R&D series: Final Note of Appreciation
As we try to reorganize and rename our R&D Fest series into a more regular and somewhat more leisurely activity called the R&D Series, we were lucky enough to have CPsquare member Grady McGonagill be the first one to jump in and help us re-think and re-work it. As Alice MacGillivray wrote, we thought it would be different and it proved to be engaging and productive in many ways. It turns out that nobody could summarize how it turned out better than Grady himself, who posted the following very gracious note of summary and appreciation after he had recovered from a very intense week of conversation:
“I want to express my heartfelt appreciation for the privilege of having a draft of my study be the focus of a CPsquare R&D Fest. My gratitude extends to multiple levels:
- To the entire CPsquare community for being contributors to the ecosystem that created this forum
- To the many who participated in the Fest for their investment of time and energy
- To the facilitators—Alice and Debra, and also John—for their skillful stimulation and guidance of the conversations
- To those (John, Alice, Debra, Pem, perhaps others I’m not aware of) who took the remarkable step of reading the entire 80+ page draft
- To John for the invitation to be the focus of the R&D Fest, for his behind the scenes encouragement of contributions, and for his creation and stewardship of this innovative community of practice.
“A number of specific benefits of participating in the Fest stand out:
- Thoughtful challenges to the wisdom and value of framing the history of the Web in terms of Web 1.0, 2.0, 3.0 were very helpful to me in thinking through my rationale for doing so. I’ve gotten clear that I wish to retain these distinctions (and include reference to Web 4.0, which I hadn’t heard of!), for their value in highlighting key features of the Web’s evolution, while stressing the limits and arbitrariness of making such distinctions in the way I frame an conclude the history. The exchange pushed my thinking to a “meta” level.
- Challenges and affirmations of my warning about relying on the IT department were helpful in several ways. They deepened my understanding of the complexity and variety of IT dept roles, and the need to couch and qualify my recommendation in ways that acknowledge this. At the same time it affirmed the value of expressing my warning, perhaps even more strongly.
- Challenges to my assertion that few if any organizations had achieved a learning culture generated a very useful discussion about learning that I continue to think about
- Questions about the value and impact of a lengthy written document as a tool for achieving the Bertelsmann Foundations goals were helpful in encouraging my client Tina Doerffer and I to think beyond completion of the report to the creation of forums of various stakeholders for its discussion
- Questions about the coherence and consistency of how I intend to portray the relationship between technology and leadership continue to be on my mind as questions to “live into” as I consider how best to frame the overall study and which themes to highlight.
- I gained from reminders of work that I’m familiar with but could more directly draw upon (e.g., Drath and Palus on making meaning), introduction to new works and ideas (e.g., McCracken on culture, McCandless and Limpanowicz on “liberating structures”), and pointers to examples of practice that I was not familiar with (e.g., “mashup corporations,” Intel’s Planet Blue, Wipro in India).
- And I benefited from Debra’s coaching on use of hashtags and introduction to tools such as Tweetchat and Twitterfall.
“Many of the benefits were less tangible, taking the form of seeds that will blossom over time and beyond the work on this particular study. Examples would be the wonderfully rich sidebar discussions on things like the work of David Snowden, which elicited lengthy contributions from Nancy and Alice. And it includes interactions and ongoing conversations about knowledge, learning, and complexity with several members.
“In the long term the greatest impact may be the deepening of my respect and appreciation for CPsquare and heightened interest in participating in this remarkable and unique Community of Practice. Thanks!”



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