Time to get off the train

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In Alvin & Heidi Toffler’s book, Revolutionary Wealth, they discuss the “clash of speeds” of our various societal structures, using a train analogy.

Speeding along at 100 mph is the enlightened business train; adapting and using new technologies (exploiting change).

Still fast at 90 mph is the civil society train; NGO’s, professional groups, activists, religious groups (demanding change).

Keeping up at 60 mph is the family train; working, shopping, trading & selling from home (adapting to change).

A distance back, at 30 mph is the union train, still focused on a mass-production mindset (denying change).

A bit further back at 25 mph is the large government bureaucracy train; slowing everybody else down (fighting change).

Limping along at 10 mph is the education train; protected by monopoly, bureaucracy & unions (blind to change).

Way back is at 5 mph is the international agency train: comprising organizations like WIPO, WTO, IMF (immune to change).

Even slower, at 3 mph is the political system train; discussing, debating but not accomplishing much (too busy to change).

Pulling up the rear at 1 mph is the legal train; so far behind that it hasn’t noticed the beginning of the financial bubble, let alone its collapse (rigor mortis).[can the law keep up with technology?]

tofflers trains

Reflecting on the organizations I have worked in and worked with, I think these speed comparisons make a lot sense. Given that certain businesses can change so much quicker than education, it’s obvious that educational reform will come from without, not within, the system.

When we significantly change how we work, our education systems should follow suit, but due to its design constraints, the Edu-train cannot keep up with the Ent 2.0 train. Perhaps the only option for the passengers is to get off and find another train.

Across the chasm

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I’ve written before how I use the chasm model to explain my professional work of 1) seeing what is ready to cross the chasm by 2) staying connected to the innovators & being an early adopter so that 3) I can help mainstream organizations. It’s a graphic summary of my consulting practice. As you can see, I ignore the Laggards.
Chasm2.jpg
In the field of web social media for workplace performance, what technologies are the Innovators experimenting with?

Which ones are now being picked up by the Early Adopters (like me) and finally, which technologies and ideas are ready to cross the chasm to the Early Majority?

Innovators Early Adopters Crossing the Chasm
Technology Simulations Micro-blogs Blogs

Role-playing Social Networks Wikis

Waves Mobile Social Bookmarks
Ideas Emergent Learning PKM – PLN – PLE
 Performance Support

Subject Matter Networks
 Complexity
 Informal Learning

Group-centric Learning
 Flow
 Online Collaboration

Any other ideas, additions or comments?

Social learning is real

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Once again, I’m learning from my colleagues, as yesterday I realized how important self-direction is in enabling social learning. Now I’m picking up on Jay’s post on Social Learning Gets Real and see how it connects to Jane’s observations. Jay has described several aspects of the future of social learning (below) and they map to the matrix (farther down) I created based on Jane’s five types of social learning.

get real jaycross

As Jay says:

In the past, we’ve focused on individuals but work is performed by groups. Hence, I expect us to start helping groups learn to perform instead of individuals.

Why is this important? We have structures and systems in place that promote and validate individual training but we leave almost all of the social learning to chance.

For example:

Would it be better to 1) take a generic classroom workshop on information management or 2) spend a few hours serendipitously learning on Twitter.

Is it more effective to a) read prepared case studies or to b) co-create your group’s case study that can be shared with the entire organization?

social learning is real

Jane Hart’s social  learning definitions:

  1. IOL – Intra-Organisational Learning – how social media tools can be used to keep employees up to date and up to speed on strategic and other internal initiatives
  2. FSL – Formal Structured Learning – how educators (teachers, trainers, learning designers) as well as students can use social media within education and training – for courses, classes, workshops etc
  3. GDL – Group Directed Learning – how groups of individuals – teams, projects, study groups etc – can use social media to work and learn together (a “group” could just be two people, so coaching and mentoring falls into this category)
  4. PDL – Personal Directed Learning – how individuals can use social media for their own (self-directed) personal or professional learning
  5. ASL – Accidental & Serendipitous Learning – how individuals, by using social media, can learn without consciously realising it (aka incidental or random learning)

