Work

business & working

Our local learning industry

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Our local learning industry has an umbrella organisation, LearnNB, that represents and markets the companies and institutions in the Province. The constant question over the past two years of its existence has been how can we grow the sector? Different perspectives offer various solutions. I tend to focus on the individual knowledge worker, not the companies.

The life expectancy of a knowledge worker is more than ten times that of your average knowledge-based company. The individual is the constant element, while companies come and go. We should establish incentives for individuals to create wealth instead of using the private corporation as the primary wealth creation vehicle.

How can we focus on enhancing creativity and critical thinking, essential for innovative organisations? First, we need to measure what matters. For instance, we currently measure the number of jobs created as a sign of economic prosperity. However, the number of jobs is not an indicator of a sustainable industry. If everyone is working for a few companies and these companies, headquartered elsewhere, decide to pull up stakes then all we have left are out-of-work employees. We need self-organising individuals who are able to create a company, a cooperative, or work by themselves.

Alec Bruce writes on Atlantic Canada First that foreign direct investment (FDI) has generally been positive for the region. Where it falls apart is when local entrepreneurs fail to capitalise on the financial investment and spin-off new, small businesses.

The issue is simply that the real, long-term value of robust FDI in this part of the world lies in the willingness and ability of Atlantic entrepreneurs to leverage international capital, expertise and innovation to build – or rebuild – homegrown economic capacity.
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Ireland understands this, and so does Iceland. In recent years, both nations have embarked on aggressive and supremely effective campaigns to attract FDI – not to transform their economies into handmaidens for bottom-line-driven multinationals, but to equip their own entrepreneurs with the knowledge and market savvy to help them successfully venture abroad, themselves.

Yesterday I was speaking with Stephan List and he remarked that one of the major changes in German economic policy is to focus on medium-sized companies because the government realises that these companies are community-minded and the real engines of sustainable growth. In the German experience the large multinationals have not provided these same benefits.

We need a ground up approach. Support individuals, support entrepreneurs and free-agents and then support small company growth. Attracting employers who only provide “jobs” just continues a culture of dependence.

After the reduction of the e-learning industry here in 2001 we are now seeing some growth. I believe that the sustainability of the regional industry will depend on the knowledge workers and entrepreneurs who remain here to weather the next economic downturn. This could be difficult without a larger and more diverse group of small and nimble companies, developed during the good years.

Is Intellectual Property an Oxymoron?

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No answers here, but as I continue to examine this issue I’m drawing some conclusions, and getting scared at the same time.

Some online sources that I’ve looked at:

Here is a quote from a 1999 article, Intellectual Property, Information and the Common Good:

The fundamental problem with intellectual property as an ethical category is that it is purely individualistic. It focuses on the creator/developer of the intellectual work and what he or she is entitled to. There is truth in this, but not the whole truth. It ignores the social role of the creator and of the work itself, thus overlooking their ethically significant relationships with the rest of society. The balance is lost.

Ideas as property will be more and more of an issue for our connected society and especially for those in the learning profession. I believe that locking-up ideas will not foster innovation or cultural growth.

A counter to multinational corporations claiming ever longer and more restrictive copyright protection are movemments like Creative Commons (CC). Through CC or Google’s advanced search (use the “Usage Rights” drop down menu) you can find audio, images, text, video, and other formats that are free to share online. You can also use a CC Licence to make your work easier to share, while retaining some rights.

Update:

I just had to add this quote from Michael Geist. Makes me proud to be Canadian:

It has been apparent now for several years but it bears repeating about the Supreme Court of Canada — no high court in the world better understands that the right balance in intellectual property law depends as much on the laws’ limits as its protections.

Work, Education & Taxes

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David Livingstone, of the Centre for the Study of Education and Work, presented at the CSTD conference on a 2004 study that interviewed 9,000 Canadians. One of the findings that I found most interesting was that Canadians have the highest rates of formal learning in the world. A large percentage of our workers have diplomas and degrees. On the other hand, I heard on the radio this morning that there is a productivity gap in this country, and as the Globe & Mail reports:

No one can pinpoint precisely why Canada has fallen behind to such an alarming extent. The explanations range from relatively low investments in technology and equipment to lagging private-sector research and development and the fact that marginal effective tax rates on capital are high. But Mr. Goodale knows the consequences of such dismal numbers.

