Story:
Combating disbelief and indifference in surfacing a basic innovation that harnesses technology to drive success

The market demand is for the pursuit of success. I recognized my creation of coordination laid a pipeline for the required free-flow of Knowledge in context and made a major marketing leap from a System for coordinating Knowledge interactions to reliable means for natural Feedback of Knowledge or Dialogue on each business event during its circulation. The market I discovered was wedded to the concept of Knowledge Management (KM) and Collaboration though the results delivered were poor. The tools of KM and its email communication infrastructure were popular and promoted by established vendors. My capture of Knowledge interactions in place of Knowledge with emphasis on the emergence of reality or Knowledge Application was only hazily understood for its value. Few accepted they were working at well under 30% of potential ability. Further, my work was considered a risk. I concluded the market was not really prepared for a shift of mind from Knowledge Management to Interaction Management and Knowledge Application even though I was delivering on the web platform. The shift of mind was big. The market needed to be pushed.

My greatest handicap is that my work lies in the gray area between IT and  Management about which few have experience but many are full of tales and viewpoints for all have experience in use of Knowledge and are familiar with buzz words like Feedback, Communities, context, Trust, Teamwork, meaningful collaboration, free-flow, etc.. They serve as mental traps that limit my ability to communicate the huge latent Collective Ability that can be energized with a process for free-flow of Knowledge.  Besides, there is ignorance of the distinction between Dialogue and simple Collaboration or Discussion. These handicaps of communication add on to some major structural handicaps:

• My delivery is a System. It facilitates a way of thinking about work - Autonomy, Freedom, Decentralization, Flat structures - which are not perceived as a necessity, invite cynicism and even raise suspicion. its performance gain is attractive but demands an infrastructure contract. Managements as a body are invariably unprepared for an untried System though I execute without disruption of the legacy Systems in place.
• The prospective enterprise clients were happy to learn of the value-add possible - the pursuit of excellence/success - but disinclined to invest in a process they believed outside their core competence. My plea that the free-flow/judgment process was a key area for competitive advantage fell on deaf ears. The clients were willing to pay three times the cost once the process or philosophy or System was established. Besides, I was seen as a consultant questioning the service of established IT products and brands while dependent on the industry for software.
• The big IT vendors were confused by my work.  Their local offices perceived my work as a threat to their sales targets and discredited my marketing. The country managers regarded my work outside their radar, and the global leaders decided they had competing plans and did not wish to disturb their existing products.
• The Document Management firms felt my work was too downstream for their interest.
• The Management Consultancies I discovered were focused on pushing services supported by conventional IT practices, i.e., they were content to be behind the IT frontier.
• The Venture Capitalists wanted confirmation of an enterprise client. Post the market crash of 2001 they turned conservative.
• The prospective public sector administrations, who perhaps had the most to gain, disappointed:
  • There was no interest in the value-add possible.
  • I was classified along-with Knowledge Management vendors. Interest waned once it became clear that my work could not be tendered or would have to be evaluated as a single tender. Nobody wished to be engaged with extending the frontiers of management.
  • My work was treated as abstract in the absence of an enterprise scale proof point.
  • It was easy to ignore my work and proposal. There was nobody or reason to question a refusal for something in the realm of the possible. Nobody was interested in the power of philosophy or a System that leveraged human behavior. The nay-sayers were protected by the prevailing market and brands.
  • A real frustration was being shunted to the IT department because the administrators were unnerved by my use of IT. Technologists are rarely schooled in the imperatives of Knowledge application and strategies for performance gain. They saw their job as validation and not evaluation of a new science for harnessing technology. Often, they grandly accepted I had conceptualized a possible breakthrough but insisted on a working site to give a verdict!
• The Management Journals were perhaps the biggest disappointment. They were my strongest hope for credibility to break through the mental barrier that protected the ruling Conventional Wisdom. They decided my work was provocative, potentially valuable and convention defying but lacked the lucidity and evidence to be taken seriously. I pleaded in vain that lucidity for a breakthrough was a process and that the rules of evidence needed relaxation for a basic innovation that had the potential to evolve organizations, institutions and governments. They insisted on rigid application of their rules of evidence. I wondered if these high priests would retain their vegetarianism in a jungle confronted by a fight for survival. Rules of evidence I decided had a time and place, and paradigm changing innovations, particularly those urgently needed by a society in distress, needed to be given special consideration so that they could come to the notice of that select set of people, the early adopters, who believe in investing ahead of the pack.
• As a last resort I tried the Foundations dedicated to innovations and problems confronting mankind. I have yet to hear from them. They assured they would keep my proposal in their data bank. I got the impression they believed only humans could organize for social good and considered my transforming of institutions or carrying them towards success by a technology induced flow to be far-fetched.
• All prospective clients for my pilot behaved as though they were deeply interested in technology and management innovation to raise performance, and were eager for a genuine proposal: the proposal only had to be demonstrated first outside their window at a safe distance, and then be supported by testimonials of approval and performance! If the reader believes (s)he is different I request (s)he read my Hacks and Barriers (see Section on Materials) and judge my work.

The only way to surmount the hurdles was define my commitment. I decided the world had yet to look beyond the symptoms and appreciate that the real shortfall in driving success was mental energy, and that my conversion of IT from a mere tool to intelligent energy was an immense source of mental energy. Its liberation of personnel under pressure and their unification for superior application of Knowledge could not be ignored for long. Managers could expect to reduce their time spent on managing team organization and discipline from about 75% of total to under 10%. 

The huge and growing gap between the expanding potential of IT and the stagnant collective ability of communities is definitely acquiring ludicrous proportions. I am convinced mankind has bumped or is bumping against its limits of personnel time, energy and volition. Technology offers the only solution to advance the limits. My work implements a powerful philosophy, method, and a proven solution for raising ability. Opportunities call for calculated risks. I am ready with a phased implementation strategy that shall bridge the gap between IT capability and its utilization.