SocialLearning

Social learning

Social networks require ownership

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So Gartner states that only 10% of social networking roll-outs succeed. Surprised? I’m not. Computer World UK reports that certain characteristics are necessary for success, once a purpose has been provided:

  • The purpose should naturally motivate people to participate.
  • The purpose must resonate with enough people to catalyse a community and deliver robust user-generated content.
  • The purpose should have a clear business outcome.
  • Select purposes that you and the community can build on.

It’s a bit more complicated than that. First of all, most roll-outs focus on rolling-out, not changing behaviour. The hard work begins after the software vendors have provided the initial training and the organization is on its own. Social media, and social networks,  change the way we communicate. Like any new language, they take time to learn, and adults are usually not very good at showing their lack of fluency with a second language. They don’t like to look foolish.

While people may say it’s not about the technology, unfortunately that’s where a large share of the budget goes in social network initiatives. The bigger change to manage is getting people to work transparently. Transparency is a necessity for cooperation and collaboration in networks, as a major benefit of using social media is increasing speed of access to knowledge. However, if the information is not shared by people, it will not be found.

It’s not a question of “motivating” people, but understanding why people are naturally motivated to share. I would surmise that the 90% failure rate may have a lot to do with the dysfunctional state of those organizations implementing social networks. Attempts to use enterprise social networks, that inevitably increase transparency, will only serve to illuminate organizational flaws.

dysfunctional

The knowledge sharing paradox is that social networks often constrain what they are supposed to enhance. Why would people share everything they know on an enterprise network, knowing that on the inevitable day that they leave, their knowledge artifacts will remain behind? Enterprise knowledge sharing will never be as good as what networked individuals can do, because of ownership. Motivated or not, workers do not own the social network or their data. Individuals who own their knowledge networks will invest more in them.Those who do not, will not.

Even with a clear, resonating purpose, salaried employees still own nothing on the enterprise social network. Aye, there’s the rub.

London Summer Picnic

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For the past 18 months, Jane Hart has been hosting the Social Learning Centre, offering a wide variety of resources, coaching, and workshops. I have run several workshops as well, some alone, and others jointly with Jane. We have learned much in supporting social learning with hundreds of participants from around the globe. Last year, we decided to offer a workshop series, which will be ending with our second Summer Camp in June. The series consisted of workshops on:

  • Personal Knowledge Management
  • Social Media for Professional Development
  • Social Learning in the Workplace
  • From Training to Performance Support
  • Online Communities
  • Enterprise Community Management
  • Social Learning in Business

For our Summer Camp, we are planning on doing something different. It will be a chance to reflect on what we have learned together. The focus will be on synthesizing all the conversations from our workshops over the past year and more. We will curate the conversations and observations and present them to Summer Campers. We will then work collaboratively on weaving these threads together into a narrative that makes sense. Jane and I will do the initial curation but then each person will be able to add to it, in view of the other participants, working cooperatively as desired. Each person will be able to create a mind-map, or other form of sense-making to make a cognitive toolbox.

Robinson_picnic_PDIn addition to these online activities, we will start the Summer Camp with a “picnic” in London, on the afternoon of Thursday 20 June 2013. Jane and I will present our initial findings and observations in a semi-formal way. Weather permitting, this will start in a park, if not, we will find a suitable pub. This will be followed by us all “walking the talk” where we will go for a casual stroll through an interesting part of London, conversing as we walk.

After the walk, we will weave our conversations back together. Jane and I will be ready with a few other short presentations on topics of interest, kind of like a fast-paced Ignite! format. We will also be available for one-on-one chats or more open discussions. This will be an informal Summer camp, but Jane & I will bring a basket full of social goodies. Much of this will be recorded and curated, and shared with the other online participants. We will try to live-cast this as well, but it will depend on our connectivity. We will stay in London and we invite anyone who wishes to get together for an evening meal to join us.

If you wish to participate, please sign up for the Summer Camp, for £99

If you wish to attend our Summer Picnic, the cost is £49 for the afternoon or £119 including the online Summer Camp.

