Bob Mosher opened the Performance Support Symposium with a passionate keynote about Performance Support. It strongly made the case for a blended approach, which I support. As with mobile, the time is definitely now.
Organizational Cognition
A recent post on organizational cognitive load got me thinking (I like this quote: “major learning and performance initiatives will likely fail to achieve the hoped-for outcomes if we don‘t consider that there is a theoretical limit to collective throughput for learning”). I do believe organizations have distributed thinking that they apply to solving problems. Usually this is individual, but how might it be greater than that?
I think back to the Coherent Organization, and how folks are collaborating and cooperating in moving the organization forward. There’s lots of thinking going on, in many ways. Folks are solving problems in formal or informal working groups in many ways, whether achieving organizational goals directly, developing themselves together, and furthering the frontiers of their field in a variety of ways. Individual cognitive load we address through providing resources and tools. How do we reduce collective load?
In short, by making access to social networks, to collaborative media, as easy and ‘ready to hand‘ as possible. We want the focus to be on the task, not the tools. It’s about co-creating a performance ecosystem that works fluidly, seamlessly integrating the different resources we need.
It’s cultural as well as structural. You need to remove the barriers to working well, facilitating the ability to constructively interact by welcoming diversity, sponsoring psychological safety, soliciting new ideas, and providing space and time for reflection. You need leaders who walk the talk, learning out loud.
You can’t do this if you don’t understand how folks work and play together, and what it takes to get you there and stay there. The field continues to develop, but you need to be explicit about how this happen, and actively work to minimize interference with effective flow: communication and work.
#itashare
Inappropriate usage?
A few days ago, my colleague Jay Cross wrote a post on plagiarism, dealing with the fact that some of his work (even an example of some of our collaborative work) was being used without attribution. He preceded me in the use of Creative Commons licensing, but from his example (and Harold Jarche), I placed a BY – NC – SA license in the side bar. Fast forward to today, and I get alerted by a colleague (thanks, Martin!) that my stuff is appearing without attribution.
At their site (see screenshot), 4 of the first 6 posts listed are mine. Full grab of the text, graphics, and all. Not all of mine are there, but many. The posts may no longer be there by the time you read this, but they were when I was notified, as the screenshot shows. And, apparently, for a while in the past. Look at my list of blog posts, and you’ll see that these were my four most recent posts.
Now, the license I mentioned means three things I ask for. First, you say who it’s BY (i.e. attribution). That it’s NC No Charge, i.e. you’re not making money off of it (if you are, let’s work out a deal). And that it’s SA Share Alike. Others can take your content too. So, you’re welcome to use any or all of a post if you a) attribute it to me, b) don’t charge, and c) you are willing for any work created from mine to similarly be shared. I see that this group has only violated one, but I’m inclined to think it’s an important one. It’s my thinking, after all.
As you might imagine, this upsets me. I work hard to put worthwhile information out. I expect to at least get credit for it, given that it provides no direct revenue (yep, still ad-free). To have someone take my intellectual property and redistribute under their banner, without at least providing a pointer back strikes me as less than appropriate. I note Jeff Cobb is getting credit. Why not me?
Sure I’m grateful that they find it worth quoting, but not if they’re implying it’s theirs. They’re getting value from my thinking, and I’m not getting anything in return. Other have redistributed my posts, and they can, as long as they credit me (and aren’t charging for it). That’s of value to me. Unattributed, not so much.
By the way, when I pointed this out, several others indicated that this site has or has had unattributed content from themselves or others in the past. You have to wonder…
Am I too touchy about this?
Coherent performance
I’ve been revisiting performance support in preparation for the Guild’s Performance Support Symposium next month, and I’m seeing a connection between two models that really excite me. It’s about how social and performance support are a natural connection.
So, let’s start with a performance model. This model came from a look at how people act in the world and I was reminded of it during a conversation on informal learning. Most of the time, we’re acting in well-understood ways (e.g. driving), and we can keep our minds free for other things. However, there may be times when we can’t rely on that well-practiced approach (say, for instance, if our usual route home is blocked for some reason). Then we have a breakdown, and need to consciously problem-solve. Ideally, if we find the solution, we reflect on it and make it part of our well-practiced repertoire.
