strategy Archives - Page 37 of 83

Showing my age, er, experience

3 May 2016 by Clark Leave a Comment

I’ve been reading What the Dormouse Said (How the Sixties Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry), and it’s bringing back some memories. Ok, so most of this stuff is older than I am, but there are a few connections, so it’s reminiscing time. I’ve said some of this before, I believe, so feel free to wander on. This is me just thinking aloud.

I was taking some computer science classes because I’d found out that biology was rote memorization and cut-throat medical (which I did not want to do; I was hoping for marine bio), and a buddy was doing it. Given that I was at UCSD at the time, I naturally learned UCSD Pascal (as well as Fortran, which I fortunately forgot almost immediately, and Mixal likewise). I enjoyed algorithms, however, and could solve problems. I also was enchanted with AI (despite my first prof). And I was tutoring for some extra pocket money, math and science (even classes I hadn’t taken yet!).

Then I got a job doing the computer support for the office that did the tutoring (literally carrying decks of cards in Algol to run through the computer center). And a light went off; computers for learning! There was no major then at my school, but there was a program to design my own major, and I found a couple of professors willing to serve as my advisors (thank you, Hugh Mehan and Jim Levin). They even let me work on a project with them (email for classroom discussion, circa 1978; we had ARPANET, the predecessor to the internet). It eventually even got published as a journal article.

I called all over the country, trying to find someone who needed a person interested in computer learning. I even interviewed at Xerox PARC with John Seely Brown, courtesy of Tom Malone (I didn’t get the job; they wanted something I’d done but I didn’t know their term for it!). After a small job doing some statistical work for a research project, I managed to get a job designing and programming educational computer games for DesignWare (you can still play some of the products here, the magic of the internet). We went from Basic to Forth (for speed and small size), though I later moved away from coding with the demise of HyperCard ;).

And the main connection to the cool stuff, besides the interview at PARC, was visiting the West Coast Computer Faire. It was cool in and of itself, but there I met David Suess, who along with Bill Bowman was starting Spinnaker, a company to do home educational software. DesignWare had been doing games to go along with publisher offerings, and I was pushing the home market. After a conversation, I introduced David to my boss Jim Schuyler (Sky) and off we went. As a reward, I got to do FaceMaker. Eventually, DesignWare started doing it’s own titles, and I also did Spellicopter and Creature Creator before I realized I wanted to go back to grad school.

Along the way I also read Byte magazine and tracked efforts like SmallTalk and folks like Alan Kay. I’ve subsequently had the pleasure to meet him, as well as Doug Engelbart and Ted Nelson, so I’ve somewhat closed the loop on those heady days. There’s much more between then and now, but that’s enough for one post. And most of my counterculture experiences were behind me by that time, so I didn’t really get a chance to see those connections, but it was an exciting time, and a great exposure to the possibilities.

Revolution Reading List

19 April 2016 by Clark Leave a Comment

I’m still a book guy (whether print or ebook), and have been reading a number of tomes of late. And, more and more, we’re seeing books that talk about the revolution itself or relevant components. Here’re a few that have come to my awareness of late, and I have perused in some depth, relative to my own Revolutionize Learning & Development:

Jane Hart’s Modern Workplace Learning is an excellent complement to my book, with detailed descriptions of a rich suite of practices that foster a learning workplace.

Another ITA colleague, Harold Jarche, has his Perpetual Beta book series, which is a curated collection of his posts about the changing nature of work that make the case for the revolution and and covering personal knowledge mastery skills that are a necessary accompaniment.

And Charles Jennings, along with Tulser colleagues Jos Arets and Vivian Heijnen, have 70:20:10: Towards 100% Performance which is a (very) detailed set of processes to address performance needs from go to whoa but working backwards from the ongoing support, not forward from the course.

Jane Bozarth’s Show Your Work is a valuable (and beautifully designed) book that talks about the why and how of showing your work (an important component of the Revolution), peppered with examples.

Nigel Paine has penned The Learning Challenge, a book that takes a similar stance as my own Revolution book, but with some changes in emphasis. A slightly different way to look at the changes.

Bill Bruck has published his own tome, Speed to Proficiency, which similarly covers some of the problems and recommendations as the Revolution book.

