Rowan's blog

The Integrated Digital Plan

I have been noodling with Integrated Digital Planning approaches for around three years. I lead the digital planning effort for IBM Marketing and Communications globally which involves the ongoing creation and cross-functional coordination of methods, development of guidance and learning materials with stakeholders incl. discipline planning and skills leaders and the Talent and Learning organization.

The latest iteration of the 'Integrated Digital Plan' chart:

(View full size on SlideShare)

Some explanatory points:

• Listening, content, media selection, metrics and analytics are core pillars of digital marketing and communications.
• Other pillars listed (social engagement through to virtual events) to be selected as part of the Engagement Plan based on relevance to the Objectives, selected Constituents and their local digital usage behaviour (Insights). This list is not exhaustive, for example you could run a Digital Jam or use Collaborative Software. Technologies will emerge over time that facilitate engagement in new ways.
• Frequency of iterations to be decided (loop in orange along the base of chart). The more frequent the iterations, the faster the plan will become optimized.
• The Engagement Plan is required in order to define the Management Plan – and vice versa. Think of them as two sides of a coin.
• If resources are sufficient, more than one Business Priority (Input) could be addressed at one time.

 

First, thank you to George Gallate (Global Chairman Euro RSCG 4D) for tweaking my pencil drawing, turning it into the pretty colored chart shown above and creating a full sized billboard (for use at the Digital Strategy Workshops):

Second, I'd like input on this approach. Is anyone else out there attempting to operationalize this kind of planning process within a large enterprise / organization? If so, I'd love to hear from you.

IBMers can replay a presentation & discussion on the Integrated Digital Plan here.

Many of my recent posts relate to this approach, including:

• a conversation with Tony Zambito
• my post on Building Constituency: A communications approach for open leaders which overlays the Constituents, Listening, Engagement Plan, Measurement, Analytics and Iteration portions of the Integrated Digital Plan, but through the lens of building relationship (rapport) and co-creating value with Constituents.

Other posts describe the business transformation challenges involved in implementing this kind of approach including my latest ramble, on the parallels between:

• the internal transformation organizations must go through to keep pace with the external technology revolution we are all experiencing with digital/social communications and
• the outstanding strategic change plan Major James Gant outlined in 'One Tribe at a Time'.

I'm sure my thoughts on this topic will continue to evolve, as the transformation within IBM gathers further momentum and results - and as I learn more from others.

Input welcome via the comments section below.

 

One Tribe at a Time

It is Remembrance Day. In line with my interests in change management and building constituency, I read "One Tribe at a Time: A strategy for success in Afghanistan" by Major Jim Gant. My understanding of the War in Afghanistan in 2009 when this was written is very basic... but based on the information presented, this is the most compelling strategic change plan I have read.

The scale and complexity of the challenges, along with the brutal realities of failure in a war environment, put the digital/social change project I spend time thinking about into perspective! The external technology revolution we are all experiencing with digital/social communications - and the internal transformation organizations must go through to keep pace (the subject of many of my posts) - now feels like a walk in the park on a warm spring day with an ice cream. Having said this, I do see parallels.

My take on it:

• The vision is; To disrupt, dismantle and defeat the terrorist network, al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan. To prevent the return of al-Qaeda in either country in the future and to facilitate security and prosperity for the Afghan people.

• A key cultural factor is the fundamentally different structures of America and Afghanistan: a central governance model vs a distributed tribal system.

• Major Jim Gant's strategy involves working with Pashtunwali tribes; one 'Tribal Engagement Team' building constituency with one tribe, eventually scaling to reinforce existing tribal structures right across the country, to partner with them against al-Qaeda. This makes sense because the Pashtunwali tribal system is centuries old - it's all they know - and they are likely to resist foreign intervention (like attempted structural change) to the death.

Implementing the proposed strategy would require institutional change and a shift in leadership style:

• Approval to pilot the strategy would require imagination and trust from leadership.
• Aligning with this approach at full scale would require transformation of the US Army, including a significant paradigm shift.
• Communications would need to be overhauled from command and control to, perhaps, Social Architecture, slide 6.
• Approvals processes would need to change - some efforts would need to go ahead with no approval.
• 'Trust and approval' would need to be agreed upfront (sounds a little like having Social Computing Guidelines, e.g. my employer IBM's).
• The risk-averse nature of staff would need to change - they'd need to be willing to 'get out there', partner and collaborate with the tribe/constituency to co-create value.
• Staff must be allowed to go 'native' and interact with external tribes at all levels (can staff in your organization openly collaborate with people externally about their non-confidential work e.g. on a blog, LinkedIn Group or via Twitter).
• Funding models must be streamlined, so staff have the power to do what makes sense (to draw a parallel with digital marketing and communications, this might be investing in new listening capabilities, developing locally relevant content for a key constituency in market and funding ongoing metrics and analytics to derive actionable insights). 
• Likely resistance from US ground commanders (I think all change agents can relate to that one).

