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Death by reorg

22 November 2010 by Clark 1 Comment

Even if you haven’t experienced it, you’ve heard about it, seen it, and now it’s a epidemic. The familiar reorganization: changing management structures, reporting relationships, moving units around. It can happen infrequently, but in many organizations it seems to be a regular occurrence: every 2 years, every year, or more frequently. The expression ‘drive-by reorgs’ isn’t hard to countenance.

The reasons for reorganizations can be several, both pragmatic and political. I remember reading a screed that suggests it’s inevitable: organizations will have to align to customers for a while, until efficiency falters, then they reorganize along operational lines until customer satisfaction drops. Of course, there are the typical new manager reorganizations as well; it’s easy to hypothesize that they have to be seen to be doing something. Even if, as Petronius Arbiter wrote about reorganization: “. . . a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency,and demoralization“.

However, it occurred to me to think that reorgs may be a symptom of an approach to management that’s seeing it’s last days. My ITA colleagues have been talking about how we need to moving in a new direction, away from hierarchy to Jon Husband’s wirearchy. Reorganizations restructure the top-down approach to guiding performance, where one person thinks for several. The alternative is network approaches, where everyone understands the goals and is empowered to achieve the goals.

Really, if an organization is restructuring regularly, it’s probably a sign that it’s trying to adapt structurally to an environment that is increasingly chaotic. And that approach just isn’t going to work anymore. Organizations have to become more flexible than rigid structures can accommodate, and more flexible management approaches are needed.

Seriously, Death by Reorganization (warning, PDF) is the potential endgame. What is the alternative? Creating a learning culture of trust and responsibility, empowered with resources, with leadership that embodies a clear vision and lives the sharing of learning. Reorganizations could be the sign of failing leadership, rather than innovative leadership. Where are you and your organization?

Big ‘L’ Learning

16 November 2010 by Clark 8 Comments

We’ve been wrestling for a while about how to deal with the labeling problem. The problem is that when you mention learning to anyone but the L&D team, they immediately hear ‘training’ (and, frankly, too often so to does the L&D team). And, of course, really the issue is performance, but too often that can mean machine throughput or semi-conductor yield or something other than the output of the human brain. This has continued to be a barrier for having meaningful conversations.

I also want to address the broader suite of human brain outcomes: research, creativity, design, etc., as you’ll have read here before. The answers aren’t known, and this is likely to be the important work. Other than creating a portmanteau, or making up a new word entirely, however, I’ve been at a loss for a label.

Recently, I’ve started talking about “big L learning”. ‘Inspired’ by the fact that the Liberal party in Australia is really the conservative party (leave it to the Aussies :), so they have to distinguish between big L and little l liberal, I’ve decided that perhaps we can distinguish between little ‘l’ learning and big ‘L’ learning. If nothing else, it might get someone to ask what I mean and provide an opportunity to open up the discussion.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m more than open to an alternate suggestion, but in the interim, I’m going to keep playing with this. I’ve been wrestling with this for years, and haven’t come up with anything better. I welcome your feedback.

Engineering both the front- and back-end

11 November 2010 by Clark Leave a Comment

I had the pleasure of meeting Bob Glushko a couple of weeks ago, and finally had a chance to dig into a couple of papers if his (as well as scan his book Document Engineering). He’s definitely one that you would call ‘wicked’ smart, having built several companies and now having sold one, he’s only hanging around doing cutting edge information science because he wants to.

The core of what he’s on about is structuring data, as documents, to facilitate transactions that for the basis of services. He focuses on the term ‘document’ rather than data to help emphasize the variety of forms in which they manifest, the human component, and most of all the nature of combining data to facilitate business interactions. At the heart is something I’ve been excited about, what I call content models, but he takes much further to support a more generic and comprehensive capability.

He makes a useful distinction between ‘front-end’ and ‘back-end’ services to help highlight the need to take the total service-delivery system into account. The front end provides the customer-facing experience, while the back end ensures efficiency and scalability. It can be difficult to reconcile these two, and yet both are necessary.

This is important in learning experience design as well. Having served on either side, both, and as the mediator between, I know the tension that can result from the caring designer crossing swords with the focused developer.

I have talked before about the potential of web 3.0, system-generated content, and that’s what this approach really enables. Yes, there are necessary efficiencies and effectiveness enough to justify this approach in your learning experience system design, but the potential for smart adaptive experiences is the new opportunity.

If you’re building more than just content, but also delivery systems and business engines, you owe it to yourself to get into Document Engineering. If you’re going further (and you should), you really need to get into the whole services and information science area.

There are exciting advancements in technologies, going beyond just XML to learning focused structures on top, and solid concept engineering behind these that are the key to the next generation of learning systems (and, of course, more).

The role of the university?

27 October 2010 by Clark 7 Comments

Unhappy in many ways with the current status of education, particularly here in the US, I’ve been thinking a lot about what would make sense. What’s the role of K12, and then what’s the role of a university? Some thoughts recently coalesced that I thought I’d put out and see what reaction I get.

