Harold Jarche – Page 223

Friday’s Finds #11

2009-07-31 by Harold Jarche

Once again, from the Twitter files this past week:

Research debunking claim of digital natives vs immigrants via @JoanVinallCox @rdelorenzo @rmazar

BitTorrent counters fear, uncertainty and doubt from Canadian Internet Service Providers Michael Geist

via @skap5 “Learning happens when a child is interested. Otherwise, it’s like throwing marshmallows at his head and calling it eating.” (B. Lamping)

“we just cannot understand why a normal person would want to go to school” Club Orlov

via @dbast Knowledge Management has an outlook on information supported by dysfunctional technology whereas social computing has no specific outlook and is supported by functional technology

via @jonhusband managers should start really trying to understand the new social dynamics & methods of constructing pertinent knowledge

Aggregated Wisdom is the Winner The FASTForward Blog Requirements: a culture of collaboration & a great set of collaboration tools

The 4Cs Social Media Framework Beth’s Blog (Gaurav Mishra)

Legal considerations on mental health in the workplace Mental Health @Work slides for use

via @psychcentral The Brain’s Interpreter | Channel N

The final word:

If it’s not a hell yes, it’s a hell no. Work Life Balance via @judymartin8

Charles Jennings notes in Who needs learning objectives? (free subscription required) that they’re mostly useful for instructional designers and not of much value on the job or for those taking the training.

If you are going to assess the impact of a course on individual participants’ performance in the workplace you need to forget about learning objectives for doing the job. Remember, learning objectives may be useful to help you create a logical design, but that’s all they’re useful for. When you get to measuring transfer of learning to the workplace you need to engage with the people who are in a position to observe behaviour and performance and those who are in a position to measure outputs. This usually means the manager and the team member who is responsible for maintaining performance metrics for the business or team – the balanced scorecard metrics or similar.

Connecting the training department (or training developers and instructional designers) to the work to be done is the real issue here. It may be easier to go off in isolation and develop some training when given learning objectives developed by a couple of subject matter experts, but good training can’t be developed in isolation. All human work is contextual, and models like valence theory show how we are all influenced by several factors:

Getting involved in the way work is done and understanding issues is what’s necessary to be of service as a learning/training professional.

I still remember the case of a nurse clinician in charge of the performance and training for all nursing staff in a hospital. I asked to do an on-site performance analysis over several days and of course had to be accompanied. After two years on the job, it was her first time on the wards. Getting out of the office is a low-tech method that can reap major performance benefits. From a distant office view, only a few of the valences in the figure above would be noticeable.

Learning objectives are a way of reducing human performance into manageable Taylorist bits, stripped of their humanity. We have more tools to communicate and connect with people than ever before, so there are fewer excuses to reman distant from the work that needs to be done. As I’ve recommended before, the training department needs to get into the business of connecting & communicating:

4 R’s – some favourites

2009-07-27 by Harold Jarche

I usually ignore requests to follow a blog meme, but Virginia Yonkers has tagged me for a reflective post and this is my 1,500th blog post here so I thought it would be appropriate to at least partially respond. Here are the requirements:

4 R’s Meme: Favourite Posts, asks those tagged to select 4 of their favourite posts from their own blog, one from each of the categories: Rants, Resources, Reflections and Revelations.
The posts are then listed with a brief summary on each describing:
why it was important,
why it had lasting value or impact,
how you would update it for today.
The intrepid bloggers are to tag all of their selected posts with the label postsofthepast and then select five (or so) other bloggers to tap with this meme.

Rant: Wake Up and Smell the Coffee started my journey of looking at ways to change the training function:

Training departments have allowed themselves to be lulled into a comfortable spot while times have been good. Everyone feels better after a little training, so that is what was prescribed – for all that ails you. I have met too few L&D professionals who can actually analyze work performance and come up with something other than training as the solution. Well, it seems that the days of the one trick pony are over.

I, for one, do not regret the demise of the L&D function. Perhaps our profession will wake up and start helping the organisations we serve.

This concept is being constantly updated in my presentations, with the last published version a collaborative effort on the future of the training department I did with Jay Cross.

Resources: Several years ago a created the Toolbox section of my website, which I update and add to from time to time. It’s probably time to review it, so thanks for the reminder.

