"I am what I create, share and others build on”

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The Entrepreneurial Learner:

Takeaways. (1) in a world of constantly changing contexts, best practices don’t travel very well. (2) As contexts change, we need to move past stories (which explain a specific event) to narratives (which create a framework for moving us to action, perhaps in a new direction). (3) there are important shifts occurring: knowing what has moved to knowing what and where; making things moves to making things and contexts (e.g., remix); (4) in sense-making, we move from playing to reframing; in media, we move from storytelling to transmedia (e.g., how a story jumps from one medium to another — this has huge implications for corporate branding). (5) Identity Shift is the biggest shift of all. We’re moving from a sense of “I am what I wear/own/control” to “I am what I create, share and others build on.” How do I put something into play so others build on it? When you figure this out, you understand agency and impact. —John Seely Brown

fractal
A “built-upon” image by Joachim Stroh

We are moving to the edge, not just in our work but for a greater part of our interconnected lives.

What I learned via social media this week

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Here are some of the observations and insights that were shared via social media during the past two weeks.

@jonerp – “Email idea: end “out of office” auto-replies. Instead, the “in-office auto-reply”-“I’m in the office for once- I just might see your email!””

@mattedgar – “An unexpected benefit of long-term blogging is being able to google for my opinions when I forget what they are” +1!

@swardley – “The reason why we need to add and then remove chief [something] officers is because our organisations are not designed around change”

@AlexisMadrigal – what you know about the social web is wrong – via @robgo

1. The sharing you see on sites like Facebook and Twitter is the tip of the ‘social’ iceberg. We are impressed by its scale because it’s easy to measure.

2. But most sharing is done via dark socialmeans like email and IM that are difficult to measure.

3. According to new data on many media sites, 69% of social referrals came from dark social. 20% came from Facebook.

4. Facebook and Twitter do shift the paradigm from private sharing to public publishing. They structure, archive, and monetize your publications.

@JBordeaux – My cup of tea

Tea is a pretty basic commodity, the cultivation and distribution markets established hundreds of years ago.  Manuals no doubt exist to help the new worker understand how to continue the long tradition, bringing this product to market.  Manuals, however, will fail  in the final application.  The local enjoyment of the product, that activity which drives demand.  This final, critical routine is rich with local context.

@orgnet – knowing the net helps us knit the net

These network maps help community managers build more innovative and resilient social networks.  First you see the present structure of the network… where are the gaps, where are the bridges, who are the linchpins that keep things together, who is in the core, and who is in the periphery?  Knowing the net, helps us knit the net!  The maps show us where we are today, allowing the community (along with their consultants) to plan where they want to be tomorrow.

“Here’s one guy who never has to tell his kids he lied.” – via @CharlesHGreen

After Usada’s [US Anti-doping Agency] full findings came out on Wednesday, [Scott] Mercier’s wife called him. “She said ‘imagine you’re sitting down with your son and daughter, explaining hey, daddy’s a liar and a cheat’. I don’t have to do that.”

@RogerSchank – “Nobel Prize winner John Gurdon certainly showed his science teacher. Here’s his 1949 science report card.”

 

Traditional training structures are changing

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Citrix GoToTraining has just released a paper I was commissioned to write, called What’s working and what’s not in online training. Here is the introduction, and you can read the rest at the link at the bottom. I will be following up on some of the themes I discuss in this paper in the coming weeks.

The new challenge for learning professionals

The novelist William Gibson said, “The future is already here – it’s just not evenly distributed.” What training and development professionals can expect in the next year is already here, but not yet visible to everyone. The near future will look like the near past, with more complex social and technological connections inside and outside organizations. The rapid pace of change is unlikely to abate in the near future.

One thing is obvious, however: Learning is becoming more collaborative. In just the past year, we have seen several advancements, introductions and evolutions in the world of learning, including:

Silicon Valley and Ivy League schools are opening up their courses for free online. Massively Open Online Courses (MOOCs), as they’re called, are initiatives hoping to disrupt higher education.

Learning management systems have become talent management or social collaboration systems as they try to increase their relevance beyond training. Last year I worked with a client that had reduced its corporate university staff by over half and outsourced all course development. Recently, McGill University management professor Karl Moore, in Forbes magazine, asked, “Is the traditional corporate university dead?”

From this, it’s clear — traditional training structures, based on institutions, programs, courses and classes, are changing.

