"The Computer is Not a Box, the Computer is a Doorway"

The quote above comes from Ross Mayfield, founder of SocialText, on page 267 of Wikinomics. It is a description of how the Net Generation sees the computer, and something that I live every day, seeing the possibilities and yet feeling held back by the slow change that happens in any large organization with an established set of norms.

This chapter really hit home for me. I'm someone who desires and values organizational transparency, and who strives to always innovate or at the very least improve upon the processes I see around me. As I read about Geek Squad  and how "a continuous process of innovation and improvement ... keeps the agents motivated to perform at their highest levels" (p. 242), I couldn't help but think of myself and Daniel Pink's Drive. In Drive, Pink explains that Autonomy (being able to feel as if you have at least some control over yourself), Mastery (the continuous process of incremental improvement) and Purpose (what you're doing has meaning) are the motivating factors for most of the best achievers, not money.

The idea of wikis in the workplace, repositories of knowledge and innovation that don't just die in someone's in-box, is hugely appealing. How often have you spent days emailing back and forth to solve a problem, and then promptly forget how it was solved the next time it comes up? How many listserves are you subscribed to where the same questions come up repeatedly? How great to have a wiki to go to!

So what does "the computer is not a box" mean to me?  It means that I'm not confined by my computer, by massive in-boxes ("email itself is breaking" say Tapcott and Williams, after years of being used as the primary collaboration tool, it is no longer efficient, p. 252). Instead, I'm set free by my computer, by being able to talk freely and frankly with the president of my organization or the janitor who cleans my office, or the team that I work with all the time who lives on the other side of the planet. We can all build on each others ideas.

And I'm able to teach others, through sharing my knowledge in wikis, with video, through blogs. I'm not sure what my organization would do if I started a professional blog, and yet maybe that would be an interesting thing to ponder.