Wirearchy

Wirearchy

From cottage industry to international certification

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It’s a few years from now and you’re sitting in your office in an old Victorian building in your new position as Dean of Students. You thought that this would be the perfect job in a small university town with an easy walk to work, great colleagues and eager new students each year. However, you are looking at enrolment for this year and it’s down 30%. You have a major problem and you have some explaining to do about last year’s recruiting drive. What’s going on?

Online degrees now compete quite fiercely with “traditional universities”, especially those from reputable institutions that only charge $6,000 versus your current tuition fees of $45,000 for a Bachelor’s degree. However, you cannot decrease your fees as you’re facing rising costs. Just heating the dorms is an ever-increasing part of your budget, with oil at $3.50 a litre. You’ve even discussed shifting the academic calendar to take advantage of the warmer Summer months. On top of that, the university just negotiated a costly settlement with the faculty association, after a prolonged strike.

Robert Cringely explained the situation in 2008, but few schools or universities took action:

This [education] is an unstable system. Homeschooling, charter schools, these things didn’t even exist when I was a kid, but they are everywhere now. There’s only one thing missing to keep the whole system from falling apart – ISO certification.

I’ve written about this for years and nobody ever paid attention, but ISO certification is what destroyed the U.S. manufacturing economy. With ISO 9000 there was suddenly a way to claim with some justification that a factory in Malaysia was precisely comparable to an IBM plant on the Hudson. Prior to then it was all based on reputation, not statistics. And now that IBM plant is gone.

Daniel Lemire likened it to a similar business phenomenon:

Not long ago people bought European electronics because it was supposedly better. Now? These days are long gone.

At a certain point in time (2008?) the cost-benefits of a university education will be put in question. How expensive does it have to be before the majority opt out or look for “good enough” options? Once a certification body gets recognized by enough employers, it could become the de facto as well as the de jure standard.

Ridiculously easy group-forming

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The title of this post comes from a quote by Seb Paquet in the book Here Comes Everybody by Clay Shirky. This book is situated somewhere between the simplicity of Wikinomics and the complexity of The Wealth of Networks, which makes it a welcome addition to the field of social networks. Shirky’s analysis is excellent and is not just a repeat of the echo-chamber of the blogosphere. For example:

When we change the way we communicate, we change society. (p. 17)

You can think of group undertaking as a kind of ladder of activities, activities that are enabled or improved by social tools. The rungs on the ladder, in order of difficulty, are sharing, cooperation, and collective action. (p. 49)

It’s when a technology becomes normal, then ubiquitous, and finally so pervasive as to be invisible, that the really profound changes happen, and for young people today, our new social tools have passed normal and are heading to ubiquitous, and invisible is coming. (p. 105)

I saw social tools in action this week, when a parent/lawyer in Saint John, NB, was interviewed on the radio concerning the abolition of the early French immersion program in the province. The interviewer asked her what was the best way for other concerned parents to get involved. Her answer, “Facebook”. We now have tools for ridiculously easy group-forming, and these are being used at the local level by non-techies. Indeed, social media are getting close to “normal” even for those who are not so young.

Update:

Two groups on Facebook concerning EFI in NB (what Shirky would describe as “sharing”) have over 2,000 and 3,000 members respectively. The EFI Day of Protest has 104 Facebook members registered at this time (what Shirky would describe as “collective action”). As you go up the ladder, it requires more commitment, and you don’t get as many members. It’s interesting to watch this phenomenon and I’ll update the stats as time goes on, as well as confirm the actual numbers on the day of the protest.

efi-demo

“Monetization is an ugly word”

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At EdgeGeneration, Umair says that “monetization is an ugly word”:

Let’s put that a little more formally. Monetization is ugly because it blinds us to the truth that value must flow in many directions. That’s the essence of edge strategy, in fact.

That’s why businesses that aren’t deeply, durably connected to people are already falling apart (hi, Facebook, Gap, and Microsoft).

Just ask yourself: how many firms industries has “monetization” already killed?

I’ve used the “M” word, as at some point in time I have to make money to pay the bills. However, money is usually secondary to doing the right thing or getting involved with the right client or project. Right in terms of being aligned with my principals or ethics. I have turned down work for ethical but not monetary reasons.

Having just shipped a proposal for an online learning strategy gig, I’ve been thinking deeply about workable models in higher education. Umair’s point is quite relevant for academia. Universities did not start as money-making ventures, they were a “self-regulating community of teachers and scholars“. So will monetization kill universities?

The next few years will be indicative, especially in North America; with a recession, a demographic crunch, increasing tuition and a growing disconnect between societal needs and degree programs. The value will have to flow before more cash flows.