The issue, to me, covers several things. Now, I talked some time ago about my ongoing search for wisdom, and the notion of a wise curriculum coupled with a wise pedagogy very much permeate my thinking. However, I’m probably going to be a bit more mundane here. I just want to think what we might want to cover, and how.

Let me start with the premise that what needs to be learned to be a productive member of society needs to be learned before university, as not everyone goes further. If we truly believe (and we should) that 21st Century skills of learning, research, communication, leadership, etc, are skills everyone needs, then those are K12 goals. Naturally, of course, we also include literacy of many sorts (not just reading and writing), and ideally, thinking like a mathematician and scientist (not science and math).

However, if those are accomplished in K12 (when I’ve previously argued learning how to think might be the role of the university, and now think it’s got to be before then), then what is the role of university? Given that the half-life of knowledge is less than four years, focusing on preparing for a lifetime of performance is out of the question. Similarly, pursuing one fixed course of study won’t make sense anymore, as the fields are beginning to change, and the arbitrary categorizations won’t make sense. So what then?

I’m thinking of going back to the original Oxbridge model. In the old days, you were assigned a tutor (and advisor), and you met with that person regularly. They’d have a discussion with you, recommend some activities (read X, solve Y), and send you on your way. It was a customized solution. Since then, for a variety of reasons (scale, mostly), the model’s turned into a mass-production model. However, we now have the power of technology.

What if we moved to a system where individuals could spend some time exploring particular areas (like the first two years or so of college), and then put together a proposal of what they wanted to do, and how they’d pursue it, and the proposal would be vetted. Once approved, there’d be regular updates. Sure, there’d likely be some templates around for learning, but it’d be more self-directed, customizable, and put the appropriate responsibility on the learner.

I may be biased, as I designed my own major (UCSD’s Muir campus had a mechanism to design your own degree, and as they didn’t have a learning technology program…) as an undergraduate, and again you propose your research as a PhD candidate, but I think there’s a lot to recommend a learner taking responsibility for what they’re going to study and why. Granted, universities don’t do a good enough job of articulating why a program sequence has particular courses in it, but I think it’s even better if a learner at least has to review and defend it, if not choose it themselves.

Naturally, some domain-specific learning skills would emerge, but this would provide a more flexible system to match how specializations are changing so dynamically, serve as a model for life, and put the responsibility of faculty members more to mentorship and less to lecture. It would necessitate a change in pedagogy as well.

I think, in the long term, this sort of model has to be adopted. In the short term, it will wreak havoc with things like accreditation, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing, given the flaws we’re beginning to see in the existing system, both non- and for-profit. I reckon the for-profits might be able to move quicker, but there will be battles. And, of course, changing faculty minds reminds me of the old joke: “How many academics does it take to change a lightbulb?” “Change?” (And I *was* one!)

Naturally, this has implications for K12 too, as many have articulately argued that the pedagogy needs to change there as well, following the learners’ interests. Likewise the notion of educational publishing (where is that iPad replacement for my kid’s texts?). Those are topics for another day.

So, does this make sense? What am I missing?

Co-Curation

25 October 2010 by Clark 1 Comment

In a presentation yesterday by Dr. Deborah Everhart, talking about Web 2.0 and the future of teaching and learning at Berkeley’s new Center of Next Generation of Teaching and Learning, she used the familiar mechanism of transitions from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0. One of the transitions she described, from Buying to Self-Publishing sparked a thought. This was very much in the context of higher education, but it extends further.

For context, realize that we’re being inundated with knowledge. One of the roles of our personal learning networks is to follow people who sort through the memes coming along and reframe them into new ideas, posts and more. People like my ITA colleagues and many others (e.g. #lrnchat instigators) are worth following (virtual mentorships) because they are essentially serving as curators for knowledge.

So these people are self-publishing. In higher education, we think of authors of textbooks, although in a sense they’re curating knowledge as well. And we’re seeing movements where teams are beginning to author texts, not just for publishers but in open access contexts as well. If we extend this, communities are, increasingly, similarly curating information.

And, really, they’re co-curating. Wikipedia ends up being the ultimate co-curated body of knowledge. It’s co-creation, but because it’s pulling together bits of knowledge from other places. In the case of innovation, where experts are solving new problems, that’s co-creation, but capturing resources around topics and combining them is a combination of curation and creation, co-curation.

I note that this is not a new term, as librarians have been apparently using it for a while, but I think it’s an important concept in the overall context of learning together; co-creating libraries (have you ever received a request for the books you think are most critical for X :) of resources and references. It’s a part of the larger picture of creating personal learning environments, personal learning networks, and personal knowledge management.

When I reflect on the fabulous learning that comes from my networks (such as those listed above and ITFORUM), I am really really grateful to those who contribute so that we all learn together. Thanks!

Serendipitous revisiting

20 October 2010 by Clark 2 Comments

In many ways, it can seem like we revisit the same old ideas again and again. I’ve ranged over design, social, games, mobile, strategy and more in many different ways. I try to write when there are new ideas, but many times the same themes are reviewed, albeit extended. This might seem tiresome (more so, perhaps, to me than you :), but there’s value in it.