This is my work

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The ability to learn is the only lasting competitive advantage for any organization. Hyper-connected work environments require people with better sense-making, collaboration, and cooperation skills. Social learning plays a significant role in this. Democratic workplaces that foster trust can share knowledge better and faster. To this end, I am a keen subversive of many of the last century’s management and education practices.

jarche services

Collaborative Work

Social Learning

Connected Leadership

Personal Knowledge Management

Adapting to perpetual Beta

Enterprise Social Tools

Communities of Practice

The risky quadrant

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Donald Taylor asks where your learning & development (training) department resides.

  1. Are you unacknowledged prophets, with a manager or executive who understands that you need to change, but the organization lags behind?
  2. Are you facing comfortable extinction, like the once dominant but now bankrupt Kodak?
  3. Or are you in the training ghetto, disconnected from the business and unable to be part of any change?

training extinctionThe reality today is that risky leadership is needed. As Don notes:

If both the department and the organisation are changing fast, this is a great opportunity. We can invest in new procedures and systems, build our skills and experiment with different ways of working with the business, and the business – because it is also changing fast and open to new ideas – will respond. It’s in this quadrant that we find really progressive L&D teams that are making an impact. While they are undoubtedly leaders, this quadrant is also risky, because that’s the nature of change.

Unacknowledged Prophets: If you are in this quadrant I would advise you to bide your time, build up your skills, create alliances, and wait for opportunities. As Stephen Berlin Johnson says, “Chance favours the connected mind.” Get collaborative, cooperative & connected. Louis Pasteur said that “Chance favours the prepared mind“. Be prepared.

Comfortable Extinction: This is a difficult quadrant because there is no understanding of the need for change. Everything is just fine. If you are the only person in your organization without rose coloured glasses, I would try to become a lone unacknowledged prophet, preparing for the inevitable crisis. If nobody sees it, then it would be best to let the training department drift into obscurity so that others can take the lead in promoting cooperation, collaboration and knowledge sharing. Sometimes it’s best to let natural selection do its thing.

Training Ghetto: Getting out of the basement and becoming relevant may take some time, which departments in this quadrant may not have. I would suggest first moving from training delivery to performance improvement. Get someone (yourself?) skilled at performance consulting. Forget about social learning, for the time being, and focus on performance support tools and job aids. Become useful to the business by bringing practical tools that can be used right away.

So how will you get to the risky quadrant?

The Connected Workplace

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The Connected WorkerToday’s digitally connected workplace demands a completely new set of skills. Our increasing interconnectedness is illuminating the complexity of our work environments. More connections create more possibilities, as well as more potential problems.

On the negative side, we are seeing that simple work keeps getting automated, like automatic bank machines. Complicated work, for which standardized processes can be developed, usually gets outsourced to the lowest cost of labor.

On the positive side, complex work can provide unique business advantages and creative work can help to identify new business opportunities. However, complex work is difficult to copy and creative work constantly changes.

But both complex and creative work require greater implicit knowledge. Implicit knowledge, unlike explicit knowledge, is difficult to codify and standardize. It is also difficult to transfer.

Implicit knowledge is best developed through conversations and social relationships. It requires trust before people willingly share their know-how. Social networks can enable better and faster knowledge feedback for people who trust each and share their knowledge. But hierarchies and work control structures constrain conversations. Few people want to share their ignorance with the boss who controls their paycheck. But if we agree that complex and creative work are where long-term business value lies, then learning amongst ourselves is the real work in organizations today. In this emerging network era, social learning is how work gets done.

Becoming a successful social organization will require more than just the implementation of enterprise social technologies. Developing, supporting, and encouraging people to use a range of new social workplace skills will be just as important. Individual skills, in addition to new organizational support structures, are both required.

Personal knowledge mastery (PKM) skills can help to make sense of, and learn from, the constant stream of information that workers encounter from social channels both inside and outside the organization. Keeping track of digital information flows and separating the signal from the noise is difficult. There is little time to make sense of it all. We may feel like we are just not able to stay current and make informed decisions. PKM gives a framework to develop a network of people and sources of information that one can draw from on a daily basis. PKM is a process of filtering, creating, and discerning, and it also helps manage individual professional development through continuous learning.

