A small business boom

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Lots of industry predictions (like this for e-learning) coming out are linked to the recession, but perhaps the best predictions are those focused on demographics, because we know that almost all 20 year-olds today will be 30 in ten years. It’s hard to refute those numbers.

Judy Martin made 7 Work Life Culture Predictions this month which had me going down several Internet rabbit holes following the links. I found out that I’m part of Generation Jones or may be labeled a Cusper (b. 1959). The prediction that I found most interesting and pertinent to my work was #4:

In response to rising unemployment and battered stocks a flood of risk takers will emerge as entrepreneurs. Although the economic climate is not ripe for taking chances, people will be working harder and longer because their retirement funds have dwindled down to nothing. In the face of adversity, we might see more small home based businesses and entrepreneurs emerging from the retirement pool as getting a job after 60 can prove difficult.

I went out on my own 6 years ago, at the age of 44. At that time the economy was supposed to be doing well, but there were not a lot of jobs for my experience and skills. The incumbent boomers were not even considering retirement and I was considered too old for other jobs. Now with layoffs in several sectors, many of my age cohort will have to consider alternatives for work. This may have a significant impact on the workforce because we are the bump in the baby boom, with more of us born than in any other year.

Last year I presented Marketing Yourself as a Free-agent on the Internet and I think that this may become very important for my age cohort. We have many productive years ahead of us but we’re not overly employable, unless we get lucky. The good news is that it’s getting easier to network and learn from others with the Internet. The bad news is that competition is heating up.

I agree that we will probably see more people of my generation starting businesses or taking other risks as they realise that their savings have been reduced and that job prospects are dim. This has more potential to rejuvenate the economy and our society than creating jobs could. The self-employed by necessity are more tuned to their environment and many will now have the additional time once wasted on commuting, useless meetings and waiting for others to make decisions. This could be the change we need as a generation wakes up.

Photo by Matt McGee

Selecting OS learning technology platforms

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Dave Cormier has written a great article on selecting a content management system (CMS). Dave discusses three platforms, all of which I have used – WordPress, Moodle, Drupal. All are open source and there are a variety of hosting models available for most budgets. Like Dave, I’m not crazy about Moodle because it replicates the institutional course-centric education model, which I feel is outdated. I use a similar approach in initially analysing technology needs, succinctly stated by Dave:

I like to put CMSs into three simple categories based on the CMSs that I think of as being best of breed in the open market right now. Do you want to do a wordpress project, a moodle project or a drupal project. (you could also say ‘a wordpress.com project, a moodle hosted project or a ning project if you don’t care about controlling your data… which I do… but you may not)

I would add Elgg to mix if there is an interest in the functionality of Ning, but with the advantage of open source.

I used to use Drupal for this website but switched to WordPress a few years ago. Drupal is much too powerful to be running a simple blog like mine. Dave covers the pros and cons of these systems quite well in his post and I would recommend it to anyone considering platform selection. Yes, it can get much more complicated, but looking at these three for education or training projects is a good start.

The future of certification

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At some point in the life of a discipline there is a drive toward certification. Want to be a real estate agent? It’s a quality thing, so we’re told. I was once a Certified Performance Technologist, and as I said to Dave Ferguson, I don’t see much value in re-certification when it consists of checking off boxes of how many conferences you have attended. Tom Gram, now Certifiable (Certified Training & Development Professional with CSTD), wonders:

Most learning and performance professionals will notice areas where the competencies could be modified to incorporate crossover disciplines and meet emerging trends.  For example, I think technology in learning and performance is at this point a core skill, as are informal learning approaches and sister competencies such as knowledge management and performance consulting.

I gained much from my CPT certification process as it was based on what I had done and I had to show competence. My professional responsibilities derive from the CPT standards of behaviour. However, certification can create a closed society that keeps competent people out and reinforces the status quo and the money flow. Such was the case the Ontario College of Teachers when a judge determined there is more than one way to show competence in a field. Certification can also become self-serving, as a primary revenue generator for the association.

In my case I didn’t renew my CPT designation because not a single one of my clients recognized it. I still follow the code of ethics and stay current in my field, but the piece of paper has no business value. So what is the future of certification when disciplines overlap and meld and certification bodies move with glacial speed in keeping up with the times? Certification, like professional associations, will have to change and become more reflective of the networked workplace.