So what I wanted to do was use this understanding to think about how we might support performance. What support do we need at these different stages? I propose that when we have a breakdown, ideally we find the answer, either as an information resource, or from a person with the answer. Some of the time, we might identify a real skill shift we need, and then we might actually take a course, but it’s a small part of the picture.
If we find the answer, we can go back into action, but if we can’t find the answer, we have to go into problem-solving mode. Here, the support we need differs. We may need data to look for patterns that can explain what’s going on, or models to help find a solution, or even people. Note, however, that the people here are different than the people we would access for the answer. If there were a person with the answer, we would’ve found them in the first step. Here it’s likely to be good collaborators, people with complementary skills and a willingness to help.
If and when we find the answer, then we should share that so that others don’t have to do the same problem-solving, but can access the resource (or you) in the first step. This step is often skipped, because it’s not safe to share, or there’s just not a focus on such contributions and it’s too easy to just get back to work without recognizing the bigger picture. This is one of the components of what Harold Jarche means by ‘narrating your work‘, and I mean in ‘learning out loud’. If it’s habitual, it’s beneficial.
The connection that I see, however, is that there’s a very strong relationship between this model, and the coherent organization model. At the first step, finding the answer, likely comes from your community of practice or even the broader network (internal or external). This is cooperation, where they’re willing to share the answer.
At the second step, if you get to problem-solving, this is collaboration. It may not just be in a work group (though, implicitly, it is a work group), but could be folks from anywhere. The bigger the problem, the more it’s a formal work group.
The point is that while the L&D group can be providing some of the support, in terms of courses and fixed resources, at other times the solution is going to require ‘the network’. That is, folks are going to play a part in meeting the increasing needs for working. The resources themselves are increasingly likely to be collaboratively developed, the answer is more likely ‘out there’ than necessarily codified in house.
There’s going to of necessity be a greater shift to more flexible solutions across resources and people, to support organizational performance. The performance support model will increasingly require an infrastructure to support the coherent organization. Are you ready?
Quinnovation online and on the go
First, I have to tout that my article on content systems has been published in Learning Solutions magazine. It complements my recent post on content and data.
Second, I’ll be presenting on mobile at the eLearning Guild’s Performance Support Symposium in September in Boston. Would welcome seeing you there. Also will be doing a deeper ID session for Mass. ISPI while I’m there.
Third, I’ll be keynoting the MobilearnAsia conference in Singapore at the end of October. It’s the first in the region, and if you’re in the neighborhood it should be a great way to get steeped in mobile.
Finally, I’ll be at the eLearning Guild’s DevLearn in November, presenting my mobile learning strategy workshop, among other things.
If you’re at one of these events, say “hi”!
Emergent & Semantic Learning
The last of the thoughts still percolating in my brain from #mlearncon finally emerged when I sat down to create a diagram to capture my thinking (one way I try to understand things is to write about them, but I also frequently diagram them to help me map the emerging conceptual relationships into spatial relationships).
What I was thinking about was how to distinguish between emergent opportunities for driving learning experiences, and semantic ones. When we built the Intellectricity© system, we had a batch of rules that guided how we were sequencing the content, based upon research on learning (rather than hardwiring paths, which is what we mostly do now). We didn’t prescribe, we recommended, so learners could choose something else, e.g. the next best, or browse to what they wanted. As a consequence, we also could have a machine learning component that would troll the outcomes, and improve the system over time.
And that’s the principle here, where mainstream systems are now capable of doing similar things. What you see here are semantic rules (made up ones), explicitly making recommendations, ideally grounded in what’s empirically demonstrated in research. In places where research doesn’t stipulate, you could also make principled recommendations based upon the best theory. These would recommend objects to be pulled from a pool or cloud of available content.
However, as you track outcomes, e.g. success on practice, and start looking at the results by doing data analytics, you can start trolling for emergent patterns (again, made up). Here we might find confirmation (or the converse!) of the empirical rules, as well as potentially new patterns that we may be able to label semantically, and even perhaps some that would be new. Which helps explain the growing interest in analytics. And, if you’re doing this across massive populations of learners, as is possible across institutions, or with really big organizations, you’re talking the ‘big data’ phenomena that will provide the necessary quantities to start generating lots of these outcomes.
