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CLO Thinking (& Measurement)

18 October 2011 by Clark Leave a Comment

I attended the CLO Symposium with my ITA colleagues Jay Cross and Jane Hart. It was an interesting event, with a theme of “Game-Changing Learning: Development for the New Normal“, held at a classy venue on the beach, and was well-organized. (You can see Jay’s writeup here.) And the keynotes that I saw were in synch: Stephen Covey talked about the need for trust and Jon Katzenbach on how to build culture were both excellent, as was Dan Pontefract’s story on making collaboration intrinsic to Telus. At a lower level, however, the conference felt mired in the past.

Jay, Jane, and I ran a unpanel where we took questions from the audience and took turns answering it. Some folks even had trouble with the format, apparently! We got questions about how the role of the learning unit changes, about myths and new tools, and about measurement. Our riff inspired some subsequent inquiries if we could assist. Well, but of course!

A lot of the other sessions also seemed to deal with measurement. A special lunch was held specifically around creating a standard set of measurements: effectiveness, efficiency, and business impact. While the latter is business specific, the other two could be handled. Efficiency tends to mean things like amount per hour of training, etc. Effectiveness was less clear, but I’m afraid we’d see pre-post test messages instead of number of people completing the competency test (happy to be wrong). My problem here is that this stuff shouldn’t be a topic in 2011, it should be already well-practiced and in the repertoire. We should be thinking about how to start tracking meaningful activity in social networks, the value of performance support and more, not old stuff about courses. And, how to tie it back to important deltas in organizational performance.

As for addressing the social and informal metrics, while I addressed this a bit earlier, let me go a bit further. If you are putting in performance support (e.g. a portal, but *ahem*, well-designed) or social network, you should be asking yourself what it should be achieving. Is it closing more sales? Generating higher revenue per sale? How about less time spent on customer calls? If you put in an HR portal, you should expect less calls to HR. If you put in a social network among sales folks, you might expect a higher percentage of closing. Figure out what change this should affect, and then find a way to measure it. Which should be the indicator that you have a problem in the first case!

Which is not to say there weren’t good topics on tap too: leadership development for agility, bridging the gap between IT and the learning unit, informal learning, etc. But when other topics are ‘how to talk to executives’, in- or out-sourcing talent, and on-demand training, it’s clear we’re not where we can, and should, be.

“The future is already here, it’s just not very evenly distributed”, as William Gibson has said, but I guess my concern is with some of what is considered game-changing in an era where the new normal is continual innovation and perpetual beta. Things are moving too fast not to already have mastered the basics of measurement, and be thinking about adapting. The ability to talk ‘business’ should be a pre-requisite for the job, and the strategic issues need to be culture and collaboration. We’re getting there, but then patience has never been one of my strong suits ;).

Layering learning

8 September 2011 by Clark 3 Comments

Electronic Performance Support Systems are a fabulous concept, as pioneered by Gloria Gery back in the early 90’s. The notion is that as you use a system, and have entries or decisions to make, there are tools available that can provide guidance: proactively, intelligently, and context-appropriate. Now, as I heard the complaint at the time, this would really be just good interface design, but the fact is that many times you have to retrofit assistance on top of a bad design for sad but understandable reasons.

The original were around desktop tasks, but the concept could easily be decoupled from the workplace via mobile devices. One of my favorite examples is the GPS system: the device knows where you are, and where you want to go (because you told it), and it gives you step by step guidance, even recalculating if you make a change. Everything from simple checklists to full adaptive help is possible, and I’ve led the design of such systems.

One of the ideas implicit in Gery’s vision, however, that I really don’t see, is the possibility of having the system not only assist you in performing, but also help you learn. She talked about the idea in her book on the subject, though without elaborating how that would happen, but her examples didn’t really show it and I haven’t seen it in practice in the years since. Yet the possibility is there.

I reckon it wouldn’t really take much. There is (or should be) a model guiding the decisions about what makes the right step, but that’s often hidden (in our learning as well). Making that model visible, and showing how it guides the support and recommendations that are made, could be made available as a ‘veneer’ over the system. It wouldn’t have to be visible, it could just be available at a click or as a preference for those who might want it.