Social media and self-directed learning

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I found Jane Hart’s post on social media FOR learning most thought-provoking:

I have decided to categorise the use of social media in the following 5 different ways:

  1. IOL – Intra-Organisational Learning – how social media tools can be used to  keep the organisation up to date and up to speed on strategic and other internal initiatives
  2. FSL – Formal Structured Learning – how educators (teachers, trainers, learning designers) as well as students can use social media within education and training – for courses, classes, workshops etc
  3. GDL – Group Directed Learning – how groups of individuals – teams, projects, study groups etc – can use social media to work and learn together (a “group” could just be two people, so coaching and mentoring falls into this category)
  4. PDL – Personal Directed Learning – how individuals can use social media for their own (self-directed) personal or professional learning
  5. ASL – Accidental & Serendipitous Learning – how individuals, by using social media, can learn without consciously realising it (aka incidental or random learning)

This had me thinking about how best to explain these categories to clients and folks not immersed in social media and learning. I started by looking at it as a 2×2 matrix, but of course there are five categories, so that wouldn’t work. However, the axes of the amount of direction versus group size made sense to me, so I created the diagram below. What jumped out at me after the fact, and I’ve highlighted in red, is that social media for learning requires a lot of self-directed learning, either individually or as a participant in a group/organization. Externally directed learning (FSL) is only one of five possibilities. Good food for thought on the future role of the “training” department, isn’t it?

social media for learning

Friday’s Finds #26

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HJ twitter

What I learned on Twitter this past week:

Work

The Taylorist Stranglehold on buildings, management & IT via @drmcewan

“Hierarchies aren’t evil, networks aren’t chaotic. Both are incarnations of the same structures in the semi-ordered domain that is human life” @tonzylstra

via @skap5 – 17.5% unemployed or underemployed. Not just the bottom of a cycle. A burning platform for an innovation economy and transforming education.

The best potential clients for Enterprise 2.0 are 1) losing the industrial war, or 2) have a culture of pushing out/down power via @robpatrob

Founder Collective: we expect to generate returns almost exclusively from seed stage investments. via @jonhusband

Learning

via @JoanVinallCox Learning is a primal joy, like sex, & it is imperative, like eating & drinking.

“Students as enemies” metaphor is pervasive. This is not a done deal. via @smartinez @akamrt

Video: Discussions about using Twitter and microblogging in education. via @zecool

100+ ways to use social media for learning. via @c4lpt

The flu virus may be telling us to rethink our approach to science & education.

Look who’s smiling :-) Technology in the classroom. via @fmeichel @FrancoisGuite

Systems

Great article on the use of system dynamics modeling for complex problems in international development. via @hrichman

“The capitalist nightmare: search is both theft & the very ontology of the web.” inspired by @crowdedfalafel

Interesting similarities between Convergence of Key Media Trends via @kanter & Constellation W [Convergence & Ruptures] via @jonhusband

eCollab

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ecollab_-_badge_copie_normalI’ve been working with Frédéric Domon over the past few months and you may have noticed that we recently launched Entreprise Collaborative, a cross-cultural idea laboratory to exchange perspectives with experts and practitioners around collaboration and social learning in the enterprise.

One objective of our venture is to bridge two linguistic communities and learn from each by lowering the barriers to communication and cooperation. I have also updated some of my key articles, which have been translated into French and are now on the eCollab site. Our first bilingual White Paper with several contributors is another example of the collaboration we hope to foster and we will continue to publish these on themes that are pertinent to our professional communities. We are also launching a blog carnival.

ecollab-us-ad-408x60 copie

Frédéric was recently interviewed (in French) by Lilian Mahoukou at project doppelganger and given that  we’ve never met I learned some more about my colleague. The fact that I haven’t met business partners and clients is becoming much more the norm in my networked business.

