Online civic space

Written by

Sidewalk cafe - civic spaceThe gist of Ran’s quote that I referred to in the last post was really about Google Buzz, privacy and civic space, and only referred to physical workspaces as a metaphor… but even online, there are different kinds of privacy and public space. Bloggers enjoy the civic space of conversation in the blogosphere and willingly give up some privacy to be a part of that conversation.

I think the reason they are – and I am – willing to do that is that we imagine we have some control of what we reveal. At my work, I still often go to a private conference room to have a one-on-one chat or take a phone call that I want to be private. And I have 1-1 chats via IRC and Skype. And me and my team members move between the public and private frequently.

Bloggers do this with some fluidity on line, and this is what people give up as they become more and more famous, the ability to have flexibility in mixing their public and private spaces. In the age of vast databases, data mining, NSA wiretapping, and social networks like Facebook and Buzz, the question of what is private, what is civic space, and what is oppression and invasion is often not under our control.
painting of a prison cell

The problem with Google Buzz is not that it’s public or private – it’s that we can’t easily choose who to associate with, or easily choose what is public and private. I think this what Ran was getting at when he said, “I feel myself being dragged out to sea in a rip current of increasing complexity.”

That’s what I think Ran’s reader missed – people don’t always want privacy over open space. Privacy and social status aren’t the same. You can have privacy in a corner office or a jail cell, or give it up by sitting at a sidewalk cafe, being homeless, or being famous. It’s choice that matters.

The economy of ideas, hierarchy and private space

Written by

Ran writes, “How much privacy a person has, is often an indication of what position they hold in a hierarchy. Who gets the corner office? Who gets a desk in the middle of an open area?” Yes, that is a cliché in corporate USA and Europe. However, Extreme Programming teams almost always sit together, and I think, in general, most great teams do too.

I think this is part of the shift from an industrial economy, to an economy of ideas. In an industrial economy, the emphasis is on repeatable, standardized processes. By definition, there is a small group of people setting the standards and designing the processes. The best standards win – think of Henry Ford’s production line, Taylorism, and school.

For some time our economy and society has been shifting to an economy based on ideas. Here, firms, teams, and people win by having better ideas, not standard ideas. New and creative ideas are valued. And the best way to develop creative ideas is with other people, not by sitting in a room by yourself. Even some CEOs recognize this – Intel’s former CEO Andy Grove used a cubicle partly because his co-workers could overhear his conversations and give him help.

There is a movement afoot. I often say I wish my work was like my son Martin’s school, PSCS – it feels vibrant, warm, and fun, and often when I go there I don’t want to leave. So one of the first things I did when I started working at Grameen Foundation was create a team room, and got my team members sitting together. Our productivity jumped because we could get help from each other quickly – and at least for me, the warmth of the place went up a lot.

In the programming world, there is controversy about this. Microsoft rarely uses team rooms, putting most programmers into private offices where they can’t collaborate in-person with each other. So does Joel Spolsky. And Don DeMarco recommends it in the great book Peopleware – the same book where he recounts the story of the legendary Black Team.

But there have been great teams that do it the other way, like Chrysler’s famous C3 team ¹ that spawned Extreme Programming (XP). ThoughtWorks does it this way, as does my friends Paul Ingalls’ and Troy Frever’s XP team at Smilebox. When I visit ThoughtWorks or Smilebox, I don’t want to leave.

Anarchists often say that big business is the same as fascism and oppression, and make up that there is nothing to learn from corporations and business. That is true for many or even most large corporations. Business are changing the world – many for worse, but more and more there are ones that change it for the better – and the way they do it is by implementing their ideas. In the world we live in, if you want to change the world, shipping is what counts.

And it’s easier to ship if you’re sitting in the same room with your team.

Note 1: The Chrysler C3 team actually did not fully complete their software for Chrysler, and the project was eventually was shut down. However, in addition to shipping software, they also shipped the Extreme Programming methodology, which had significant influence on the software industry. Mistakes and failures are not always what they seem to be. I’ll say more about that in a future post.