Here are some of the interesting things I found on Twitter this past week.

Learning & Development is still stuck in the course paradigm [multi-way discussion]. via @c4lpt

Are instructional designers like buggy whips? Courses are buggies; obsolete learning vehicles for the Internet. Back-to-front e-learning via @BFChirpy

The situation in the workplace is even worse than most critics of formalized training & schooling say [good references in this article by Gary Wise]:

Training (formal learning) takes place in controlled environs that can include classroom (face-to-face and virtual distance learning) and/or asynchronous on-line, self-paced events. Nothing wrong with any of these methods. Unfortunately, these formal events equate to a mere 5% (+/- depending on your industry) of a learner’s 1,080 hour work year – another Bersin research finding. That equates to about 54 hours per year spent in training.

Work context represents the other 95%. Are we spending 80% of our training dollars on only 5% of a learner’s work year? Work context, therefore, represents our greatest opportunity to leverage informal learning. In order to include the other 95%, it becomes important to include key attributes exclusive to the downstream work context where the learner actually performs their work.

Next time someone asks for the Return on Investment (ROI) of [social learning?] … I’ll kindly ask them to listen to @dmscott’s epic rant on ROI. via @jonhusband @elsua

One of the most effective mechanisms for knowledge transfer which has emerged in human history is the apprentice scheme. via @snowded

Highly ritualised in medieval times with the apprentice walking the boards once they had reached a certain level of competence to become Journeymen. Then, for some the execution of the master work to become one of the company masters. Dress changed at each stage as did obligation. The educational model was also community based. Journeymen also educated apprentices and were often better able to do so than the masters. While in the early stages of knowledge transfer there was a degree of rote learning, increasingly the apprentice learnt by practice and by tolerated failure. They did not copy the master, they adapted with variance and as such the body of knowledge progressed, it was not transferred as a static entity – something all too common in most KM [knowledge management] programmes – but as a living, breathing and changing practice.

@JaneBozarth “How did I miss this before? The fabulously articulate @quinnovator on bridging formal/informal learning.”

@BFchirpy to @JaneBozarth & @usablelearning “Re: Killer Learning Management System – it’s the web, silly.”

This is the first Friday’s Finds post of 2010, highlighting some of the things I learned on Twitter this past week. It follows 32 continuous weeks of Twitter summaries for 2009. I’ve decided to stop numbering these posts and will provide a title that highlights each week. Friday’s Finds posts will remain in the same category and I’ll keep on trying to post something each week.

Thanks to all of the readers who have added to the conversations here, either by writing their own blog posts, commenting, or tweeting. I now get as many visitors from Twitter as I do from Google searches. Friday’s finds have become part of my personal knowledge management system and this week I even found something on PKM:

60+ resources for Personal Knowledge Management. via @SteveBarth [add that to my PKM Bookmarks and you have a comprehensive resource list]

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Dr. Brian Arthur, in the book, The Nature of Technology, says that “… everything emerges out of technology. It’s technology that gives rise to both modern science and the economy, and we tend to think of it in reverse — that science gives rise to technology and the economy gives rise to technology. But technology is more fundamental than either one.” via @jaycross

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My next job in HR explains:

I could spend my time building an HR empire or I could do meaningful work so that an organization could function without me and without a bloated HR infrastructure. I don’t do bloat.

via @punkrockHR [This is the same approach I’ve recommended for learning & development professionals. You should constantly be trying to put yourself out of work. Maintaining a steady state in a complex environment is the same as going backwards. Teaching self-sufficiency in one area and then finding the next area that needs to be addressed is the only way to really support the organization].

Isn’t the preceeding approach better than this? “Just got e-mail advertisement for audio conference for HR/managers on “enforcing dress codes”. And y’all want to know what’s wrong with training?” @JaneBozarth

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(How) Would you use this critical thinking video? – “I’d suggest there is an inability of many teachers to reject the bias of their culture and upbringing in their own thinking, let alone to help students. In short, producing critical thinkers from classrooms is an impossible challenge with so many teachers lacking critical thinking.” @courosa in conversation with @cburell

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Aviation security: “Once a society starts circumventing its own laws, the risks to its future stability are much greater than terrorism”. via @afroginthevalley

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From “Inherit The Wind“, the loneliest feeling in the world. via @nomad411

Reminds me of this GapingVoid cartoon:

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Lots of interesting things on Twitter this past week:

Learning

Keith Lyons always illustrates his blog posts with great pictures, and this photo of a classroom outdoors (not sure where) resonated with many folks on Twitter and showed how happy we should be for what we have.

I was wrong: games ARE an alternative vision – Patrick Dunn. via @cliveshepherd

E-learning designers believe that people learn through “content”. They assume that encountering content will lead people to change their behaviour. Games designers believe that people learn through “experience”. They assume that having experiences – doing and feeling things – leads to change in behaviour.

