Informal Learning

Informal learning

Launch and Learn

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Jay Cross is currently focusing on the ROI of organisational learning initiatives and debunking some of the myths and metrics. His notes from the CLO Symposium include this:

Jayne Johnson, director of Leader Development for GE at Crotonville, delivered the final keynote presentation. Someone asked how she measured the on-going effectiveness of Crotonville; she doesn’t. As for cost-justification in advance, no, GE believes in “launch and learn.” Experiment a lot, and keep what works.

The notion of launch and learn reminds me of the cynefin approach to complex environments:

The cynefin framework looks at five domains (the 5th is Disorder) and it shows how our reliance on backward-looking tools, such as best practices, is not a suitable strategy for complex environments:

Complex, in which the relationship between cause and effect can only be perceived in retrospect, but not in advance, the approach is to Probe – Sense – Respond and we can sense emergent practice.

Probe-Sense-Respond (P-S-R) is similar to GE’s Launch-Learn approach. When no one can understand the vagaries of your situation in a changing, complex environment then the only thing to do is try out new things based on your best judgement then watch, learn and keep trying new things out. Effective organisational practices will emerge by doing things.

This is the big challenge for Web 2.0 for learning professionals as well. There are no best practices or even good practices. There are things that work for some people, some of the time. As learning professionals, our job is to understand our organisation or client’s situation and look outside to see what others are doing. We have to try things out and see how they work. If we wait for the best practices, we will be too late. This is life in continual Beta (change) and the natural world provides some good examples.

Work Literacy and a Storm of New Information

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We announced the WL – Web 2.0 for learning professionals online course yesterday and now have over 100 people signed up after one day. This is a six week (or is that six step?) program, covering the basics of Web 2.0 tools and methods, with room for the more experienced to join in and add their expertise to the mix. I’m pretty excited to have all these interesting folks decide to join us. Perhaps it was the price tag? (FREE)

As I was preparing for this online stint, I looked for an image that might convey what we’re trying to achieve. I came across Dave Gray’s sketch, Rain on the landscape of the mind,  on Flickr and thought it was perfect for our endeavour [thanks to Dave for letting me share it]:

A storm of new information passes over the mind – a flurry of activity can bring chaos, excitement, energy, and create the conditions for new ideas – new life – to come into being.

I’m looking forward to Monday …

Who do you trust on the Web?

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BBC News reports on Tim Berners-Lee’s warning about trust on the Internet and the fact that unfounded rumours, such as those about the LHC, grow very quickly:

Sir Tim told BBC News that there needed to be new systems that would give websites a label for trustworthiness once they had been proved reliable sources.

Sir Tim and his new foundation are looking at ways to rate trustworthiness on the Web with something like Google Page Rank. I’m not sure that an external evaluation tool is really necessary and in the meantime each of us can have our own system. I know that I do.

I have developed relationships with:

  • people whom I know personally and trust
  • people with whom I connect on the Web who are consistently trustworthy in what they publish online (at least they admit their mistakes)
  • sources of information that are consistent and I have learned to trust at some level

Quite often I will check on a piece of information before writing about it. Google Search shows me what is being served up on the subject and Technorati tells me who’s blogging about it. I can send out a quick question on Twitter and that network may have some more information.

If I want to check the trustworthiness of a piece of information, I have many options. I can even blog about it –  and we know that there is no greater urge known to humankind than to correct someone who is wrong on the Internet. I’m sure I’ll be told that I’m wrong and then I can make a note about this on my original post and voilà, the Internet is fixed once again ;-)

We have many of the tools that we need to check sources and make sure that we are not being duped. Perhaps we lack the techniques and the motivation to do so. I hope that the next generation finds it more natural to think critically than our television generation does.

Edge Thinking

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The video of John Seely Brown on edge thinking is worth 15 minutes of your time.

JSB discusses the concept of workscapes (reminds me of Jay’s learnscape) and foresees that all managers will need general HR skills and that management will evolve over time to a coaching role. He also tells about how things changed when he became a free-agent after decades at XEROX-PARC. Within a year, JSB was more connected and had a more dynamic network than ever, and he credits social Web tools for this. The Web is a great place for do-it-ourselves learning and JSB sees work and learning becoming integrated [this is my own area of most passionate professional interest]. One example of the Web reducing the need for training is an older programmer learning new languages and techniques. He says that he just types in the exact programming error message in Google and instantly gets the performance support he needs.

Photo: Living on the Edge by Giant Ginkgo

I’m currently working on combining my last posts on The T&D Role and Learning & Performance into a more integrated article. JSB’s work, plus concepts like Wirearchy and Cynefin are starting to come together in my mind. I want to focus on the practicalities of creating a better workplace for a networked world, as many of the frameworks are already out there waiting to be implemented.

