My Fair Lady in Sackville

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The production will feature student actors ranging from Grades 9 to 12, lavish costumes and a spectacular set. This year’s production is being directed by a student sister duo, Charlotte and Marilla Steuter-Martin. The performance will occur on May 21, 22 and 23 at the TRHS Auditorium in Sackville, N.B. Doors will open at 6:30 p.m. with the show starting at 7:00 p.m. Tickets are $6 for students and $10 for adults. Currently, they can be reserved online by emailing trhsmyfairladytickets@hotmail.com.

Tickets will be available for purchase starting tomorrow at Tidewater Books and starting Monday, May 4th at the Tantramar Regional High School office! Pick up yours today to assure your seat at what will be a great show!

My Fair Lady

TRHS Drama Website

This post strays a bit from my usual fare, but that’s Nicholas Jarche in the lead role :-)

Managing emergent practice

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What would happen if you called for closing your training department in favor of a new function?  Imagine telling senior management that you were shuttering the classrooms in favor of peer-to-peer learning. You’re redeploying training staff as mentors, coaches, and facilitators who work on improving core business processes, strengthening relationships with customers, and cutting costs. You’re going to shift the focus to creativity, innovation, and helping people perform better, faster, cheaper. You might want to give it a try.  Perhaps the time has come.

This is how Jay Cross and I finished our article on The Future of the Training Department. We showed that in complex environments, which more of us face each day, only emergent practices are effective, as backward-looking “good practices” are inadequate. Training is a method based on good practices and best practices. We establish our performance objectives based on an understanding of what we want to achieve, usually engaging subject matter experts to help us. But what if nobody knows how to do or even describe our future roles and tasks? That is the challenge for training managers in preparing workers to face complex problems.

According to Dave Snowden’s Cynefin framework, sense can be made in complex environments by 1) first probing through some action and then 2) sensing to understand what is happening and 3) finally responding based on what you have learned. Think of it as launching a new Web service. First it goes up as a Beta site and people join and use the services. Through their actions they give feedback; implicit and explicit. An effective strategy is to tap the feedback and actions of users and revise the service. Sometimes it is a radical change that is needed, such as when Flickr (now owned by Yahoo!) changed its early business focus from online gaming to photo sharing. In other cases it is a minor change, like accepting the use of the “@” symbol as a way of sending replies in Twitter. On the Web, and in complexity, it’s – Ready, Fire, Aim, Re-aim. I call it Life in Perpetual Beta.

A key understanding about complex environments is that they cannot be planned for. Certain skills can be developed in preparation for dealing with complexity but it is just as important to have systems in place that support workers in dealing with complexity. Shifting the main effort of the training department from content delivery to connecting and communicating is needed. That means pushing learning development tools to all workers. Everyone is now a subject matter expert at some point in time. Workers need to develop practices so that they can easily capture, find and share emerging practices. Web tools like social bookmarks, feed readers, blogs, and wikis can help (See Jane Hart’s 25 Tools for Learning Professionals).

The training department not only needs to teach how to use these tools but has to mine current practices as they evolve. Sense-making and pattern recognition become core skills for training specialists as they continuously develop new tools and processes based on emerging practices. Working in complex environments requires constant recalibration of methods and practices. There is no status quo.

In complex work environments we may need more coaches and facilitators but they will have to be as close to the work as possible. Standing back with a non-practitioner’s perspective will not help those doing the work. New roles such as ‘coach-as-co-worker’ or ‘facilitator-peer’ may emerge in this environment. As has already happened in this late industrial age, mid-level managers will become more redundant unless they can can do more than just manage. Who wants to hire a knowledge worker, as more of us are becoming, who still needs to be managed?

A landscape of influences

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More exciting pattern and sense-making from Ross Dawson, this time with the Influence Landscape Framework Beta v. 1:

This adds to other conceptual frameworks to inform us on how we can look at learning, work and especially communication in this era. The comment on influence networks echos of connectivism (just replace influence with learning):

Influence flows through networks – it cannot be understood as a linear mechanism focused on individual influencers. There are a number of key aspects of influence networks that need to be addressed to tap the power of influence.