Getting over a haggis

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Guest post by Graham McTavish Watt

Apropos of nothing other than a getting over a haggis munch yesterday at the Robbie Burn’s Evening, let me run this by your keen eyes.

The Inuit people have been teaching and learning for at least a thousand years. And their learning is important because frequently the lack of it can be fatal. Not fatal to the learning, fatal to the learner. They have done all this learning through the oral tradition. They are acknowledged technological experts and tremendous innovators: The geodesic dome, the kayak, the bone-spring-in-frozen-meat Polar Bear killer with built-in blood trail feature, and so much more. Much of today’s technological detritus is in a way oral, even text messaging. But much of it is frittered (sorry) rather than substantial.

How would we equate the essential oral aspects of Inuit learning efficacy with your industry’s seemingly ever-changing technological learning approaches (I might add, often delivered with scorn for the already existing)? Why do we not go back to survey and explore the aboriginal learning perspectives rather than pushing forward with this or next week’s latest technological thematic? Or would Inuit learning just become next week’s technology thematic? Perhaps you do go back, I’m sure you do, and I acknowledge there are oral aspects to technology, but the oral tradition among aboriginals means the learner and teacher both learn, and it is the synergy which keeps the learning momentum going. There is humility to it, rather than a wisp or two of contempt

Two interesting books you may have read but which I am presently reading:

UQALURAIT: An Oral History of Nunavut Compiled and edited by John Bennett and Susan Rowley. And John Ralston Saul’s A FAIR COUNTRY Telling Truths About Canada.

The former has incredible detail on clothing, skin preparation, fashion, astronomy, medicine, external relations, food sharing, navigation, kayak building, trading, hunting, fishing, social activity, house building, leadership and many other orally learned techniques. Is it any wonder they valued their elders? Why do we tend to denigrate ours? Saul’s book is, in my view, a wonderful continuation to the work of Harold Adams Innis on the oral tradition, and draws upon the aboriginal example as a main component of many aspects of Canada’s rather well-known use of negotiation rather than violence and threat. Ironicly, caucus is an Algonquian oral word which meant meeting, talking and listening. Now we use it to plot to defeat others. It was used by aboriginals to find ways to reach agreements that sustain each other’s cultures and prevent war.

Graham Watt

Close the Training Department

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I get a lot of unsolicited e-mail asking me to review a new product or service, a small portion that actually gets my attention. A recent e-mail said how much the writer liked my post on inverting the pyramid, and by the way, their product enabled this —

“Now, what if you could incorporate social media practices like blogging and chat and incorporate social media feeds and video directly into the training courses? wouldn’t it be even more effective then? What if the people building the course could freely collaborate and share ideas within the course building tool and even share reusable course elements?”

I think that social media can be powerful tools for collaboration, working and learning, but they are rather useless inside a training box. Sticking blogs, RSS, chats and widgets into your training delivery system has little to do with my advice to the training department or my suggestion to learning professionals to wake up and smell the coffee.

I am advocating the closure of the training department per se. We need to get out of the training delivery mindset but that is where most vendors are stuck. Jay Cross sums up our approach at TogetherLearn:

“Next week, we will close the training department. We are shifting our focus from training to performance. Legal or the line departments can handle compliance. Any remaining training staff will become mentors, coaches, and facilitators who work on improving core business processes, strengthening relationships with customers, and cutting costs.”

That’s right, compliance can be covered by legal. Now look at what remains. Talk to the people at the coal face and find out what they really need. Few will say training. The days of developing & delivering are almost over. Connecting & Communicating should be the focus of learning and performance professionals in a networked environment.

Grassroots Community Building through Social Networks

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Grassroots Community Building through Social Networks is the topic that John Gunn (Moncton ITA) and I will be discussing at PodCamp Halifax on Sunday. Lisa Rousseau can’t make it, so we’re pinch-hitting.

John and I have decided to take a look some of the professional and social networks in New Brunswick and ask the question: How can we develop community networks that address the social and professional issues unique to Atlantic Canada?

