Search Results for: engag

A Cognitive Audit?

11 January 2017 by Clark 2 Comments

In the recent Chief Learning Officer magazine, I wrote an article on the basics of the cognitive science of learning. Given the evidence that “L&D isn’t doing near what it could and should, and what it is doing it is doing badly, other than that it’s fine” (as I say), at least one of the potential barriers is that L&D isn’t truly aware of what science says about their profession.

And I truly believe that if you’re a professional, you should be aware of the fundamental scientific basis of your profession. Pilots need to know aeronautics, physicians need to know physiology, etc. And therefore, I reckon L&D needs to know the cognitive background. But there’s more.

Knowing a suitable level of cognitive science is one thing, using that to assess your practices is another. Too often, we have what we call ‘inert knowledge’: we know it, but we don’t apply it. That’s not helpful. What has to happen is that processes need to be evaluated, improvements identified, interventions prioritized, enablement enacted, and progress reviewed. It’s just part of being a professional!

There are other sorts of audits possible (I know folks who do performance audits, and knowledge audits, etc), but I’m increasingly thinking that the one that matters is the one that aligns with how our brains work. Not at the neural level (there’s little of impact there), but at the cognitive level. Note that cognitive science includes social, conative and affective components (e.g. the culture and motivation), and neural, for that matter ;).

This isn’t an academic exercise. The increasing competition enabled by technology already suggests that optimal execution is only the cost of entry, and continual innovation will be the only sustainable differentiator. Both are cognitive functions, and the best outcomes will only be achieved when organizations are acting in accordance with how we think, work, and learn. This is about equipping your organization to kick some proverbial tail.

I’m drafting an initial such instrument, with associated recommendations. I welcome your thoughts, and any interest in engaging around this.

2016 Reflections

28 December 2016 by Clark Leave a Comment

This is the last Learnlet for 2016, and so it’s time for some reflections on what has been an ‘interesting’ year. I’ll admit it’s been rough, what with losing so many people known through popular media. I guess you get to an age where more and more people who’ve you’ve grown up with in one way or another begin to pass on. And of course serious changes nationally and internationally. But there are some learnings as well.

So, I did a fair bit of speaking in 2016, keynoting conferences in New York and Beijing, as well as more private events live and online. I spoke about mobile learning, deeper learning design, innovation, as well as the L&D revolution. And, of course, I attended the usual suite of industry conferences, notably the eLearning Guild events and Online Educa. I also was engaged in a number of consulting engagements, working with folks to deepen their understanding (and mine), to achieve meaningful outcomes.

One learning is the value of travel outside the US. I actually lived outside the US for 7 years (in Australia), and the perspective of seeing how others live, and looking at the rest of the world (and back at the US) from other perspectives is a valuable grounding. The view I had of China before my recent trips was quite different than the reality. I can say the same from previous experience with India. It’s too easy to be insular. Instead, it’s helpful to be curious.

And that’s an industry comment too. I continue to talk (e.g. my workshop in Berlin) and write about deeper learning design. And I continue to evangelize about it (c.f. the Serious eLearning Manifesto with my colleagues, and the recent Future of Work project). And yet, the industry seems to continue on in ignorance. The tools still reflect more of a focus on content instead of experience, for instance. Things get better, but surprisingly slowly. How long until we start treating learning design with the appropriate respect? We need to get out of our comfort zone!

There are positive signs. My engagements with Learnnovators has demonstrated that at least some folks care about quality. And I had several client engagements specifically focused on better learning design. There just need to be more efforts in this area. It’s not hard to tweak processes to generate outcomes that not only look like good elearning, but actually have a high likelihood of an impact.

I’ve done a lot of reading this year (most recently The Fifth Discipline, which puts lots of what I’ve learned about organizations into a context). It amazes me that with robust science at the organizational level as well as the learning science level, we still see so much action in organizations (and society) contrary to what’s demonstrably known. There are positive signs here too, but still too few. It’s challenging, as it involves crossing discipline and business boundaries, yet the benefits are promising.

