Canada’s National Aboriginal Day

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Yesterday (June 21st) was National Aboriginal Day in Canada.  I’ve been working with the Gespe’gewaq Mi’gmaq Resource Council  (GMRC) this year and have learned much about First Nations in Atlantic Canada. This is what GMRC is about:

The vision of the organization is to assist First Nation communities within the traditional district of Gespe’gewa’gi by creating awareness and understanding and gathering support to further sustainable natural resource management.  We see a future where we can work together in the bay, manage our resources and have a greater say in how they are managed,  while at the same time building cultural bridges with the common goal of effective natural resource management practices.

To learn more, check out the Mi’kmaq Resource Centre at Cape Breton University.

The Industry that Could

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New Brunswick, in the great scheme of things, is a small player on the world stage. There are only 740,000 of us, split up in three urban centres and many rural areas. For the most part, this province, established in 1785, has produced hewers of wood and drawers of water.  Forestry and fishing are still big.

But back in the mid-1990’s NB was re-branded as “the” place for the new information highway and especially for online learning. Dozens of companies sprang up and several more from out of province set up shop here.  However, the subsequent dot com bomb saw many companies close shop. A few chugged along, especially in Fredericton.

Last night I attended the opening of Bluedrop Performance Learning’s  Fredericton office. What caught my attention was that Bluedrop (head office in St. John’s, NL) had not really intended to open another branch office. Bluedrop was looking for a couple of people for the St. John’s office and just happened to be in Fredericton at the time of Provinent’s bankruptcy protection filing and office closure. As a result, many experienced people were looking for work. Bluedrop seized the opportunity and hired an additional 7 employees (all from Provinent) and found office space in Fredericton. The company says that they plan more controlled growth.

The NB learning industry now has a certain competitive advantage in this business. Where else can you find a significant number of instructional designers with over 10 years experience? Ten years ago, many of the people in attendance last night were employed by a different company. Several, myself included, have changed employers more than once. These people, with different business cards, have remained and grown an industry. This was a different crowd from the large NB contingent that attended OnlineLearning 1998 in Los Angeles. These were seasoned, experienced and maybe even battle-scarred professionals.

The core group that remains in this field is doing some pretty amazing stuff. For instance, the team from Red Hot Learning was also there, following the successful launch of a unique online game, The Redistricting Game. RHL headed the programming and development in collaboration with USC’s Interactive Media Division. This is a fine example of using gaming theory and technology to create a tool that can explain the complexities of drawing electoral boundaries in the US. As the opening video says, “When I, as a mapmaker, have more of an impact on an election than the voters – the system is out of whack.” Try it out, it’s free.

Serious games, serious people, serious business. This is what’s happening in New Brunswick today. [I’m also supposed to get some pictures of the serious party, too, which I’ll post here.]

Plus ça change …

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Maybe the more things change, the more they remain the same. I was reviewing a White Paper that I had written in 2000 for my employer at the time and found that not much has changed when it comes to workplace learning. This paper was loosely based on some parts of my thesis, which was published in 1998, so the major themes are at least a decade old.

Here was one of my opening statements on knowledge and learning:

Knowledge is the result of the process of learning, and learning can be defined as a process of giving meaning to our experiences. This view of learning as an active, continuous process is essential when examining workplace learning. Learning is not only some formal event, which happens in a classroom, resulting in information to perform a discrete task, but is also a continuing process of doing and reflecting. We know that people learn as they work, and that the pace of learning and re-learning is increasing everyday.

The “learning organization” was the rage in the late ’90’s, but you seem to hear less about it now.

The learning organization has the potential to become the model for the new workplace. Moving from an organization of many independent workers to a network of interdependent workers will require change on many levels. Implementing a learning organization requires that learning occurs at the individual, team and organizational levels. These changes threaten not only personal mental models but traditional power structures. Many employers and organizations are attempting to change their workplaces into more learning-oriented environments, but the current popularity of e-learning must survive the initial infatuation stage in order to develop stable systems for organizational learning.

It makes me think that when it comes to workplace learning, we haven’t advanced that much.