Another possibility is to specifically set up situations where you randomly trial a couple alternatives that are known research questions, and use this data opportunity to conduct your experiments. This way we can advance our learning more quickly using our own hypotheses, while we look for emergent information as well.
Until the new patterns emerge, I recommend adapting on the basis of what we know, but simultaneously you should be trolling for opportunities to answer questions that emerge as you design, and look for emergent patterns as well. We have the capability (ok, so we had it over a decade ago, but now the capability is on tap in mainstream solutions, not just bespoke systems), so now we need the will. This is the benefit of thinking about content as systems – models and architectures – not just as unitary files. Are you ready?
Piecing together collaboration and cooperation: The Coherent Organization
In an insightful piece, Harold Jarche puts together how collaboration and cooperation are needed to make organizations work ‘smarter’, integrating workgroups with the broader social network by using communities of practice as the intermediary. This makes a lot of sense to me, and I was inspired to take a look at the practices within those categories. (Jay Cross has explored different facets of the implications of this way of thinking and talks about how we are building on this.)
In this depiction,we see behaviors of effective collaboration within work groups, such as coaching each other, using good practices for brainstorming, the elements of a learning organization, being willing to admit to problems, and being willing to lose if you don’t lose the lesson.
At the next level, communities of practice need to continue to evolve their practices, sharing issues and working together to resolve them. Within these communities, sharing pointers as well as deeper thoughts are mechanisms for ‘stealth mentoring‘ and explicit mentoring is valuable as well.
At the outermost level, social networks are about tracking what’s happening and who knows what, looking for developments in related fields as mechanisms for improving designs, and sharing practice is a way to give back to the community.
At the intersections, you need practices of both sharing outward and bringing inward, always looking for fresh inspiration and valuable feedback. The transparency provides real value in developing trust among the constituencies.
I put reflection underpinning all of these, as a core practice. Reflection is absolutely critical to continual improvement in every area.
Note that the firewall tends to cross the middle of the diagram, and by blocking access you’re effectively cutting off a portion of the corporate brain!
This should not by any means be considered definitive, as it’s my first draft, but I think it helps (me, at least) think about what practices could accelerate an organization to be both effective and efficient, able to move nimbly to deliver ongoing customer delight by continual innovation while executing as well. We’re thinking about this as the ‘Coherent Organization’, aligning the flows of information, and aligning the work with the organizational goals. As always, I welcome your feedback: what should be added, removed, modified, etc.
An integrating design?
In a panel at #mlearncon, we were asked how instructional designers could accommodate mobile. Now, I believe that we really haven’t got our minds around a learning experience distributed across time, which our minds really require. I also think we still mistakenly think about performance support as separate from formal learning, but we don’t have a good way to integrate them.
I’ve advocated that we consider learning experience design, but increasingly I think we need performance experience design, where we look at the overall performance, and figure out what needs to be in the head, what needs to be in the world, and design them concurrently. That is, we look at what the person knows how to do, and what should be in their head, and what can be designed as support. ADDIE designs courses. HPT determines whether to do a job aid (the gap is knowledge), or training (the gap is a skill). I’m not convinced that either really looks at the total integration (and willing to be wrong).
What was triggered in my brain, however, was that social constructivism might be a framework within which we could accomplish this. By thinking of what activities the learners would be engaged in, and how we’d support that performance with resources and other learners and performers as collaborators when appropriate, we might have a framework. My take on social constructivism has it looking at what can and should be co-owned by the learner, and how to get the learner there, and it naturally involves resources, other people, and skill development.
So, you’d look at what needs to be done, and think through the performance, and ask what resources (digital and human) would be there with the performer, the gap between your current learner and the performer you’d need, and how to develop an experience to achieve that end state. The notion is what mental design process designers may need going forward, and what framework provides the overarching framework to support that design process.
It’s very related to my activity framework, which nicely resonates as it very much focuses on what you can do, and resourcing that, but that framework is focused on reframing education to make it skills focused and developing self learning. This would require some additions that I’ll have to ponder further. But, as always, it’s about getting ideas out there to collect feedback. So, what say you?
