In the past few weeks, I have discovered the world of audio books, available for free checkout, digitally online, through our local library. Such an awesome discovery! Two books in particular have captured my attention.
In "Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?" by Seth Godin", I heard his perspective about what makes people "indispensable". One point he raises is that linchpins are people who connect people and ideas. He is the reason I have decided to start blogging again. After all, it is one of the latest technologies for doing just that! Another point he makes is that linchpins are people who create "art". In his view, we create art if we do something that no one else has done before. The most successful people do just that... They create things that have not been created before. In my view, my team at work creates "art" everyday, as they write documents and tools to improve the world of desktop systems management. Finally, he makes that point that successful people give away some of their art for free, to inspire the generation of ideas for new art - another reason why I created this blog!
I am now just getting into listening to "Where Innovations Come From" by Steven Johnson. He describes various ways that people have come up with new ideas. What really struck me was his point that we can innovate by understanding the parts of a system (like a desktop systems management service offering), and then innovate by thinking about the "adjacent possible". We can consider what we have now, then connect with other people and even other new areas of knowledge (like maybe the world of autistic spectrum disorders or the world of education), and then consider what new door might be there to open based on that other knowledge. This week, I learned how to draw a "conceptual and logical technology model" diagram, by looking at another person's example. I then spent about 12 hours drawing a massive diagram, showing all the "elements" that make up our current desktop systems management service offering at work, and started adding in elements of the "adjacent possible", in collaboration with other people. Where I am now in hearing his story, Steven Johnson talks about one of the great assembling of "parts" into something new as "Revolution #9", by the Beatles.. I prefer "Revolution" (version 1 I think) still. It really relates to my work these days :-)
In past years, our desktops were all "physical". We kept our operating system, apps and data mostly on the desktop. As we move forward, those components of a desktop are moving to a "virtual" world, hosted on servers in a "cloud" that is separate from our physical desktops. I work for CSC. Check out one of our success stories here. This is very exciting work!
Yes, some might say I am obsessed, even that I have Asperger's Syndrome... I prefer to say that I am engaged and innovating!