Part of my vision of how to act in the world is to ‘learn out loud’. Well, I think our tools and products could be more explicit about the thinking that went into them, as well. Many years ago, in HyperCard, you could just use buttons and field, but you could open them up and get deeper into them, going from fixed links to coded responses. I have thought that a program or operating system could work similarly, having an initial appearance but capable of being explored and customized. We do this in the real world, choosing how much about something we want to learn (and I still want everyone who uses a word processor to learn about styles!) about something. Some things we pay someone else to do, other things we want to do ourselves. We learn about some parts of a program, and don’t know about others (it used to be joked that no one knows everything about Unix, I feel the same way about Microsoft Word).

We don’t do enough performance support as it is, but hopefully as we look into it, we consider the possible benefits of supporting the performance with some of the underlying thinking, and generating more comprehension with the associated benefits that brings. It’s good to reflect on learning, and seeing how thinking shapes performance both improves us and can improve our performance as well.

Goin’ Mobile

7 September 2011 by Clark 1 Comment

This is a copy of an article I’ve written for a Wiley newsletter to promote my mlearning book.

The indicators are clear: the world is going mobile. Mobile subscriptions in the developed world are flattening out, not from lack of interest, but from saturation. People are accessing the internet more from mobile devices than desktops, and some people only access the internet via mobile! And when a small company like Google says that they‘re designing for mobile first and the desktop is an afterthought, it is safe to say mobile is on the move.

And the opportunities are huge. Through the centuries, we have continually extended our physical capabilities with tools: we‘ve developed more capable clothing to let us go to further extremes, more powerful transportation that can let us travel thousands of miles in a matter of hours, tools that can let us work on the scale of mountains or of molecules. We‘ve also used tools to augment our brains: books to serve as external memory, calculators to support our computational capability, phones to allow us to communicate at distances. Digital technology has proven to be the ultimate cognitive augment, doing exactly the things that our brains don‘t do well, so together we‘re truly formidable problem-solvers. And now, we have that capability wherever and whenever we need it. Which has important implications by itself, but there is more potential, too.

Don‘t be mislead by the label, mLearning is about so much more than courses on a phone. In fact, that‘s almost contra-indicated. What mobile learning really is about is augmenting formal learning, and augmenting performance regardless. The old â€˜event‘ model of learning really doesn‘t work very well, as our brains only can handle so much at a time. With mobile, however, we can extend that learning over time. And over space: we can turn the entire world into part of our learning environment, or to think about it another way, we can spread our learning environment over the world. Beyond learning, we can bring specific support to wherever we are: accessing information to make our shopping more effective, our understanding deeper, our interactions richer. We can access information, support our decisions, and share our experiences.

But there‘s also something unique to mobile, beyond a pocketable desktop. As the devices get more capable, they begin to know where we are, even which way we‘re facing, and they can start adding unique information specific to our current context, location-aware. We‘re just beginning to explore the possibilities, and you really do have to think differently to take advantage, but the potential is exciting. Are you mobilizing?

A jot of design

22 July 2011 by Clark Leave a Comment

Ordinarily, I don’t even look at vendor products when offered free trials. I like to remain unbiased, and not give free advice. I retain the right to look at what interests me, not what might be commercially expedient (a perverted legacy of my academic tenure, no doubt :).

However, two things interested me about this particular offer. First, it was an iPad app supporting design. Given that I’m very much about improving design, *and* quite into mobile, this was of interest. Second, I mistakenly thought it came from Michael Allen’s company Allen Interactions, and he’s not only been an early advocate of engaging design, but also he’s a supremely nice guy to complement his smarts. It turns out, of course, that I jumped too fast to a conclusion, and it’s really from Allen Communications. Oh well. I’m talking about DesignJot, btw.

Now, I’m not going to give a formal review, because instead I want to use this as an opportunity to reflect on supporting design. Though you’ll likely get some idea of what it does and how.