I view the influence mechanisms as sources that one can tap when creating a personal knowledge management system. The landscape graphic also enhances the framework of wirearchy, showing that influence is dynamic and non-linear, as our working relationships must become in a networked environment.

If we put ourselves at the centre of the landscape then how we structure our lenses on the world has a significant impact on what we see. If our organisation only lets us view mass media information or from limited networks then we are closed to a wealth of other sources. If our influencers are only celebrities and famous people we are missing out on a rich source of human experience. If we don’t realize the driving forces changing the landscape then we may be blind-sided by events.

As a node in an open network we have a better chance of influencing our landscape, whether it be for learning, working or communicating. This model gives one more reason to open organisational walls to the outside – so influence can travel both ways.

The Learning Age

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This isn’t the Information Age, it’s the Learning Age; and the quicker people get their heads around that, the better – Prof Stephen Heppell

This is a quote from a short video on the future of learning which asks the key question, What do we want to do? (with all of this networked information technology).

There is little doubt that we need systemic change to prepare for the Learning Age, the signals are everywhere and the conversations are getting louder. Here’s an example: I recently met with some people in a large organization who are working on some new learning network initiatives. I mentioned that I was connected on Twitter to a person working on similar things and that I could connect them. On checking the name, we discovered that all of these people worked in the same organization but didn’t know what the others were doing. One limiting factor was the iron fist of the IT department, which doesn’t allow access to a wide variety of web sites and platforms. People cannot easily connect and therefore they cannot learn from each other. The silence between the silos is deafening.

Starting in the early years, schools need to shift to individualized learning. With 2GB of information being added every second, no one can “master content” any more. Jobs and roles are fragmenting so quickly (what’s a social media expert?) that a single, 12-year curriculum is laughable.

Business models and work practices are becoming networked and global, speeding the rate of time to implementation. The lines between work and leisure are blurring, as with work and learning. Today, about 16% of us can be described as hyperconnected but that is expected to grow to 40%, and I would say those people will be the main drivers of our economies and societies.

Every person in an organization can, and should, begin a journey to be active in the Learning Age:

Accept life in Beta and give up some control by trusting people to do their work.

Help people by enabling connections (outsourcing the IT department would be a good start) and assisting with methods like PKM.

Examine better ways to organize and structure but start the change at the individual and personal level.

Work at becoming better teachers, because when we teach, we learn best.

Adding value to information

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Once again, I have to thank Dave Pollard for an insightful post and another model I can use for online community development. Dave looks at the processes that could enable mainstream media to remain relevant in the Internet age.

Adding value to information is an important aspect of online communities, especially business and learning-related ones. The community manager can ensure 1) that environmental scans are done; 2) canvassing of members happens; 3) analysis & questionning is ongoing; 4) suggestions are made and 5) information tools (e.g. checklists) are developed. The community manager also organises the peer-to-peer events that are important to maintain the community.

You could use this chart of Dave’s as part of the job description of anyone starting a community of practice.

Mapping metrics

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Beth Kanter shares her presentation on Mapping metrics to strategy (with slide show) focused on non-profits using social media:

The session will share an overview of why the sequence listen, learn, and adapt is critical to implementing a successful social media strategy. We’ll take a look at how to use both qualitative and hard data points to refine and adapt your strategy as well as the role of continuous listening and learning through implementation of pilots. We’ll examine what can and can’t be quantified as well as various metrics and analytics tools.

The main lessons in this presentation are that you have to know what you are measuring (and it isn’t always the same thing) and that you have to jump in and try things out and even make mistakes in order to learn (e.g. perpetual Beta). Slide 28 of Beth’s presentation gives a good snapshot of the lessons learned from two social media campaigns.