CBC Spark: Interview with James Gee on video games & how we learn, questions, once again, our entire educational system. via @moehlert

Writing for Visual Thinkers: Eide Neurolearning –  Image: Man decorates basement with $10 worth of Sharpie:

Allen Tough: We found about 20% of all major learning efforts were institutionally organized … And the other 80% was informal. via @jaycross

Why various forms of science denial keep growing: The Dunning–Kruger effect

Working

20th century leadership is what’s stopping 21st century prosperity – The Builders’ Manifesto. via @robpatrob

Blogging Innovation: there is almost an inverse relationship between size and thought leadership in the consulting world. via @VanessaMiemis [my colleagues at the Internet Time Alliance concur]

Trusted Advisor: The Coming of Collaborative Capitalism. via @CharlesHGreen

Everybody is a Journalist: Supreme Court of Canada rules on defence of responsible communication. via @david_a_eaves

[From the decision on Grant vs Torstar Corp.] However, the traditional media are rapidly being complemented by new ways of communicating on matters of public interest, many of them online, which do not involve journalists.  These new disseminators of news and information should, absent good reasons for exclusion, be subject to the same laws as established media outlets.  I agree with Lord Hoffmann that the new defence is “available to anyone who publishes material of public interest in any medium”.

Best wishes to All

What I learned this past week on Twitter:

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The return on investment (ROI) on social learning consists of getting stuff done in networks & knowing who to contact. It requires trusted relationships which are social & take time to develop.

Social Learning leads to Social Intelligence which leads to Success. Why “Academic Excellence” No Longer Cuts It Today via @cburell

Web 2.0: A simple (working) definition. via @csessums

Web 1.0 = me
Web 2.0 = me + you

Web 1.0 = read
Web 2.0 = read + write

Web 1.0 = connecting ideas
Web 2.0 = connecting ideas + connecting people

Web 1.0 = search
Web 2.0 = recommendations of friends/others

Web 1.0 = find
Web 2.0 = share

Web 1.0 = techies rule
Web 2.0 = everybody rules

Picture: via @jalam1001

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“Pretty much all intranets are unusable. Like just about all workplace documentation. I think it’s ‘learned helplessness'” via @BFChirpy

If the Army Can Put Its Doctrine Up On a Wiki, You’ve Got No Excuse. via moehlert

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“There are NO JOBS TO GO BACK TO. Just as there was no village and rural work in 1840.” @robpatrob

What I learned this past week on Twitter:

Dale Arseneault: 8 things you need to know about collaboration. [I like #3 – Collaboration is a human process – throwing technology at people won’t magically/automatically create collaboration]

“I rated a YouTube video (5 out of 5 stars) — OPEN (episode 3).” via @euan [I followed the links and am now subscribed to This Week in Tech]

Social Learning: situation beats instruction. via @charlesjennings

Modeling the behavior of others plays an important role in the worldview of social learning theorists. People change their behavior to fit into a social group, to succeed in attaining membership. They imitate people they admire, to obtain the rewards such a person accumulates. Bill Clinton, for example admired JFK, who inspired him at their meeting when Mr. Clinton was 17.

The Future of Peer 2 Peer University

Accessing OER [open educational resources] does not automatically result in learning. There are reasons why traditional education institutions exist, one of these being the social interaction between peers that enables, facilitates, and motivates learning. But what about those that want to learn outside of brick and ivy walls? P2PU is an initiative outside of the traditional institution that aims to provide the social learning structures, the “social wrapper”, around existing open educational resources.

Shrunken communication in distributed teams – why loosely-connected social network access is important: small talk. via @mathemagenic

Jing now integrates with Twitter as this screenshot shows. via @1ernesto1

Derek Blunt: 21st Century skills do not exist; here are 9 skills that do. via @fredsheahan

Confirmed! Podcamp Halifax will be at the Alderney Gate Public Library on January 24, 2010: Commence wiki! via @RyanDeschamps

Weekly review of items of interest found on Twitter:

“As of today I will try to no longer use the word “copyright” but instead call it what it is, ‘Use Monopoly‘” @sleslie

Thinking clearly sometimes requires unbraiding our language. The word “copyright” may eventually seem as dubious in its embedded purposes as “family values,” “globalization,” and, sure, “intellectual property.” Copyright is a “right” in no absolute sense; it is a government-granted monopoly on the use of creative results. So let’s try calling it that—not a right but a monopoly on use, a “usemonopoly”—and then consider how the rapacious expansion of monopoly rights has always been counter to the public interest, no matter if it is Andrew Carnegie controlling the price of steel or Walt Disney managing the fate of his mouse. Whether the monopolizing beneficiary is a living artist or some artist’s heirs or some corporation’s shareholders, the loser is the community, including living artists who might make splendid use of a healthy public domain.

George Wald on The Origin of Death: a thought-provoking read, recommended by my 15 year old son.

From Social Networking to Swarm Intelligence – self-organizing systems and teams for unpredictable ecosystems. via @charlesjennings

The rise and fall of the professionalism of work: The inevitable rise of networked communications in organisations is deeply challenging to many of those currently in managerial positions. @euan

Then along comes the web. The web is about making better decisions faster. It is the evolution of knowledge on steroids. It cuts out the middle men and allows communication and learning to flow through and around the blocks in its way.