Briefly, this app takes Allen Communications analysis and design process, using the acronym ANSWER, and provides support for using it. You initiate a new project and then get support for design by having questions and even subtopics and questions under that rubric that you fill out for analysis. That information then populates some initial parts of the design support, which then guides you to define strategies and sub-components. There are note-taking and sketching tools too.

The notion of supporting the design process is not new, certainly it was key in the toolset used by one of the major content developers in the past, and such performance support is a good idea. Scaffolding process is an obvious outcome of how our brains work (systematic creativity is not an oxymoron), so the question becomes one of what process you are using as your guide. Without any guidance about ANSWER, I did a spot-check for one of my heuristics and it wasn’t in there. Overall, there seem to be some good and odd things. Using someone else’s particular process may not be your cup of tea, and while you can add your own questions, youcan’t, as far as I could tell, add to the template.

There are some hiccups, e.g. I was surprised that some of the information isn’t carried forward, and some of the interface is a bit counterintuitive (e.g. home button sort of to the right but close to the middle). On the other hand, there are handy tips for many if not all of the steps.

The choice of making it an iPad app is interesting and understandable. It certainly makes it easy to carry around as you talk to SMEs, etc., and that makes it reason enough. The output functions are interesting, however, seeing it produces a ‘project’ file which I *think* only works with another instance of the iPad project (e.g. sharing), or PDFs. Which isn’t bad, as it’s not clear what else you might use, but I might prefer a more manipulable format like an Excel or HTML output that I might post-process.

I think the idea of creating performance support tools on mobile platforms makes a lot of sense. Whether you want to trust to their choice of questions and structure is another question. Overall, it’s an interesting business move, an interesting mobile move, and an interesting chance to reflect on the design process.

A new literacy? There’s an app for that

25 April 2011 by Clark 1 Comment

The ubiquity of powerful mobile devices able to download applications that enable unique capabilities, has led David Pogue to coin them “app phones“. Similarly, the expression “there’s an app for that” has been part of widespread marketing campaign. However, it turns out that apps are more than just on phones. Facebook has apps, as I just heard about BranchOut as a job hosting extension of the popular social network (I’m preparing for my talk at the Australasian Talent Conference). Of course, there are other apps I don’t get involved in, such as all the quizzes, because I’m worried about the data they share, but there’s a meta-point here.

Increasingly, organizations and providers are creating APIs to their environments, which allow other organizations to add value in ways that expand their ecosystem. This is of benefit to both parties and the users of the environment, with appropriate caveats about how the information is used. From the user point of view, there are extensions to environments and tools you use that can give you unique capabilities. And, from the personal efficacy department, being able to find and use these extensions is a new skill. In the Personal Knowledge Management framework of my colleague Harold Jarche, it’s be a new component of improving personal productivity.

First, as an overarching component, you need to understand that platforms can, if properly developed, allow others to add new capabilities. Then, you need to be aware of the ways in which you’d like to augment your capabilities (accessorize your brain), know which platforms you’re on, choose the most plausible platform and channel (while there’s a Facebook app available for your app phone, it may not support the app you need, and it may need to be desktop or mobile web), be able to search for the app you need (which may require tapping into other PKM skills like leveraging your network), and be able to hook into it, use it, and keep it handy.

Personal efficacy seems to me to be a growing differentiator. Jay Cross cites how the exceptional Google engineer is estimated to be 200 times more valuable than the average engineer. While some of this will come from skills, I suspect that a lot, and a growing component, of success will come from continual improvement both organizationally and individually. Watts Humphrey makes a compelling case for the benefits of self-improvement process in software engineering, and it’s clear the process generalizes to other tasks. Jay and I have previously argued (PDF) that improving the ability to learn might be the best investment you could make, and this is a component of being effective: knowing when to augment your capabilities and how.

New capabilities are emerging rapidly. Understanding them conceptually and clarifying their unique capabilities gives you a handle on generating the skills you need to take advantage of them in a generalizable way. I reckon apps meet the criteria.

