All Edge: Inside the New Workplace Networks

Available via Amazon.

Work is changing. Speed and flexibility are more in demand than ever before thanks to an accelerating knowledge economy and sophisticated communication networks. These changes have forced a mass rethinking of the way we coordinate, collaborate, and communicate. Instead of projects coming to established teams, teams are increasingly converging around projects. These “all-edge adhocracies” are highly collaborative and mostly temporary, their edge coming from the ability to form links both inside and outside an organization. These nimble groups come together around a specific task, recruiting personnel, assigning roles, and establishing objectives. When the work is done they disband their members and take their skills to the next project.

Topsight 2.0: A Guide to Studying, Diagnosing, and Fixing Information Flow in Organizations

Available in print and Kindle editions!

Topsight—the overall understanding of the big picture—is hard to achieve in organizations. There’s too much going on, too many moving pieces. But without topsight, we have a hard time figuring out how information circulates, where it gets stuck, and how we can get it unstuck.

Network: Theorizing Knowledge Work in Telecommunications

Order on Amazon.

How does a telecommunications company function when its right hand often doesn’t know what its left hand is doing? How do rapidly expanding, interdisciplinary organizations hold together and perform their knowledge work? In Network, Clay Spinuzzi draws on two warring theories of work activity - activity theory and actor-network theory - to examine the networks of activity that make a telecommunications company work and thrive.

Tracing Genres through Organizations: A Sociocultural Approach to Information Design

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In Tracing Genres through Organizations, Clay Spinuzzi examines the everyday improvisations by workers who deal with designed information and shows how understanding this impromptu creation can improve information design. He argues that the traditional user-centered approach to design does not take into consideration the unofficial genres that spring up as workers write notes, jot down ideas, and read aloud from an officially designed text. These often ephemeral innovations in information design are vital components in a genre ecology (the complex of artifacts mediating a given activity).

In Blog

Reading :: The Pitch Deck Book

Posted by: Clay Spinuzzi on May 7, 2023 | No Comments

The Pitch Deck BookBy Tim Cooley

I saw this book on Amazon and it was inexpensive enough that I went ahead and grabbed the Kindle version. I’m glad I did, even though I don’t think I will end up reading it over and over. Cooley nails the point…

In Blog

Reading :: Mapping Experiences

Posted by: Clay Spinuzzi on May 7, 2023 | No Comments

Mapping ExperiencesBy Jim Kalbach

This short review is for the first edition of this O’Reilly book, which a colleague recommended to me. It’s focused on how people map value in organizations and markets. Think in terms of Design Thinking’s customer j…

In Blog

Reading :: Culture and Inference

Posted by: Clay Spinuzzi on Apr 5, 2023 | No Comments

Culture and Inference: A Trobriand Case StudyBy Edwin Hutchins
“This book is an attempt to make culture the object rather than the instrument of analysis” (p.128). This sentence, at the very end of Hutchins’ 1980 book, sums up his project. As he explai…

In Blog

Reading :: Sorting Things Out

Posted by: Clay Spinuzzi on Apr 5, 2023 | No Comments

Sorting Things Out: Classification and its ConsequencesBy Geoffrey C. Barker and Susan Leigh Star
I was surprised to discover that although I once referenced this book on my blog, I never reviewed it. It came out in 2000 and I started reviewing books i…

In Blog

Reading :: Vygotsky and Literacy Research

Posted by: Clay Spinuzzi on Apr 5, 2023 | No Comments

Vygotsky and Literacy ResearchBy Peter Smagorinsky

Here, Peter Smagorinsky thinks through the question of literacy, applying Vygotsky’s understanding of human development as culturally mediated. It’s a solid book. But before we get into it, I do want …

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My Books

All Edge: Inside the New Workplace Networks

Available via Amazon. Work is changing. Speed and flexibility are more in demand than ever before thanks to an read more »
Topsight 2.0: A Guide to Studying, Diagnosing, and Fixing Information Flow in Organizations

Available in print and Kindle editions! Topsight—the overall understanding of the big picture—is hard to achieve in read more »
Network: Theorizing Knowledge Work in Telecommunications

Order on Amazon. How does a telecommunications company function when its right hand often doesn't know what its left read more »
Tracing Genres through Organizations: A Sociocultural Approach to Information Design

Order on Amazon. In Tracing Genres through Organizations, Clay Spinuzzi examines the everyday improvisations by read more »

Need Topsight?

Topsight is an overall understanding of the big picture. I’ve been achieving topsight into various organizations since 1997. Along the way, I’ve developed an approach in which I gather clues, confirm details, and model social interactions to systematically achieve topsight. I teach this approach in classes, workshops, and seminars. Let me help your organization achieve topsight.

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