The truth is that no one really knows, but many lobbyists and special interest groups use these kinds of statistics to further their own agendas. Universities will say that we need greater access to higher education and conservative think tanks will call for more corporate tax cuts. Well there doesn’t appear to be a direct correlation between education and productivity if we examine our credentialed society and our perceived low productivity. In New Brunswick we have the lowest corporate tax rate in the country and one of the highest rates of unemployment. Recently our unemployment rate went up while it dropped everywhere else. So the answers are not simple, as H.L. Mencken said, “For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.”

Personally, I’m tired that our politicians and business leaders revert to pat answers for complex problems, such as “we need to raise personal taxes to pay for our social programs”. Perhaps productivity is the wrong measure. John Ralston Saul, in The Collapse of Globalism, states that since the mid-nineteen nineties, “…two-thirds of American corporations paid no federal income tax.” Many of these corporations have branch offices in Canada – same people, same agenda.

As a society we have to understand what is important and how we can make our communities work. That means understanding the complex forces at play. Lowering taxes or decreasing tuition rates are simple solutions that won’t address the root causes. The same goes for understanding how our organisations and businesses work. There are no pat answers and the flavour of the month won’t solve our problems.

Some of the places I visit to get a better view of these issues:

Drucker on Listening Carefully

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Peter Drucker, one of my inspirations on business and management, passed away on Friday. He was 95 years old. Elliott Masie sent out a few words in an e-mail on Peter Drucker, including this comment:

I had the privilege of meeting Peter Drucker almost fifteen years ago. We had a conversation about the role that "training" could play (or not play) in the development of effective leaders. He challenged me to ask 100 leaders how they became leaders and to listen carefully to their answers. He predicted that I would find that the leaders pointed to strong role models, mentors who were brave enough to tell them the truth and opportunties that allowed them to perform, rather than slickly packaged leadership courses.

In tribute to Peter Drucker, and his incisive mind, let’s continue to ask the tough questions. Is there a direct link between training and performance? Is there a direct link in the specific case that you are involved with?

Tactics, Strategy & Humanity

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The opening session at the CSTD Knowledge Exchange in Toronto this week was by Dana Gaines Robinson on the subject of Strategic Business Partnering. This is a new term for me and at the end of the session my impression was that SBP is a new buzz-word for human performance technology, but with an emphasis on strategy. The words strategy and tactics were liberally sprinkled through her session.

This  reminded me of my +20 years in the military when strategy and tactics were my main work disciplines and got me to wondering why many in the learning field use military terms to describe their work. Gaines Robinson used another term that did not sit well with me – it is that one should “own the client relationship”. When I think of a relationship, the last thing that comes to mind is ownership. Does this kind of terminology frame the discussion in a certain way? Does it influence how we think about our profession? Anyway, it was good for me to listen to a presentation that raised these issues.

The strategic, or high level, theme was a thread throughout the conference. Larry Murphy, an attendee and past colleague, described our field as having two kinds of people, forest people and tree people. Some can see the forest and some have to focus on each individual tree. In Strategic Business Partnering I think that we’re focusing on too small of a forest. In SBP, the performance consultant is supposed to partner with the client and look at the next 1-5 years from the client’s perspective.

I prefer Roger Kaufman’s organisational elements model where he urges us to look at the Mega (societal) the Macro (organisational) and Micro (individual & group) levels in strategic planning. A focus on the Mega means taking an ethical, moral and value-based stand. This is the really big picture, not just the business microcosm. A Mega perspective to me means that you don’t try to maximize value for your clients’ profits if they are acting like Enron execs. This thought stayed in my mind through the day, but by Tuesday evening there were some answers, and more questions.

performance analysis process mega and macro

Stephen Lewis, UN Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, presented the post-dinner speech. In his articulate and engaging way he laid out the enormous humanitarian disaster that is attacking 70 million people today. He described in case after case the spread of the disease and its effects, especially on women. After moving many in the audience to tears, Mr Lewis described what we could do. With his global  vision, he proposed that individuals and groups of learning professionals in Canada could go to Africa and help to retrain a population that has almost no teachers or trainers.

The need is great and even one person training a small group on basic skills, that we take for granted, would have an impact. When the head of a household is only 8 years old (because all of the adults are dead) there are a lot of skills and knowledge that he or she will need to succeed in life. The suggestion was that the training & development community here could start a real knowledge transfer to Africa.

The next morning, the CSTD board created a committee to begin a process of working with the Stephen Lewis Foundation in order to determine how CSTD can help an orphaned generation in Africa to learn essential skills. Stephen Lewis has shown how the strategic and the tactical levels can be aligned, but within a much larger humanitarian (mega) vision. More information on this initiative will be made available on the CSTD website.