Seen in passing

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I haven’t been posting much this Summer but I’ve taken some time to catch up on my reading and my social bookmarks are growing. Here are some items that have caught my interest:

Ma.gnolia, a social bookmark service, goes open source

Three ingredients to building your global microbrand

Whatever happened to performance support?

The Lifecycle of Emergence – Networks, CoP’s and systems of influence

Blog Metrics; for those who need to see ROI

LearnNB President calls for Humility

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I’ve been involved in some way with LearnNB since its inception in 2003. For the most part, it’s been very much a maintenance of the status quo kind of professional/industrial association. There have been some interesting conferences but the association has produced few tangible results.

I worked as a paid contractor for LearnNB this Spring, after a long arm’s-length relationship (some of which I explained in Rx for NB Learning). The main reason I took on this contract was because of the integrity of Kathy Watt, President of LearnNB. In her latest message, Kathy addresses some real issues facing those of us in the workplace.

Think about this: professional management was born from the desire to optimize and control, not to lead waves of change. You may be familiar with the names of a couple of fathers of modern management theory, Frederick Taylor and Henry Ford. “Oh, not us,” you may say. “Just last year the whole senior management team spent two brain-numbing days tearing apart the strategic plan with the sole purpose of renewing leadership and thus, heightening innovation within our organization.” Dr. Phil’s now well-worn question is still appropriate, “So, how’s that workin’ for ya?’

Her advice includes this – “... we need to experience some personal and professional humility, and admit that we don’t really know how to solve some of the complex challenges that we are facing.”

This is a very refreshing perspective and I hope that others take up the conversation and see what we can do when we discuss our issues openly and candidly.

SocialLearn

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Yesterday, I attended Martin Weller’s presentation on SocialLearn, hosted by George Siemens, with the recording now available online. SocialLearn is a project of The Open University and takes Weinberger’s concept of small pieces loosely joined and applies it to higher education. I wrote about Small (learning) pieces loosely joined three ago and have long been a proponent of getting outside the LMS box set of constraints. In the case of SocialLearn, I think that they have the right concept for social learning on the Web and now have to clarify their own business model (yes, even universities must have business models).

The basic model is to provide the interface (API) that enables learners to connect with other systems and platforms. This strategy allows the “connector agency”, in this case the university, to quickly adopt new applications as they are used by students and teachers. Check out the diagrams on the SocialLearn blog for examples.

I see this approach as enabling critical thinking tools for each learner, as the situation warrants, and I strongly support this model.

Changing the role of The Open University from main content and application provider to a more facilitative role, with constantly changing technologies, will require a new business model and that is what Martin and his peers are looking at. The real money in higher education has almost always been around certification. That’s why Harvard can charge more, because Harvard certification is worth more on the market. Universities charge more than community colleges and for the most part, on-line degrees aren’t valued as much in-place ones. Certification, or how many degrees are granted, also drives the funding model for many state-subsidized institutions. Control the valued certification and you control the money flow. Just remember that the market may change its mind on what is valued.

Here is an excerpt from a proposal that Rob Paterson and I wrote this year:

Organizations that are decisively moving to the web are doing well. For example, iTunes is the second largest music store in the world, and the BBC have so much action online now, that some ISP’s in the UK are having bandwidth problems. NPR in the US is decisively moving to the Web and has a number of pilots out in the market and tools in development. Organisations that only partially moved to the open Web are doing less well – Barnes & Noble is really a bookstore with a web presence that fears that if its web presence was successful it would damage its store business.  The New York Times has the same issue. It has more web subscribers than paper subscribers but all its costs are tied into the paper. The music business tried to stop downloading and to hold onto bundling where its main revenues were derived. But in working to protect its current model it killed its future.

This is the problem. In this revolution, the old model is where the current revenues are located. Going to the new has to threaten this model. So leaders in the old hesitate or act half heartedly. They cannot put the new inside the old.

The answer to this paradox is to locate the new in a separate unit and to go after customers who are not served by the current model. This way you can hold onto the value of your existing franchise for as long as possible while building up the new in parallel.

Perhaps the best way for SocialLearn to go forward is to create a completely new playing field for the millions of non-consumers of higher education and become the de facto leader in a new space, much as the OU did in the 1960’s. It will be interesting to see if there is room for several players in this space and who else is moving into it.

Learning professionals as first responders

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When I was in the Canadian Forces Medical Services much of my work was in preparation for mass casualty situations, such as would happen in a conflict. Hospitals and medical personnel train for mass casualty situations because the rules are a bit different from the standard admission process. You are overwhelmed with casualties and the system cannot treat everyone as they would like or need. Priorities are set. An important role is that of triage [from the French verb “to sort” – Processus de prise de décision utilisé sur les lieux d’une urgence et servant à classer les victimes selon les priorités de soins – Grand dictionnatre terminologique].

I was thinking that triage is good metaphor for learning today. We are inundated with information and sources of knowledge. Learning professionals can help sort the signal from the noise by understanding the current circumstances of the organisation and do an initial triage. Of course the situation will be changing so what was important yesterday may not be important tomorrow. Only by constantly looking outside and inside will the learning professional provide a valuable service.

