Here are some words of wisdom, gleaned from Twitter this past week.

Knowledge

@snowded: Narrative as Mediator:

Without the mediation of narrative there can be no knowledge transfer or learning.
Without the symbolic, learning will not diffuse to broad populations & there will be no advance.
Without embodied knowledge there will be no wisdom.

@ken_homer “The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.” ~ Hans Hofmann

@exectweets “Knowledge has to be improved, challenged, and increased constantly, or it vanishes.” – Peter Drucker

Learning

@mfrancone A single conversation across the table with a wise man is worth a month’s study of books ~ Chinese proverb

@valdiskrebs: Social learning -> You are as smart as the network you are embedded in!

@eduinnovation: “You weren’t born to be a cog in the giant industrial machine. You were TRAINED to become a cog.” ~ Seth Godin | via kdwashburn

@mglazer: Myth: the “training dept” is responsible for the learning that goes on at the company.

@zecool Nous sommes comme dans un mega-buffet mais chacun a 1 assiette seulement; il ne faut prendre que ce qu’on aime, pas tous les plats!

@jarche [result of a conversation with @janebozart & @denniscallahan] “When you learn with and from your customers, learning and marketing are the same.”

@BFchirpy Next step in Informal/Social Learning? If you want to cut out the middle man, go direct to your customers.

Working

More Trust Yields More Innovation via @CharlesHGreen

HBR: To be effective in this new world, you will need to master the skills of empathy & teamwork.

@jackvinson: PKM [personal knowledge management] in the enterprise? It’s all about the enterprise recognizing the importance of individuals getting work done.

@sebpaquet Thought-provoking quote … “The more numerous the laws, the more corrupt the government.” – Cornelius Tacitus (56-117 A.D.)

Here are some of the interesting things I learned on Twitter. This week I’m featuring my colleagues at the Internet Time Alliance.

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I remarked earlier in the week that “crowds don’t need wise contributors, but diverse & independent ones; it’s like evolution: simple mechanisms create complexity.”

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We learn through idle chatter, so it seems (via @shareski):

@charlesjennings

“if it’s social & engaged there is no us & them, only we”

“It’s not the channel that empowers or dis-empowers the learner. It’s the presence or absence of the ‘course and curriculum’ chains”

“True knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing” – Socrates

@c4lpt (Jane Hart)

The Changing Face of Learning & Development

Leapfrog to the Future

@jaycross

“I think of crowd sourcing as tapping the wisdom of the crowd, not getting one idea by asking a large group.”

Go straight to the finish line

Jay’s book on working/learning smarter in the cloud

@Quinnovator (Clark Quinn)

Innovation’s Long Gestation

“lesson from Twitter (for web, mobile design), you don’t *need* full sentences, you DO need to communicate”

“as my colleague @hjarche says, “increasingly, work is learning and learning is work” [yes, I already knew that]

@jonhusband

The HR Problem: the traditional organization is a machine and we are human

The Problem with the Data-Information-Knowledge-Wisdom Hierarchy

The temporary and flexible hierarchies of Fishnet Organizations

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and I also learned that “eMail Is Where Knowledge Goes to Die” via @elsua

Some of the interesting things I found on Twitter this past week.

How we teach:

“Any teacher who can be replaced by a computer …. should be!” — Arthur C. Clarke. via @charlesjennings

@moehlert: “My son, the not-so-excited about math, won’t quit playing carrotsticks.com”

Video: “Most schooling is training for stupidity & conformity” ~ Noam Chomsky. via @courosa

What we can teach:

Educators beware: The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement #ACTA. via @josiefraser

The treaty would provide legal protection for digital locks and security protection on material, provisions that draw upon the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DCMA), but extend far beyond existing international law. As some American teachers and researchers have learned the hard way, these so-called “anti-circumvention” measures have had the unintended consequence of stifling scientific research. Since the DCMA has been in force, a number of computer scientists researching software and network security have faced lawsuits and criminal prosecution as a result of their legitimate research activities into anti-circumvention technologies.

Wherever Crown Copyright would be used, Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) would be used instead. Copyright Consultation via @mgifford

RIP Howard Zinn:

Howard Zinn passed away this week:

A People’s History: what the classroom didn’t teach me about the American empire, by Howard Zinn

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