NB Self-sufficiency Task Force

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The New Brunswick government has commissioned a task force to look into ways that this Province can become self-sufficient.

You are invited to view the comments and/or join the discussion. The Task Force Co-chairs also contribute, by posting questions and/or clarifying issues. The contents of this Discussion Forum will be analyzed and contribute to the preparation of Final Report of the Task Force on Self-Sufficiency. The Discussion Forum is open until March 31, 2007.

The recommendations to date could be considered to be a bit controversial and have fostered some discussion and conflicting points of view. I’ve added my comments to a few of the six discussion areas:

  1. Increase population and labour force
  2. Sweeping changes
  3. Increase labour productivity
  4. Rural and Urban connections
  5. Export growth
  6. Expand our existing corporate base
  7. Leaders

Part of my concern about this process is that it is just a snapshot in time and does not connect to the serious discussions that have been going on for several years in non-traditional media (like blogs). If you have some perspective on economic & community development, then please add your comments to the “official” discussion. I’m told that the Premier will read these comments, while I’m sure that most politicians don’t read any of our blogs (correct me if I’m wrong).

So if you have older posts that pertain to these topics, then just copy and paste them in. Think of it as a manually-operated RSS aggregator ;-)

Value Networks Workshop

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We will be hosting a workshop in Saint John, NB, on Creating Value Networks for SME’s in the ICT Sector on Tuesday, March 20th, 2007. This event is being conducted in partnership with PropelSJ and NRC-IRAP, and it’s free.

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Consider this your invitation

The workshop will be conducted by Patti Anklam, thought-leader and practitioner of value network analysis. Patti has literally written the book on the subject – Net Work: A Practical Guide to Creating and Sustaining Networks at Work and in the World, to be published this April.

The other hosts with me will be Hal Richman (Productivity Solutions) and Gordon Smith (CBCL Ltd.) who have applied value network analysis in the ocean and marine technology sector in Newfoundland & Labrador [I’ll be there too, but if you’re reading this on my blog, you already know me].

So what are value networks? According to Verna Allee, author of The Future of Knowledge: Increasing Prosperity through Value Networks:

A value network is a web of relationships that generates economic value and other benefits through complex dynamic exchanges between two or more individuals, groups or organizations. Any organization or group of organizations engaged in both tangible and intangible exchanges can be viewed as a value network, whether private industry, government or public sector.

Plan to attend this workshop and learn how value networks can help your organization do more business world-wide.

Location: The New Brunswick Museum, 1 Market Square, Saint John, NB

Morning (open session), Lecture and Skills Building Workshop

Mary Oland Theatre, NB Museum

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Afternoon (invitation only), The Value Network for PropelSJ

Specifically for Catalict clients & mentors and invited ICT companies

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Reservations will be required for the afternoon session and are preferred for the morning session.

Contact me or PropelSJ for further information or an invitation to the afternoon session.

Why does Aliant’s service suck?

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I don’t like using the “S” word when referring to a company, but in this case I feel it’s appropriate. I have complained before about Bell-Aliant’s service, and how it took over a year to get things straightened out:

A little bit of searching and I found the e-mail of one of Bell Aliant’s VP’s and sent my story, with links to my blog. Within 24 hours, Aliant had delivered:

  1. an apology directly from a VP
  2. a rebate on the High Speed Ultra service for which I paid
  3. a year’s worth of free Ultra service

Unfortunately, what I received from Aliant has almost no value. First of all, Aliant’s service does not work with Skype, my preferred VoIP application.

Net Neutrality Canada - Neutrality.ca

Secondly, Aliant’s Ultra service comes with free “TV on your PC”, but this service hasn’t worked at all for 3 weeks, and my requests for help remain unanswered.

All I can say is, “Buyer Beware”, and choose an alternative.

Update: I never received a response from Aliant’s technical support regarding TV on my PC, but my son suggested that I roll back Windows Media Player, and after two rollbacks (to v. 9) it now works, in spite of Aliant’s statement that the service works with Version 9 “or higher”. Still no joy with Skype.