Mentoring Results

18 April 2011 by Clark Leave a Comment

Eileen Clegg from the Future of Talent Institute (and colleague, we co-wrote the Extremophiles chapter for Creating a Learning Culture) pinged me the other day and asked about my thoughts on the intersection of:

The new role of managers in the results-oriented work environment (ROWE)
The topic of blending the Talent and Learning functions in the workplace.

She’d been excited about Cognitive Apprenticeship years ago after hearing me talk about it, and wondered if there was a role to play. I see it as two things: orgs need optimal execution just as the cost of entry: that’s where apprenticeship fits in, but they also need continual innovation. That needs collaboration, and we are still exploring that, though there are some really clear components. Though one of the nice things about cognitive apprenticeship is that it naturally incorporates collaborative learning, and can develop that as it develops understanding of the domain.

I admit I’m a little worried about ROWE from the point of view that Dan Pink picks out in Drive, about how a maniacal focus on results could lead to people doing anything necessary to achieve results. It’s got to be a little more about taking mutual ownership (producer and whoever is ‘setting’ the result) that the result is meeting the org need in a holistic (even ‘wise’ way).

What has to kick in here is a shared belief in a vision/mission that you can get behind, individuals equipped to solve problems collaboratively (what I call big L learning: research, design, experimentation, etc), and tools to hand for working together. You apprentice both in tasks *and* learning, basically, until you’re an expert in your domain are defining what’s new in conjunction with your collaborators.

Expressed by my colleague was a concern that there was a conflict between”(a) supporting someone’s learning and (b) being invested in the success of their work product”. And I would think that the management is NOT directly invested in the product, only in the producer. Helping them be the best they can be and all that. If they’re not producing good output, they either need to develop the person or replace them, which indirectly affects the product. However, this isn’t new for mentors as well: they want their charges to do well, but the most they can do is influence the performer to the best of their ability.

As a component, learners need to develop their PKM/PLN (personal knowledge management, personal learning network). And 21st century skills aren’t taken for granted but identified and developed. In addition, the performance ecosystem, aka workscape – not only formal learning but also performance support, informal learning, and social learning – is the responsibility of the integrated talent/learning functions (which absolutely should be blended). And ‘management’ may move more toward mentorship, or be a partner between someone strategizing across tasks and a talent development function in the organization.

As an extension to my ‘slow learning’ model, I think that the distinction between learning and performing from the point of view of support needs to go away. We can and should be concerned with the current performance and the long-term development of the learner at the same time. Thus, the long term picture is of ongoing apprenticeship towards mutually negotiated and understood goals, both work and personal development.

Reflections on the final day of TechKnowledge 11

7 February 2011 by Clark 1 Comment

Because of prior commitments, I only got to attend the last day of the TechKnowledge conference, to participate in two panels, one on mobile and one on instructional design, and then listen to the closing session. Some thoughts stuck with me:

The Mobile Panel

It’s clear to me that many folks are still thinking of mobile as content delivery in a course mode. There’s nothing wrong with content delivery, e.g. for performance support, and for course augmentation, but the panel (Kris Rockwell, Ed Prentice) was wisely arguing for a broader vision for mobile learning.

Kris mentioned the possibilities of just using voice, and I chimed in with the potential for using SMS. Again, you really want to think a little differently to take advantage of mobile. I also mentioned the other 3 C’s: Compute, Capture (images, videos, audio), and Communicate.

The possibilities provided by knowing where you are, that these devices have GPS in many cases, was also mentioned. The real point is you need to move beyond thinking of content for courses to really take advantage of the opportunities mobile presents.

Instructional Design Panel

With participants as widely experienced as Steve Villachica, Ellen Wagner, Karl Kapp, and Allison Rossett, you’d expect fun and irreverence in addition to sage advice, and that’s just what you got. Topics ranged from what should be taught in classes to the reality of practice in the field. There was some disagreement (I was a self-labeled contrarian a couple of times), but in general we were nodding at what others were saying.

