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.
Learning
Learning
Autonomous learners
When was the last course you took? How about e-learning? When was it designed? Was it current? Did it reflect your current reality? Was it useful?
One of the limitations of instructional design is the assumption that a program can be designed and built based on the initial specifications. Assuming you know everything at the start of a complex development project is rather arrogant. Arrogance is believing that the perfect system can be engineered on the first try.
Visualization for Understanding
When NASA released the photograph of the earth as seen from space, known as the blue marble, it gave new impetus to the environmental movement, showing our planet as a small dot in a black void. Seeing is believing. Visualization can be a very powerful tool in sharing complex knowledge. The visualization of social network analysis (SNA) can give us significant new perspectives, not available from looking at a series of data points. For instance, Valdis Krebs examined data on the trust levels of various news sources around the world and how these were perceived by ideological groups.
The data table originally provided by PEW Research Center tell part of the story, but the SNA conducted by Valdis clearly shows how conservative media are completely separate from all other media. A similar study of pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian news outlets showed that only one was trusted by both sides, but Haaretz.com is getting squeezed by taking a moderate position. Seeing this polarization may help to understand it.
our education system stumbles into the future
It’s back to school time and education issues come to the fore with a provincial election in a few weeks. According to a local professor, the New Brunswick education system is too centralized — but it’s not just education. Addressing the problems of centralization is an issue with all established institutions as we shift from an industrial to a networked economy. First we might look at the underlying premises of the current system. According to SFU Professor Kieran Egan, in The Educated Mind, three premises compete for attention in our public education systems:
- education as socialization
- education as a quest for truth (Plato)
- education as the realization of individual potential (Rousseau)
reflecting on reflection
Missing from most workplaces today is any time for reflection. Even events that are designed to promote learning, like the ubiquitous professional conference, ignore time for reflection. In these discrete time-based events, there is little time for reflection. Presenters hold back their knowledge in order to ‘deliver’ it just before the big official presentation. This presentation is followed by some immediate questions, discussions, and a quick break. Then it’s off to see the next presentation. Reflection, if it occurs, comes much later, and usually after the participants have gone home. It’s the same at work.
It seems that most of us are in a hurry today, and I meet few people who have read even a few good books lately and have had the time to reflect upon them. Fewer still have taken the time to digest new ideas and discuss their learning with others. There is always a need to balance action and reflection, but the latter seems to be losing out in many of our workplaces.
My Top Tools 2014
Jane Hart compiles a list every year of the Top 10 Tools for learning. Voting closes on 21 September.
Here are my top tools this year, with last year’s position shown in brackets. I have also annotated these tools as to what part of my PKM practice they connect with: SEEK > SENSE > SHARE
If you want to foster change, stay out of training
In the mid 1990’s I served as a Training Development Officer working with tactical aviation (helicopters that support the Army). We had just purchased 100 helicopters plus a full motion combat simulator and my office was next to the simulator, which I watched as it was installed, tested, and used. My work also involved writing papers to justify the use of other simulators, such as cockpit procedure trainers and maintenance trainers. One of the papers I wrote examined how we needed to develop an integrated approach to specifying what type of simulation, or emulation, was most suitable for the training task. For example, teaching start-up and shut-down sequences does not require a full-motion simulator, as the actual task occurs while the aircraft is on the ground. It does require switches, gauges, and dials that act like the real things though. I suggested creating a decision support tool that looked at both physical and functional fidelity, and integrating this into the training system documentation. Without such a documented process, decisions to purchase +$25 million simulators would continue to made on a best-guess basis.
a compass for the big shift
Participation in knowledge flows can generate new insights and practices and improve performance in ways that also yield learning and new capabilities.
This thinking extends from the individual up into the organization and beyond, into the ecosystem. Not just how can we learn, but how can we learn faster? We’re still early in the Big Shift, but if we can figure this out, we create an environment of increasing returns, expanding opportunity, and more value for everybody. —Why learning is the only sustainable response to the increasing pressures of the Big Shift
Personal knowledge mastery (PKM) is a discipline of seeking from diverse knowledge sources, actively making sense through action and experimentation, and sharing through narration of work and learning out loud. PKM is a critical business skill to address what John Hagel describes in the Shift Index:
The ability to participate in and learn from knowledge flows, often through technology, will be critical for success for individuals, organizations, and ecosystems.
The skills gap is a learning gap
Continuous learning, lifelong learning, learning organizations, and constant learning – terms we hear every day about the changing nature of the workplace. We don’t even know what skills to prepare for, but most people agree that we all need to keep on learning if we wish to remain relevant at work, in our professions, or in life. Just watch how new technology is adopted by people of my age. It can be painful.
With technology accelerating change in the marketplace and automation replacing highly skilled workers with robots, the decision to invest in any particular set of skills is far from obvious. Empty platitudes about “upgrading skills” and “investing in our people” will not suffice. We need to start thinking seriously about viable strategies to manage the skills gap. – Digital Tonto
Revolutionalize Learning & Development
Work is learning and learning is the work, says Clark Quinn. I agree.
Clark gives a clear path forward for today’s learning and development profession on the cusp of revolution or extinction in his latest book. Revolutionize Learning & Development is required reading for anyone involved in training, instruction, or corporate education. I have known Clark for many years and in this book he makes the case for change very clear. He maps the path to align learning with work. If learning is the solution to the business situation, then this book will explain how to make it so.