Transparency is perceived as a scary, radical and impractical way of providing information about your business because you have to tell the truth about the good and the bad aspects in the same manner. However, an increasing number of companies is trying to adopt the new model of corporate behavior and thus is moving transparency into the mainstream.
In this era of technology, communication via Internet allows consumers and activists to find positive as well as negative information about a company, start discussions and ask tough questions straightforwardly. These people want to participate in the company’s decision-making processes. Building transparency makes them perceive the company as trustworthy, credible and accountable. There is less to criticize when a company announces its mistakes itself and reports the areas where it failed in an honest way. Therefore, the risk of getting a bad reputation does not increase. On the contrary, critics can be turned into collaborators, helping the company solve its problems and achieve its business goals.
If consumers and key stakeholders are not involved in the improvement process, dishonest acts can cause long-term reputation damages. In our reputation economy, every single brand will be affected if the industry is suffering from scandals. Nevertheless, the company can profit from a crisis by meeting activists and appropriate institutions, and possibly correct their misperceptions.
On the whole, becoming transparent is comparable to the product lifecycle: Transparency is not a state of being but an endless process. It includes observing the industry, activists, NGOs, changes in society’s values, business expectations as well as the competition’s action. You have to benefit from the “first-mover advantage” by reacting as quickly as possible to signs of movement. As in production, there is a learning curve for the evolution of the societal issue the company is facing. Eventually, with the help of stakeholders and society, the company moves its business into the desired direction. During this cycle, as the company offers information in a more transparent way, the demands for transparency increase, too.
In this era of technology, communication via Internet allows consumers and activists to find positive as well as negative information about a company, start discussions and ask tough questions straightforwardly. These people want to participate in the company’s decision-making processes. Building transparency makes them perceive the company as trustworthy, credible and accountable. There is less to criticize when a company announces its mistakes itself and reports the areas where it failed in an honest way. Therefore, the risk of getting a bad reputation does not increase. On the contrary, critics can be turned into collaborators, helping the company solve its problems and achieve its business goals.
If consumers and key stakeholders are not involved in the improvement process, dishonest acts can cause long-term reputation damages. In our reputation economy, every single brand will be affected if the industry is suffering from scandals. Nevertheless, the company can profit from a crisis by meeting activists and appropriate institutions, and possibly correct their misperceptions.
On the whole, becoming transparent is comparable to the product lifecycle: Transparency is not a state of being but an endless process. It includes observing the industry, activists, NGOs, changes in society’s values, business expectations as well as the competition’s action. You have to benefit from the “first-mover advantage” by reacting as quickly as possible to signs of movement. As in production, there is a learning curve for the evolution of the societal issue the company is facing. Eventually, with the help of stakeholders and society, the company moves its business into the desired direction. During this cycle, as the company offers information in a more transparent way, the demands for transparency increase, too.
Patagonia
Probably no other company has spent more time calculating and mapping its greatest negative effects than Patagonia, the pioneering outdoor apparel and gear producer. The notion that companies should operate with maximum transparency is written into the “Our Values” statement that the deep ecologist Jerry Mander penned for Patagonia long ago. Because of those values, Patagonia was one of the first U.S companies to take a hard, uncompromising look at its activities’ environmental toll. In order to do that properly, the company relied on another one of its core values - to ask tough questions, delve into deviously difficult problems, and push for solutions. And so it was that in 1991, the Ventura, California - based company set about casting a cold eye on the environmental footprint of the four major fibers that go into its wares: wool, polyester, nylon, and cotton. They knew even before the study that petroleum-based synthetics were enviro-villains, but the big surprise was that the creation of so-called “natural” products made from cotton and wool was every bit as bad.
Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard dispatched a team of environmental-impact scouts to bird-dog the company’s wool and cotton supply chains all the way back to their respective sources. The team soon found that wool soaks up chemicals at each stage of its processing, and conventionally grown cotton is even worse. For an outfit whose fundamental raison d’être is to “inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis”, chemically grown cotton was a poison pill that could potentially weaken the brand and afflict the company’s core principles.
Instead of worming its way around the cotton conundrum, Patagonia followed its injunction to think through the problem, find a just principle, and apply it. Thanks to the founder’s prodding, Patagonia’s board of directors voted to dump the conventional cotton and switch to 100% organic. To adopt “good cotton”, Patagonia would have to convert farmers and clothing manufacturers to the good-cotton cause. In order to achieve this goal, Patagonia took the following steps:
- open-sourced the dark side of its performance. The company made the results of its environmental impact study accessible to anyone who asked.