It’s interesting to note that, as a student, Frédéric was counseled that information technology had no future, so he went into communications and marketing instead. I wonder what advice is being given to students today that will prove just as wrong.

To follow our bilingual blog go to: www.entreprisecollaborative.com, subscribe to the RSS Feed, follow us on twitter @ecollab, or follow the twitter hashtag #ecollab.

L’avenir de la formation en Entreprise

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Cette année pour notre conférence LearnTrends nous allons offrir une session en français – L’Entreprise Collaborative et l’avenir de la formation en entreprise.

Voici les Participants: Harold Jarche, Jon Husband, Frédéric Domon, Vincent Berthelot et Thierry de Baillon

Nous allons présenter l’Entreprise Collaborative, discuter l’avenir de la formation (discussion autour du theme du prochain ecollab) et vous demander comment on peut mieux servir la communauté francophone.

Détails :

LearnTrends (voir la flèche verte pour le lien vers Elluminate)

mercredi 18 novembre

07:00 h (Pacifique)

Learning to work

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Learning to Work & Working to Learn

The way we work is definitely changing, due partly to:

  • Increased connectivity to more people;
  • Increasing complexity in the work we get paid to do;
  • Distributed work that is more global in nature or influence; and
  • The need to learn as we work.

Look at these changes over the past century:

Individual Work — from Vocations to Jobs to Roles

Learning to Work — from Apprenticeship to Training to Collaboration

Organization of Work — from Local to Regional to Networked businesses

Consider this. Friends of mine have four children in their late twenties and early thirties. All are in the ‘workforce’. All four went to university and some have completed graduate degrees. At this time, not one has a ‘job’.

The world has changed and we had better get used to it and learn to adapt.

What are your roles? How do you collaborate? Where are your networks?

PKM Overview

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admit one

I will be presenting on personal knowledge management (PKM) for LearnTrends 2009 on Tuesday, 17 November at 12:00 noon Pacific (15:00 EST & 20:00 GMT). In preparation, I’ve created a 5 minute presentation (MP4) of the topic, summarizing many of the posts I’ve written on the subject (click link below to launch video).

PKM Overview

References:

Sense-making with PKM (explains processes in more detail)

Creating your PKM Processes (some suggestions)

Other PKM Processes (includes diagrams)

Learning and Micro-blogging (all about Twitter)

Web Tools for Critical Thinking (with diagrams)

Friday’s Finds #25

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Here’s what grabbed my attention on Twitter this past week.

Networked Life means less command & control; but more self-control Euan Semple

via @jclarey Confessions of a Learning Consultant: I have designed and delivered programs with no more than minimal impact on my client’s business.

via @moehlert “Students who spend 8 yrs in grad school are being seriously over-trained for the jobs that are available.” Harvard Magazine [good debate in the comments]

via @cammybean is a 2002 study at Sara Lee by Atos KPMG (link to translation from original Dutch) that 80% of learning occurred spontaneously during work [paraphrased]:

What surprised the participants at the workshop was that a large proportion of learning was self-directed by workers. Nearly 80% of their learning fell within the categories of “spontaneous learning at work”, “networking with colleagues” and “consulting manuals and instructional materials”. Based on these definitions, learning at Sara Lee is about 80% informal and 20% formal learning.

Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences & scientific stupidity: Donald Clark

via @kwheeler Why Silicon Valley beat Route 128 in Boston. Good article. TechCrunch

via @Socialearning The World Is Open: How Web Technology Is Revolutionizing Education – Curtis Bonk

via @mathemagenic A personal view on knowledge work: Mathemagenic

via @dstojanovic Using twitter in academic setting? Here is how to cite. RT @GersteinLibrary: How to cite Twitter and Tweets

via @SoulSoup “The Complete Guide to Google Wave“, a free book you can download & share.