Many people are finding it difficult to make the transfer into the new knowledge-based economy This may indicate a need for adult learning expertise in order to increase business productivity. Workplaces have to allow for individual learning on the job because workers cannot become learners if the climate is not open to change. The changing role of the immediate supervisor to that of coach will be critical in achieving the ideal of the learning organization. The need for educated, knowledgeable workers with current skills and abilities will continue to increase but the power to change the workplace to a more learning-oriented, and therefore more adaptable, environment rests with those in charge: the employers.

I haven’t seen massive changes, have you?

Net Neutrality Now

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I’ve advocated that Net Neutrality is a critical issue for our society to prosper culturally and economically. I don’t understand how any reasonable person would advocate that Internet Service Providers should decide which information packets get priority. To be a carrier and offer digital media or services for sale is an obvious conflict of interest. Luckily, we have the Canadian Net Neutrality website as a focal point on this issue, but the mainstream media are not covering it to the degree that they should (funny, isn’t it?).

Today, Susan Crawford (via Dave Weinberger) had a strong and clear message on Net neutrality to the US Congress:

In an ongoing regulatory factfinding mission (undertaken because the Commission didn’t have the political will or sensitivity to actually act), the FCC is asking whether anyone using a U.S. network operator has been blocked from accessing particular sites. That’s the wrong question, as Consumers Union and its colleague advocates have told the Commission. The FCC should instead be asking why we haven’t mandated competition for highspeed access by requiring that all providers sell unfettered transport services at wholesale rates into a competitive market for retail transport. Even better, Congress should take the reins and demand that the duopolies divest themselves of their transport services so that they aren’t tempted to try to monetize internet access in favor of their own movies and phone services.

Having the major ISP’s (Bell, Telus, Rogers) in control of the priority of Internet traffic for Canadians is the same as allowing the Big 3 automakers to decide which cars have priority on our highways. It just doesn’t make sense, and our politicians should know where we stand on this.à

Update: and then on the national news, I read:

The country’s No. 2 telephone company, Telus Corp., confirmed Thursday it is in merger talks with BCE Inc., the parent company of industry leader Bell Canada.

Yikes! The time for regulation is now. 

Performance Analysis

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In my continuing series of adding more stuff to my Toolbox, here’s another way of looking at the performance analysis process:

pa-process.jpg

Often, analysis work starts with a big blob of information and unrelated facts plus a few pressing issues tossed in for a sense of urgency. The actual work consists mostly of clumping and dividing, in an effort to find patterns. This graphic represents a particular view of that process.

First, you look at the organisational context and see what the big issues are. Then you try to determine what are the main factors affecting the work performance. Usually you find out that the real problems and challenges are not quite exactly what you were told when you started. That’s where these kind of charts come in handy – explaining the process to your clients.

This chart also shows that there are a lot of performance factors that can only be addressed by non-learning interventions. In other words, there’s more to performance improvement than just training. On top of that, even some of the learning interventions don’t necessarily require training & education solutions (aka “the course).

Anyway, it’s a simple model that doesn’t tell the entire story (what model does?), but I’ve found it useful from time to time.

elearning jobs in Moncton

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Desire2Learn is hiring in our local area:

Desire2Learn is opening their doors in Moncton, New Brunswick and is calling all those who are interested in a career in the high-tech industry! Join us at our Technology and Career Exhibition Date:
Thursday, June 28, 2007 from 5 – 8pm

Location:
Scientific Park, 55 Crowley Farm Rd., 2nd Floor, Moncton, New Brunswick

What to Expect:

  • Listen to John Baker, President and CEO, discuss our latest technologies
  • Network with some of the industry’s top professionals
  • Speak with Desire2Learn’s Management Team and learn about our exciting employment opportunities
  • Enjoy food, prizes and more!

Entrants and Incumbents

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I had previously written about the book, Seeing What’s Next, from which I had created this graphic:

seeing whats next

In a conversation this week about new business models, I was reminded of Christensen’s model of how upstart or entrant companies can stay under the radar of incumbent companies, while the entrant develops asymmetrical skills and motivation.