-made it real. The organic agriculture activist Will Allen led a busload of Patagonia’s apparel-manufacturing reps on a tour of cotton farms.
-made it personal. Chouinard wrote a stirring essay in which he mapped out the moral case for going organic.
-took responsibility. The company held a three-day conference where they showed an introductory video underlining Patagonia’s flinty resolve to assume responsibility for its own actions.
After two years, Patagonia finally switched to all-organic cotton, which sparked a decline in sales at first, but eventually the company right-sized itself by demonstrating that it’s better to pay a little more upfront than to postpone even higher payments for the hidden environmental costs of chemical cotton. Along the way, Patagonia built a better-quality line of clothing, stayed aligned with its principles, and influenced far bigger companies, such as Levi Strauss and Wal-Mart to follow its lead.
Patagonia’s most ambitious experiment with radical transparency grew out of its frustration with conventional corporate responsibility reporting. The effort to gather all of the GRI’s compliance data and assemble it into a standardized format proved an enormous time sink. The lesson learned for Patagonia from the experience was the desire to share in a way that felt true to Patagonia’s tell-it-like-it-is culture. Given that the Web was fueling consumers’ desire to learn more, Patagonia decided that it would use its website to tell more.
In the spring of 2007, Patagonia’s head honcho (coll.) for environmental initiatives, with the help of a few people, created an interactive microsite called “The Footprint Chronicles,” which launched in the fall of that year. The site cuts through the great swaths of data that so often overwhelm conventional CR reporting by homing in on the environmental impacts that matter the most: miles traveled, waste produced, carbon dioxide emitted, and energy consumed. Whereas companies too often slink past the bad news in their CR reporting, Chronicles confronts it head on, through two boxes appropriately titled “The Good” and “The Bad”. In the building of the Footprint Chronicles were followed three design principles:
1) Success breeds that powerful motivation called fear: The effort to launch the site got a lot of adrenaline when the April 2007 issue of Fortune featured Chouinard on its cover. Although pleased with the recognition, staffers were queasy over the possibility that the celebrity treatment could prove to be a contrarian indicator. In a sense, Patagonia’s fear of the article repercussions overcame its fear of transparency.
2) Perfection is not required: There are questions for which there are no easy answers, and only by understanding it they could begin to enlist consumers help in crafting solutions
3) Write tight: There is no space for explanations and justifications. Context is clutter; excuses are excluded. What remains are simply the unadorned, unvarnished facts of each product’s environmental impact.
Probably no other company has spent more time calculating and mapping its greatest negative effects than Patagonia, the pioneering outdoor apparel and gear producer. The notion that companies should operate with maximum transparency is written into the “Our Values” statement that the deep ecologist Jerry Mander penned for Patagonia long ago. Because of those values, Patagonia was one of the first U.S companies to take a hard, uncompromising look at its activities’ environmental toll. In order to do that properly, the company relied on another one of its core values - to ask tough questions, delve into deviously difficult problems, and push for solutions. And so it was that in 1991, the Ventura, California - based company set about casting a cold eye on the environmental footprint of the four major fibers that go into its wares: wool, polyester, nylon, and cotton. They knew even before the study that petroleum-based synthetics were enviro-villains, but the big surprise was that the creation of so-called “natural” products made from cotton and wool was every bit as bad.
Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard dispatched a team of environmental-impact scouts to bird-dog the company’s wool and cotton supply chains all the way back to their respective sources. The team soon found that wool soaks up chemicals at each stage of its processing, and conventionally grown cotton is even worse. For an outfit whose fundamental raison d’être is to “inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis”, chemically grown cotton was a poison pill that could potentially weaken the brand and afflict the company’s core principles.
Instead of worming its way around the cotton conundrum, Patagonia followed its injunction to think through the problem, find a just principle, and apply it. Thanks to the founder’s prodding, Patagonia’s board of directors voted to dump the conventional cotton and switch to 100% organic. To adopt “good cotton”, Patagonia would have to convert farmers and clothing manufacturers to the good-cotton cause. In order to achieve this goal, Patagonia took the following steps:
- open-sourced the dark side of its performance. The company made the results of its environmental impact study accessible to anyone who asked.
-made it real. The organic agriculture activist Will Allen led a busload of Patagonia’s apparel-manufacturing reps on a tour of cotton farms.
