Comments on: The Phenomenology of Business http://wilding-translation.com/2009/07/08/the-phenomenology-of-business/ Translations from German to English Tue, 24 Aug 2010 09:13:42 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 By: Alex http://wilding-translation.com/2009/07/08/the-phenomenology-of-business/comment-page-1/#comment-14 Alex Wed, 08 Jul 2009 12:38:10 +0000 http://wilding-translation.com/?p=147#comment-14 And thanks for rising to it! I think that I misunderstood your original message. I thought you were saying that scalability correlated closely to the global (national) / local divide. But now I realize you were saying that the global (national) / local divide correlates to the use of online networking. My misreading. Have I got it now? And thanks for rising to it!
I think that I misunderstood your original message. I thought you were saying that scalability correlated closely to the global (national) / local divide. But now I realize you were saying that the global (national) / local divide correlates to the use of online networking. My misreading.
Have I got it now?

]]> By: Alan Rae http://wilding-translation.com/2009/07/08/the-phenomenology-of-business/comment-page-1/#comment-13 Alan Rae Wed, 08 Jul 2009 08:18:45 +0000 http://wilding-translation.com/?p=147#comment-13 Well the interesting thing about this is that I didn't in fact try to make the data fit the concept. The concept came from trying to make sense of the data. What I imagined when I started the project was that there would be a group of people who used web 2.0 media more than others and from having been active in Ecademy for about 5 years and intereviewed some of the brightest and best that these would be people were selling business services, limited in capacity like thee and me. I expected them to be using internet based tools like cloud computing and collaboration environments like BaseCamp to compete with bigger, corporate players. I also wanted to get at what they actually did to see if there were any patterns of good practice that came out. After about 6 months punishing the data we went off and presented what we found having invented the categories to try and explain what we were seeing - and then someone asked me how many were in each category. I then thought - oh b*ll*cks - I haven't actually analysed it from that point of view so I gritted my teeth and lo and behold - that's when I discovered that the cleavage point was between local and national businesses in their behaviour. It always strikes me that one touchstone of true knowledge is that it takes you by surprise - and I certainly wasn't expecting to find that running a national business makes you twice as likely to use linked-in and twice as likely to believe in the value of serendipity than someone with a local business. But hey that's life. I just asked them loads of questions about what they did and then went looking for patterns in the data. Going back to the hierarchy, I naturally believe that Gifted Amateurs are at the head of the evolutionary tree. In fact the whole project is internally code named ROGA (revenge of the gifted amateur) since we believe that the ability to create business structures out of free(ish) software held together with gaffer tape is one of the core competencies of the networked economy - alongside disobedience and being able to be equally fluent with technology and relationships. But then having played with me in a band all those years ago you probably knew that already. Thanks for the challenge :) Well the interesting thing about this is that I didn’t in fact try to make the data fit the concept. The concept came from trying to make sense of the data.

What I imagined when I started the project was that there would be a group of people who used web 2.0 media more than others and from having been active in Ecademy for about 5 years and intereviewed some of the brightest and best that these would be people were selling business services, limited in capacity like thee and me. I expected them to be using internet based tools like cloud computing and collaboration environments like BaseCamp to compete with bigger, corporate players.

I also wanted to get at what they actually did to see if there were any patterns of good practice that came out.

After about 6 months punishing the data we went off and presented what we found having invented the categories to try and explain what we were seeing – and then someone asked me how many were in each category.

I then thought – oh b*ll*cks – I haven’t actually analysed it from that point of view so I gritted my teeth and lo and behold – that’s when I discovered that the cleavage point was between local and national businesses in their behaviour.

It always strikes me that one touchstone of true knowledge is that it takes you by surprise – and I certainly wasn’t expecting to find that running a national business makes you twice as likely to use linked-in and twice as likely to believe in the value of serendipity than someone with a local business.

But hey that’s life.

I just asked them loads of questions about what they did and then went looking for patterns in the data.

Going back to the hierarchy, I naturally believe that Gifted Amateurs are at the head of the evolutionary tree.

In fact the whole project is internally code named ROGA (revenge of the gifted amateur) since we believe that the ability to create business structures out of free(ish) software held together with gaffer tape is one of the core competencies of the networked economy – alongside disobedience and being able to be equally fluent with technology and relationships.

But then having played with me in a band all those years ago you probably knew that already.

Thanks for the challenge :)

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