Quinnovating

Learning Out Loud

14 April 2009 by Clark 1 Comment

We’re about ready to kick up a fair bit of dust! TogetherLearn (Jane, Harold, Jay & I, in various combinations) are serendipitously going to be sending out the social learning and strategy message in a number of ways.

First, on the 21st of April starting at 9AM PT but revolving around the globe for the subsequent 24 hours, Corporate Learning Trends will be hosting a day long circle-the-globe Conversation about Learning in Organizations. Jay is the organizer, and he’s arranged a host of the biggest names in organizational learning to take part. Still needed are hosts and topics in regions around the world for blocks of time. This is free, but we do expect participation. So seize the day, pitch in, and make it happen (or don’t complain when there’s nothing happening in your preferred time slot).

On the 22nd, Harold, Jay, & I are going to be part of the ASTD Pulse of the Profession series of webcasts, talking about Blowing Up the Training Department: Make Learning a Management Priority. Registration is $39.95, but it supports ASTD (we don’t get a dime), and we’ve got a good session planned, with the esteemed Kevin Wheeler serving as our ringmaster/lion tamer. It’s specifically intended for managers, directors, & executives charged with part or all of organizational learning. We intend to talk about the problems that organizations are facing, some of the barriers, and some new ways to think about it.

Then I will be presenting on April 30 (10 AM PT) for Training Magazine Network’s Provocative Ideas webinars, speaking about Why Incrementalism Won’t Cut It Anymore. This presentation is free, but you have to register. I’ll be looking at the bigger picture, not just social/informal, but also content strategy, mobile, and more, and particularly focused on systemic changes and the need to shift, not creep.

I’m sure there’s more I’m forgetting, but that’s enough for now. Hope to see you here and there!

Chatting

10 April 2009 by Clark 14 Comments

Last night we held the first #lrnchat, a Twitter learning chat. As mentioned before, it was an idea from Marcia Conner based upon her previous experience with other chats and enthusiasm for Twitter. It was an interesting experience, with it’s plusses and minuses. There were great topics, and some interesting technical issues. The latter first:

I finally ‘graduated’ from TwitterFox (a plugin for Firefox, and a great way to start Twittering) to TweetDeck, an AIR application. It’s more sophisticated, but then it’s another application I’m running in parallel (what with iChat, Adium, and Skype all running, and now TweetDeck, Mail, and Firefox, before I’m working in any apps, I’ve got a lot of RAM and CPU cycles being sucked up. However, I went to TweetChat, a website that provides an interface just for such chats, because it only follows your hashtag, and automatically puts it in your tweets. That worked well.

However, what my colleague Sky (Jim Schuyler) noticed was that all those tweets were flooding the twitterverse. In fact, he found out about #lrnchat by a sudden flurry of tweets from some people he knew, including me and Marcia Conner (why he hadn’t seen the earlier tweets about it is a curiosity :). That’s the downside: that all those tweets go out to your followers, who may not know what’s going on. Harold Jarche also opined that maybe Twitter wasn’t the right tool for chatting. It’s an interesting issue, but it’s really all about tradeoffs. For example, Meebo is more dedicated to chat, but there’s more overhead to get hooked up (it connects all IM channels, but you’d have to be on IM). If you’re on twitter, you saw the message and could participate. However, I admit I felt bad if anyone who watches my tweets felt inundated (let me know; valuable feedback).

I previously found it the situation that if you have new channels, new people can find ways to express themselves. I think chat has some great affordances, as you don’t have to take turns, there can be parallel conversations going, and it doesn’t take a lot of bandwidth. You couldn’t do it in video or audio. There might’ve been times I wanted to draw a picture (as I did in a small TogetherLearn chat with Harold and Jay the other day). Still, a potentially powerful channel (as I find when serving as a backchannel for a presentation).

Interestingly, the amount of activity on Twitter with #lrnchat suddenly peaking triggered some automatic signification that #lrnchat was a trend, and we got some auto-pings to fill out a definition of what #lrnchat was at What The Hashtag! Which of course brought in some people looking for ‘action’ and to flog their personal issues. Even in the discussion, the mention of Yammer brought in the Yammer team mentioning some of their case studies, which got a bit annoying. The risks of popularity, I guess.

Another issue, besides tool, was whether 2 hours were too much. While we expect some to have to drop out, or drop in late, is it useful or valuable to go that long, or would shorter be better?

However, I really liked the chat format. As Marcia reminded us, when it gets fast, there may be too much to follow, but that you should just take the value you found. There were some sparkling gems in the conversation, and valuable information. It was very worthwhile. While it may be only one channel, it certainly seems a valuable one for some (maybe those, like me, who read and/or type fast).

