TrainShift

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According to Nine Shift, one of the nine predictions for shifts that will occur during the first decades of this century involves our preferred mode of transportation.

Chapter 9. Trains Replace Cars: Shift Four
Time becomes more valuable. Since one cannot work and drive at the same time, knowledge workers migrate to trains where they can work and travel at the same time.

This past week I took VIA Rail’s The Ocean from practically my doorstep to within one block of my hotel in Montreal.  There are not many options for train travel, but this time it worked well with my schedule. I left Sackville at 4:00 PM, reviewed my notes and presentation for the next day, had a relaxing dinner and had a good night’s sleep. In the morning I arrived outside of Montreal and was able to have a shower, eat breakfast and arrive downtown at 8:15 AM, ready for a day’s work. I left on Friday evening, again had a pleasant supper and a full night’s sleep. Saturday morning was a time to review some work, catch up on a couple of Google videos that I had downloaded, and arrive home just after noon.

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My usual business trip to Montreal would have meant getting up at 4:00 AM, driving 50 KM to the airport, paying for parking, going through security, squeezing on board a small aircraft, and arriving on the west end of the island of Montreal to then take a taxi or airport shuttle downtown. The return trip would have been the reverse, with an arrival around midnight and then a drive home, perhaps in a snowstorm.

On the train you can get work done. Billable work in my case.  The airfare was the same price as the train, and I had two night’s accommodations included with the train. I also had a heck of a lot more room. The only thing missing was Internet access, though wi-fi is available in the central corridor between Quebec, Windsor and Ottawa.

For trips between 100 and 1,200 KM, the train makes a lot of sense. Now we just need more trains on the schedule.

Going to get me some learnin’

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Coining the term eLearning was the beginning of a problem that is the root of the issue in Tony’s post, where he looks for better terms to describe different interventions, suggesting ePerformance.

And the answer is that there is not a well known term to describe kinds of eLearning solutions that are not typical courseware. I talked about definitions of eLearning a while ago and the basic conclusion I came to is that when you say the term, while it could mean a wide variety of possible solutions – most people think of formal training delivered electronically (virtual classroom, courseware).

The term elearning has been co-opted, especially by software vendors, to only mean courses online, when it could mean much more. However, if one wants to really question our terms and definitions, there is an inherent flaw in using the word “learning” anyway. More accurate descriptors of our various endeavours would be instruction, training, education or performance improvement. I don’t see any great value in creating new terms for interventions that don’t help with our understanding.

For education and training via the Internet we have courses online, and can further describe these as synchronous, asynchronous, instructor-led, facilitated, collaborative, etc.

Barry Raybould’s 1991 definition of performance support as “a computer-based system that improves worker productivity by providing on-the-job access to integrated information, advice, and learning experiences“, only needs to be updated to include network-based systems.

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I’ve used the above diagram before to show how I describe the difference between instructional and non-instructional interventions, with the course being a prime example of an instructional intervention while an information job aid is a good example of a non-instructional intervention. Allison Rossett, in Job Aids and Performance Support, provides this definition:

A helper in life and work, performance support is a repository for information, processes, and perspectives that inform and guide planning and action.

Rossett’s definition could easily describe communities of practice or personal knowledge management as performance support. I believe that the main reason behind any confusion in our terms is because we used learning and elearning to describe what is really instruction. There is a clear difference between instruction (whether it be in the form of training or education) and performance support. We don’t really need a new term, we need to get rid of the old one – learning – which is an internal process and cannot be something that is done to us externally. And yes, I am also guilty of using the term learning inappropriately.

The Emperor Has No Clothes

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For several years I’ve believed that corporatism is one of the primary systemic problems that we need to change in order to address our challenges of global warming, political instability, fundamentalism, poverty, education or environmental degradation. One of the more astute business blogs that I read is Bubblegeneration Strategy Lab (BGSL), where umair says it like it is:

The real problem is that the firm – the corporation, as the fundamental institution of production – is deeply and irrevocably broken. It’s DNA is in shock. The corporation we’ve created is a monster; a form of organization growing more pathological by the day.

BGSL studies industries, markets, firms, and their economics. So those (really) are strong words.

But the evidence is, at this point, almost impossible to refute.

The good news is that there we have options and “the movement” is a source of many new models, whether it be micro-credit, community-supported agriculture,  natural enterprises, etc.

Blessed Unrest

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Over the holidays I read Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming by Paul Hawken. This is a book that is more a reference than a story and what will serve me well after reading the book is the extensive appendix, which is about 1/3 of the book. Hawken covers many themes familiar to readers of Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth or Thomas Homer-Dixon’s The Upside of Down.

The approach taken by “the movement” to address problems, noticed by Hawken, is one that makes sense to me, given my own consulting business as well as some local initiatives that I’m involved with, such as our Commons.

