Community choices – dealing with overload

Tom Forenski has recently posted “Never mind Information Overload; We live in an age of Conversation Overload (http://blog.bufferapp.com/how-often-should-you-tweet-your-blogposts). He says

“But trying to keep up is a killer. It will kill people. Especially affected will be the people who don’t realise they can’t keep up with all their conversations but will try to do it anyway.

My attitude has been that I will do as much as I can and be fine with unfinished conversations. If I don’t reply to emails, or comments, or if I lose the thread on conversations, I’m hoping that people will understand and that if it’s important, they will try to engage with me again. I’m hoping that people understand that it’s not personal.

And on the whole that’s worked for me so far.

And as more people start to deal with these issues there will be an even greater understanding of the immensity of this problem and each of us will develop their own ways of dealing with the stress of conversation overload.”

It is an issue that I also face and I guess you, reading this blog, face as well.  But haven’t we forgotten something?

We don’t respond to every other human being we meet in life and in each ecology in which we exist – as we walk down the street we don’t stop and chat to everyone who walks past.  We don’t respond to all the junk mail that is destroying the rain forests.  We don’t immediately act on the TV advertisement.  We don’t even speak to all of the neighbours just because we happen to be neighbours.  So why do we feel we have to do it just because we are in a SoMe ecology.

It is something to do with us losing track of being in community – and forgetting how community works – when get into electronic ecologies.  Every community I have ever been part of or experienced has had rules, written or unwritten, and even if the rules are that there are “no rules”.  Within those rules people either choose to stay or to go – and if they stay they learn to live within those rules.

I live in a small rural community, but one that is splendidly active, mutually caring and very involving.  I have come to understand the rules – I need to participate in some things to be seen as a member of the community, but it is not expected that I will be involved in everything.  My own rules also say that I will belong to and participate in other communities and ecologies associated with my work, leisure, beliefs and interests.

It is OK to choose and to include or exclude.  We don’t have to read all the papers every day just because they are there.

We need to apply those same filters to our electronic and SoMe enabled lives in order not to experience what Tom writes about so honestly.  If we can do that we are long way towards knowing how to leverage the SoMe for learning purposes and to being able to help others on their learning journeys.  For those of us engaged in the transformation of learning into a key business tool, we need to help others past the blockage of “too much – it’s overwhelming” that is such a common reaction to discovering the potential of social networking and collaboration at work as powerful means to greater learning.

“Filter, filter, filter” and “Organise, organise, organise”, using all the tools available to us are part of the answer – and yes, we do need to assemble our own toolboxes that work for us.  The other part of the answer is to use our inborn skills of making choices about who we listen to and interact with for what.

Culture and Technology - Synergistic in creating valuable Communities of Practice

It is my pleasure to post this guest contribution from Ollie Gardener - thank you, Ollie:

Ollie Gardener is a Norwegian entrepreneur and a Learning and Development specialist. She is madly passionate about the potential in emerging technologies to inspire, enable and empower.

 

Ollie and her husband, Stephen, co-founded and recently launched NoddlePod – a community flavoured collaboration tool specifically designed for people working and learning in parallel.

(More information about NoddlePod can be found at https://www.noddlepod.com/.)

"How do we educate when we don't know what our world will look like tomorrow?", Sir Ken Robinson asks. The problem facing education is equally true for businesses.

If the goal is to predict and deliver what information will be relevant in the future, we are fighting a losing battle.

That is not to say that the past and the information we gathered "back then" cannot inform the future - but knowing which bit will be valuable and in what context is mostly guess work. 

Realizing this, many individuals and businesses alike are turning to communities as an alternative source of performance support.

The rise of social media has simplified the process of knowledge sharing and the formation of Communities of Practice. Social media have in effect enabled us to go back to the original approach to performance support, learning and development- conversation!

There is still an enormous amount of untapped potential in using emerging technologies to;

- integrate participation in communities with members workflows

- identify valuable connections between participants' work and learning

- preserve the context in which information originates

- enable members of a community to repurpose available information to new situations

But tapping into this potential relies on more than just technological advancements. It demands a new way of thinking about our work and how it is interconnected (http://bit.ly/mhEGbz). It demands a new approach to how we share, what we share and what we value in a community of practice. 

As Nic Laycock so beautifully stated; "we all have needs, experience and ideas. Some have more in one area than in another - and therein lies the power of community, but the trick is how to get that power released in order to optimize the learning available".

The traditional approach to knowledge management encourages the sharing of the end product - our matured opinions, lessons learned and polished summaries of a much richer (and in my view much more valuable) decision process. This has rubbed off on our expectations of what is to be shared and what is valuable in a community of practice.

The context in which we are working, and the process that led up to that "polished result" is often forgotten, devalued or lost. Yet there is gold in these unpolished nuggets of contextual information; what influenced our decision, the 'dead ends' we steered away from, the advice we received underway and even in the information we discarded. 

The thing is, what was right in the past is not necessarily right in the future. And of course what was wrong in the past is not necessarily wrong in the future. By sharing the entire decision process "in context", we multiply its value to people working and learning in parallel with us and increase the chance of our insights informing the contexts of the future.

Lessons learned by failures are also under-represented in this environment, as is work in progress - the stories without endings. 

