Work

business & working

Role Shift

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The last time I looked at roles in education I was inspired by Anil Mammen to create a table based on his definitions. I think some of the descriptions can be used in a prescriptive way of getting out of our industrial, hierarchical mindset and moving to an enterprise 2.0 or wirearchical culture. In networks, learning is the work, so a critical part of this culture shift is viewing learning as quite different from traditional training. The objective is to become a wirearchy:

a dynamic two-way flow of power and authority based on information, knowledge, trust and credibility, enabled by interconnected people and technology

Though incremental change may not always work, it might be easier for established organizations to move to a transition zone in getting there:

Hierarchical Getting There Wirearchical
Training – Learning & Development – Organizational Development – HR
Representative of the establishment. Guide Peer in learning.
Responsible for imparting approved knowledge. Knows what to teach, when & how. Continuously learn & unlearn.
Omit & modify as necessary.

Collude with the establishment.

 Knowledgeable on a given subject.

Interpreter of information.

 Provocateur

Connector

Workers – Learners – Employees – Associates
Powerless receiver of knowledge. Empowered to find knowledge. Critical Thinker.

Democratization of knowledge.
Studies out of fear of failure, reprisal, or displacement. Closing of teacher-learner divide.
 Decentralization of authority.
Selfish motive to learn – job, money, fame, power, desire to appear smart. Opportunities for self-directed learners. Seeker of truth.

Engaged professional-amateur.

Arete* [via Stephen Downes]

* Arete in ancient Greek culture was courage and strength in the face of adversity and it was to what all people aspired.

Trends

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Here’s an infographic from Ross Dawson on Trend Blends to watch as we consider our common futures:

I’ve noticed these trends pop up in my readings and observations, for example:

Power Shifts Eastward: Clay Burell’s advice for teachers scorned:

Teachers have “asked what they can do for their country,” and they do it. Daily. But they should have the good sense to also ask what their country is doing for them, patriotic martyrdom propaganda aside. If their country has reached a “tottering, chaotic” point at which it “loathes” them, then teachers do have choices.

One of those choices is Asia. America used to be a magnet for other countries’ brain-drain. Asia seems the better magnet now.

It is for me, anyhow.  I’m thankful that I teach in Asia — because Asia is thankful for it, too.

Localism: Seeking Farmland is four people cycling across the land and connecting with local farmers. “We are two couples in our mid- to late twenties who, each having spent two to four years apprenticing on and managing various organic farms, are now seeking a long-term farming opportunity together.”
3 for the road

Volatility: A black eye for democracy, by Steve Paiken:

In Toronto the Good, we saw a law passed and enforced that was more anti-democratic than the War Measures Act. And we saw twice as many people arrested over a single 24-hour period in Toronto — more than 900 at last count — than what took place during the October Crisis in Quebec 40 years ago. And that event is in our history books as the most notorious abuse of civil rights in modern Canadian history.

Digitalisation: Goodbye to the office by Seth Godin:
  1. If you have a laptop, you probably have the machine already, in your house.
  2. If you do work with a keyboard and a mouse, the items you need to work on are on your laptop, not in the office.
  3. The boss can easily keep tabs on productivity digitally.
  4. How many meetings are important? If you didn’t go, what would happen?
  5. You can get energy from people other than those in the same company.
  6. Of the 100 people in your office, how many do you collaborate with daily?
  7. So go someplace. But it doesn’t have to be to your office.
Globalisation: The World is Watching – the World Cup online, from any device, anywhere. Or, as @umairh writes, “when Chinese wages rise, kiss your made-in-china lifestyle goodbye. time for betterness.”

Urbanisation: Urban Revival by Richard Florida, “Long-established trends in the growth and decline of  America’s cities appear to be shifting …” – Cities

Anxiety: We need to learn more about healthy workplaces:
What’s the future? A recent Canadian study showed that depression and anxiety affect up to 15% of pre-schoolers. Mental health is an important issue that will not go away and informed discussions are necessary at all levels. I’m glad I learned about this over the Summer.

Environmental Change: Climate change and environmental degradation should be obvious to all but many are still flogging the scientists.

Social Media and Learning: Implications

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I’m continuing on my theme of capturing what we learned during our Work Literacy online workshop in 2008, before Ning pulls the plug on us. Previous posts have discussed several aspects of what we learned and I’d like to review some of the summative commentary.

What questions still linger? Jason Willensky – “Will we be forced to chase hot tools and social platforms to stay competitive… is this an ever-expanding universe of tech goodies? How can these tools help quiet participants be more interactive during a training class?”