-made it personal. Chouinard wrote a stirring essay in which he mapped out the moral case for going organic.
-took responsibility. The company held a three-day conference where they showed an introductory video underlining Patagonia’s flinty resolve to assume responsibility for its own actions.
After two years, Patagonia finally switched to all-organic cotton, which sparked a decline in sales at first, but eventually the company right-sized itself by demonstrating that it’s better to pay a little more upfront than to postpone even higher payments for the hidden environmental costs of chemical cotton. Along the way, Patagonia built a better-quality line of clothing, stayed aligned with its principles, and influenced far bigger companies, such as Levi Strauss and Wal-Mart to follow its lead.
Patagonia’s most ambitious experiment with radical transparency grew out of its frustration with conventional corporate responsibility reporting. The effort to gather all of the GRI’s compliance data and assemble it into a standardized format proved an enormous time sink. The lesson learned for Patagonia from the experience was the desire to share in a way that felt true to Patagonia’s tell-it-like-it-is culture. Given that the Web was fueling consumers’ desire to learn more, Patagonia decided that it would use its website to tell more.
In the spring of 2007, Patagonia’s head honcho (coll.) for environmental initiatives, with the help of a few people, created an interactive microsite called “The Footprint Chronicles,” which launched in the fall of that year. The site cuts through the great swaths of data that so often overwhelm conventional CR reporting by homing in on the environmental impacts that matter the most: miles traveled, waste produced, carbon dioxide emitted, and energy consumed. Whereas companies too often slink past the bad news in their CR reporting, Chronicles confronts it head on, through two boxes appropriately titled “The Good” and “The Bad”. In the building of the Footprint Chronicles were followed three design principles:
1) Success breeds that powerful motivation called fear: The effort to launch the site got a lot of adrenaline when the April 2007 issue of Fortune featured Chouinard on its cover. Although pleased with the recognition, staffers were queasy over the possibility that the celebrity treatment could prove to be a contrarian indicator. In a sense, Patagonia’s fear of the article repercussions overcame its fear of transparency.
2) Perfection is not required: There are questions for which there are no easy answers, and only by understanding it they could begin to enlist consumers help in crafting solutions
3) Write tight: There is no space for explanations and justifications. Context is clutter; excuses are excluded. What remains are simply the unadorned, unvarnished facts of each product’s environmental impact.
Timberland:
With roughly six thousand employees working across the United States, Europe and Asia, and 2008 revenues of $1.36 billion, Timberland is far bigger than Patagonia and certainly more mainstream.
In its pursuit of radical transparency, Timberland is almost as fearless and arguably as innovative as Patagonia.
Timberland has moved from issuing unhurried annual CSR reports to fast-forward, quarterly updates of key performance indicators. It has cut through the complexity of those lengthy reports by developing a "Green Index" tag, modeled on a nutrition label, which gives consumers a quick take on how some products are rated in terms of their impact on the environment. Also it has moved from "corporate statement" to "stakeholder engagement" by launching quarterly phone dialogues with CEO Jeffrey Swartz, in which callers can zero in on a critical issues of the moment, such as eco-labeling and sustainable sources. According to Swartz, our world is in an environmental crisis, and Timberland is part of the problem, that's why it has to fix things now. Transparency is about urgency!
In the 1990s , Timberland watched protesters denounce two giants in its industry, Nike and Gap, for sweatshop conditions in their suppliers' factories. Timberland used similar sourcing processes as other brands, which made them just as vulnerable. According to Beth Holzman, Timberland's manager of CSR strategy and reporting: "That realization really started a lot of conversations about what we could publicly divulge".
Transparency depends on data; a company has to audit its social and environmental performance, in order to know its impact on society and environment; for example, greenhouse gas emissions. To calculate the amount of carbon dioxide released in creating its boots, Timberland chased down both its greenhouse-gas emissions and those of its suppliers. Timberland found out that 90 percent of Timberland's greenhouse gas output comes from cows and from converting their hide to leather. (Grass munching cows emit staggering amounts of methane, which converts to CO2 in the atmosphere). That revelation led Swartz to understand that they need to find ways to use less leather and still produce a boot that sells.
Timberland's tool for change is the Green Index tag. It is a label that assesses, on a scale of 0 (best) to 10 (worst), each pair of shoes' impact on climate change, as well as the resources and chemicals used to make them.