Using social media to connect to networks and engage communities requires improvisation. What I’ve learned about improv is the importance of listening, understanding others and leaving an opening to continue the conversation. Fixing a social media framework in stone doesn’t leave room for the community to change it to their needs. Flickr is an example of a social media platform that evolved to meet the needs of its users, as it wasn’t originally intended to be a photo-sharing platform.

Whether you’re developing a non-profit campaign or a business network, it’s important to develop a social architecture, not just a technical one:

Social architecture is the conscious design of an environment that encourages certain social behavior leading towards some goal or set of goals.

Referred to in Beth’s presentation are hard metrics via The Social Organization, such as – contributors, visitors, referrals, word count, etc.  Dave Duarte provides 20 additional subjective ways to measure the social interactions in a network, including – recommendations to peers, and acknowledges the contributions of others. Measurement in social networking is not a single lens but a series of perspectives that evolve through time. It’s essential to have ongoing conversations about measurement as the network, community or campaign grows. Effective measurement becomes a critical feedback loop to check that you have the right social architecture.

Learning as a Network

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Mohamed Amine Chatti extends the framework on personal knowledge networks with his post on Learning as a Network (follow link for graphic):

The Learning as a Network (LaaN) perspective draws together some of the concepts behind double-loop learning and connectivism. It starts from the learner and views learning as the continuous creation of a personal knowledge network (PKN). For each learner, a PKN is a unique adaptive repertoire of:
– One’s theories-in-use. This includes norms for individual performance, strategies for achieving values, and assumptions that bind strategies and values together (conceptual/internal level) Tacit and explicit knowledge nodes (i.e. people and information) (external level

Here is Chris Argyris’ double-loop learning theory in a nutshell:

“There are four basic steps in the action theory learning process: (1) discovery of espoused and theory-in-use, (2) invention of new meanings, (3) production of new actions, and (4) generalization of results. Double loop learning involves applying each of these steps to itself. In double loop learning, assumptions underlying current views are questioned and hypotheses about behavior tested publically. The end result of double loop learning should be increased effectiveness in decision-making and better acceptance of failures and mistakes.”
double-loop

And here is George Siemens’ Connectivism theory:

Connectivism is the integration of principles explored by chaos, network, and complexity and self-organization theories. Learning is a process that occurs within nebulous environments of shifting core elements – not entirely under the control of the individual. Learning (defined as actionable knowledge) can reside outside of ourselves (within an organization or a database), is focused on connecting specialized information sets, and the connections that enable us to learn more are more important than our current state of knowing.

Finally, you can get a quick overview of the Cynefin model and complexity with this video from Anecdote.

So that’s: double-loop learning – connectivism – complexity; three concepts, each requiring some depth of understanding . No wonder this is a hard sell in the boardroom. Many people think of learning as school, training as something that is delivered, and complexity as problems that can be solved with effort and resources.

Like Mohamed, I am interested in these theories but my true passion is in implementing frameworks for the workplace.  I too think that merging learning and knowledge management into our work is a good way to help organizations deal with complexity.

Here’s a possible elevator pitch for learning as a network, or PKM:

Is your work becoming more complex? How much complexity is there in the markets or the environment? Can anyone predict what’s going to happen next? Obviously many of the world’s economists have been wrong about most things. Looking backwards hasn’t helped us much.

In a complex world we cannot predict outcomes but we can engage our environment and learn by doing. That makes constant learning a critical business skill. But how do we help people develop that skill?

Giving tools and teaching by example is a good way to start. People need to make connections and see patterns and then reflect, criticize and detect errors. Only in a trusting, collaborative workplace can this happen.

Want to know more? Well let me you tell a story …

How complex is our work?

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On my recent post, Emergent practices need practice, I looked at how complexity could not be easily addressed through traditional training methods:

But many of the problems we face today are COMPLEX, and methods to solve simple and complicated problems will not work with complex ones. One of the ways we addressed simple & complicated problems was through training. Training works well when you have clear and measurable objectives. However, there are no clear objectives with complex problems. Learning as we probe the problem, we gain insight and our practices are emergent (emerging from our interaction with the changing environment and the problem). Training looks backwards, at what worked in the past (good & best practices), and creates a controlled environment to develop knowledge and skills.

