Knowledge Work and Schools

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I’m finally reading the book Nine Shift after subscribing to the blog for the past year. It’s one of my preferred reads and the book puts much more of the blog in perspective.

One reason it has taken so long for me to read the book is that my local bookstore gave me a price of $(CA)90.00, which I confirmed two weeks ago at Amazon.ca as $(CA)89.00. I finally checked Amazon.com and the list price was $(US)18.97, so I purchased the book from the USA. When I received it, the jacket price was “USA $29.00 – Canada $34.00 (go figure).

I won’t do a complete review now, but I highly recommend this book, which describes how 75% of our working days (nine hours out of twelve) will radically change by the year 2020. The signs are all here.

Shift One is that “People Work at Home”. As we shift from the Industrial Age to the Internet Age over the next decade, there will be more knowledge than manufacturing workers. I really like the definition of a knowledge worker, as it does not equate to someone working in an office.

Knowledge workers:

1. Are paid by their outcomes, what they produce, not by the time they devote.

2. Are only paid for products or projects that are valuable to the organization for which they work.

3. Bring something unique to the organization for which they work. Their value is not in being like other workers, but in being different.

4. Have a marketable set of skills.

If this shift to knowledge work is a certainty, and I believe it is, then our education system is woefully inadequate for what will be the majority of the workforce. Our schools are still designed for declining and soon-to-be-obsolesced factory workers. Teachers and students are not rewarded according to measurable outcomes; if they were, many teachers would not get paid, some students would graduate in less than 12 years and others would never complete their schooling. Students are not valued for being different but for conforming to the standard curriculum. Many, if not most, teachers are fearful of Internet technologies even though most high-paid work already requires Internet savvy. This is most evident with boys:

The Internet terrifies most teachers, and some boys know more about the Internet than do many educators. Boys also exhibit those accompanying attributes which go with a future dominated by the Internet, like taking risks, being entrepreneurial, and being collaborative. Thus they are leading society into the Internet age.

The one-size-fits-all school is a twelve-year sentence with no eligibility for parole, but the good news is that as the workforce changes there will be demands for more relevance in the education system and it will change. Unfortunately for those with children in our current outdated education system (as the one room schoolhouse was outdated 100 years ago), we have to work with what we have. So how do we keep our children motivated and help them develop skills for the Internet Age, when we all know that the education system is obsolete?

Another factor in selecting a university

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Last night a number of fourth year veterinary medicine students from AVC visited us at the Atlantic Wildlife Institute. They were a very keen and motivated group, ready to embark on their new careers. This morning, faculty at the University of Prince Edward Island (where AVC is located) went on strike. Many of these students are only weeks away from graduation and some of them feared, with reason, that their final courses may not be credited and that they may not be able to graduate.

A couple of things have struck me since. First, I’m wondering how long the university monopoly can insist on payment of tuition up front, without a requirement for delivery of the service. If students were able to withhold some of their tuition fees until the course is actually completed, then they too would have some leverage in these events. As it stands, they are helpless bystanders. Secondly, I’m thinking about the time when we decide which university may be best for our children. One factor that I had not considered was the state of the collective agreement at any given institution. Knowing that a contract may be renegotiated during one’s period of study may have you reconsider a certain university. I know that I will use this as factor in evaluating universities, especially since our local university has had a few strikes in recent memory.

Does anyone know of a database that shows when university/college collective agreements are up for negotiation? Would it be a relatively simple bit of programming to create a wiki/matrix/DB to which this kind of information could be added? Perhaps this could be an additional service of Rate My Professor.

Estimating the Performance Situation

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Last week I mentioned a few communication tools that I learned how to use in the Army. One of these is the Estimate, which is a problem-solving tool. As young officers, we were constantly told to “estimate the situation and never situate the estimate”. In many cases, when training is prescribed for a work performance issue, it is a case of situating the estimate. I can think of two recent examples in my own business experience.

In one case, e-learning was prescribed to address the performance needs of nurses changing to a new nursing care methodology. In that instance, I was able to convince the client that a quick performance analysis could be used to confirm the assumption that e-learning was the solution. As a result of the analysis, we changed the intervention to the development of an online diagramming tool, because we determined that nursing staff already had 80% of the necessary skills and knowledge, but they didn’t know how to use the new diagramming and reporting procedures. The initial e-learning program was greatly reduced.

