Archive for November, 2008

Creating a Learning Ecosystem - Why Blended Learning is Now Inadequate

Nov 19, 2008 Social Learning SIG

(WARNING - this is an unusually long post for me.  And, as Mark Oehlert pointed out recently, I echo Mark Twain’s quote, “I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.” )

Blended learning is now inadequate - it is only mediocre.  Let me explain why I think so.

Blended learning assumes some characteristics.  For example, here is the Wikipedia definition:

The instructor can also combine two or more methods of delivery of instruction. A typical example of the delivery method of blended learning would be a combination of technology-based materials and face-to-face sessions used together to present content. An instructor can begin a course with a well-structured introductory lesson in the classroom, and then to proceed follow-up materials online. The term can also be applied to the integration of e-learning with a Learning Management System using computers in a physical classroom, along with face-to-face instruction[1]. Guidance is suggested early in the process, to be faded as learners gain expertise (Kirschner, Clark and Sweller, 2006). (Bolding added.)

What do you notice in there?  The paragraph keeps mentioning the title “instructor.”  I don’t know about you, but when I think of blended learning I think of combining ILT with a job aid with some online training with a podcast - or something like that.  Part of Elizabeth Israel’s class, Getting your Sales Force Productive with True Blended Learning, which was presented at DevLearn08, was described this way:

This session will show participants the various rapid e-Learning development and deployment learning solutions one company developed and implemented using Articulate, Camtasia, and Captivate. You will walk through how using Live Meeting sessions, toolkits (self-study), and case studies increased performance and readiness of the sales and technical sales teams. This real-life session focuses on the design, development, implementation, and effectiveness results of creating a true blended learning environment. (Again, bolding added.)

Again, all very focused on creating and delivery from an instructor point of view.  Before I go on, I want to point out that I am in no way against this.  I was not able to go to Elizabeth’s session - which I think is a great topic.  So please don’t misunderstand me, but do understand this: It has its place, but by itself blended learning is not complete.

Being a big proponent of learning using social media, I must fully admit that this, too, is not complete.  It must all be taken in together.  But this time with a different view.

I was recently listening to a podcast entitled, “Is Innovation Withering on the Vine?”  It was part of the “Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders Series” by the Stanford Technology Ventures Program.  In there, Judy Estrin, author of “Closing the Innovation Gap” talked about the essential characteristics of innovation.

During the presentation she talks about an ecosystem.  Not the one us business people might refer to, but one a biologist would think of.  And this was her definition.  Ecosystems are:

Communities of living organisms that interact dynamically with their environment.  And one very, very key thing about this is that for an ecosystem to sustain life, it must be in balance.”

Later she says, “The ecosystem is a combination of the organisms and the environment.”

KEY: Living organisms; environment; balance.  They all play together.  Translate this into learning.  Unlike a traditional blended learning environment where those who learn are fed from one source, a learning ecosystem balances those organisms (people) with the environment (organization, culture, tools).  When we think of it this way we suddenly realize that we all rely upon each other to learn.  I am accountable to ’stay alive’ and not be forced to rely upon one ‘hand’ to ‘feed me.’  Rather, I interact with all the organisms as necessary, within the environment.  Sometimes the actions of us organisms changes the environment and culture as we start relying on each other and use the tools in non-conventional, but extremely useful ways.

Rather than creating a training department or curriculum, we should be thinking about all the ways learning can happen within an organization and apply the correct ointment where necessary.  Sometimes it will be an ILT.  Sometimes it will be eLearning.  But more often than not, it will be people teaching people of which the training department will have nothing to do with except to help create the environment.  Sometimes it is the role of mother nature to create that environment and step back and let the organisms figure it out.  We must learn to do the same and then be amazed at what they can do.

So really - what is the difference between blended learning and creating a learning ecosystem?  Blended learning takes on the funnel mentality.  All knowledge must funnel through the learning department’s people, systems, processes, packages and must be measured in standard ways as it goes through.  If it does not route and measure in these ways it is out of our circle of influence.

