Last night, a few of us from the office went along to One Alfred Place to listen to a presentation by Jemima Gibbons on her new book, Monkeys with Typewriters. The event was actually hosted by the Society for Organisational Learning (SOL-UK), and was attended more by academics and those in the business of Knowledge Management and Learning, than Social Media/Business/Software people like ourselves. This however was what made the debate captivating!

To in part quote Jemima herself, Monkeys with Typewriters sets about debunking the idea that social media are an amateurish distraction for today’s organisations. Having only seen snippets of the book at the present time, I can’t reassure you that the book actually achieves this, but what became evident was the progress and development in social media and social software that have been achieved since Jemima set about writing the book. Many of the chapter hooks such as co-creation, passion, openness and transparency have already been well document elsewhere, leaving the book feeling the somewhat dated. However, it soon became clear that this particular audience were naturally some way behind our own thinking and work practices

What I feel Jemima has done well is to engage and strong selection of web entrepreneurs, practitioners and industry spokespeople. This has allowed her to present many varied views of such topics as co-creation, openness and transparency, whilst hitting home the point that entrepreneurs of the future will create much flatter (non-hierarchical) business structures, and harness the power of ‘we’ thinking.

Among those interviewed include Scott Monty (Ford Motor Company), who’s view was that Ford is essentially a news organisation, Craig Newmark (Founder of Craigslist) who emphasises his role as a customer service manager, and Lloyd Davis (Tuttle Club) who states that if you can’t come to Tuttle Club because of work commitment then you simply don’t get it - it is work!

Perhaps my main take-out of the session was that of the perspective of the learning professionals present in the room. They were adamant that ‘learning’ will never take place in such an effective manner online as it does offline (or face-to-face), despite knowledge flow and information the internet puts at out fingertips. Learning clearly needs to combine the two within organisations, but must understand how, when and where to integrate the two, and provide a real purpose to the social tools that support it.

I tweeted snippets of the presentation here for you to view, and was astonished to even get a response from the Craig Newman himself as praised him for his beliefs!

(New things I learnt: Tuple and Panopticon!)