Portlets and widgits

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My keynote at SkillSoft’s Canadian Perspectives conference yesterday gave some advice to the training department and how it may need to change to meet the demands of a complex environment. Several people said that they found the talk interesting and I will take the notes and feedback to write a paper on the topic which I should publish in a couple of weeks. All references to this presentation are on my Delicious bookmarks.

During the day I attended some breakout sessions, mostly focused on advancements in SkillSoft’s product and service lines as well as a few customer case studies. The first presentation of the day covered three market shifts that the company sees as having an impact on its business: mobile devices; ubiquity of content; and talent shortages.

I also noticed a theme that learning content has to move outside the LMS. The LMS is perceived as an appropriate tool for tracking objects but learning activities are being pushed outside the LMS box. SkillSoft’s strategy is to use an open (not open source) architecture to plug into other systems with “portlets”, which are similar to the web widgits that you see on most blogs today. It all reminded me of a discussion I had with Mark Dowds at the Brandon-Hall conference last year. Mark knows information technology but was new to e-learning. After a few days of presentations, Mark told me he had finally figured out what an LMS is, “It’s just another widgit”. It looks like that’s the way this technology is going.

Advice for the Training Department

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Last week I wrote about The Training Department in the 21st Century, part of a presentation I will be giving in Toronto on Thursday. This new model that I propose, which has its roots in knowledge management and wirearchy, is an attempt to take the theory and make some practical recommendations for those who have to do the day to day work.

The model is centered on Connecting and Communicating to enable knowledge flow in the organisation and is based on three processes:

  1. Facilitating collaborative work and learning amongst workers (esp. as peers).
  2. Sensing patterns and helping to develop emergent work and learning practices.
  3. Working with management to develop appropriate tools and methods for the workplace.

Here are some specific recommendations that I’m putting forward for the “new” training department:

  • Be an active & continuous learner and engage in activities that take you out of your comfort zone, so that you know what it’s like to be a learner.
  • Be a lurker or a passive participant in relevant work-related communities (could be the lunch room) and LISTEN to what is being said.
  • Communicate what you observe to people around you, solicit their feedback and engage in meaningful conversations.
  • Continuously collect feedback from the workplace, not just after courses.
  • Make it easy to share information by simplifying & synthesizing issues that are important and relevant to fellow workers.

None of these require Web tools or techniques but they can all be enhanced by the Internet.

NB Learning Industry

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I was recently asked by a consultant to help develop an asset map for the local learning  industry:

NRC-IIT [National research Council, Institute for Information Technology] and the Province of New Brunswick, via Business New Brunswick, are partnering to conduct two asset mapping projects. These asset maps will identify strengths, resources, and opportunities that exist within two key sectors in New Brunswick: Health/Life Sciences and Advanced Learning Technologies.

The goal is to develop a sound base of information to support the development of new strategic plans for both sectors. Additionally, the asset mapping projects will help to further forge connections between individuals, organizations, and institutions within these sectors and to provide a catalyst for investment and the formation of new collaborations.

I declined, stating that I had been involved in two such reports (1999, 2004) and that I didn’t feel like going through the process a third time. I had also put forth some recommendation on this blog in Rx for NB Learning in 2006.

The major recommendation made in 1999, while I was at the CLT, was that the Industry should move away from off-the-shelf content development and increase services such as performance improvement consulting and performance support solutions. This was ignored. In April 2002 the provincial government even purchased shares in Content Alive Inc. This company later became Vitesse Learning which closed in bankruptcy in 2007.

In 2004, I recommended to focus more on European markets and less on US ones. Instead, the government sponsored more US trade missions. I specifically recommended starting a new focus on a selected field such as open source for learning; performance technology or simulation & gaming. Open source would have been a good niche. Imagine if the province was now a centre of excellence for Moodle.

I have always seen the key to innovation being about people, especially educated, motivated and creative knowledge workers, who come from a wide variety of cultures and experiences. A diverse industry could capitalize on opportunities and markets throughout the world. Our province has home-grown, entry level skills in abundance but a major gap is  business leadership.  Generally speaking, the higher level business, technical and learning skills are in short supply, and these skills are necessary to create and grow companies. By focusing on making the province attractive for experienced individuals, the industry would be able to grow.

Finally, I think that a non-profit chaordic organisation (PDF), as recommended by Rob Paterson on the Fast Forward Blog, might be a better structure than the some of the models tried already. I hope that the asset map that is being developed will be published and that it will be made freely available for open discussion and even for remix.

Behaviour Online

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Michele Martin, in looking at our Work Literacy online course, concludes that Online Negative Behavior is a Product of Culture:

This is the conclusion I’m drawing from using social media for learning. If people have negative experiences with using social media in their organizations–if people are behaving unprofessionally or inappropriately–I think that there’s something a lot deeper going on that social media is simply bringing to the surface.

