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This will be the fifth BigHook meeting. If you're new to BigHook, see "How BigHook got its Name." The overall motivation for BigHook has been to be good ancestors, that is, to explore how we can lay the foundation for the best network we can possibly leave to our grandchildren.
The specific theme this year will be Organizational Culture. My own interest in Organizational Culture began when I came to AT&T. I experienced its inner workings in excruciatingly dysfunctional detail. I felt like I was swimming in honey. Now, let me be clear -- Organizational Culture is not always bad -- it is simply so different from the culture of our ordinary lives as to be worth at least a few days of study.
As I explored Organizational Culture further, I became convinced that it is a major force -- as important as technology, economics and politics -- in shaping the future of telecommunications. Yet, because Organizational Culture determines who is powerful, who makes important decisions, and who reaps big rewards, it remains a taboo topic, a subject of unspoken tension, and a source of jokes that make us snicker into the back of our hand.
When I began searching for a more systematic treatment of the material Dilbert drew upon in the early 1990s, there was nothing! After several years I found _Moral Mazes_ by Robert Jackall, a penetrating anthropological study of three modern American corporations. One of Jackall's first findings was that corporations are so anxious about their internal workings that 36 refused to let Jackall study them before the first one agreed! Professor Jackall will be a featured participant at BigHook2004. I reviewed Moral Mazes, and it has become one of my touchstone.
Another acute observer of Organizational Culture, Art Kleiner, will also join us at BigHook2004. Kleiner's 1991 essay, "Who Owns Exxon?" pointed out that employee pension funds set up by ERISA, the 1974 Employee's Retirement Security Act, undid the already-loose coupling between ownership and governance. Kleiner's essay helped me understand the unraveling of AT&T and foretold today's corporate scandals. Kleiner went on to write two excellent books, _The Age of Heretics_ about the role of the corporation in secular culture, and, more recently, _Who Really Matters_, a look at the unspoken structure of organizational decision-making.
Here are some great Organizational Culture cartoons! If you know of more, send them in (or at least send pointers to them) and I'll put them here too.
I am thrilled to announce that the amazing multi-instrumental polyrhythmacist Joe Craven will be Musician in Residence at BigHook2004. Joe is a regular with the David Grisman quintet and has played with the likes of Stephane Grapelli, Jerry Garcia and The Persuasions, and former BigHook musician Joe Weed.