The topics ranged from organizational barriers to Twitter (hence the mention of Yammer as a solution maybe more appropriate for a company with more than a few people, as it has some knowledge management capabilities as well), to the value (or not) of Twitter. We covered case studies (and the lack thereof), the nature of the necessary culture, the role of informal learning in the organization, and more. Apparently some were able to view the archive and catch up quickly, so it’s not only a ‘you had to be there’, though I don’t know if it’s easily accessible post-hoc (going back now to both TweetChat and WTHashtag weren’t particularly useful just now).

Overall, I think the notion of having a regularly scheduled chat on learning is very valuable. What mechanisms are the right ones, is, to me, still an open question. So there you go: what do you think?

Conceptualizing the Performance Ecosystem

9 April 2009 by Clark 3 Comments

So I’ve been playing with rethinking my Performance Ecosystem conceptualization and visualization. The original had very discrete components, and an almost linear path, and that doesn’t quite convey the reality of how things are tied together. I believe it’s useful to help people see the components, but it doesn’t capture the goal of an integrated system.

I’ve been wrestling with my diagramming application (OmniGraffle) to rethink it. My notion is that systems, e.g. content/knowledge management/learning management systems underpin the learnscape, and that on top exist formal learning, performance support like job aids organized into portals, and social media. Mobile is a layer that floats on top, making contextually accessible the capabilities assembled below. It’s not perfect, but it’s an evolving concept (perpetual beta, right/).

Strategic Layers So here’s my current conception. It took me a long time to create the circle with different components! First I had to discover that there were tools to create freeform shapes, and then work to get them to articulate, but I like the kind of ‘rough’ feel of it (appropriate for it’s stage).

It also captures the conceptual relationships as spatial relationships (my principle for diagram creation). At least for me. So here’s the question: does it make sense for you? Does it help you perceive what I’m talking about, or is it too a) coarse, b) confusing, or c) some other problem? I welcome your feedback!

Model learning

8 April 2009 by Clark 4 Comments

On Monday, a hearty Twitter exchange emerged when Jane Bozarth quoted Roger Schank “Why do we assume that theories of things must be taught to practitioners of those things?” I stood up for theory, Cammy Bean and Dave Ferguson chimed in and next thing you know, we’re having a lively discussion in 140 characters. With all the names to include, Dave pointed out we had even less space!

One side was stoutly defending that what SMEs thought was important wasn’t necessarily what practitioners needed. The other side (that would be me) wanted to argue that it’s been demonstrated that having an underlying model is important in being able to deal with complex problems.

So, of course, the issue really was what we mean by theory. It’s easy (and correct) to bash conceptual knowledge frameworks that don’t have applicability to the problem at hand; Dave revived the great quote: “In theory, there’s no difference between theory and practice. But in practice, there is.” He also cited Van Merrienboer & Kirschner as saying that teaching theory to successful practitioners can be detrimental. (BTW, see Dave’s great series of posts ‘translating‘ their work.) On the other hand, having models has clearly been shown to be valuable in adapting to complexity and ambiguity. What’s a designer to do?

So, let me be clear. If there’s a rote procedure to be followed, there’s no need for a theory. In fact, there’s no need for training, since you ought to automate it! Our brains are good at pattern matching, bad at rote repetition, and it seems to me to be sad if not criminal to have people do rote stuff that could be done better by machine; save the interesting and challenging tasks for us!

It’s when tasks are complex, ill-structured, and/or ambiguous with lots of decisions, that we need theories. Or, rather, models. Which, I think, is part of the confusion (and I may be to blame! :).

I’m talking about an understanding of the underlying model that guides performance. Any approach to a problem has (or should) a rationale behind it about why that’s the reason you do it this way, not that way. It’s based upon some theory, but it should be resolved into a model that has just enough richness to help you decide when to do X and when to do Y. As I said many years ago:

I see mental models as dynamic. That is, they’re causal explanations of system behaviour. They are used to explain observed outcomes and to predict the effects of perturbations.

It’s the explanation and prediction capabilities that are important. The problem is, if the situation’s complex enough (and most are, whether it’s controlling a production line, or dealing with a customer, or…), you can’t train on all the situations that a learner might face. So then you need to provide guidance. Yes, we’ll use example and practice context to support transfer, but we should refer back to a model that guides our performance. And that’s useful and necessary.

Cammy noted that it’s extra work to develop that model, and I acknowledge that. I’ve said that good instructional design requires more work and knowledge on the part of the designer than we typically expect, which is why I don’t think you can do good ID without knowing some learning theory. (BTW, my Broken ID series addresses a lot of the above.)

