PKMastery – Page 7 – Harold Jarche

still standing and learning

2020-10-27 by Harold Jarche

I spent the first 21 years of my working life with a regular pay cheque, lots of formal training, and a fairly regular schedule. Leaving the Army I worked at a university and a few years later for an e-learning startup. In 2003 I found myself without an office or a pay cheque and few prospects for local work. It was a similar situation to what many people faced this Spring with lock downs and job losses due to the pandemic.

After 17 years of distributed work, remote informal learning, and connecting with clients via video conferencing I think I have learned a bit about the ‘new normal’ many people are now facing. One early experience was running the Informal Learning Unworkshop online with Jay Cross, which cemented the idea of perpetual beta in my work.

Harold Jarche is a true pioneer. Nine years ago [2005], long before online activities were commonplace, we conducted a series of Unworkshops on the topic of web-based learning. We relied on free software. Our students came from Australia, Lebanon, Canada, Austria, the Azores, and points in between. Lessons were both synchronous and offline. To give people exposure, we used a different platform each week. I can’t imagine anyone (aside from Harold) crazy (and innovative) enough to sign up for something like this.” —Jay Cross (1944-2015), founder Internet Time Alliance

cynefin and pkm

2020-11-022020-10-21 by Harold Jarche

I am following up from thoughts on the cynefin framework and how it has informed my own work since 2007. We are almost at the end of our exploratory looking at ways in which personal knowledge mastery and cynefin may be connected, and I hope this will lead to better ways of sensemaking in uncertainty.

The first concept that I would like to use is — levels of abstraction. Low levels of abstraction mean that information and knowledge are understandable to few people. The lowest level would be me understanding something only to myself. Higher levels of abstraction would make this more understandable to more people, but losing nuance and context in the process. High levels of abstraction are good for things that everyone should understand, such as the symbols and markings on a map.

debunking handbook 2020

2020-10-14 by Harold Jarche

The Debunking Handbook 2020 has just been published and is an excellent free guide to address the mass amounts of misinformation, disinformation, and propaganda that flow through our digital communications everyday and then influence real life behaviours. I have discussed some of these phenomena previously, in confronting the post-truth machines and pre-bunking the conspiracy theorists.

The 19-page Handbook provides these handy definitions.

Misinformation: False information that is disseminated, regardless of intent to mislead.
Disinformation: Misinformation that is deliberately disseminated to mislead.
Fake news: False information, often of a sensational nature, that mimics news media content.
Continued influence effect: The continued reliance on inaccurate information in people’s memory and reasoning after a credible correction has been presented.
Illusory truth effect: Repeated information is more likely to be judged true than novel information because it has become more familiar.

innovating with pkm

2020-09-242020-09-12 by Harold Jarche

Last month I published the latest e-book in the perpetual beta series (163 pages) which is focused on actionable insights for working and learning in a networked world. I have extracted the 23 pages of Chapter 7 on personal knowledge mastery to provide an idea of what the remaining chapters in the book look like and as a reference for the online PKM workshop.

This chapter proposes that the connection between innovation and learning is evident. We cannot be innovative unless we integrate learning into our work. Improving our ability to see contradictions, by seeking disconfirming data, can easily be integrated into the discipline of PKM.

connecting knowledge

2020-09-05 by Harold Jarche

In early March I wrote how I was making sense of our digital world at the beginning of this pandemic. Some of my practices have held but after six months, some have changed. For example I see information from the WHO and CDC as lagging indicators, and no longer my first stop to find out what is happening now. I understand that they reflect the makeup of their members and funders more so than being a neutral point of view from the medical community.

I am also starting to understand that public health experts and epidemiologists, while both medical professionals, can have widely diverging perspectives on this pandemic. These are not the only knowledge silos dealing with a global problem from their unique and often blinkered perspectives. No single perspective can understand all the complexities.

an exploratory

2020-09-032020-09-02 by Harold Jarche

On 30 September I will be participating in a series of exploratory sessions with Dave Snowden — learning & sense-making in uncertainty and continuous flux and I have discussed some of the concepts previously in sensemaking in uncertainty.

Dave Snowden and Harold Jarche have been exploring different aspects of learning, knowledge management and innovation for decades. This is the first time they are coming together to explore the similarities, differences and potential synergies between their approaches.

As part of our preparation, Dave and I are recording a video for participants to understand each of our frameworks/models/perspectives before we get into deeper conversations and explorations.

First, I would like to recognize my early inspirations for personal knowledge mastery.

working smarter with pkm — transcripts

2020-10-152020-08-24 by Harold Jarche

I have a series of three 3-minute videos presenting the personal knowledge mastery framework. They are supported by the Working Smarter with PKM field guide. The online workshop provides a more structured and social learning experience.

The videos and the transcripts, for those who prefer to read rather than watch, are here.

Working Smarter with PKM (3 minute videos)

sense before stories

2024-07-202020-08-12 by Harold Jarche

Beware the storytellers and praise the sensemakers

In story skepticism (2016) I suggested that while storytelling skills may be important, a critical network era skill will be the ability to deconstruct stories. When it comes to this pandemic, there is no shortage of stories. The emotional, shocking, or fantastic stories get all the attention. The hard scrabble of sensemaking does not.

For example, I came across Michael Mina, Epidemiologist, Immunologist & Physician at Harvard School of Public Health & Harvard Medical School, in an interview with the podcast ‘This Week in Virology’ — Test often, fast turnaround. Not only was I impressed at how well Dr. Mina described the situation in clear understandable terms, so were the three virologists who interviewed him. “I learned so much”, said one, “I was blown away … I feel some hope finally”, said another. I am not going to try to explain what was presented, as Dr. Mina does it so well. Take 45 minutes and learn something important about covid-19 testing. You don’t even have to have a degree in science — I don’t.

apprendre dans un monde complexe et chaotique

2020-06-09 by Harold Jarche

Traduit par Christian Renard

This is a translation of learning in complexity & chaos

La plupart de nos structures de travail sont aujourd’hui conçues pour faire face à des situations compliquées, telles que la construction d’un bâtiment, le lancement d’une campagne ou la conception d’un équipement. Mais, aujourd’hui, nous devons faire face à des problèmes complexes qui ne peuvent pas être résolus de manière standardisée — inégalités, réfugiés, populisme, racisme. Chaque fois que quelqu’un est impliqué dans le contexte mondial de changement climatique, la situation est probablement complexe.

Dans les situations complexes, on s’appuie moins sur des plans et des analyses détaillés et davantage sur une expérimentation continue, associée à une observation et à un suivi attentifs. Nous allons désormais devoir apprendre constamment dans la complexité.

prebunking the conspiracy theorists

2020-09-062020-05-26 by Harold Jarche

In confronting the post-truth machines I looked at different types of fake news and what could be done to counter them — Propaganda, Disinformation, Clickbait, and Conspiracy Theories. I mentioned that the researcher danah boyd defines agnotology as — “the strategic and purposeful production of ignorance”. Today, as ever, many forces are at play promoting agnotology — from governments, to corporations, to social movements. This ignorance in our society can easily lead to conspiracy theories.

In the conspiracy theory handbook (March 2020) the authors from several universities explain in detail what conspiracy theory is and what can be done about it. It’s a short read read and a handy reference. The prime differentiation is between actual conspiracy (e.g. VW diesel emission tests) and imagined conspiracy (e.g. JFK assassination). One comes with a perspective of healthy skepticism while the other from one of overriding suspicion. The authors say that conspiracy theories are popular because they address feelings of powerlessness, provide a way to explain unlikely events, help cope with threats, and dispute mainstream politics which can help make some minority movements feel special.