One of the major points was that just understanding instructional design wasn’t enough. Ellen told the story of her journey out of academia and the wake-up call she received when having to work in an organization. Steve talked about how they wanted learners to understand business and project management, and Karl talked about the internships they use to ground their classes.

The counter came from the audience where instructional design departments of one were concerned about having time to take on a ‘consulting’ role in addition to meeting their required duties, and how to accommodate the need to add things like mobile to their repertoire. The need to move up to thinking at a higher level is easy to proselytize, but hard to accomplish in practice. However, I do argue for the bigger picture, asking you to avoid Learning Malpractice.

Closing Session

The closing session was a brave move by ASTD, and more credit to them for giving it a go; they had a BBC host conduct the session in a TV-style presentation, with rapid fire interviews mixed in with video footage, a quick SkypeCast with a UK-based expert, and tweeted questions. In the end it came across as a bit too much (the videos had gratuitous graphics and the soundtrack was too like an advertisement), but it was lively and I have to commend experimentation. It certainly was better than some alternatives I’ve seen (e.g. another conference that closed with a content-free motivational speaker).

One of the most contentious points was a face-off between the view that we’ve been using things like social learning for ever, and only the tools have changed to a contrary point that our learning fundamentally has changed. The latter point got cheers, but I think what’s changed is we’ve moved away from industrial age efficiency and back to matching our our brains really learn, but with new tools. So I disagree with both (there’s that contrarian thing again :).

I like the TechKnowledge conference, as I think they work hard to get mostly the right folks (tho’ I confess to being surprised to see a ‘learning styles’ workshop put on pre-conference), and many of our top colleagues have taken a shot at serving on the program committee. I think it’s in Las Vegas next year, and a good conference to attend regardless.

Working Smarter Cracker Barrel

12 December 2010 by Clark Leave a Comment

My Internet Time Alliance colleague Harold Jarche is a clever guy. In preparation for an event, he makes a blog post to organize his thoughts. I like his thinking, so I’ll let him introduce my post:

Next week, at our Working Smarter event hosted by Tulser in Maastricht, NL, we will have a series of short sessions on selected topics. Each Principal of the Internet Time Alliance has three topics of 20 minutes to be discussed in small groups. My topics are listed below and include links to relevant posts as well as a short description of the core ideas behind each topic.

These are mine:

Mobile

Mobile ‘accessorizes‘ your brain. It is about complementing what your brain does well by providing the capabilities that it does not do well (rote computation, distance communication, and exact detail), but wherever and whenever you are. Given that our performers are increasingly mobile, it makes sense to deliver the capabilities where needed, not just at their desk. The 4 C’s of mobile give us a guide to the capabilities we have on tap.

Working smarter is not just mobile capabilities, however, but also combining them to do even more interesting things. The real win is when we capture the current situation, via GPS and clock/calendar, so we know where you are and what you are doing, to do things that are relevant in the context.

Even without that, however, there are big offerings on the table for informal learning, via access to resources and networks.

Social Formal Learning

Social learning is one of the big opportunities we are talking about in ‘working smarter’. Most people tend to think of social learning in terms of the informal opportunities, which are potentially huge. However, there are a couple of reasons to also think about the benefits of social learning from the formal learning perspective.

The first is the processing. When you are asked to engage with others on a topic, and you have designed the topic well, you get tight cycles of negotiating understand, which elaborates the associations to make them persist better and longer. You can have learners reflect and share those reflections, which is one meaningful form of processing, and then you can ask them to extend the relevant concepts by reviewing them in another situation together, asking them to come to a shared response. The best, of course, is when learners work together to discern how the concepts get applied in a particular context, by asking them to solve a problem together.

The additional benefit is the connection between formal and informal. You must use social learning tools, and by doing so you are developing the facility with the environment your performers should use in the workplace. You also have the opportunity to use the formal social learning as a way to introduce the learners into the communities of practice you can and should be building.

Performance Ecosystem (Workscape) Strategy

Looking at the individual components – performance support, formal learning, and informal learning – is valuable, but looking at them together is important as well, to consider the best path from where you are to where you want or need to go. Across a number of engagements, a pattern emerged that I’ve found helpful in thinking about what we term workscapes (what I’ve also called performance ecosystems, PDF) in a systemic way.