I’ve talked previously about explorability. As I mentioned, I heard the concept while doing a summer internship, and was excited by it. The other part is that I brought it back to our research lab (focused on interface design at the time), and the reaction was essentially nil. Fast-forward a couple of years, and when discussing some nuance of usability (perhaps affordances), I raised it again, to wide excitement! What had changed?

The lesson I learned is that not only do you need the right idea, but you also need the right context. I find that matters I talked about years ago will be just right for someone now. So the work I did laying out the appropriate elements for game design in 1998 were appropriate for a book in 2005. I talked about learning games from about 2002 on, and finally it went from ’emerging technologies’ to mainstream in the program track around 2008. I’ve been talking about mobile since 2000, and finally have a book coming out in January. I wonder when mlearning will cross the chasm.

So the point is that you have to keep putting ideas out there, again and again, to find the right time for them to take hold. Not like advertising, but like offerings. It’s not planned, it’s just at the idea strikes, but I reckon that’s a better heuristic than a more calculated algorithm. At least, if you are trying to inspire positive change, and I confess that I am.

Quip: Quality

4 October 2010 by Clark 5 Comments

I had the (dubious) pleasure of picking up an award for a client at an eLearning awards ceremony a number of years back. There’s been some apt criticism of the whole awards industry thing overall, but it did give me a chance to see what was passing as award-winning content. And I was dismayed. One memorable example had traditional HR policy drill-and-kill tarted up into a ‘country fair’ theme. It was, frankly, quite well produced and visually attractive. And complete dreck, instructionally. Yet, it had won an award!

My client typically fights the good fight when they can (hey, they use me ;), but sometimes they can’t convince the client or know not to bother. In another instance, I actually took on the design for a project, and at the end the client’s manager asked what was so special. After I walked him through it, he was singing the hallelujah chorus, but there’s an important point here. I’ve heard this tale from many of my colleagues as well, and it indicates a problem.

Quality design is hard to distinguish from well-produced but under-designed content.

To the layperson, or even perhaps the ordinary instructional designer, the nuances of good content aren’t obvious. If the learning objective is focused on knowledge, it’s because that’s what the SME told us was important. So what if the emotional engagement is extrinsic, not intrinsic, it’s still engaging, right? We cover the content, show an example, and then ensure they know it. That’s what we do.

SO not. Frankly, if you don’t really understand the underlying important elements that constitute the components of learning, if you can’t distinguish good from ordinary, you’re wasting your time and money. If that were the only consequence,well, shame on the buyer. But if there’s a Great eLearning Garbage Patch, it gets harder to pitch quality. If you don’t care that it ‘sticks’ and leads to meaningful behavior change in the workplace, you shouldn’t even start. If you do care, then you have to do more.

Hey, low production values aren’t what make the learning occur, it’s just to minimize barriers (“ooh, this is so ugly”). Learning is really a probability game (you can’t make a learner learn), and every element you under-design knocks something like 10-50% off the likelihood it’ll lead to change. Several of those combined and you’ve dropped your odds to darn near zero (ending up working only for those who’ll figure it out no matter what you do to them).

And the problem is, your client, your audience, doesn’t know. So you can lose out to someone who shows flashy content but knows bugger all about learning. You see it everywhere.

So, we have to do more. We have to educate our clients, partners, and the audience. It’s not easy, but if we don’t, we’ll continue to be awash in garbage content. We’ll be wasting time and money, and our effort will be unappreciated.

If you’re a designer, get on top of it, and get good at explaining it. If you’re a customer, ask them to explain how their content actually achieves learning outcomes. Or get some independent evaluation. There are still vulnerabilities, but it’s a push in the right direction. We need more better learning!

Levels of learning experience design

28 September 2010 by Clark Leave a Comment

If you want to achieve meaningful outcomes in the space of the important work, you need to ensure that the process is optimized. This means that you want to streamline formal learning, maximize the utility of resources, and facilitate optimal interaction. This is the realm of learning experience design.

Learning experience design can, and should, operate at several levels. For one, you want individual learning experiences to be optimal. You want a minimalist approach that combines effective cognitive design with engaging emotional design. You want the formal resources to be designed to mesh with the task and provide effective information design. And you want the social learning tools to be organized around the way the team coheres.

Here we are talking deeper instructional design, information mapping, and aligned social media.

At the next level, you want your learning development processes to make it easy to do good learning design: you want your tools and templates to scaffold proper outcomes (and preclude bad design), and you want your oversight to be based upon sound principles.

Here we are on about design processes and teams, as well as tools. We can be talking about content models and delivery architectures as well.

At a higher level, you want your components of learning to complement one another, so courses are designed in synchrony with your resources and networks, and vice versa, and you want your IT infrastructure to be based upon structures that maintain security, reliability, and maintainability with flexibility so as not to preclude new directions.

Here we are talking content frameworks and hosting architectures, semantics, and organizational alignment and culture.

Unfortunately, most organizations in my experience, are using flawed models at the first level, are embryonic at the second, and are oblivious of the top. Yet, the competitive advantage will increasingly come from just such an optimized structure, as working *smarter* will increasingly be the only sustainable edge. So, are you ready to move ahead?

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