Work

business & working

Beyond training

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Update: This post is featured on The Working/Learning Carnival along with several other interesting articles.

Marketing and training have certain similarities – gaining attention; getting your message across; and changing behaviour. When Seth Godin says that mass marketing is dead, I ask if mass training is far behind:

Marketing had an arc, one that started with personal, local interactions between real people and rapidly morphed into very corporate anonymous actions aimed at the unwilling masses.

Mass marketing really came into its own after the Second World War, and most prominently in the US:

With the foundations in place [high rate of savings, few consumer goods, end of war, interstate highway system], the “mass” aspects of marketing came into existence in the form of mass demand, massive stores, and mass communications.

Compare the rise of mass marketing to mass training. The wars (1914-1945) brought about the systems approach to training, the basis of instuctional system design (ISD), still used by the military and emulated by much corporate training. Both of these mass, one to many, systems appeared at about the same time. They were used to achieve economies of scale and depended upon good one-way communications systems. Both marketing and training at the mass level depend on a limited number of “channels” available to the individual. That has changed.

Why does Godin think that this is the end of mass marketing? Social media:

Social media’s growth in the last three years, though, gives marketers an inkling that there may be something else going on. Sure, they can run spam ads on Facebook, but they don’t work. Social media, it turns out, isn’t about aggregating audiences so you can yell at them about the junk you want to sell. Social media, in fact, is a basic human need, revealed digitally online. We want to be connected, to make a difference, to matter, to be missed. We want to belong, and yes, we want to be led.

Since many (most) people can easily connect with people and information, and are starting to find ways to make a difference in their learning, why would they want to follow a pre-set training program designed in a one-size-fits-all fashion? It actually goes against human nature. Each one of us wants to be unique.

Good trainers know how to personalize and contextualize their sessions, but social media can reinforce this continuously, not constrained by time or space. Successful organisations will move from a training focus, and even beyond a performance improvement focus, to a connecting and facilitating one, with tools such as social media to do this. In an always-on, totally connected work environment, how else could you help people to work and learn? You could design a new course, but that may no longer be a viable option in the near future.

Learnscape Sandbox

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Need a sandbox to test out Web 2.0 tools and techniques and see what they mean for your organisation? You may want to check out our Plug-in Learning 2.0 to go:

Advice on implementation comes from learning professionals, not software geeks. Jane knows social networking tools as well as anyone in the industry; Harold has his finger on the pulse of bottom-up learning and open source approaches; Clark is a passionate advocate of cognitive design, applying what we know about how people think to the design of systems. Jay is the thought leader in informal learning and the convergence of work and learning online.

This service is for organisations who want to be early adopters of social media for work and learning but haven’t figured out a way to do it internally. Our international team has a lot of experience and we work well together. Drop one of us a note and we’ll have a chat. We believe that there is a need for this kind of service and we’ve put together a package that we think makes sense. Comments are always appreciated.

Greedy Instructional Design

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Last year I wrote that Instructional Design Needs More Agility, saying that it’s time that the training industry develop its own agile approach or risk becoming redundant. Continuing on the theme of faster and more flexible development, Daniel Lemire thinks that programming could use the greedy algorithm as a basis to manage projects. I mentioned on Twitter that I thought that a “greedy approach” was similar to agile programming and Daniel replied:

@hjarche greedy here means: don’t think globally, make the best choice locally, and the end result will be ok. So, yes, it is agile.

My experience in larger projects is that we spend too much time in planning and then freeze that process once we start development, even if the plan is no longer relevant. In smaller projects planning can be almost non-existent, with a quick decision on what model/approach to use and then it’s off to meet whatever was stated in the contract. Building in agility or the greedy algorithm at the onset seems to give more options to the development team, who now have the responsibilty of confirming that they are on course as they continue to refine the product.

Giving thanks

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It’s Thanksgiving in Canada and we’ve just finished an excellent turkey dinner. The gang is playing a game, but I’m odd man out – sitting and listening to the antics. Meanwhile, the economy seems to be melting as we wait for our national election on Tuesday. Personally, I’ve been watching this site to help me decide which way to cast my vote.

