Self-Governing Online Worker Communities

Carl Bialik from the WSJ writes "Oil-services company Schlumberger is doing something unusual for a big corporation: fostering the creation of online groups of employees with similar interests and allowing these communities to govern themselves and choose their leaders. Wall Street Journal columnist David Wessel talks to John Afilaka, a geological engineer who was elected to lead the company's rock-characterization community. 'Mr. Afilaka campaigned to increase technical professionals' influence on top management's research-and-development priorities and to forge better links among various communities. He claims progress on both.' Richard McDermott, a consultant, tells Wessel such a management structure is unusual: 'People...see it as a real democratic institution in what is otherwise an authoritarian institution, a business.' Wessel notes: 'Other companies, apparently, are scared of that.'"

Re:Schlumberger

[Anonymous Coward]

Schlumberger was (is?) a great and magic engineering company, and is kind of unique regarding diversity and readyness to try new things (first corporate adopter of Cisco, Netscape and maybe the largest owner of IP adresses and the largest corporate network in the 80s).

Well anyhow, I salute Claude Baudoin and the other peoples behind this initiative. In his Powerpoint presentation of Eureka and the technical communities, there was a Dilbert comics, which infuriated some of the pointy-haired bosses at the time.

Cheers, to the good old days.

J

Re:You forgot Iceland

[Procyon101]

From the wiki: ...The constitution, written in 1874, was revised in 1903...

The existing government isn't that old. It's only the parliment, which in times past has been relegated only to tradition, through blood feuds and near monarchies, that is really old.

You Invented Iceland

[Doc Ruby]

I'm always ready to believe the best about Iceland. But even that Wikipedia entry tells how Iceland was controlled by the Danish king as recently as the 1900s:

"n 1874, a thousand years after the first acknowledged settlement, Denmark granted Iceland home rule, which again was extended in 1904. The constitution, written in 1874, was revised in 1903, and a minister for Icelandic affairs, residing in Reykjavík, was made responsible to the Alingi. The Act of Union, a December 1, 1918, agreement with Denmark, recognized Iceland as a fully sovereign state united with Denmark under a common king. Iceland established its own flag and asked that Denmark represent its foreign affairs and defense interests. The Act would be up for revision in 1940 and could be revoked three years later, if an agreement wasn't reached."

  That's hardly a democratic republic, not the way the US Constitution sets one out.

as a Schlumberger employee...

[Anonymous Coward]

As a Schlumberger employee who recently moved from the semiconductor industry to the oil industry - I can't say enough good things about Schlumberger's online community efforts. One of the MANY reasons I walked away from my former employer was the piss poor way they handled (or didn't handle) knowledge management. My former employer, despite being a "high tech" company was very low tech in terms of knowledge sharing and shared learning. Schlumberger is so far ahead in this respect there is really no comparison.