Archives for January 2020

What’s in an image?

30 January 2020 by Clark Leave a Comment

My post earlier this week on the images processed 60K faster prompted some discussion (over on LinkedIn ;). And there appears to be some debate about the topic. I think it revolves around the issue of just what’s in an image. So let’s unpack that.

So, the claim is that ‘images’ are processed 60K faster than text. And, of course, trying to find the actual citation has been an exercise in futility. But can we address it on principle? I’ll suggest we can.

Let’s take it apart. What’s in an image? Is it a photo? A diagram? An infographic? Even a video? I think we need to nail it down. So let’s talk about the presumed cognitive processing that goes on.

Let’s start with photos. They capture context. If it’s a familiar context, processing likely happens almost immediately. But others? Not so fast. Unless a context has already been established, a picture isn’t going to make much sense. That is, we probably should account for the context processing as part of the story.

As soon as we get to diagrams, the story gets more complex. Ok, Jill Larkin and Herb Simon once opined on Why a Diagram is worth 10000 words, but it’s about mapping conceptual relationships to spatial relationships. And I’ll still argue you need to process the elements, and the relationships, before you understand it. So it’s not instantaneous.

And, yes, there’s the lovely example in Don Norman’s Things That Make Us Smart, where he showed how a relationship was more quickly processed than the equivalent text description (he kindly didn’t mention it was from my Ph.D. thesis ;). Yet not all text can be replaced by images. What would convey Nike’s Just Do It slogan more concisely than that text? You’d have to establish the relationship first. E.g. their ‘swoop’. As I mentioned, familiar words are processed essentially as images, as whole words, not being processed by individual characters.

The same holds true for infographics, by the way. They’re not ‘grokked’ immediately. They need to be parsed in terms of message, and flow, and information. They’re a mashup of text and info, but that doesn’t make it any faster. Though they may support retention, but we should use diagrams and images appropriately with text.

Video’s even more complex. It’s a linear medium, as is text. And it’s powerful, but is it processed more efficiently? Again, I think it depends on what you’re saying. A video can be a narrated slide show. Is that faster than reading the text? I read faster than folks speak.

Which brings me to my take-home conclusion. A simple statement like “images processed 60K faster than text) is misleading. What image? It all hinges on what’s in an image. Be vary wary of such claims. In the previous article, I provided some questions to ask yourself. And I may have to rant again about myths in general!

Images processed 60K faster? No! And more…

28 January 2020 by Clark 4 Comments

Recently, I’ve run into the claim that images are processed 60K times faster than text. And, folks, it’s a myth. More over, it’s exemplary of bad practices in business. And so it’s worth pointing out what the situation is, why it’s happening, and why you should be on guard.

It’s easy to find the myth. Just search on “images processed 60K times faster than text”. You’ll get lots of citations, and a few debunkings. Most of the references are from marketing hype, selling you visual support.

The origin is suspicious. It’s always cited as coming from 3M, Polishing Your Presentation. Which is problematic, because when you go to that paper, you find the quote, but not a legitimate citation. Instead, there’s a vague statement about “findings from behavioral research” with no citation! Bad form.

A study done jointly between 3M and the University of Minnesota about presentations also is potentially a source. With only one small catch: it doesn’t mention 60K at all! Instead, it does conclude that “Presentations using visual aids were found to be 43% MORE PERSUASIVE than unaided presentations.” Which is hardly controversial.

Yet this is another zombie, like learning styles, that won’t die! It’s been researched by several folks, including Alan Levine and Jonathan Schwabish. No one seems to be able to identify a real piece of evidence. And it just doesn’t make sense!

In use, words are practiced enough to be recognized as a whole, serving as icons; they’re not repeatedly processed from letters into words. Second, images need parsing, too, and contextualization between the image and the current semantics.

Sure, we have many more neurons devoted to image processing than auditory, but that’s not only due to a sensory primacy (e.g. distance capability), but also the richness of the visual field. And more doesn’t equal ‘faster’. Yes, we’re processing in parallel, but nerve firing rates change based upon activation, not modality.

And this means that we have to have our ‘hype’ shields up. We need to evaluate any claims by several methods. Who else is saying this? Not pointing to the same (bad) data, but what convergent evidence is there? And what vested interest do the promoters have? And, importantly, does it make causal sense? Is there a plausible scenario when you dig beneath the surface features?

And, if you don’t want to read research published in the original academese, find those who you can trust. Those who’ve demonstrated a consistent ability to cut through the hype and the research, and bring good interpretations and debunk the myths. You can see my list of mythbusters here.

So, please, practice professionalism, avoid the hype, and use good principles in design and practice.

