Relax, this isn't a commercial post on anything related to Bentley Geospatial products.
This is about an interesting company that I discovered - Mind Time. They presented at the FIATECH conference last week.
First ask yourself the question - Who am I? There are a collection of pyschometric tests that can help answer this question. Who hasn't taken a Myers-Briggs Test (ENTP here)?
But now let me ask a harder question. Who are you as a "group" in your company? Have you ever worked with a team or group and found the team never made any progress? Ever have a brainstorm session that overflows with ideas, but never gets anything done after the storm? If you could profile a group - wouldn't that be a good idea?
The audience at the FIATECH conference got the chance to do both individual profiles based on 18 questions, and more importantly got a group profile on the collective thoughts of the group on 24 questions related to our industry.
Some of the questions:(you agree/disagree with each statement on a sliding scale)
The globalization of business and economic practices will dramatically influence the Engineering Construction industry.
Owners really do want contractors to make a profit.
The stimulus package will help the construction industry recover.
The construction industry invests adequately in exploring new technologies.
Research and development are crucial to profitability in the construction industry.
and many more...
Now comes the fun part. Slicing and dicing the answer to these questions, with the dot mapping you on the Past, Present, Future grid of your profile.
So here's an interesting example. Consider our industry. Are we for research? Do we invest in technology?
I looked at two questions related to this idea.
First
Based on the results below, most of the members were very cool to this idea and disagreed.
Now lets look at research...
This shows a different picture - the heavy red/orange shows that most people agree that R&D is critical for our industry.
So why do we champion research and at the same time acknowledge that we don't invest?
Some of the answer may be explained by the location of the time corner that most of this group belong to. There is a heavy leaning toward the Future corner (bottom-right). So this group would be very much for research, but missing the balance from the past and present corners might lack the balance in this collective profile to take action.
The main lesson learned here was that organizations need a balance of all three corners to be productive.
There are many other interesting results that will probably be analyzed post-conference from FIATECH. I also suspect that John Furey (the owner and presenter) will be busy talking to many of the organizations that attended the conference.
With the surging interest in social networks and the ability to map thinking in organizations, groups and communities, and the broader public - I think you'll be hearing a lot about this company.
You can take the self assesment test yourself, and the nice thing is the company donates a share of there stock to Childrens' organizations for each person who takes the test. Check it out at http://www.mappingthinking.com/