Probably the biggest change we are seeing in online training is that the content delivery model is being replaced by more social and collaborative frameworks. This is due to almost universal Internet connectivity, especially with mobile devices, as well as a growing familiarity with online social networks such as Facebook and LinkedIn. What follows is a list of near-term trends that should be taken into consideration by learning professionals during the next year and beyond … read the rest of the paper — What’s working and what’s not in online learning (PDF)

PKM webinar 25 october

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On 25 October at 18:00 GMT I will be conducting an online session on personal knowledge management (PKM). It will be in English and is hosted by En Nu Online, a Netherlands company focused on social media for learning and is part of a longer workshop series. The hosts are @joitske and @sibrenne and there will be a Twitter back-channel. If you would like to attend, you can sign up on the website. Cost is €45 for this 1.5 hour interactive session and includes two written case studies on recent online social learning implementations.

PKM

The automation and outsourcing of work is becoming our wicked problem to deal with as we move into the network era. Most workers have no control over the economy or the changes in the means of production. They just have to roll with the punches, which are coming faster and faster. However, there is one area where workers can take control; relatively easily and inexpensively. They can take control of their professional development.

Most recruiters will tell you that the time to build your network is before you become unemployed. It’s the same with professional development. If the only knowledge-building activities you do are ones mandated by your employer, then you may be in trouble. Developing a network of thoughtful people who can help in your professional life would be a good start.

If you think there is a possibility of spending some time in the future as either unemployed, contractual, or freelancing, then now is the time to build a professional development network. Seek out people who can help you; begin habits of regular sense-making activities; and start to share, because only by sharing will you meet the people you should be seeking in the first place. PKM is a framework that can help you take control of your professional development.

Chance favours the Connected Company

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About 18 months ago I wrote in Embrace Chaos, that I think the outer edge will be where almost all high value work gets done in organizations. Core activities will be increasingly automated or outsourced and these will be managed by very few internal staff. Change and complexity will be the norm in our work and any work where complexity is not the norm will be of of diminishing value.

Riitta Raesmaa picked up on this in Embracing chaos with a little help from my friends: “Changes in the organizational culture, more open attitudes and behavior, together with social media tools and services, are altering the landscape of human connectedness and the ways of value creation.” Recently, Oscar Berg started experimenting with new ways of looking at value creation and openness. Oscar says that:

Without openness, the door is closed for anyone who wants to participate.
With openness but no or limited transparency, the number and quality of potential participants will be delimited.
With openness and (high) transparency, anyone anywhere can become aware of opportunities to participate and choose whether or not to actually participate.

Viewing this first from the perspective of what makes an effective knowledge-sharing network, I would say that in trusted networks, openness enables transparency, which in turn fosters a diversity of ideas. Supporting the creation of social networks can increase knowledge-sharing which can lead to more innovation, especially in networks built on trust.

From a value creation perspective, this can inform us how and where we should best get work done in the network era. Openness can help with internal task coordination, and transparency can improve collaboration amongst teams, while cooperation in diverse external networks can lead to improved innovation. In complex and changing markets, innovation has much higher business value than merely coordinating internal tasks. To paraphrase Steven B. Johnson in Where Good Ideas Come From who said “Chance favors the connected mind”, and inspired by Dave Gray’s The Connected Company, let me propose that Chance favours the Connected Company.

 

On Trojan Mice

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In Organizations don’t tweet, people do, Euan Semple talks about Trojan mice, an idea he got from Peter Fryer at trojanmice.com. These are small change initiatives, that do not require the coordinated effort of something like a Trojan horse:

Trojan mice, on the other hand, are small, well focused changes, which are introduced on an ongoing basis in an inconspicuous way. They are small enough to be understood and owned by all concerned but their effects can be far-reaching. Collectively a few Trojan mice will change more than one Trojan horse ever could.

There is an art to spotting a Trojan mouse — you need to develop a critically trained eye. Seeing things differently, and seeing different things, is a powerful experience. And once you do, you can set your Trojan mice free to create the results your business needs.

The idea is simple to grasp and perhaps easier than the Probe-Sense-Respond of the Cynefin framework regarding complexity.

Sometimes a better metaphor makes an idea easier to pass on. Here’s my image of how to use Trojan mice. Deploy several at a time, then observe what happens. Cajole and nudge them (as Euan advises) and then add or remove as needed. Many attempts will fail so there’s little use in reinforcing these. Then take another look at the entire field (company or ecosystem), and see where else you might deploy more mice. Repeat.