Since creating this graphic, I’ve worked with several start-up companies. I’ve learned that, first of all, determining the problem that we are trying to solve is essential in order to understand who are our customers.

According to this model, new entrants to a market should identify potential customers based upon the markets of established incumbent(s). There are three types of customers:

  1. Undershot – willing to pay more for more functions/services
  2. Overshot – find current offering more than adequate
  3. Non-consumers – lack ability or the wealth for current service / products

For a new entrant, the best market is the non-consumer (also the least demanding) who is “below the radar” of the incumbents.

The second best target group is the Overshot Customer (specialist displacement for mainstream) who is willing to accept a more specialised product/service than the broader offering of the incumbent, or one who is looking for something cheaper and “good enough” (low end).

Usually, the products/services for the non-consumer market are relatively simple and affordable and make it easier for the customers to do something that they could not do before, or was much too difficult or costly. For instance, open source CMS and blog software have made it easy for anyone to set up a database-driven website. Previously, only large organisations could afford an enterprise system. Non-consumers, small & medium-sized businesses, have adopted these open source systems under the radar screen of the major vendors and created a new market.

Other factors include non-market conditions, such as new regulations, that change the way the market will behave. The requirements for compliance training have created a new market for cheap and easy training programs.

In order to address these markets of non-consumers or overshot customers, the entrant needs Asymmetric Skills & Asymmetric Motivation. The entrant must be able to do something that the incumbent firm is not capable of doing or not motivated to do. Web 2.0 has opened up a whole array of skills that can give an entrant an unfair advantage.

Some of the key questions that we should keep asking when looking for signals of change in the marketplace are:

  • What jobs are customers trying to get done?
  • Are customers not served, undershot or overshot by current offerings?
  • Where are new business models emerging?
  • What role do regulatory agencies play?

Attitude

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Thirty years ago today I joined the Army. Two decades later I came back into civilian life, having learned a lot, grown up a bit, got married, had children and probably figured out a few things about myself. I’ve already mentioned some of the practical things I learned in the military. It’s now been almost a decade since I took off my uniform.

I’ve noticed that recruiting is up in Canada and I think that has to do with our Afghanistan mission. Young men are always looking for adventure. We have a significant share of military funerals here in Atlantic Canada, though. Even with my military experience, a degree in History and a certain level of interest, I haven’t figured out if the Afghanistan mission is the right thing for us to be doing. I guess that’s life in a complex world. There are no easy answers.

It’s like the consultant’s stereotypical response of “It depends”, to every client’s question. Sometimes, when the answers aren’t clear,  you just have to trust your gut and jump into the river and see where it takes you. I did that in 1977.

As we get more attachments, mortgages, and the lot, it gets harder to just let things flow. We want to control things. Organisations are like that. The more they’ve accumulated, the less they want to risk. But life has always been complex and risky, and will always be so. There are no easy answers – anywhere. It just takes us a while to realise it. The attitude you adopt in facing complexity, however, is up to you.

And for an attitude readjustment, you can always listen to Jimmy Buffet ;-)

My Performance Toolbox

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I’ve just created a new page that will list the practical job aids for workplace performance that I’ve developed. With over a thousand posts on this blog, they were getting lost in the crowd.

You can now find all of them listed in my Performance Toolbox. I’ve put a permanent link in the Consulting section. Of course, everything is licensed for sharing, using a Creative Commons Attribution – Non-Commercial license.

Workplace Performance Analysis Job Aid

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In much of my work I’m asked to help out with situations that appear to be rather complex. For instance, we had a situation that required skills development for hundreds of staff preparing to implement a new nursing care methodology, all to be done in a very short time. An initial analysis, conducted in one week, showed where there could be major cost savings by focusing only on the important areas of performance.

I’ve used performance analysis methods for several projects and have found it to be a good way to separate the important signals from just the noise that surrounds many large organisations, especially those in transition. To learn more on how to conduct a performance and cause analysis, I’ve attached a job aid that I use for myself and to communicate with clients. This is one of the tools that I use to help see patterns in the chaos of daily work.

Download: jarche_analysis_process.pdf