And I think the hype about technology improvements are premature. Wearables continue, of course. And VR has reached the stage where it’s easy to experiment. Yet in each case, we’re still in the stage before standards emerge that will make a real market. AR and content strategy are still nascent, but there’s much potential. Fortunately, analytics is seeing a boon from the standardization around xAPI. We need to stick to the core learning affordances of new technology to truly grasp the potential.

Looking forward, I see much opportunity, as implied by the gaps indicated above. There’s real opportunity for improvement in the use of technology to facilitate outcomes. We can do personal and organizational learning better. We can leverage technology in ways that are closer aligned with how our brains work. As a precursor, we’ll need a broader understanding of cognition, but that’s doable. I’m happy to help ;).

And let me just add a very heartfelt thanks to those of you who I’ve interacted with, this year and in the past. Whether reading the blog, making comments, engaging on social media, attending sessions or workshops, and of course via engagements, I’m very grateful. I hope to connect with you in the future, in any of the above ways or any other. I continue to learn through and with you, and that’s a gift. Again, thank you.

Goodbye 2016, and here’s to making positive changes in the new year. May it be your best yet.

Cultural Alignment

27 December 2016 by Clark 1 Comment

I was thinking about the ways in which organizations can support performance. That is, we can and should be aligning with how we think, work, and learn. So we can provide tools to support us in the moment, we can provide tools to help us work together, and we can develop people all slowly over time. In short, I was thinking about cognitive alignment, and I was going to write about it, but it turns out I already have! However, I also realized that there was an opportunity to extend that to cultural alignment, and I think that’s important as well.

So, one of the things we can do to optimize outcomes is to give people performance support. In particular, we can provide tools to address gaps that emerge from our cognitive architecture. We can also provide policies about things we’re supposed to do. And that’s all good. However, some of that might not be necessary under the right circumstances.

I was thinking about the specific case of acting in ways that are consonant with the values of the organization. For instance, in a well-known upscale department store chain, the staff have the leeway to spend on the order of $1K to address any emerging customer problem. I reckon the store figures that’s the future worth of a happy customer. And that’s acting in alignment with the culture of the organization.

The point I want to make is that by having an explicit culture in the organization, you might not have to provide performance support. If the desired approach is understood, it can be generated from understanding the organization’s value. If you know what’s expected, you can perform in alignment without needing external clues and cues.

There are clear benefits from a learning organization in terms of innovation and employee engagement, but what about the other side? I suggest that the right culture can also benefit the ‘optimal execution’ side. In short, there’s little reason to do aught but begin a move to a more enlightened culture. At least, that’s what seems to me to be the case. How about you?

Employee Experience

21 December 2016 by Clark Leave a Comment

One of the recent trends has been about ‘customer experience’, focusing the organization on a consistent and coherent customer experience from first exposure through to ongoing product or service use. And this is a ‘good thing’! I’ve participated in the efforts of an organization to achieve it, and can see the real benefits. However, I want to suggest that just as important is the employee experience. This is the goal of a true performance ecosystem and an aligned culture.

Richard Branson, the successful entrepreneur behind the Virgin brand, argues that the only real way to deliver great customer service is to have really happy employees. And I think that his argument is plausible. We know that when people are engaged, there are good outcomes like greater retention. Happy employees is a necessary step to happy customers.

We also know that when we’re creating a learning culture, we get both more engaged employees, and better business outcomes. That is, when employees have purpose, are given autonomy to pursue their goals, and are supported towards success, they’re happier and more productive. Also when an organization works well together – sharing because it’s safe, tapping into diversity, being open to new ideas, and supporting reflection – innovation can flourish.

And, I’ll argue, that when the tools are ‘to hand’, employees are happier and more productive. When you can:

find necessary tools and resources
reach out with questions
provide answers
represent your thinking
share your work so others can align and contribute
collaborate
experiment and analyze

all with ease, working is optimal. That is, employees can achieve their goals effectively and efficiently.

Spending cycles to optimize this, to develop the infrastructure and the culture, is an investment in a long term benefit to organizational success. I believe the two components of the organizational culture and the technology infrastructure are the critical components to employee experience. And optimizing those has benefits that cross the organization. That strikes me as an important strategic focus; what’s your take?