Send forth your mice!

Update —

Trojan Mice in 900 Seconds

Image: @whatsthepont

Principles of Networked Unmanagement

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Cooperation

Collaboration is working together for a common objective, while cooperation is openly sharing, without any quid pro quo. Cooperation is a necessary behaviour to be open to serendipity and to encourage experimentation. In networks, cooperation trumps collaboration. Collaboration happens around some kind of plan or structure, while cooperation presumes the freedom of individuals to join and participate. Cooperation is a driver of creativity.

As we shift to a networked economy, our organizational frameworks have to change. While collaboration inside the company and with partners may have worked in a market economy, cooperation amongst a greater variety of network actors is now necessary. We are seeing this with customers getting involved in product design and marketing becoming more “social”. Shifting our emphasis from collaboration, which still is required to get some work done, to cooperation, in order to thrive in a networked ecosystem, means reassessing some of our assumptions about work.

Cooperation in our work is needed so that we can continuously develop emergent practices demanded by increased complexity. What worked yesterday won’t work today. No one has the definitive answer any more but we can use the intelligence of our networks to make sense together and see how we can influence desired results. Cooperation is a foundational behaviour for effectively working in networks, and it’s in networks where most of us, and our children, will be working.  Cooperation is the future, which is already here, albeit unevenly distributed.

Since cooperation presumes the freedom of individuals to join and participate, people in the network cannot be told what to do, only influenced. If they don’t like you, they won’t connect. That’s like being on Twitter with no followers and never getting “retweeted”. You will be a lone node and of little value to the network. In a hierarchy you only have to please your boss. In a network you have to be perceived as having some value by many others.

Teamwork

Most of us have seen those fancy teamwork motivational posters on workplace walls, and almost every job description includes teamwork as a critical competency. Teamwork is over-rated, as it can be a smoke screen for office bullies to coerce fellow workers. A big economic stick often hangs over the team; “be a team player or lose your job”.

Teams promote unity of purpose, not openness, transparency and diversity of ideas, essential for building trust in networks. Think of a football team, a common business metaphor in North America. There is only one coach and everybody has a specific job to do while “keeping their eye on the ball”. In today’s workplace, there’s more than one ball and the coach cannot see the entire field. The team, as a work vehicle, is outdated.

As much as organizations advertise for “team players”, what would be better are workers who can collaborate and cooperate by connecting to each other in a balanced manner. There are other ways of organizing work. Orchestras are not teams; neither are jazz ensembles. There may be teamwork on a theatre production but the cast is not a team. It is more like a social network. Teams are what we get when we use the blunt stick of economic consequences as the prime motivator. In a complex world, unity can be counter-productive.

Jobs

The high-value work today is in facing complexity, not in addressing problems that have already been solved and for which a formulaic or standardized response has been developed. Most workers are paid to do only one thing – solve problems. When dealing with work problems we can categorize them as either known or new. Known problems require access to the right information to solve them. This information can be mapped, and frameworks such as knowledge management help us to map it. We can also create tools, especially electronic performance support systems (EPSS) to do work and not have to learn all the background knowledge in order to accomplish the task. This is how simple and complicated knowledge gets automated.

Complex, new problems need tacit (implicit) knowledge to solve them. Furthermore, as more work becomes automated & outsourced, exception-handling becomes more important in the networked workplace. The system handles the routine stuff and people, usually working together, deal with the exceptions. As new exceptions get addressed, some or all of the solution gets automated, and so the process evolves. The 21st century workplace, with its growing complexity due to our interconnectivity, requires that we focus work on new problems and exception-handing. This increases the need for collaboration, working together on a problem; as well as cooperation, sharing without any specific objective.

One challenge for organizations will be getting people to realize that what they actually know, as detailed in a job description, has decreasing value. How to solve problems together is becoming the real business imperative. Sharing and using knowledge in new ways is where business value lies. With computer systems that can handle more and more of our known knowledge, the 21st century worker has to move to the complex and chaotic edge to get the valued and paid work done. There are many people who will need help with this challenge.

Networks

Workplace leaders everywhere need to help the current and upcoming workforce enter the 21st century network economy. Another change to manage will be getting people to work more transparently. Transparency is necessity for effective networks. For instance, a major benefit of using social media is increasing speed of access to knowledge. However, if the information is not shared by people, it will not be found. With greater transparency, information can flow horizontally as well as vertically. New patterns and dynamics can then emerge from interconnected people and interlinked information flows, and these will bypass established structures and services. Working transparently and cooperatively is much less controllable than many managers will be comfortable with. But in this network era that we are entering, the increase in complex work, and rise of networks as the primary organizing framework, will create an even greater need for cooperation.

