The need for a new kind of thinking

The last chapter stated that a connection to the Internet leads into a world where all normal business rules are changed - and it will require quite a different kind of thinking from that employed in conventional business environments to be able to succeed in e-business.

At one of the tables - in the virtual cafe of readers reading the draft chapters of this book - there was an immediate protest against this statement: claiming it was unfounded. Someone else complained that the section on learning strategies was irrelevant and had little to do with e-business. As is often the case within groups, and is born out by many examples in the virtual cafe, a first opinion is often accepted and adopted by all. There followed a flurry of posts from others at that table, agreeing with the view that the book was losing its focus by going off at a tangent into learning strategies.

At another table there was quite a different reaction. Bryan Rieger wrote:

Well, I've just finished Chapter 6 for the third time. The first two reads it just didn't do anything for me, but, on the third read the penny dropped.

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...collaboration is more like an organic structure - with each cell operating independently but within a whole. When one cell evolves, other corresponding cells will also evolve, possibly making a more efficient piece of the whole.

This analogy not only works in education, but is also very relevant to business. I find it much better to work with many 'like-minded' individuals learning, and evolving their ideas - than with specialists that only fit within one specific framework.

Also, co-operation tends to operate by 'rules' or 'recipes' and imposed structures - while collaborative environments are a little more chaotic, modelling ideas from their acquired knowledge base.

It's also interesting to point out that most of the people I know that tend to work in a collaborative manner tend to have grown up with building blocks, modelling or Lego. When given an objective, they draw upon their knowledge base and exposure and apply their current tools accordingly. Everybody will build the same thing a little differently - but they will all reach their intended objective.

<snip>

...many people I have worked with view their knowledge as proprietary and do not wish to share it with others - the basis for this idea being that they will no longer be required if somebody else knows what they know. It's very difficult to get people to abandon this way of thinking - especially in an economy where knowledge is money.

Bryan Rieger

Bryan Rieger had accepted the proposition that the world of e-business would require a different type of thinking. Although the reason hadn't been explicit, he'd gleaned from the previous chapters that the world of e-business would contain much more change and greater uncertainty than conventional business in the world of bricks and mortar.

He'd been able to see that the section about learning was more than just about learning per se: it could also be applied to any situation where there is much uncertainty and ambiguity. He'd abstracted the essence of the learning situation and transferred it to a business environment. As a consequence, far from the learning section being irrelevant to e-business, the findings of Dr. Panitz could offer a conceptual breakthrough in being able to think more constructively about how e-business solutions can be organised.