I’m thankful that for the past five years I’ve been able to work from home and grow my business. My wife also has her studio in the house and we spend most of days together. Usually one of us is available for any family activities that happen during the day. Even with our financial uncertainties, it’s been a good lifestyle, and now it seems that everyone else is the same financial situation that we’ve been in – not knowing what’s going to happen beyond the next month or two.

On a positive note, Andrea has her first gallery show next week and it’s a big leap for her. About as big as when I became a free-agent. The show is called Fibre Optics at Fog Forest Gallery in Sackville until 25 October.

Who knows what the future holds, but for now we are doing what we love and making a living. I can’t be asking for much more at this time.

Opportunities in difficult times

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It’s hard to get management’s attention when things are going well. They’re running off to meetings, golf games, conferences and the like. However, as cash and clients become scarcer, management has to focus on the business at hand and figure out how to do things better. They might even question the role of the training department.

I’ve been in the business of virtual learning and online collaborative work pretty well since the Web entered the business world. It’s been a hard sell over the years, especially since many people would prefer a trip to Florida in the Winter to attend a training course. Everyone deserves some time away from the office, but as travel and training budgets get slashed, more companies are examining learning and working on the Web.

WWW's "historical" logo, created by Robert Cailliau.
Image via Wikipedia

Recently I’ve been seeing more search phrases like – “open source social networking” and “cheap web conferencing tools” – coming to this site. Necessity is the mother of invention and people are looking for options. Luckily, many organisations have led the way in online collaboration over the past decade and there is a fair bit of expertise around, as witnessed by the range of knowledge on our Work Literacy online learning event. There are also a lot of tools to select from – some would even say too many.

I have a feeling that there will be a growing demand for innovative ways to help people in organisations work and learn together using the Web. For instance, I’m talking with a potential client who does not want me to travel on-site. Since I’m advising on how to move from a classroom teaching model to e-learning, he reasons, we should set the example and do all of our work online. I’m quite comfortable working that way, but it’s taken several years of practice.

I also see a rising interest in online performance support and just-in-time help, as opposed to just-in-case online courses. For professionals with skills in analysing business problems and finding methods and cost-effective technologies to address them, this is a time of opportunity. If people in the learning & development field complain that they can’t get management’s attention at this time, then perhaps they never will.

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Finding the Sweet Spot – Review

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The first comment on the cover says:

“This one is a keeper. Buy three. One for you, one for someone you care about, and one for a friend who really and truly needs it.” Seth Godin

I was given a copy of Dave Pollard’s Finding the Sweet Spot by a friend and read it on the plane home last week.  I’ve been watching Dave develop the model for natural enterprises for quite some time and even helped to coin the term, so I’m definitely a fan of the “natural entrepreneur’s guide to responsible, sustainable, joyful work”. Natural Entrepreneurship is based on a six step model that is easy to understand, but will take some work to implement, but then anything worthwhile requires effort:

  1. Find the sweet spot: Identify your Gift, passion, and purpose
  2. Find the right partners
  3. Research unmet needs
  4. Imagine and innovate solutions
  5. Continuously improvise
  6. Act responsibly on principle

Implementing these steps does not require an initial outlay of capital and natural entrepreneurs can get started even while they hold down a job. Each step is covered in detail, with practical advice and some anecdotes. A key aspect of natural entrepreneurship is that it is not premised on the unsustainable notion of perpetual growth.

The book is well written and edited and doesn’t ramble on as a series of blog posts might ( a bit what I feared when I picked up the book). I would recommend this book to anyone growing or changing an organisation, from single start-up to small company or non-profit; though there are examples of larger companies in the book.

I will be adding Finding the Sweet Spot to a few select reference books that I’ve used for business strategy work; including Kawasaki’s The Art of the Start and Christensen’s Seeing What’s Next. Now I have to buy some extra copies to give away.

Free Work Literacy Online Workshop

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On Monday, September 29, Michele Martin, Tony Karrer and I will be hosting a free 6-week learning event on social media for learning professionals. This “course” (kind of like an unworkshop) is sponsored by Work Literacy and the eLearning Guild, in part as a run-up to  DevLearn 2008. All are welcome.

