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Clark Quinn’s Learnings about Learning

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Experience Rules

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The cry used to be “content is king”.   Then it became “well then, context must be emperor”.   Well, I want to tell you that Experience Rules.

Here’s the deal.   Content is important, but of any by itself, it doesn’t lead to learning.   You can show someone content, but if they’re not prepared (mentally and emotionally), it won’t stick.   You can design content to help prepare them but…

They have to apply it.   And abstract application doesn’t transfer, you need to apply it in context.   If it’s the right context, then the content could be valuable.   But context alone isn’t enough, you’ve got to combine the content delivery with the right context.   And now, we’re talking experience design.

Experience design is really about setting up the emotional expectations, and then delivering a series of content-resourced contexts to achieve the desired outcome.   This typically is formal learning, but can be delivering performance support tools in the workflow as well as creating access to social media in ways that match the way the learner is thinking about it.   It combines play/gaming, usability, and learning design into a coherent whole.

Of course, at another level, it’s designing the org unit to make the above an integrated component of achieving the organizational goals.   Which likely means a more distributed, wirearchical structure.   And culture is certainly a part of it, because an experience where you contribute, for example, happens better when it’s safe and rewarding to contribute!

(And while I don’t mean this in the sense of “old age and treachery, er experience, trumps youth and energy”, though it does, there is also the recognition that it takes   years of experience to be considered an expert and that’s part of it too.)

Really, combining context and content to achieve engagement and effective learning outcomes is experience design, and that’s what really needs to rule.   So, do you, er, measure up?

Learning Experience Design in Action

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I was working with one of my clients/partners on an opportunity to develop classroom learning on a tablet.   The first push is to get something to show teachers and trial in a classroom.   It’s not yet going to be socially enabled, nor particularly mobile, nor yet augmented with resources; the point now is to demonstrate capability to develop compelling interactives (pretty much regardless of whether it’s a tablet or not).

As context, they’d sent me some storyboards that I’d responded to with some comments.     They actually started from a good point, but there were nuances that needed to be teased out.   Their questions   led me to think through some principles that underpinned my recommendations.   In the course of their questions, I talked about these perspectives:

Start with visceral experience: I want to ground the learning in their world.   I want to start with phenomena that they understand, and have them do a little free exploration followed by some focused tasks, but at a qualitative, experiential level. Drill down from the bigger picture in the world, to intermediate issues, to why this in particular is important, and have them actively explore the relationships.

Connect conceptual to formal: after the learner has an experiential basis, then link it to formal representations.   Help the learners connect their actions to the tools used to structure our understanding.   At the end of the day, at least in this domain, we want them to be able to use the formal representations to solve problems that their capabilities can’t solve with their bodies (e.g. applying forces in microjoules or gigajoules).   As a guide, the point is not to teach science, say, but instead to teach them to be scientists, using tools to solve problems.   Finally, they should be taking measurements, transforming to manipulable representations, transforming the representations to a solution, and then applying that back to the world.

Focus on action, not content: rather than require learners to view this video or that document, make them available.   Ideally, the only required elements would be the series of activities, and the information resources surround the activities as options.   The challenge of the activities, and quality of the content, would ideally drive the learner to the resources, but there might be required quick overviews that point to deeper resources, and individuals who struggle might be pointed to the content.

Launch with a meaningful context: I suggested an overall task that would ultimately need to be performed, using a recognized problem as the motivation for learning this content, though there are other ways.   However, you do want to harness learners hearts as well as their brains in the endeavor.   In this case it was about saving people’s lives that motivated going through the course to be prepared to come back and provide the knowledge of what force to apply, in what direction.

And in one I didn’t convey, but is implicit in the learning situation but could and should be implicit in the development of the learning experience:

Scaffold the learning process: don’t assume that the learner is equipped for learning this way, provide support. Pedagogical support can be through an agent, and there has to be feedback involved both addressing the content and the process.   If only requiring the activities, the evaluation, inadequate performance might trigger a requirement to view content, for example.   A pedagogical avatar could be useful.

All of this is based upon a research base in learning theory, even the emotional side.   There could be more involved, as I had ides for options in being social, and actually being mobile, which are currently beyond the scope of their engagement, but the point is to start with a visceral and active base upon which to drive motivation for content, formalisms, and ultimate mastery.

Quip: Quality

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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!