Collaboration skills can help workers to share knowledge so that people work and learn cooperatively in teams, communities of practice, and social networks. In order to support collaborative working and learning in the organization, it is important to experience what it means to work and learn collaboratively, and understand the new community and collaboration skills that are involved. “You can’t train someone to be social, only show them how to be social.” Practice is necessary.

The power of social networks, like electricity, will inevitably change almost every existing business model. Leaders need to understand the importance of organizational architecture. Working smarter in the future workplace starts by organizing to embrace networks, manage complexity, and build trust. The 21st century connected enterprise is a new world of work and learning.

For example, traditional training structures, based on institutions, programs, courses and classes, are changing. Probably the biggest change we are seeing is that the content delivery model is being replaced by more social and collaborative frameworks. This is due to almost universal Internet connectivity, especially with mobile devices, as well as a growing familiarity with online social networks.

Work is changing and so organizational learning must change. There is an urgent need for organizational support functions (HR, OD, KM, Training) to move beyond offering training services and toward supporting learning as it is happening in the digitally connected workplace. The connected workplace will not wait for the training department to catch up.

#itashare

Notes on social learning in business

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We just finished a month-long workshop at the Social Learning Centre which involved over 50 participants from many countries. The workshop was on social learning in business, and followed on from previous ones like the PKM workshop on individual, informal learning, and the Training to Performance Support workshop on tools that can often replace instruction. This was my last in a series that Jane Hart and I have done over the past year. Jane is conducting an April workshop on enterprise community management and sign-up ends this week. Jane and I also have a Summer Camp scheduled as our final joint offering, and it will cover a wide variety of topics, to be announced prior to starting in June.

The core themes in this workshop were around social aspects of learning at work: narrating our work for others; communities of practice & understanding networks. Social learning can happen in both formal instruction and informally. Many of the structures and systems that can support informal learning can also help social learning. While not interchangeable terms, they can often apply to the same activity. For example, when I learn informally in a social network, it is social learning as well. However, reading a book alone may be informal, but not social. As Albert Bandura wrote; “most human behavior is learned observationally through modeling: from observing others one forms an idea of how new behaviors are performed, and on later occasions this coded information serves as a guide for action.” This is most often outside of formal instructional activities.

People learn socially at work, which is why organizational design is so important. We automatically ask those close to us for help, but they may not be the best people to ask. Social enterprise tools can help expand our social learning networks. Understanding that social learning is natural, we should look at ways to support and enhance it.

Training and instruction are all about control, with curricula, sanctioned learning objectives, and performance criteria. This works when the field of study is knowable. But fewer fields remain completely knowable, if they ever were. Many institutions and professions have been built on the premise that knowledge can be transferred in some kind of controlled process. If you question that premise, you threaten people’s jobs, status, and sense of worth. This is why you see some violent reactions to the notion of informal and social learning having validity within organizations.

A major difference between communities of practice and work teams is that the former are voluntary. People want to join communities of practice. People feel affinity for their communities of practice. You know you are in a community of practice when it changes your practice. If the groups are mandated by management, they are work teams, or project teams etc., but not communities of practice.

“Communities of practice are groups of people who share a passion for something that they know how to do and who interact regularly to learn how to do it better.” — Etienne Wenger

For those who want to promote social learning in the workplace, start by modelling good networked learning skills. Be the example and wait for opportunities. For instance, narrate your work for others to see. Consider the Buddhist proverb; “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.” Be ready to appear once their eyes are open.

sitting buddhaBecoming comfortable with narrating your work takes time, practice and feedback. When I have worked with companies, it has taken several months for people to get comfortable with working and learning out loud. It also takes modelling of new behaviours, a gentle hand to guide, and once in a while, a bit of cajoling. I have not figured out a way to do this quickly, or without allowing time for practice and reflection. I don’t think it’s possible. That is often the problem with enterprise social software implementations. Once the initial training is over, management thinks all problems have been solved. Getting to social takes time.

Only open systems are effective for knowledge sharing

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Seth Godin makes a very good point about trusting the select few to curate information, whether they be leaders, managers, certified professionals, researchers, or any other group of experts.

