Work is learning. Learning is the work.
Informal learning
From the Twitter files this past week:
via @c4lpt – 10 Strategies for Integrating Learning and Work (part 3)
via @1ernesto1 – Cheater or Collaborator?
via @johnsgunn – Canadians have no legitimate expectation of privacy when they use the Internet
via @kdwashburn – Florida school boosts achievement by jettisoning textbooks
ROI:
Productivity in a Networked Era: Not Your Fathers ROI CLO article
I use the chasm model to explain my professional work of 1) seeing what is ready to cross the chasm by 2) staying connected to the innovators & being an early adopter so that 3) I can help mainstream organizations. It’s a good graphic summary of my consulting practice.
Five years ago I looked at a couple of models (Rogers & Gladwell) in the Dummies Guide to Change and came up with a model on how you might be able to effect a change in a population. It wasn’t tested, it was just an idea. One of the core ideas was the law of the few, or the notion that a few key types of people help to speed social communication. As Charlene Croft puts it [looking at how Twitter is used]:
Connectors are individuals who know lots of people and who use those connections to their advantage. Connectors are people who have invested in social, cultural and identity capital and who can convert those intangible resources into pretty much whatever they decide to.
Mavens are the senders and receivers of information. They are the people who always have the pulse on the good deals and breaking stories of the day. Mavens are the trendsetters and the people who you turn to to find out about this thing or that. Citizen Journalists are types of Mavens, often scooping the mainstream media in reporting “from the ground”
Salesmen are the persuaders of society. They are the people who dedicate a great deal of their lives to selling people on their ideas.
I figured that if you want to foster large-scale change in an organization or even a network, then you would:
I also figured that the Late Majority and the Laggards were not worth the effort, time and resources.
I’ve noticed that this is what has happened with some of the ideas that I’ve worked with in those five ideas. For example, informal learning in the organization was an idea five years ago. Jay Cross (maven) published one of the first business books on the subject in 2006 – Informal Learning. Many connectors, especially educational technology and business bloggers, took the idea and spread it. Then in 2009 we see it being discussed as the core idea of the ASTD opening keynote, and moving into the mainstream by several salespeople (vendors, service providers) looking for business opportunities.
This is just a working model but it may help in looking at how you can get your new ideas into the mainstream.
It seems that Twitter has been the only subject discussed here this week, so I promise to broaden the subject matter next week. Here’s my synthesis of some of what I learned on Twitter:
Business
A Good Way to Change a Corporate Culture via @johnt
John Hegel’s Shift Happens Redux via @jalam1001
“Just heard of several faculty who left research & teaching because of toxic workplaces” via @ellenfweber (related to my work at Mental Health @ Work)
Learning
100 Incredible Lectures from the World’s Top Scientists via @josiefraser @courosa
Questions on Informal Learning and the Future of Corporate Training via @fdomon
Top 10 Thinking Traps Exposed – How to Foolproof Your Mind, Part 1 via @denniscallahan
Food & Energy
(related to my volunteering with Sackville CSA)
Biggest seedmaker, Monsanto, to prune 900 jobs + does a drop in potash sales = less food? via @folkstone
Longest path between here & the truth is through a McDonalds PR campaign on sustainable agricultural practices. via @rhh
From the Twitter files:
The big news this week was the Iranian election and almost all of the news was via social media, as the broadcast media were shown to be powerless against the Iranian state, but not the people:
“This feels like Tiananmen. They fight for democracy, we watch, they die, we change the channel;” via @rhh
Rob Paterson picked up on this theme and asked “Is empowerment a point of view avoided by mainstream media? ;” I added, “and is empowerment a point of view that is embraced by social media?” via @robpatrob
“This is change of media: German main news show uses YouTube and Twitter for their report of Iran election.” via @hnauheimer
“University’s security & personnel evacuated by police, there are only us students in here right now” [frightening post from a student in Iran] via @Change_for_Iran
and of course many of us turned our avatars green in support of free elections in Iran
The Real ROI of Social Media: “But maybe we’re looking at the wrong ROI to start with – instead of return on investment, perhaps we should be more worried about the Risk of Ignoring.” via @fdomon
Skepticism about the whole “Net Generation” concept via @jclarey and a link to @markbullen and his Net Gen Skeptic blog
“Is it time to get rid of the Foreign Service designation?” This is a classic example of Tribal versus Network culture, and I’d wager that our foreign service needs a network culture in order to be effective today.
A Twitter-like policy on Twitter: “Our Twitter policy: Be professional, kind, discreet, authentic. Represent us well. Remember that you can’t control it once you hit “update.”“, via @kanter
I said that I’ve noticed Twitter is replacing comments and thus opening my blog posts up to a wider audience. “Is Twitter replacing blog comments? Possibly, says @judymartin8 and Twitter is driving my traffic up & more people are connecting inter-personally, not on blog.”
Excellent Friday viewing, YouTube video on educational reform, “Goodbye Butts in Chairs” via @jaycross
This week marked six years as a free-agent. I announced it on Twitter and received many kind words – thank you. Once again, my weekly sense-making from the Twitter files:
@ellenfweber “Since brains integrate knowledge naturally, while humans falsely separate facts artificially, integration is central to great learning.”
via @1ernesto1 – 50 Ways to Use Twitter in the College Classroom
“all our HR and org design theory is based on nothing but dogma“; which is why we badly need new organizational & management models
RT @zecool – NB Community College Fredericton relocates to the University of New Brunswick; expect more physical mergers in higher education as costs increase
via @charlesjennings – “When it’s just so obvious NOT to train it’s painful to watch it happen”
via @Pistachio How to be Happy in Business (Venn diagram) – Reminded me of another Venn diagram (your purpose) by @DavePollard
College/university education at the undergraduate level is now merely credential farming
10 simple things (SlideShare) we can do to change our food system
via @gbrettmiller Theoria cum Praxi » Cynefin, concept work, and the role of deliberate practice
In chaos we are forced to develop novel practices, therefore we need chaos for innovation; then from @nickcharney My favourite Nietzsche quote: “One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star”.