In a learning ecosystem the environment is created so that learning just happens.  It is a part of work rather than separate from it.  It includes traditional blended learning when appropriate (for each piece does not lose its significance) but the funnel, for the most part, is gone.  Formal learning intersects with social learning intersects with informal learning intersects with traditional learning…

This changes the environment in the eye of those who create the environment and in the eyes of the organisms.  Instead of, “I am going to learning” it is “I am always learning.”  Just as your heart beats and your lungs fill up with air, you know they are separate functions but one cannot live without the other.  They work toward the same goal.  Both very necessary but playing different roles.

We must strategically create learning ecosystems within our organizations where formal courses of all kinds, social interactions using all mediums and all types of informal learning blend together.  Creating this environment is much more strategic on so many more levels.  Think about accountability of learning.  Think about ownership of content.  Think about distribution channels.  Think about measurement.  The game changes because the goal and the path to get to the goal changed.

Done correctly, the ecosystem goes far beyond merely existing, always trying to keep up but never fully realizing its potential. Instead it will thrive - totally interconnected with it’s environment.  It is a holistic approach to learning.

Instead of being a subculture unto the larger, it is wholly integrated so that the learners don’t make a choice to learn, it’s just a part of what they do. Again, like breathing or the beating of the heart, it just happens and is not a separate event. At times they won’t know it is happening- other times they will. But these times will be more rare, so interconnected will be their learning. And the learning ecosystem will thrive by creating the culture which understands it’s more subtle needs and will adjust as necessary.  It will take more than the learning department.  More than an executive blessing.  It will take, and will affect, everyone.

In the modified words of Benjamin Zander (a ‘must watch’), “How would you act, what would you say, what would you do if you thought that learning happened at discrete times and in discrete ways and you controlled it.  Now how would you act, what would you say, what would you do if you felt learning happened by everyone ALL THE TIME!”

This may have been way too philisophical, but it really hit me when I listened to that podcast.  We finally have the tools to create full learning ecosystems, whereas before we only were able to influence a part of it.

In Sean Kearney’s session entitled, “The Bionic Brain: Learning, Technology, and Social Networks” at DevLearn, he asked, “How many of your learning organizations are a barrier to learning?”  Almost every hand in the room went up.  And that was from the people - the experts - who run the organizations!

I dare you to create these ecosystems of learning in your organization.  Think on a more global scale than you have before.  Don’t get caught in doing the same things for the same old reasons.  Do the same things, do more, change more - create that true balance between organisms and environment in which a learning ecosystem thrives.

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DevLearn08 Thoughts - Twitter, Objections and Continued Learning

Nov 18, 2008 Social Learning SIG

(Dinner with Jay Cross, Clark Quinn and others, taking pictures of Stacey and her stolen skateboard.)

Wow.  What a fabulous conference put on by Brent Schlenker and the eLearning Guild. (I am told that handouts & PPTs will be available next week.)  Here were some hightlights from my POV:

  • Tweets - I had used Twitter casually before the converence.  Then during the conference I swear I used it more in those few days than I had in all the time leading up to it. Now I can’t go back.  What a great way to give and get info.
  • Meets - I met so many wonderful people. Some for the first time, some I had known online and met for the first time in real life.  During the dinners I got to know a lot of new people and had some really good discussions. You guys (and gals) are great!
  • Presenting - Friday morning - early.  Who’s going to show up for a Breakfast Byte?  Actually, a lot.  Way to wake yourself up!  And thanks to everyone who chipped in and answered questions.  Then, a few hours later, what a great concurrent session I had!  Earlier in the week I had attended a session by Dave Wilkins.  It was as if I was watching myself present - the same energy, the same passion and the same information I would have given.  So, realizing that I am not the only one who knows this stuff, I asked him to join me and help present my session on the 15 most common objections to social learning and how to overcome them.  In fact, I relied a lot on the audience to come up with the information as well, trying to make it as social as possible.  It was spectacular.  For it being the last session of the last day, we had more people than I had thought would come.  And some fabulous comments from everyone.  And Dave?  We were on the same wavelength the whole time.  So glad he agreed to join me.
  • Information - What I love about this is that the information lives on. I learned some great stuff there and am continuing to do so after the conference (mostly through Twitter).  It just doesn’t end!
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DevLearn Keynote: Dan Roam - Back of the Napkin

Nov 13, 2008 Social Learning SIG

Back of the Napkin is #5 from Amazon on business books of the year.