We have no idea in advance who the great contributors are going to be. We know that there’s a huge cohort of people struggling outside the boundaries of the curated, selected few, but we don’t know who they are.

When it comes to knowledge, we often do not know in advance what will be useful in the future. I discuss this when coaching people how to narrate their work, an essential part of encouraging social learning in the workplace. Overly editing one’s own work is similar to overly editing who does the curation of our knowledge flows. Seth Godin explains it with this graphic.

open v curationIn software programming, the saying is that with enough eyes, all bugs are shallow. Or put another way, the more people who look at a problem, fewer errors will get through. In the case of enterprise knowledge-sharing, an incredibly inexact practice; with enough voices quality will emerge. Only an open system can ensure this, which is why I highlighted the knowledge sharing paradox.

When it comes to knowledge, and learning, only open systems are effective. All closed systems will fail over time, especially if discovery and innovation are happening outside that system. The question for organizational leaders is whether they think they can create an artificial, closed system that can compete with almost 3 billion people connected to that hive mind called the internet.  The good news is that they do not have to. Encouraging cooperation, along with workplace collaboration, ensures more open knowledge sharing.

collab coop

We need to learn how to connect

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From danah boyd’s presentation at ASTD TechKnowledge 2013, on the future of work:

But if you want to prepare people not just for the next job, but for the one after that, you need to help them think through the relationships they have and what they learn from the people around them. Understanding people isn’t just an HR skill for managers. For better or worse, in a risk economy with an increasingly interdependent global workforce, these are skills that everyday people need. Building lifelong learners means instilling curiosity, but it also means helping people recognize how important it is that they continuously surround themselves by people that they can learn from. And what this means is that people need to learn how to connect to new people on a regular basis.

I’ve highlighted the last phrase because this is what social learning is all about; connections. No person has all the knowledge needed to work completely alone in our connected society. Neither does any company. Neither does any government. We are all connected AND dependent on each other.

One of the barriers to connecting people is the nature of the JOB, seen as something to be filled by replaceable workers. Shifting our perspective to treating workers as unique individuals, each of whom have different abilities and connections with others, is a start in thinking with a network perspective. Another barrier is viewing knowledge as something that can be delivered, or transferred. It cannot. Knowledge from a network perspective is about connecting experiences, relationships, and situations.

Work and learning today is all about connecting people. Managers, supervisors, and business support functions should be focused on enabling connections for knowledge workers. Like artists, knowledge workers need inspiration. Too few connections mean few sources of inspiration and little likelihood of serendipity. Innovation is not so much about having ideas as it is about making connections. We know that people with more connections are also more productive. Chance favours both the connected mind and the connected company.

connected-company.001

Increasing connections should be a primary business focus. It should also be the aim of HR and learning & development departments. Connections increase as people cooperate in networks (not focused on any direct benefits for helping others). Diverse networks can emerge from cooperation that is supported by transparency and openness in getting work done. Basically, better external connections also make a worker more valuable internally. Fostering this perspective will be a huge change from the way many organizations work today.

perpetual beta is the new reality

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When I discuss life in perpetual Beta, it is often from the perspective of the individual. My interest in personal knowledge mastery (PKM) started with my own need to stay up to date in my field. It has since become a core part of my professional services. Sometimes it seems it’s the workers who are always spinning around, trying to find or keep work, while organizations move at a glacial pace, or even seemingly backwards.

A recent article in Businessweek shows that companies are facing life in perpetual Beta as well.

“A study by economists Diego Comin and Thomas Philippon showed that in 1980 a U.S. company in the top fifth of its industry had only a 10 percent risk of falling out of that tier in five years; two decades later, that likelihood had risen to 25 percent. In finance, banks are losing power and influence to nimbler hedge funds: In the second half of 2010, in the midst of a sharp economic downturn, the top 10 hedge funds—most of them unknown to the general public—earned more than the world’s six largest banks combined. Multinationals are also more likely to suffer brand disasters that clobber their reputations, revenues, and valuations, as companies from BP (BP) to Nike (NKE) to News Corp. (NWS) can all attest. One study found that the five-year risk of such a disaster for companies owning the most prestigious global brands has risen in the past two decades from 20 percent to 82 percent.”

