Informal Learning

Informal learning

learning in the network era

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This week I am reviewing my posts from 2015 and putting some of the core ideas together. Here are some thoughts on personal and social learning in the network era.

Training, and education, are often solutions looking for a problem. But good training and education can have a huge impact on behaviour and performance. Remember that great teacher who inspired you? Did you ever have a coach who got you to a higher level of performance? But throwing content at someone and hoping for learning to happen is not a good strategy. This is how far too many courses are designed and delivered.

More: 9-ways-to-improve-workplace-learning

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preparing for 2020

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This is a synopsis of my opening keynote for the workplace learning & VET stream at EduTECH15 in Brisbane today.

We cannot look at the 2020 workplace merely from the perspective of what will be different from today, as if these five years will pass in splendid isolation. How we think of work has changed over the millennia and one major factor has been our communications technologies. When communication changes, work does too, as well as our understanding of what is knowledge, and what it means to be knowledgeable.

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Networked Knowing

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I spoke at the UNL Extension conference in Nebraska last week. The theme was on the changing nature of work as we enter the network era and how learning is becoming integral to individual and organizational success. I noted how the period of 1900 to 1920 saw a significant shift in the American economy, with manufacturing replacing farming as the dominant economic activity. The resulting demographic shift was millions of men leaving farms and moving to factories.  The Cooperative Extension program was created in 1914 while this shift was taking place. One hundred years later and we are witnessing a similar shift, from the industrial economy to the network era and a creative economy. For a deeper look at this phenomenon, see Nine Shift.

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Organizational Learning in the Network Era

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W. Edwards Deming, American management visionary, understood that systemic factors account for most organizational problems, and changing these has more potential for improvement than changing any individual’s performance. Therefore the role of executives should be to manage the system, not individuals. But the real barrier to systemic change is hierarchical management, as it constrains the sharing of power, a necessary enabler of organizational learning. People have to trust each other to share knowledge, and power relationships can block these exchanges. Just listen to any boardroom meeting and see how power can kill a conversation. If learning is what organizations need to do well in order to survive and thrive, then structural barriers to learning must be removed.

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Ten Years, Ten Thoughts

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In compiling my ebook, Seeking perpetual beta: a guidebook for the network era, I tried to cover all the posts that resonated with readers, clients, and colleagues over a decade. Here are some highlights, representing one thought per year.

    1. Taking control of our learning is a challenge for individuals used to working inside hierarchies that demand conformity and compliance.
    2. The mainstream application of knowledge management and learning management over the past few decades was mostly wrong; we over-managed information, knowledge, and learning because it was easy to do.
    3. The basic structure of the job presumes common skills and the mechanistic view that workers can be replaced without disruption.

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seeking perpetual beta

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New! Purchase all five e-books, ‘seeking perpetual beta’ – ‘finding perpetual beta’ – ‘adapting to perpetual beta’ – ‘working in perpetual beta’ ‘life in perpetual beta’- for €29.

After 10 years of blogging here, I have compiled my best posts into an ebook. It’s called Seeking perpetual Beta: a guidebook for the network era. Instead of digging through over 2,500 posts on this site, now you can read a cohesive narrative that covers learning, working, and managing in the emerging network era. This ebook is the result of a decade of seeking, sense-making, and sharing knowledge on the Web.

“the best $25 you’ll ever spend on yourself” – Susan Scrupski

“One of the best purchases you’ll do this year!” – Luis Suarez

“masterful synthesis of 10 years of blogging about networks” – Jon Husband

“Harold knows just how to harness the power of equal, open collaboration in the networked economy.” – Ian Chew

Scroll down to read the introduction and table of contents.

Back on sale by popular demand, seeking perpetual beta is available for $20.

Introduction

The following essays are abridged and updated posts as well as combinations of posts made over the course of a decade. When I started my blog, I had three categories: learning; work; and technology. Today there are many others, as my professional interests have expanded and changed. My perspective on work and learning has been one of perpetual Beta, which also could be called strong beliefs, loosely held. Alpha is a mindset of pumping out flavour of the month drivel. Beta is more than Alpha, as you have to affirm to principles and actually commit to something, while remaining open to change. I have been observing the signs and indicators of the shift to the network era for the past decade. These articles have stood the test of time, and have been refined and discussed many times in order to be suitable for Beta.

The Network Era

The fundamental nature of work is changing as we transition into the network era. Creative work is beginning to dominate industrial work as we shift to a post- job economy. The major driver of this change is the automation of routine work, especially through software, but increasingly with robots. Valued work is in handling exceptions, dealing with complex problems, and doing customized tasks.

The products of this work are often intangible and not physical. As a result, our industrial work structures need to change. Organizations have to become more networked, not just with information technology, but in how workers create, use, and share knowledge.

The workplace of the network era requires a different type of leadership; one that emerges from the network as required. Effective leadership in networks is negotiated and temporary, according to need. Giving up control will be a major challenge for anyone used to the old ways of managing. An important part of leadership will be to ensure that knowledge is shared throughout the network.

Learning is a critical part of working in a creative economy. Being able to continuously learn, and share that new knowledge, will be as important as showing up on time was in the industrial economy. Continuous learning will also disrupt established hierarchies as no longer will a management position imply greater knowledge or skills. Command and control will be replaced by influence and respect, in order to retain creative talent. Management in networks means influencing possibilities rather than striving for predictability. We will have to accept that no one has definitive answers anymore, but we can use the intelligence of our networks to make sense together.