“Is it possible for bureaucracies to become more nimble? Or is it just contrary to their nature? When creating a #KM [knowledge management] bureaucracy, make routine only those things necessary for safety; keep everything else nimble & more free-form.” @VMaryAbraham

Jane Hart’s Guide to Social Learning (2 pages). via @c4lpt

Taxonomy of trainers: It seems trainers either ‘just know’ they make a difference or can’t find a way to prove it. via @charlesjennings

What I found of interest on Twitter this past week:

There is no point collecting common knowledge if it isn’t shared. There is no point sharing knowledge if it isn’t used. Jack Vinson

When you make the complicated simple you make it better. When you make the complex simple you make it wrong. Dave Gray

Does open source software drive open and transparent management? S+B makes the case. via @CharlesHGreen

The hierarchy-innovation trade-off via @nickcharney (he’s looking for discussion & debate on this).

One company at DevLearn 2009 reported an estimated savings of $3-5 million per year in linking global repair operations by using Yammer (private version of Twitter) via @lrnchat

Twittering the student experience via @jalam1001:

The academic departments involved in the study were so impressed with the affordances of Twitter that they have continued to use it in their pedagogic academic practices and plan to work with other bodies in the University such as the Students’ Union to promote the use of Twitter as a lightweight communication channel in the coming academic year.

“Within five years, textbooks will be the biggest market for e-book devices” Forrester Research via @charlesjennings

Australian guide to social e-learning in an academic context via @fdomon

Here’s a new social networking site dedicated to theatre: MITI Show Space This is one more Community in a Box that we’ll see more of as the internet becomes the medium for work, learning and co-operation.

Google Wave Cheat Sheet via @jsuzcampos

As part of my – sense-making, moving from tacit to explicit, sharing with others – PKM system, here’s what caught my attention via Twitter during the past week. This week, I’m going to focus more on what others found interesting, as there was a lot of traffic as a result of the LearnTrends conference. LearnTrends once again emphasized my perspective that Work is Learning and Learning is the Work.

#learntrends

Janet Clarey (@JClarey): “We need to help people get around in their network and learn from it, instead of building Communities of Practice.” via @rlohuis

Chris Hardy: “new technology plus old organization = costly old organization; need new biz models and plan DAU [defense acquisition university].” via @littleasklab

Deb Schultz: “Organizational learning will be about connecting the dots for content instead of creating the content.” via @rdeis

Jerry Michalski (@jerrymichalski): “Kids are naturally curious, traditional education suppresses it; ‘unschooling’ of adults brings curiosity back.” via @SuzNet

Gary Woodill (@gwoodill): “We only started to really use classrooms a lot in corporate training after the founding of ASTD in 1947.”

Danny McCraine (@dmccraine) “If we know the public school system is broken, why do we emulate it in a corporate environment?”

Comments from George Siemens’ (@gsiemens) Session:

“opens the whiteboard up to let participants create the agenda…whoa! crazy fun! ” @chambo_online
“Very intrigued to have 130 people writing on a whiteboard all at once at #learntrends … and amazingly, it didn’t suck” @cynan_sez
“130+ people writing on same Elluminate whiteboard and GWave also being completed. Online learning has arrived” @GillianP

Jay Cross (@jaycross): “Hallmark of Future Work. Past: Subject Matter Experts. Future: Subject Matter Networks” via @Melissa_Venable @rdeis

JimFolk (@JimFolk) “Agile networks > now agile learning #learntrends see concept of Edgility that I use.”

ScottSkibell (@ScottSkibell) “Wow, I never thought of training as a form of media. Many similarities to other industries. Some aren’t good.”

Jane Hart (@c4lpt): “Ask the [social networking group] how they will determine whether the community has been successful.” via @dmccraine

@mdkemmler “Interesting comment someone made – ‘Sharepoint is a creativity powervac'”

via @gwoodill Study on mobile phones/PDAs for informal learning – PDF

George Siemens (@gsiemens) “‘networks as cognitive agent’ – a useful professional phrase when explaining to the unconverted” via @GillianP

Let me sum up #learntrends: “context; agile; social; augmented; mobile; meta; networks; culture; CoP; 3d; virtual; systems” via @jadekaz

The Cost of Not Paying Attention to Culture & Social Learning

The CLO article on France Telecom’s toxic culture and how training was thought to be an effective way initiate culture change, raised many comments on its sheer folly [Training is a solution in search of a problem]:

Sometimes it takes a series of events so unfathomable for reality to truly hit home.

Just ask France Telecom. Since the beginning of 2008, 24 employees at the company have committed suicide and an additional 13 have attempted suicide. Many of these victims left suicide notes implying the company’s working environment was a key factor in their decisions — one even explicitly cited “overwork, stress, absence of training and the total disorganization in the company.” Some of the attempts occurred on France Telecom premises.

In September, the telecom giant announced the launch of a training program that will teach its 22,000 managers to recognize signs of depression. However, this reactive measure is akin to handing out first-aid kits. It addresses the symptom rather than the root problem: The organization’s culture is quite literally toxic, slowly suffocating its employees.