Major Gant listed this familiar sounding challenge: "Identifying, attracting and training personnel who could perform this type of mission would be a daunting task". This seems to come back to the need for a new (or, perhaps, old) predominant style of intrinsically motivated, transformational leadership:

• More parallels here: Finding leaders with integrity, 'Strength and Honor' who can 'build constituency': incl. building rapport across cultures / cross-function, listen, empathise, understand, learn, then 'influence without authority', plus continually assess the status against the vision and successfully iterate on the strategy and implementation over time.
• Initial leaders would need the imagination to go against the grain of what the institution rewards, be willing to pilot it (start small and think big).
• Importantly they'd need the commitment/perseverance to stick with it, to allow the project to benefit from the 'Chinese bamboo tree' style phenomenon described on p37 (little growth in first years, explosive growth / return in five years). They might need to influence up too, to ensure their project was provided ongoing support.

 

Major Jim Gant, you say you're not a writer, not a strategist, not an academic - but I found this very thought provoking from the perspective of strategy and change (and applied cultural anthropology). Plus I was compelled to read to the end. I hope others do too.

I'd love to hear what has happened since 2009 - and what was learned along the way. I vaguely recall hearing from David Meerman Scott that the US Army is transforming in line with the digital/social communications revolution, perhaps along the lines of parallels drawn above? I wonder if this might have helped.

 

Interested to hear others thoughts too.

 

P.S. Tip of the hat to Luc Galoppin (as he would say) for telling me about the ebook.

Agile Progress - an experiment in driving open, collaborative, sustainable progress

The seven billionth human will be born today. This population level is currently unsustainable. Whose responsibility is it to regulate human population numbers - and solve other problems facing humanity and our planet? Is it the responsibility of governments? Of organisations? Of individuals?

Population is a complex topic that relates to individual choice, education, standard of living and other factors. Aren't all the big areas we humans want to see progess in* the collective responsibility of all of us; individuals, organisations and governments?

*E.g. the topics from the Worldometer statistics page: Population, Government & economics, Society & media, Environment, Food, Water, Energy, Health.

Today, individuals from around the world can collaborate with each other - and with organisations and governments - to solve our greatest challenges and drive ethical, sustainable progress. We have the technologies: Web 2.0 has provided power to the people.

What if we each participated and followed a process like this:

1. Each participant signs up to participate voluntarily (for this experiment, via the form below). Each participant selects a topic they are knowledgeable about and willing to contribute towards.
2. Secure an overall Program Leader leader for each topic, plus Project Leaders to neutrally facilitate collaboration and project management on specific project efforts (not implement activities).
3. Project Leader to gather a team of voluntary participants (enlist more participants where required, communicate the overview and process).
4. Each Project Leader to work with the participants that volunteered to collaboratively develop wording an ethical, sustainable vision for the future of that topic. This would become their Project vision. (Note: Multiple topic>visions would require multiple Project Leaders - many different projects may form under one topic, each with their own vision.)
5. Each Project Leader coordinates wording, with participants, of a SMART* short term goal (outcome) to work towards - in line with the collectively defined project vision. This could take the form of a ‘user story’, a step used in agile development process. View Agile Alliance video, ‘Agile in a nutshell’.
6. Each project team that defined a vision and an outcome collectively participates, with whatever resources and influence the leader, participating individuals, organisations and / or governments can muster, to work towards implementation of this outcome, coordinating efforts using collaborative software. Together their efforts form an Agile Progress project.
7. The project team reviews their progress against the SMART* short term outcome developed in step 5. Team leader notes and communicates learnings.
8. Wrap back to step 5. Iterate over time for continuous improvement in progress toward vision developed in step 4.

*SMART: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound

By working together in project teams, each contributing our individual actions, skills and resources to the collective effort and mobilizing other individuals, organisations and governments, perhaps we could drive open, collaborative, sustainable progress in these important areas.

