School, Work & Improv

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Last year, our son was on the Improv Team at school. You could tell it was Tuesday because he was so hyped to go to school and attend improv practice. I remember little from high school but it was things like the school play, a sports team or some neat project that sticks in my mind 30 years later; not the curriculum of 3 R’s.

It seems that what is learned in the “non-core” subjects really is the most important in long run. Art, physical education, theatre,  newspaper club, the yearbook, all provide richer learning experiences than sitting in a class (thou shalt not leave your seat) preparing for some important, graded test. Would our education system be better if it only consisted of electives and non-core activities? Could it be worse?

At our son’s high school, the Improv Team is competitive, and many students who want to do it don’t make the cut. I’ve read a couple of articles that show that improvisational skills may be much more useful than algebra or calculus will be for the majority of graduates. Perhaps improv should be compulsory, instead of math.  Michael Kindred-Pratt writes about improv skills in the workplace;

The main benefit of improv comedy is that it teaches students how to deal with uncertainty. People must make incredibly difficult decisions on the spot, which forces them to think quickly. There are no scripts or plots in improv, and no matter how hard we try, there are no exact scripts or plots in the business world either.

John Moore says that a major benefit of improv skills is that failure is an option. He writes that from improv, one can also learn how to:

  • be a passionate follower;
  • be a better listener and reactor;
  • make instinctive decisions and deal with the consequences;
  • trust others; and
  • make others look good

Not bad for a non-core educational activity that doesn’t even get class time.

ecoRevolution Video

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Our son is an ecoholic, or so he says in the video, “Ecoholics Anonymous“, one of three finalists in the Aliant Get Green Student Video Contest. The students at Tantramar Regional High School have already won $500 for their school and the grand prize winners will be attending the International Symposium on Business and the Environment in Moncton on 27 November.

Check out these 5-minute videos and you can vote for your favourite on the site. You know which one I voted for ;-)

Industrial Schooling in Contravention of the UN

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According to UNICEF, the Convention on the Rights of the Child (to which Canada is a signatory):

… is the first legally binding international instrument to incorporate the full range of human rights: civil, cultural, economic, political and social rights. In 1989, world leaders decided that children needed a special convention just for them because people under 18 years old often need special care and protection that adults do not.

Notice that this Convention does not just address legal rights but a much broader spectrum of rights, which our government has agreed to in writing.

Here is Article 13 of the Convention:

1. The child shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of the child’s choice.
2. The exercise of this right may be subject to certain restrictions, but these shall only be such as are provided by law and are necessary:
(a) For respect of the rights or reputations of others; or
(b) For the protection of national security or of public order (ordre public), or of public health or morals.

Let’s look at how the New Brunswick Department of Education uses curriculum and enforced homework in contravention of international law:

  • Students are told what to write about, when to do it and to what external standards over which they have no input or influence. Failure to comply results in punishment of imposed loss of time, the threat of poor marks or other more subtle coercion.
  • Students only receive information that has been approved by and screened by external authorities.
  • Children are only given the option of either attending public school or receiving no support from public funds in order to seek knowledge themselves.

Article 16:

1. No child shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his or her privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to unlawful attacks on his or her honour and reputation.
2. The child has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

In our family, the school, under the direction of the Minister of Education, imposes significant interference with our children’s privacy, family and home as every evening is spent doing anywhere from 2 to 5 hours of imposed homework. This is completely arbitrary as the Province has never been able to prove that homework serves any purpose that is clearly deemed useful to society.