In another case, training was prescribed in order to get staff up to date with a new organisation-wide policy. Each person received an average of 17 days classroom training. As an observer for part of the training, I would estimate that all of the training could have been done in less than a week, had the new procedures and some job aids been first developed. The total cost of training approached millions of dollars, plus the cost of missed work.

Recently, David Maister stated that training is often prescribed in the “hope” that performance can be improved, when a few pointed questions might better get to the root of the issue:

The correct process would be to sit top management down, ask: What are people not doing that we want them to be doing? – and then figuring out a complete sequence of actions to address the questions  – how do we actually get people to change their behavior? What measurements need to change? – what behaviors by top management need to change to convince people that the new behaviors are really required, not just encouraged? – what has to happen before the training sessions to bring about the change? What has to be in place the very day they finish?

A more detailed process is shown below. It shows that training only works in certain circumstances and that there are a number of other factors to look at first; such as barriers to performance and mismatched rewards & consequences.

A macro view of this process is that triage (sorting out priorities) should initiate the process, followed by a diagnosis (analysis), which can be as short as Maister’s questions, before prescribing some kind of treatment which may or may not include training. Using this method, I continue what my instructors told me many years ago – don’t situate the estimate.

performanceanalysis.jpg

Finally, here’s a job aid that I use in determining what the causes to performance problems may be:

  • Causes, Enablers and Obstacles:
    • Question the assumptions and potential solutions.
    • What is causing the problem?
    • What will prevent a solution?
    • What will make a solution easier?
  • Focus on Key Sources:
    • Find and focus on the people who are close to the problem and have perspective on the issues. Don’t try and reach everyone, especially in an initial performance analysis.
    • Focus on facts and results
  • Look for data, through observations, records, experiences:
    • What evidence is there?
    • Is it consistent?
    • What does it tell us?
    • Is there more?

Open source better reflects customer needs

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The word is out that Windows XP can run on Intel-based MacIntosh computers and the software is now available for downloading. However, Apple doesn’t seem to understand its own customers:

An Apple spokeswoman declined comment on the contest. Apple officials have said they have no desire for Windows to run on their hardware.

Earth to Apple – it’s not about you, it’s about your customers. Thousands of people have already downloaded the software, so there must be some kind of a demand.

That’s the joy of open source software, because any group can “fork” a project and the wisdom of the crowd will decide which way is better. No need for a “company spokesperson” to say what’s best for users.

Communication Tools from the Army

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During my Army service I learned many things that I have already forgotten, such as the composition of a Soviet Motor Rifle Regiment, and a few things that I could never forget. Three tools that I used extensively during my military career were 1) the Estimate, 2) Battle Procedure, and 3) the Orders Format. All of these are communications tools.

The Estimate is a logical way of analysing a situation and making a plan. Battle Procedure is a logical method to get you on the road to your next mission, and the Orders Format is a standard form of conveying the details of your plan to those who are going with you.

Some specifics of these three tools have changed over the years, but these combat-tested tools for effective communication remain in use. If you strip away the military specific stuff, they are quite practical for civilian applications as well. The Combat Estimate is a short version of the detailed Estimate and is based around seven questions, which I have slightly revised:

  1. What are competitors and clients doing and why?
  2. What have I been told to do and why?
  3. What effects (these can be described as your specific tasks) do I want to have on the competition and/or my client?
  4. Where and how best can I accomplish each effect?
  5. What resources do I need to accomplish each effect?
  6. When and where do the actions take place in relation to each other?
  7. What control measures do I need to impose? (e.g. what detail of project management is necessary)

Here is a revised Battle Procedure, in non-military form, geared around a client project:

  1. Get a warning that a new project is going start.
  2. Pass this on to your team.
  3. Do some quick research into the sector, the competition, the client and the opportunity.
  4. Get the official go-ahead for the project [probably not as much detail as you would get from a military superior, but then your boss doesn’t know the Orders Format].
  5. Conduct a detailed analysis and research based on the available time.
  6. Figure out what you have to do, by when [do this by working backwards from your critical deliverable dates/times].
  7. Write a detailed message (see next paragraph), with your time estimate, to your team members and partners.
  8. Advise anyone else from whom you may need support during the project (printing, translation, etc.).
  9. Sit down with the whole team (or virtually) and ensure that everyone understands the project, the constraints, the deliverables and who is responsible for what.
  10. Ensure that all activities are coordinated (remember, it’s your project).
  11. Get going.