We should not forget some classics, e.g. Jay Cross’s game-changing book on Informal Learning, which really altered the way we think about workplace learning.

A classic on the social side, Tony Bingham & Marcia Conner’s The New Social Learning is in it’s second edition.

Of course, Marc Rosenberg’s early Beyond eLearning was a landmark in going beyond the course to a performance ecosystem.

BTW, I’ve ~~requested~~ read Amy Edmondson’s Teaming, so that ~~may~~ joined the list.

Which reminds me, I’ve previously talked about 3 books on team structures, and 2 on changing culture (here and here), also relevant.

I don’t agree with all that appears in all the books, but they all help illuminate the ways we need to be thinking. And if you want help implementing, you know who to contact. So, what’s on your wall?

Work Experiment

13 April 2016 by Clark Leave a Comment

At a point some days ago, I got the idea to map out different activities by their role as executing versus innovating, and whether it’s in the head or in the world. And I’ve been playing with it since. I’m mapping some ways of getting work done, at least the mental aspects, across those dimensions.

I’m not sure I’ve got things in the right places. I’m not even sure what it really means. I’ve some ideas, but I think I’m going to try something new, and ask you what you think it means. So, what’s interesting and/or important here?

L&D Value

5 April 2016 by Clark 3 Comments

This past week, my colleague Jane Hart has been asking the question: “What would happen if there were no Training/L&D department?” (And I recommend you send her your answer. ;) I suspect, of course, that she’s looking at lateral ways to think different about L&D, but it’s an intriguing prospect. As an interesting contrast, Noel Hurst quotes me from the Learning Solution conference as saying “L&D has the opportunity to be the most valuable part of your business.” Are these ideas incommensurate? Or is there a reconciliation?

So, Jane states that the responses from her question fall into two categories: (1) orgs can‘t do without L&D (2) orgs w/o L&D do things differently. And she admits that she’s interested in the latter. What would orgs do differently if they didn’t have the existing baggage of L&D? This interests me from a perspective of what would orgs eventually figure they might want to invest in across the enterprise to facilitate improving their ability to execute and innovate. What I suggested as a response to her question was that individuals and communities would take over responsibility for learning, and work to create environments to support a richer variety of learning. Eventually, orgs would look to do that more efficiently across the communities. And that’s my starting point.

This is what I meant when I made the claim that Noel noted. My perspective is that the role of L&D could (and should) be about improving performance and facilitating development. If, instead of just providing courses, P&D were focused on making sure people could do their jobs, using performance consulting and developing the appropriate solutions – whether job aids, contextual support, coaching, or what have you – they’d be contributing to optimal execution. If they went further, and were also facilitating the ability for the organization to continually innovate – fostering communication and collaboration via tools, practices, and culture – they’d be key to getting people to provide their best. And this is increasingly important.

The old adage that people are an organization’s most important access is increasingly becoming true. The ability to execute optimally is being increasingly outsourced, as my colleague Harold Jarche aptly points out, and the only real value in the organization is going to come from the knowledge work, the important decisions, that will come from people. Together. The main element of success for organizations, going forward, will come from developing their people and having them co-create and deliver the ongoing nature of the business. And P&D should be the ones who understand how people think, work, and learn, and support that. That’s the opportunity on the table. Successful organizations will find ways to make this happen, with or without L&D. I just think that it’s an opportunity L&D should grab. So, are you making the move?

Socially Acceptable

30 March 2016 by Clark 5 Comments

I was talking with my ITA colleagues, and we were discussing the state of awareness of social learning. And we were somewhat concerned that at least from some evidence, there’re some misconceptions around about social learning. So I thought I’d take another shot at it.

First, let me make the case why it’s important. There are number of reasons to be interested in social learning:

it’s more natural: our learning mechanisms were social before they were formal
it’s deeper learning: the processing that goes on through knowledge negotiation leads to more flexible and longer learning
it’s about innovation too: with problem-solving, trouble-shooting, research, design, etc, you don’t know the answer before you begin, so it’s learning, and the outcomes are better when done socially

This is only a start, but I reckon if those don’t make the case that you should be taking a serious look at incorporating social business into your organization, you are not really concerned.