Sims as CTA
I had several great conversations over the course of last week’s #mLearnCon that triggered some interesting thoughts. Here’s the first:
I was talking with someone charged with important training: nuclear. We were talking about both the value of sims to support deep practice, and the difficulty in getting the necessary knowledge out of the subject matter expert (SME). These converged for me in what seemed an interesting way.
First, the best method to get the knowledge out of the heads of SMEs is Cognitive Task Analysis (CTA). CTA is highly effective, but also very complex. It requires considerable effort to do the official version.
A different thread was also wrapped up in this. Not surprisingly, I believe simulation games are the best form of deep practice to help cement skills. I believe so strongly I wrote a book about it ;).
And the cross-pollination: I believe that we’ll be passing on responsibility for defining curricular paths to competency in areas to the associated communities of practice. Further, I believe we will have collaboratively developed sims as part of that path, where we use wikis to edit the rules of the simulation to keep it up to date.
The integration in this context was to think of having the SMEs collaborate on the design of the sim as a way to make the necessary tacit knowledge explicit. It would make their understanding very concrete, and help ensure that the resulting sim is correct. Of course, they might rebel in terms of exaggerating and basing the practice in fantastic contexts, but it certainly would help focus on meaningful skills instead of rote knowledge.
The barrier is that experts don’t really have access to what they know, so having a concrete activity to ground their experience in practical ways strikes me as a very concrete way to elicit the necessary understandings. CTA is about detailed processes to get at their tacit knowledge, but perhaps sim design is a more efficient mechanism. It could have tradeoffs, but it seems to disintermediate the process.
OK, so it’s just a wild idea at this time, but I always argue that thinking out loud is valuable, and I try to practice what I preach. What think you?
5 Phrases to Make Mobile Work
Today I was part of a session at the eLearning Guild’s mLearnCon mlearning conference on Making Mobile Work. For my session I put my tongue slightly in cheek and suggested that there were 5 phrases you need to master to Make mLearning Work. Here they are, for your contemplation.
The first one is focused on addressing either or both of yourself or any other folks who aren’t yet behind the movement to mobile:
How does your mobile device make you smarter?
The point being that there are lots of ways we’re all already using mobile to help us perform. We look up product info while shopping, use calculators to split up the bill, we call folks for information in problem-solving like what to bring home from the grocery store, and we take photos of things we need to remember like hotel room numbers or parking spots. If you aren’t pushing this envelope, you should be. And if folks aren’t recognizing the connection between how they help themselves and what the organization could be doing for employees or customers, you should be helping them.
The second one focuses on looking beyond the initial inference from the phrase “mlearning”:
Anything but a course!
Here we’re trying to help our stakeholders (and designers) think beyond the course and think about performance support, informal learning, collaboration, and more. While it might be about augmenting a course, it’s more likely to be access to information and people, as well as computational support. Mobile learning is really mobile performance support and mobile social.
The third key phrase emphasizes taking a strategic approach:
Where’s the business need?
Here we’re emphasizing the ‘where’ and the ‘business’. What’s important is thinking about meeting real business needs, with metrics and everything. What do the folks who are performing away from their desks need? What small thing could you be doing that would make that activity have a much more positive impact on the bottom line?
The fourth phrase is specifically focused on design:
What’s the least I can do for you?
It’s not about doing everything you can, but instead focusing on the minimal impact to get folks back into the workflow. Mobile is about the 20% of the features that will meet 80% of the need. It’s about the least assistance principle. It’s about elegance and relevance.
From there, we finish by focusing on our providers:
Do you have a mobile solution?
Look, mobile is more than just a tactic, it’s a platform, and you need to recognize it as such. Frankly, if a vendor of an enterprise solution (except, perhaps, for computationally intensive work like 3D rendering and so on) doesn’t have a mobile solution, I reckon it’s a deal-breaker. This is where mobile is really the catalyst for change: it’s bringing a full suite of technology support whenever and wherever needed, so we need to start thinking about what a full suite of support is. What is a full performance ecosystem?
So there you have it, the gist of the presentation. If you master the concepts behind these phrases and employ them judiciously, I do believe you’ll have a better chance of making mlearning work.