Reflections: The question of schooling was a personal one as we saw how it failed to meet the needs of our children, and I wrote about schooling, deschooling or unschooling and followed this with many more questions than answers. Schooling is of course linked to our training systems and my reflections and rants merged in the question of a learning reformation.

Revelations: One ah-ha moment was that soft skills are foundational competencies, something I pretty much knew but had not articulated.

Soft skills, especially collaboration and networking, will become more important than hard skills. Smart employers have always focused more on attitude than any specific skill-set because they know they can train for a lack of skills and knowledge. The soft skills require time, mentoring, informal learning and other environmental supports. Once you have the soft skills to perform in a networked workplace, you’ll have foundational competencies.

Sorry, but the meme stops here, unless anyone else wants to take it up …

Friday’s Finds #10

2009-07-24 by Harold Jarche

From my Twitter files this week:

via @cammybean: The Agile Elearning Design Manual

via @CarlosDiaz Reduce your cost with business 2.0 Blue Kiwi video

via @bduperrin You can’t govern what you don’t understand

via @Dave_Ferguson Meet Jessica (good demo for people new to social tools) Slideshare

via @rossdawson Where do you want to play? Where the economy used to be or where the economy is going?

Bonus: two humourous links:

via @jalam1001 The Hierarchy: How it is? cartoon

via @joelkelly @Bboudreau @paulwesson This wonderful and funny video “Canadian, Please“

Future of Learning as a Business #4

2009-07-23 by Harold Jarche

For Session 4 of today’s LearnTrends event Dave Wilkins, Learn.com, led off on the subject of social learning and the challenge of the concept as opposed to the technologies. Concepts such as wirearchy, the long tail or wisdom of crowds need to be understood and put into our work context before we can really become social learners at work. This means that you might wish to stay away from Web 2.0 terminology when selling it to clients or inside the organization. He also mentioned that there exist several ways of measuring ROI for social media, you just have to look for it. Dave discussed what Learn.com is doing so that anyone can build a course, share a document, publish, spin their own web space and collaborate with whom they want.

Amit Garg, Upside Learning, discussed his innovation and new projects team current focus on simulations & games, social learning and integrated accountability – areas that are on the near horizon for our industry.

Holly St John Peck, Peck Training Group, and Monika Ebert, DifferentLens, discussed an informal learning solution with formal application using this model they developed (click for an interactive version):

There was some interesting discussion on whether this above approach keeps learning separate from daily working and performance.

Future of Learning as a Business #3

2009-07-23 by Harold Jarche

Session 3 (C Level perspective) of the LearnTrends event started with Ann Herrman-Nehdi from the Instructional Systems Association talking about a change in the mindset of learning services with the “app” & “plug-n-play” construct of the Web. The notions of on-demand and small pieces are here to stay, as are social networks and the communication and cooperation that happens around them. Real personalization of learning is an opportunity for vendors.

Jeff Sugerman of Inscape Publishing discussed their product design concept, which is aimed at HR consultancies, so it has to be customized by each client. Open & customizable are important and they have even given up control over digital media management (e.g. DRM). He noted that the market’s desire for innovation and cool design is coupled with a reluctance to pay for it, and asks his company, “What would Picasso do?”

Pete Weaver at DDI led by saying how important it is to understand the client’s business intent. He said what is hard from a selling position is that many learning products and services are becoming commoditized. This is difficult when your value proposition is culture change and means that you have to discuss outcomes, not inputs (like the latest web technologies), with your clients.

Ben Snyder at Systemation talked about how stressed many of their clients are, due to staff reductions and the poor economy. This means that a consultative sales approach doesn’t work well. Clients also think that content, as well as time, should be free. Clients ARE willing to pay for experience. Another big trend is the move to gaming for learning [agree, but we have a way to go yet]. Finally, good customer service is important, so treat your clients well or they will go elsewhere.

Future of Learning as a Business #2

2009-07-23 by Harold Jarche

Session 2 of the LearnTrends event looked at internal training organization. Gary Wise of Cincinnati Children’s Hospital discussed the PD&R continuum of Prepare – Deploy – Reinforce. The last part is essential in integrating learning into the work context, using performance support tools, coaching, mentoring and contacting experts. Harvesting feedback, like checking to see if job aids are effective, is also important but may be harder to implement. Most interestingly, Gary showed the training organization with a visual metaphor of a fortress surrounded by a moat. Gary recommends getting out of the fortress and thinking more like a sales person and getting out with “clients”. He is also a proponent of performance consulting skills for anyone in a training role.

