Then he presents the case of Pixar, the digital animation company that was co-founded by Steve Jobs. The success of computer animated movies, it seems, rests on having a good story. And when the story is not good (as it was going to be the case with Toy Story 2), then you have so start from scratch. Even if this hurts.
So plus-sing helps people to be (brutally) honest whilst being constructive when taking part in a design effort. The rest is given by providing a good environment for people to interact with others they are not used to.
And so we land in information systems territory. For years we as educators in this field have been used the story of competitiveness (you can read my previous blog on it) to entice and motivate students to gain an appreciation of the role of information systems In organisations. Not so much in society in general.
This story in many cases does not reflect what we do as people using information systems. If we were to walk the talk then we would have to see what universities do with IS and IT. And then we would discover that we don't really know what goes on. In this type of organisations the story of IS/IT is far from clear let alone easy to grasp or to tell.
But universities are not the only ones that don't fit into the competitiveness story. Many organisations would be more akin to be related to a story of a vision. Someone saw potential to do things with IS/IT (not sure if they were driven by gaining competitive advantage) and went for it.
Pixar could well be one of those organisations, and as Lehrer says, technology was in its infancy hen they started. IT was not fast enough to make filming easier. It would take ages to film a short sequence. Not only that, but funding was always at risk. Having s good story for a film was essential. Stories that would captivate children but also adults.
So what other stories can we think of to drive the efforts with IS/IT? And what stories can we use to replace the almost out of age story of competitiveness when it comes to educate people in this field?
I can think of a few. The story of how vendors gained an IT contract and then cleared off. The story of how a piece of software made the living of an entrepreneur until s/he sold it or until s/he lost it all when the company could not rely anymore on cheap graduates. The story of how a company had to replace its donated legacy system because these systems had been built for a different type of company.
Or the story of how two banks became one after unsuccessfully installing two versions of the same foreign software for years. Or the story of four smart kids who ended up locked and working non-stop in a garage in California after being deceived with the promises of the Silicon Valley. Or the story of a female analyst who with her long life friends and a couple of good mentors (but also against her boss) built academic information systems out of virtually nothing. And succeeded.
Am sure you and I know stories like these...
It is time to look for simpler and more humane stories with and about IS/IT. Not all stories have to involve the drop out kids, the graduates working non-stop in their dormitories. There are stories IS/IT enchanting people in supposedly the wrong place and the wrong time. Stories of coincidence and chance.
It is time to think of simpler ways of conveying what we know about IS/IT. This story of the Internet does not have to be told for instance as a story of the military trying a new defence system but as a story of some guys having deep conversations about humanity. The story of software does not have to be a story about conquering the world with an operating system or the best computer in two but as a story of a computer club where everyone tried to positively impress others.
So maybe we need to do some plus-sing of the stories we use in our field.
Or maybe we need to rewrite the whole thing as a series of children stories.
Maybe we need some wizards here and now.
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