With roughly six thousand employees working across the United States, Europe and Asia, and 2008 revenues of $1.36 billion, Timberland is far bigger than Patagonia and certainly more mainstream.
In its pursuit of radical transparency, Timberland is almost as fearless and arguably as innovative as Patagonia.
Timberland has moved from issuing unhurried annual CSR reports to fast-forward, quarterly updates of key performance indicators. It has cut through the complexity of those lengthy reports by developing a "Green Index" tag, modeled on a nutrition label, which gives consumers a quick take on how some products are rated in terms of their impact on the environment. Also it has moved from "corporate statement" to "stakeholder engagement" by launching quarterly phone dialogues with CEO Jeffrey Swartz, in which callers can zero in on a critical issues of the moment, such as eco-labeling and sustainable sources. According to Swartz, our world is in an environmental crisis, and Timberland is part of the problem, that's why it has to fix things now. Transparency is about urgency!
In the 1990s , Timberland watched protesters denounce two giants in its industry, Nike and Gap, for sweatshop conditions in their suppliers' factories. Timberland used similar sourcing processes as other brands, which made them just as vulnerable. According to Beth Holzman, Timberland's manager of CSR strategy and reporting: "That realization really started a lot of conversations about what we could publicly divulge".
Transparency depends on data; a company has to audit its social and environmental performance, in order to know its impact on society and environment; for example, greenhouse gas emissions. To calculate the amount of carbon dioxide released in creating its boots, Timberland chased down both its greenhouse-gas emissions and those of its suppliers. Timberland found out that 90 percent of Timberland's greenhouse gas output comes from cows and from converting their hide to leather. (Grass munching cows emit staggering amounts of methane, which converts to CO2 in the atmosphere). That revelation led Swartz to understand that they need to find ways to use less leather and still produce a boot that sells.
Timberland's tool for change is the Green Index tag. It is a label that assesses, on a scale of 0 (best) to 10 (worst), each pair of shoes' impact on climate change, as well as the resources and chemicals used to make them.
Novo Nordisk
Novo Nordisk is a Danish health care company that supplies the majority of the world’s insulin. Novo Nordisk understands that if the company admits its mistakes, activists are less likely to criticize it. In that way, the company uses critics to improve its social and environmental record. Being transparent about ongoing agendas of social issues, the company turns critics into collaborators and benefits from their contribution.This includes, for example, bioethics, such as animal testing and gene research.
During the 90s, the Animal Welfare Society protested against living conditions of laboratory animals; the situation led to a long standing collaboration and world-leading standards for housing laboratory animals humanely.
Despite the fact that some workers at Novo Nordisk didn’t agree with transparency implementation, the company managed to overcome the issues. It even won society’s approval by engaging the shareholders on controversial issues such as animal testing. This conversation extended to the highest levels of organization ; this made sure the final decision came with the senior management’s approval and thus carried actual weight.
That’s why, for the purpose of being up to date with ongoing social issues, Novo Nordisk employs a powerful tool called the “Learning Curve” to track the evolution of a societal issue that might threaten the company, as it’s critical to react in the early stages.
Talking about 90s experience of Novo Nordisk, they understood that the activists were right after their own investigation discovered that housing condition for laboratory animals were indeed inadequate. That’s why meeting with key people in the Animal Welfare movement helped them to explore ways to forge a partnership, so as to develop improved standards for housing animals and a set of principles for their use and testing. Later, these standards were incorporated into the Council of Europe’s revised guidelines on the protection of animals used in research, which led to a joint presentation by a drug-producing company and an animal-welfare group at a pharmaceutical industry conference.
Novo Nordisk is a Danish health care company that supplies the majority of the world’s insulin. Novo Nordisk understands that if the company admits its mistakes, activists are less likely to criticize it. In that way, the company uses critics to improve its social and environmental record. Being transparent about ongoing agendas of social issues, the company turns critics into collaborators and benefits from their contribution.This includes, for example, bioethics, such as animal testing and gene research.
During the 90s, the Animal Welfare Society protested against living conditions of laboratory animals; the situation led to a long standing collaboration and world-leading standards for housing laboratory animals humanely.
Despite the fact that some workers at Novo Nordisk didn’t agree with transparency implementation, the company managed to overcome the issues. It even won society’s approval by engaging the shareholders on controversial issues such as animal testing. This conversation extended to the highest levels of organization ; this made sure the final decision came with the senior management’s approval and thus carried actual weight.