Learning Experience Design Strategy

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On our weekly twitter learning fest, #lrnchat, I regularly identify myself as a learning experience design strategist.   I don’t always assume people know what that means, but for that audience I figure they can infer what it means.   However, I think the idea is worth exploring, because increasingly I think that not only is that what I do, but it also is important.

First, I think it is important to stop thinking about content, and start thinking about learning experience.   It’s too easy, when focusing on content, to focus on knowledge, not skills, yet skills are what will make the difference – the ability to do.   Also, it helps focus on the conative side of learning, the motivation for and anxiety about learning when you think about the learner experience. And, as always, I take a broad interpretation of learning, so this holds true beyond formal learning; it applies to thinking about performer experience when you consider the tools they’ll have, and even the way that access to communities and other informal learning components will be made available in situ.

When you think about creating learning experiences, you are talking about design.   How do you create effective and engaging learning experiences?   You need a design process, tools, and good concepts around learning and engagement.   Really, both my book on designing engaging learning experiences, and my forthcoming one on mobile learning, are at core about design.   And there are levels of design, from individual experiences to the architecture and infrastructure that can support the rich suite of experiences that characterize an organization’s full needs.

Which takes us to the last part, strategy.   By and large, I don’t do the design anymore, since I can add more value at a higher level.   Increasingly, what I’m doing is helping organizations look at their needs, current state, teams, processes, and more, and helping them develop a strategic approach to delivering learning experiences.   I help design pedagogies, processes, templates, and short-, medium-, and long-term steps.   And it is in this way that I accomplish what my first real client told me I did for them, I helped them take their solutions to the ‘next level’.

I think learning experience design is important, so important that I want to not just execute against a project at a time, but find ways to develop capability so a lot more good learning experience is created.   That means working with groups and systems. More organizations need this than might be imagined: I’ve done this for for-profit education, education publishing, those servicing corporate learning needs, and of course organizations (governmental and corporate)   wanting their external or internal learning solutions to be effective and engaging.   The sad fact is, too much ‘learning design’ is content design, still.   I’m always looking for ways to help spread a better way of creating learning.

For example, I ran a ‘deeper ID’ workshop this week for a team, and presented the concepts, modeled the application to samples of their learning objectives, gave them a practice opportunity, and wrapped up, across each of the learning elements. It was a way to address learning design in a bigger way. An extension would be to then submit sample content to me to have me comment, developing their abilities over time, as I did with another client working on integrating scenarios.

There are lots of ways this plays out, not just workshops but developing content models, spreading new metaphors for mobile learning, creating pedagogy templates, and more, but I reckon it is important work, and I have the background to do it.   I’ve found it hard to describe in the past, and I do question whether the ‘learning’ label is somewhat limiting, given my engagement in social learning with ITA and more, but I reckon it’s the right way to think about it. So I’ll keep describing it this way, and doing this work, until someone gives me a better idea!

Brain science in design?

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The Learning Circuits Blog Big Question of the Month is “Does the discussion of “how the brain learns” impact your eLearning design?”   My answer is in several parts.

The short answer is “yes”, of course, because my PhD is in Cognitive Psychology (really, applied cognitive science), and I’ve looked at cognitive learning, behavioral learning, social constructivist learning, connectionist learning, even machine learning, looking for guidance about how to design better learning experiences.   And there is good guidance.   However, most of it comes from research on learning, not from neuroscience.

The longer answer has some caveats.   Some of the so-called brain science ranges from misguided to outright misleading.   Some of the ‘learning styles’ materials claim to be based in brain structure, but the evidence is suspect at best.   Similarly, some of the inferences from neural structures are taken inappropriately.   There’s quite a bit of excitement, and fortunately some light amidst the heat and smoke.   In short, there’s a lot of misinformation out there.

At the end of the day, the best guidance is still the combination of empirical results from research on how we learn, a ‘design research’ approach with iterative testing, and some inspiration in lieu of what still needs to be tested (e.g. engagement).   I think that we know a lot about designing effective learning, that is based in how our brains work, but few implications from the physiology of the brain.   As others have said, the implications at one layer of ‘architecture’ don’t necessarily imply higher levels of phenomena.   We’ve lots to learn yet about our brains.

As with so many other ‘snake oil’ issues, like multigenerational differences, learning styles, digital natives, etc, brain-based learning appears to be trying to sell you a program rather than a solution. Look for good research, not good marketing.   Caveat emptor!

