Harold Jarche

Web 2.0 – the next e-mail?

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Ross Mayfield on on Many2Many notes that Web 2.0 (aka the two-way web, etc) is an attempt to create the next e-mail. The current version  doesn’t suit anyone’s purposes anymore:

The reason we are building Web 2.0 is because we were not able to build Email 2.0. The first web didn’t support our social needs, so we used email for everything. But we couldn’t really hack it. Most social software has by now adapted to email, but email could never have adapted to it.

Given all the hype around Web 2.0 over the past few weeks, I think that this may be the best elevator pitch so far, – Web 2.0 is the next stage in the evolution of Internet technologies that are everywhere and anyone can use them – including your grandparents. For me, the closest tool to E-Mail 2.0 so far is ELGG, but we’ll see what else comes down the pipe.

School & Reality – Disconnected

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Many of us have anecdotes about the problems encountered in our school systems – public and private. Here is an example of a real, science-based, disconnect:

It’s a bit ironic that when scientists need to study how people learn in the fMRI scanner, it’s almost the complete opposite to how students are taught in the classroom. For researchers to see brain changes associated with learning, they have to provide regular feedback about errors; whereas in the classroom, the ‘learning’ process is mostly watching and listening passively.

The Eide Neurolearning blog is an excellent resource that shows the science of how the brain actually works. Written by Doctors Fernette and Brock Eide who "are strong advocates for neurologically-based approaches to learning and learning differences", this blog and its accompanying site are a must read for anyone interested in how the brain works and how this relates to learning. At ISPI, we are constantly urged to base our work on sound science. This is some of it.

Vendors have only one thing to sell

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George Siemens was not too impressed by a recent presentation from Blackboard:

The entire presentation was focused on two things: money, and implementation challenges. If I adhere to their assumptions, then they presented their case well. However, I’m at odds with their core statements of what it means to learn. In the end, it’s very likely that, in North America at least, there isn’t a large cost savings between open source and proprietary software. But as an educator, that’s not my concern. I’m concerned about the learners. And their learning. This wasn’t mentioned at all. I know administrators are cost and implementation focused, but I would hope that they also see the instructors and learners as stakeholders in the process. A bad solution, well-implemented, still sucks.Why not ask learners what they want? Or faculty? If Blackboard, D2L, and WebCT are genuinely interested in meeting learner needs, then engage us (as faculty and learners) in a legitimate discussion. Once you listen to what we need/want, rather than telling us what you’ll do for us, we can begin to partner.

I agree with George, other than his assumption that there "isn’t a large cost savings". Open source IS cheaper, when you look at licensing and when you look at total cost of ownership. Examples include detailed cost comparisons, such as this one for the Québec public school system.
However, George’s point about the vendors’ lack of focus on learning is the root of the problem. Having worked for an LCMS vendor, I learned that there is only one bottom line – sell more licenses. That is what brings in the money. Selling services is not what they are about. Therefore, until you separate the services from the technology you will have an ongoing conflict of interest. The vendor will try to sell you licenses, even if you do not need their system. It’s how they are measured by their investors.
I don’t think that any vendors are going to have legitimate discussions about learning with George or anyone else in the foreseeable future.

Large Pieces Tightly Joined

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So the news is that Saba (learning management system company) just purchased Centra (real time web conferencing & learning system company). Now you can have all of your e-learning delivered from one bucket – for a price.
My own limited view of this merger is that it’s no big news. The movement in most of the learning technology market is toward "small pieces loosely joined" and cheaper systems, especially systems that can plug into each other.
Many people whose organisations have an LMS or LCMS tell me that they feel locked-in to the vendor’s technology. License fees are increasing and they see no way out. They ask me about open source and whether it’s a viable option. As I expressed before, the business case for open source in learning is basically :

  • Information technology infrastructure should not be the largest cost of any human performance or learning project.
  • It is not your technology that gives you a competitive advantage but your organisation’s strategy, leadership and the talent of your workforce.
  • Using open source from a trusted collaborative partner saves money and leaves the technology open to further development.
  • By driving down the cost of software or content, the open source model frees capital for other projects, thereby fostering innovation.
  • Most of the market leading products in the learning content management space (and other enterprise applications) are so costly that many organizations cannot pay the price of admission. Let’s face it, most organizations do not need a space shuttle to go to their mailbox.

The Saba-Centra merger also seems way behind many of the open source initiatives that have caught up to and even surpassed the proprietary vendors. Platforms like ePresence, "a content capturing, archiving, and webcasting system that delivers video and presentation media over the internet using multiple streaming formats for multiple platforms", are surfacing every day on the web. I don’t see much for the learner or the client in this merger other than some minor savings on an already pricey platform.

Canada Best for Starting a New Business

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Via Dane, is the World Bank Group’s Doing Business analysis of where in the world is best for private enterprise. Canada ranks first for ease in starting a new business.
So what are you waiting for? Come on over and start a new business. Maybe here in downtown Sackville, population 5,000, complete with a university and only 20 minutes from an airport, with direct flights to Toronto & Montreal and next year to New York. I just need a few more people to help me start a work commons :-)

Another Bubble?

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On no, is there an OS tech bubble looming around the corner, ready to burst on some unsuspecting souls? Maybe P.T. Barnum was right.

Shades of 1999! I met a venture capitalist who told me lovingly about his "early round of financing" for a company that had a nice-sounding idea behind it but didn’t yet have either a domain name or working code. Then I met another VC with a similar story. And another. And I saw business cards exchanged to the tune of buzzwords I thought had died in the dot-com crash, plus a bunch of new ones that have popped up since then.