Finally here is a civilian version of the Orders Format, used to communicate your plan to others:

  1. What’s going on
  2. What we’re going to do and how success will be measured
  3. Who is going to be working with us
  4. Who has to do what and by when
  5. How we’re going to communicate over the course of the project
  6. Who’s responsible for making decisions

If twenty years of military service can be summed up by the mastery of three communication tools, I think that it shows the importance of effective communications in organizations. Since retiring in 1998 I have had three jobs — university-based researcher/consultant, dot com executive, and now freelancer. On reflection, I can say that almost all of my projects over the past 8 years have been about communication, such as:

  • explaining how to conduct training
  • coaching how to use technology
  • communicating through design
  • selling an idea through a business plan
  • telling how I would do a project through a proposal
  • putting together diverse opinions into a cohesive vision
  • connecting people through conversation

Basically, as more and more of us connect in our work, we need effective ways to communicate. Though not perfect or comprehensive for all business needs, these military tools have stood the test of time.

“Let them manage themselves”

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In a recent post on Learners as Contributors, which received some good comments, Bill Fitzgerald said that:

True student-centered teaching takes more preparation than traditional lecture because the teacher needs to be prepared for whatever outcome organically arises. Really, it requires an openness to possibility that many teachers feel uncomfortable with because they labor under the paradigm that they need to be the expert in any subject covered in their classroom. True student-centered teaching also requires teachers to explicitly teach critical thinking skills, media evaluation skills (a must for internet-based research), and a host of other skills that are necessary for life but are not directly measurable on a standardized test.

This got me to wondering about curriculum, such as Brian Alger’s comment that “Curriculum is a solution to a problem we created.” I also started thinking about the barnraising exercise that Dave is hosting on new media curriculum creation. I believe that it’s a good exercise but there is a more fundamental issue that really interests me.

What would a curriculum look like if you eliminated any specific CONTENT and any reference to particular TECHNOLOGIES and instead focused on universal cognitive PROCESSES? Many varieties of this “curriculum” could be created, using various content areas or communication technologies. I imagine a curriculum that is open to teachers’ expertise and learners’ needs, based on processes like:

  • Critical thinking
  • Problem solving, individually and as part of a group
  • Narrative development
  • Media analysis & critique
  • Self-expression
  • etc. (please add more)

What would be different about this more basic curriculum is that learners would be able to choose how they would learn these process skills and how they would show mastery. Self-expression could be shown through writing, blogging, art or mechanics. This approach would also free up a whole bunch of teachers in administrative curriculum development positions ;-)

Given the expanding amount of information and media that is available through the Internet, access to material should not be an issue. Of course, teachers would need to develop new skills, but just imagine what learners could achieve. As John Taylor Gatto wrote in Harper’s a few years ago:

After a long life, and thirty years in the public school trenches, I’ve concluded that genius is as common as dirt. We suppress our genius only because we haven’t yet figured out how to manage a population of educated men and women. The solution, I think, is simple and glorious. Let them manage themselves.

Writely now in Google Camp

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I’m sure that almost everyone has heard that Writely has been purchased by Google. I’ve been using this wiki-like program for a while and have found it very practical for collaborative word processing. It sure beats sending huge files around by e-mail and trying to figure out five colours of track-changes plus a bunch of comments in Word or even in OpenOffice.org. Writely is basically a wiki (multi-editor web page), but has a simple word processor interface and imports/exports from popular file types like .doc and .pdf.

So far I’ve had little luck in convincing many others that Writely is a better tool than “Word + e-mail”. People are stuck in their old habits and with the first sign of difficulty they revert to their comfort zone. Now that Writely has some street cred from Google I’m hoping that it will be easier to convince others to try it. The interface has been steadily improving and I’m sure that Google cash will help it even more. New users may have to wait, as Writely seems to have temporarily closed the door on new accounts. Existing users can add only four new collaborators. I’m sure this will change shortly.

Personally, I see the move of word processing to the Web as a real productivity advance for what used to be known as CSCW (computer-supported collaborative work).

Needed – Open Source Formative Evaluation Tool

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I was recently asked if I knew of any OS testing/evaluation tools. Stephan List is looking for something that he can use to put evaluations online that will give immediate feedback to the user. Something like your typical magazine quiz, on “how good are you at …” with the results available for your own instant gratification.

I thought of Atutor’s AForm and Stephan mention I Give Test, but the former seems to be designed for academic testing while the latter is open source but charges for license fees.