The term solving for pattern was coined by Wendall Berry, and refers to a solution that addresses multiple problems instead of one. Solving for pattern arises naturally when one perceives problems as symptoms of systemic failure, rather than random errors requiring anodynes. For example, sustainable agriculture addresses a number of issues simultaneously: It reduces agricultural runoff, which is a main cause of eutrophication and dead zones in lakes, estuaries and oceans; it reduces use of energy-intensive nitrogen-based fertilizers; it ameliorates climate change, because organic soil sequesters carbon, whereas industrial farming releases carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, and is the second-greatest cause of climate change after fossil fuel combustion; it improves worker health because of the absence of pesticide; it enables soil to retain more moisture and is thus less reliant on irrigation and outside sources of water; it is more productive than conventional agriculture; it is less susceptible to erosion; and it provides habitat for pollinators, birds, and beneficial insects, which promotes biodiversity. On top of all that, the resulting food commands a premium in the market, making small farms economically more viable. Solving for pattern is the de facto approach of the movement because it is resource constrained. It cannot afford “fixes”, only solutions.

This evening, I’m off to an executive meeting of the Sackville Community Supported Agriculture group, as we plan for this year’s challenge of supplying 60 families with good, locally-grown produce; up from 20 families last year.

An alarming fall in privacy protection

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Each year since 1997, the US-based Electronic Privacy Information Center and the UK-based Privacy International have undertaken what has now become the most comprehensive survey of global privacy ever published. The Privacy & Human Rights Report surveys developments in 70 countries, assessing the state of surveillance and privacy protection.

From The 2007 International Privacy Ranking, it is quite clear that Canada is on a slippery slope to join our neighbour to the South. The USA rates on the worst end of the scale, as an endemic surveillance society, along with Russia, China and the UK. In 2006, Canada ranked fairly well as having significant protections and safeguards but this year we have arrived in a situation of some safeguards but weakened protection. The report notes that for Canada, there is “an alarming rate of fall in protection“.

It’s time for Canadians to wake up and smell the coffee.

Via the Creative Class Exchange

New Year’s Gratitude

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Charles Green at Trust Matters suggests a new year’s gratitude list instead of a bunch of resolutions that we probably won’t keep. Great idea, as I never really tried to make resolutions anyway.

I’m grateful that I have been able to work for myself for almost five years and that I have followed many of my professional passions.  Today, with another 30 cm of fresh snow on the ground, I’m also appreciative that I do not have to commute to work. I’m grateful that I see my family almost every day and watch the boys as they arrive home from school.

I give thanks for my health, for the fact that I can ski or bicycle most days, and that my family is mostly healthy. I’m also very grateful that I live in a country with public health care.

Access to the Internet, and the ability to connect to thousands of other people who share some of my passions, is something that I still find amazing. I’m grateful for a relatively neutral Net that allows me to work and learn.

Information overload or just the wrong tools?

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Information overload is supposed to be the scourge of 2008, reports Ars Technica, and one way to address it, according to this news article referencing the same report, is to be smarter with our e-mail.

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E-mail is like cars in an urban metropolis; neither effective nor efficient due to the fact that there are just too many of them. Instead of optimizing an almost-dead technology, I’d suggest using better tools. Set up blogs for one-to-many communications; have wikis for projects, teams and departments; and use instant messaging for quick person-to-person communications. Then keep track of it all with a feed aggregator. With these tools and practices in place, e-mail can be reserved for more official traffic, like sending an invoice or a proposal.

The kids know this already. E-mail is only used to communicate with your parents.

Some year-end stats

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Checking some of my stats for the past 365 days and thought they might be of interest.

Search Engines that direct readers here:

  • 95% Google
  • 2% Yahoo!
  • 1% Ask Jeeves
  • 1% MSN

Browser used:

  • 51% IE
  • 36% Firefox
  • 6% Safari

Screen resolution:

  • 37% 1024 x 768
  • 14% 1280 x 1024
  • 13% 1280 x 800
  • 7% 1280 x 768

If my stats are indicative, which they may not be as many of my readers are early adopters, then Google is still the dominant search engine, Firefox is gaining ground but IE prevails, and almost everyone has a high resolution screen.

Head East

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Canada’s east coast seems to have some of its happiest residents. While not rated high for all those cosmopolitan virtues that Vancouver may have, it seems that we are happy “down east”. Living in Sackville, we’re in the middle of four happy cities – Charlottetown, Saint John, Moncton and Halifax – all of which placed in the top ten. From CBC News:

According to the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, Canadians are most likely to be satisfied with the quality of life in places like Saint John, Moncton, N.B., and Charlottetown, all of which placed in the top five of a survey of 18 Canadian cities.

We also have lots of water that is not being drained to extract oil, reasonable housing prices and some interesting new businesses. So sell that expensive house and head east with the extra cash to fund the start-up that you always dreamed of :-)

Photo by gmcmullen