You want to end up where you have a seamless performance environment oriented around the tasks that need to be accomplished, and having the necessary layers and components. You don’t want to approach the steps individually, but with the bigger picture in mind, so everything you do is part of the path towards the end game. Realizing, of course, that it will be dynamic, and you’ll want to find ways to empower your performers to take ownership.

Harnessing Magic

30 November 2010 by Clark Leave a Comment

This is the extended abstract for the presentation I’m leaving today to give in Berlin at Online Educa on mobile learning on Dec 2.

Increasingly, workers are mobile. When we look not only at field-deployed individuals, but also those who occasionally must travel to meetings, make site-visits, are away at conferences and workshops, or even are commuting, the number of mobile workers can be considered from half to most of the workforce. When we consider how many have a mobile device of some sort, and that these devices are increasingly powerful, we have a big opportunity to have a business impact.

To examine the opportunities, we must first consider the range of activities mobile can support. Let us be clear, mobile learning is not about courses on a phone, at least in large measure. There are circumstances where this makes sense, but it is not the main opportunity on tap. First and foremost, mobile is about quick access; just-in-time, just enough. The prescient Zen of Palm documented how desktop computers are accessed not that many times a day, but for long periods, whereas mobile devices are the reverse, accessed many times for short periods. This suggests a different model of use.

Think: how does your mobile device make you smarter? If you are typical, you may use it to keep information you want to look up, like contact details or your calendar. You may also use it to capture data: a note, a photo or video, or a voice memo. You may calculate something like the tip due the waitstaff or how to split the bill. And, of course, you may reach out to someone like a friend or colleague through voice or text. These are what I call the Four C’s of mobile: Content, Capture, Compute, and Communicate. This maps much more closely to performance support than formal learning, and indeed mobile likely plays more of a role in performance support and social/informal learning, the companions for formal learning.

It is useful to view computation conceptually as a complement to our cognitive systems. Our brains are really good at pattern matching and executive decision-making, but really bad at remembering rote information and completing complex calculations. Over our history, we have developed many physical and cognitive tools to augment our capabilities. Computers, in a sense, are the ultimate cognitive adjunct, with limitations due more to our imaginations (and pocketbooks) than to the technology. When we have mobile computational capabilities, we are now able to augment our thinking wherever and whenever we are. We can respond in the moment, not with a delay. This makes us both more effective and more efficient.

Which brings us to the business impact of mobile tools. We can augment performance in ways that can address barriers that have arisen in the past. We should, indeed, start with those situations where there have been performance barriers. Where, with a small bit of support, could we get sizable improvements? And realize that small improvements, when aggregated, can mean big returns. For example, cutting down on one extra visit to get information on an unanticipated problem, when multiplied by a lot of calls for a sizable workforce, becomes a substantial savings. That could come from accessing a job aid, a colleague, or even sharing a picture of the situation. Similarly, sales would likely increase if a quick calculation could show the immediate cost versus benefit relationship, and orders could be placed immediately. More importantly, employees could be made productive earlier if specific information on a client or situation is scaffolded to support the novice practitioner.

Optimizing performance is a marginal game, but margins are the difference between success and failure.

Let us not forget, however, to also consider how mobile tools can augment learning as well as performance. Those same Four C’s can be applied to extending and enriching the learning experience just as they can support in-the-moment performance. The activities that support fostering retention and transfer, our learning goals, can have mobile support. For example, you can reactivate knowledge by delivering content, or having learners apply their knowledge to problems and challenges at times other than a learning event. You can have learners capture data from the field and bring back to the discussion. And, of course, learners can discuss and collaborate with one another.

The key to business impact from mobile devices is to think performance; what small tweaks will change our key business metrics in big ways. While mobile does provide transformative opportunities, the near-term impact will come from optimizing current opportunities for performance support and social communication and collaboration, with resulting aggregate outcomes that provide tangible return on investment.

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