Any other suggestions out there? Please respond, even in the negative, so that I know that my new feeds are working from this WordPress installation. Thanks.

Personal Knowledge Management 2

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Note: If you are looking for the summary page on personal knowledge management/mastery (PKM) it is now here: jarche.com/pkm/

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Jay has recently posted on Learning Circuits that blogs can be used as knowledge management (KM) tools. Using these tools brings some new challenges, as Lilia has noted “In a sense personal KM is very entrepreneurial, there are more rewards and more risks in taking responsibility for developing own expertise.” I won’t deny the cultural change issues in using blogs for knowledge management but I will show how I, as an independent worker outside an organisational hierarchy, use blogs and other tools for personal knowledge management. [This is an update & re-write of a previous post from last year.]

I write on my blog for several reasons. First of all, it’s the platform by which I try to make implicit knowledge (e.g. not codified or structured) more explicit, through the process of writing out my thoughts and observations of what I have come across in my life. By forcing myself to write a summary or an observation, I have to reflect on my own learning. Also, by making my thoughts public I know that they will be scrutinized – now and in the future. There’s nothing like public visibility to make you check your logic. I also view my blog as my main communication medium, letting me converse with potential clients or provide them with a venue to get to know me without any feelings of obligation. Basically, it’s all out there for the world to see.

But how do I get from “Gee isn’t that interesting?” to a written blog post?

Many of my observations come from the blogs that I visit regularly. These feeds are aggregated in my Bloglines account which is made up of +/- 100 feeds. This feed aggregator is sorted into various folders and feeds are routinely added and deleted depending on my preferences and information needs. If I’m working on a project in a specific field I may add some feeds for the duration of the work. The feeds I select are a reflection of the work that I’m doing. I also keep a couple of feeds that have little relation to my work for any serendipitous learning. The ability to scan, preview, read and save posts makes this a simple and easy process – better than visiting each site.

There are also some web pages, posts or sites that I find interesting but I feel are not worth the effort of writing a blog post. For these sites I use Furl, a social bookmarking service. Furl not only saves the page but allows me to tag the item by category. My Furl archive is public so that I can share these pages.

Items and thoughts that are not ignored or stored in Furl usually get saved into a temporary bookmark folder in my browser. Over time I review these and may find a few others that relate to each other. When I have the time and inclination, usually after exercise, I’ll draft a post, review it and post it.

But what use is my blog?

Because my website is searchable, I’m able to retrieve two years of thoughts and comments and easily review these. This is quite practical for presentations, papers, proposals and responding to questions. If I didn’t write a blog, I would have a lot more bookmarks, without annotations of my reasoning and reflection at the time. After two years, my blog is becoming a valuable productivity tool, and the comments and links from others only add more value.

My blog is also a great way to meet people interested in similar subjects, and has helped to create an evolving community of practice. As I’ve mentioned before, this blog is like a very detailed business card, and those who disagree with my points of view may decide not to engage my professional services. This would be a good thing; from both perspectives.

As an independent consultant, a blog is probably the simplest, cheapest and most effective knowledge management tool there is today. Some other benefits are listed here.

Entrepreneurship

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I attended a local business gathering last night and the government-sponsored economic development folks gave a briefing on their programs and support (So Patrick & Isabelle, here are some articles that may be of interest; if you get to this website).

First of all, especially if you are looking at entrepreneurship as an early career option, I would recommend Dave Pollard’s list of reasons Why Young People are Afraid to Start their own Business and would call this Understand your Market for the economic developers. Reasons include:

Can’t handle failure
Don’t know the process
Can’t handle the stress
Can’t handle loneliness

For further background material I would read all of Dave’s work on Natural Enterprises, which will soon be a book. I’ve used much of this material with my own clients.

For those who are supposed to be preparing people for entrepreneurship, take a look at Jeff Cornwall’s post on Entrepreneurship Can, and Is, being Taught:

I believe there are two critical aspects of entrepreneurship education that increase success rates. First, we teach them what deals not to go into through the process of opportunity assessment. We teach them how to “fail on paper.” They learn how to create discipline around their instincts and drive to move ahead blindly into the pursuit of their ideas. Second, we teach them about how to manage growth effectively. Any banker will tell you that this is where most businesses fail. We teach them about the challenges that success can create as their ventures grow. As one banker likes to say, “Too much success leads to failure.”

Finally, I would recommend the Bootstrappers Bible to get a fresh pespective on starting a business with little money.

8.01.BootstrappersBible.pdf