In business settings, if you can’t connect the dots between undertaking a new activity and a return that is expressed in monetary terms, you frequently lose out to the status quo.  It’s not always obvious that there is an ROI on the status quo (sometimes there isn’t), but if everything seems to be working, there isn’t much appetite for disruption.  If an activity or project really is quite new, then it is extremely difficult to demonstrate an ROI.  As a result, people often look to close substitutes as a means of approximating what ROI can reasonably be expected.  (It’s also why companies frequently opt to be fast followers rather than first movers — but that’s another blog entry altogether…)

So, when I came across this factoid in a special report on telecommunications from The Economist, I thought, “Eureka.” 

“According to a recent study [World Bank], adding an extra ten mobile phones per 100 people in a typical developing country boosts growth in GDP per person by 0.8 percentage points.”

The special report adds that one reason why this effect is so large has to do with the fact that the introduction of mobile phone technology is not an enhancement of an existing telecommunications infrastructure as it is in the developed world, but an entirely transformational technology in the developing world.  Mobile phones permit communication that previously was restricted to face-to-face information exchanges which were mediated by poor roads, lack of transportation, hazards such as landmines, and other physical infrastructure challenges.

You can read this amazing statistic as evidence of the economic value of technology, or of telecommunications, or, as I do, of  information sharing.  And, given what I think about on a daily basis, I extrapolate to the value of collboration in organizational systems.   One of the problems with measurement of intangibles (and there are many) is that we rarely can test in a greenfield situation.  So many other changes are taking place at the same time a new technology for idea sharing or collaboration is introduced that it becomes impossible to connect the dots with any kind of confidence and effectively compete with other more established initiatives for resources in the business justification arena.

However, the factoid from the World Bank demonstrates the profound economic effect of unleashing information flows in countries and hints at what it is likely to be in other large economic systems.   Information flows seem to unlock entrepreneurial activity, stimulating connections and jump-starting economic growth.  Why shouldn’t they do the same in organizations?

Look for us on the web at http://www.rgsquared.net