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Clark Quinn’s Learnings about Learning

Starting trouble

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This seems to be my year of making trouble, and one of the ways is talking about what L&D is and isn’t doing. As a consequence of the forthcoming book (no cover comps yet nor ability to preorder), I’ve had to put my thoughts together, and I’m giving the preliminary version next Thurs, February 6, at 11AM PT, 2PM ET as a webinar for ASTD.

The gist is that there are a number of changes L&D is not accommodating: changes in how business should be run, changes in understanding how we think and perform, and even our understanding of learning has advanced (at least beyond the point that most of our corporate approaches seem to recognize).  Most L&D really seems stuck in the industrial age, and yet we’re in the information age.

And this just doesn’t make sense!  We should be the most eager adopters of technology, staying on top of new developments and looking for their potential to support our organizations.  We should be leading the charge in being learning organizations: following the business precepts of experimenting regularly, failing fast, and reflecting on the outcomes.  Yet that doesn’t reflect what the we’re seeing.

To move forward, we need to do more. To address business needs, we need to consider performance support and social networks. In fact, I argue that these should be our first line of defense, and courses should only be used when a significant skill shift is required.  We should be leveraging technology more effectively, looking at semantics and content architectures as well as mobile and contextual opportunities.  And we need to be getting strategic about how we’re helping the organization and evaluating not just efficiency but our effectiveness and impact.

This is just the start of a rolling series of activities trying to inject a sense of urgency into L&D (change management step 1).  While this will be covered in print, in sessions starting with last week’s TK14, and continuing through Learning Solutions and ICE, here’s a chance to get a headstart.  Look for a followup somewhere around April.  Hope you’ll join us!

Amy Jo Martin #ASTDTK14 Keynote Mindmap

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Amy Jo Martin spoke at ASTD’s TechKnowledge conference, telling us engagingly about humanizing social media to monetize it. In addition to useful ways to think about the power of social media, for better or worse, she portrayed some interesting ways to think about generating or saving revenue.

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Social ROI?

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Ok, so I’ve been thinking about this, but not sure what the current state of play is.  Someone was stating that talking about ROI of the social network was important but hard to do now,    and essentially wondered if there was new thinking in this area.  So let me ask the question.

So I’m calling out L&D because they’re only measuring efficiency when they should be measuring impact.  You look at measures used to evaluate the industry, and they’re things like cost/time/seat.  Which is potentially a useful measure, but  only after you’ve decided that having a bum in the seat is having a positive impact on the organization.  If you’re not doing something measurable – decreasing time to close sales or increasing the number of problems resolved accurately on the first call – it doesn’t matter how  efficient you are!

With social media, I believe it’s the same thing.  If we put in social media and facilitate discussion in engineering, we’d expect a different impact than in manufacturing.  In engineering we might get less time to design a requested feature, and in manufacturing we might increase usable yield.  It really doesn’t matter if you’re seeing more use of the system, more messages or connections or what have you, if you’re not seeing an impact.  Of course, if you can correlate them, all the better.

Sure, we also might affect indirect metrics – retention, workplace satisfaction, or customer satisfaction – with tangible value, but our real focus should be on direct metrics.  If creating a more effective culture for sharing, and sharing is supposed to lead to better outcomes, it sure would be nice to demonstrate those benefits.  I guess my experience with instructional design – if you design it according to the formula, it is good – leads me to some skepticism that we can just trust the outcome.

So, is this obvious, or are we still wrestling with this?  Other opinions?

Making Mobile Mayhem

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As I suggested in my post on directions for the year, I intend to be stirring up a bit of trouble here and there.  On a less formal basis, I want to suggest that another area where we need a little more light and a little less heat (and smoke) is mobile.  There is huge opportunity here, and I am afraid we are squandering it.

We’re doing a lot wrong when it comes to mobile.  As Jason Haag has aptly put it, elearning courses on a phone (or tablet) is mobile elearning, not mobile learning (aka mlearning).  And while there’s an argument for mobile elearning (at least on tablets), and strong case for  augmenting formal learning with mobile (regardless of device), mobile elearning is not mlearning’s natural niche.

mLearning’s natural niche is performance support, whether through content (interactive or not), or social.   Think about how  you use your phone? When I ask this of attendees, they’re using them to get information in the moment, or find their way, or capture information.  They’re not using them to take courses!