Aligning Learning

6 December 2016 by Clark Leave a Comment

Online Educa logo Last week, at Online Educa in Berlin, I gave a tutorial on deeper elearning as a pre-conference event. In it, I talked about getting more meaningful objectives, writing practice that actually develops meaningful outcomes, and content (concepts & examples) aligned to support effective practice. I also talked about emotional engagement and social learning, before talking about revising design processes to incorporate these deeper elements in an effective and not-too-different approach. In short, I was talking about aligning our designs, and our design processes, to how we think and learn.

This is something that most organizations should be thinking about. I was pleasantly surprised that the audience included folks from universities, not-for-profits, and government agencies as well as businesses. The challenges are different in some respects, but there are shared elements. Education tends to be about long term learning relationships (typically at least a half year to several years), versus the short-term relationships (e.g. an hour to several days) in organizational learning. Yet the need to respect how our brains work is a continuum. Our brains learn in particular ways that are unaffected by the curricular needs. Learning solutions for performance and for education both still need to respect our neural and cognitive architecture.

And too little of what we do reflects what we know. As a recent commenter noted, there’s a conflict between the de-facto practices and what research says. As she also noted, our tools are also focused on supporting wrong approaches. It’s not that tools prevent doing meaningful learning, it’s just that you have to get your design right first and then make the tool conform (as opposed to the alternative). And our limitations as designers flow from the same source, our brain, as our limitations as learners. Thus we need to be as aware of cognition in our designing as in our design.

I’ll be talking about the problems this engenders in a special webinar tomorrow. There’re still a few slots left. If you’re committed to trying to improve your learning design, and you have the resources to do so, this is an opportunity to get started. There isn’t a lot of pressure yet, but it’s time to be proactive before people start asking questions about the business impact of what we’re doing. What do you think?

Thoughts on story, games, and VR

22 November 2016 by Clark 1 Comment

As luck would have it, I found out about an event on Storytelling Across Media being run in the city, and attended a couple of the panels: half of one on interactive design and Telltale Games, one on story and games, and one on story and VR. There were interesting quotes from each about story, games, and VR that prompted reflection, and I thought I’d share my thoughts with you.

Story and Games

The first quote that struck home was “nonlinear storytelling strikes a balance between narrative and choice”. This is the challenge that I and I think all game designers struggle with. So, I subsequently asked “How do you integrate storytelling with experience design?” The panelists acknowledged that this was the ongoing challenge. Another comment was that “stories are created in your imagination”. That’s key, I think, to create experiences that the player will end up writing as a story they can tell.

I found myself thinking about story machines versus experience engines. It appears to me that, ala Sid Maier’s “a good game is a series of interesting decisions”, that it’s all about the decisions you make. It’s easier to tell a good story when you put a game ‘on rails’; it’s harder when you want to have an open world and still ramp up the tension across the board. Having rules and timers give you the opportunity. For serious games, however, not commercial ones, I reckon it’s more ok for the story to be somewhat linear.

Another interesting comment was about how things are going transmedia. An issue that emerged was the business of transmedia, how you might start with a comic to build interest and revenue to fund adding in a game, or a movie. Telling stories across media is an interesting challenge, and could have real opportunity for learning. I have been a fan of Andrea Phillips Transmedia Storytelling and Koreen Pagano’s Immersive Learning, which I think give good clues about how this might go. I’m also thinking about the movie The Game (Michael Douglas & Sean Penn), and how it’s a great example of an alternate reality game. I’d love to do something like that, but serious. We did a demo once about sales that captured some of the opportunity, but…

Also, I’ve looked at many instances of experience design: movies, theatre, amusement parks, games, etc. And I’ve advocated that those interested in making experience engaging, particularly learning, should similarly explore this. It’s hard work, you know ;). However, one of the panelists commented on ‘circus design’. That’s something I had never thought to explore, so it’s now on my ‘todo’ list!

There were also several mentions of a theatre experience in New York called Sleep No More. It involves two intersecting stories: Macbeth and a lady looking for someone. There’s no dialog, and it plays out across several venues. The interesting thing is that you, as an audience member, choose where to go, who to follow, and what to watch. Now I need to find a way to experience this! (Wish I’d heard about it before my keynote there in June.)