Article 28:

1. States Parties recognize the right of the child to education, and with a view to achieving this right progressively and on the basis of equal opportunity, they shall, in particular:
(a) Make primary education compulsory and available free to all;
(b) Encourage the development of different forms of secondary education, including general and vocational education, make them available and accessible to every child, and take appropriate measures such as the introduction of free education and offering financial assistance in case of need;
(c) Make higher education accessible to all on the basis of capacity by every appropriate means;
(d) Make educational and vocational information and guidance available and accessible to all children;
(e) Take measures to encourage regular attendance at schools and the reduction of drop-out rates.
2. States Parties shall take all appropriate measures to ensure that school discipline is administered in a manner consistent with the child’s human dignity and in conformity with the present Convention.
3. States Parties shall promote and encourage international cooperation in matters relating to education, in particular with a view to contributing to the elimination of ignorance and illiteracy throughout the world and facilitating access to scientific and technical knowledge and modern teaching methods. In this regard, particular account shall be taken of the needs of developing countries.

First of all, there is little choice, even in high school, meaning that one size fits no one, except the system. Attendance is encouraged only through coercion, as most students (let’s take a poll) would opt out of our school system as it currently exists.

Article 29:

1. States Parties agree that the education of the child shall be directed to:
(a) The development of the child’s personality, talents and mental and physical abilities to their fullest potential;
(b) The development of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, and for the principles enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations;
(c) The development of respect for the child’s parents, his or her own cultural identity, language and values, for the national values of the country in which the child is living, the country from which he or she may originate, and for civilizations different from his or her own;
(d) The preparation of the child for responsible life in a free society, in the spirit of understanding, peace, tolerance, equality of sexes, and friendship among all peoples, ethnic, national and religious groups and persons of indigenous origin;
(e) The development of respect for the natural environment.
2. No part of the present article or article 28 shall be construed so as to interfere with the liberty of individuals and bodies to establish and direct educational institutions, subject always to the observance of the principle set forth in paragraph 1 of the present article and to the requirements that the education given in such institutions shall conform to such minimum standards as may be laid down by the State.

Once again, the curriculum is imposed from above, with no input from individual students and not taking into consideration individual needs. Even the natural environment is not respected as students are daily bused to consolidated schools in diesel-fueled vehicles because the Department has arbitrarily closed smaller schools over the years and emphasized factory-style education farms.

These are only some examples of how our government agencies are letting down the people of New Brunswick (the only example I can speak about with first-hand knowledge) and not allowing each young generation to realize its true potential. This convention covers fundamental rights and it is obvious that those in charge of our education system are ignoring their obligations. Children have the right to choose and be involved in seeking knowledge and expressing themselves (Article 13). This is a legal right.

More on democratic workplaces

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A little while back I mentioned democratic workplaces and WorldBlu. Some may find the notion of democracy in the workplace an interesting idea, but not really practical. To change your mind, listen to Ricardo Semler as he explains the flaws of our industrial work structures and what he has done with his company of 1,400 workers who vote for their bosses, only attend meetings that they want to and figure out their own remuneration plan. After 25 years in business, the company has had an average of a 20% rate of return, even with the economic turmoil of its host country, Brazil. It also has only 1% employee turnover.

Semler, author of Maverick: The Success Story Behind the World’s Most Unusual Workplace and The Seven-Day Weekend: Changing the Way Work Works, says that historically no real change has ever come from inside an industry. In my mind this questions the whole assumption of letting the market decide what is best for society and gives a very important role to government – forcing innovation on industry, such as more fuel-efficient cars.  He says that the primary key to innovation is intuition, not analysis or faster processing or access to more information.

myopia

The main message of this talk at the MIT Sloan School of Management is that we need to undo our dominant  business models which are the legacy of military hierarchies because they are inefficient, ineffective, and stifle innovation. He uses the automobile industry as an example of an industry that has only made incremental advances in the last 100 years, still relying on the combustion engine and fossil fuels.

Even the ‘new economy’ has been undone by our hierarchies. Semler cites the example that many of us have learned how to send e-mails on a Sunday night but few of us have learned how to go to a movie on a Monday afternoon. As a result, we have unbalanced our lives. During the second half of this 48 minute video/audio Semler gives some examples on how his company has created a truly democratic and competitive company.

Can OpenSocial become OpenLearning?

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One of the problems with our online social networks is that they don’t talk to each other. What is happening in our Ning learning community is walled off from some interesting Facebook groups, though many of us are members of both. With the announcement of OpenSocial, it seems that social networking has just opened up (to Google’s advantage again) enabling developers on the edges to create and connect.