Thinking about learning. Catherine Lombardozzi – “One of my favorite quotes is from Kent Seibert: ‘Reject the myth that we learn from experience and accept the reality that we learn by reflecting on experience.’ My experiences in this experiment underscored for me how important it is to reflect “out loud” – if not by engaging online, by taking some of what you’re thinking about and talking about it with others. These kinds of tools make it possible to compose and share your thoughts on what you are learning, to ask questions, to get feedback from others (many of whom you have never met). Tools also make it possible to learn from others… following their bookmarks, for example, or using the tools to make contacts, simplify your own research, and more. They expand our learning support system is fabulous ways.”

Workshop Design:

Virginia Yonkers – “The design of the course itself and even the question of how to measure the learning has posed a number of questions that I did not have coming in to the course (questions are good).

Specifically, what are some design options for courses that might be “open ended” that the social networking tools allow? How should we be reconfiguring course designs to support student learning, learning assessment, student support needs in their learning, and administrative planning requirements? How can we make learning both flexible, yet in line with administrator’s (organizations, schools, universities, etc…) goals and needs for accountability?”

Jeff Cobb – “I think one question a “course” like this raises is “Does it end?” It may taper off, but it seems to me the seeds are here for a continuing discussion, ongoing contribution of case studies, exploration of tools not examined here, etc. That kind of thing can, of course, simply continue out in the blogosphere, but it is helpful to have a more focused community.”

—

Immediately after the workshop, I wrote, So what did I learn or what was reinforced?

  • A loose-knit online learning community can scale to many participants and remain effective.
  • Only a small percentage ~10% of members will be active.
  • Wikis need to be extremely focused on real tasks/projects in order to be adopted.
  • If facilitators can seed good questions and provide feedback, then conversations can flourish.
  • Use a very gentle hand in controlling the learners and some will become highly participative.
  • Design for after the course, using tools like social bookmarks, so that artifacts can be used for reference or performance support.
  • Create the role of “synthesizer”. I found it quite helpful when Tony and Michele summarized the previous week’s activities.
  • Keep the structure loose enough so that it can grow or change according to the needs of the community.

Having worked with many other online communities in the past two years, I would say that the role of “synthesizer” remains important, and it is a critical part of being a good online community manager.

Seeing motivation with new eyes

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Several years ago, I wrote in Training: A solution looking for a problem, that some barriers to performance which are often overlooked when prescribing training, include:

  1. Unclear expectations (such as policies & guidelines);
  2. Inadequate resources;
  3. Unclear performance measures;
  4. Rewards and consequences not directly linked to the desired performance.

In some cases, these barriers could be addressed and there would be no further requirement for training. Where there is a genuine lack of skills and knowledge, training may be required, but it should only be in cases where the other barriers to performance have been addressed. A trained worker, without the right resources and with unclear expectations, will still not perform up to the desired standard.

I’d like to revisit point #4, Rewards & Consequences, because it is often overlooked by Human Performance Technology (HPT) practitioners and is usually passed over to those folks in Human Resources who handle pay & benefits. There’s a compensation “system” and we’ve just accepted it for many decades. We should have paid more attention to the data.

Recently, Dan Pink has looked at the area of rewards, consequences and motivation at work and has shown that much of what we have taken for granted is just not supported by the research. Extrinsic rewards only work for simple physical tasks and increased monetary rewards can actually be detrimental to performance, especially with knowledge work. The keys to motivation at work are for each person to have a sense of Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose, as shown in this video.

In my career, I have drifted away from instructional design methods like ADDIE because they only address the How and not the Why of work performance. I became deeply involved in HPT for several years because it provided good tools for work analysis, but then found that HPT did not help in understanding the social side of work and learning. I have since looked at the Organizational Development and Knowledge Management fields for different perspectives. Once again, I see that most of us in these various disciplines are nothing more than blind monks trying to understand an elephant. We have to look outside our cloistered fields in order to see with new eyes.

IP Workshop

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I attended an intellectual property workshop in Moncton today. It was at the  DDx Health Strategies boardroom, a good location with lots of LAN ports and wi-fi. Of course, I hadn’t brought any devices as I assumed that the place would be locked-down. Lesson for next time.

The presentation was good, by a lawyer from Miller Thomson. I noted, “good presenter, but too much use of bullets on slides, should buy copy of Presentation Zen“.  A common criticism of many presenters, I’m finding, today (should follow TED Talks examples).

Highlights on IP, Patents and Trademarks:

1st Question to ask yourself: “What would a competitor need to use to compete effectively?”

IP = results of innovation that have market results.