We assumed that this would be an environment for civil, professional discussions and never put in any limitations or rules. It seems that this approach worked through modeling appropriate behaviour by both facilitators and members. I have found this group of over 700 members to be polite and even caring for each other. It has been a real pleasure following the learning paths and stories in the blogs and discussion forums.

So why do we see many instances of bad behaviour online? Perhaps some of these forums with nastier comments are just places to vent. Maybe people cannot freely express their opinions at work or at school, or perhaps they feel that no one is listening.

Are social networks within organisations more difficult to nurture because 1) the organisation itself may be dysfunctional and 2) individuals recognize this dysfunctionality and 3) this tension may become evident in an online social network. Therefore, when management decides to create a place for an online community they naturally put in rules and workers naturally won’t open up because of these rules. These same workers/students/citizens vent their frustrations in the more open and wild discussion forums such as YouTube comments or CBC news stories (both of which I’ve given up reading).

Of course, this is a completely untested hypothesis.

Source?

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There are some ideas that capture our imagination and provide us with a way forward or a framework for further action or study. For me personal knowledge management (PKM) and wirearchy are two such ideas. These are not my ideas and even though I may not cite the original sources in all cases that I discuss them, I give credit where it is due. I learned this many years ago as an undergraduate. I remember my History professors demanding, “Source?” whenever we made a bold  statement of fact or brought in some new line of thought. I have a link to wirearchy on my header and I ensure that I add references when I publish or distribute any work that mentions PKM. I will mention work by Lilia Efimova, Denham Grey and Dave Pollard on PKM or Jon Husband on wirearchy.

*** Update: There are some “self-corrections” in the comments pertaining to this next section [how’s that for speed?] ***

On a related note, George Siemens posts that The Rhyzome Project fails to even mention the published work of Dave Cormier on Rhyzomatic Education. With the simplicity of adding hyperlinks to web pages, citing your main sources should not be a problem, and this is something that the project could rectify quickly. I wonder how long it will take to give the appropriate citations? This could be an interesting case study of the self-corrective nature of the Web and blogs.

Academic Upstarts

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The latest book from Clay Christensen and his team, authors of The Innovator’s Dilemma and others, is Disrupting Class, where they examine education. Tom Haskins reviews the book and provides his own perspectives in Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and finally his own assessment on the value of college diplomas.

Tom thinks that the value of a diploma will decrease because knowledge in one field will not be enough for a generation facing multiple job changes and that the economies of scale offered by physical institutions will no longer be as obvious as they were in an industrial, fossil-fuel driven economy. I agree with Tom, and have discussed the challenges faced by universities, most recently in Moving the Ivory Tower to the Web: Part 1 and Part 2:

This is the same problem facing established academic institutions. Current revenues rest with the old way of doing business – students in classes. Going to the new Web model threatens those who make their living with the old model. Therefore leaders in the old hesitate because they are tied to their existing revenue streams. They cannot put the new inside the old. The answer is to locate the new outside of the old infrastructure and let the new unit go after customers who are not served by the current model. This way institutions can hold onto the value of their existing business for as long as possible while building up new capabilities with a different business model.

Furthermore, I would venture that many online universities are not real upstarts in this business, they are just variations on the same theme. Take local Meritus University for instance. An online BBA costs $36,000 for tuition and electronic documentation fees, compared to the average tuition at a Canadian university of $20,000 for four years. Customers pay a premium for the convenience of space and time. This model is not a great threat to traditional universities as it only targets those willing to pay more for flexibility. It may be a threat to more expensive US colleges though and that may be their target market. Still, it isn’t disruptive.

An example of the changing landscape is that participation rates in free learning programs are increasing, witnessed by over 700 members in Work Literacy and over 2,000 in Connectivism & Connected Knowledge. No one is making any money on these, except for the few students registered through the university for CCK08. This is a disruptive model of semi-academic courses being provided to mostly non-consumers (people who would not have paid for it anyway). At this time, these offerings are no real challenge to the existing structure, but acceptance of these programs may prepare the way for an upstart.

The challenge for academia will be in finding where the potential revenue is moving in the new value chain. For example, I give away all of my content on this website, because I know that my revenue is generated through consulting. This has been clear to me ever since I started. The blog helps me learn and connect and raises my profile on the Web. Charging for my content wouldn’t make any sense. Free generates the fees. How will universities be able to meet the challenge of more free content? Would they be able to compete with free tuition, even if it’s not as good? How about free accreditation?

I have some ideas about some new business models, which I’ve discussed with people such as Rob Paterson, and I’m sure that there are other people looking at this challenge as well.

The amplified individual

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The Institute for the Future published a report last year, that I just came across, on The Future of Work. It discusses the integration of work and technology, which of course is part of my area of focus – learning, work & technology.