So, let me be clear: in any reasonably complex domain (and you shouldn’t be training for simple issues: just give a job aid or automate or…), you should present the learner with a model that you reinforce in examples and practice. It should not be an abstract academic theory, but a practical guide to why things are done this way and what governs the adaptation to circumstances. As that model is acquired through examples and practice, you provide the basis for self-improving performance.

That’s my model for designing effective learning. What’s yours?

On a side note, what I recall as to the various tweets, and what Twitter shows from each person, doesn’t have a perfect correlation. While I acknowledge my memory failing more frequently (just age, not dementia or Alzheimer’s, I *think*), I’m pretty sure that Twitter dropped some of those messages from the record (the same time they acknowledged having trouble with dropping avatar images). Tweeter beware!

Real Community?

5 April 2009 by Clark 8 Comments

I’ve been reading John Taylor Gatto lately, and one of his points is interesting to me from the perspective of social media. His claim about schools is that they’re dehumanizing (deliberately). He claims that many of our institutions (and he means more than schools, but groups, organizations, etc) are really networks, not communities, and can’t provide the nurture we need from others: “Networks do great harm by appearing enough like real communities to create expectations that they can manage human social and psychological needs.”

This got me thinking about social media, and how often we call them online communities, but the question is: are they really? At the same time, Marcia Conner was asking for examples of how someone’s Twitter/Facebook (T/FB) comments have changed your opinion of them. Personally, I have to say that, in general, the extra ‘human’ bits that show through in T/FB have fleshed out some people I haven’t met and now want to.

Blogs tend to be more formal (tends, mind you), while Twitter and Facebook cross the boundary into informal. LinkedIn and Ning networks that I’ve participated in professionally are just that, professional. And maybe then not worthy of being called communities? What’s critical in making the transition from network to community? Certainly people will help one another out (Tony Karrer talks about how he uses networks to ask questions), but you might not ask for help on a personal issue there. Or would you?

Your mileage may vary, of course. So two questions: is there a difference between a community and a network, and is it important? And, if so (and I’m not certain, but leaning to the answers being yes and yes), should we keep them separate, have different ones for either, and can we have real community virtually? I’m inclined to believe that you can have real community online, but it’s not the same as a network, and that may not be a bad thing. You have to work with lots of people, but only with some of them will you want to share your problems, beliefs, and values. It’s the latter that’s a community. And while networks are valuable, communities are precious.

Getting Revolutionary: LC Big Q

3 April 2009 by Clark 1 Comment

The Learning Circuits’ Blog Big Question of the Month is whether and how get ‘unstuck’, when you’ve got a lot to offer and it’s well beyond what they expect you to do in your job.

This actually resonates with two separate things, some thoughts around ‘being revolutionary’, and a previous post based upon a similar complaint that triggered this month’s question (must be a lot of understandable angst out there). The previous post was about trying to meet unreasonable expectations, and the individual wasn’t getting the support they needed to do the job the way it should be done. Similarly the big question was triggered by someone knowing what should be done but feeling trapped.

The thread that emerges, for me, is that training departments can’t keep operating in the same old way, despite the fact that formal instruction doesn’t have to die (just improve). Incrementalism isn’t going to be enough, as optimal execution is going to be just to stay in the game, and the competitive advantage will be the ability to innovate new value to offer. It’s just too easy to copy a successful product or service, and the barriers to entry aren’t high enough to prevent competition. You never know when a viral or chaotic event will give someone a marketing advantage, so you’ve got to keep moving.

Trying to keep to the status quo, or slowly expand your responsibility is going to fail, as things are moving too quickly. You have to seize the responsibility now to take on the full suite of performance elements: job aids, portals, social learning, content and knowledge management, and more, and start moving. It still has to be staged, but it’s a perspective shift that will move you more strategically and systemically towards empowering your organization.

And back to the tactics, what do you do when your clients (internal or external) aren’t pushing you for more and better? Show them the way. While I’ve learned that conceptual prototypes don’t always work (some folks can’t get beyond the lack of polish, even when you’re just showing the proof of concept), try and mock up what is on offer, and talk them through it. Help them see why it’s better. Do a back of the envelope calculation about how it’s better. Bring in all the factors: outcomes, performance, engagement, learner experience, whatever it takes.

Then, if they don’t want it, do your best within the constraints to do it anyway (write better objectives, practice, etc. even if they won’t appreciate it), and live with what you can do. And, truly, if you’re capable of more (not more work, better/smarter work), and it’s on offer but continually not accepted, it probably is time to move on. Don’t give in, keep up the fight for better learning, your learners need it!

Social Media Goals

2 April 2009 by Clark 7 Comments

I spent yesterday touring the Web 2.0 expo (part of the time with fellow miscreant Jay Cross), and it led me to think a bit more about social media tools and approaches. After touring the floor, having lunch, and touring the floor some more before the keynotes, my reflections have to do with hybrids and implementation.