Conversion to IP: Informal Knowledge => Formal Knowledge (codified assets) => Protected Assets (patents, trademarks, copyright)

Note: Several examples showed how patents stifle innovation, especially in software development.

Advice to Market Entrants: Attack incumbent patents early and confirm their validity.

Patents: Cover new technology but not business methods. Make sure you have clarified and know the difference. All applications should include “use cases” and make sure you have checked your industry for “patent trolls”.

An interesting aside: It seems that China is embracing patents because soon it will become a net exporter of technology, so it needs to protect its investment. At the same time, trademarks are not afforded the same protection and will continue to be appropriated.

Bottom Line: If you are developing intellectual property, get legal advice from a firm that understands this stuff.

Where organizational support needs to go

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Patti Anklam is blogging the E2 Conference and discusses how Tony Byrne distinguishes between Networking and Collaboration with this diagram:

Networking could also be called cooperation, as Stephen Downes helped me define it:

collaboration means ‘working together’. That’s why you see it in market economies. markets are based on quantity and mass.

cooperation means ’sharing’. That’s why you see it in networks. In networks, the nature of the connection is important; it is not simply about quantity and mass …

You and I are in a network – but we do not collaborate (we do not align ourselves to the same goal, subscribe to the same vision statement, etc), we *cooperate*

In the above matrix, I’ve shown how different levels of complexity call for different levels of work practice and group work. This is a key problem with our current systems of human resources (HR) and training systems. The majority of the effort goes into developing individual skills. From recruiting for skills, knowledge and attitude to individual assessments and salary scales, we pay little attention to how groups and organizations work and especially to the greater community from which we all draw support, information and knowledge. Adding “must be a team player” to a job description doesn’t cut it any more.

As our interconnectedness increases in the digital surround, it’s becoming obvious that we are not individuals doing our own thing, who from time-to-time have to deal with others. We are becoming our networks, but most organizational support functions do not  understand networked work and learning. They don’t even speak the language. HR, OD, L&D and training need to develop new literacies to discuss and account for those spheres that are outside the individual, yet are becoming such an important part of each of us.

Those large grey spheres are areas of significant importance and opportunity for the next generation of organizational support. They are also the fields of play for every snake-oil salesman around.

Freelance lessons

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Today marks the seventh anniversary of Jarche Consulting. With my semi-sabbatical just beginning, perhaps it’s a good time to reflect on some of what I’ve learned about being a freelance consultant. Here’s my advice:

  1. Start out with some cash in the bank because cash-flow is absolutely critical. You need to keep paying bills through the slow times and it’s almost guaranteed there will be slow times.
  2. Don’t start until you have a paying client. If you can, keep your job until you know for certain that you have a contract. This will help make the leap and avoid early-stage desperation.
  3. Diversify. Much of my paid work is high value, high paying consulting. This is great but it can be sporadic. Find some lower-paying work that will help you through the tough times. This could be seasonal contract work, perhaps in a different field. Also look for sources of residual income. I just started allowing advertising on my site and I regret not starting sooner. A few hundred dollars a month could come in handy and it takes time to build this up. Start early [this revenue stream was discontinued. I now host a community of practice].
  4. Keep your expenses as low as possible and pay with cash whenever you can. The low cost of living in Sackville has been a real advantage. However, look into leasing business equipment because you can claim the entire expense and it helps to keep you cash-positive. I lease my computers.
  5. Be careful what you give away for free. Sharing everything may not be in your best interest. I’ve only recently learned this lesson, as I was fairly certain that the more I shared, the better it would be for business. That’s not quite what has happened.
  6. Make sure you understand where and how money is made in your field. How do clients make purchasing decisions? If brand-name consulting firms are preferred, you may have difficulty marketing your services. Find clients who prefer freelancers.
  7. Join forces with others. The best thing to happen for my business was collaborating with my friends and colleagues at the Internet Time Alliance. Not only is it better for marketing, I also have learned much from them.

Knowledge Transfer

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After seven years, my business has taken another turn, as one would expect from a life in perpetual Beta. Starting tomorrow I will be spending a good part of my time supporting research at Mount Allison University. I have accepted a term contract as Knowledge Transfer and Partnerships Officer in Research Services. It’s a very interesting role and I’m looking forward to branching out of information and learning technologies and working with life sciences, among other fields. The work is full-time (though not by freelancer standards) and then turns to half-time. It’s like a working sabbatical for me. There’s even paid vacation time – I have not taken a vacation in ten years.

Jarche Consulting will continue as a business and I will still blog, but probably less frequently. There are over 1,700 existing posts here for anyone to peruse. I also intend to discuss issues around technology and knowledge transfer in the context of higher education. You can expect more knowledge management type discussions. This will definitely be a learning experience and I look forward to expanding my network and my knowledge.