Dan: His premise: We can solve our problem in pictures.  When you try to solve in pictures you can solve anything.  What Problems can we solve with pictures?  ANY!  If we are able to articulate it, we can do the same and solve it with pictures you can draw.  Other questions: What pictuers will we use and who is ‘we’?

If you are visual enough to have walked through the door and find a sit and sit down, you can do this.  3/4 of the processing of our brain is visual - so it is pretty important.

Go to a Kindergarten class and ask, how many can draw? (all) How many can read and write? (few)  Go to a group of 16 year olds and it switches.  We somehow lose that thought that we cannot draw.

If you can map out (with simple pictures) using pictures you will (guaranteed) start finding more insights than you have before.  You now have the most powerful way to communicate an idea.

Does it work in an online environment?  YES!

“Whoever is best describe the problem is the one most likely to solve it.” Then, “Whoever draws the best picture fets the funding.”  Hmmm. Whoever is able to articulate it the best leads.

Problem: 1967 Wanting to fly from Houston to Dallas.  But there is not a connecting flight.  Herb grabs a napkin and said, what if we just connected the three major metro areas in Texas.  BAM!  Southwest Airlines in born.  It is the only profitable airline in the US and the only one that has been profitable since its inception.  Explain something that may be complex, not in a simplistic day, but in a CLEAR way.

NOTE TO SELF: Draw more while I think.

Arthur Laffer - an economist in the 1970 was sitting with two other guys and he drew a chart about taxes.  It looks like a bell curve.  At what point does the government collect the greatest amount of revenue.  The napkin served as the basis of the Reagan era.  Decrease taxes and income increases.

%25 of us are those who would jump up to the board to draw (that’s me - Black Pen).
50% can identify in someone’s picture the parts that are most important (Yellow Pen)
25% think it is all trash.  They may have the most understanding, but they won’t jump up (Red Pen).

We must get the participation of all of the people (including Red Pen) is to make them mad!  Then they will finally jump up and correct you.  That’s great!

Why do we let PPT cripple us and make us lazy?  It is unfortunate.  From a cognitive perspective, the worst way is to cram a PPT with information.  They won’t get it.  It is definately not the way to do it.

People simply get pictures.  (This in from @writetechnology: Flickr’s beginnings)

How to do in a connected world.  Use powerpoint and do the onscreen application.  Go into presentation mode.  At the bottom there are icons.  Pick the pen.  Draw.  Use it over an online meeting.  Everyone sees it in real time.

How to do all this?

Grab a napkin, draw a circle and call it “me.”  Then a bigger circle and call it “My Problem.”  The brain is now imagining “Where are we going next?”  It gets the people’s brains engaged.

“Bill Gates: The barrier to change is not too little caring; it is too much complexity.  To turn caring into action, we need to see a problem, see a solution, and see the impact.  But complexity blocks all three of these steps.”  Then he shows the userbar picture of complexity (can’t find it right now, sorry).

“What is the point of data if you can’t draw information from the data?” (Allusion from Tim’s keynote.)  (Did I use that word correctly?)

Not that what you come up with will be a huge insight, but that it is framed in a way that it can finally make sense.

Look at Tree Maps for visualization purposes.

When he went through a problem with Microsoft using this, they didn’t get caught up in the details, in what colors were used or what font was used.

Our abilities with a pen and paper is infinitely better than any program because we play by our rules, not by the software’s rules.

The more “human” your picture, the more human the response.

A little bit of Neurobiology: What are your eyes doing right now?  Pulling in zillions points of data and translating them and giving meaning.  Vision is a serial and parallel process.  Part of the brain translates the “WHAT” part - the objects that make up our world.  Part of the brain translates “WHERE”.   At the same time there is the “HOW MANY”.  Here we make gross numerical generalizations.  We visually recognize the passage of time from seeing the change of an object - the “WHEN.”  That tells me “HOW” the world works.  Combine all of that and make all of those rules, we start to make assumptions of “WHY.”  “That is how the world works” we say.