VR

The other theme was VR, and there were some very interesting comments made. It was repeatedly made clear by the practitioners that this was a field still very much in development. The tools and technologies had become good and cheap enough to allow tinkering and exploration, but the business models and viable experiences were still being explored.

One quote that was interesting was a response to the issue of what the ‘frame is’. In computer games, the frame is the screen. But in VR there’s no ‘screen’, you’re surrounded. A response to this was “the player is the ‘frame’ in VR”. That’s an interesting perspective. I might reframe it as “the player’s attention is the ‘frame’ in the game”, and manipulating that may be the key. To ponder.

Another interesting comment was “proximity breeds empathy”. I was reminded of the phrase “familiarity breeds contempt”, but I can see that an experiential approach may help generate sympathy and comprehension. Can you actually share someone else’s experience? Certainly, immersion has yielded concrete learning improvements, and successful behavioral interventions.

Which brings up a response on the question of where the future of VR is (that seemed to be reflected by the other panelists) is that shared VR is the future. Clearly, social has big benefits for learning, and can be the basis of strong emotions (sometimes negative!)

There are clearly times when VR has unique and valuable advantages for learning, though I continue to think that AR may provide the greater overall opportunity, when it’s done right. It might be like the difference between courses and mentoring. That is, VR to make a step change, and the AR for continual development. Where do ARGs fit in? Perhaps more for developing the ability to deal with the unexpected?

One of the panelists mentioned Magic Leap, and I was reminded that that type of experience will be where we can really get opportunities for transformative experiences. I think that’s where Google Glass was going, and they’re right to hold off and get it right, but when we can really start annotating the world, combining it with ARGs, there will be real potential. We can start designing now, but it’ll definitely be some time before tools and technologies hit the ‘experimentation’ phase VR has reached.

Lots of fodder for thinking!

Strategy Sessions

2 November 2016 by Clark Leave a Comment

In a previous post, I talked about a couple of instances where I worked with folks to let them ‘pick my brain’. Those were about learning design in particular, but I’ve also worked with folks on strategy. In these strategy sessions, things work a little differently.

So, in a typical strategy session, I prepare by looking at what they’ve done beforehand: any existing strategy documents. I also look at their current context, e.g. their business, market, customers, and products/services. Finally, I look at their stated goals. I also explore their stated needs, and see if there are some they may be missing. Then we get together.

I typically will spend an hour or so going over some principles, so we have a shared framework to discuss against. Then we brainstorm possible actions. We’ve prepped for this, circulating the space for topics, so people have had time to identify their individual ideas. We get them documented, diverging before converging. This may be a relatively large group, with representative stakeholders, but not so large that it can’t be managed.

Then, typically, a smaller group will take those ideas and prioritize them. To be clear, it’s informed by the context and infrastructure, so that the steps don’t just go from easier to harder, but it’s also about choosing steps that are strategic in securing credibility, building capacity, and leveraging other initiatives. At the end, however, the team I’m working with has both a general roadmap and a specific plan.

And I think this is good. They’ve gotten some new and valuable ways to think about strategy, and custom advice, all in a very short engagement. Sometimes it’s happened under the rubric of a mobile strategy, sometime’s it’s more general, but it always open eyes. In two particular instances, I recall that the outcomes they ended up focusing on most weren’t even on their radar when they started!

consulttaleslogo This is another instance of how folks can get high benefit from a small engagement. Picking my brain can be valuable, but it’s not a fair engagement unless we make it mutually rewarding. That’s not so hard to do, however. Just so you know.

Measuring Culture Change

1 November 2016 by Clark Leave a Comment

Someone recently asked how you would go about measuring culture change, and I thought it’s an interesting question. I’ll think ‘out loud’ about what might be the possibilities. A learning culture is optimal for organizational innovation and agility, and it’s likely that not all elements are already in place. So it’s plausible that you’d want to change, and if you do, you’d like to know how it’s going.