Rob Robertson at Citi discussed the important role of training departments making connections with internal and external networks. I think learning as a network is essential in business today.

Allessandria Polizzi at Intuit said that clients who get training actually become better customers. Intuit went from low and “training” and then moved to higher quality training in more modes but at no costs. Interestingly, much of this training was not ADDIE developed stuff, but everything from user-generated content ( blogs, podcasts, videos) as well as connections on social networks. Customers were even paid to develop content. An important note: At Intuit, the Training department is a sub-set of the Marketing department. In the comments, Jennifer noted, “The e-Learning has kept my CPA husband loyal to intuit versus Peachtree, etc.”

Another observation during the discussion was that demand for formal training is dropping in organizations as collaborative and informal networks meet more and more individual performance needs.

Future of Learning as a Business #1

2009-07-23 by Harold Jarche

Finally made it into the Elluminate session for today’s LearnTrends event thanks to D’Arcy Norman’s help with the Mac OS. I made it to the end of Panel 1 on industry perspectives. Tony Karrer asked if there are some new models for selling learning-related products & services online. LiveMocha was given as an example of giving online (language) learning away for free. Accelerated courses are available at a cost but there is a lot of free stuff. The Internet has created the expectation of getting content for free. However, Lisa Fagan said there can be a backlash if you give away for free as a bait & switch sales generation tactic.

Unfortunately I only made the last 10 minutes of the session but I’ll update this with links as they become available.

Future business of learning

2009-07-22 by Harold Jarche

The future business of Learning (or whatever name we finally settle on) lies in providing organisations with the tools, techniques and environments to support them in building employee capability and performance in an increasing range of areas. It certainly doesn’t lie in the provision of ‘ training’. Traditional training may have a role in the picture going forward, sometimes, but it will certainly be only a minor role.

In The Future Business of Learning for Suppliers Charles Jennings shares his perspective and experience from Reuters. I’ve noticed that when we moved to e-learning the mainstream approach was to stick an “e” on industrial, classroom training and have away with it. When that didn’t work, the mainstream started talking about “blended” learning, meaning stuff bolted on to the original system. Now we’re getting collaboration and informal learning slapped on legacy systems, but much of it is lipstick on a pig. The pig hasn’t changed, it’s just a different shade of lipstick.

After 15 years of being in some way involved with web-centric learning, I’m seeing glimmers of hope that we’re going to dump the “horseless carriage” metaphor of e-learning. The financial system collapse and peak oil are two major factors, as we have hit a wall in doing things the old way. We also have a generation entering the workforce who don’t know what life before the Web was like. They don’t know a world where you can’t connect with anyone at anytime and with the device of your choice.

What needs to be jettisoned is the concept of learning as receiving information. We are swimming in information. We need to make sense of our connections and relationships. Connections should be made between several fields of practice and the best taken from each. I think there is great potential in combining the best of organizational development, knowledge management, training, human performance technology and information technology to develop methods for working and learning in digital networks. I wonder though, if we’ll take the easy route and just buy the next version of silicon snake oil that comes along.

What are you selling? Lipstick on a pig or something that works? What will you buy?

Join us at The Future of Learning as a Business on 23 July to discuss these issues and more.

Other PKM processes

2009-07-21 by Harold Jarche

It seems that Stephen Downes isn’t enamoured with my PKM process:

My first thought was, do I do it this way? And, of course, I don’t – my process is much too haphazard to be dignified with the term ‘method’. But then I thought, what does the concept of a ‘method’ here imply? That there is a ‘best’ way to manage knowledge an information? Isn’t that what we’ve learned there isn’t? It’s a pick-and-choose sort of thing: the way we manage information has a lot to do with the information, and a lot to do with who we are and what we want the information for. “categorizing’, for example, is something I do only if my head is in a vise and I have no alternative – and even then, I use scripts to do it for me.

To be clear, my intention is to show what works for me and perhaps some part of this may work for others. All of my articles on PKM are descriptive, not prescriptive. Take what you need, as there are no “best practices” for complex and personal learning processes.

For example, here is a graphical representation of Lilia Efimova’s process: