learning in the network era

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This week I am reviewing my posts from 2015 and putting some of the core ideas together. Here are some thoughts on personal and social learning in the network era.

Training, and education, are often solutions looking for a problem. But good training and education can have a huge impact on behaviour and performance. Remember that great teacher who inspired you? Did you ever have a coach who got you to a higher level of performance? But throwing content at someone and hoping for learning to happen is not a good strategy. This is how far too many courses are designed and delivered.

More: 9-ways-to-improve-workplace-learning

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platform capitalism and the post-job economy

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Here are some collected thoughts on the changing nature of work and shifting wealth creation.

Platform capitalism is beginning to define the economy for the second Gilded Age we seem to be entering. It requires 4 contributing factors, which when combined, create a perfect opportunity for the ‘uberization’ of almost any industry.

  • A platform: a mobile application delivered through an oligopoly like iTunes or Google Play.
  • A critical mass of users: upwardly mobile knowledge workers, especially those in Silicon Valley or the tech sector.
  • Desperate service providers: people with no ability to organize due to weak or non-existing trade unions in their field, who see opportunities for better cash flow.
  • Lack of regulations and oversight: bureaucracies that either cannot keep up with technology advances, or political leadership that condones poor working conditions in the name of progress.

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beyond the reach of automation

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This week I am reviewing my posts from 2015 and putting some of the core ideas together. Here are some thoughts on how the increasing automation of knowledge work can be addressed by a new approach to organizational leadership.

Any work that is routine will be automated. Jobs that only do routine work will disappear. Valued work, enhanced by our increased connectivity, will be based more on creativity than intelligence. The future of human work will require tacit knowledge and informal learning, and will create intangible value that cannot easily be turned into commodities. The future of work will be complex and this will be even more obvious in the next five years, as robots and software keep doing more complicated work. Just as people had to become literate to work in the 20th century workplace, now they will have to be creative, empathetic, and human: doing what machines cannot do.

More: preparing-for-2020

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automation is coming to a job near you

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Just as farmhands were replaced by machines 100 years ago, so too will knowledge workers be replaced by networked computers in the next few decades. Last century, those farmhands had the option of moving to the city and working in factories, but what are the alternatives for today’s knowledge workers? It is not likely to be a new job, as the job itself is being made obsolete, underlined by 54 million freelancers in the USA today, accounting for almost 1/4 of working-age adults.

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writing, communicating, learning

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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.

“Mastery is not referred to the use of any tool. It is a state of the person. And then it permeates the use of *any* tool.” – Stelio Verzera

How You Record Ideas May Impact Creativity, via @madelynblair

“As one of our architect users put it in an interview we conducted recently on the value of drawing in the digital age, “When you build a lot of buildings, and you go and visit them, you always think back on that first sketch. Those first few sketches are where the big idea came through.” We found over and over that the act of using sketching as “conversational as opposed to representational,” in the words of another architect, was the key to discovery—when the act of drawing is a means to an end, not the end in and of itself. Through sketching, you locate the idea. Uninhibited sketching is Beethoven’s long walk.”

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intangible value

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I have learned a lot from Verna Allee over the years, and frequently referred to her work on this blog. Now that Verna has retired her websites, I have collected some of her insights together in one place. It was her work on value network analysis [PDF] that particularly influenced my thinking.

“Only through the power of value networks can we address our complex issues – together – and create a more hopeful future.” —Verna Allee

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work, learning & leadership

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How we organize and get things done as governments, communities, and companies needs to change. We are shifting to a new economy, with global surveillance, and new ways of work. As we shift from a society focused on institutions and markets and prepare to enter the network area, three areas require greater emphasis.

  1. collaborative work
  2. social learning
  3. connected leadership

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the execution of education

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“it pisses me off that business schools virtually ignore sales, while fawning over marketing” – Tom Peters

Marketing is relatively easy to teach. Doing sales takes time, practice, and feedback. It’s fairly obvious why universities prefer to teach marketing. I don’t know of any programs where students do real sales calls. I guess that’s for after graduation.

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thinking critically

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Critical thinking – the questioning of underlying assumptions, including our own – is becoming all-important as we have to make our way in the network era. Critical thinking can be looked at as four main activities:

  • Observing and studying our fields
  • Participating in professional communities
  • Building tentative opinions
  • Challenging and evaluating ideas

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