That’s why, for the purpose of being up to date with ongoing social issues, Novo Nordisk employs a powerful tool called the “Learning Curve” to track the evolution of a societal issue that might threaten the company, as it’s critical to react in the early stages.
Talking about 90s experience of Novo Nordisk, they understood that the activists were right after their own investigation discovered that housing condition for laboratory animals were indeed inadequate. That’s why meeting with key people in the Animal Welfare movement helped them to explore ways to forge a partnership, so as to develop improved standards for housing animals and a set of principles for their use and testing. Later, these standards were incorporated into the Council of Europe’s revised guidelines on the protection of animals used in research, which led to a joint presentation by a drug-producing company and an animal-welfare group at a pharmaceutical industry conference.
Companies are always say the true, relevantly environmental and social impacts?
ReplyDeleteEvery year, companies publish accounts and reports, to talk about what they have done in the past year, the events that have shaped the business, and what is likely to happen in the future.
Annual reports are intended for the use of shareholders. They are intended to allow shareholders to make informed judgements about the choices and actions of the people in charge of running their companies.
There is law that governs this process of reporting. This law supposed to ensure that the information in these reports is fair, balanced and comprehensive. For shareholders and others to make informed judgements.
Unfortunately, greenwash is a reality and the law is not always doing its job. Annual reports are used as promotional tools by companies, and the information contained in them regularly deviates in major ways from the realities reported by many from around the world. There is often a major gap between a company’s policies and its practice, and there is a systemic lack of candour in company reporting. In practice, company reports rarely if ever provide a fair, balanced and comprehensive view of what the company is doing in practice.
explanation what is greenawsh:
Deletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenwashing
How do we, as a community, can benefit from a transparency policy?
ReplyDeleteI think that our SV community can take the transparency model and fit it to our needs in the course. For example, our projects- if each team will introduce the community the whole situation, including the bad stuff, the difficulties and the restrictions- the team can learn from the critics and, as it said in the article, "Critics can be turned into collaborators". They can help the group to ask the tough questions, solve the problems and achieve the goals. This is why I think it’s a great thing that every 2 weeks, each team has to present the project and the progress that was made during the past 2 weeks. It helps keeping transparency, gives the team members different points of view and helps them make the right decision whether they should move on or Pivot or maybe serve as consultants to other team?
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeletei have a problem with posting an independent post so i'm writing it through this comment.
DeleteSince we are as a class and as a community, both the customers and the creators (having a hard time finding the correct word), we can over time examine the tools and apps we create throughout the semester. As time goes by, we may discover some are more useful, helpful and necessary than others. Instead of trying to maintain the unnecessary apps, we will be able to invest our energy in the ones that do help ( & perhaps they will be helpful in the upcoming semesters as well). Being transparent about our thoughts and needs will keep the course focused and lean and better aimed for our goals.
How can we apply these principles in our projects?
ReplyDeleteMost of our projects, in a way, turn out to be a website.
When we enter websites, many times we don't know who created them and for what reason.
For example, we might be suspicious and think that they were created only to gain money from commercial advertisement.
Our websites, on the other hand, are built for social reasons, and we should definitely be transparent about that.
My suggestion is that every group will add a small section in their site explaining "Who Built this site?"
It can include a short description about the SV course we're taking, about being a student at the Technion, and of course, about how the idea for this site was formed.
I very much agree with Noga.
DeleteI can say that every time i come across a site or a service,
the first thing that comes in my mind is who earns from me visiting the site or using the service, and then, accordingly, i decide whether to use it or not.
and if i will see that the site was made with non commercial intentions, i will definitely won't hesitate to use it
Good idea! Can you please share it in class? Looks like some people in our community still need to share in their google profile a bit about themselves and the the potential contributions to our community they can offer ...
DeleteThe Teaching Team
Helping people help themselves and others
In which aspects does transparency affect a company?
ReplyDeleteLike in everyday life we seek for the truth in our relationships. Whether we are an employee or a consumer we feel better knowing where the weak areas of the company are. Knowing where the weak points bind each employee more closely to the company’s strategic goals.
Moreover the employees and the costumers feel obligated to help the company in its shortcomings.
Accessibility to the company’s shortages creates trust from customers and employees and this eventually forms a comfortable work environment. Working in such environment encourages innovation and experimentation and reveals early failures or oversights. The more a company trusts their employees with its wins and shortcomings, the greater their personal connection to the company is.