For example, I came to NB in 1995, when The Information Highway was the hot commodity and fiber cables were being strung from end of the province to the other. I even wrote my thesis on Learning in the NB Information Technology Workplace in 1998. One of the now defunct associations with which I had some contact was the NB Information Technology Alliance. The NBITA was supposed to grow the industry but by 2003 its government funding was cut and it was gone.

In 2004, I was involved in an initiative to use the Web to link organisations and individuals in the more specific area of R&D for e-learning:

With this in mind, I will try to foster communication and discussion in this forum, not the selling of a vision or a marketing plan. This community will be a place to discuss R&D issues, which will remain loosely defined for the time being. Specific deals or collaboration can take place “off-line” or outside of this venue – but this is where you can float an idea and see what happens.

This venture never gained much traction, for several reasons.

Later, more effort and a lot more money were put into LearnNB, which tried to represent both companies and individuals, a tension that was never resolved, and hence its current status on ice, awaiting an uncertain future. I gave my own prescription for the NB learning industry three years ago.

Other group-forming activities have been more social. The Cybersocials were designed to get “knowledge industry” professionals together in the main cities for a monthly social event. They waned, as many people found them to be boring, in dull venues, with more government than industry attendees and full of job seekers carrying resumés. The Fredericton Cybersocial is still active. These events originally had some government sponsorship.

This past year has seen the creation of Third Tuesday NB, which is a completely grassroots initiative. It was initiated by Dan Martell and Lisa Rousseau, who ensured that all available social media  (LinkedIn, MeetUp, Twitter, Blogs, Facebook) were used to connect people. So far, the gatherings have been quite successful. What I like about the MeetUps are that they are driven by individuals, not companies, and they attract people from many industries, not just IT or e-learning.

Now I’m starting to hear calls for another NB IT industry association, more government involvement and even a Minister responsible for ICT.

Some issues that I’d like to discuss here, at PodCamp Hfx, or elsewhere:

Is there a need for industry associations? Should they be based on companies or individuals?

What would you prefer or be willing to pay for or attend?

Are unconferences and Pod/Bar Camps the way of the future or just an alternative for the fringe? If so, are there enough of us in Atlantic Canada to have a fringe movement?

Cities-Provinces-Regions => do these boundaries matter to you?

What’s your experience? Come out and share with us on Sunday, here, or on Twitter @hjarche or @johnsgunn

* Update *

We’ve decided to start with the theme of ridiculously easy group-forming and whether media tools such as Twitter are having any influence on our communities of practice/interest. As media become more persistent and pervasive, do group-forming norms change? Is the “professional association” with its membership fees and costly qualifications to get letters behind your name, a thing of the past? We’re also going to highlight some NB people whom you may want to get to know, so stay tuned to Moncton ITA as well.

Throwing sheep in the boardroom

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Throwing Sheep in the Boardroom could be sub-titled everything you wanted to know about social media but didn’t have the time to ask. The book is definitely comprehensive and is complete with hundreds of stories about the effects of online social networking. Anyone who is active in using and understanding social media may find this a bit of a repeat of the last few years of commentary on the subject, but those new to the field can find it here in one book, with plenty of end-notes.

The authors cover in detail the banning of Facebook and other sites by government agencies, schools and corporations. They also address some of the more positive aspects of social networking but I would not accuse them of being cyber-evangelists. There is some good analysis around open versus closed social networking sites. Citing the French aristocracy as an echo-chamber that failed to realise the factors that led to the Revolution, they use many other historical examples to place today’s situation in context. For instance, readers of this book will also get a short history of the Knights Templar.

This sums up the authors’ intent, and I think that they have achieved it:

What has interested us most is the Web 2.0 revolution’s impact on the three social dynamics that gave this book its structure: identity, status and power. It will be recalled that we describe our analytical approach to these themes as “3-D” – dis-aggregation of identities, democratization of status and diffusion of power.

Throwing Sheep in the Boardroom reads a bit like an academic treatise on Web 2.0 and would be useful for someone wanting a lot of information in one book. It could make a good course text book. For excellent analysis, without all the details, I would recommend Shirky’s Here Comes Everybody and for a deeper look at the fundamentals underlying the Internet economy I still consider Benkler’s The Wealth of Networks the most comprehensive examination to date.