Disaster may be just around the corner, it seems.

PKM, through seeking, sensing & sharing, can help networked individuals deal with the complexity of the network age. We’re finding that this is not a nice-to-have, optional set of skills but core to business survival. BP, Nike & News Corp. could have handled things better if people were actively and openly sharing their knowledge.

Soft skills, like collaboration and cooperation, are now more important than traditional hard skills. While cooperation is not the same as collaboration, they are complementary. Collaboration requires a common goal, while cooperation is sharing without any specific objectives. Teams, groups and companies traditionally collaborate. Online social networks and communities of practice cooperate. Working cooperatively requires a different mindset than merely collaborating on a defined project. Being cooperative means being open to others outside your group. It also requires the casting-off of business metaphors based on military models (target markets, chain of command, strategic plans, line & staff).

Cooperation, sharing with no direct benefit, is needed at work so that we can continuously develop emergent practices demanded by increased complexity. Collaborating on specific tasks is not enough. We have to be prepared for perpetual Beta. What worked yesterday may not work today. No one has the definitive answer any more but we can use the intelligence of our networks to make sense together and see how we can influence desired results.

Work in networks requires different skills than in directed hierarchies. Cooperation is a foundational behaviour for effectively working in networks, and it’s in networks where most of us will be working. Cooperation presumes the freedom of individuals to join and participate so that people in the network cannot be told what to do, only influenced. If they don’t like you, they won’t connect. In a hierarchy you only have to please your boss. In a network you have to be seen as having some value, though not the same value, by many others.

As we transition from a market to a network economy, complexity will increase due to our hyper-connectedness. Managing in complex adaptive systems means influencing possibilities rather than striving for predictability (good or best practices). No one has the definitive answer any more but we can use the intelligence of our networks to make sense together and see how we can influence desired results. This is life in perpetual Beta. Get used to it. Preparing for this will require time, social learning, and management support.

Find out more about the skills needed for PKMastery.

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The future is connected, messy, loose and open

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Why is self-directed learning and professional development so important today? Rawn Shah, commenting on one of my presentations, said that knowledge is evolving faster than can be codified in formal systems and is depreciating in value over time. This pretty well sums up the situation.

Think about the fact that knowledge is evolving faster than can be codified in formal systems … and what does that mean for all of our formal systems? Schools, government, and even religion are no longer stable bastions of knowledge. The logarithmic curve of knowledge, like our population, has hit us like the proverbial hockey stick it portrays.

World_population_growth_(lin-log_scale)

 Image by Waldir

One of the ways to deal with this knowledge explosion is to use what we have, our humanity. We have developed as social animals and our brains are wired to deal with social relationships. By combining technology with our brainpower, we can figure things out. We are naturally creative and curious. We just have to build systems that nurture our inherent abilities. Schools do not do that. Most workplaces do not. Our economy does not. Most of our governance systems do not. The answers to our problems are within us, collectively. We have more creativity (for good and bad) than any other creature. We need to harness it.

This is what social learning is all about. Not just solving problems, but creating new ways of working. There are amazing technological inventions and discoveries every day, yet we and our media focus too often on our problems. On the edges of society people are experimenting with new ways of working and living together. What is most amazing is that now we can learn about these things with a simple search or click. Two billion people connected to each other is absolutely amazing, yet many of us cannot see the forest for the trees.

Here are just a few examples:

Learn about almost anything, with excellent commentary, from A Man with a PhD

Find out about the new economy from Shareable and Fast Co-exist

Follow what is happening in learning and education with Stephen Downes and his extensive daily newsletter

The Internet is a cornucopia of people sharing what they know. All one needs is the interest and a few skills to filter this. Don’t have the skills? Ask somebody. There are many people willing to help.

It seems so obvious to me, but most organizations are trying to deal with this complexity in simplistic ways. Humans have the ability to deal with some very complex things, yet too often our cultural and organizational barriers block us from using our innate abilities The future is connected, messy, loose, and open. Anything else will be sub-optimal.