No fishing and other ways to obscure community rules

The city of Lanaken in Belgium has a very peculiar way of informing citizens and visitors about their rules.

Suppose your hobby is fishing and you intend to catch some fish in the  waters of the Pietersheim domain. Be then prepared to look high up into the trees and to stand upside down. Otherwise you cannot read this 'No fishing' shield.

Unfortunately this way of obscuring rules is not uncommon, both in public and in commercial services. There is a general lack of awareness how infrastructures must be build to enable both employees and customers to act in a rule-ware way. As long as the process of making rules and enforcing rules is not regarded as a core process, that needs a mix of innovative and proven methods and means, these situations will continue to annoy everyone. Organizations need to develop a regulatory capability as described here.

For the time being, the only happy ones are the lawyers. The fishes are voluntary swimming into their net.

If you like this post, please share it with your friends and colleagues. Thanks!