There are six things we see - the 6 Ws.

W - Draw this…

  • Who/What - Portrait
  • How Much - Chart
  • Where - Map
  • When - Timeline
  • How  - Flowchart
  • Why - Multi Variable

These are the only six pictures we need (or combined).

slide:ology

Circular pictures are difficult to grasp,  Go linear and then loop back - easier to understand.  Huh!

“Any problem is like a big layer cake.  There are more flavors inside than anybody expects.”

Good stuff, Dan!  Thanks for a great Keynote.

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DevLearn Day 1 - 3 T’s: Twitter, Tim O’Reilly and Tired

Nov 13, 2008 Social Learning SIG

Image representing Twitter as depicted in Crun...

Image via CrunchBase

Phew!  At the end of today I thought it was two days.  Here are some thoughts:

Twitter has been great.  I know B.J. Schone only from Twitter, until last night I finally met him in person.  Same with Michelle Lentz, Clark Quinn and others.  I couldn’t get connected to wireless from my laptop.  I threw the question out and Tony Karrer and Brent Schlenker responded immediately.  We organized dinners through it.  Told each other of what sessions were good and which ones to stay away from.   Good stuff.  I have never twittered so much.  I swear I have twittered more today alone than in the last few months.

Tim O’Reilly was the keynote this morning.  A couple things from that.  WWGD= What Would Google Do.  Think about that next time you have a bright idea.  Build against the data.  He showed how Flickr made the default person icon ugly which, compared to 37signals.com, had many more people switch it to a personalized one.  I think I am going to put a frowny face on the default faceless man at work.  Then this one intrigued me, “The skill of writing is to create context in which other people can think.” He quoted that from somewhere else, not sure who, though.  But chew on that one. Too often we come from different perspectives - the wrong perspectives.  Also, what I have been preaching with the WHY series (as slow as it is going…) “You sell them based upon what they (the tools) mean, not what they do.”  (Cheers)  Follow the pioneers.  One of my favorite quotes that I put on Twitter: “You don’t incent them to use it, you just make them do it.“  Too true.

Other sessions I attended were good.  No other Aha! moments.  But I did get to meet some great new people, share some content with them for their future presentations, start a group centered around measurement, and watch David Wilkins show that he gets it. It was refreshing to see.  His speaking style and passion for it all reminded me of mine.  It was also great to see that mZinga gets it.  One of the only ones (or maybe only one?) that does.  I need to dive more into their product.  I have done basic research on it before, but need to dive deeper. David offered to do a webinar for the Social Learning SIG in January.  That will be the next one.

Good day - tired as I should be.  Ready for another day tomorrow.

UPDATE:

Another great review (admittedly better): B.J. Schone

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Does KM or Social Learning Come First?

Nov 11, 2008 objections

Don’t you just love it when things fall into place?  For example, this Thursday I am ready to give a session for DevLearn08 entitled, “15 Objections to Social Learning and How to Overcome Them.”  Then, yesterday, someone at my company put up this comment:

“The Community Portal (the name of our customer facing social media / learning platform) should be a Knowledge Base first, and a Social Networking Site second.“

What a great opportunity to use my presentation and expand on it!  I will have to use this as an example on Thursday.  Here was my response:

When I speak at conferences and talk to other people at other companies and different association meetings this is one of the most difficult thing for them to understand.  Yet when they do finally understand it (usually because they see it in action) they embrace it.  The knowledge base (KB) of the past never really worked.  As we have seen here at GTS in past years, we have it tried a number of times.  Many companies have tried it, internally and externally, and most have eventually abandoned them.  They didn’t work for so many reasons that I won’t go into.  One of them, however, is that it was a repository.  Inherently that is not so bad, but for sustainability it is - and sustainability is KEY to success.  There is A LOT of talk in the KB world that I have been monitoring.  The industry recognizes the limitations and the old mind set of those systems and they (KB professionals) are FLOCKING to social media.