I think there are two major categories of measures: direct and indirect. Direct measures are ones that are impacting the outcomes you’re looking for, and indirect ones are steps along the way. Say, for instance, one desirable outcome of a learning culture would be, well, learning! In this case, I mean the broad sense of learning: problems solved, new designs generated, research answering questions. And indirect would be activity likely to yield that outcome. It could be engagement, or social interaction, or… If we think of it in a Kirkpatrickian sense, we want to generate the indirect activity, and then measure the actual business impact.

What direct measures might there be? I can see time to solve customer problems or problems solved per time. And/or I might look at the rate of research questions answered. Or the rate of new product generation. Of course, if you were expecting other outcomes from your culture initiative, you’d naturally want aligned methods. You could just be concerned with employee engagement, but I’m somewhat inclined (and willing to be wrong) to think about what the outcome of increased engagement would be. It could also be retention or recruitment, if those are your goals.

These latter – engagement, recruitment, retention – are also possible indirect measures. They indicate that things are better. Another indirect but more targeted measure might be the amount of collaboration happening (e.g. the use of collaboration tools) or even activity in social networks. Those have been touted as the benefits of building community in social media, and those are worthwhile as well.

As a process, I think about what I might do before, during, and after any culture change initiative. I’d probably want a baseline to begin with, and then regular (if not continual) assessments as we go. I’d take small steps, perhaps in one unit to begin, and monitor the impact, tuning as I go along. Culture change is a journey, not an event, after all ;).

So ok, that’s off the top of my head, what say you?

Pick my brain?

26 October 2016 by Clark 1 Comment

It’s a continual bane of a consultant’s existence that there are people who want to ‘pick your brain’. It’s really asking for free consulting, and as such, it’s insulting. If you google the phrase, you’ll see how many people have indicated their problems with this! However, there are quite legitimate ways to pick my brain and I thought I’d mention a couple. In both cases, I think were great engagements on both sides, high value for a reasonable investment.

Both in this case were for folks who develop content. In one case a not-for-profit, the other in the higher-ed space. One had heard me speak about learning design, and one had heard about a workshop I’d given, but both contacted me. It is clear they realized that there’s value to them for having a scrutable learning design.

Content Review

So for the first one, they wanted some feedback on their design, and we arranged that I’d investigate a representative sample and provide feedback. I went through systematically, taking notes, and compiled my observations into a report I sent them. This didn’t take any investment in travel, but of course this feedback only points out what’s wrong, and doesn’t really provide mechanisms to improve.

I think they were surprised at the outcome, as the feedback was fairly robust. They had a good design, largely, under the constraints, but there were some systematic design problems. There were also some places where they’d managed to have some errors that had passed editorial (and this was only a small sample of a replicated model across a broad curriculum). To be fair, some of my complaints came from situations that were appropriate given some aspect of their context that I hadn’t known, but there were still a set of specific improvements I could recommend:

“We found his comments insightful, and we look forward to implementing his expert suggestions to further improve of our product…“

Learning Design Workshop

In this case, they’d heard about a workshop that I’d run on behalf of a client, and were interested in getting a similar experience. They had been designing content and had a great ability to track the results of their design and tweak, but really wanted a grounding in the underlying learning science. I did review some sample content, but I also traveled to their site for a day and presented learning science details and workshopped the implications to their design process.

I went through details such as:

the importance and format for objectives,
SME limitations and tips how to work with them,
what makes effective practice,
the role and characteristics of concepts,
the details behind examples,
introduction and the role of emotions in the learning experience,
and more.

We went through examples of their content, and workshopped how they could adjust their design processes in pragmatic ways to instill the important details into their approach. We also talked about ways to followup to not lose the momentum, but it was clear that this first visit was viewed favorable:

“…a walking encyclopedia of learning science… was able to respond to our inquiries with one well-researched perspective after another”.

So, there are ways to pick my brain that provide high value with mutual benefit on each side. Sure, you can read my blog or books, but sometimes you may want assistance in contextualizing it to your situation. I encourage you to think of making an investment in quality. These are about learning design, but I have some examples in strategy that I intend to share soon. And more. Stay tuned for more ‘adventures in consulting’ tales that talk about ways in which a variety of needs are met. Maybe one will resonate with you. Of course, they’ll be mixed in with the regular reflections you’ve come to expect.

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