The Growing Anatomy of a Human Institution v0.1 July 8, 2010

Ref The Growing Anatomy of a Human Institution v0.1 and  "The old models of top-down, command-and-control breed attitudes not at all conducive to productivity and efficiency, therefore no one actually benefits. I very much agree that technology can be a real enabler of this kind of change and can help to cut against a range of traditional resistance that an organisation may have…"
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I agree on the importance of technology in enabling a change from top-down organisational models. Adding technology in order to change "how communication is done" has all kinds of implications.

At one extreme it just  means more of the same with a greater barrage of "information" raining down from above (with perhaps a theoretical ability for people on the receiving end to feed information back up through the new "two way communication channels").

At another extreme it is a disruptive technology enabling massive organisational change, and new two-way flows of information. Genuine two-way flows of information work best when both sides are equally interested in what the other side has to contribute. This implies some a huge potential cultural shifts within organisations.

New collaborative organisational models are springing up as a result of easy two-way communication. These are happening amongst people and groups who could never have come together before the Internet existed. They are true 21st century "organisations" (collaborative networks) and radically different from the established 19th and 20th century top-down bureaucratic structures - much more dynamic, spontaneous and organic.

It will be interesting to see which established organisations simply use technology as an add-on to their existing structures, and which remodel themselves in genuinely 21st century ways.