Getting strategic

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Was on a call with my Internet Time Alliance colleagues, and we were talking about how to help organizations make the transition from delivering courses to supporting the full performance ecosystem.   Jane Hart has had a recent series on what she calls ‘performance consulting‘, and its a good way to look at things from a broader perspective.   She was about to give a presentation, and we were talking through her slides.

Charles Jennings pointed out that they layer above her slides to the Learning and Development group was a missing ‘governance’ role, which he’s been thinking about quite a bit.   The point being that someone needs to be assisting in the strategic role of ensuring the coverage is addressing the broad needs of the organization, not just courses.

Harold Jarche pointed out that just mimicking the Human Performance Technology (HPT) approach (e.g. ISPI) would miss the same things it misses.   I’ve been a fan of HPT since it goes beyond ADDIE in considering other potential sources of problems than just skills (e.g. performance support, incentives), but Harold’s right that it doesn’t inherently cover social learning, let alone engagement.

Jay Cross reminded us we can’t just ignore the fact that their perspective is strongly focused on compliance and other such needs.   They have LMSs, and if we try to say that’s irrelevant we’ll be ignored as being out of touch.   The fact is that there is a role for formal learning, it’s just not everything.

5 types of org learningMy takeaway was that we need a combined approach to help folks understand the bigger picture.   From Rand Spiro’s Cognitive Flexibility Theory, we need to provide multiple models to increase the likelihood that the audience will find one that resonates. Whether it’s the continuum from novice through practitioner to expert, Jane & Harold’s 5 types of org learning (e.g. FSL, IOL, GDL, PDL, & ASL), or Jay’s point about continual change meaning formal methods aren’t sufficient, there are multiple ways it helps to think about the full spectrum of learning design.   It’s also important to point out how supporting these is critical to the organization, and that it’s a way to take a strategic role and increase relevance to the organization.

Similarly, there are some sticks available, such as increasingly irrelevancy if the L&D department does not take on this role.   If they allow IT or operations to take it over, a) it won’t be run as well as if learning folks are involved, and b) they’ll be the ones seen providing the necessary performance infrastructure and adding value to the enterprise.

Finally, what’s also needed is a suite of tools and processes to move forward. It’s clear to us that there are systematic ways to augment existing approaches to move in this new direction, but it may not be obvious to those who would want to change what they should start doing differently.   We talked about ‘layers’ of extension of operation, starting with adding engagement to the design of learning experiences, and incorporating performance support and eCommunity to the potential solution quiver.   Next steps include considering Knowledge Management and Organizational Development.   Governance also needs to work it’s way into the mix.   My barrows include mobile and deeper content models in addition to the others.

Quite simply, it has to start with the first step: analysis of the problems.   For example, if the answer is changing quickly, if the audience are experts, or it’s easier to connect to the right person than to develop content, facilitating communication may be a better solution than developing content.   It helps to have the tools available in the infrastructure, a platform approach, which is why we advocate thinking about having a portal system and social networking in place in the organization, so you don’t have to build a whole infrastructure when   you see the need.   The learning processes will have to be richer than existing ones, and that will require new tools, I reckon.   However, it will also require a new attitude and initiative.

The L&D group may not be the right group for the message, it may have to go higher (as Charles and Jay continue to suggest), but we’re looking to figure out how to help folks wherever they may be.   The final solution, however, has to be that some group that understands learning is facilitating the learning function in the organization at a systemic level. That’s the goal. How your organization gets there will depend on where you’re at, and many other factors, but that’s what any organization that wants to succeed in this time of increasing change will have to achieve.   Get it on your radar now, and figure out how you’re going to get there!

7 questions from the University of Wisconsin-Stout ID Program

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The program at the University of Wisconsin-Stout Online Professional Development’s Instructional Design program regularly asks someone to answer a series of questions from their students. I think these sorts of efforts are worthwhile to see a variety of different ideas, and consequently I agreed. Here’re the questions and my answers as presented to the students:

Learning Design Evangelist Clark Quinn Answers Questions
June 2010

1. Are there any critical gaps in knowledge that you frequently encounter in the ID industry?

Clark:

Several: The first is folks who only know the surface level of ID, not understanding the nuances of the components of learning (examples, concepts, etc), and consequently creating ineffective designs without even being aware. This is, of course, not the fault of those who’ve taken formal training, but many designers are transported from face-to-face training without adequate presentation.A related problem is the focus on the ‘event’ model, where learning is a massed event, which we know is one of the least effective mechanisms to lead to long-term retention.

