In a conversation I had recently, specifically about a community focused on research, I used the term ‘community of improvement’, and was asked how that was different than a community of practice. It caused me to think through what the differences might be.  (BTW, the idea was sparked by conversations with Lucian Tarnowski from BraveNew.)

First, let me say that a community of practice  could be, and should be, a community of improvement. One of the principles of practice is reflection and improvement.  But that’s not necessarily the case.  A community of practice could just be a place where people answer each other’s questions, collaborate on tasks, and help one another with issues  not specifically aligned with the community.  But there should be more.

What I suggested in the conversation was that a  community  should  also be about documenting practice,  applying that practice through action or design research, and reflecting on the outcomes and the implications for practice.  The community should be looking to other fields for inspiration, and attempting experiments. It’s the community equivalent of Schön’s reflective practitioner.  And it’s  more than just cooperation  or collaboration, but actively engaging and working to improve.

Basically, this requires collaboration tools, not just communication tools. It requires: places to share thoughts; ways to find partners  on the documentation, experimentation, and reflection; and support to track and share the resulting changes on community practices.

Yes, obviously a real community of practice should be doing this, but too often I see community tools without the collaboration tools. So I think it’s worth being explicit about what we would hope will accompany the outcomes.  So, where do we do this, and how?

#itashare

There have been a couple of recent proposals about the relative role of cooperation and collaboration, and I’m trying to make sense of them.  Here are a couple of different approaches, and my first take at teasing them apart.

Dion Hinchcliffe  of Adjuvi  tweeted  a diagram about different types of working together that shows his take. He has coordination as a subsidiary to cooperation and on to collaboration.  So coordination is when we know what needs to be done, but we can’t do it alone. Cooperation is when we’re doing things that need to have a contribution from each of us, and requires some integration. And collaboration is when we’re working together with a goal but not clear how we’ll get there.  I think what’s core here is how well defined the task is and how much we contribute.

In the meantime, Harold Jarche, my ITA colleague, as a different take.  He sees collaboration as working together to achieve a goal that’s for the organization, whereas cooperation goes beyond.  Cooperation is where we participate and assist one another for our own goals.  It’s contribution that’s uncoupled from any sense of requirement, and is freely given.  I see here the discussion is more about our motives; why are we engaged.

With those two different takes, I see them as different ways of carving up the activities. My initial reaction is closer to Dion’s; I’ve always seen cooperation as willingness to assist when asked, or to provide pointers. To me collaboration is higher; it’s willing to not just provide assistance in clearly defined ways such as pointers to relevant work, answering questions, etc, but to actively roll up sleeves and pitch in.  (Coordination is, to me I guess, a subset of cooperation.) With collaboration I’ve got a vested interest in the outcome, and am willing to help frame the question, do independent research, iterate, and persist to achieve the outcome.

I see the issue of motivation or goal as a different thing. I can cooperate in a company-directed manner, as expected, but I also can (and do) cooperate in a broader sense; when people ask for help (my principles are simple: talk ideas for free; help someone personally for dinner/drinks; if someone’s making a quid  I get a cut), I will try to assist (with the Least Assistance Principle in mind).  I can also collaborate on mutual goals (whether ITA projects or client work), but then I can also  collaborate on things that have no immediate outcome except to improve the industry as a whole (*cough* Serious eLearning Manifesto *cough*).

So I see two independent dimensions: one on the effort invested, just responding to need or actively contributing; and the other on the motivation, whether for a structured goal or for the greater good.

Now I have no belief that either of them will necessarily agree with my take, but I’d like to reconcile these interpretations  for the overall understanding (or at least my own!).  That’s my first take, feedback welcome!

My colleague Jane Hart dobbed me (and several other colleagues) in for the #blimage challenge.  I usually resent when someone publicly asks me  to do something, but fortunately this is easy and, well, it is Jane ;).  She presented the following image and our task is to blog about it:

So my take is how things grow in  a nurturing environment.  Here plants are flourishing under the energy of the sun.  This to me is a metaphor for the benefits of creating a culture in which learning can flourish.  I’ve earlier detailed what the research says about the elements of a learning organization, and it’s clear that you  need a culture with several elements.

First, learning  independently has to be enabled. The resources to learn need to be there, as does the time for learning. Further, the ability to learn on one’s own shouldn’t be taken for granted; identify, model, evangelize, and develop these abilities.

