Bioteams - turning Audiences into communities
Back from the use8 conference on the new frontiers of social media I was curious about Ken Thompson research into turning virtual business teams to work in a more effective way based on group patterns learned from nature - bioteams.
The problems that lead to this research also found in the bioteams manifesto encompass: a) technology adoption issues b) lack of effective communication approaches c) reliance on old traditional work methods d) absence of strong team motivation e) effective cooperative workflows.
The fundamental question that seems to support this research is the recognition on what teams are, between the mechanical approach where teams are predictable and controllable behaving “more like clocks or engines that are assigned to specific tasks and assignments” and “the open recognition of the dynamic and living nature of the team itself as a separate entity from that of its individual members”. As Thomson argues the “Interpretation of the team as a whole, living entity, allows a more insightful interpretation of the most efficient courses of team action.”
“The team is in itself a super-organism and as such it needs to be treated in ways that enhance and support its complex and interconnected nature. If you can see the team as a whole and not as the mere aggregation of the individual parts that make it up, you can discover how much more productive, reliable and efficient a virtual team can be.”
His concept of bioteaming “consists of the research, mapping and identification of such key behavioural traits from nature’s most effective biological-teams and in their re-definition within the context of new human-based business team workflows.” Bioteams have 4 common behaviours:
Any group member can take the lead - the right leader for the right task at the right time.
Pheromone-style Short messaging - Nature’s groups use short instant messages Instantly broadcast & received “in situ”
Small is Beautiful & Big is Powerful - Natures teams blend large group & small group dynamic
Reach the ‘many’ through the ‘few’ - Nature’s networks are clustered. Members have extreme connectivity. Some group members have many more connections than the average and provide very effective channels for engaging the whole group
Ken’s Presentation was mainly targeting the Swarmteams system where we could actually try it during the presentation. Swarmteams was designed to promote bioteams principles in terms of communicating information not orders, Mobilise everyone to look for group threats and opportunities, achieve accountability through transparency not permission, provide 24*7 instant “in-situ” message hotlines for all team members, treat external partners as fully trusted team members and nurture the team’s internal and external networks and connections.
The main functionality of this system, one knows all know, ask the network, instant engagement and community forwarding can also be found in many other systems (thinking in Twitter off course) but perhaps not with the enphasis on how effective a tool is to group coordination and engagement with specific goals in mind. This principles are in fact a great form of supporting campaigns and actions based groups.
More info on Swarmteams and bioteams at Bumble bee.
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