Update 2: It seems that other telco monopolies are blocking traffic.

PKM Unplugged

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Jerome Martin responded to my last PKM article with an excellent reference document. Several years ago, Jerome wrote a chapter on Personal Knowledge Management (PDF) for the book, Managing Knowledge: Case Studies in Innovation.

Even though it’s seven years old, I would recommend this 10-page chapter as an introduction to PKM. I don’t think that many people were even using the term at the time, but Jerome has a great list of random thoughts, namely:

  1. Spend time with creative people
  2. Go to conferences that are fascinating and apparently irrelevant
  3. Learn about a new area
  4. Travel
  5. Read voraciously
  6. Create a private personal knowledge web resource
  7. Tell your story

The first five points can be done while unplugged from the Net, so don’t think of PKM as a web-only affair (just look at the good books I’ve read in the past few years) . Today, I would slightly disagree with #6, because I have found that you get more value with a public than a private knowledge resource, but then these recommendations were made in 2000. Finally, #7 is much easier today with blogs.

TED Talk Videos

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Many of the presentations from TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) Talk are available on YouTube. I’ve watched a number of these recently and some of them are absolutely fantastic. These 53 videos are online and free and make for great informal learning and discussion. We have been watching some of them as a family with favourites being Sir Ken Robinson, Al Gore and Dan Dennett. I think that they are an excellent break from online reading, which many bloggers do a lot of.

These videos are also good conversation starters and I’d think that the 20-25 minutes format would be perfect for a quick lunchroom view and chat. I really appreciate the fact that TED Talk has made these available.

For those in the learning field, check out Richard Baraniuk from Rice University on A vision for free, global (online) education which looks at the publishing industry, academia and open source.

Calgary eLearning Network – PKM

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I will be presenting a 90 minute online session to the Calgary eLearning Network on April 18th. The theme will be Personal Knowledge Management (PKM). Barb Krell, an alumna of one of our informal learning unworkshops, is the chief organiser of this session.

I thought it would be best to put my session info online so that participants could link to it, ask any questions in advance or review some of the references.

This post from Lilia Efimova, best sums up PKM:

To a great extend PKM [personal knowledge management] is about shifting responsibility for learning and knowledge sharing from a company to individuals and this is the greatest challenge for both sides. Companies should recognise that their employees are not “human resources”, but investors who bring their expertise into a company. As any investors they want to participate in decision-making and can easily withdraw if their “return on investment” is not compelling. Creativity, learning or desire to help others cannot be controlled, so knowledge workers need to be intrinsically motivated to deliver quality results. In this case “command and control” management methods are not likely to work.

Taking responsibility for own work and learning is a challenge for knowledge workers as well. Taking these responsibilities requires attitude shift and initiative, as well as developing personal KM knowledge and skills. In a sense personal KM is very entrepreneurial, there are more rewards and more risks in taking responsibility for developing own expertise.

Here are my perspectives on PKM from 2005 and later revised in June 2006. My latest reflection on PKM was in Aug 2006, following an unworkshop.

For the April 2007 session, I intend on covering the two main tools – Social Bookmarks, like del.icio.us; and Aggregators, like Bloglines. If there is time, I’ll discuss blogging in general terms. These three tools, in my mind, form the basis of PKM on the Web.

Comments and suggestions are always appreciated.

RFP – you get what you ask for

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I’ve pretty well given up responding to RFP’s. In most cases they are are so poorly worded that you don’t really know what the client wants. Unless you have inside knowledge, responding to an RFP is a crap shoot. I am referring here to RFP’s for consulting services, especially performance improvement, and not those requesting commoditized goods or services that can be clearly specified

As the successful bidder you have to meet the requirements as stated in the RFP, even if they they make little sense. It may be cheaper to sub-contract a task that is required, but the RFP requires it, so you calculate it at double what someone else could do it for. Clients do this so that they only have to manage one contract.