This is an asynchronous (no time-scheduled activities) program and each week we’ll identify activities for all levels of skills and interest.

Here’s the program:

Date Title
09/29/2008 Introduction to Social Networks
10/06/2008 Free your Favorites / Bookmarks
10/13/2008 Blogs
10/20/2008
Aggregators
10/27/2008 Wikis
11/03/2008 Implications / Summary

Please spread the word, especially to your less connected friends and colleagues. This may be the introduction they need.

We suggest that you sign up on the Ning network that we’ve set up. It has more information and will be updated as we go along. If you’re having some some difficulties, e-mail me and I’ll see what I can do to help.

We’re also looking for your thoughts on how to get the information out to people who are not online; any ideas?

Atlantic Social Media

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Third Tuesday NB had a great meetup last night in Moncton, with CommandN TV on-site. They are an excellent example of folks from Atlantic Canada who have worked hard to create their own niche in this market, with growing success. Even though Jeff is the only one on the team who currently resides here, I think that that we may be able to lure them, and many others, here with a simpler lifestyle, cheaper housing, bigger yards, and lots of clean water (more water than we wanted this year).

I engaged in several conversations with start-ups and even was able to connect a few folks. I’m more positive about this business/social/tech gathering, which is very much a grassroots efforts, than many others that have been attempted in our region in the past decade. We had several people drive up from Halifax, which added to the mix. The Meetups cross over industries and disciplines and the inclusion of marketing & communications specialists has given techies a bit more shine. The conversations are just more interesting.

moncton meetup

Speaking of social media, there is a good review of Seven Social Media Consultants on R/WW, even highlighting a Canadian! Check out links to their blogs and podcasts for some more interesting perspectives.

Edge Thinking

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The video of John Seely Brown on edge thinking is worth 15 minutes of your time.

JSB discusses the concept of workscapes (reminds me of Jay’s learnscape) and foresees that all managers will need general HR skills and that management will evolve over time to a coaching role. He also tells about how things changed when he became a free-agent after decades at XEROX-PARC. Within a year, JSB was more connected and had a more dynamic network than ever, and he credits social Web tools for this. The Web is a great place for do-it-ourselves learning and JSB sees work and learning becoming integrated [this is my own area of most passionate professional interest]. One example of the Web reducing the need for training is an older programmer learning new languages and techniques. He says that he just types in the exact programming error message in Google and instantly gets the performance support he needs.

Photo: Living on the Edge by Giant Ginkgo

I’m currently working on combining my last posts on The T&D Role and Learning & Performance into a more integrated article. JSB’s work, plus concepts like Wirearchy and Cynefin are starting to come together in my mind. I want to focus on the practicalities of creating a better workplace for a networked world, as many of the frameworks are already out there waiting to be implemented.

Changing the publishing model

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Last week, Jay Cross hosted a discussion on the un-book and several people discussed the concept of self-publishing on the Web, given services like Lulu. The question was asked by Dave Gray, “Why publish and then get feedback?”. Also, with self-publishing the author stays in control of the process. The publishing world is changing.

Eric Frank from Flatworld Knowledge spoke about his new venture, which is set to go live in 2009, but already has 26 universities involved in testing the concept. Flatworld’s business model:

Our books are free online. We offer convenient, low-cost choices for students – print, audio, by-the-chapter, and more. Our books are open for instructors to mix, mash, and make their own. Our books are the hub of a social learning network where students learn from the book and each other.

Eric mentioned that they work with established authors/experts; use a Creative Commons license; and allow textbooks to be re-purposed for each user and/or the adopting faculty member. Revenue is generated on the add-ons such as print, audio, PDF’s, and later on the Kindle. All of this is designed to give faculty more control over content. The service includes the ability to make private/public notes and comments as well as text chat and later some social networking.

It’s a new business model but doesn’t push things too far, which should make it viable. The professors remain in control, which should get buy-in, and the service will not be disruptive to the teaching model in higher education. Lowering the cost of text books will be positive for students as well. The key will be in getting a critical mass of text books and it looks like this is proceeding well. Self-publishing, or at least publishing without the middle-man, appears to be hitting the mainstream and this should be good for anyone in the learning field.