I’m keen to set up the functionality to enable the creation of Agile Progress projects, as an experiment, then involve more people. We can iterate over time, based on feedback and measurable outcomes (optimise the concept and individual project efforts based on what works / what doesn’t work / the trial of new ideas). I’d like your input and participation. If you’re reading this, you qualify!

To set this up, I’d like your feedback on:

1. The ‘Agile Progress’ concept. Please view and edit this simple first draft of the concept incl.: Who, What, Where, How on Google Docs. 
2. What topics you feel most knowledgeable / passionate about (in form below). This will provide important information to help determine where to start.
3. Which free, scalable collaboration tool(s) would best meet the requirements listed on Google Docs? (I use some of these tools, but don't have visibility across all options.)
4. What challenges do you foresee - and what solutions might overcome them?

Please provide your feedback on items 2, 3 and 4 via the short form below:

Name:

Email:

Topic of interest:
Human population
Government & economics
Society & media
Environment
Food
Water
Energy
Health
Recommended tool(s):

Challenges & solutions:

 

This idea is in early concept phase. It excites me, because if it can be made to work, perhaps we (individuals, organisations and governments) could define shared visions and work towards open, collaborative, sustainable progress together. I’d appreciate your feedback – via the form fields above or by leaving a comment below. My next steps will be guided by your input.

I am seeking others to collaborate with to develop/modify the concept.

 

Building Constituency: A communications approach for open leaders

Mary Murphy, reporting from the recent THINK Forum in NYC, wrote:

“We’re living in a time where our need for strong leadership is intensifying and the leadership qualities we need are changing.”

In her blog post titled "We Need a New Leadership Approach to Make the Planet Smarter", she goes on to say:

“We’ve arrived at a juncture where the only barriers to building a smarter planet are imagination and leadership. We have to develop future leaders who have the vision necessary to make progress and the skills to lead companies and communities to that better place.”

“Observing Leadership Series client protagonists this year has helped us pinpoint three attributes that they share. They’re all systems thinkers who can look across complex and interconnected systems and see their way to a solution. All are able to build a constituency despite resistance to change and conflicting interests. And they all have the ability to cultivate an information-led culture to help solve what sometimes seem like insurmountable challenges."

 

Perhaps we need a system to cultivate this information-led culture to build constituencies: How about a 2.0 communications approach for open leaders to drive truly collaborative progress?

In the spirit of collaborative progress, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this...

Building constituency: a communications approach for open leaders

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Marketing 2.0: How to transform an organization from inside-out to outside-in

Today I read an excellent and thought provoking post from Tony Zambito titled: "Is it reach and engage or listen and engage?".

The post raises questions regarding the ideal approach in this marketing 2.0 world - and the transformation challenge organizations face in order to implement outside-in approaches.

I agree with Tony that marketing 2.0 approaches require listening to come first.

However I think it's simplistic to talk about listen, engage and reach in isolation. Also, I don't believe this is only about social. 

Here's my take on the elements required (I'd appreciate any feedback on this):

In my humble opinion, whole 360 degree integrated plans need to be designed from the outside-in, based on insight into the target audience. Rather than using the word 'target' which suggests hunting to 'reach' them.. Or 'audience' which suggests they're passive, I'll call them a constituency - a group of people with shared interests, beliefs or ambitions that the organization wants to serve and create value exchange with. (In order to create any plan there would probably need to be a clear objective  & outcomes set too).

By starting with a specific constituency (group of customers /prospects /clients) in mind - and LISTENING to them, relevant content and communication vehicles could be selected to form part of an integrated plan. This would, as Tony articulated, involve embracing the constituency in terms of collaborating two-way - and ENGAGING in relevant ways (incl. internal experts connecting with experts/influencers in the constituency 'peer-to-peer', ensuring web pages and assets on paid/owned/earned domains show up in natural search results, with clear, relevant calls to action, as well as more traditional one-to-many marketing communications integrated across organizational silos). 

Re. REACH: ideally, by listening first, the content developed would be so highly relevant and valuable that members of the constituency are energized to share the messages / content / agenda on the organisation's behalf. (This would create free 'REACH' from peers, who are likely to be more trusted sources than marketing messages). This wouldn't necessarily replace traditional push tactics, but could augment.