“In the long term, +N [network] dynamics should enable government, business, and civil-society leaders to create new mechanisms for mutual consultation, coordination, and cooperation spanning all levels of governance. Aging contentions that “the government” or “the market” is the solution to particular public-policy issues will eventually give way to new ideas that “the network” is the optimal solution.” — Ronfeldt

We, collectively, are the solution to our problems. We just have not figured out how to get optimally organized. Network theory can provide many of the answers. The first step is seeing that we have a problem and that our current work models are inadequate. Doing the same things better will not help. Looking outward, beyond our organizations, can enable cooperative behaviour. Casting off old management models, like jobs and organization charts, is another step. Shifting to a networked economy is going to take cooperation, and that only happens when we let go of control, just the opposite of Taylor’s principles of scientific management* which have informed us for the past century. Here are my introductory Principles of Networked Unmanagement:

It is only through innovative and contextual methods, the self-selection of the most appropriate tools and work conditions, and willing cooperation that more productive work can be assured. The duty of being transparent in our work and sharing our knowledge rests with all workers, including management.

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* Here are F.W. Taylor’s Principles of Scientific Management (1911)

It is only through enforced standardization of methods, enforced adoption of the best implements and working conditions, and enforced cooperation that this faster work can be assured. And the duty of enforcing the adoption of standards and enforcing this cooperation rests with management alone.

It's Friday again

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Here are some of the observations and insights that were shared via social media during the past two weeks.

@snowded – “[I have] Yet to see a list of core competences produced by a committee which could not have been done by any practitioner on the back of an envelope.”

@euan – “Been asked to talk about social media metrics – not sure if bloody good conversations with interesting people is what they’re looking for!”

@jurgenappelo – “You should not celebrate failure, you should celebrate learning. If you fail all the time, there’s a chance you’re not learning.”

@C4LPT – “Organisational training is going to become a sideshow; people’s real learning will take place in other places in order to keep themselves up to date.”

@TheCR – Complexity, Simplicity and Why Community Is Difficult for Organizations – by @RHappe

  1. Initially what you are doing may land on deaf ears. For a long time. It doesn’t necessarily mean that it will not succeed and it certainly doesn’t mean it is not worthwhile. It just means that it needs low grade care and feeding while people get comfortable with it and understand it.
  2. Early success is in changing people’s patterns and behaviors, not in financial gain or cost avoidance.
  3. Communities require a lot of individual action to be successful so it is critical that actions be meaningful and small initially.
  4. The impact of hundreds of small actions on economic output can be significant.
  5. The impact of the collective action would not have been possible with a traditional business plan or model. There are huge opportunities for those individuals and organizations that can cede control and not insist on consolidating 100% of the output.

The Atlantic: The Case for Abolishing Patents (Yes, All of Them) – via @TimKastelle

In plain-speak, the authors are arguing that, yes, the evidence suggests that having a limited amount of patent protection makes countries slightly more innovative, presumably by encouraging inventors to cash in on their great ideas without fear of being ripped off. But patent protections never stay small and tidy. Instead, entrenched players like intellectual property lawyers who make their living filing lawsuits and old, established corporations that want to keep new players out of their markets lobby to expand the breadth of patent rights. And as patent rights get stronger, they take a serious toll on the economy, including our ability to innovate.

The revolution starts within

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Do you work in an organization that is slow to adapt? Do you feel constrained by inept IT and HR policies? Are there deep impenetrable departmental silos within a non-collaborative culture? Is innovation and change painfully slow? If you answered yes to any of these, what can you really do from the inside?

Cartoon by Hugh Macleod @gapingvoid

Euan Semple writes about this in The blindingly, bloody, obvious:

It occurred to me the other day while working with a client that one of the challenges of enticing their colleagues to join in with their social networks is how obvious the benefits are once you have experienced them are – but how obscure they are until you have. Sometimes disparagingly called “not getting it” this is one of the biggest problems to overcome. You can spend a fortune on technology but unless you find a way to help people to “get it”, to understand the benefits to them of getting their hands dirty and taking part, you might as well not have bothered.