Provinent now “Vitesse Learning”

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After having recently merged with Fredericton’s LearnStream, Provinent (of Toronto, with offices in Fredericton & Charlottetown) is now merged with US-based Vitesse Learning. This consolidates the e-learning content development field even more. We’ll see if bigger is better in the next months and whether the new company hires more people or jettisons extra staff. The merger means that at this time only one major e-learning content developer, Innovatia, has its head office in New Brunswick. Other companies with learning content production facilities in Fredericton include Ireland’s PulseLearning, US-based SkillSoft and local EngageInteractive.
Addendum: after re-reading this post I’d like to note that Provinent’s head office never was in Fredericton. The point I was trying to make is that New Brunswick has a number of production facilities but few head offices and I’m not sure if this is best for the long-term sustainability of the local learning industry.

A Common Future

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If you want to see what one of the new organisational models for work in the 21st Century will look like, then watch (and perhaps participate in) the Innovation Commons wiki. The folks in Vancouver have organised a web space to discuss all of the issues around the creation of a common work place (the actual name is still being discussed) including a business plan and marketing strategy. This is exciting because wiki technology will allow anyone to see how the community grows; both locally and as a network. The whole world can watch this (I will) and learn from it. It means that successes can be replicated and mistakes can be addressed before they spread. The Commons network may become the first truly transparent organisational model.

I’ve been watching and learning from the Queen Street Commons, as I want to create a local Commons here in Sackville. I discussed it over coffee this morning with a local entrepreneur for the first time, and a work Commons seems to be an idea whose time has come.

The idea is a very easy sell. The most difficult part seems to be in finding the initial capital for the space. In a small town like Sackville this is tough, but we have some ideas. I really appreciate the fact that others are paving the way to make it easier for the rest of us. Once the first few are created, then I expect a great explosion of the entire Commons network.

Canada Best for Starting a New Business

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Via Dane, is the World Bank Group’s Doing Business analysis of where in the world is best for private enterprise. Canada ranks first for ease in starting a new business.
So what are you waiting for? Come on over and start a new business. Maybe here in downtown Sackville, population 5,000, complete with a university and only 20 minutes from an airport, with direct flights to Toronto & Montreal and next year to New York. I just need a few more people to help me start a work commons :-)

The New Workplace

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In the Future of Work Agenda October issue, the authors discuss the hidden economy, driven by the movement of knowledge workers to smaller towns, creating much-needed revenue for the local economy:

What makes all this interesting – and important – is that these "free agents," entrepreneurs, and remote employees of large organizations based elsewhere are essentially "exporting" their services outside the local economy – thereby importing income that they then spend locally on food, clothing, toys for their kids, home improvements, recreation, restaurants, and all the other necessities of life.

They go on to call for the creation of Business Communitiy Centers (PDF), which are similar to the Innovation Commons that Boris Mann has proposed. The authors are also offering to manage the networking of these centers or BCC. Their approach seems to be much more of a top-down or franchise model than the grassroots, community-led initiatives in Charlottetown and Vancouver:

And, in the spirit of full disclosure, we are currently in the process of forming that national management company precisely we can promote and support Business Community Centers around the country. And we are actively discussing the BCC concept with several different commercial property developers and local economic development groups at this very moment with the goal of launching one or more of them in the very near future.

The BCC is an interesting concept but there doesn’t appear to be anything in these articles that the Queen Street Commons hasn’t already discovered and done.  Yes, Canadians are leading the way in creating a new workplace model, so let’s get the word out.

The Future of Work

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From Jon Husband comes this definition; “Wirearchy is an interconnected hyperlinked structure of negotiated (either implicit or explicit) agreements based upon accessible information and knowledge, credibility, trust and results.” Meanwhile, Small Business Trends talks about the rise of entrepreneurs, similar to the 19th Century rise of the mercantile class, while  the Future of Work blog calls for freelancers of the world to unite. All of this connects to Dan Pink’s prognosis for the coming conceptual age in A Whole New Mind, which followed his book Free Agent Nation.

In my own work, I am living much of this. I’m currently in Montreal working with Mancomm Performance, where I’m an associate. Most of my clients are looking for analysis as well as creativity. I also work and volunteer with other organisations, including a charity and an Alternative Energy Co-operative. My work roles include independent consultant, sub-contractor, asssociate or partner. My business connections are a “wirearchy” dependent on mutual trust. I have completed projects where I have never met my partners face-to-face.
I know that this work model is not pervasive, but with more downsizing, mergers, buyouts, lockouts, and other disruptions to the stability of the salaried employee, I’m betting that this will be the future for my children.