Below is an excerpt from a research paper on project management in information society.
...With special thanks :) to all the great people who inspired this text, some of whom are quoted.
PROJECT MANAGEMENT AND INFORMATION SOCIETY The First Step and Funky Jazz
‘A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.’
Understanding information society is not by itself 'a change in perception' we want to realize, but only an opportunity to start to be different and be willing to change further. Some years ago it was said that 'revolution will not be televised', however we understand it - from physical, technological or logical aspect, program or content wise, timing point of view, or else. In fact, they (the television networks) probably will not be, or already are not, even aware of it.
Power is no longer what it was or where it was. It spread both vertically and horizontally, so that the 'new power equation is (called) a complex differential one'. Pop culture and entertainment industry had enabled everyone to have their ‘15 minutes of fame'. Internet means that everyone will have their ‘15 minutes of power '(in fact, those with a connection and smart phone).
Internet connection, therefore, is a part of the corpus of human rights, not an option or luxury. Public space in the making, based on communication and collaboration, such as Web 2.0, has no 'historical origin’, or ‘technological necessity' as its outcome. It will be the result of 'a new phase of the oldest struggle in human society: the struggle to liberate our minds’.
Accepting project management is not in itself 'a change in approach’ we need to achieve, but only the first step on the path of learning and using new knowledge, new skills and new concepts. For, 'success is a result of search’, which means that we must first ‘find the unknown’. ‘Learning is a quest, everything else is just waiting’. And ‘change will not come if we wait for some other person or if we wait for some other time. We are the ones we have been waiting for…’ ’We are the change that we seek.’
In such times we cannot have business-as-usual - we need ‘funky business’ - ‘focused, leveraged, innovative, and heterarchical’. We do not choose the times we live in, ‘all we have to do is decide what to do with the time that is given to us’, which means that if we really want to make a difference in our life or business, ‘all it (always) takes is one ‘easy’ step… the extra one’. When we ‘encounter a familiar plan’ in a well known environment, we should just ask one simple question: what else can be done? ‘It is not enough to do your best, you must know what to do, and then do your best.’
The year 2010 and beyond should be characterized by doing what we love and what we are the best at - in a proper way, as members of networks or teams that are continuously developing, through cooperation and complementarities within them, and according to win-win principle - every time when it can be applied.
‘Making the complicated simple … that's creativity.’
Modern project teams must function like jazz bands (not as classical orchestras, where the conductors manage all), in which groups of excellent individuals, highly skilled and trained, create, through individual and independent contributions (sometimes even solo and seemingly unconnected performances), perfect harmonies.
And if the rhythm section of ‘the music’ is technology, we will have the best genre of ‘the sound': - Funky Jazz -