Timing is everything. An idea that is too early for its time will often get killed, especially if it gets referred to a committee. If you are convinced that your future workplace should look more like a Wirearchy, (a dynamic two-way flow of power and authority based on, knowledge, trust, credibility, a focus on results; enabled by interconnected people and technology) then the best thing you can do now is prepare.

  • Prepare yourself to be a continuous learner.
  • Prepare yourself and your team/department to work collaboratively.
  • Start narrating your work.
  • Become a knowledge curator and share widely.
  • Engage in professional social networks and communities of practice.
  • Model the behaviours you would like to see in others.

Finally, watch for moments of need, when the organization has a problem or crisis and then be ready with the tools and skills to help. It’s like being your own upstart company, developing asymmetrical skills under the radar, inside your organization. If nothing else, you will be preparing yourself to work in a wirearchy, whether it is your current employer or a future one. The network era revolution starts within each of us. Start walking the talk.

"They don’t want to train people on the job anymore"

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In a recent Atlantic article, Zvika Kriefer talks to Elli Sharef, who runs HireArt, a recruiting agency, focused on the tech sector.

I also asked Sharef if she had any insights on the broader employment picture, since she spends most of her day trying to match employers with employees. The most striking trend she sees is that having a strong, well-rounded resume is no longer good enough. Employers are increasingly looking for specific skills sets that match their needs.

“They don’t want to train people on the job anymore,” she says, marking a shift away from the apprenticeship model that defined many sectors in the economy before the recession. “There are just too many people looking for work for companies to waste time on someone who can’t start, ready to go, on the first day. Candidates are left to fend for themselves.”

What could this mean?

For individuals, it’s getting obvious they have to start taking their professional development into their own hands. Also, as more work becomes contractual or part-time, workers have to take up the slack where company training used to offer some professional development. It also means that those buying any professional development are going to be more discerning and price-sensitive. The tide is shifting to supporting individuals through communities, separate from companies, as organizational lifespans continue to decrease. The popularity of the PKM Workshop also indicates that people want to take control of their professional development and only need a safe place to start. Participants this year have commented that the workshops have changed how they think:

“This program has made me think differently about my professional practice.”

“I’ve had more ‘conversations’ and been exposed to many points of view that I would not have encountered any other way.”

The Seek-Sense-Share framework of PKM has proven to be useful for many participants:

“Reducing my seeking and spending more time sensing (converting things into high quality content) is my most important goal for the next few months.”

“I need to increase the proportional amount of time I spend in “Sense.” I read a lot, I share quite a bit…yet when it comes to making sense of patterns and other “stuff” in the whole, I don’t always make time to do it.”

“I very much appreciate the simpleness of the Seek Sense Share model and the fact that together they lead to Serendipity (enhanced Serendipity to be sure). S/S/S = S.”

Staying in touch with participants has given additional feedback that the workshop participants’ practices are changing:

“Without any coherent strategy I often was not persistent in my undertakings. This course gave me an excellent opportunity to evaluate my position and to work out an appropriate approach.

My take-aways:
1. Take risks & engage,
2. Focus on who, not what,
3. Less is more,
4. Ritualize and organize to make time to reflect,
5. Trust the process.
6. Have fun.”

But what about training (L&D) departments?

If organizations are engaging job-ready workers, then training has to move away from course delivery and focus on performance and collaboration. But it is difficult to move a traditional training organization directly to a social learning focus. It is easier to start with performance consulting and then expand to social and collaborative learning, as I wrote in from training to performance to social. Nancy Slawski picked up on this on How to Live Social in the L&D Trenches:

“Kermit the Frog’s rendition of ‘It’s not Easy Being Green’ could be the theme song for L&D folk who are trying to push against the grain of workplace cultures that are heavily siloed , that define learning in terms of content heavy learning events and who see social learning and social media as one in the same.

On top of these internal challenges, learning professionals also have external pressures of learning and industry. We are reminded daily that unless L&D can morph ourselves into social, informal, collaborative gurus who have their fingers on the pulse of talent and performance , our days are numbered. (is that a DoDo bird I see?)”

The workshops provide only one possible way to start the shift in workplace learning support from Push to Pull, with an emphasis on Flow over Stock. There are many other options. But we think it’s very important to understand how work is changing, as every day there are indicators of the shift. When work is learning and learning is the work, none of us can just sit back and see what gets pushed to us. As knowledge workers, it’s essential to note that anything that can be reduced to a flowchart will be automated. In such a world, it’s best not to leave everything to centralized planning and control, whether as an individual or in supporting workplace learning.