Harold Jarche

Is Johnny Bunko Right?

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I recently picked up Dan Pink’s latest book, The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: The Last Career Guide You’ll Ever Need, that tells the story about a young man working in the corporate rat race who is befriended by Diana, a magical advisor with six lessons for Johnny to uncover. Because it’s a graphical, Manga-style book it’s a fast and easy read (about an hour). The lessons are fine but not earth shattering. However, the book may foster more conversations about work and careers and may engage younger readers, so that’s a good thing. Lesson #1, There Is No Plan, is good advice and in hindsight would have been good for me 30 years ago.

I was thinking about Johnny’s lessons when I heard about the CPRN’s latest research report on youth and the labour market in Canada, which makes this observation:

Canada has a relatively high percentage of well-educated young adults who see themselves as over-qualified for their jobs.

That’s where Lesson # 3 may be appropriate for youth – It’s Not About You, or as Diana says, “Of course you matter. But the most successful people improve their own lives by improving others’ lives” . Or put more directly, it’s not about qualifications, it’s about making a difference.

I would add to Johnny’s list that no one deserves a job because of some qualification, and many qualifications do not correlate directly with work requirements. The only job that a university degree directly qualifies you for is another university degree. Sitting in a classroom, writing essays and answering tests is not the workplace. Solving real problems, of importance to others, within existing constraints – is what most work is about.

For more information, check out The Adventures of Johnny Bunko.

Community Building

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Note: See related posts at the Non-profit Blog Carnival: Social Media Roundup

Today is Earth Day so I thought I’d pass on what I’ve been doing at the Atlantic Wildlife Institute (AWI) where I volunteer as the Director Education, though I’m not limited to just educational activities.

We’ve been working on building a wildlife response network, first in Atlantic Canada and eventually throughout the country.

Effective response to wildlife emergencies requires coordination and commitment from diverse and sometimes divergent stakeholders. In order to build capacity to respond to wildlife emergencies across Canada, AWI envisions a Wildlife Response Network. When fully functional, this network will provide communities, industry, and regulators with standards and strategies for dealing with wildlife crisis scenarios.

No single organization, be it public or private, can hope to address all the concurrent challenges (habitat destruction, climate change, and the widespread use of pesticides and herbicides) of today. AWI’s approach is to build on existing partnerships with public and private sector businesses and academic institutions to create a gateway for sharing knowledge and resources.

One aspect of this network is to use the Web to connect with other groups and individuals. We were considering building a community using a content management system and then hiring people for data entry, but our budget was reduced this year. So a little while ago I figured that there must be a more Web 2.0 way to do this and set out to do it.

I decided to start a low-key parallel development project using free or very cheap resources and get as much data out there as possible. I opened a wordpress.com account and paid $15 for a domain name, atlanticwildlife.org, which is now live but only a shell. I also looked at what other platforms we could use for sharing. We are setting up a new Flickr Pro site (which is now free for charities), and I’ll transfer photos from my AWI set and then start uploading like crazy so we can share with the world. I also created my first Swivel data set and will get some more up. Instead of developing our own animal database, we will leverage and support the Encyclopedia of Life. We’ll connect with teachers and learners on Ning, which is in very early development. The biggest expense so far is time.

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I’ll be adding information and data over the next few months and will then start the longer task of connecting to people and building a community. I’d appreciate any other recommendations for tools, applications and platforms that we could plug into the network.

Reaching interesting markets

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In anticipation of the AIM Conference in May, Steve at Business New Brunswick asks:

Here is another offer for you to consider: We would like to find local success stories of companies using the Internet to export, or just using it in a unique way or to reach interesting markets. Do you fall into this category? If so, and you would like to be part of our pre-conference press program, give me a call right now or send me an email.

I’ll be speaking at AIMC on the topic of Marketing Yourself as a Free-Agent on the Internet about my own experience and also highlighting other free-agents and small businesses. I would say that a large part of my success as a consultant is due to my use of the web to engage in the multi-way conversations that it enables.

For instance, my website in its first year online (2003) had about 700 unique visitors. In 2007 there were over 1.3 million. I attribute that growth to the increasing use of the web by more people but also to this professional blog, started in 2004.

The only money I spend on marketing is for my website. I have never purchased advertising. By writing regularly about my fields of interest, my blog has helped me get speaking engagements, writing assignments and requests for reviews of books, businesses and software. Some of these are paid, but in no case did I have to lay out cash for what amounts to marketing.

