This isn’t an original entry. I just wanted to let you all know that I published a short post in the LinkedIn Pulse blog, with the above title (https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/your-organization-isnt-real-jd-eveland?trk=object-title). In general, it compares organizations to an unsuccessful version of the Velveteen Rabbit. You might find it interesting. It’s attracted some attention and garnered a fair number of likes.… Read More »
Sometimes an online conversation can begin around one topic and segue into others, often considerably more profound than the original. Case in point: a recent LinkedIn discussion regarding how variables measured on different kinds of scales might be combined into overall indices most effectively. Backing up from this fairly specific issue raises some fundamental questions about how data… Read More »
Fit the Third But using the tools of politics to repeal politics turned out to be a dangerous game. Neoliberals lying down with politicians caused the public generally to wake up with giant flea hickeys rather than just cautionary fleabites. Deregulation removing Depression-era policies like Glass-Steagall allowed the rawest kinds of market pressures to shape big financial institutions… Read More »
On our Reed College Facebook page, there has been a debate on academic reimbursement, starting with an innocuous discussion on the posting of a position for a new event planner for the College and leading up to my threatening them with my own analysis of academic job markets – a threat now begun here. Prelude Despite the neverending… Read More »
The question of why teachers quit teaching has recently been posed in a LinkedIn discussion forum. I offered some thoughts there, but I thought that it might also be useful to expand some on this theme here. It’s a complicated issue, but one with considerable social urgency. It’s easy to see the question of why teachers quit as… Read More »
Some time back, in connection with a class I was teaching, I posted a question to the Socio-Technical Systems Roundtable (STS RT) discussion board on LinkedIn asking about what kind of developed procedures there might be for conducting socio-technical design studies. This provoked a vigorous discussion with a goodly number of participants, and generated a lot of useful… Read More »
Today’s post is actually being posted elsewhere – on the blog of the Community Design Institute, managed by my old friend and colleague Charlie Grantham. Find it here: Workspace Politics While you’re at it, check out Charlie’s other posts. This is actually part of his series on redesigning work spaces. He has a lot of other interesting thoughts… Read More »
On yet another of the seemingly endless LinkedIn discussion boards[1. Someday someone is going to figure out just how much social energy is being spent in these collective discussions, and the productivity lost thereby.], a question has been posed about the idea of “servant leadership” and its co-optation by Wal-Mart. As both its supporters and critics agree, the… Read More »
Well, here’s something different. I’ve recently dug out some material that I originally put together as introductions to various organizational research modules while at Trident U. However, they have long since ceased to use any of it, so I thought it might be worth bringing out of storage. Strictly speaking, it’s probably two separate essays, one on research… Read More »
Reminiscences on lost technologies continue…with a whole lot of great links to things and stuff. Check them out! In 1971-72, I was working with the Public Health Service to implement the National Health Service Corps. We were getting bombarded with letters from communities around the country that thought they ought to have one of our doctors – eventually,… Read More »