I recently came across this article on The Elephant in the Room, from Hamer Associates [I wish there was an RSS feed on this site]:

And this is where the RFP process breaks down –in the case of human performance management or change consulting– the RFP seeks the cheapest (or most experienced) provider of a solution to a problem; a solution that the organization has already chosen. However, as I reflected on past RFP responses, in too many cases the problem either was not defined, not communicated, or so poorly defined that it begged discussion. And even in cases where the problem was defined, the chosen solution often would not have solved the problem.

I had a similar case a few years back where the client’s RFP required e-learning, but I was quite certain that e-learning would not address their issues. Luckily, I was able to negotiate some time for a “confirmation of the analysis”. My report enabled a significant reduction in e-learning (courses online) and a new focus on performance support and procedural changes.

Too often, consultants do just what the RFP has called for, even if it is not in the best interests of the client. RFP’s may be the safest contracting method from an accounting or a bureaucratic perspective, but for real organisational performance improvement they are definitely not the best tool.

New Creative Commons Licence 3.0

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With the release of version 3.0, it’s time to check out Creative Commons if you don’t already know about this great organization. I would call CC the lubricant of the Creative Age. It makes the wheels go round :-)

As the CC site says:

Creative Commons helps you publish your work online while letting others know exactly what they can and can’t do with your work. When you choose a licence, we provide you with tools and tutorials that let you add licence information to our own site, or to one of several free hosting services that have incorporated Creative Commons.

A CC licence is not just for indivdual websites and creations, but a great tool for educational institutions and non-profits as well as for-profits who understand the Internet economy.

The future of learning is DIY

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If someone asks me what’s the best learning management system, my initial response is – Google. Donald Clark describes the top five global brands (Google, Apple, YouTube, Wikipedia, Starbucks) from the perspective of learning, with this comment:

Could it be that powerful, everyday “e-learning” has crept up on the world, separate from all the academic and institutional noise, and in a consumerist fashion?

All of these brands enable informal learning, grassroots knowledge management or collaboration on a local or global scale.

With Google you can find most information that you need. YouTube is a quick and easy way to get “learning objects” to the world. Apple gives the essential tools for knowledge workers, and in a nice package. Wikipedia has shown that the wisdom of crowds is just as good as the wisdom of elites. Starbucks gives free-agents and road warriors a place to meet and work. These top brands provide the equivalent of the interstate highway system for the creative age.

Enabling DIY (do-it-yourself) on the Web appears to be a good business model. Even on the fringes, such as wi-fi from a café. This is the power of informal learning, if organisations decide to enable it. It has to be DIY, user-driven and uncontrolled. People will figure out what’s best for them, as they have for millennia.

If you’re in the learning business, don’t try to build another LMS or portal. Instead, figure out ways that enable DIY. Believe it or not, learners can, and will, do the rest. They already are.

Local materials and values used in green building project

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The Guardian has an article on a zero-carbon emission development in Penryn, Cornwall, England. The fact that this happened in a small town makes it worth investigating for our Commons initiative (gaining momentum).

… the brand new Jubilee Wharf, a creek-side development comprising flats for local people to rent, 12 craft workshops, a public hall, a nursery and shops, might well be the greenest British building to date. Its carbon emissions seem to be a happy zero. It has been built as far as possible from local materials, including red cedar and larch, using local labour.

The pictures are of an appealing building, but one appropriate for its setting.

The two blocks of the development – one four storeys high, comprising studio workshops with maisonettes above; the other over two storeys, housing a nursery, public hall and cafe – enclose a courtyard, protected from the occasionally fierce coastal wind.

The author, Jonathon Glancey, sums up the greatest advantage of such a building initiative:

Too many councils give in to the bullying demands of supermarket chains, as if these unsustainable land monsters were the only means of boosting employment and local income. How about a few, or more than a few, variations on the theme of Jubilee Wharf, reflecting the topography, style, local production, sentiments and ambitions of people in different parts of the country?