Lastly, I see iteration of plans in short test & learn cycles playing an important role in the ideal plan, allowing fast optimization and (per Tony Zambito's earlier post) the ability to keep the messages / content / agenda aligned with the interests, shared beliefs, ambitions and digital usage patterns of the defined constituency over time.

Does this map to your thinking or would you change the approach?

A question: What I spend a lot of time thinking about is HOW might employees encourage an organization to develop the appetite for this large scale transformation effort? What would motivate an org. with multiple silos and different planning approaches (incl. many 'inside-out' ones) to self-analyse and redesign the org. to make constituent-focused outside-in approaches possible? 

Keen to hear any thoughts on this!

Mexico, Milan, Madrid

At work, I'm part of a team driving the effort to increase, optimize and integrate the use of digital in marketing & communications plans across IBM globally. This is a pretty challenging transformation effort, requiring large scale changes to enable constituent-focussed integrated planning (moving from inside-out marketing and communications to an outside-in approach).

As part of this effort, we run Digital Strategy Workshops. My Manager @EthanMcc, Vice President @benedw, colleague from another part of the business @DMBeckmann plus our global agency partners from Euro RSCG 4D @gallate and Ogilvy @howardpyle, and I, are continuing to get out to more IBM markets this year.

Workshops in Mexico, Milan and Madrid

In the last two weeks we ran workshops in Mexico, Milan and Madrid.

It was wonderful to meet the local teams, including local Digital Leaders I've been working with for some time. It was good to better understand their business priorities, local gaps/opportunities and market landscapes. We worked with these local teams to improve IBM's capabilities in digital, drive deeper integration between internal functions around digital and, ultimately, to identify ways to meet their growth objectives by developing integrated marketing and communications plans with digital at the core - the next steps for their markets in this transformation effort.

Many thanks to Leobardo V Mendez in Mexico, Paolo Carnevale and Loredana Galante in Italy, plus Luis De SopeÑA Pastor and Particia Jimenez in Spain for all your hard work to make these workshops possible. It was wonderful to meet you finally!

I'm not sure what I would have done without the tremendous support of my colleague Denise Beckmann who looked after me when I got sick with laryngitis (when I arrived in Mexico City). I couldn't stand for more than 30 seconds and had lost my voice (not that I could speak Spanish anyway)! Also, big thanks to staff at Sheraton Suites Santa Fe, Mexico who, on request from Denise managed to get a friendly and professional Mexican doctor to my hotel room within 40 minutes and were very kind and helpful.

Photos from the workshops are up on Flickr. Some of my favorites are below.

Mexico:

 

Milan:

Madrid:

 

‘The Hero’s Journey’ – implications for leading change

I was reflecting yesterday on the roles change agents play within the 'hero's journey' and the implications of the hero’s journey for leading change (note I am using the term 'hero' to refer to both males and females).

First, let me define those two things:

Change agents are people who attempt to positively influence change through his or her actions, or influencing the actions of others (i.e. most of us in our day to day lives, plus leaders of organisational change).

The hero's journey is a basic pattern found in many narratives from around the world.

Joseph Campbell describes it quite wonderously: "A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man."

This chart shows the hero's journey of change (graphic in public domain):

I've taken a few writing courses, during which I learned that the backbone of a typical fiction includes;

• Identifying a gap (usually something that is shut down or out of balance within the main character), then
• Going through the adventure of the hero's journey to overcome blocks to transformation. The character’s inner journey is usually facilitated by an outer journey - which contains multiple change agents - some genuinely trying to steer them towards this transformation, others providing an environment they can change within (incl. providing the challenges / resistance they need to overcome, to make their inner journey meaningful). The hero is also a change agent on the personal level in that they make the choice to change within the environmental/situational context (and, since the outer journey reflects the inner journey, they transform their environment/situation in the process).

 

What roles do change agents play within the 'hero's journey'?