My Spring 2020 schedule and things I do

21 January 2020 by Clark Leave a Comment

My travels are a little more restrained this first half of the year, but then again, things change! And, it occurs to me to talk just a little bit about the things I do that aren’t speaking, writing, and consulting. So here’s my spring 2020 schedule and a bit more.

First, I’ll be speaking at ATD’s Techknowledge conference. I’m doing several things, including:

a talk on ‘transforming learning’ (a recurrent theme of late ;)
a talk on professionalism in practice (e.g. resisting myths)
potentially assisting another session
signing books

They’re doing things differently, and I laud their experimenting!

I’ll also be the opening keynote at the ATD New England annual conference on March 27. I’ll be talking the L&D Revolution.

There’s one more event coming June 15-16, in Belgium. I’ll be speaking at Mathias Vermeulen’s LearnTechDay, and running a workshop. Topics TBD, but I’m hoping it’s an LXD workshop and a Revolution talk. Games and mobile are, of course, also on the table.

That’s it, for now.

I briefly wanted to mention the other things I do, just so you have an idea of the weird influences that affect me.

I’m a CERT Plans Chief for my area of the city. Community Emergency Response Teams assist in dire events (wildfires, earthquakes, tornados, hurricanes, floods, etc) when first-responders (police, fire, EMTs) are overwhelmed. It’s valuable to me to know how to protect my family, friends, and neighborhood.

I’m a board member and treasurer (still asking myself how I agreed to that) for IBSTPI. The International Board for Standards in Training, Performance, & Instruction has been involved in creating competencies for different roles like Instructional Design, Instructor, etc. It’s in the process of a revitalization (stay tuned). I am in it to learn more about competencies.

I’m also on the board of eLearn Mag, an online journal of the Association for Computing Machinery (the society in computer science). The goal is to publish papers at the intersection of research and practice. This involves serving as associate editor for Emerging Technologies, reviewing papers, and soliciting some as well. If you’ve got a documented innovation, let me know and we can talk about getting it published. No PR!

I do serve as an occasionally reviewer for some other conferences and journals (e.g. Instructional Science and Education Technology Research & Development), to keep my knowledge up.

And I’m on the advisory board of a university ID program.

I also am serving on the committee of a Ph.D. student. I see my role as providing some real world balance (along with some academic knowledge).

When possible, I donate blood. My blood type’s O- CMV-, which means I’m the universal donor (and buggered if I ever need blood). I’ve donated gallons, and somehow it still doesn’t keep me thin!

All of the above is also about giving back. However, it means my philanthropic bandwidth is pretty much full ;).

There you have it, my intended peregrinations on my spring 2020 schedule (if you’re at one, say hi!), and a brief insight into how and why I spend my (few) extra cycles.

Signifying change

14 January 2020 by Clark Leave a Comment

I have a persistent interest in the potential for myth and ritual for learning. In the past I sought a synthesis of what’s known as good practice (as always ;) in an area I don’t have good resources in. When I looked over 10 years ago, there wasn’t much. That’s no longer the case. There is now quite a bit available about signifying change with ritual.

Myth, here, is not about mistaken beliefs, but instead are stories that tie us to our place in the universe. Every culture has had its origin story, and typically stories that explain the earth, the sky, and more. Ritual is a series of repeated behaviors that signify your belief in those stories. And when you look at prayer, and transition ceremonies, you see how powerful these behaviors are in shaping behavior. Can we leverage this power for learning?

Barbara Myerhoff opined that ritual worked because your body bought into it before your mind did. Thus, the repeated behaviors build a ‘muscle memory’ that supports your purpose. And agreeing to perform the ritual at all is an implicit complicity in the story behind the ritual. Finally, having others also performing or having performed the ritual builds a social commitment.

There’s clear power, but can we do it systematically? The sources at the bottom suggest we can. My synthesis says the answer is yes. There are two important distinctions. One is whether it’s individual or collective. Are we having a single person commit, or having a group commit? In the former, they may be becoming a member of the community, but it’s about changing personal behavior regardless. In the latter, it’s about someone becoming a member of a group of practitioners. (And, to be clear, here I’m talking secular change.)

The other distinction is the scope of the change. Is this a small personal change, or is this a switch to an entire system of belief? Are we helping someone be more productive, or asking them to buy into our organizational culture? If we want to transform people, signifying the change seems important.

Wwhat makes effective ritual is having a behavior that indicates allegiance to a system of belief. It’s essential that the behavior signifies the change in some way. It might be a part of the actions that the new desired change incorporate. So you mimic rolling out dough to cement your understanding of baking. Or it might be an iconic representation of some aspect of the belief, so drinking something specific as preparation.