I’ve found that the information technology community has always been years ahead of the educational technology community. There is little that is technologically innovative in any LMS or VLE that doesn’t already exist in enterprise IT. Ed Tech usually follows Info Tech [it’s all about the pedagogy] and I wonder if that means a similar opening up of learning environments, forcing training & education to follow. For instance, Clive Shepherd has been asking for input on Facebook about the use of this platform for learning. Of course, you can’t follow this thread unless you’re a FB user.

If you were investing in educational technology, where would you be putting your money as of today – into a walled garden or an open, worldwide, shared ecosystem? I’ll be interested to see if OpenSocial becomes the learning platform that some thought Facebook could be (as of yesterday) or if there is room for a separate learning-oriented social network.

Update: I like Dave Winer’s not so upbeat perspective on OpenSocial, as well as Dion Hinchcliffe’s Six Essential things you need to know about OpenSocial.

Are you rarefied?

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Hugh Macleod posted a thought-provoking article showing that many workers are just commodities, living out their lives in quiet desperation. A more politically correct term would be “human resources”. It seems that the good ol’ days are over, even for many self-described knowledge workers:

Last week I was on the phone to an old friend of mine, a guy in his late forties, who was born and bred in Michigan, and is living there now. He was telling me about his uncle, who, about four decades ago, got his highschool sweetheart pregnant. So instead of going off to college, he found himself with a new wife, a child on the way, and an assembly-line job at General Motors. But even though this situation clipped his wings considerably, he still ended up having a nice life in the end, with a home, a big yard, two cars, a steady paycheck, weekends fishing or hunting deer, and vacations in Hawaii every year or so. “The days where a blue collar guy like my uncle could have a nice life without doing much,” my friend said, “those days are gone. Gone forever.”

And in the back of my mind, I’m thinking the same is starting to happen to white collar guys more and more, as well. But it’s not quite out in the open yet. Society’s not quite ready to have that conversation.

Hugh has called the need to become unique “de-commodification”, but asks for a new term which has been provided by John Dodds:

You don’t need to decommodify – you need to rarefy.

rarefy
– to make more complex, intricate, or richer.
– to refine a design or pattern.

One other comment, straight to the heart of the matter, was by David St-Lawrence, “Being a commodity is inevitably dehumanizing, no matter how much they pay you.”

That’s the option for many people, isn’t it? Take the cash and the temporary shelter of a job and keep your head down. But you don’t develop your unique brand by doing this and when the day comes that you’re out the door, you’re not ready with a rarefied offering. You’re just one more brick in the wall, to be checked-off by HR, competing against other commodities.

KM & Web 2.0

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How’s that for a geeky title?

Anyway, I took the time yesterday morning to listen to Jon Husband’s podcast interview with Dave Snowden. Let me say that this is worth your time if you’re interested in how knowledge management (KM) can be accomplished in our current technological surround. I intend on listening to this podcast again (thanks, Jon).

I took a few notes but there’s a lot more than this in the interview. Here’s what struck me [my comments in brackets]:

  • The most important word in Web 2.0 or Enterprise 2.0 is “Context” [same for learning, IMO]
  • There should not be any rewards/incentives/money for knowledge work. It should be intrinsic and based on trust. External rewards will only have people gaming the system. [Sounds like every organisation I ever worked in]
  • You cannot create a knowledge-sharing culture, but you can make it easier for people to connect.
  • Knowledge work is not subject to corporate objectives, it is by its nature, “informal” [so informal learning supports knowledge work?]
  • It doesn’t matter what tools you use, because all web 2.0 tools should inter-operate; so why do companies spend time trying to figure out what wiki/blog software to use?
  • Most effective knowledge exists in flows and is contextually created in times of need [makes it difficult to tap and impossible to stick into a database].
  • The major Web 2.0 KM issue is the recall of knowledge in blogs over time (keywords, tags, search, narrative).
  • Dave: “Since I’ve left IBM I’ve had fewer virus attacks working in an open Web environment than I did in a secure corporate environment.”