So we need to be thinking outside the course.  To help, we need case studies, across business sectors, and across the areas.  Which means we need people to be getting their hands on development tools.

Which is a second problem: the tools that are easiest to use are being used to create courses.  The elearning tools we use are increasingly having mobile output, but it’s too easy to then just output courses.  It turns out one of the phenomena that characterize our brains is ‘functional fixedness’, we use a tool in the way we’ve used it before.  Yet we can use these tools to do other things. And there are tools more oriented towards performance support.  Anything that creates content or interactivity can be used to build performance support, but we have to be  doing  it!

There’s more that we need to be doing in the background –  content, governance, strategy – but we need to get our minds around mobile solutions to contextual needs, and start delivering the resources people need.  Mobile is big; the devices are out there, and they’re a platform for so much; we need to capitalize.

The place where you’re going to be able to see the case studies and explore the tools and start getting your mind around mobile will be this summer’s mLearnCon (in San Diego in June!). And you really should be going. Also, if you are  doing mobile, you really should be submitting to present.  We need more examples, more ideas, more experience!  (If you need help writing a proposal, I’ve already written a guide.)

Really, presenting is a great contribution to yourself and the industry, and we really could use it.  Help us make mobile mayhem by showing the way.  Or, of course, join us at the conference to get ready to mix it up.  Hope to see you there.

The Miranda Organization

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In the US justice system, a person is supposed to be read their Miranda rights before speaking to the police. The key catchphrase is, roughly, “anything you say can and will be used against you”.  It is a warning that you have the right to the Fifth Amendment and not incriminate yourself.  And while that’s a good concept for the US justice, in organizations it can be problematic.

It is a good thing for people to contribute in organizations.  The best ideas come from contributions.  Innovation, problem-solving, and more are the outcomes of people interacting.  Working and learning out loud is very valuable, as others can see how you work and you can get feedback.  Also, it should be okay to make a mistake, and share the lesson, so no one else has to make it.

On the other hand, if it is not safe to contribute, people won’t.  There’s a decent chance that you’ve worked, or work, in such an organization. Where your contributions can be held against you, where mistakes will only lead to bad outcomes, where sharing your processes and ideas will mean you become expendable.  The culture is so aggressive or negative that people just keep to themselves.  That’s not to the long-term benefit of the organization, but culture eats strategy for breakfast.

If you want to have a good company, you do  not want anything anyone says to be used against them, but instead only used  for them.   You want it to be safe to share!    You don’t want a Miranda organization.

So, in justice, Miranda is a good idea, in organizations it is bad.  Make sure you’re using it appropriately.

2014 Directions

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In addition to time for reflection on the past, it’s also time to look forward.  A number of things are already in the queue, and it’s also time to see what I expect and hope for.

The events already queued up include:

ASTD’s TechKnowledge 2014, January 22-24 in Las Vegas, where I’ll be talking on aligning L&D with organizational needs (hint hint).

NexLearn’s Immersive Learning University conference, January 27-30 in Charleston, SC, where I’ll be talking about the design of immersive learning experiences.

Training 2014, in San Diego February 2 – 5, where I’ll be running a workshop on advanced instructional design, and talking on learning myths.

The eLearning Guild’s Learning Solutions will be in Orlando March 17-21, where I’ll be running a 1 day elearning strategy workshop, as well as offering a session on informal elearning.

That’s all that is queued up so far, but stay tuned. And, of course, if you need someone to speak…

You can tell by the topics I’m speaking on as to what I think are going to be, or should be, the hot issues this year.  And I’ll definitely be causing some trouble.  Several areas I think are important and I hope that there’ll be some traction:

Obviously, I think it’s past time to be thinking mobile, and I should have a chapter on the topic in the forthcoming ASTD Handbook Ed.2.  Which also is seen in my recent chapter on the topic in the Really Useful eLearning Instruction Manual.  I think this is only going to get more important, going forward, as our tools catch up.  It’s not like the devices aren’t already out there!

