The Bootstrap Alliance
Opening Frontiers for High Performance Organizations 0

Introduction 1

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"We know where our organization is today. How do we take it forward as a market leader? How do we chart our future as a high performance organization? What technologies, practices, and strategies will be needed to support us? How can we accelerate our adoption of these capabilities? What are the initiatives we should be undertaking now? Next year? Who are the leaders in these innovations? What are our competitors doing?" 1A

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Are these among the questions your organization is striving to address? If so, Dr. Douglas C. Engelbart's Bootstrap Institute, in collaboration with Sun Microsystems, Netscape and other leaders, is offering you an opportunity to participate in a unique exploration of a high performance future - a future you can begin to apply today ! 1B

The Bootstrap Alliance is a set of collaborative forums, programs and technologies designed to advance our understanding of that high performance future. Subscribing organizations explore areas of self-defined interest and need related to their own development of high performance capabilities. 1C

Participants in The Bootstrap Alliance engage in a sustained series of confidential, collegial and collaborative discussions. They use emerging collaboration technologies to conduct their discussions, informing their own understanding as they work through high performance strategies. 1D

People from your organization will participate in a range of collaboration forums, including the visionary, hands-on Open Teams program, an initiative focused on revolutionizing virtual team work 1E

With a charter, one-year subscription to The Bootstrap Alliance, you can engage in a unique approach to organizational learning and staff development - a high return, high leverage, low risk program for continuous improvement. 1F

Selected Program Features 2

• Mediated discussion forums, including exchanges of issues, requirements, advice, strategies, lessons learned and best practices, supported by emerging, open architecture collaboration technologies. 2A

• Facilitated development of participant interests and discussion agendas as themes for collaboration forums. 2B

• Featured research presentations and monthly reports of in-process discussions, new developments, upcoming themes. 2C

• Briefings from program managers and selected R&D participants. 2D

• Use of a hyperlinked knowledge repository, including cross-referenced reports, e-mail archives, intelligence data, recorded discussions and research presentations, as well as other materials submitted by program participants. 2E

• Virtual teams formed to address key interest areas, engaging in focused intelligence gathering and analysis, experimentation and evaluations. 2F

• Periodic workshops and conferences of participants for discussions of lessons learned and to explore prospective collaborations on future interests and innovation strategies. 2G

Open Teams 3

A Visionary Program for Hands-On Innovators 3A

Open Teams is an extended discussion and investigative forum exploring what it takes to develop high performance organizations and individuals, with a special focus on teams, collaboration and knowledge management. A common objective is accelerating organizational improvements. 3B

Led by Doug Engelbart and guest moderator Patricia Seybold, participants will evolve a shared vision of the future, identify and prioritize common challenges, and organize into virtual teams to investigate and "push the envelope" in key challenge areas. 3C

These will be working teams, actively co-evolving the technologies, practices, and strategies that will be needed - discussing, gathering input from stakeholders, formulating requirements, researching related work, investigating tools and practices, putting them into practice, incorporating lessons learned, and making their work available to others in The Bootstrap Alliance and in their home organizations on an ongoing basis. 3D

These teams provide a rich test bed and proving ground in which to "grow" results, feeding requirements while harnessing results to boost their own performance. 3E

The Open Teams program emphasizes an evolutionary, "learn-by-doing" approach, grounded in real-world requirements and pilot use, resulting in working solutions and lessons learned to be conveyed directly to in-house teams. 3F

High Performance Themes 4

Prospective collaboration forums encompass a broad range of participant interests. High performance themes may relate to specific operational concerns - in areas such as integrated customer service, adaptive distribution channels, interactive marketing, work and family - or any number of other participant interests and needs. What's important is that you decide with your peers. 4A

• Co-evolution of Human and Tool Systems 4B
• Connecting Strategy to Practice in High Performance Organizations 4C
• Continuous Learning in Knowledge Work 4D
• Enabling Technologies and Practices for Collaborative Work and Learning 4E
• Identity & Behavior in High Performance Work 4F
• Innovation Management and Collective IQ 4G
• Intellectual Capital and Management of Knowledge Assets 4H
• Intranets, Internets, and Next Generation Open Architectures/Open Hyperdocuments 4I
• Knowledge Workers and Adoption of Collaboration Technologies 4J
• Lateral Learning Across Organizational Boundaries 4K
• Learning's Contribution to Value Creation 4L
• Making the Learning Organization Operational 4M
• Optimizing Dynamic Knowledge Repositories 4N
• Organizational "Knowledge" and "Knowing" 4O
• Shifting from "Training" to "Learning" 4P
• Sustaining High Performance OrganizationsPayable in two or four installments. 4Q

High Return Staff Development 5

The Bootstrap Alliance's approach to distributed collaboration across and within organizations provides subscribers with a new model for staff development. Hands-on learning is experienced by participants through interactions with peers across organizations - peers sharing comparable interests, needs and challenges. 5A

Your high performers and organizational leaders - both current and future - interact with innovators in areas of management, learning and technology R&D. You gain the benefit of individual learning and development grounded in the practical performance needs of your organization. 5B

The virtual nature of these interactions, supported by collaboration technologies that include interactive video conferencing, limits costly time-away-from-task while providing a sustained professional development experience. 5C

As a Charter Subscriber, your staff members can participate in as many collaboration forums, including Open Teams, as desired. Your participants can comprise an organizational improvement team, bringing the value of their experience to diverse parts of your organization - truly a high return investment in staff development. 5D

Founder Profiles 6

Leaders in Innovation 6A

The Bootstrap Institute and its founder Dr. Douglas Engelbart are recognized as pioneers in research and development for Collective IQ and collaboration technologies in high performance organizations. Key interests of the Bootstrap Institute are virtual teams, collaboration, knowledge management, and accelerating improvement in organizations. 6B

Netscape Communications Corporation is a leading provider of open software for linking people and information over enterprise networks and the Internet. 6C

Sun Microsystems, with annual revenues of more than $6 billion, provides products and services that enable customers to build and maintain open network computing environments. 6D

The Bootstrap Alliance is managed as a program through which collaborators provide services to subscribers and participate in program activities. An Executive Committee of actively involved collaborators directs The Bootstrap Alliance, with guidance from an Advisory Council of noted thought leaders and innovators. 6E

Charter Subscriber Offer 7

One Year Subscription $30,000.00 7A Payable in two or four installments. Discounted price of $25,000.00 if paid in advance. Not-for-Profit discount of 20%. Charter Subscriber Offer Valid Through March 31, 1997. 7A1

Unlimited participation in all collaboration forums, plus Open Teams program. 7B Place two participants in each collaboration forum and Open Teams program. 7C Frame first year collaboration themes for all participants. 7D Experiment with the latest collaboration technologies. 7E

Further Information 8

For further information or to become a Charter Subscriber to The Bootstrap Alliance, please direct inquiries to: 8A

Bootstrap Institute 8A1

(510) 713-3550
info@bootstrap.org 8A1A

visit our website at: 8A2

http://www.bootstrap.org/

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