Looking at the hero's journey chart above, I'd argue that every phase could be played by change agents:

• providing a call to adventure i.e. articulating a vision - step 3 of Kotter's 8 steps to change management
• being the 'supernatural aid' i.e. communicating the Vision for Buy-in / helping them see and feel the vision and reason for change - step 4 of Kotter's 8 steps to change management
• providing the threshold i.e. urgency & felt need for change - step 1 of Kotter's 8 steps to change management)
• being the helper i.e. effective follower - as defined by Kelley
• being the mentor i.e. coaching leader - as defined by Goleman
• providing challenges i.e. opportunities for the hero to learn experientially incl.: overcoming resistance, undertaking training, inviting them to step up to achieve a goal / attain something of value
• facilitating the hero through seeing the revelation i.e. the emotive 'clunk' of understanding about what needs to change and being able to let go of the old & embrace the new - this could involve influence tactics such as rational persuasion, inspirational appeals, consultation (Yukl), creating interventions (Bandura, 1997 in the context of developing self-efficacy) / facilitating experiential learning workshops, incl. processes to support consolidation of learnings
• supporting the return to a new status quo i.e. consolidating gains and making change stick - step 8 of Kotter's 8 steps to change management

 

What are the implications of ‘The Hero’s Journey’ for leading change?

Isn't this the most intuitive approach for understanding change management?

Based on its pattern throughout global narrative history, ‘The Hero’s Journey’ is arguably the intuitive, natural approach to change that moves people. However, it does not match the approaches espoused by change theorists, such as Kotter’s 8 steps (1996), Kanter, Stein and Jick’s 10 commandments (1995) or Nadler and Nadler’s (1998) recipe for organisational change. The key differences:

1. When you consider that every human being has a life story and is in the process of learning (i.e. life), it becomes clear that every person is within their own hero’s journey (i.e. everyone is running their own change agenda).
2. Heroes / personal change agents must become aware of their own personal biases (personality type, perceptions, beliefs, cultural norms, values, motivations etc) to ensure they do not make incorrect assumptions / have blind spots or biases in relation to their change efforts, in order to be effective. Every hero’s journey / change effort will involve peeling back new levels of awareness - and adjustments will need to be made on an ongoing basis, to take account of new information.
3. Where a human being is interconnected with other humans in any way, there are multiple change agents / heroes, each working on their own journeys (change agendas). In other words, everyone is trying to implement change, but their 'change' is probably different to the one you are trying to lead and implement. In order to get the people you are trying to influence to buy in to your hero's journey / change agenda, you must find a way to align their agenda with yours, or yours with theirs. In other words, find out what motivates them - and what shared interests, beliefs or ambitions you could align on. If they are ‘shut down’, then it becomes necessary to re-establish their belief in themselves and the value of contributing to the world around them (not just their self-efficacy for a task).
4. In a work of fiction, as in general life, a lot of change is serendipitous - each 'hero' (i.e. every character) is finding their way on their own journey as well as playing a part in the story of each other character. The change agents are each embroiled in their own hero's journey as well as in each others journeys. We each pick ideas for the next 'scene' in our change journey from the smorgasboard of stories around us.

 

In summary, the existing models of change don't address the concept that everyone is a change agent on their own journey. The existing models are linear, based on a the premise of a static external environment, whereas in real life (as in the hero's journey), the change journey is unknown at the start. It can't be known at the start, because the process involves deriving more awareness (incl. eliminating personal biases) - and playing the roles of helper, mentor, transformer and consolidator in other people's journeys, whose life scenes form the external environment we are attempting to change!

I need some more time to reflect on this – meanwhile, I’d love to hear any comments.

As the world urbanizes, will the most successful cities result from top-down planning or bottom-up innovation?

A debate has started on McKinsey's 'What Matters' site.

The question: "As the world urbanizes, will the most successful cities result from top-down planning or bottom-up innovation?"

As a change management student, interested in 'smarter cities', I had to have a go at an answer:

 

As with management of any major change, I'd argue that the best results are likely to come from a combination of top down and bottom up approaches.

The 'top' will have access to the strategists/architects, funding, resources etc. However, for the project to be a success, it ultimately needs to work for the residents. These residents' insights and proposed solutions to current problems based on local knowledge (i.e. ideas from the 'bottom', including design innovations from the slums and feedback on implementation obstacles) may be invaluable input to a realistic, implementable new strategy - as well as important in generating buy-in and support for adoption of it from the residents.

If the people at the 'top' are the architects (and the financial sponsors of the project e.g. government), then I think another role is necessary; specialist change managers, skilled in research and communication who would liaise with residents and connect the 'top' and 'bottom' to best effect.

Too often (esp. in government), the 'strategy' team is far removed from the realities of implementation, which leads to less than ideal solutions.

