We all know people like this ... "they refuse to speak-up or pitch-in when ideas are developed, are unable or unwilling to go to key meetings, and generally don't have the will, time, or inclination to help their colleagues, but then repeatedly shoot-down the decisions that are made, refuse to help implement them, and bad mouth their more hardworking colleagues"

One of the best examples is someone who refuses to vote and then bemoans the outcome of the election and the state of the nation! 

As you would have seen via our blog, twitter feed and our newsletter, we are partners in the upcoming 2010 Employer Branding Summit (find out more here). We are especially interested in how organisations can tap into the power of narrative to improve employee engagement and build connections with possible employees outside of the organisation.

In this article, Peter Schmitt (Tribalfish) draws on a very powerful metaphor of Spanish Geese to illustrate how organisations can capatialise on their employer brand. He writes:

James Geary gives a great TED talk on Metaphor.  It's definitely worth watching.  We've been convinced of the power of metaphors, especially base metaphors in human systems and the way they govern behavior. 

As Geary says, a metaphor is a way of thought before it is a way with words.  They live a secret life all around us, according to him we utter 6 metaphors per minute.  It's therefore not surprising that they have a tremendous impact on how we see and behave in the world.

We've just released the first 2010 edition of our newsletter, Dialogue. It has some very important thoughts on the role of conversation in business and how leaders can create a conversation culture through the use of Conversation Agents. Read it here.

There is an interesting phenomenon in social psychology called pluralistic ignorance or the "Abilene Paradox".  In short it is the reluctance people have to voice a minority opinion in a group, especially if they feel that they're the only ones holding that opinion. 

We're busy with a project in the education field requiring that we dip ourselves into a lot of academic research on the topic. Suffice it to say that I've not read as many journal articles since I graduated ;)

Surprisingly (or not) there's been a lot of narrative work done in the education field regarding how people learn.

One of the pertinent thoughts that I've found so far is the difference between the "analysis of narrative" and "narrative analysis. They are not the same thing apparently.

We are proud to be an Event Partner for the 2010 South African Employer Branding Summit to be held at Deloitte, Johannesburg, South Africa on 23 March 2010. We invite you to join us and spend a day with 9 employer branding specialists including International Presenters from USA, UK and Australia to discover the value of building a sustainable business through employer branding strategies.
 
Summit Chairman Brett Minchington MBA from Australia who has delivered employer branding events in 30 cities in 20 countries over the past two years will join international and national guest speakers to share world’s best practice in attracting and retaining talent including:
 
·         Heather Polivka, Director of Employer Branding at United Health Group (USA)
·         Peter Schmitt, Managing Director, tribalfish (UK/South Africa)
·         David Conradie, Director Human Capital, Deloitte, South Africa

As part of the initiation of an impact assessment project, where we'll be using SenseMaker to monitor the way tertiary students progress towards graduation, we have been given a stack of reading as background and context.

One of the quotes that has stood out so far is this:

Conversations are the way workers discover what they know, share it with their colleagues, and in the process create new knowledge for the organisation. In the new economy, conversations are the most important form of work ... so much so that the conversation is the organisation.

Alan Webber - "What's So New About the New Economy." Harvard Business Review

One of the most novel, if not THE most novel applications of narrative I've come across in the last few years is the work of internet-artist Jonathan Harris. He has done some really amazing stuff with gathering stories on the web and rendering them as art projects.

In particular, We Feel Fine is my personal favourite. It's an almanac of human emotion. By trawling the web for blog posts, images and videos associated with the words "I feel ...", Harris has managed to measure the pulse of the world's emotional state. Amazing. Check it out.

I received a mail from Jonathan last night that launched the book version of the project. I highly recommend seeing the preview over here and then pre-ordering your copy here.

It will be a coffee table must-have.

We're often asked what the difference is between a focus groups and surveys and our approach to research.  I think this cartoon by Tom Fishburne illustrates the problem with most focus groups perfectly.  They are influenced by the facilitator (whether consciously or not) who is usually trying to prove a pre-existing hypothesis.  Our pre-hypothesis approach aims to obtain true insight into the perceptions of staff, customers etc, by mitigating against facilitator bias, and asking indirect questions aimed at eliciting narrative with no pre-existing hypothesis.