I thought giddily for a minute that I should run to the Office Depot across the street from the Argent Hotel (where the conference is being held) and grab some blank CDs. I could then come back to my room and make a slide presentation for a business that would develop a VoIP-based multimedia wiki that would track disintermediated community-generated podcast blog reviews. It would be based on open source software, of course. And cross-platform. And extensible and highly scalable.The above quote is from NewsForge reporting on the current Web 2.0 conference. I somehow thought that open source was going to be a little bit different, but we seem to be rapidly climbing the hype curve. I also thought that 2006 would be the year that OS goes mainstream, but it’s getting a lot of press now.

As much as I may be an open source evangelist, I promise not to get caught up in the hype. Open source to me means not only good, cheap software for the masses but is a foundation that enables smaller businesses to compete and survive against the multinationals. OS is not the answer to all of our problems, nor is it the best way to get rich quick, though there are people making money on it. Let’s just use some common sense when we talk about open source.

Learning Landscape

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Jay Cross uses a landscape analogy to describe informal learning:

Courses end; learnscapes persist. Organizations and their members are living things, and the landscape/learnscape analogy invites us to consider nature, symbiosis, interconnections, genetic make-up, adaptation, the change of seasons, and life cycles. People are not plants, so the analogy doesn’t stretch into self-expression, thinking, identity, personality, and collaboration.

This got me thinking about how useful I’m finding ELGG, the learner-centric environment, which has the tagline “learning landscape”.

Elgg lets you set up a personal presence online and then use it to interact with others!

Create your own weblog, journal, store of files like photos and Word documents, communities, social networks.

Use Elgg to enhance reflective thought, your development, your resource base.

Share them with your friends, teachers, instructors and other Elgg users. YOU decide who can see what!

Unfortunately, since no one can pronounce or understand the name ELGG (I’m told it’s a Swiss deer), I suggest a petition to change the name to “learning landscape” or something like that. It looks like ELGG is making very exciting progress and it will be a heck of a lot easier for me to convince my clients to use it if they can pronounce it ;-)

The New Workplace

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In the Future of Work Agenda October issue, the authors discuss the hidden economy, driven by the movement of knowledge workers to smaller towns, creating much-needed revenue for the local economy:

What makes all this interesting – and important – is that these "free agents," entrepreneurs, and remote employees of large organizations based elsewhere are essentially "exporting" their services outside the local economy – thereby importing income that they then spend locally on food, clothing, toys for their kids, home improvements, recreation, restaurants, and all the other necessities of life.

They go on to call for the creation of Business Communitiy Centers (PDF), which are similar to the Innovation Commons that Boris Mann has proposed. The authors are also offering to manage the networking of these centers or BCC. Their approach seems to be much more of a top-down or franchise model than the grassroots, community-led initiatives in Charlottetown and Vancouver:

And, in the spirit of full disclosure, we are currently in the process of forming that national management company precisely we can promote and support Business Community Centers around the country. And we are actively discussing the BCC concept with several different commercial property developers and local economic development groups at this very moment with the goal of launching one or more of them in the very near future.

The BCC is an interesting concept but there doesn’t appear to be anything in these articles that the Queen Street Commons hasn’t already discovered and done.  Yes, Canadians are leading the way in creating a new workplace model, so let’s get the word out.

Another Commons Node

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I first stumbled on the idea of a work commons when I saw the San Francisco-based Gate-3 Work Commons, which is now closed because they ran out of money. I don’t know the details but it seems to have been a "build it and they will come" type of operation. Meanwhile, here in Canada, the Queen Street Commons is based on a more grassroots model. On my recent visit to PEI, I met with Robert Paterson at the QSC and saw a dynamic community. The model seems to be working. Even more recently, Boris Mann is actively pursuing the creation of an Innovation Commons in Vancouver. Early seeds are being planted for a potentially large network.
With more people working from home or having clients spread all over the world there is a growing need for work Commons to share knowledge and provide social support. The QSC is a good example of "think globally and act locally". I am still hoping to get a Commons started  in Sackville, as there is a lot of interest from the many independent contractors and artists in the community. Once we get a few more going we may have the makings of a "wirearchy" (see previous post) of Commons as a viable alternative to The Corporation. We have the technology (cheap broadband, low-cost hardware, open source software) we just need to keep working on the business models. At least there are now pioneers like QSC that we can use as examples to learn from.

The Future of Work

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From Jon Husband comes this definition; “Wirearchy is an interconnected hyperlinked structure of negotiated (either implicit or explicit) agreements based upon accessible information and knowledge, credibility, trust and results.” Meanwhile, Small Business Trends talks about the rise of entrepreneurs, similar to the 19th Century rise of the mercantile class, while  the Future of Work blog calls for freelancers of the world to unite. All of this connects to Dan Pink’s prognosis for the coming conceptual age in A Whole New Mind, which followed his book Free Agent Nation.

In my own work, I am living much of this. I’m currently in Montreal working with Mancomm Performance, where I’m an associate. Most of my clients are looking for analysis as well as creativity. I also work and volunteer with other organisations, including a charity and an Alternative Energy Co-operative. My work roles include independent consultant, sub-contractor, asssociate or partner. My business connections are a “wirearchy” dependent on mutual trust. I have completed projects where I have never met my partners face-to-face.
I know that this work model is not pervasive, but with more downsizing, mergers, buyouts, lockouts, and other disruptions to the stability of the salaried employee, I’m betting that this will be the future for my children.