A second area I’m surprised we still have to worry about it good elearning design. I’m beginning to see more evidence that people are finally realizing that knowledge dump/test is a waste of time and money. I’m also part of a forthcoming effort to address it, which will also manifest in the aforementioned second edition of the ASTD Handbook.

I’m quite convinced that L&D has a bigger purpose than we’re seeing, which is naturally the topic of my next book. I think that the writing is on the wall, and what is needed is some solid grounding in important concepts and a path forward.  The core point is that we should be looking from a perspective of not just supporting organizational performance via optimal execution, with (good) formal learning and performance support, but also facilitation of continual innovation and development.  I think that L&D can, and  must address this, strategically.

So, of course, I think that we still have quite a ways to go in terms of capitalizing on social, the work I’ve been advocating with my ITA colleagues.  They’ve been a boon to my thinking in this space, and they’re driving forward (Charles with the 70:20:10 Forum, Jane with her next edition of the Social Learning Handbook, Harold with Change Agents Worldwide, and Jay continues with the Internet Time Group).  Yet there is still a long ways to go, and lots of opportunity for improvement.

An area that I’m excited about is the instrumentation of what we do to start generating data we can investigate, and analytics to examine what we find.  This is having a bit of a bubble (speaking of cutting through hype with affordances, my take is that “big data” isn’t the answer, big insights are), but the core idea is real.  We need to be measuring what we’re doing against real business needs, and we now have the capability to do it.

And an area I hope we’ll make some inroads on are the opportunities provided by a sort-of ‘content engineering‘ and leveraging that for customized and contextual experiences.  This is valuable for mobile, but does beyond to a much richer opportunity that we have the capability to take advantage of, if we can only muster the will.  I expect this will lag a bit, but doing my best to help raise awareness.

There’s much more, so here’s to making things better in the coming year! I hope to have a chance to talk and work with you about positive changes.  Here’s hoping your new year is a great one!

Augmenting Human Intellect: Vale Doug Engelbart

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Somehow, I forgot to farewell one of the finest minds to cross our paths.  (I was sure I had, but searching this morning found no evidence. Mea culpa.)  Last night, I had the privilege of attending a Festschrift for Doug Engelbart, who passed last July, with speakers reciting the trajectory and impact of his career.  And I was inspired anew by the depth of his vision.

Doug is widely known as the inventor of the mouse, but that was just an implementation detail in his broader view. His mission manifested further in the ‘mother of all demos‘, where he showed collaborative work, video conferencing, and more, working with a mouse, keyboard, and graphic display. In 1968. And yet this too was just the tangible output of a much larger project.

At a critical juncture early in his career, he took a step back and thought about what he could really contribute.  He realized that the problems the world was facing were growing exponentially, and that our only hope was to learn at a similarly exponential rate, and decided that helping humans accomplish this goal was a suitable life’s work.  His solution was so all-encompassing that most people only get their minds around a small bit of it.

One component was a knowledge work environment where you could connect with colleagues and collaborate together, with full access to articulated knowledge sources. And yes, this foresaw the internet, but his vision was much richer.  Doug didn’t see one editor for email, another for documents, etc, he wanted one work environment.  He was also willing for it to be complex, and thought using inadequate tools as riding tricycles when we should be riding road bicycles to get places.  His notion was much closer to EMACS than the tools we currently use.  The mouse, networks, and more were all just developments to enable his vision.

His vision didn’t stop there: he proposed co-evolution of people and technology, and wanted people developing systems to be using the tools they were building to do their work, so the technology was being built by people using the tools, bootstrapping the environment. He early on saw the necessity of bringing in diverse viewpoints and empowering people with a vision to achieve to get the best outcomes. And continual learning was a key component. To that end, he viewed not just an ongoing reflection on work processes looking for opportunities to improve, but a reflection on the reflection process; sharing between groups doing the work reflection, to collaboratively improve.  He saw not just the internet, but the way we’re now seeing how best to work together.

