Complex Private Problems
When the global economy and large-scale systems in the world are under great stress and going through traumatic transition, all the entities operating within that ecosystem are also under stress and need to go through big changes too. That means almost all private sector industries, and the individual companies within them, are living through their own microcosm of what the entire world is experiencing. That means foundations and non-governmental organizations, and non-profits of all sorts have their own version of big, complex problems that they need to quickly solve too.
The media industry and the companies working within them provide an excellent example of how the big shifts at the macro level reverberate all the way to the bottom line. In the 1990s, when the technology of personal computers and the internet, and the phenomenon of globalization first started to bite, newspapers were enjoying 20 percent profit margins, the music industry controlled the music world, and books enjoyed the boom times like everyone else.
Today those trends have decimated the old norms of those industries – bookstores have disappeared en mass, the music industry is frantically trying to adapt, and all major newspapers in the United States are struggling for basic survival, and one a week goes out of business. A tale of trauma can be told in all the distinct media sectors: magazines, radio, and even now the colossal worlds of television and film. And a similar analysis could be applied to the auto industry, or financial services, or almost any field. The world is going through seismic changes for the foreseeable future and organizations of all sizes will need to rapidly adapt.
Tailoring the Macro Process to Private Projects
We at Next Agenda believe that essentially all the tools ad approaches for solving large-scale public challenges have applications at smaller scale, and could be tailored to individual organizations. You need to catalyze a network of the best people possible to focus on solving the big, complex challenges that you face. The core network must be composed of the best people n your organization since no one knows your business better than you. But you need to cross-fertilize your inside network with innovative outsiders and others with critical expertise you need.
To truly solve any complex challenge, you are going to need to involve your whole organization, and key stakeholders, as well as the public at large in many cases. These days your stakeholders want to be heard, and you need to vet their concerns early n the process, not after the fact. The public in today’s more transparent, social media world appreciates, if not demands, to be kept in the loop. Inviting both these groups into your problem-solving process definitely pays back in the long run.
The process needs to be more open and transparent than traditional insider, executive-level, problem-solving processes are. Here’s where we think you should use tons of video to capture all physical meetings, which usually can’t accommodate everyone. And your process should continue well beyond any meeting, or even periodic ones, by doing much important work in an online environment.
In short, all the elements used in trying to solve big, complex problems at a national scale can also be applied on smaller-scale problems too. Next Agenda’s end-to-end process (described elsewhere [link] ) works for individual industries and companies. We already are working with organizations on how we can tailor this process to meet their needs.
Offering Expertise in Any One of Three Vital Areas: Meetings, Video, Web
We see our form of advanced problem-solving as combining expertise in three main areas:
- • the design and facilitation of meetings
- • the capture and production of video
- • and setting up the next generation of web collaboration
We understand that some organizations might have one of these elements of problem-solving well in hand but might need help in elements where they don’t have expertise. So your company might have a fantastic event or meeting that catalyzes amazing people and creates much valuable new thinking. But you may have no way to capture that on video, or no idea how to move it through the social media of the web. We can help there. Or you may have good video but don’t know how to use it to get productive conversations online and evolve and refine the ideas with the new collaboration tools just now becoming available through Google and others. We can help you with just that too.