In addition, learning is social.  The possibilities to learn together need to be facilitated.  There need to be ways to find individuals with complementary skills to learn together. This in particular means collaboration: learning while innovating on solving new problems, devising new solutions, and more.  It also means being willing to share. It has to be safe to ‘show your work’!  Again, don’t assume skills for learning together, but scaffold the development of these abilities.

It is really important that  leadership reinforces learning, both by supporting and more importantly by practicing visibly! There’s evidence that when leadership doesn’t share, others won’t truly believe it’s valued.

So there’s my blog on the image.  Two colleagues also were challenged with this image and have  replied; you can see what they came up with:

Jane Bozarth

Charles Jennings

Rather than dob in anyone in particular, I will simply recommend that you take  your own  stab, and here’s a proposed image:

I hope to hear what you come up with; drop a link in the comments if you do!

 

Why should one work out loud (aka Show Your Work)?  Certainly, there are risks involved.  You could be wrong.  You could have to share a mistake. Others might steal your ideas.  So why would anyone want to be Working Out Loud?  Because the risks are trumped by the benefits.

Working out loud is all about being transparent about what you’re doing.  The benefits of these are multiple. First, others know what you’re doing, and can help. They can provide pointers to useful information, they can provide tips about what worked, and didn’t, for them, and they’re better prepared for what will be forthcoming.

Those risks? If you’re wrong, you can find out before it’s too late.  If you share a mistake, others don’t have to make the same one.  If you put your ideas out there, they’re on record if someone tries to steal them.  And  if someone else uses your good work, it’s to the general benefit.

Now, there are times when this can be bad. If you’re in a Miranda organization, where anything you say can be held against you, it may not be safe to share.  If your employer will take what you know and then let you go (without realizing, of course, there’s more there), it’s not safe.  Not all organizations are ready for sharing you work.

Organizations, however,  should be interested in creating an environment where working out loud is safe.  When folks share their work, the organization benefits.  People know what others are working on. They can help one another.  The organization learns faster.  Make it safe to share mistakes, not for the sake of the mistake, but for the lesson learned; so no one else has to make the same mistake!

It’s not quite enough to just show your work, however, you really want to ‘narrate’ your work. So working out loud is not just about what you’re doing, but also explaining why.  Letting others see why you’re doing what you’re doing helps them either improve your thinking or learn from it.  So not just your work output improves, but your continuing ability to work gets better too!

You can blog your thoughts, microblog what you’re looking at, make your interim representations available as collaborative documents, there are many ways to make your work transparent. This blog, Learnlets, is just for that purpose of thinking out loud: so I can get feedback and input or others can benefit.  Yeah, there are risks (I have seen my blog purloined without attribution), but the benefits outweigh the risks.  That’s as an independent, but imagine if an organization made it safe to share; the whole organization learns faster. And that’s the key to the continual innovation that will be the only sustainable differentiator.

Organizations that work together effectively are organizations that will thrive.  So there are personal benefits and organizational benefits.  And I personally think this is a role for L&D (this is part of the goal of the Revolution). So, work out loud about your efforts to work out loud!

#itashare

Is there an appetite for change in L&D? That was the conversation I‘ve had with colleagues lately. And I have to say that that the answer is mixed, at best.

The consensus is that most of L&D is comfortably numb. That L&D folks are barely coping with getting courses out on a rapid schedule and running training events because that‘s what‘s expected and known. There really isn‘t any burning desire for change, or willingness to move even if there is.

This is a problem. As one commented: “When I work with others (managers etc) they realise they don’t actually need L&D any more”. And that‘s increasingly true: with tools to do narrated slides, screencasts, and videos in the hands of everyone, there‘s little need to have the same old ordinary courses coming from L&D. People can create or access portals to share created and curated resources, and social networks to interact with one another. L&D will become just a part of HR, addressing the requirements – onboarding and compliance – everything else will be self-serve.

The sad part of this is the promise of what L&D could be doing. If L&D started facilitating learning, not controlling it, things could go better. If L&D realized it was about supporting the broad spectrum of learning, including self-learning, and social learning, and research and problem-solving and trouble-shooting and design and all the other situations where you don‘t know the answer when you start, the possibilities are huge. L&D could be responsible for optimizing execution of the things they know people need to do, but with a broader perspective that includes putting knowledge into the world when possible. And L&D could be also optimizing the ability of the organization to continually innovate.

It is this possibility that keeps me going. There‘s the brilliant world where the people who understand learning combine with the people who know technology and work together to enable organizations to flourish. That‘s the world I want to live in, and as Alan Kay famously said: “the best way to predict the future is to invent it.” Can we, please?