Harold Jarche

sensemaking in uncertainty

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When the pandemic broke out, the situation was generally chaotic and the best response was to act firmly, such as establish a lock-down as soon as possible.

“In the chaotic domain, a leader’s immediate job is not to discover patterns but to stanch the bleeding. A leader must first act to establish order, then sense where stability is present and from where it is absent, and then respond by working to transform the situation from chaos to complexity, where the identification of emerging patterns can both help prevent future crises and discern new opportunities. Communication of the most direct top-down or broadcast kind is imperative; there’s simply no time to ask for input.” —Snowden & Boone, HBR 2007

Now the pandemic is in its sixth month. We can make some sense of it, even though much is complex. The best response therefore is to probe — the Cynefin framework calls for those in positions of decision-making to probe, sense, and respond, using safe-to-fail experiments. A reductionist approach will not work in the complex domain.

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working smarter with pkm — transcripts

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I have a series of three 3-minute videos presenting the personal knowledge mastery framework. They are supported by the Working Smarter with PKM field guide. The online workshop provides a more structured and social learning experience.

The videos and the transcripts, for those who prefer to read rather than watch, are here.

Working Smarter with PKM (3 minute videos)

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push-button education

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Every fortnight I curate some of the observations and insights that were shared on social media. I call these Friday’s Finds.

“Any idiot can impose and exercise control. It takes genius to elicit freedom and release creativity.” —@DeeWHock

“LinkedIn is bragging that ‘member engagement has hit a record high’, which I’m sure is due to how great LinkedIn is, and has nothing to do with 30 million people being laid off and desperate for work.” —@MeetingBoy

“When all are guilty, no one is; confessions of collective guilt are the best possible safeguard against the discovery of culprits, and the very magnitude of the crime the best excuse for doing nothing.” —Hannah Arendt

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the future of schooling post-coronavirus

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I have been asked to present some issues on the future of schooling post-covid for a group of educators in Australia in early September. Any feedback to this post would be appreciated.

In my research on schooling, I have found that the education system is a lagging indicator. First technology, business, and society change, and then formal education aligns with them. So I will try to see what is changing outside the school system and how that will affect schooling.

The one-room school house represented the agrarian landscape of North America. It transformed into the modern public school with divided grades and several classrooms when good roads and motor vehicles arrived. For example, in our town, there is an abandoned one-room school about 12 KM from the current regional high school with several hundred students. But that road was not plowed in Winter until the 1950’s, so even that short distance was impossible to travel on a daily basis. Now this school serves several small communities and students travel by bus and car for the most part. Physical distancing requirements under the pandemic are now a new consideration on what is the best technology to ‘deliver’ students or to ‘deliver’ education.

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top tools 2020

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Every year, Jane Hart asks, “What are the most popular, useful, valuable, digital tools for learning?” and this year has added, “How has lockdown affected the tools used for learning and development in 2020?” Everyone can add their voice, and voting ends 21 August.

In my case, the tools I use for learning have not changed much since I posted top tools for 2019.

One change I have made is to use Pinboard for my social bookmarks. It is a move I am making toward paying for my online services.

Even though I have been working remotely for most of the past 17 years, I saw an increase in Zoom meetings. I have used Zoom for five years but the past six months have been kind of crazy with meeting requests. I have collected a few social bookmarks on distributed work in the process.

Top Tools for Learning 2020

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sense before stories

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Beware the storytellers and praise the sensemakers

In story skepticism (2016) I suggested that while storytelling skills may be important, a critical network era skill will be the ability to deconstruct stories. When it comes to this pandemic, there is no shortage of stories. The emotional, shocking, or fantastic stories get all the attention. The hard scrabble of sensemaking does not.

For example, I came across Michael Mina, Epidemiologist, Immunologist & Physician at Harvard School of Public Health & Harvard Medical School, in an interview with the podcast ‘This Week in Virology’ — Test often, fast turnaround. Not only was I impressed at how well Dr. Mina described the situation in clear understandable terms, so were the three virologists who interviewed him. “I learned so much”, said one, “I was blown away … I feel some hope finally”, said another. I am not going to try to explain what was presented, as Dr. Mina does it so well. Take 45 minutes and learn something important about covid-19 testing. You don’t even have to have a degree in science — I don’t.

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we need better learners

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The global pandemic is a wake up call and an opportunity. It has shocked our triform (Tribes +Institutions +Markets) economy and society. Over the past two decades we have seen many experiments and movements toward a more equitable, sustainable way of living on this planet (+Networks). We have made the rules for how we are governed and how the economy works. We can change them. We cannot change how the planet’s environment works. We cannot change the laws of physics. We cannot change how the SARS CoV-2 virus acts, as much as we would like to.

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closed and crowded

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Every fortnight I curate some of the observations and insights that were shared on social media. I call these Friday’s Finds.

“Only a few know how much one must know, to know how little one knows.” —Werner Heisenberg (1901-1976)

“Remember, always, that everything you know, and everything everyone knows, is only a model. Get your model out there where it can be viewed. Invite others to challenge your assumptions and add their own.” —Donella Meadows, 2008, Thinking in Systems: A Primer

“Faced with information overload, we have no alternative but pattern-recognition.” —Marshall McLuhan, 1969, Counterblast

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writing in your own voice

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A good portion of the workforce has now had a taste of distributed work (I prefer this term to ‘remote work’ which has a connotation of a central location and a number of remote workplaces). And most people, for the most part would like to have an option to work away from the office, as reported in a recent Citi GPS Report — “In fact a survey by Gallop has found that three in five U.S. workers who have been doing their jobs from home during the COVID-19 pandemic would prefer to continue to work remotely as much as possible, once restrictions have lifted.”

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perpetual beta 2020

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For 16 years my primary sensemaking medium has been this blog. This is where half-baked thoughts get tested, changed, and recombined. They reflect my interactions on social media, experiences through professional engagements, and conversations with colleagues around the world. The final part of my Seek > Sense > Share PKM practice is to put it all together. This too is in perpetual beta because once I do so, I begin on the next iteration.

After 3,300 blog posts, the latest instalment in the Perpetual Beta Series [now updated to Perpetual Beta 2022] is now available — Perpetual Beta 2020

I wrote the original perpetual beta series as four standalone digital volumes between 2014 and 2017. The changing nature of work, and our evolving perspectives on learning and knowledge were the core themes. I wrote Seeking Perpetual Beta first, in order to create a coherent narrative after ten years of blogging.

Subsequent volumes focused on leadership, personal knowledge mastery, and working models. The next volume, Life in Perpetual Beta, combined the best of the first four books in late 2017, with a new edition in December 2018. An updated edition comprises the first eleven chapters of this e-book.

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