Agreeing on a strategic intent / measurement criteria upfront would provide a tangible way to assess the merit of new design and implementation strategies - this would facilitate agreement on which ideas (from the 'top' and/or from the 'bottom') have most merit. Measurement criteria could include specific objectives for each of the triple bottom line measures (Economic, Environmental, Social), incl. things like; energy efficiency, water & waste management, air quality, transportation solutions, community building (e.g. creating social areas for 150 people, if you use Dunbar's number as a guide) etc.

If no measurable criteria is set, how can the work ever be deemed a success? David Gurr, in his comment on the McKinsey question, described Canberra (in Australia) as a "charming and liveable city, with character and style". As a newish resident of Canberra, I agree it is liveable, but disagree that it has charm, character or style (for many reasons I won't bore you with here)! Clearly he and I are judging Canberra based on different criteria.

 

Following this logic, I imagine the first steps in a large, successful town planning / city design program could include:

1. Hiring a change manager skilled in research, facilitation and communications to liaise between the architects and the residents (i.e. the top and bottom)

2. Collaboratively defining the strategic intent (vision / objective for the city) via inputs from the top and bottom and solidifying this into specific measurable objectives, to be used as criteria to assess the merit of ideas.

3. Working with the architect to define a strategy that meets the strategic intent & specific objectives/criteria, gathering and taking into account the 'bottom up', broad based strategic ideas & inputs from residents.

4. Finalising the strategy/plan, ensuring that implementation obstacles residents raise are taken into consideration.

5. Over time, the change manager could engage with the residents to ensure the implementation of the finalised strategy/plan goes smoothly and the items implemented (whether they are recreational facilities, cable cars etc) are adopted by the residents.

 

Clearly, this collaborative approach would take much more work than a top down approach that assumes what residents want. My opinion is that a city that is likely to last for many generations is worth that investment.

Interested to hear other's thoughts.

 

The evolving nature of how companies organise for social

Jeremiah Owyang from Altimeter Group recently posted results of a survey on how social strategy programs are organised.

How is IBM's social strategy program organised? I'd say it currently looks like this:

Based on the Altimeter Group graphic, my guess is we will see an evolution in the nature of how companies organise for social from:

1. 'Decentralised' or 'Centralised' to
2. 'Hub and spoke' or 'Multiple hub and spoke / Dandelion' to, finally
3. 'Holistic'.

Having said that, I don't believe social can be separated from digital as social is relevant to all digital content (and digital, in turn, cannot be separated from marketing, communications and support - in fact all functions that touch the client / customer). Changes driven by technology are necessitating change in (and integration between) each of those department structures, so I think it would be more holistic to look at the organisation of social in relation to those too.

Do you agree / disagree / see an alternate option?

 

ADDED 22 Oct 2011:

If you've read this far, you may be interested in IBM's journey:

IBM's journey to social business

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Isn't it time we replaced political parties with crowd-sourced democracy?

ZDNet just revealed the Australian Lib's National Broadband Network (NBN) policy to be yet another half-baked, shambolic effort. Some of the background is in my blog posts from last year.

So much time has been wasted - as with almost all major government projects. The political system drives me nuts. So here is an alternate, half baked (but much broader) idea:

Why don't we create a new system for developing and managing Australian national projects whereby:

• Members of the Australian public who are qualified*, collaboratively co-develop policies/projects/solutions within their area(s) of expertise with the aid of neutral, monitored facilitation. *One idea would be to 'qualify' people via an online test, through which they must demonstrate balanced understanding of the points and history surrounding the issues.
• All the policy/project/solution initiatives developed collaboratively, nationally, could be submitted, presented and sorted by Australians via voting tools into a country priority list.
• The Australian public could then collaboratively vote in a Project Leader to implement each priority project (based on the leader's proven ability to successfully implement similar complex projects).

In other words, why don't we develop a system to crowd-source national policies/projects/solutions, so we can make 'politicians' obsolete?

Yes, that idea is half-baked - there would need to be a lot of detail ironed out behind how it could work... back-end infrastructure, privacy, making the collaboration & voting tools secure and facilitation neutral etc, but surely this is all possible now that we live in the time of the inter-webs?

Frankly, I think piloting this kind of approach, starting small and learning and refining it until it is workable on a broad scale would have to be worthwhile... Pretty much any system that focuses on developing an excellent end solution for the country would be better than having multiple competing parties made up of bipartisan politicians working on it?! 

What do you think?

(I have not missed the irony that we'd probably need the NBN to be in place to facilitate this kind of solution on a broad scale... ;)