Looking at a piece of the Future of Work Map (pdf) I note a good description of many of the themes and issues in my own practice:

future of work - amplified individual
future of work - amplified individual

Theme:
the Amplified Individual

Forecast Clusters:
Highly – Collaborative, Social; Improvisational; Augmented

Dilemma:
Collective Creation vs Individual Recognition

Signals:
Co-working Arrangements; Teamwork in Virtual Environments; Social Filtering; Life Hacks; Visualization Tools

Underlying Technologies:
Sense Making & Visualization; Ubiquitous Displays; Amplified Collaboration Tools

There is a lot of food for thought and frameworks for further discussions on the future of work and what it means to our own work. All three documents are available for free download.

The Training Department in the 21st Century

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I’m speaking in Toronto next month at the SkillSoft Canadian Perspectives conference and have been developing my presentation, which is based on this post and a previous one, on the changing role of training. The presentation is scheduled for one hour but I have taken the highlights and condensed it to less than 5 minutes, which is the time limit for Jing, which I’m trying for the first time. It’s also my first time using Apple’s keynote application.

This is an Adobe Flash file (*.swf), including audio, and should open in a new window:

21c_training

Updated presentation: Training & the Networked Workplace

References:

Dave Snowden

Cynefin

Wirearchy

Related: Complexity, Connection & Learning by Dave Pollard

Wrong Medium, No Message

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Last month, in Learn the language before you speak to me, I said that you have to understand what it’s like to be a node in a social network and that there is almost nothing like it in the industrial workplace or school system to prepare you for this. The basic premise is that you have to walk the talk before you can criticize.

A recent post by Dave Pollard highlights what can happen when the older generation [my age cohort of which many are in positions of authority] does not engage with the same media as the younger generation. It seems that most young people in the workplace (generation millennium) use IM, text messages and especially their mobile devices to connect with their peers. This generation is ignoring the desktop and the organisational knowledge bases and turning to their own age cohort for timely help and advice. This is a real cultural and age gap that can have a detrimental impact on our organisations:

Aside from the wasted content effort, this means that most young people will learn from peers, not from mentors. How much of what senior people know will never be learned by younger workers, simply because the networks of trust necessary for valuable conversations will not have been forged (and given that Gen Millennium workers are expected to change jobs on average every four years, might never be forged)?

Our generation should know better than to just ignore this situation. It is up to us to engage younger workers, not to complain that they don’t get it. Leadership by example is required, but first we have to be able to communicate. That means observing communication behaviours in our organisations and seeing how we can best connect. It may mean getting a Twitter account and a mobile device so that we can see that quick post about an issue that someone is facing.

Beyond training

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Update: This post is featured on The Working/Learning Carnival along with several other interesting articles.

Marketing and training have certain similarities – gaining attention; getting your message across; and changing behaviour. When Seth Godin says that mass marketing is dead, I ask if mass training is far behind:

Marketing had an arc, one that started with personal, local interactions between real people and rapidly morphed into very corporate anonymous actions aimed at the unwilling masses.

Mass marketing really came into its own after the Second World War, and most prominently in the US:

With the foundations in place [high rate of savings, few consumer goods, end of war, interstate highway system], the “mass” aspects of marketing came into existence in the form of mass demand, massive stores, and mass communications.

Compare the rise of mass marketing to mass training. The wars (1914-1945) brought about the systems approach to training, the basis of instuctional system design (ISD), still used by the military and emulated by much corporate training. Both of these mass, one to many, systems appeared at about the same time. They were used to achieve economies of scale and depended upon good one-way communications systems. Both marketing and training at the mass level depend on a limited number of “channels” available to the individual. That has changed.

Why does Godin think that this is the end of mass marketing? Social media:

Social media’s growth in the last three years, though, gives marketers an inkling that there may be something else going on. Sure, they can run spam ads on Facebook, but they don’t work. Social media, it turns out, isn’t about aggregating audiences so you can yell at them about the junk you want to sell. Social media, in fact, is a basic human need, revealed digitally online. We want to be connected, to make a difference, to matter, to be missed. We want to belong, and yes, we want to be led.

Since many (most) people can easily connect with people and information, and are starting to find ways to make a difference in their learning, why would they want to follow a pre-set training program designed in a one-size-fits-all fashion? It actually goes against human nature. Each one of us wants to be unique.

Good trainers know how to personalize and contextualize their sessions, but social media can reinforce this continuously, not constrained by time or space. Successful organisations will move from a training focus, and even beyond a performance improvement focus, to a connecting and facilitating one, with tools such as social media to do this. In an always-on, totally connected work environment, how else could you help people to work and learn? You could design a new course, but that may no longer be a viable option in the near future.