And, let’s be clear, this isn’t all, because I have no confidence I have even a fraction of it.  I certainly thought his work environment had too high a threshold to get going, and wondered why he didn’t have a more accessible onramp.  It became clear last night that he wasn’t interested in reducing the power of the tools, and was happy for people to have to be trained to use the system, and that once they saw the power, they’d buy in.

To me, one of the most interesting things was that while everyone celebrated his genius, and no argument, it occurred to me to also celebrate that time he took to step aside and figure out what was worth doing and putting his mind to it.  If we all took time to step back and think about what we could be doing to really make a dent, might we come up with some contributions?

I was fortunate to meet him in person during his last years, and he was not only brilliant and thoughtful, but gentle and kind as well.  A real role model.  Rest in peace, Doug.

Giving thanks

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Every year I have much to be thankful for, but right now as I work to finish my latest screed (hence the lack of posts last week), I have some specific things to be grateful for.

A book is an endeavor that draws upon many people.  You always have several editors: an acquisition editor, then a copy editor, and ultimately a marketing editor.  I’m still at the stage where I’m working with my acquisition editor, but he’s provided much guidance and support.  He’s also arranged a relationship with a major society for support, and they’ve been very forthcoming with assistance.

If you do it right, and I try, you also are dependent on some colleagues who’ve stepped up to provide case studies or interviews for you. I’ve been fortunate that I have several individuals in both categories.  You also find yourself very grateful for other colleagues who’ve provided guidance in various ways about the book writing process, strategic input, and offers for support upon release.

A book can’t cover  everything, and it’s a benefit to know that colleagues have written other books that you can point to.  Having those other thoughts to incorporate the gist of, and point to for further depth, helps keep the effort focused.

And, of course, you almost always end up having the deeper support of friends and colleagues who step up to take up some slack, or answer quick questions, or even just cheer you on.  And you’re lucky they are there to assist, but also ask the tough questions and keep you from going off the rails.

Finally, you typically have family who support you in a variety of ways, physically, mentally, and emotionally.  And I’m fortunate to acknowledge that I do.

So there’s much to be appreciative for this endeavor, and of course in general. So I have thanks for all of the above, and to you for taking the time to read this. Wishing you the best to you for this time of year, and hoping you get to have quality time with friends and family, and have much to be grateful for as well.

Really Useful eLearning Instruction Manual

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Rob Hubbard organized a suite of us to write chapters for a use-focused guide to elearning. And, now it’s out and available!  Here’s the official blurb:

Technology has revolutionised every aspect of our lives and how we learn is no exception. The trouble is; the range of elearning technologies and the options available can seem bewildering. Even those who are highly experienced in one aspect of elearning will lack knowledge in some other areas. Wouldn‘t it be great if you could access the hard-won knowledge, practical guidance and helpful tips of world-leading experts in these fields? Edited by Rob Hubbard and featuring chapters written by global elearning experts: Clive Shepherd, Laura Overton, Jane Bozarth, Lars Hyland, Rob Hubbard, Julie Wedgwood, Jane Hart, Colin Steed, Clark Quinn, Ben Betts and Charles Jennings – this book is a practical guide to all the key topics in elearning, including: getting the business on board, building it yourself, learning management, blended, social, informal, mobile and game-based learning, facilitating online learning, making the most of memory and more.

And here’s the Table of Contents, so you can see who wrote what:

  1. So What is eLearning? – Clive Shepherd
  2. Getting the Business on Board – Laura Overton
  3. Build In-House, Buy Off -the-Shelf or Outsource? –  Jane Bozarth
  4. Production Processes – Making it Happen! –  Lars Hyland
  5. Making the Most of Memory –  Rob Hubbard
  6. Blended Learning –  Julie Wedgwood
  7. Informal and Social Learning –  Jane Hart
  8. Facilitating Live Online Learning –  Colin Steed
  9. Mobile Learning –  Clark Quinn
  10. Game-Based Learning –  Ben Betts
  11. Learning Management –  Charles Jennings

If you‘d like to purchase the book, VBF11 is the  promotion code to get 15% discount when you buy the book at www.wiley.com, or you can get it through Amazon as a book or on Kindle.  I look forward to getting my copy in the mail!