The actual structure is suggested to be some initiating occurrence, like another instance (new client), or a particular time of day. Then there’s a process to be followed, typically with a preparation, a behavior, and a closing.

As usual, the process includes identifying the necessary elements, prototyping, testing, and iterating. Does it work with the audience, does it feel authentic, is it easy to do, are some of the questions to ask.

The materials I’ve found suggest ritual can be helpful. Two obvious roles are to successfully acknowledge their new status and/or sustain necessary mindsets and practices. When people have transformed, we want to acknowledge the change. And we want to help them continue to maintain and develop the new ability. Signifying change is an important component. We should be intentional about making that happen.

Three pointers:

How to design team rituals to accelerate change

Crafting effective ritual

Introducing Ritual Design (and more from the Ritual Design Lab here)

Making transformation manifest

7 January 2020 by Clark Leave a Comment

I’ve been on a ‘transformation‘ kick. And it occurs to me to think that it may be more marketing than meaning. One aspect is that we need to be making transformation manifest to our learners.

The transformation I’m talking about is our learning experiences. That is, while we need to transform our practices and ourselves, here I’m talking about the outcomes of our design. I want the experience to be more than just mundane, I want it to be transformative.

And, I realize, learning inherently is transformative. You’re coming away with new understandings, skills, and/or perspectives. If it’s effective, you’ve changed. That’s what learning is about! It does need to be effective, but if it is, you’re newly capable.

So it’s not about helping folks transform. That’s happening. Instead, it’s about helping people realize that they’re transformed. Which is more about marketing, really.

What’s involved in making transformation manifest? To make it work it takes steps at the beginning and the end of the experience. At the beginning, it’s helping learners realize two things:

That they do want to learn this
That they don’t know it now

There are a variety of ways these can be done. We can make it humorously or dramatically clear why this is important. And we can let them actually try, or convince them that their knowledge isn’t up to the necessary level.

Ultimately, we need to make it clear that they now have a new ability. They may also need to have the confidence to try when the situation arises. Again, I’ll suggest two steps:

They need to know that they now have a new capability
Introduce them, directly or indirectly, to the community of folks who also have this ability

To demonstrate their new ability, they need to actually perform and succeed. And we should acknowledge, even celebrate, their new capability. We should be explicit, and even consider a ritual that signifies their accomplishment. Badges could make sense here.

The point is that learners are changing. If we’ve done our job right, they’re looking at the world in a somewhat different way. We should help them recognize that, for their sake and ours. They should know their new capability, and they should acknowledge, even respect, our contribution. I’m suggesting we should explicitly be making transformation manifest. What do you think?

Predicting the future

1 January 2020 by Clark 3 Comments

Memory’s funny. I recall attending Learning Technologies to speak on games, many years ago. And, as part of the conference, one keynote was a speaker who talked to the futility of predicting the future. However, I can’t find him nor the book I thought he wrote about it. Still, I want to push the point about ‘predicting’ just a wee bit.

The speaker’s point was more than just the famous quote “never predict anything, particularly the future”. Instead, he suggested that what happens is that you follow the trends, but things take an unexpected turn owing to some influence no one had thought to account for. He illustrated (if memory serves), with a number of examples.

And I’ve made predictions in the past. But one time Stephen Downes checked on a bunch of folks predictions, and demonstrated that they were mostly off (or too vacuous). So I’ve started talking about what I’d like to see.

But there’s more. As one of my favorite quotes has it: “the best way to predict the future is to invent it”, as Alan Kay opined. So, rather than just talk about what will happen, or what I’d like to see happen, I want to talk about what I will work to make happen.

In previous years, I’ve had a theme (usually two). And in many ways they’ve stayed the same under new banners. The theme remains tied to my (tongue-in-cheek) statement that “L&D isn’t doing near what it could and should, and what it is doing it’s doing badly, other than that it’s fine.” So last year I had Intellectricity and Transformation as my key words. And while I still believe in both, I’m keeping with Transformation.

What I care about is individual and organizational learning. And I want to make individual learning (whether alone or collectively) ‘transformative’. Which means we need to transform our learning design approach. Similarly, we need to transform how organizations learn. And that means we have to transform our own practices.

And I continue to work on these. I ran my LXD workshop at DevLearn this past fall, and spoke on the L&D Revolution at the ATD Japan Summit. I’ll be speaking on transformation again at TK2020, and on the Revolution for ATD New England’s annual conference.

So, instead of predicting the future, I’m trying to shape it. I hope you’ll join me! And if you’d like to tap into these changes for your organization, I welcome hearing from you! In the meantime, wishing you and yours all the best for the new year. May it be your best yet.