The shift to the network era will not be easy for many people and most organizations. Common assumptions about how work gets done will have to be discarded. Established ways of earning education credentials will be abandoned for more flexible and meaningful methods. Connections between disciplines and professions are growing and artificial boundaries will continue to crack. Systemic changes to business and education will happen. There will be disruption on a societal level, but we can create new work and learning models to help us deal with this next phase in human civilization. The statistician George Box wrote that, “essentially all models are wrong, but some are useful”. We will never know unless we try them out.

Table of Contents

(65 pages for tablet version)

Introduction

1. THE NETWORK ERA
The Changing Nature of Work
Complication: The Industrial Disease
A Networked Market Knows More
Job is a Four-letter Word
Knowledge Artisans
Working Socially
Figure 1 The Connected Enterprise
Tapping the Creative Surplus

2. WORK IS LEARNING & LEARNING IS THE WORK
PKM and the Seek > Sense > Share Framework
Figure 2 PKM = Seek > Sense > Share
PKM and Competitive Intelligence
PKM and Innovation
Managing Organizational Knowledge
Training and Complex Work
Narrating Our Work
Collaborate to Solve Complex Problems

3. LEADING & MANAGING IN NETWORKS
Network Thinking
Figure 3 Trust Emerges Through Openness and Transparency
The Connected Enterprise
The Knowledge Sharing Paradox
Managing Automation
Flip the Office
Connected Leadership
Figure 4 Connected Leadership

4. THE GLOBAL VILLAGE
Figure 5 Organizing Characteristics
Figure 6 TIMN (David Ronfeldt)
Figure 7 Tetrad of a Networked Society

Colophon

Layout and design by Tantramar Interactive

The CEO will be the next CLO

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Chief Learning Officers will be the next CEO’s say John Hagel and John Seely Brown, in this short video from Deloitte. I disagree, because I do not see business leadership coming from Organizational Development, Human Resources, or Training & Development. I think it will be much easier, and more important, for business leaders to understand the significance of learning in the workplace. Even Adidas has adopted my adage that today, work is learning and learning is the work.

A well-rounded CEO can more easily become the CLO than vice versa. In addition, the generalists are already in charge. Often, the learning professionals are not core to the business. So where will learning leadership come from? I think it will come from business, and that is where I am focusing my efforts, helping business understand workplace learning, not helping learning professionals understand business.

If business is waking up to the fact that learning is now mission critical, will executives continue to allow learning policy to reside in a separate department? Will they will let learning professionals maintain sole control? I doubt it.

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2497 and counting

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Do you think you will still be working, in some capacity, in 10 years? What will you have learned during that decade? Will you remember much of it? Will you have access to reminders and artifacts that could jog your memory? Perhaps you need an outboard brain.

freedomisblogginginyourunderwearYesterday marked 10 years of blogging here at jarche.com. This is post # 2,497. That’s a lot of words, concepts, and half-baked ideas. For example, I have the flow (148 posts to date) of my thoughts on personal knowledge management since my first post in 2004. The Seek > Sense > Share framework emerged in 2010. I have also developed ideas around the knowledge-sharing paradox; how our work structures drive sociopathic behaviours; and management in networks. These thoughts continue to evolve and provide the raw material for more refined posts like how to help the network make better decisions, or longer whitepapers for my clients.

Everyone talks about change today, and how people will have many careers and vocations through their working lives. Company lifespans are decreasing and losing your job is becoming a rather common, but unfortunate, occurrence. Having a blog, a public presence to share ideas, enables you to grow a professional network beyond your organization’s walls. It can provide useful insights while you have a job, and connect you to people who can help you if you need to look for new work. Given the usefulness of blogs, it’s amazing that many professionals still cannot be bothered with them.

My business would not exist without my blog. Period.

Note that I live in Sackville, New Brunswick, Canada; population 5,000. I am 1,000 km away from the closest internationally recognized city (Boston or Montreal). Even our timezone is unknown to many people. Without my blog, nobody would ever have heard of me. My speaking engagements are an indication of the reach my blog has provided. Finally, thanks to Automattic for making WordPress, which I adopted in 2006, and it made my online life much simpler.

 

PKM and MOOC

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Workplace training and education too often resemble modern playgrounds:

“safe, repeatable, easily constructed from component parts, requiring that the child bring little of their own to the experience” – Johnnie Moore

When adults design for children they have a tendency to dumb things down. Perhaps the notion that there is no such thing as writing for children should be extended to workplace training and education design. In the workplace, thinking of co-workers as “learners” actually may be a barrier to learning.

The real value of the MOOC (massively open online course/content) could be its potential to remove the barrier between learners, designers, and instructors. Its workplace learning potential may be greater than its academic value. But if one thinks of the MOOC as a course, designed by one party for another party, then it really is nothing new.

“Indeed, I was struck by a recent comment from someone with 15 years of experience in designing face-to-face, blended and online credit programs: I am trying to understand what MOOCs can offer that my understanding of educational design, learning design and online and distance education does not include. I’m afraid that the answer continues to be: ‘Nothing’, at least for the moment.” – Tony Bates

But the MOOC can foster emergent learning, which makes it an optimal form for understanding complex issues. This is something that a curriculum-based, graded, course is not well suited to support. With the MOOC, especially one focused on being massive and open, there is a greater possibility for serendipitous connections, such as what happened with participants becoming instructors in the early MOOC we conducted in 2008.

If we think of the MOOC as a vehicle for shared understanding, and not content delivery, it becomes the collective equivalent to personal knowledge mastery. It is group learning, with some structured content, and good facilitation; but most importantly, space for sense-making. In the complex domain, combining PKM with more structure for social learning, using the MOOC format, can be an important addition to how workplace learning is supported.

Update: several possibilities for corporate MOOC’s from Donald Clark.