If a company wants to succeed and grow this will certainly be the way to do it – eager employees and trusting costumers.
Find more at the next article - http://pac.org/ethics/a-guide-to-corporate-transparency
How does transparency can help us as a community?
ReplyDeleteIn our class we got group missions every week in a propose to progress our projects.
I think transparency can help us every week: Each team will tell the community the principles of the tasks that the group made. Additionally, each group member will tell what task he did. In this way the community will help every group member to solve problems that he had and improve his work for the next week.. We can also tell the community problems that we have in our life and not attached to the course, it will help the student solve his problem, other students that have the same problem, and the community that will know each other better.
Transparency means creating community, giving credit, and being care, so for our community it's a duty.
I totaly agree withe Heli.
DeleteBeacause we expose ouer firs project at the class and we got bad reviews and problems that could happen from doing that project, we change the project for a better one.
As Galileo said:
"I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him."
Galileo Galilei
ReplyDeleteHow does a company earn from transparency?
The idea of everyone knowing everything, could be a major driver of increased organizational performance.the biggest reason companies fail is because people lose focus and get off track.
Transparency increases commitment and motivation to the corporate mission because employee data are explicitly linked to performance, ensuring high levels of fairness.
Also, by making the successes of top performers accessible and easy to compare against the department or company as a whole, newer employees are motivated to excel through mirroring the best practices of high-performing employees.
In our community we are listening to each other and make evaluations and decisions based upon students' comments, so I think we use transparency and it proves to be good.
How the transparency will help our projects?
ReplyDeleteWe all read in the article how good is transparency for us as a society\ customers and as companies owners. Clearly in business rivals you as a company owner would like to greater your accomplishments and to spotlight your rivals failures. When you are in the failures side the best step for you as a company is to take responsibility for your actions and to let all your customers know about your weaknesses and try to make it better, buy that to take care of your reputation . If we will consider our projects as our companies we will have take care to our reputation and this will thrive us to better projects. There are many highly over rated products that are sold with enormally high prices because of their brand reputation
regardless to their real value which means that reputation play great part in our world as a society. My point is that if we will work hard to maintain our projects reputation as it is a well known brand we will for sure succeed in creating and marketing excellent projects, think big.
Clearly in business rivals you as a company owner would like to greater your accomplishments ????
ReplyDeleteEditing:
Perhaps facing competitors, an owner of a company would like to overstate the company's accomplishment ....
How to apply the principles to the class?
ReplyDeleteEvery week we get points for our comments on the forum. However, it is not clear based on what criteria do we get the whole credit. We can apply in this case the principle of transparency where each member of the class will receive the full details of how the score is calculated. You can even extend the feedback each student gets to a full comment (which will be anonymously of course, by the anonymous team). In this case, maybe it will be a good idea to increase the credit the anonymous team gets for that week - and thereby increase the level of social happiness: The students that wrote their comments will benefit from the transparency - it will be clear why they didn't get the full credit, and they will be able to improve themselves based on the detailed feedback, and the anonymous team will benefit by learning how to write better comments and by receiving extra points for their work.
Lechaim Irit.
DeletePerhaps the question you posted could be made more specific. For example, How to make the feedback on comments more transparent?
Will you be willing to pose the question in class on Monday? Perhaps we will be able to improve the feedback process through our community!
Cheers,
The Teaching Team
Helping people help themselves and others
How can we benefit from transparency?
ReplyDeleteas written in the article-transparency is crucial for a better society.
I believe that transparency among our SV society members and among the group members in the MVP projects can make us a better community.
My suggestion is that we will be transparent with the society/group of people we are making the MVP for. Our MVP should be directed to specific group of people and we do not want to mislead them.If we will get a request for making something a part of our MVP and we don't have any intention do to so or make the opposite- we should inform this people.
Could building transparency also ensure trust between different companies?
ReplyDeleteAs a class that on the one hand aspires to become a community and on the other hand is split to different groups, each working on an individual project and interested in perfecting it, I believe that though it seems as if these two separate goals can't be joined together - the given article suggests otherwise.
It is said in the article: "The company that invites more eyes on its operations can preempt problems that would otherwise become very expensive to solve".
Therefore, as the expenses in each of the projects in our course are time related and in order to continue reaching the class's goal to become a community, I suggest that each group will have in the course's blog or site a table that should contain the columns:
- Main idea (to be added to the project)
- Description (of the idea)
- Pros
- Cons
- Suggestions
Every time the group members have a new idea they want to add in the project they would write it in the table and describe it. After doing that, other members in the class could share their thoughts about the idea by adding comments in the other columns, an act that could help perfect that idea or change it completely in case it would be needed.