We were prompted to visit Blue Kiwi, which is probably the leading European social media platform. Talking to them, and the others there (Vignette & Lithium) has me reflecting more broadly. Mzinga is clearly targeted at the learning space, being integrated with an LMS. Vignette, on the other hand, started as a CMS for KM, but then added social media around it. Drupal is an open source CMS that’s been used for social media, and Elgg similarly started as an open source portfolio tool but has expanded.

It’s an interesting question about whether to keep your social media separate from your other tools, or to couple them with some other core functionality. Vignette’s story about building on their core content management system supporting knowledge management makes sense from the point of view of mining value out of the discussions. Yet, for a learning group, Mzinga’s integration of formal and informal learning is also plausible. And, of course, there’s now Sharepoint’s integration of social tools around resources.

On the other hand, a pure focus on social networking may be the more natural framework, but how do you get power to leverage the content generated? Coupling them makes sense if you’re coming from one direction or another, but I’m trying to integrate formal, content management, knowledge management and more into a seamless ecosystem. Do you integrate, or do you have APIs to couple capabilities? On one hand, an integrated solution is less work than an integration exercise, but on the other hand, I don’t expect there to be one all-singing-all-dancing solution. Tony Karrer, riffing off of BJ Schone’s post which emphasizes making things work and play well together, looks to LMS vendors partnering more, and I reckon that loose coupling makes sense. However, I don’t know if having a separate app for blogs, wikis, and all works, as you want profiles and discussions to be integrated, so reckon you do want a social media environment, or you’ll have to use a lot of glue. I’m still wrestling with this.

What definitely makes sense is having an implementation strategy for success. Lithium was advertising ‘successful’ communities, and so I naturally inquired about their approach. They said that they don’t start small, because to succeed you need critical mass. I asked about incenting the connectors and content producers, and they indicated that was part of their strategy as well. They indicated that there was a VIP room exclusively for big contributors where they could hobnob with the C-suite. Getting the C-suite to actually play struck me as a success factor, but hard to guarantee a priori. They almost seemed more a services firm though they did claim to have a solution as well. (I have to admit that their firm’s title, however, makes me think of chemical psychotherapy, not a great mental image.)

As a contrasting approach to success, Blue Kiwi’s pricing model is based around the activity in the system: if you’re not using it, you’re not getting value, and consequently you shouldn’t pay. Their threshold seems low: 2 accesses a month constitutes chargeable activity, whereas I would say 2 a week would be more indicative, but the cost for that activity is relatively low. What excites me, however, is the notion of measuring and trying to charge for the activity as an indirect measure of value. A more direct measure, the knowledge grown, seems to be a really exciting opportunity.

I’m realizing that what’s really important is the knowledge shared, and grown. I reckon that optimizing performance is going to be just the cost of entry, and the competitive advantage will be the generation of new opportunities. The key, then, is accelerating the growth of accessible actionable knowledge. So that’s what I’m focusing on. How about you?

Dispositions of Productive Inquiry

29 March 2009 by Clark Leave a Comment

In my last post, I referenced John Seely Brown’s mention of dispositions, and I think it’s worthwhile to try to represent and discuss his point here, as it’s relevant to social learning, organizational culture, and success, topics I’ve mentioned in the past.

In The Power of Dispositions, JSB & Douglas Thomas (Ubiquity) argue that we need more than skills for 21st century education. They suggest that there exists an innate disposition of productive inquiry, an inclination (in particular contexts) to engage in a continual cycle of questioning and answering that leads the individual through a process of ongoing learning. It’s about knowing, not about knowledge. They suggest: “more basic than a skill; it is an embodied element of how we understand and perceive the world”.

They argue that by placing questions of meaning, and focusing on contexts and inquiry rather than content and results, we make environments conducive to these dispositions. Naturally, some of their observations are based in computer games, where I’ve argued contextualized challenge creates the most meaningful exploration and, consequently, learning.

I believe there’s something fundamental here, but am also left a bit dissatisfied, as there’s no obvious prescription, and I’m impatient to change the world. However, I have to agree that what I see in the schooling my children face, specifically in the transition to middle school, is that the teachers are not providing any context about why it’s important, nor working to make it meaningful, and focusing on product and not process. (This is true of too much of our learning, organizational as well.)

I do believe that if we put up interesting challenges and support the process of exploration we can make more meaningful learning, and if that leads to a development of disposition, we’ve had a good outcome. I certainly know that we need to make our learning more meaningful, even when the outcome is known, if we want it to stick. That we could create a culture of productive and continual inquiry, however, is the bigger opportunity on the table, for schools, organizations, and society. And that’s worth shooting for.

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