Harold Jarche

Drupal Review

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Cameron Bales and I just wrote a review of the Drupal content management system for Rick Bruner’s Business Blog Consulting site. I’m sure that we may have missed a few things, so please post any additions or other comments about Drupal. This will enable interested parties to make informed technology decisions without the marketing hype that you would get from proprietary software. We may be open source evangelists, but we won’t hide any weaknesses because we know that the community will help to solve any problems. The more I use Drupal, the more I feel that it is an excellent CMS to manage a website and multiple blogs. I also know that it can do a lot more.

Update: Boris Mann adds more details and perspective to our review.
and … there are further comments on the Drupal site; so read them all to get a complete perspective.

One final reason to use Drupal – because Doc Searls does!

Wisdom of Crowds for Health & Education

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In Deschooling Society (1970), Ivan Illich explained why we must disestablish school:

Many students, especially those who are poor, intuitively know what the schools do for them. They school them to confuse process and substance. Once these become blurred, a new logic is assumed: the more treatment there is, the better are the results; or, escalation leads to success. The pupil is thereby “schooled” to confuse teaching with learning, grade advancement with education, a diploma with competence, and fluency with the ability to say something new. His imagination is “schooled” to accept service in place of value. Medical treatment is mistaken for health care, social work for the improvement of community life, police protection for safety, military poise for national security, the rat race for productive work. Health, learning, dignity, independence, and creative endeavor are defined as little more than the performance of the institutions which claim to serve these ends, and their improvement is made to depend on allocating more resources to the management of hospitals, schools, and other agencies in question.

There is almost an arms race quality to the way in which we are trying to save our current education and health care “systems”. I am coming around to the notion that the system is the problem. Much in the same way that The Support Economy diagnoses ‘managerial capitalism’ as the primary cause of the disconnect between corporations and markets, I am seeing that Illich had it right over 30 years ago – we have seen the enemy, and it is us. Through our large, corporatist systems we have created self-perpetuating monopolies in both health and education.

In order to get back some semblance of control, I would suggest that we stop paying the supply side of the equation. Instead of paying the suppliers (teachers, doctors, administrators, etc.), a socialist country like Canada would instead offer education and health insurance to all Canadians. Let the people decide where their money is spent. If the average Canadian is allowed to vote for the governement, why not be allowed to vote where education and health (our topmost priorities) money should be spent? This system would have some problems, such as wealthier people opting into expensive facilities out of reach of average Canadians, but I believe in the wisdom of crowds, and feel that communities would develop to support all members of society. At least we would have the tools to do something other than lobby government on how to spend our money.

  • Does the wisdom of the crowd reflect this sentiment?
  • Would it be even remotely possible to try to implement this kind of approach?

Update: Dave Pollard has posted another article on how to use the wisdom of crowds in business planning and decision-making. His flow chart shows how the solutions team needs facilitation skills much more so than subject matter expertise or managerial skills. hmmm?

Next NB

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I received an email the other day, inviting me to participate in “A Covenant With Our Children – Education in New Brunswick”. This is described as a public forum to discuss what we teach and how we can better nurture a culture of learning with both parents, students, teachers and communities in New Brunswick. It will be held on September 14, 2004 at 7 p.m.
Tweedie Hall, Mount Allison University.

In reading through the Next NB website, I remarked on a few things. First, the article (PDF) that mentions Sackville is somewhat dated, and has inaccuracies, such as missing the fact that the Vogue Cinema is actually a private business that supports the Sackville Film Society, not vice versa. Second, the discussion forum is not easy to use, does not have an RSS feed, trackbacks or permalinks; so it doesn’t integrate well with other blogs – and that is my primary concern. There are already a number of conversations about education in NB happening on the internet, let me list a few blogs:

UNB, the sponsor of the Next NB initiative states that, “It is time for New Brunswickers to talk to each other.” Guess what – we’re already talking to each other, and maybe you’re not listening.

I have not had comments or input from Next NB on any of my posts about education (one-room schools, laptops in schools, goals), nor do they link to any other conversations in the province.

This focus on the province alone is another problem that I see with the initiative. There are interesting conversations on PEI and in Nova Scotia. Living in Sackville, I am only 8 km from the NS border, but I am only allowed to think of myself as New Brunswicker – I think not.

Anyway, I know this sounds like a bit of a rant, but please correct me if I am wrong. Has any blogger received input from NextNB? What do you think of their approach? I intend to invite them into the many conversations that are ongoing in the region and the blogosphere. Maybe they just haven’t read The Cluetrain.

One more thing – why do they have to have meetings in early September when many parents of school age children are signing kids up for extra curricular activities? Bad timing.