I have had clients find me via search engines and then my blog gives a good idea of what I’m about. It also helps to weed out clients who may not be a good match with my skills and outlook. However, my blog is about much more than marketing and I would continue it just for my own professional development. The advantage is that I don’t need to spend money on someone else to sell my services.

How else could an independent consultant living in Sackville (pop. 5,000), New Brunswick (pop. 740,000) be able to work with clients and partners spread over thousands of kilometres? There are no great secrets to this and I’ll post my notes and observations after my presentation on 6 May.

Skills 2.0

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Skills 2.0 is now part of this month’s Work/Learning Blog Carnival hosted by Manish Mohan.

My article in T&D, the journal of ASTD, was published this month, and if you’re a member of ASTD you’ll see it in the monthly journal or you can access it online. I’ve attached the article below.

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This article covers issues that I often refer to on this blog and there is little new for regular readers. It is geared toward learning professionals who may want to know why it’s important to understand the Web for training and development.

Download PDF: L&D Skills 2.0

I submitted this post for the work/learning carnival because it synthesizes much of my writing about learning on the Web. The Web has changed the rules for teachers, educators, trainers and especially learners. How we react to this change is up to us.

Enabling learning is no longer about just disseminating good content, if it ever was. Enabling learning is about being a learner yourself, sharing your knowledge and enthusiasm and then taking a back seat. In a flattened learning system there are fewer experts and more fellow learners on paths that may cross. With practice, one can become a guide who has already walked a path. As fields of practice and bodies of knowledge expand, a challenge for learning professionals will be to change their tool sets from prescriptive to supportive.

Today I came across an excellent example of collaborative learning used by Ken Caroll in training language hosts:

At the moment, we’re in the process of inducting (training?) some new hosts for the podcast lessons – we’ll be launching FrenchPod and ItalianPod. Instead of simply telling them how to do that we’ve focused them on producing “artifacts”, that is samples of the lessons they eventually aspire to. We encourage participants to produce a much as possible – a lesson per day, for example. After that, we get together with them as well as practitioners of differing levels/experience, to reflect, discuss, and offer feedback.

The focus on doing has been literally very productive. Discussion are focused and concrete, the process of learning, visible. We blog as we go along, and we link to samples of the artifacts as we do so. We’ve also started recording the feedback sessions themselves and linking to those, too.

Busting down the barriers

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My post on wirearchy has an interesting conversation going in the comments. What I’m noticing as well is that the barriers to more flexible and open business models are breaking down all over the place. I’ve met with three local companies this week and have offered some free advice (FWIW). One is focused on HR, another on retail/wholesale products and another on higher-end retail. I’m also building a new community site for AWI using mostly free applications.

In each case there is a wide variety of online tools available for low cost or even free. These include easy websites, ecommerce, Facebook groups, Flickr photo sharing etc. These tools enable people in business to spend more of their time talking to their customers and have these conversations anywhere and anytime. It also means that people can more easily experiment with new business models. This is empowering and it’s fantastic to watch.

What is most interesting is that these changes are happening at the local level, with people who don’t live online. The revolution is speeding up, there’s little doubt.

Early Childhood Bilingualism

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Fred Genesee is presenting the Minerva Lectures across the country, sponsored by the Canadian Council on Learning. His topic is Early childhood bilingualism: Perils and possibilities, which of course will be of interest to New Brunswickers, given the recent elimination of early French immersion by the Department of Education.

A quick review of Genesee’s publications shows that there will be something for both sides of the argument around EFI:

Notwithstanding gaps in our understanding, research has yielded considerable insights about bilingual education. The following generalizations are compatible with the findings that have been reviewed here:

1. Bilingual education for majority language students is effective in promoting functional proficiency in a second, and even third, language at no cost to the participating students’ native language development or academic achievement.

2. There is often a positive correlation between amount of exposure to the L2 [second language] in bilingual programs and level of L2 proficiency, but not always.

3. Bilingual programs that provide appropriate and continuous instruction can be effective with younger or older students; in other words, advanced levels of functional L2 proficiency can be acquired by students who begin bilingual education in the primary grades and by those who begin in higher grades.

Read the entire article (PDF) .

In Atlantic Canada, lectures are 15 April in Halifax and 21 April in Charlottetown, but not in New Brunswick. Pity.

Update:

Canadian Parents for French, New Brunswick will provide a special presentation of “Early Childhood Bilingualism: Perils and Possibilities” by Dr. Fred Genesee at UNB Fredericton at the Wu Conference Centre on Wednesday, May 14 from 7:00 to 9:00 P.M.