Using these tables, all the members of the class would benefit from the time the groups could save before they start working on adding a new idea to their project, from the completeness of each idea that would be eventually added due to all the comments about it, and from the feeling of mutual trust that would be in the class due to the common shares and suggestions in the tables.
Nice idea. It will be interesting to see the class reaction.
ReplyDeleteWe plan to share a tool called The Business Model Canvas (see http://www.businessmodelgeneration.com/) as a "lean start-up" alternative to a full business plan. This tool not only saves time and resources. It also helps see the business plan in a glance (very few people take the time to read full business plans).
The Teaching Team
Helping people help themselves and others
A little bit more about Timberland effort to be a sustainable company:
ReplyDeleteTimbarlend has obligated to plant 5 million trees in five years (the deadline is 2015).
One million were already planted.
The project takes place in:
1. the Horqin Desert of China, were the goal is not only the obvious reason of trees planting, but also prevent sandstorms and desertification (the expansion of the desert).
2. Haiti – Less than 2% of Haiti’s original forests remain due to a long history of unsustainable land use practices and a continuing dependence on tree wood and charcoal for cooking and heating needs
A nice idea that the Timbeland uses is the “Timberland Earthkeepers Virtual Forest App” -
The users are asked to plant virtual trees and for every five virtual trees planted Timberland commits to planting one real tree.
This is a Win-Win-Win situation and this is why I liked it.
Does transparency has an impact not only on businesses but also on government’s corruption?
ReplyDeleteTransparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index 2011 is a report made by politically non-partisan organization that ranks each year the corruption at 100 regions worldwide. A good example that validate the question above is the results of the Nordic countries that rank them among the “most clean” when it comes to public sector corruption. such good results stem from political will, open government and robust legislation and mechanisms for holding politicians and civil servants to account, that is to say that thus country encourage transparency.
Never the less, the research shows that these countries have not managed to fully insulate themselves from corruption risks, with the main threats to integrity are the conflicts between politics and business regulation of political party financing. In Sweden, there is only a voluntary agreement amongs all but one political party to disclose budgets, and details of donors are not included in this disclosure. This shields influential donors from the public eye, meaning that citizens are unable to judge who could be influencing their national politics.
However, it is important to understand that integrity and transparency are not a given.. Efforts need to be made in the region by a wide range of actors, including civil society, media, business and government to address these threats to integrity.
You can find the full results of the survey in the link below.
http://cpi.transparency.org/cpi2011/results/
How Can A Company be more transparent ?
ReplyDelete1. Ask the question for every feature, every decision- “does this follow our mission of transparency” or “can this be more transparent?” Or if the company is not sure if they should do feature A or B, as a tie-breaker they just ask, “which one follows our mission of transparency?” so if they want to be a transparent company, they must integrate it into the decision-making process.
2. Make themselves available- allow the users and fans to ask anything about the company.
3. Solicit feedback- create discussion around what they should pursue in the future while being transparent about how much it would cost the company and the client.
Did you know that Bank Hapoalim ranked first for Transparency Index in Israel?
ReplyDeleteThe fourth Israeli Transparency Index was published in May 2012 and in the tradition of the past four years, he reviews the level of social transparency - Environmental of 100 leading companies in Israel, Tel Aviv 100 Index traded.
You may read more about the mentioned above at the following link:
http://www.b-yond.biz/he/sub_page.asp?sp=383&p=6
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteWhat tools can help us to deliver transparency in projects and how can we implement them in the class projects?
ReplyDeleteAs part my job in a start up company I started to build a virtual office application and one of the tools I chose to to use after long research called SharePoint.For those not familiar, SharePoint is Microsoft’s collaboration platform for the enterprise and the web. It comes with a lot of out of the box (OOTB) tools for document management, collaboration, reporting and integration with other industry standard tools and technologies which allows for rapid deployment of a project transparency solution.One of the purposes of this solution is to track projects in order to provide relevant and timely information to relevant stakeholders.Each project has its’ own website that centralizes all project related information (schedule, budget, documents, etc.) that is accessible to relevant stakeholders. The beauty of this project transparency solution is that as soon as relevant project information is updated, not only is it available at the project website, it rolls up to the higher level dashboard reflecting timely information.
So how can we use this tool in class?
Well,SharePoint is a rather complex tool but we can take it's main ideas and try to use them in a more simple platforms like Google Apps or even in our site.Each project can share with the class all kinds of things about their project like: schedule project ,their progress, problems they encountered and how they dealt with them.Also we can share all of our successes and failures during the work on the project and what we learn from them.For example while working on our project we might discover a great tool and recommend it to the other groups.
For more information on SharePoint:
ReplyDeletehttp://sharepoint.microsoft.com/en-us/Pages/default.aspx
Why is Transiency even more important in a NGO?
ReplyDeleteI absolutely agree with the idea that NGOs should be as transparent, if not more, than any other organizations, this because they operate under democratic structures and should thus be able to be fully accountable to their members.
Every non-governmental organization has a mission for which it mobilizes support, influences governments, international organizations and corporations, raises funds, educates the public, dedicates resources, and represents its members, its beneficiaries, its donors or its stakeholders in a wider sense. To the extent that an NGO influences other parties in society to further its objectives it will – as a mark of the quality of its approach be transparent regarding: its mission and objectives, values and principles, governance, actions, and, means to achieve its objectives.
Scrutiny is only restricted to protect legitimate expectations of personal privacy or to sustain the confidentiality that is required in the organization’s daily operations.
In addition, in dealing with governments, corporations, international organizations, a nongovernmental organization is always clear and honest about the interests it represents and the extent to which it speaks on behalf of members, donors, beneficiaries, or other stakeholders.
Based on the notion of reciprocity NGOs may, therefore, expect to be questioned on, for instance, the legitimacy of their causes, the representation of their audiences, or the efficacy of their programs, projects, or actions.
However, I have a major preoccupation which is related to the costs implied. I am sure all NGOs would like to report under the GRI guidelines, but do they have the resources for that? Cost is always an issue (for all organizations). Most of the GRI reporting efforts/costs should be marginal costs. For example, there should be an accounting system in place already and does not need to be invented for GRI reporting purposes.
One of the attributes of Transparency is the freedom of information about what is being considered. My suggestion for our course is to have a Suggestion tab in the blog in which students will be able to suggest topics regarding Social Ventures in which we would like the SV team to elaborate on.
When a start up is just getting off the ground, all employees know all the information about the project. As the company grows, that dynamic tends to shift until only those at the top are fully informed.
ReplyDeleteThis transparency can include information about salaries, performance metrics and how well the business is doing.
In many ways, we use transparency tools in this course. Our performance each week is public knowledge. Also our project's performance is also known. This is crucial to the success of all of our projects.
I suggest we add another layer of transparency in the course. Create a section where we are honest about how well our project is doing. We can discuss Troubles were facing, disappointments and problems. That way everyone, including the team members are a aware of the projects current position. Of course, everyone can give specific tips, but also in a general sense just to be honest and open about your project's current position.
Many cities and public agencies are opening up their data to promote reliability, empower citizens, and provide better services. But just giving away the data is not enough. This data is too complex to undestand in a report or out of date to be valuable.
ReplyDeleteThe transparency in these institutions is vague to the government and to the citizens. In my opinon they should be much more transparent in order to provide better services and monitoring on their spending.
The main income to the cities are property tax and fines from parking and etc. If the transparency was better the cities and public agencies would probably be under closer monitor on our money spending.
Implementing this in class could be handled by giving more transparent information on what we think the class should know about ourselves as individuals. Each community member should share a few lines about himself regarding what he thinks the community should know about him.
I like your Idea/suggestion of sharing information in our community, Can you suggest a platform to do it?
Deletehow can we improve transparency in our class?
ReplyDeletewe could have every team post weekly updates on their progress with the project. the update should include successes but also failures and goals yet to be accomplished. that way, even if sometimes it may seem a certain team haven't done much to move forward with their project, the transparency would allow us to see the reasons, and more importantly help a team that has encountered some difficulty.
Transparent companies - are they really as transparent as they claim to be?
ReplyDeleteIn the article we read, transparency is presented as a goal that every company should aspire to. It's true that a good, honest and respectable company should come forward with "bad" facts as well as "good" ones about its work.
I believe transparency is defiantly an important notion every company should live by, but it could degenerate public's criticism. A company could deliberately divert its costumers focus away from harmful information by revealing specific and even filtered information.
So as more and more companies practice transparency, we as a community should keep our critique watchdogs wide awake!