Networking and involvement are powerful tools by which organizations can benefit from the strengths of adhocracy – while at the same time retaining the formal structure required.

How good is your organization at stimulating networking and involvement?