Recognising desirable patterns

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I’ve been reading as much of Dave Snowden’s work as possible, as I find the Cynefin framework makes a lot of sense to my own practice, which I’ve mentioned previously. In an earlier article, Snowden & Kurtz talk about an interesting case in The New Dynamics of Strategy: Sense-making in a Complex and Complicated World:

In another case, a group of West Point graduates were asked to manage the playtime of a kindergarten as a final year assignment. The cruel thing is that they were given time to prepare. They planned; they rationally identified objectives; they determined backup and response plans. They then tried to “order” children’s play based on rational design principles, and, in consequence, achieved chaos. They then observed what teachers do. Experienced teachers allow a degree of freedom at the start of the session, then intervene to stabilize desirable patterns and destabilize undesirable ones; and, when they are very clever, they seed the space so that the patterns they want are more likely to emerge.

To me, this case shows the weakness of instructional systems design.  We need a design model that helps to template “desirable patterns”; recognise “undesirable patterns” and provide a variety of “seeds” for the learning environment. This would be a far better approach for learning, as any learning intervention involving several people is arguably in a complex environment. One aspect of complex environments, according to the Cynefin model, is that “Cause and effect are only coherent in retrospect and do not repeat”. Sounds like most learning environments I know.

Low-cost content management

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I was recently interviewed by Canadian Technology News and the resulting article, Six Strategies for Content Management, covers several points worth considering. Proprietary software and open source options for enterprise content management (ECM) are both discussed. I’m glad that I’m quoted on what I consider the two most important points:

  • Open source may do the job
  • Tap into free (or near-free) Web 2.0 ECM tools

School Closure?

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Another school closure today. That’s the second this week, and schools weren’t closed on Monday, when we had the worst driving conditions of the year. Here it’s just a regular work day, with a telephone interview to do and a discussion with a client scheduled. For me, information technologies reduce my dependence on industrial technologies.

Schools are closed today because of the flooded, and now icy, streets with more freezing rain in the forecast. Our school system is more dependent on the state of the roads and whether buses can ship loads of students back and forth than any other factor. The schools, like many businesses, take it for granted that people have to be placed in a central classroom or office  in order to get the job done.  That’s an outdated model in my opinion.

The Provincial government is currently advertising for a “future school infrastructure needs analyst”.

Duties: Reporting to the Director of Educational Facilities and Pupil Transportation, the successful candidate will study norms and standards currently used in the construction and development of school infrastructures and evaluate facilities built over the past few years in order to determine whether they meet needs and expectations; consult with educational services to determine whether space allocation standards meet the needs of the instructional program and support services to education; consult with education stakeholders and other provincial jurisdictions; and study new standards and trends in the field of construction related to energy efficiency, environmental protection, new technologies, accessibility, and security.

I wonder if the Department will question the underlying assumptions of our industrial school system, such as:

  • Is there an optimal (more human) school size? [maybe 150 people]
  • What is the environmental cost of large, factory-style schools?
  • What effect does more than an hour per day of being bused have on learning readiness?
  • What role can information technologies  have in creating more individualized learning environments and connecting with learners and specialists around the world?
  • Add your own question …

Sackville CSA General Meeting 2008

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Last night was the first General Meeting of Sackville’s Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) initiative, with about 60 people in attendance in spite of the bad road conditions. Kent Coates, Director of the CSA and a local farmer, gave a good overview of why we need sustainable, local agriculture and what we can do.

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We will have 60 memberships for local produce this year, up from 20 last year, and will stay there unless we get another farmer selling produce. We also have some local cattle ranchers offering natural beef.

As Kent said last night, “Fresh and Local Food requires Canadian Farmers to receive a fair price for their produce. The alternative is non-controlled imported food.” He went on to present these facts about imported food in Canada:

  • Most Imported Food is not Inspected in Canada
  • Less than 10% of imported food is inspected and it is not mandated to meet Health Canada Guidelines for Food production in Canada
  • No Processed Food is inspected unless a complaint has been received
  • The country of origin is not mandated on food labels

There was much food for thought last night …

AIM 2008

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The 2nd Atlantic Internet Marketing Conference.
The Learning Event You Need to Succeed Online.
The Atlantic Internet Marketing Conference, in Moncton New Brunswick, May 4-6, 2008, brings together leading local and international experts to help businesses throughout Atlantic Canada market their companies online and win the web!

I will be a speaker at AIM this year and I thought I’d check out the other speakers listed. A quick search on each speaker revealed only a few who had some sort of online direct communication:

However, all of these blogs are company PR or multi-user blogs, and not much of the individual comes through, so it will be difficult for me to get to know these folks before the event. I do know some already, so that helps.