That got me thinking about what the ‘average’ knowledge worker might be expected to do in the course of a week. I think that there is still a fair amount of our work that is based on our existing skills and knowledge (perhaps 50%) and enables us to deal with complicated issues. This could be writing complicated reports or doing some type of trouble-shooting or problem-solving based on processes and knowledge that we have developed in our professional field. I also think that we all have to deal with routine, simple stuff, but we should off-load as much as possible so that we could concentrate on higher value tasks. It would be best to keep this to a minimum; say no more than 10%. We can also be confronted with total chaos or crises from time to time. Dealing with these requires a lot of energy. Keeping chaos to a minimum would be another objective of the organization; once again, say 10%.

Finally, as we understand the complex nature of our environment or the markets, we would want our workers to be able to address complex challenges. I doubt that all of our work is complex and I’m not sure how much complexity one can handle for extended periods of time. We are constantly trying to make sense and bring some order to our work and that takes effort. I think that 30% may be an appropriate amount of our time.
complex work
Does anyone have experience or data in looking at how our work is divided from simple to complex problems? It seems like a very interesting area for further research.

Work is learning, learning work

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As host of this month’s  Working / Learning Blog Carnival, David Wilkins challenged participants to think about the intersections between working and learning:

  • When does work become learning?
  • When does learning become work?

The integration of work and learning is a key part of my professional practice. Why?

Networks — Our workplaces, economies and societies are becoming highly networked. That means the transmission of ideas can be instantaneous. There is no time to pause, go into the back room and develop something to address our challenges. The problem will have changed by then.

Life in perpetual Beta — Not just rapid change, but continual change, requires practices that evolve as they’re developed. In programming, this has meant a move from waterfall to agile methods. Beta releases are the norm for Web applications and as we do more on the Web, other practices are sure to follow.

Complexity — The Cynefin framework shows that established practices work when the environment or the challenge is simple or complicated. For complex problems there are no established answers and we need to engage the problem and learn by probing. This requires a completely different mindset from training for defined problems and measurable outcomes. The integration of learning and work is not some ideal, it is a necessity in a complex world.

My current interest in Web social media is that these tools and platforms give us a better way to engage in collaborative work and help us integrate learning into our daily practice, such as personal knowledge mastery. There is no excuse that we cannot address the huge amounts of information and the complexity in our workplaces, as we already have the tools and much practice to inform us. All we need is the will.

“Work is learning, learning work” – that is all

Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

(apologies to Keats)

• Did you like this post? Check out the perpetual beta series

Nine Shift in Saint John

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I’ve written fairly often about Nine Shift, both the blog and the book, since 2005. Tomorrow evening, Bill Draves, Nine Shift author, will be speaking at the Faces of Fusion networking dinner in Saint John and I have the privilege of attending.

Nine Shift
Nine Shift

The basis of the book is that in the next decade what we do during 75% of our waking day (nine hours) will drastically change. In Chapter One the nine shifts, described several years ago and taking place at this time, are [my comments]:

Shift One. People work at home. [like most of my colleagues]

Shift Two. Intranets replace offices. [and maybe cafés replace offices too]

Shift Three. Networks replace pyramids. [same for the training department or the leaking organizational pyramid]

Shift Four. Trains replace cars. [ I already enjoy train service as often as possible]

Shift Five. Dense neighborhoods replace suburbs. [on the changing suburbs, from The Atlantic March 2009]

Shift Six. New social infrastructures evolve. [new forms of structures are already being developed]

Shift Seven. Cheating becomes collaboration. [collaboration is a required skill for the networked workplace]

Shift Eight. Half of all learning is online. [in spite of New Brunswick’s drastic reduction to its distance learning budget]

Shift Nine. Education becomes web-based. [is there any doubt?]

I’m looking forward to finally meeting Bill and hope to have more to add to this theme.