Accountability

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Last month I wrote that it’s time to invert the pyramid and integrate learning into all that we do. Part of the research that led me to that conclusion was the notion of complexity and Dave Snowden’s cynefin framework. The cynefin framework comes up again in Patrick Lamb’s post looking at 3 different types of accountability via Glenda Eoyang [lots of background reading here if you’re interested].

Basically:

Stable systems => Outcome-based accountability

Active, self-organising systems => Learning-based accountability

Random & chaotic systems => Sharing-based accountability

Most of our HR and work practices are premised on the assumption of stable systems, but we are realising that is no longer the case. Some of the project-based work that I do uses learning-based accountability, where we are all responsible to help the rest of the team learn. For those who live and work on the Web, this becomes a natural way to work. The same can be said for sharing-based accountability, especially amongst bloggers and others who share online. We have learned that the more you give, the more you get back in the form of feedback and more learning opportunities. Last year I changed my copyright license to a more open one because I felt that would encourage sharing. I felt accountable.

If an organisation is only focused on outcome-based accountability can it thrive in more active or random environments? It seems that most markets and socio-economic structures are becoming more chaotic – just try to predict the price of gas for next month. Re-framing the concept of accountability is an important  conversation to start with HR professionals and executives.

Resources and Tools

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I was asked to develop a list of important resources, especially the blogs that I find most valuable in my work. Since my work is focused on the intersection of learning, work and technology and especially how learning and working are becoming integrated in networked organisations, these are not just edtech blogs. These are not the best, but a good representation of some of the better resources. A more complete list is available on my Bloglines public feed.

Focused on Learning

Internet Time Blog and Informl Learning Jay Cross has informed much of my work, which is why we continue to work collaboratively.

OLDaily Stephen Downes’ daily coverage of the widest range of learning-related items, making it an excellent meta blog.

Eide Neurolearning is a good source for me to get up to speed on the science of learning and cognition.

Workplace Learning Today This is a new multi-author blog that is becoming an important source of information for me.

Focused on Work & Business

Wirearchy discusses new models for the networked workplace.

FastForward Blog and The AppGap are both multi-author blogs looking at enterprise 2.0

The Creative Class Richard Florida has added several other authors so there are wide ranging opinions on the new nature of work here.

Focused on Technology

Read/Write Web if you only follow one site on Web technologies, this should be it.

Michael Geist is the Canada Research Chair of Internet and E-commerce Law and this is where I get a Canadian perspective on digital copyright and Net neutrality.

Miscellaneous

Polymeme is a potpourri of information that introduces me to new fields and ideas, without overwhelming me with frivolous information.

TOOLS

I’ve recently taken to using Twitter and I’m finding it to be a great tool for finding information. I liken it to lobbing comments over the cubicle walls. With twitter, I’m picking up more divergent points of view.

I’m also on the lookout for a decent comment aggregator, having used CoComment, Commentful and co.mment, and not been satisfied with their spotty service. I’m trying out BackType but it misses out on many comments and does not pick up follow-on comments. I’m currently awaiting the launch of Ubervu and hope that it fills this gap in my online collaboration.

I tried out Jing this past year and may use it more for quick video casts and Jay Cross just introduced me to EyeJot for sending quick video messages.

Drupal for Education and E-Learning

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Bill Fitzgerald has written a comprehensive technical guide for the Drupal open source content management system with a focus on its use in formal education. Drupal for Education and E-Learning, by Packt Publishing, walks you through the setup of a Drupal installation, step by step. This is a how-to book, covering everything from themes to modules to backup and maintenance. The core of the book is on education-specific aspects, such as teacher blogs, forums, enrolling students and managing classes. It also covers the use of various media and there are many comments on considerations from a learning perspective.

Drupal is not specifically designed for education, as Moodle is, but Bill gives a good map on how it can be used. The Drupal developer and user community is also larger than Moodle’s and an important factor in choosing an open source system is the strength of the developer/user community. Also, Drupal can be used for other aspects of the institution, such as alumni relations or digital asset management

I would think that this book would be excellent for the system administrator at an institution, the project lead or senior instructional designer. Parts of it would be of interest to individual teachers. Since Drupal has no licensing fees, institutions can afford several copies of this book.