Another gap is a focus on the course, without taking a step back and analyzing whether the performance gap is caused by attitude, motivation or other issues besides skills and knowledge. The Human Performance Technology approach (ala ISPI) is a necessary analysis before ADDIE, but it’s too infrequently seen.

The last is the lack of consideration of the emotional (read: affective and conative) side of instructional design. Most ID only focuses on the cognitive side, and despite the efforts of folks like John Keller, Michael Allen, and Cathy Moore, among others, we’re not seeing sufficient consideration of engagement.

2. In a world where technology changes daily, do you feel we place too much emphasis on the latest and greatest delivery method? Do you foresee a future where higher education is delivered primarily through distance learning?

Clark:

Yes, we do see ‘crushes’ on the latest technology, whereas we should be focusing on looking at the key affordances and matching technologies appropriately to need. I’m a strong proponent of the potential of new technologies to create new opportunities, but very much first focused on the learning outcomes we need to achieve. Which is why I have complicated feelings about the future of higher ed. In a time of increasing change, I think that the new role of higher education will increasingly be to develop the ability to learn. The domain will be a vehicle, but not the end goal. Which could be largely independent of place, but I liked the old role of new and independent mentorship beyond family and community, and always felt that there was a socializing role that university provides. I’m not quite sure how that could play out via technology mediation, but I do note the increasing role of social media.

3. Is there an elearning authoring tool you would endorse?

Clark:

Paper and pencil. Seriously. I wrote many years ago of a design heuristic, the double double P’s: postpone programming, and prefer paper. An associated mantra of mine is “if you get the design right, there are lots of ways to implement it; if you don’t get the design right, it doesn’t matter how you implement it”. Consequently, I prefer the cheapest forms of prototyping, and rapid cycles of iteration, and you can do a lot with post-it notes (e.g. the Pictive technique from interface design).

4. What impact, if any, do you think that the shortened attention span habits dictated by most social media will have on e-learning?

Clark:

I think that you should be very careful about media-manufactured trends. Our wetware hasn’t changed, just our tolerance of certain behaviors. We’ve always had short attention spans, it’s just that our schooling forced us to mask it. We’ve also been quite capable of multi-tasking (ask any single parent), but it does provide a detriment to performance in each task, or cause the task to take longer. (Other seriously misconstrued ideas include digital natives, learning styles, and generational differences).

I think we should look to learning that optimizes what’s known about how we learn (and see Daniel WIllingham for a very apt critique of brain-based learning), which includes smaller chunks over a longer period of time. That’s just one component of a more enlightened learning experience predicated on a longer-term relationship with a learner.

5. Is there current research that shows whether employers view fully online degrees programs any different than a traditional degree program? Do employers care that an applicant may have not attended any face to face classes while earning an advanced degree?

Clark:

Frankly, this is research I haven’t really tracked. I do know recent research shows that online is better than face-to-face, but most likely due to quality of design (instructors aren’t necessarily experts in learning design, sadly) than media.

6. What skills are critical to the survival of a new ID professional? What skills must be focused upon in the first three critical years of business?

Clark:

The skills that are necessary are much more pragmatic than conceptual. While I’d love to say “knowledge of learning theory”, and “enlightened design”, I think in the initial stages proper time/project management will probably pay off more immediately. Also, the ability to know what rules to break and when. That said, I think you absolutely need the domain knowledge, but street smarts are equally valuable.

However, the core one is the ability to learn effectively and efficiently. I argue that the best investment a business could make is not to take learning skills for granted but document them, assess them, and develop them. Personally, I’ll say the same: the best investment you can make is in your ability to learn continuously, eagerly, even joyously.

7. What areas of growth do you see in the ID market?

Clark:

With lots of caveats, because I’m involved in many:

Right now I’m seeing growth in the social learning space. Understanding and taking advantage of social learning is trendy, but offers the potential for real learning outcomes as well. Naturally, the only problem is separating the snake oil from the real value. My involvement in the Internet Time Alliance is indicative of my beliefs of the importance.

I think the whole ‘cloud’/web-based delivery area is seeing some interesting growth too, with everything from rich internet applications to collaborative authoring. The opportunities of web 3.0 and semantic technologies are still a ways off, but I think the time is right to start laying the foundations (caveat, I generally find I’m several years ahead of the market in predicting when the time is ripe).

An area that I’m seeing a small uptick in is engagement, fortunately, the use of games and scenarios. Having a book out on the topic makes it gratifying to see the growth finally taking off.