Update: I submitted a comment to the NextNB discussion forum on education. Not sure if the HTML will work, but tried it anyway. On submitting my comment, I received this message:

Confirmation / Confirmation

Thank you for choosing SNB Online. / Merci d’avoir choisi SNB en ligne.
Below is a summary of your order to keep for your records. / Vous trouverez ci-dessous le sommaire de votre commande. Conservez-le dans vos dossiers.
Order # / Numéro de la commande: 355160
Date of Order / Date de la commande: 2004-09-13
Item # / Article no: UNB8003
Name / Nom: Post a Comment re. Next NB / Afficher un commentaire sur Avenir N-B

Thank you for taking the time to voice your opinion. / Nous vous remercions d’avoir pris le temps de nous faire part de votre opinion.

Click here to return to the Next NB Discussion Forum. / Cliquer ici pour retourner au groupe de discussion de Avenir N-B.


I didn’t know that submitting a comment constituted an order for services from SNB; and now my comment waits patiently in the government-funded line up. Now this is a great way to get the conversation flowing ;-)

Laudably/Renewal Consulting Group Launches

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Rob Paterson and Jevon MacDonald have launched Laudably/Renewal, a combination of their separate consulting companies, on Prince Edward Island.

We help organizations use an exceptionally inexpensive set of tools that provide the cultural experience of really breaking the silos, of really bringing the voice of the customer and the front line expert into the corporate head office and of really creating a legitimate community and hence more trust in both the workplace and with customers and suppliers.

Our objective to to provide you with a sustainable competitive edge ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äú that of being able to compete, not in an arms race of yet more financial resources, but culturally.

Our process is to work with you to install a simple set of tools, based on Social Software, that enable you, with a minimum investment and with minimum disruption, set in motion forces and experiences that have the power to transform the culture of your entire organization.

I am forecasting that this will not be the last venture of this kind in the region, as small, innovative companies take up the slack that has been left by decades of managerial capitalism. Congratulations to Jevon and Rob for their leadership.

Enterprise Strength Drupal

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I’m working on an evaluation of the Drupal CMS (content management system) for Rick Bruner, with the able assistance of Cameron Bales and Christopher MacKay (they know a lot more than I do about Drupal). One of the questions that Rick asks is whether the CMS is appropriate for corporate blogging. I think that this post by start-up Bryght.com tells it all:

Our business is going to be mass-hosting of Drupal sites. This means three separate channels: mass deployment (large organizations/companies/ISPs that want to run/deploy 100s of sites), resellers (developers, designers, and consultants that want to offer sites to end user clients but don’t want the hassle/administration of installation and maintenance), and end users.

This makes me feel more secure in the long term stability of Drupal as my CMS. Via Mark Oehlert.

Synergy

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I am interested in the intersection of learning, work and technology. Why? One reason is that I firmly believe that a multi-disciplinary approach can solve more complex problems. I try to stay current in matters of learning theories, instructional design, collaborative work, business models, economics, etc. Here is another reason, by Peter Smith of California State University, in an article entitled – Of Icebergs, Ships, and Arrogant Captains, published by Educause Review:

Synergy, a biological term, is defined as “the action of two or more substances, organs, or organisms, to achieve an effect of which each is individually incapable”  By itself, technology cannot save us. Considered in a vacuum, new learning models for organizations and individuals might not dramatically improve the impact of higher education. But if we understand and anticipate the synergy of the social, technological, economic, and political forces at work around us, employing them together, we will be able to achieve what cannot be done by employing any of these forces alone.

Performance Improvement Resources

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I’ve re-posted this as a reference for the audience of the session on Human Performance Technology that I presented to NBCC. You can also follow the Performance Improvement taxonomy links for my comments on this field of practice.

If you’re in the training business, and want to broaden your horizons, take a look at performance improvement. Here are two good resources for short articles on performance improvement. PI helps you link business needs with the appropriate learning or training solution. It also provides you with tools to ensure that training does not become the "one size fits all" solution for any human performance issue.

PerformanceExpress is published monthly by ISPI. On the bottom of the navigation bar is a link to back issues.

Harold Stolovitch publishes HSA Express and Performance. I like the April 2003 article on 10 low cost performance improvement solutions, for example:

  • Clean up performance expectations.
  • Develop feedback systems.
  • Create performance support systems.
  • Design simple and effective job aids.
  • Eliminate tasks that interfere with job performance.

NB Companies Collaborate in Strategic Partnership

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Two New Brunswick based companies have announced a strategic partnership this week. Innovatia (owned by Aliant) will be licensing Ensemble Collaboration’s OnDemand web service, for integration into its own portfolio of Knowledge Solutions. Both companies are members of LearnNB which promotes collaboration amongst its members.

Collaboration OnDemand,  part of Ensemble’s suite of web services called C-Change, enables companies to create custom collaborative workspaces for their workers. Ensemble’s services provide workers with access to the collective knowledge of their extended enterprise, expert mentors 24×7, and a global community of peers. Using Ensemble’s patent-pending technology framework, these services can be integrated with one another for a seamless learning experience and standard user interface.