Universities will have to do more than just say that they are about promoting learning, but they will have to show it in everything they do. That could mean courses built around student schedules instead of faculty availability. It could mean higher salaries for teaching staff than administration. It will have to mean reinforcing the areas of real value to the learner, because it’s all about learning. One challenge will be to ensure that the VP Finance or CFO understands this. By the way, when did universities move the money counter to the executive level?

More platforms

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platform-alteration.jpg

Photo: Platform alteration by harryharris

Continuing the platform theme from my last post, I’ve come across two relatively new Web content sharing platforms – Scribd and LearnHub. Both allow for easy uploading and sharing of content that you own. Scribd has unlimited space available while LearnHub is free but will be charging a transaction fee in the future for testing and tutoring. Where LearnHub differs is that it is based on an information presentaion/testing/tutoring model, while Scribd just lets you put stuff online. Both have a rating system built in and Scribd so far is a much larger community, with 350,000 registered users.

Check out The History of Tim Horton’s [had to get some Canadian content, didn’t I?] on Scribd or the Cooperative Learning community on LearnHub.

Is this the future of online learning?

Platforms versus Programs

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Jay Cross discusses an interview with John Hagel at FastForward and sees that a move from programs to platforms is necessary in a web-centric world:

The way out of the squeeze is to move from programs to platforms. He’s not talking about media. Rather, programs are push, content, and structured (as with software). Platforms are frameworks, networks, flexible, and loosely coupled. It won’t be an easy transition; many companies will die along the way. (The lifespan of an S+P company is already down to 15 years, an 80% drop from historical levels.)

Meanwhile, on the FastForward Blog, Rob Paterson shows how Wikipedia and YouTube have greatly surpassed both NPR and PBS in number of viewers. What is interesting is that both Wikipedia and YouTube are platforms, while NPR and PBS have been pushing programs.

I can see the same change happening in education. The successful institutions [if we use that term] in the near future will provide the best collaborative platforms. Those with only programs to offer will be sidelined.

Self-determination

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There is almost an arms race quality to the way in which we are trying to save our current education and health care “systems”. I am coming around to the notion that the system is the problem. Much in the same way that The Support Economy diagnoses managerial capitalism as the primary cause of the disconnect between corporations and markets, I am seeing that [Ivan] Illich had it right over 30 years ago – we have seen the enemy, and it is us. Through our large, corporatist systems we have created self-perpetuating monopolies in both health and education.

I wrote this statement in 2004 and I haven’t changed my mind on our need for systemic change. Jon Husband recently reminded me of the book, The Support Economy, which I read several years ago, and his favourite quote:

Psychological self-determination is expressed in three different dimensions. In the first dimension people want to live their lives the way they choose to live it. This is the sense of sanctuary. The second way people express their psychological self-determination is in the widespread desire for voice: we want to be heard and we want our voices to matter. The third way we want our psychological self-determination to be expressed is in our desire to be connected: we want to be part of communities.

Our current corporate, educational and health care systems stand in the way of self-determination. We want to be part of something bigger than ourselves (community) but we also need to have control of our own lives. In our health, our learning and our work; self-determination is the key to resilience. We see this with the successful anomalies in the business world – W.L. Gore; Google; Semco – which allow more self-determination than their competitors.

I asked myself, which system has the best potential to change first? For those who agree that change is necessary, would it be better to concentrate on the creation of new business models and then let education and health care follow suit? I think so. Leadership seems to come from, or at least is deferred to, those who have the money or the means of production. So if you’re reform-minded, perhaps business reform is the most pragmatic avenue for your energies. Change the business models, change the world.

Big Consulting Companies Jumping on Bandwagon 2.0

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It looks like social media (wikis, blogs & social networking) are going the way of e-learning and knowledge management (KM). That means big companies charging big fees for cookie-cutter solutions. Jon Husband reports on this phenomenon for 2008 and advises Caveat emptor:

Big firms either 1) develop standardized methodologies and practices (their business models depend upon it), or 2) if their business model does not depend upon the standardization, they will charge you a mint and a half (McKinsey ?)

The organization(s) [clients] will in my opinion get better advice rooted in critical thinking and experience and focused on results, as opposed to maintaining an expensive dependency on canned rhetoric that may not be based in much experience. For example, what exactly is “Advanced” Web 2.0 technology ? Blogs with lots of colourful widgets ?

As I’ve said before, Free-agents and natural enterprises are better. The upstart independents and small consultancies have Clayton Christensen’s disruptive Sword & Shield which the incumbents (large consultants) don’t have. With early motivation to enter this emerging field (Shield) and now with with years of experience and skills (Sword), we the “upstarts” should be able to hold our own.