Location – Wu Conference Centre, UNB Fredericton at the Kent Auditorium, 6 Duffie Drive; Local Contact Info – Jane Keith, Executive Director; Tel.: 506.432.6584

A new organisational lens

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In 1999, Jon Husband coined a new term, wirearchy:

a dynamic two-way flow of power and authority based on information, knowledge, trust and credibility, enabled by interconnected people and technology

As I bump against corporations in my work of implementing networked learning, collaboration or business, I am beginning to realise that Jon’s organising principle is what’s missing. As companies try to move to Enterprise 2.0 or Web 2.0 they are constrained by Organisation 1.0. They may be using the tool, the terms, or some of the techniques but they are still mired in industrial management. The major premise of The Future of Management is that real innovation only happens when you change your management model. All other changes are incremental but management innovation can be exponential.

I’ve worked for some interesting start-ups doing some innovative work, but I’ve noticed that they all use the same management methods as the companies they’re trying to subvert. Even Google uses mostly instructor-led classroom training, for no reason other than that’s how training is done. I think that these industrial-age management models will be like a weight around these initially innovative companies, especially as cycle time decreases and competition for creative people increases.

I’m doing some work with a start-up in the HR field and I wonder if there are “2.0” versions of tools and techniques we take for granted in this space. Is there a better alternative to the organisation chart? Do job descriptions actually tell us anything? Do most businesses need regular hours of work? Is compensation based on time really necessary?

These kinds of questions don’t get asked until you start looking at the entire organisation with a different lens.

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Ability-based Curriculum

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Jacques passed on a mention of Alverno College while we were discussing the issues around early French immersion in New Brunswick last week. I took a look at the web site for this women’s college in Milwaukee and found that the program is based on ability-based curriculum, which is fascinating and reflects many of my own beliefs around education and learning:

Alverno doesn’t use standardized tests and traditional exams. Each student is unique, each learns in unique ways. But life is competitive, and so are we. Rather than measure performance as a snapshot in time, against a curve that strips away individual achievement, we focus on measurement that’s about you, and only you. The lessons you learn are applicable in real life, they become part of who you are. Alverno students learn more in class and retain the lessons longer. Our eight cornerstone concepts represent the very building blocks needed to create an effective and relevant learning experience.

The eight abilities (Communication; Analysis; Problem Solving; Valuing in Decision-Making; Social Interaction; Developing a Global Perspective; Effective Citizenship; Aesthetic Engagement) could be the cornerstone of many educational programs, even at the high school level, and make more sense to me than most outdated subject-based curricula. This program has been around since the 1970’s and is an excellent example of how an institution can be a place of real learning for every individual.

Community of Practice Handbook – Company Command

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Company Command is the most practical community of practice (CoP) implementation guide that I’ve read so far. It traces the story of the development of an online community designed to share knowledge between US Army company commanders, past and present. If you can get over the military jargon (and even some acronyms that I, an ex-soldier, couldn’t figure out) the lessons in this book are transferable to civilian life.

Here is a summary of the key concepts from Chapter One:

  • Knowledge resides primarily in the minds of community members
  • Connecting members allows knowledge to flow
  • Relationships, trust, and a sense of a professional community are critical factors for an effective community
  • Content development emerges from needs expressed in conversations
  • A decentralized network is best

The books authors go on to tell stories about how the community grew and discuss the types of roles that are necessary for an effective knowledge-sharing community [I’ve changed to non-military terms].

  1. Initial Core Team of two or three people who desire to share knowledge.
  2. Early Adopters who are members of the community that you are serving, especially those who are already well-connected.
  3. Mavens with deep knowledge in an area that is valued by the members.

The book is filled with practical ideas and I’m sure that anyone involved in building online communities will find something useful here. I will be using much of the advice here to help start a CoP that a client is launching over the next nine months, and I appreciate that the folks at Tomoye, who provide the technical platform for CompanyCommand, passed on this book to us.

Being there

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The Web is great and lets me connect with more interesting people than I could have hoped for only 10 years ago. I usually work at a distance from my clients and colleagues and from time to time we’re able to get together. Often these times are busy trying to get lots of work done or attending conferences where there are many other interesting conversations competing for your attention. Sometimes I feel like a lone paddler:

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Even though I know that we’re all working together:

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Today, Jay and I had the opportunity to just wander around Ottawa, take pictures and talk. All this and the first signs of Spring in the frozen North. :-)

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