Work is learning. Learning is the work.
post about our community of practice — coffee club
We had a great conversation today for our monthly Zoom call with the perpetual beta coffee club. We had folks on the call from Japan, France, Switzerland, the Netherlands, the UK, USA, Canada, and Spain. The diversity of perspectives really adds to our collective understanding, especially since this is a trusted space amongst peers.
A couple of books were recommended in the conversation.
Twitter has kept me informed through this pandemic. I have been informed by subject matter networks of experts who share their knowledge with the public on Twitter. I was even taken to task by a troll (now off Twitter) for not blindly following local public health advice — “Twitter doctors are apparently more trusted than our medical officer of health.” But given the performance record of our CMOH, the advice from my pandemic list has kept me safer over the past two years.
Imagine if public health had taken the informed advice of Barry Hunt, an engineer specializing in airborne infection prevention. On 31 March 2020, Barry described the droplet theory of the spread of SARS-C0V-2 as — “90 year-old stale dated fake news” — yet the droplet theory was promoted by the WHO until May 2021.
In January 2018 I started the coffee club as a professional community of practice focused on work and learning. We have a private community space for the members. There are now [2019] over 60 members of the Perpetual Beta Coffee Club. As it grows — which is my hope — I will focus more of my energy there. So far we have a discussion forum and I host live web video chats monthly. These are recorded and available for 30 days. We try to ensure that what is discussed inside the coffee club stays there. It is intended to be a trusted space. If the club grows, I will offer more services to meet demand.
We are now one year in [updated January 2019] and there are members from Australia, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, New Zealand, Netherlands, Norway, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, UK, & USA. It’s a pretty eclectic group and while the main focus is workplace learning, we talk about whatever interests our members. The surveillance economy, and how to deal with it, was a recent topic. We also talk about books and current events.
If you are looking for a trusted space to share ideas and learn from fellow professionals, please join us.
Here is what we talk about on Twitter: https://twitter.com/hjarche/lists/pbcc/
We have more in-depth conversations in the community
What do you get?
About a year ago I deleted Google Analytics from this website. I no longer know where visitors come from, what they find interesting, or what they click on. This has liberated my thinking and I believe has made my writing a bit better. I always wrote for myself but I would regularly peek at my statistics. Was my viewership going up? What did people read? How did they get there? What search terms were people using? — Who cares?
There are a lot of numbers that ‘social media experts’ will tell you to maximize. But there are few that make any difference. For instance, I put out the word on social media about my social learning workshop: on LinkedIn it had 79 likes and 4,630 views. One of my tweets received 22 link clicks and 5,611 views. But only one metric mattered: registrations. That number was 1. If I kept looking at how often these were shared on social media I might think there was interest in taking my workshop, especially since feedback from participants has been very good. But by focusing on the only real metric, it is obvious that the audience for this workshop is not there. As a result, it is offered less frequently, and is now part of my overall services to companies and organizations.
Last month I started a coffee club so that subscribers to this blog could purchase the equivalent of a monthly cup of coffee for each of us. This week we had our first online video conference with five participants. As a result we decided that this would be a good place to have deeper and more meaningful monthly conversations on topics that interest us. These include: self-organizing systems, platforms that enable self-organization, how to better share and filter knowledge and information. Overall it will be a place for learning and reflection. We also decided that future meetings will be recorded and that I will look into creating a secure online space for written conversations and sharing our knowledge.
I have observed over the past few years how critical it is to engage in knowledge networks to better understand my profession and the world. These networks are with people, not platforms and not companies. Relationships add the necessary context, such as what has this person written before, what is their general perspective, and what other factors may influence them. You cannot get this context from algorithms.
“The use of algorithms to give consumers ‘what they want’ leads to an unending stream of posts that confirm each user’s existing beliefs. On Facebook, it’s your news feed, while on Google it’s your individually customized search results.” —Washington Monthly Mag
Last October I suggested that subscribers to this blog could buy me a monthly cup of coffee to support my writing. Several of you have done so: thank you! We now have a private online space to continue our conversations.
To kick off 2018 I have decided to make the beta conversations available exclusively to coffee club subscribers. I will host about 10 online video conference sessions per year, in addition to a private community space for asynchronous conversations. The subjects that we will cover will include technology, media, knowledge, and society, but I am sure we will always find something to talk about. The conversations are recorded for members who cannot make it. I will ensure there is a topic or two at hand before we begin.
So if you find my writing useful, especially for your own paid work, please consider subscribing to the club and buying a monthly cup of coffee for each of us.
This will make you a member of the coffee club, caffeine-fuelled for deeper conversations, for only $10 per month.
I was considering making this blog private and creating a community space for paying subscribers. However, after much deliberation I don’t think this is the best model for myself or anyone who reads my work. It would complicate the sharing of my posts, and my blog was ranked as one of the most shared in the learning & development field in 2013.
I know that much of my work is used by consultants for client work, used inside companies, referenced in academic papers and theses, and used as curriculum in university programs. In the large majority of cases, I receive no monetary compensation. Of the 10 universities that I know who use my PKM framework in their curriculum, only one, Bangor University in Wales, has paid for my work.
So if you find my writing useful for your own paid work, please consider sharing a monthly cup of coffee. At our local café, a cappuccino is $4 (which fuels my daily bike ride, where I get my best ideas) and I tip the server another $1. Coffee for 2 is $10 …