When e-learning and KM first came out, it was difficult to market your services without expensive campaigns. On top of that, the IT tools were expensive. Now the best tools are open source, leveling the playing field even more. The rules have changed for 2008, and we upstarts can significantly engage in a conversation with our markets using our own tools with which we’ve developed a certain expertise.

The game is afoot!

Blogs at the core of KM & Collaboration

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I’m helping to create a collaborative work and learning space for a group of executives and this is part of the introduction to the site:

Blogs: The main communication tool is your blog, which each participant has registered in his or her name. Think of your blog as a professional journal, where you can record your thoughts and ask questions of your peers or the staff. Each blog post has a unique identifier, called a permalink, which can be referenced by others. Blog posts do not need to be perfect essays. Blog posts can help make sense of your learning process. Comments can be made on another person’s blog, or you can discuss it on your blog and then connect with a hyperlink to the other one. This creates a network of the conversations around an issue or topic. Here’s a video called Blogs in Plain English.

Wikis: Blogs are personal, while wikis are for groups. A wiki is a collaborative web document that records all activities so that any person can add to it, without losing what was previously written (it’s like “track changes” in MS Word). Here’s a video called Wikis in Plain English.

Jon Husband has dusted off a piece on blogging and dialogue that he wrote in 2004, which I think bears repeating:

  1. Firstly, individual or group blogs that are focused on a domain of information and expertise chronicle and catalogue the blogger(s)’ knowledge. Over time, this grows to create a recognizable “body of knowledge”.
  2. Secondly, by offering the capability of commenting and interacting, the information on offer can be better defined, refined, explored, tested, and built upon.
  3. Thirdly, the information on offer provides a latent platform for action – information that can be acted upon often turns into knowledge that can be shared and used in various ways.
  4. Fourth, by linking to the blog or blogs that offer related information, the knowledge that is built can be shared more and more widely, if desired.
  5. Fifth, the rhythym and cadence of the posting, reading, commenting and linking replicate the dynamics of dialogue in very effective ways. There aren’t the same kinds of interruption and distraction that so often occurs in conversations that only weakly replicate the dynamics of dialogue.
  6. Finally, an ecosystem of knowledge can develop that consists of the aggregated sets of links and content the participants in a blogalogue create. And this “body of knowledge” and understanding remains online, available to anyone who cares to become involved.

The more online communities and social networks that I’m involved with, the more I view blogging as a core process that keeps them going.

Critical thinking means questioning one’s assumptions

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Jon Husband wonders if the real gap in our society is critical thinking, especially in the case of North Americans being duped into thinking that we are in the midst of a long emergency and that we are at war with terror (at war with a concept?). A far greater emergency is what we are doing to our environment, but global warming doesn’t get anywhere near the funding that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan do.

A similar lack of critical thinking comes from our politicians, especially in Atlantic Canada, who equate economic growth with jobs. Richard Florida shows research that “productivity growth may be negatively correlated with job growth”:

Since thriving cities are productivity machines ala Robert Lucas and Jane Jacobs, we now have substantial evidence that shows what a big mistake it is to use job growth as a proxy for productivity improvement and development. It may well be that the most productive cities generate jobs at a considerably slower rate than their less productive (and less developed) counterparts. In other words, job growth may actually be picking up the opposite of what some people think.

Teaching Defiance: Stories and Strategies for Activist Educators, which looks at the need for critical thinking in education, is on my reading list for next year.

What business are you in?

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From Tom Haskins, are two views of business today.

Exhibit A:

“There are firewalls and silos to stay inside of. There are lines of authority to conform to and procedures to execute. There are consequences for stepping out of line, going around someone or finding loopholes in the policies. There are scripts for handling phone calls, policies for handling exceptions and rules for procedural compliance.”

Exhibit B:

“Networks may function with routers to redirect linear transmissions through a past of least resistance. Networks support search and find processes that come up with unforeseen options. Networks reconfigure themselves to accommodate changes. They do not go on hold because local resources are tied up. They do not overtax a reliable node and fail to spread the challenge system wide. They get things done by letting the network do its thing.”

And then I remembered this cartoon from Hugh:

dinosaur001.jpg

So what business are you in – Silos or Networks?

I’ve noticed that even many so-called “new economy” companies are still based on the command & control models of the industrial age. They’re like dinosaurs wearing mammals’ clothing but they won’t be able to keep warm during the next ice age.

We’re hearing a lot about the millenials demanding a more flexible workplace and I think that with the impending demographic crunch here in North America, we may not be far from a real change in the dominant model of how we work. Let’s make sure that we have some reasonable options.