With less time to concentrate on my own consulting, and business development, I will focus on working with my colleagues at the Internet Time Alliance.

Let me now officially add the disclaimer that the views expressed here are my own and do not reflect the views of any past or current employers or clients.

One interesting point: my e-mail address will be the same one I had a decade ago while at the Centre for Learning Technologies.

Heads you win, tails you lose

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The Long Tail is one of the most commonly quoted models for business on the Internet:

The Long Tail or long tail refers to the statistical property that a larger share of population rests within the tail of a probability distribution than observed under a ‘normal’ or Gaussian distribution. This has gained popularity in recent times as a retailing concept describing the niche strategy of selling a large number of unique items in relatively small quantities – usually in addition to selling fewer popular items in large quantities. The concept was popularised by Chris Anderson in an October 2004 Wired magazine article, in which he mentioned Amazon.com and Netflix as examples of businesses applying this strategy. Anderson elaborated the Long Tail concept in his book The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More.

More money is made by creators at the head than at the tail, according to Kevin Kelly, via Chris Anderson:

In pocket #1 of the curve, Seth talks in terms of a creator of a work. In pocket #2 of the curve, he also talks in terms of the creator. But then when he gets to the long tail, he switches away from a creator, to talk in terms of an aggregator of other creators’ work. Why is that? What happens to the creator? The creator is dropped when we get to the long tail “pocket of profit” because the long tail is not profitable for the creator. It’s profitable only for the audience and aggregators.

According to Seth Godin, pocket #2 has some real potential:

The reason you can make money in the niche pocket is that it costs far less to compete here. First, because there’s less competition and the competition is less fierce, and second because it’s cheaper and easier to reach your target market because they’re choosing to pay attention.

After seven years as an independent working online and participating in online content creation, I am starting to wonder how much room there really is in pocket #2 and if it’s just a (very) short extension of pocket #1. Jaron Lanier in You Are Not a Gadget, says:

The people who are perhaps the most screwed by open culture are the middle classes of intellectual and cultural creation.  The freelance studio musician, the stringer selling reports to newspapers from warzones are both crucial contributors to culture. Each pays dues and devotes years to honing a craft. They used to live off the trickle down effects of the old system, and like the middle class at large, they are precious. They get nothing from the new system.

If you’re not one of the recognized leaders in your field, can you make a living online or are you just part of the long tail, valuable only to aggregators and their advertising revenues? As a content creator are you providing the fodder that lets Google, Facebook and YouTube earn huge market valuations? Will there be a middle class in the networked economy, or only heads & tails?

Let’s talk about work

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Work today (and tomorrow) requires more creativity and less formulaic intelligence and it also requires less of “us”. That’s less of our dedicated, full-time attention, with contract work becoming the new normal:

Littler Mendelson, one of the largest employment law firms in the country, predicted in a report last year titled “The Emerging New Workforce” that 50 percent of new jobs that emerge after the recession will be contingent positions, and as a result “as high as 35 percent of the work force will be made up of temporary workers, contractors or other project-based labor.”

Full-time work has not been the ticket to the good life for several decades:

The prolonged period of economic prosperity that Canada has enjoyed resulted in a 72-per-cent increase in economic output between 1975 and 2005, growth that has continued since, it [the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives] noted.

The benefits of the growth, however, have not been reflected in workers’ paycheques, it added. “Canadians’ average real wages, which are wages adjusted for inflation, have not increased in more than 30 years.”

In a networked, knowledge-based economy where initiative, creativity and passion trump intellect, diligence and obedience; being “at” work 8 hours a day makes little sense. The Internet makes “time at work”, an antiquated notion. It also makes many of our traditional management and personnel policies irrelevant. The recession has only amplified this trend.

What can we do?

Most intelligent people know that there is no such thing as a job for life. Corporations have shown that loyalty to the enterprise does not work both ways. Organization should look at how they can structure to take advantage of these workplace changes. The first part is to stop thinking like a hierarchy, with titles and reporting relationships, and start framing the enterprise in terms of networks. Mapping value networks is a start, as is talking about social networks and supporting them through the use of social media. If you look at work differently and talk about it differently, then new conversations and attitudes will result.

Here are some ideas, for starters:

Abolish the organization chart and replace it with a network diagram.

Move away from counting hours, to a results oriented work environment

Encourage outside work that doesn’t directly interfere with paid work, as it will strengthen the network

Provide options for workers to come and go and give them ways to stay connected when they’re not employed. Build an ecosystem, not a monolith.