Then, let’s clarify what it’s not. Social learning is:

not about (just) formal: as suggested above, social extends from formal out to informal to being an essential part of how business gets done.
not about social media: social media is a tool to support social learning, but it’s not the focus
not a discussion forum available during a course: you need people interacting around artifacts – posts, pages, videos, etc – to generate meaningful outcomes
not about getting people together to discuss a problem without proper preparation

So what is good social learning? Good social learning is driving interaction around work (whether real or designed for learning). Good social learning is:

communicating by pointing to relevant new information
curating resources, not just for yourself but also for others
being transparent about what you’re doing (and why), showing your work
discussing different ways of getting something done
collaborating to develop a shared response
tapping into the power of people
developing a shared understanding of how to work and play well together, and using it

At core, it’s really about performing better. And that should be your focus, no? So, are you ready to get real about social learning?

Aligning with us

22 March 2016 by Clark Leave a Comment

One of the realizations I had in writing the Revolutionize L&D book was how badly we’re out of synch with our brains. I think alignment is a big thing, both from the Coherent Organization perspective of having our flows of information aligned, and in processes that help us move forward in ways that reflect our humanity.

In short, I believe we’re out of alignment with our views on how we think, work, and learn. The old folklore that represents the thinking that still permeates L&D today is based upon outdated models. And we really have to understand these differences if we’re to get better.

The mistaken belief about thinking is that it’s all done in our head. That is, we keep the knowledge up there, and then when a context comes in we internalize it and make a logical decision and then we act. And what cognitive science says is that this isn’t really the way it works. First, our thinking isn’t all in our heads. We distribute it across representational tools like spreadsheets, documents, and (yes) diagrams. And we don’t make logical decisions without a lot of support or expertise. Instead, we make quick decisions. This means that we should be looking at tools to support thinking, not just trying to put it all in the head. We should be putting as much in the world as we can, and look to scaffold our processes as well.

It’s also this notion that we go away and come up with the answer, and that the individual productivity is what matters. It turns out that most innovation, problem-solving, etc, gets better results if we do it together. As I often say “the room is smarter than the smartest person in the room if you manage the process right“. Yet, we don’t. And people work better when they understand why what they’re doing is important and they care about it. We should be looking at ways to get people to work together more and better, but instead we still see hierarchical decision making, restrictive cultures, and more.

And, of course, there still persists this model that information dump and knowledge test will lead to new capabilities. That’s a low probability approach. Whereas if you’re serious about learning, you know it’s mostly about spacing contextualized application of that knowledge to solve problems. Instead, we see rapid elearning tools and templates that tart-up quiz questions.

The point being, we aren’t recognizing that which makes us special, and augmenting in ways that bring out the best. We’re really running organizations that aren’t designed for humans. Most of the robotic work should and will get automated, so then when we need to find ways to use people to do the things they’re best at. It should be the learning folks, and if they’re not ready, well, they better figure it out or be left out! So let’s get a jump on it, shall we?

Content isn’t a silo

2 March 2016 by Clark 2 Comments

I mentioned in my previous post that I was talking at the xAPI camp about content strategy, and on the way in I created a new diagram to convey a concept I wanted to discuss. Of course one of the things I agitate about for the revolution is that L&D can’t hide away but has to start engaging across the business. And, let me add, that’s only increasing. Our silos are breaking down. To wit:

Here I was trying to think of activities that cross silos. So, of course, the overall role of the business aligns and integrates the separate actions of sales, marketing, IT, etc. And, to suit my campaign, I looked for others.

Obviously, data is coming out across the organization. As I mentioned in that last post, we can only look at the impact of L&D on performance if we can start working with data from the business units, but data from customer service influences marketing, and so on.

The web, too, is a channel for many activities. Units that reach customers, for instance, include customer service, customer education, sales & marketing, and more. Heck, the supply chain is increasingly connected by the web, and data.

Consequently, so too is content. Content is used in many ways, whether via apps, through the web, or print. And for many purposes: sales, marketing, tech support, and of course learning. And there’s a point to all this.

L&D, with it’s hard-wired content, needs to pull on the big kids pants, and start getting with content systems: content engineering, governance, and strategy. Truly, if you want to be part of the strategic picture going forward, you have to work with information tools. Industrial age methods won’t cut it. So, are you thinking about how to move to a content strategy?

xAPI conceptualized

1 March 2016 by Clark 6 Comments

A couple of weeks ago, I had the pleasure of attending the xAPI Base Camp, to present on content strategy. While I was there, I remembered that I have some colleagues who don’t see the connection between xAPI and learning. And it occurred to me that I hadn’t seen a good diagram that helped explain how this all worked. So I asked and was confirmed in my suspicion. And, of course, I had to take a stab at it.

