The strip mall loomed large in the chilled morning dew as I glanced back at 18 lanes worth of growing traffic idling through lights spaced a stone’s throw apart. Mega marts, chain restaurants, and expansive parking lots slumbered in preparation for the daily assault of inconsiderate consumers seeking considerable bargains and waistlines. The smell of yesterday’s funnel-cakes and tomorrow’s liquidation sale floated in the air, hell-bent on spoiling my otherwise unadulterated view of the Rockies.  I walk past a few rows of parked cars into a brightly lit storefront labeled “Fitness Rocks!” The substantial woman behind the desk smiles pleasantly at me while tending to a stack of fresh towels. I must have looked confused (hungover?) because she (much too cheerily) stepped toward me and (much too loudly) proclaimed,

“Welcome to Fitness Rocks! Where Fitness rocks! Are you interested in a membership? Or maybe a tour? Our MamboJitsu class is starting right this very minute! It’s like a cross between Dancing with the Stars and MMA. Hahahaha!! It rocks! Just like Fitness Rocks! YAAAAY!!”

Oh dear. Something was amiss. Many things were amiss. Most of which centered on this yapping Miss at my 12 o’clock. I pondered backing away slowly and distracting her by lobbing the nearby UltraZone PowerPack MilkBlast ProteinNuggets toward an idle StairMaster but after a few moments of frightened grunts, I mumbled something intelligible.

“I am staying at the Holiday Inn. They told me I could work out here.”

She unsuccessfully hid her disappointment and reached beneath the counter to retrieve some sort of form I was required to fill out. According to my newly befriended, awkwardly crestfallen attendant, this was mandated for adequate insurance coverage during my (hopefully?) brief stint at Fitness Rocks!  Huh. Weird. Never knew an insurance company to be concerned with my “Fav Workout Tunes” preference. But who am I to judge? Fine. I’ll bite. Mark one up in the Josh Grobin’s Greatest Hits column, Jessica. You and I both know the angels in his voice are the only thing sure to raise up our self esteem after failingly huffing and puffing through an advanced Ricky Martin Kwan Do class. (Also known as “Tae Chi Bangs.)

After satisfactorily registering my identity, I was allowed to enter the complex. I walked past rows and rows of awful dispositions forced by awful impositions. The machines appeared odd. The people on them appeared more so. It seemed to me that while there was sweat being produced, the actions producing it were foreign, contrived, and far, far removed from anything resembling a movement I might execute in the course of my daily life. I mean, how many times during a week do you find yourself on your back, pushing weight up in the air with your arms? (Other than your “workout” at the gym, that is…) It all just seemed so…I don’t know…slow. And antiquated. And easy. And more importantly…fruitless.

I pondered my reaction and sought to understand why. Why is it that this all seems so slow? While avoiding a leering turret of a man who had worked his biceps into a state that would deny him the freshness of feeling afforded by toilet paper, it dawned on me. It has been months since I patronized a “normal” gym. In line with furthering my CrossFit obsession and seeking a place where the WOD was not only condoned, but instructed, I had joined Primal Fitness this summer. As such, all of the traditionally normal things about normal gyms, seemed…well…abnormal.

For the 3 of you who have been reading this post (Hi Mom, Dad, Jay), patiently waiting for what this has to do with the transparent enterprise, gimmie a couple more paragraphs, and I promise we will get there.

When I walk into Primal in the morning, it is a completely different experience. There is no neon. There is no strip mall. There is no chipper receptionist. There are no remixes, no bodybars, no machines, and no dancers trying to be martial artists. Most importantly, there is no easy and there are no illusions. What greets me at Primal in the morning is an opportunity to work harder than I ever had before, exercising in a real, meaningful, and productive manner that has inevitably left me in better shape. There are no attempts to make things easy, fun, or even all that enjoyable. There is no complaining. It is competitive. It is hard. It is designed to be both. Frankly, it (exercise) should be. If you don’t like it, fair enough.  Head back to solo hours on the elliptical and keep complaining about the 3 flights of stairs you had to walk in a recent fire drill. Keep complaining about those tenacious 15, 30, 50 pounds you have been working on for years. Keep complaining about the back pain, the blood pressure, the weakness, and the expanding midsection. Keep complaining. And keep assuaging those complaints with fruitless trips to Fitness Rocks!

As I pondered, my mind drifted back to perhaps my second favorite topic – the transparent enterprise. Specifically, the now stark (to me) differences between those that have adopted the tools and processes of E2, and those who have not. It strikes me that there are huge similarities between my recent experience with a gym and my recent experience working outside of the wiki. For a brief period of time, there was no E2-enabled environment within which I or my colleagues could work. It has since been resolved but due to some mechanical issues there were a few dark days where I was reduced to working with (gasp!)…files. There was uploading. There was downloading. There was emailing and there was lack-of-version-controlling. All in all, it was like a step back in time.

I won’t mention the specific tool (read: way) I was working with/in, but seriously, it was the technological and cultural equivalent of Fitness Rocks!  There were hundreds of chipper people surrounding it, espousing how collaborative and transparent and effective it all was, begging me to sign up. There were people begrudgingly using it, albeit appearing in slow motion, fooling themselves into thinking they too were collaborative and transparent and effective. There were the muscle-bound super users who seemed to have pushed its operational capabilities to freakish levels of taxonomy and access control, all the while eliminating usability. There was a form I had to fill out in order to represent my identity. There was neon. There were sweat-free foreheads. There were complaints. There were expensive, long term contracts.  There was the illusion of utility. There was the illusion of return. There was the illusion of easy. There was…just an illusion.

Luckily, an E2-enabled environment resurfaced and I was able to return to my preferred method of working. I walk into that environment and am presented with an austere, yet overtly functional palette that responds accordingly to the amount of work I put in. There are no forms to fill out. There are no shiny advertisements. There are no huge costs. There is only work. There is true return. There is the opportunity to compete in a transparent, collaborative, and effective environment.

I look back on my brief interlude with both a 1.0 approach and Fitness Rocks! and shudder. Much like I am not satisfied with an hour on a treadmill, I too cannot sit idly by, waiting for the knowledge workday whistle to blow, all the while knowing there is a better way. I will not argue that change isn’t hard. However, after my time in the doldrums of traditional collaboration and fitness, I am ready to argue that hard is invariably better.