So if anyone asks why you’re reading 100 Web feeds and checking out the chat on Twitter and Facebook, tell them you’re doing triage.

PKM – Personally Managing Your Knowledge

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Note: More recent version here.

This post marks my first direct link to the newly created Work Literacy site.

Learning is an individual activity that often happens with and is supported by others. We may learn on our own but usually not by ourselves. Unless we live on a desert island, we learn socially. In looking at how we can make sense of the growing and changing knowledge in our respective professional fields (e.g. Pluto is no longer a planet), I see two parallel processes that support each other. One is internally focused, as in “How do I learn this?” and the other is external, as in “With whom can I learn this?”.

Internally, we go through a process of looking at bits of information and try to make sense of it by adding to our existing knowledge or testing out new patterns in our sense-making efforts. The process I have developed for myself is to:

  • Sort,
  • Categorize,
  • Make Explicit, and
  • Retrieve

I have called this my Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) system, a term that is not original to me, and is based on the work of many others. There are also three externally focused activities that I believe complement our internal learning. These are to Connect, Exchange and Contribute. These internal and external activities are a way of moving from implicit to explicit knowledge by observing, reflecting and then putting tentative thoughts out to our “community”.

In the interest of not having an enormously lengthy blog post, the rest of this article is attached as a 5 page PDF. It elaborates each of the processes and describes some of the tools available. This is an extension of an earlier post, PKM – My Best Tool. Please feel free to share it.

Attached Document:

pkm-inside-outside

Performance, training, education and learning

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Updated 31 May

This thread starts with a presentation by Clark Quinn, which includes an examination of what he calls ePerformance tools. I think Clark’s work adds some clarification to the field and I agree with the intent to move away from the all-encompassing “learning” word, which is overused and misused.

Tony Karrer picks up on the ePerformance theme and notes:

I like the way he [Clark] stepped through the transition from thinking in terms of courses to thinking about broader uses of technology to support performance. His terminology around elements of what goes into ePerformance is a bit different than what I discussed in the learning circuits articles. The concepts are fairly similar.

This is followed by Stephen Downes take on the subject:

The main benefit of a term like ‘ePerformance’ for employers, I would say, is that there is no chance that learners will think that there is any intrinsic value to themselves in the transaction. Because if they did, then they would want to own the process, which is totally not what corporate e-learning is about.

I disagree with Stephen because a move toward performance and away from learning as the main objective of organisational interventions is much clearer. Performance is measurable, whereas learning is much fuzzier. organisations may say that they promote a learning culture, but all they really do is offer training. Sticking to performance also keeps the organisations out of the learning area

A performance-oriented intervention is focused on some type of desired performance that is made clear to both the organisation and the worker. The organisation wants stuff done and wants to be able to measure it. The worker wants to be able to show that it has been done and in return there is a financial transaction.

A focus on performance does not preclude organisation-sponsored learning activities. Many learning activities are obviously beneficial to the organisation, but usually not in an obvious and direct manner. Of course individual learning should be encouraged in the modern workplace where much knowledge work can not be finitely described in performance terms. But a focus on performance would have the advantage of avoiding “fire and forget” training/learning activities that waste everyone’s time.

There are many types of work performance that can be supported through tools, processes, incentives, training or other methods. A performance approach helps to ensure that what is done by the organisation is related to something that is articulated as beneficial to the organisation and the work that is done there. Human performance technology methods are one way of looking at these.

Learning is something that should be supported, but for the most part directed by the individuals. People who are not used to directing their learning will need support. I liken learning to morale. You cannot create an intervention, such as training, that will increase morale. Neither can you make people learn. You can have a work environment that supports individual learning, and there is no shortage of evidence that shows that this is good for the organisation as a whole.

My own working definitions of these terms [these are not robust, dictionary definitions, but just my own way of putting each term], which I often discuss here and with clients are:

Performance – something measurable and observable to achieve an agreed-upon objective.

Performance Support – tools and processes that support the worker in the desired performance, including, but not limited to, job aids.

Training – an external intervention, designed only to address a lack of skills and/or knowledge.

Education – a process with its main aims of socialization, a search for truth and/or the realisation of individual potential.

Learning – an individual activity, though often within a social context, of making sense of our experiences.

This means that training does not directly equate to performance improvement. Well-designed and conducted training can increase skills and knowledge if the individual is motivated and has the requisite abilities. So I would say that performance can be defined at the organisational level and training can be conducted by organisations. On the other hand, education is a social activity, usually run by the state or a non-for-profit institution. Learning remains an individual activity, with all of the variables of the human experience and much less clearly defined or controlled.

Organisations should get out of the learning business and focus on performance. Organisations can direct performance but they should only support learning. Individuals should be directing their own learning.