Update: Jack Vinson and Ray Sims have more commentary on this interview.

Spiders and Starfish

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Reading The Starfish and the Spider only took one day [resting with a cold] and it’s an illuminating book. Spider organizations are those with centralized control and if you cut off the head, the rest will die. In starfish organizations, cutting off one leg will not kill it, because intelligence is distributed throughout the organism. The authors start by examining the two hundred year struggle between the Apache (starfish) and the Spanish Army (spiders), showing how a decentralized Apache nation was almost impossible to conquer because there was no head. A modern day equivalent is Al Quaeda.

What I found most interesting is that the degree of centralization for an optimal organization depends on many factors, so there is no magic recipe [like informal versus formal learning]. Finding what the authors call the “sweet spot” requires constant monitoring of the environment. Today’s sweet spot may be tomorrow’s lost cause.

spider-and-starfish.jpg

One of the five requirements for a successful starfish organization is to have a catalyst. In many ways, I think that is the role I’ve played, or tried to, in various organizations over the years, and it explains why I quickly lost interest in climbing the corporate ladder.

Catalysts are bound to rock the boat. They are much better at being agents of change than guardians of tradition. Catalysts do well in situations that call for radical change or creative thinking. They bring innovation, but they’re also likely to create a certain amount of chaos and ambiguity. Put them into a structured environment and they might suffocate. But let them dream and they’ll thrive. (p. 131)

I would recommend this book, especially the chapters on “The Hybrid Organization” and “In Search of the Sweet Spot”. The book should provide a new lens to look at your organization and its environment, whether it be for-profit, non-profit or a government agency.

If you think that decentralization is not an option for your organization, consider that your employees may strongly disagree, as reported by Ross Dawson:

In the first boom we [WPP Group] lost a lot of our staff to start-ups. When the companies failed, many came back to work for us. At the re-entry interviews, they didn’t say they were grateful to have a job. They said to a man and woman that if they could go back to work in a more unstructured and flexible work environment they’d go in a heartbeat.

Faith & Optimism

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Want to escape from your cubicle? Then read Escape from Cubicle Nation. Yesterday, Pam wrote about the difference between theory and practice in bootstrapping your own business. She discussed all the things that can go wrong and I can relate to them all – projects shutting down; cashflow issues; paperwork; family; etc. However, Pam finished on a high note, noting that attitude is extremely important:

Don’t underestimate the power of faith and optimism. While all the financial basics I mentioned above are critical, belief in yourself and the greater good in the universe is essential to get through tough times. On a practical level, you come across as a confident and positive business partner as you are wooing new clients and financial institutions. And on a metaphysical level, why not call upon all the good, magical, miraculous energy in the universe to help make things happen? On many occasions, I have witnessed unanticipated “miracles” manifested in the form of money coming out of nowhere, the right friends showing up at the right time, and new business opportunities coming from unexpected places. One thing is sure … worrying all the time will do nothing to move your business forward.

Of course, a dose of insanity helps, so I guess I’m OK ;-)

insanity.jpg

Creative Business in the Digital Era

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The Open Rights Group (UK) has created a wiki to collaboratively design a course on building businesses that are more open with their intellectual property:

Right now, this week, we need your ideas. What open-IP business models have you come across? And who is experimenting with opening up their IP? We’re thinking of examples like Radiohead letting their fans decide a fair price for the digital version of their new album. Or Magnatune’s use of Creative Commons licences to allow music buyers to sample songs before they buy. Or writers like Cory Doctorow, Lawrence Lessig and Tom Reynolds giving away their books for free under a CC licence whilst also publishing and charging for print copies. Or websites that produce an API so that others can build third party applications using their data, such as Google Maps. Once we’ve gathered a list of examples, we will pick a few case studies to focus our research on.

The easiest way to help is to add pertinent pages on del.icio.us (tag = org-cbde).