Blockchain introduces a whole new paradigm to the digital workplace.
We can now look at introducing new levels of transparency and openness to organisations, while this is particularly interesting to those currently looking at public organisations it’s potential impact with private corporations can be seen as equally and possible more impactful.
What we gain is the ability to write our version history in a way that cannot be re-written, others can write theirs but at least we can record what we understood and known to have happened.
Corporations and large enterprise’s are plagued with presentational bias internally where the person writing the report controls who here’s what and how much of the “truth” is presented to stakeholders. With blockchain we have the opportunity to allow a more transparent communications flow across organisations from top to bottom and more importantly from bottom to top.
While people are looking at blockchain as a public database which anyone can read / check this is not completely accurate.
Organisations can write private information to the blockchain without exposing internal information to the outside world, all you need to do is write a record / contract containing the references to your internal sources in order to get the best of both worlds.
You can obviously also have a completely private or consortium based blockchain so that you have even more control should you need it, this however brings with it some additional overheads that at least initially may not be viable.
We see a world where you can rebuild history in any organisation to be able to learn from what actually happened and drive constant evolution of your organisation.
While this will obviously not suit some people, particularly those that have developed themselves in the areas of communications that allow them to thrive in the current enterprise world, these people will inevitably quickly adapt and see the huge potential and power of using the blockchain in organisations digital workplaces.
It will allow everyone to avoid the inherent frustrations in working in a world where the truth can be hidden away and they spend more time on presenting information than on actually work, those whose jobs it is in the main to present information will suddenly find that they are no longer hunting around for information to present but they have a new problem of mining this information from the mass of verifiable data that is available.
This world of openness with challenge senior management and executives more than any other area as they are the ones most used to getting the information presented to them with a bias towards what they want to hear in a way that suits them best, this era will bring a fundamental shift towards those that are able to deal with the harsh realities of day to day and still drive forward.
Those who embrace this will thrive and those who try to shut it down will become extinct.
If you want to understand what this world will look like then you only have to look at the open source community where these types of digital workplaces have existed for years, leaders with knowledge and experience in these communities are the ones who have a great advantage going forward in a world where you can see the reality of any situation instantly.