And mobile is finally taking off! Having just left the first biz-focused mobile learning conference, I was thrilled to see the amount of excitement and progress. (Snake oil disclaimer: I’ve been on the stump for years, and finally have a book coming out on the topic. :)

Training Book Reviews

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The eminent Jane Bozarth has started a   new site called Training Book Reviews.   Despite the unfortunate name, I think it’s a great idea: a site for book reviews for those of us passionate about solving workplace performance needs.   While submitting new reviews would be great, she notes:

share a few hundred words

1) on a favorite, must-own title, or maybe even

2) of criticism about a venerated work that has perhaps developed an undeserved glow

In the interest of sparking your participation (for instance, someone should write a glowing review of Engaging Learning :), here’s a contribution:

More than 20 years ago now, Donald Norman released what subsequently became the first of a series of books on design.   My copy is titled The Psychology of Everyday Things, (he liked the acronym POET) but based upon feedback, it was renamed The Design of Everyday Things as it really was a fundamental treatise on design.     And it has become a classic. (Disclaimer, he was my PhD advisor while he was writing this book.)

Have you ever burned yourself trying to get the shower water flow and temperature right?   Had trouble figuring out which knob to turn to turn on a particular burner on the stove?   Push on a door that pulls or vice-versa?   Don explains why.   The book looks at how our minds interact with the world, how we use the clues that our current environment provides us coupled with our prior experience to figure out how to do things. And how designers violate those expectations in ways that reliably lead to frustration.   While Don’s work   on design had started with human-computer interaction and user-centered design, this book is much more general.   Quite simply, you will find that you look at everyday things: shower controls, door handles, and more in a whole new way.

The understanding of how we understand the world is not just for furniture designers, or interface designers, but is a critical component of how learning designers need to think.   While his subsequent books, including Things That Make Us Smart and Emotional Design, add deeper cognition and engagement (respectively) and more, the core understanding from this first book provides a foundation that you can (and should) apply directly.

Short, pointed, and clear, this book will have you nodding your head in agreement when you recognize the frustrations you didn’t even know you were experiencing.   It will, quite simply, change the way you look at the world, and improve your ability to design learning experiences. A must read.

Reflections on ISPI 2010

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Early in the year, I gave a presentation online to the Massachusetts chapter of ISPI (the international society for performance improvement), and they rewarded me with a membership. A nice gesture, I figured, but little more (only a continent away). To my benefit, I was very wrong. The ISPI organization gave each chapter a free registration to their international conference, which happens to be in San Francisco this year (just a Bart trip away), and I won! (While the fact that my proximity may have been a factor, I’m not going to do aught but be very grateful and feel that the Mass chapter can call on me anytime.). Given that I just won a copy of GPS software for my iPhone (after seemingly never winning anything), I reckon I should buy a lottery ticket!

Now, it probably helps to explain that I’ve been eager to attend an ISPI conference for quite a while. I’m quite attracted to the HPT (Human Performance Technology) framework, and I’m ever curious. I even considered submitting to the conference to get a chance to attend, but their submission processes seemed so onerous that I gave up. So, I was thrilled to get a chance to finally visit.

Having completed the experience, I have a few   reflections. I think there’s a lot to like about what they do, I have some very serious concerns, and I wish we could somehow reconcile the too-many organizations covering the same spaces.

I mentioned I’m a fan of the HPT approach. There are a couple of things to like, including that they start by analyzing the performance gaps and causes, and are willing to consider approaches other than courses. They also emphasize a systems approach, which I can really get behind. There were some worrying signs, however.

For instance, I attended a talk on Communities of Practice, but was dismayed to hear discussion of monitoring, managing, and controlling instead of nurturing and facilitation. While there may need to be management buy-in, it comes from emergent value, not exec-dictated outcomes the group should achieve!

Another presentation talked about the Control System Model of Management. Maybe my mistake to come to OD presentations at ISPI, but it’s this area I’m interested via my involvement in the Internet Time Alliance. There did end up being transparency and contribution, but it was almost brought in by stealth, as opposed to being the explicit declarations of culture.

On the other hand, there were some positive signs.   They had enlightened keynotes, e.g. one talking about Appreciative Inquiry and positive psychology that I found inspiring, and I attended another on improv focusing on accepting the ‘offer’ in a conversation.   And, of course, Thiagi and others talked about story and games.

