connecting knowledge

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In early March I wrote how I was making sense of our digital world at the beginning of this pandemic. Some of my practices have held but after six months, some have changed. For example I see information from the WHO and CDC as lagging indicators, and no longer my first stop to find out what is happening now. I understand that they reflect the makeup of their members and funders more so than being a neutral point of view from the medical community.

I am also starting to understand that public health experts and epidemiologists, while both medical professionals, can have widely diverging perspectives on this pandemic. These are not the only knowledge silos dealing with a global problem from their unique and often blinkered perspectives. No single perspective can understand all the complexities.

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six months later

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Every fortnight I curate some of the observations and insights that were shared on social media. I call these Friday’s Finds.

Dr. Dipshikha Ghosh — “A 28yo woman died of post-covid myocarditis today. She was asymptomatic and treated at home and then developed complications after being declared negative. Let that sink in.”

Learning to live with Covid 19 coronavirus is not a viable option

What experienced epidemiologists do is to systematically identify and critique the totality of evidence, something most commentators on the subject simply do not have the skills or experience to do. This systematic and critical approach is particularly necessary when examining evidence about Covid-19 infection because it is hugely influenced by the setting in which the infection occurs.

How OCAD’s Dori Tunstall is rewriting the rules of design education

There’s a lot of talk about how design is going to save the world after COVID-19. I approach that talk with a sense of cynicism, because design hasn’t even addressed how it’s harmed communities for the last few hundred years. It’s only been in the last couple of months when all these brands like Mrs. Butterworth, Aunt Jemima, and the Washington Redskins moved away from racist representations of Black and Indigenous people for entertainment or consumption purposes.

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an exploratory

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On 30 September I will be participating in a series of exploratory sessions with Dave Snowden — learning & sense-making in uncertainty and continuous flux and I have discussed some of the concepts previously in sensemaking in uncertainty.

Dave Snowden and Harold Jarche have been exploring different aspects of learning, knowledge management and innovation for decades. This is the first time they are coming together to explore the similarities, differences and potential synergies between their approaches.

As part of our preparation, Dave and I are recording a video for participants to understand each of our frameworks/models/perspectives before we get into deeper conversations and explorations.

First, I would like to recognize my early inspirations for personal knowledge mastery.

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sensemaking in uncertainty

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When the pandemic broke out, the situation was generally chaotic and the best response was to act firmly, such as establish a lock-down as soon as possible.

“In the chaotic domain, a leader’s immediate job is not to discover patterns but to stanch the bleeding. A leader must first act to establish order, then sense where stability is present and from where it is absent, and then respond by working to transform the situation from chaos to complexity, where the identification of emerging patterns can both help prevent future crises and discern new opportunities. Communication of the most direct top-down or broadcast kind is imperative; there’s simply no time to ask for input.” —Snowden & Boone, HBR 2007

Now the pandemic is in its sixth month. We can make some sense of it, even though much is complex. The best response therefore is to probe — the Cynefin framework calls for those in positions of decision-making to probe, sense, and respond, using safe-to-fail experiments. A reductionist approach will not work in the complex domain.

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working smarter with pkm — transcripts

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I have a series of three 3-minute videos presenting the personal knowledge mastery framework. They are supported by the Working Smarter with PKM field guide. The online workshop provides a more structured and social learning experience.

The videos and the transcripts, for those who prefer to read rather than watch, are here.

Working Smarter with PKM (3 minute videos)

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push-button education

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Every fortnight I curate some of the observations and insights that were shared on social media. I call these Friday’s Finds.

“Any idiot can impose and exercise control. It takes genius to elicit freedom and release creativity.” —@DeeWHock

“LinkedIn is bragging that ‘member engagement has hit a record high’, which I’m sure is due to how great LinkedIn is, and has nothing to do with 30 million people being laid off and desperate for work.” —@MeetingBoy

“When all are guilty, no one is; confessions of collective guilt are the best possible safeguard against the discovery of culprits, and the very magnitude of the crime the best excuse for doing nothing.” —Hannah Arendt

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the future of schooling post-coronavirus

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I have been asked to present some issues on the future of schooling post-covid for a group of educators in Australia in early September. Any feedback to this post would be appreciated.

In my research on schooling, I have found that the education system is a lagging indicator. First technology, business, and society change, and then formal education aligns with them. So I will try to see what is changing outside the school system and how that will affect schooling.

The one-room school house represented the agrarian landscape of North America. It transformed into the modern public school with divided grades and several classrooms when good roads and motor vehicles arrived. For example, in our town, there is an abandoned one-room school about 12 KM from the current regional high school with several hundred students. But that road was not plowed in Winter until the 1950’s, so even that short distance was impossible to travel on a daily basis. Now this school serves several small communities and students travel by bus and car for the most part. Physical distancing requirements under the pandemic are now a new consideration on what is the best technology to ‘deliver’ students or to ‘deliver’ education.

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top tools 2020

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Every year, Jane Hart asks, “What are the most popular, useful, valuable, digital tools for learning?” and this year has added, “How has lockdown affected the tools used for learning and development in 2020?” Everyone can add their voice, and voting ends 21 August.

In my case, the tools I use for learning have not changed much since I posted top tools for 2019.

One change I have made is to use Pinboard for my social bookmarks. It is a move I am making toward paying for my online services.

Even though I have been working remotely for most of the past 17 years, I saw an increase in Zoom meetings. I have used Zoom for five years but the past six months have been kind of crazy with meeting requests. I have collected a few social bookmarks on distributed work in the process.

Top Tools for Learning 2020

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sense before stories

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Beware the storytellers and praise the sensemakers

In story skepticism (2016) I suggested that while storytelling skills may be important, a critical network era skill will be the ability to deconstruct stories. When it comes to this pandemic, there is no shortage of stories. The emotional, shocking, or fantastic stories get all the attention. The hard scrabble of sensemaking does not.

For example, I came across Michael Mina, Epidemiologist, Immunologist & Physician at Harvard School of Public Health & Harvard Medical School, in an interview with the podcast ‘This Week in Virology’ — Test often, fast turnaround. Not only was I impressed at how well Dr. Mina described the situation in clear understandable terms, so were the three virologists who interviewed him. “I learned so much”, said one, “I was blown away … I feel some hope finally”, said another. I am not going to try to explain what was presented, as Dr. Mina does it so well. Take 45 minutes and learn something important about covid-19 testing. You don’t even have to have a degree in science — I don’t.

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we need better learners

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The global pandemic is a wake up call and an opportunity. It has shocked our triform (Tribes +Institutions +Markets) economy and society. Over the past two decades we have seen many experiments and movements toward a more equitable, sustainable way of living on this planet (+Networks). We have made the rules for how we are governed and how the economy works. We can change them. We cannot change how the planet’s environment works. We cannot change the laws of physics. We cannot change how the SARS CoV-2 virus acts, as much as we would like to.

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