Why?

It creates discussions.  Discussions create interactivity which creates adoption. Interactivity also creates content.  The content creates a repository, but an interactive one. PLUS, the information is created by EVERYONE, not just one group or just by the company.  Sure, we can spend our time adding in information.  But I hope you can see that the more we can get our customers to interact, the more they will create information which will grow the ‘repository’ exponentially.

So, from my view, the CP is first a repository in theory.  In practice, however, it is first a social media site which creates adoption and captures knowledge which creates a repository as an effect.

Interaction is the key to adoption and knowledge growth and what we are striving for here is adoption.

What do you think?

Subliminally Selling Social Learning

Nov 7, 2008 Selling Social Learning

I work with some people who are self-proclaimed masters at people manipulation.  And it truly is a talent (when used correctly).  That is just not me.  I am much more black and white.  I am a bad liar and manipulator.  The uncomfortableness is apparent on my face when I try - so I don’t.  But watching this shows the power (hopefully used for good) of subliminal messages.

Originally taken off a tweet from Tony Karrer pointing to a blog by Teemu Arina, this Youtube video amazed me.  (I guess it shouldn’t, but it does.)

How might we use this same concept - or something similar - to ’sell’ social learning to executives?

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eLearningLearning - a Pool of Information

Nov 6, 2008 Social Learning SIG

Today Tony Karrer has launched eLearningLearning, an aggregation of eLearning information.  It pulls in information from mainly blogs right now, but will contain more sources as it grows.

You will notice on my right sidebar that I have a graphic with the logo and then a bunch of ‘tags’ and how many times I use them.  This widget, provided by Tony, will launch you in to eLearningLearning and show you everything that I have tagged with that word.  Not only that, but it will give you access to many others information about the topic.  And then it will lead you to other topics, more information to fill your curiosity.

Great job, Tony.  Love the site.

Why #7: Choosing When To Learn

Nov 6, 2008 Selling Social Learning, Verbs of Social Learning

Book cover of

Book cover via Amazon

WHY #7: Choosing When To Learn

There are three aspects to time: Past, Present and Future.

Email is timeless on 1.5 fronts – it satisfies the need of the Present.  Future? If you can find the email.  And it does not satisfy the Past. With email you start at now.

Books are on two fronts – Past and Present, but not Future.  There is not a discussion afterward.  For example, the book The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership by John C. Maxwell was recently republished.  Why?  Because he wanted to update it, a characteristic of books that cannot be done once it is printed.  Once you write it, it is written and done.

An instructor-led training class is usually just Present.  There isn’t a lot of Past, nor is there a lot of Future except for the notes you took.

Social learning has a history, as we have pointed out, a Past and a Future all combined into one.  You learn from what others in the Past have made for you and you discuss it further to further expand on it.  And it is there for you in the Present.

What I have casually observed is that because the information is available whenever we want it, employees are more willing to learn on their own time, which is a great pro when you are talking to executives.  They choose to listen to podcasts when they are going home.  They choose to log in at home and learn something really quickly because they have a question now.

I don’t have to sign up for this type of learning.   There isn’t a schedule or registration.  It just happens.  And I get to choose when it happens.

Related Posts:

Why #6: Liberating Knowledge
Why #5: Adapting to a New Learning Structure
Why #4: Distributing Ownership (Cont’)
Why #3: Discovering Experts
Why #2: Personalizing Learning
Why #1: Focusing on People (Part 1) (Part 2)

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What I Have Learned From The Elections

Nov 6, 2008 Social Learning SIG

Senator Obama did not receive my vote for President (as if voting Republican in a presidential race in Oregon makes a difference).  I did vote what I felt was best given the circumstances.  You may disagree and that is fine.  But even though I may not agree with him, I am very impressed with his campaign strategy.  We can learn a lot about our place in the learning and communication world from him.

What contributed to his win?  This is my take:

How can we use this as an example to help others learn, to help those around us to communicate more openly and share ideas?  What can businesses learn from this about how they might interact with their employees and customers?

There are lessons to be learned here.

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