One surprise was that the technology awareness seems low for a group with technology in their prized approach. Some noticed the lack of tweets from the conference, and there wasn’t much of a overall technology presence (I saw no other iPads, for instance). I challenged one of the editors of their handbook, Volume 1 (which I previously complained didn’t have enough on informal learning and engagement) about the lack of coverage of mobile learning, and he opined that mobile was just a “delivery channel”. To be fair, he’s a very smart and engaging character, and when I mentioned context-sensitivity, he was quite open to the idea.

I attended Guy Wallace‘s   presentation on Enterprise Process Performance Improvement, and liked the structure, but reckon that it might be harder to follow in more knowledge-oriented industries. It was a pleasure to finally meet Guy, and we had a delightful conversation on these issues and more, with some concurrence on the thoughts above. As a multiple honoree at the conference, there is clearly hope for the organization to broaden their focus.

Overall, I had mixed feelings. While I like their rigor and research base, and they are incorporating some of the newer positive approaches, it appears to me that they’re still very much mired in the old hierarchical style of management.     Given the small sample, I reckon you should determine for yourself. I can clearly say I was grateful for the experience, and had some great conversations, heard some good presentations, and learned. What more can you ask for?

Proliferating Portals

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After my last blog post, a commenter asked a pertinent question:

Many organizations/companies have multiple intranets, wiki sites, and so forth, often making it difficult for employees to know where to go when they want an answer or more information. Let‘s say you are the Director of a company‘s Education/Training department and you want to move more toward information learning. While your department creates online and classroom courses on how to use the company‘s main products, you see the need for more advanced-level training. As the Director, you want to harness the knowledge within and have the experts bring their conversations to a wiki site. You want to provide a platform for this knowledge to be shared, discussed, and build upon. Your vision is that once the wiki site is up for awhile, your instructional designers can take some of the knowledge that‘s posted and create a job aid, reference document, and so forth that could be distributed more formally.

Do you move forward with yet another wiki site and not worry about all of the other internal wiki sites, intranet, and so forth?

In general, I don’t like site proliferation, at least of one sort. I hear it all the time: I ask “are you using portals?” and the reply is “oh, yeah, we’ve got hundreds”.   Hundreds? How does anyone know where to go for what? And BTW, I’m treating wikis and portals somewhat interchangably here, as wikis can be portals, but portals are another way of users providing resources to each other, and I see technology support for communities of practice to include both the capabilities of collaborative editing of resources (wikis) and storing other relevant materials (portals). I use portal as the overarching term as well (also including discussion forums, blogs, profiles…).

The problem isn’t really the number, however, it’s how they’re being organized.   Typically, each business unit is providing a portal of their information for others to use. The problem with this is, it’s organized by the producer’s way of viewing the world, not the consumer’s. Bad usability. Which is usually confounded by only one way of organizing, a lack of ways of reorganizing, and sometimes not even a search capability! (Though fortunately that’s now being baked into most tools.)

So people wonder where to go, different units create different mythologies about what portals are useful, some sites aren’t used, others are misused, it’s a mess.

On the other hand, I do want users to seize control and create their own sites, and there are reasons for groups to create sites.   If you have hundreds of user communities, you should have hundreds of portals.   The real organizational principle, however, should be how the users think about it.   There are two ways to handle that: you can do good usability, with ethnographic and participatory methods of finding out how the users think about the world, or better yet, let the inmates run the asylum (and provide support, back to the facilitation message).

For formal information – HR, product sheets, pricing, all the stuff that’s created – it should be organized into portals by role: who needs this different information. You can use web services to pull together custom, user-centered portals on top of all this information.   And, then, you should also empower communities of practice to create their own portals as well.

So, to answer the question, I think it’s fabulous to create a site where experts can put up information, and the learning unit can mine that for things they can add value to. However, do it in conjunction with the experts and users.   Let their self-organization rule who plays and how the playground is structured, don’t dictate it from above.

I saw an example of that in a recent engagement, where a group offering software training couldn’t keep up with the changes in the software, so they started putting it up on a wiki, and now they’re devolving control to the user experts.   It’s just coping, but it’s also strategic.   Tap into the knowledge of your groups.

I laud the questioner for the desire to find a way to broaden responsibility and empower the users.   Do it anyway, do it right, but then also start evangelizing the benefits of ensuring that the other proliferation of wikis, portals, etc, are also user-focused, not department or silo focused, and suggesting portal integration as well as proliferation.

Now, does that make sense?   Is your answer to the question different?