What I was trying to capture was how xAPI tracked activity, and that could then be used for insight. I think one of the problems people have is that they think xAPI is a solution all in itself, but it is just a syntax for reporting.

So when A might demonstrate a capability at a particular level, say at the end of learning, or by affirmation from a coach or mentor, that gets recorded in a Learning Record Store. We can see that A and B demonstrated it, and C demonstrated a different level of capability (it could also be that there’s no record for C, or D, or…).

From there, we can compare that activity with results. Our business intelligence system can provide aggregated data of performance for A (whatever A is being measured on: sales data, errors, time to solve customer problems, customer satisfaction, etc). With that, we can see if there are the correlations we expect, e.g. everyone who demonstrated this level of capability has reliably better performance than those who didn’t. Or whatever you’re expecting.

Of course, you can mine the data too, seeing what emerges. But the point is that there are a wide variety of things we might track (who touched this job aid, who liked this article, etc), and a wide variety of impacts we might hope for. I reckon that you should plan what impacts you expect from your intervention, put in checks to see, and then see if you get what you intended. But we can look at a lot more interventions than just courses. We can look to see if those more active in the community perform better, or any other question tied to a much richer picture than we get other ways.

Ok, so you can do this with your own data generating mechanisms, but standardization has benefits (how about agreeing that red means stop?). So, first, does this align with your understanding, or did I miss something? And, second does this help, at all?

When to gamify?

24 February 2016 by Clark Leave a Comment

I’ve had lurking in my ‘to do’ list a comment about doing a post on when to gamify. In general, of course, I avoid it, but I have to acknowledge there are times when it makes sense. And someone challenged me to think about what those circumstances are. So here I’m taking a principled shot at it, but I also welcome your thoughts.

To be clear, let me first define what gamification is to me. So, I’m a big fan of serious games, that is when you wrap meaningful decisions into contexts that are intrinsically meaningful. And I can be convinced that there are times when tarting up memory practice with quiz-show window-dressing makes sense, e.g. when it has to be ‘in the head’. What I typically refer to as gamification, however, is where you use external resources, such as scores, leaderboards, badges, and rewards to support behavior you want to happen.

I happened to hear a gamification expert talk, and he pointed out some rules about what he termed ‘goal science’. He had five pillars:

that clear goals makes people feel connected and aligns the organization
that working on goals together (in a competitive sense ;) makes them feel supported
that feedback helps people progress in systematic ways
that the tight loop of feedback is more personalized
that choosing challenging goals engages people

Implicit in this is that you do good goal setting and rewards. You have to have some good alignment to get these points across. He made the point that doing it badly could be worse than not doing it at all!

With these ground rules, we can think about when it might make sense. I’ll argue that one obvious, and probably sad case, would be when you don’t have a coherent organization, and people aren’t aware of their role in the organization. Making up for effective communication isn’t necessarily a good thing, in my mind.

I think it also might make sense for a fun diversion to achieve a short-term goal. This might be particularly useful for an organizational change, when extra motivation could be of assistance in supporting new behaviors. (Say, for moving to a coherent organization. ;) Or some periodic event, supporting say a philanthropic commitment related to the organization.

And it can be a reward for a desired behavior, such as my frequent flier points. I collect them, hoping to spend them. I resent it, a bit, because it’s never as good as is promised, which is a worry. Which means it’s not being done well.

On the other hand, I can’t see using it on an ongoing basis, as it seems it would undermine the intrinsic motivation of doing meaningful work. Making up for a lack of meaningful work would be a bad thing, too.

So, I recall talking to a guy many moons ago who was an expert in motivation for the workplace. And I had the opportunity to see the staggering amount of stuff available to orgs to reward behavior (largely sales) at an exhibit happening next to our event. It’s clear I’m not an expert, but while I’ll stick to my guns about preferring intrinsic motivation, I’m quite willing to believe that there are times it works, including on me.

Ok, those are my thoughts, what’ve I missed?

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