Scott Leslie has put together a number of media resources on the concept of the educator as disc jockey (DJ), including:
I like Scott’s diagram that looks at the flow of being an open educator. Flow is the operative term, because like digital media, everything is in Beta, constantly changing.
As hyper-connectivity breaks down the walls between institutions and specialists, like universities and professional teachers, so too are the lines blurring between teaching and learning online. The components of Flow for Open Educators are not all that different from what I’ve described as the flow of personal knowledge management for individuals:
As learning and working get integrated in our networked lives, we not only become lifelong learners but lifelong educators. Teaching and learning are part of the same continuum. Previously separate fields like knowledge management and learning design are being put into one great online digital blender. As Mark Pesce says during his presentation on The Power of Sharing, the only thing that a network can do is share (and it’s happening in ALL directions).
From the Twitter files;
Some thoughts, ideas & comments that caught my attention this week:
Canadians are being set up by music/movie lobby groups & our politicians in a rather cozy relationship it seems … Is there a connection between crappy broadband and minimal use of open source in Canada? via Michael Geist
It seems that our economy may transition from Markets, back to Tribes & bypass Networks completely: The End of Business [related to my post on networks & complexity]
via @skap5 Powerful reminder of the shift from an industrial era. GM employed 395,000 building cars in the 1970’s. After latest closings it’s 40,000. GM’s US market share declined from 45 to 19% from 1980 to today. Meanwhile via @techberry The only way to save GM is to kill GM – we must convert auto factories to mass transit: Michael Moore.
Quote from @swoodruff “Writing a social media consulting proposal for a potential biotech client. Contact came via Twitter. Return On Networking!” [who says Twitter is useless?]
via @VMaryAbraham “What produces results? Knowledge. Got it? No, then get it!” Content Management Connection
via @nineshift The rise of public places in Canada, and @scottstonehouse replies: “Right on. Just started telecommuting and I expect to be spending more time than ever at the public library.”
via @c4lpt The future is people, not technology – Jay Cross
via @derkdegeus The end of Intellectual Property
“Alan Kay shares a powerful idea about ideas” on TED Talks
Effective knowledge sharing is what many organizations do not do well, or as Lew Platt past-CEO of Hewlett-Packard said, “if only HP knew what HP knows, we would be three times more productive”. But HP will never know what the employees of HP know, so wouldn’t it be better to let the workers share what they know in the best way possible? That’s the key benefit of personal knowledge management, in my opinion. If each person can better manage knowledge creation and capture, then it becomes easier to share it.
For example:
Social bookmarks let me tag and search a wide array of bookmarks and by making them public they are shared with others, but through no extra effort on my part.
Writing this blog gives me a knowledge-base of my thoughts which become articles and presentations but in being public I find others who can add to my knowledge. I also make available information and perhaps knowledge that is useful to others.
By posting on Twitter I answer questions, share links and opinions and get to know others with similar interests, with the same effort as chatting in the office but with a much broader reach. On the Net, chance favours the prepared mind.
Just providing access to knowledge creation and capture tools is a relatively easy first step in moving the organization to Enterprise 2.0; an essential step in working in complex networks versus complicated markets. During the initial implementation of these tools, there is no need to talk about collaboration. Many Web 2.0 tools can be sold on their value to the individual. Let collaboration emerge from the individual practices of workers, most of whom want to do a better job anyway.
The powerful aspect of most Web 2.0 tools is that they are designed for knowledge-sharing as well. However, collaboration is difficult with the imposed barriers to communication created by Enterprise 1.0 IT policies. The major obstacle to social learning (and working) today is the IT department and it’s time that management takes back control of information sharing. This post was inspired by Dave Pollard’s practical guide to implementing Web 2.0 which gives more information on how to accomplish this.
Over several online and on-site presentations this past year, I’ve noticed a need for organizations to develop practical tools and contextual processes to manage information, knowledge and learning. I am offering a one-day workshop that encapsulates several years of “learning & working on the Web”.
One day (on-site or online)
Part 1: Overview of issues and forces that are fundamentally changing workplace learning
Part 2: Discussion & Examples from various fields
Part 3: Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) overview
Part 4: Setting up your own PKM system
References:
I am continuing to learn from Twitter. A real potpourri this past week:
The 140 character limitation of Twitter forced me to reduce the essence of this post to:
When faced with complexity: 1) organize as networks 2) continuously develop emergent practices 3) collaborate around common goals.
Pep rallies and tribalism make little sense in a networked world. via XKCD
“Quote du jour from Umair Haque: Record labels are caught in a prisoners dilemma, and the jailer is the RIAA.” via @dsearls
via @johnt – Enterprise 2.0 Knowledge Management – A Revolution of Knowledge in Three parts
via @statsgirl “poverty is the #1 risk factor for mental illness”
via @denniscallahan 3 reasons to try FriendFeed (I like reasons 2 & 3)