Since this conference is about marketing online, and one of the best ways to connect online is by having an authentic conversation with your market, I thought I’d meet several fellow bloggers; but not one other dedicated,  individual blogger shows on the list [please tell me if I’ve missed somebody’s blog or podcast or web radio show].

My topic for this event, which has yet to be confirmed, will be on how freelancers and small businesses can use the Web to market themselves, and a significant part of talk will be on the power of blogs. If you’re interested in blogging for business beyond carrying on a one-way conversation with the ether, then I hope to see you there.

One hundred years later

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One hundred years ago was an age of print, when most of our information and knowledge came via books and newspapers. I was reminded of the changes that we’ve seen in information distribution with the release of Before Green Gables on the 100th anniversary of Anne of Green Gables.

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Budge Wilson was commissioned by Penguin Books and the L.M. Montgomery family to write the prequel to this popular series of books whose stories take place not far from where we live [full disclosure: Budge Wilson is my mother-in-law]. The official book launch and other events are happening in Toronto this week.

I have been interested in the entire process as I’ve watched from the sidelines. The way in which a work is commissioned by a publishing company, the fact that the heirs to Lucy Maud still have control over her works 100 years later and the slow process of going from manuscript to published book. It’s the opposite end of the spectrum from blogging, but then Budge’s prose is of significantly greater quality than my ramblings.

So what will publishing look like 100 years from now? The process of publishing this book is not that different than it was in Montgomery’s time. Will it be the same for Budge Wilson’s grandchildren should they decide to become authors? Will copyright, as we know it, still exist and will it be practical to enforce it?

Richard Florida and Our Community

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Just back from a polished presentation by Richard Florida, hosted by Mount Allison University and the town of Sackville. Florida covered many of the basics from his previous books. I picked up Flight of the Creative Class (now in paperback) and will check out his new book when it’s on the shelves – Who’s Your City.

Florida reviewed the basic five pillars of any prosperous community, based on 30,000 surveys, from least to most important:

  1. Basic Infrastructure
  2. Opportunity to do what one wants
  3. Leadership at all levels
  4. Open minded and diverse culture
  5. Quality of place

He also discussed the role that Canada can play in fostering prosperous communities for the post-industrial era because we seem to be more open to experimentation. It was good to see many members of our community attending the lecture and I feel that we may be ready to work hard at creating a more open and diverse town, because as Florida says, “People don’t move to the jobs; the jobs move to the people”. That would put New Brunswick’s recent population growth strategy as a step in the right direction:

The growth strategy has four areas of focus:

  • increasing and targeting immigration;
  • increasing settlement and promoting multiculturalism;
  • retaining youth and repatriating former New Brunswickers; and
  • adopting family-friendly policies.

Not business as usual

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Rob Paterson talks about the power of social media, especially Google Maps and Twitter, in a case study of San Diego’s KPBS Public Radio during the recent forest fires.

Social media are serious tools that can be used to address many of the needs of our communities, but they haven’t been adopted because they are not accepted by the organisational culture. Luckily for KPBS, several decisions helped an already open culture to meet the needs of their community.

The technologies called social media are highlighting the constraints of the industrial mechanistic model premised on Taylor’s, The Principles of Scientific Management (1911), which has informed management for the past century:

To explain briefly: owing to the fact that the workmen in all of our trades have been taught the details of their work by observation of those immediately around them, there are many different ways in common use for doing the same thing, perhaps forty, fifty, or a hundred ways of doing each act in each trade, and for the same reason there is a great variety in the implements used for each class of work. Now, among the various methods and implements used in each element of each trade there is always one method and one implement which is quicker and better than any of the rest. And this one best method and best implement can only be discovered or developed through a scientific study and analysis of all of the methods and implements in use, together with accurate, minute, motion and time study. This involves the gradual substitution of science for rule of thumb throughout the mechanic arts.

There is no single best way to address our pressing business, societal or environmental issues. The majority of our challenges are not Simple (addressed with best practice, as Taylor prescribed) nor are they merely Complicated (addressed by good practice) but more of our issues are Complex (addressed through emergent practice) and Chaotic (addressed by novel practice). Here is the Cynefin model:

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The use of social media within and without an organisation allows a free flow of conversation and knowledge-sharing and better enables emergent and novel practices. As Deanna Mackey of KPBS said, “It was not business as usual and the site had to focus on the job at hand”. Social media help you deal with “not business as usual“.