Paradoxically, our social nature also works against us in fully utilizing the potential of social media for learning and performance support. Our need to belong, for approval and status among our peers is often what prevents us sharing the full picture, rather than selected highlights. The social risk of sharing lessons learned from failure (read: add value to the community) is often seen as too great.

On the receiving end - we would also rather learn from those who have succeeded, whether by good judgement, happy accident or circumstance, than those who failed. 

"We have become addicted to experts, we've become addictive their certainty, their 'assuredness' and their definitiveness  trading our discomfort of uncertainty with the illusion of certainty". Noreena Hertz

I couldn't agree more with Noreena (http://bit.ly/o2OIk8) - if we can learn to value nuance, uncertainty and doubt, and value advice expressed in these terms, we will set ourselves up much better for the challenges of the 21st century. 

The biggest obstacle for learning, performance and development is seldom the result of lack of direction or certainty, but a lack of mutual involvement and understanding.

I believe technology has a big role to play in facilitating, connecting and enabling a much richer community of practice than what we tend to see today. But as Clay Shirky (http://www.shirky.com/) said in US Now, “a revolution doesn’t happen when society adopts new tools, it happens when society adopts new behaviors”

Communities - The Engine of Transformation

Michel Bauwens of the P2P Foundation argues in his blog of 12 July 2011 (http://bit.ly/oC7XzI ) that all three main organs of society (civil, private and state) are profoundly challenged by the SoMe driven networked society into which we have moved. Some examples from the post:

"civil society is the locus of the shared abundance of value creation, and the place for the continual dialogue regarding the necessities of common life"


"we participate in the value creation, either as free voluntary contributors, or as members of a new type of private sector organisation,"


"Under conditions of peer production, design and innovation moves to commons-based communitiies, which lack the incentive for unsustainable design; products are inherently designed for sustainability, and the production process itself is designed for openness and distribution."


"communities should create new entrepreneurial forms.......and themselves should create mission-oriented, community supportive, sustainability-oriented corporate forms, that operate in the marketplace but do not themselves reproduce capitalism."

What I understand Michel to be saying is that in the new networked world, community is fundamental to every aspect of our lives. The post talks about the characteristics he believes each of the traditional sectors of society will have as the new order develops.

I would raise a different suggestion - that in our emerging new world, fuelled by wirearchies and the proliferation of tools and platfoprms all opearting from the "let's get connected" assumption, the traditional societal sectors will become blurred and in the end will be a sub-set of a re-emergence of community - but in a much less structured more fluid, more instant form than we have so far known.

I have been struck by the Arab Spring, in which a new sense of community was born almost overnight at national level.  I was struck by the assertion of a young Ghanaian delegate at e-Learning Africa in May that the power of SoMe will ensure that universities, reluctant to engage in Open Educational Resources (OER), will be forced to open themselves and become transparent. In UK this very day, the outrage felt by ordinary people and gathered together partly at least through the SoMe has resulted in the Murdoch empire's being forced to revise its business plan for media domination.  There are many more large and small examples that could be quoted.

Maybe one that should be highlighted to end this post is that of the organisation that refused to open the SoMe to its employees - and found itself with a virtual community of those same employees empowering themsleves to do their work - but outside of the organisations' direct sphere of influence.  There was only one solution - to embrace the change and develop the new sense of community to the benefit of business and the individual.

The sooner our enterprises cease to resist a change that has happened in global society, and begin to draw upon the strength of social learning, the sooner our world will become more integrated and mutually supportive

Being in a Learning Community - It's more than signing up!

Dennis Callahan (@denniscallahan) has posted a series on www.learnstreaming.com about the need for learners to take charge of their own learning process.  He draws similarities between joining a gym and our learning - the need not just to watch (lurk?), but also the need to get involved and gain experience.  All that is undoubtedly true.

Also true is his assertion that when we enter the social media assisted learning space "we have identity,,,,,,we have space...... and (to a degree) we have commitment".  However what is not true is that belonging and participating means that we are growing the communities which we have voluntarily joined.

Committed and even organised we may be in our approach to learning, but the best will only come when we make the effort to get the best out of our new community friends.

Yes, we need to have the courage to take the first steps and to share, even to make ourselves vulnerable by asking the question that is real to us but which we suspect may seem very innocent or naive to others. how many times have I heard people say "I had that question too but was scared to ask it in case I looked stupid"?  there are no such things as stupid questions - only silly answers!

I believe that there is one more step we need to take.  In community, there is no difference between us as human beings - we all have needs, experience and ideas.  Some have more in one area than in another and therein lies the power of community - but the trick is how to get that power released in order to optimise the learning available.

If we see  our virtual and social media driven learning communities as composed of anonymous addresses that might respond in some way to a post or a question, then that is all they will remain.  The quality of response will match the question - and no more.  However if we begin to see the address as a warm caring human sharing our interests and treat them as such then we stand a chance of them warming to us and going the extra mile in sharing.  If we are able to share a little of ourselves (and I do not mean the meaningless drivel that gets the SoMe such a bad name in some places) and if we take a moment to shape our posts, Tweets etc in ways that acknowledge each others humanity, then we are subtly inviting others to go the extra mile.  Many will do so, sadly, some will not.

Is this kind of respect and human care and warmth the answer to the Subject Matter Expert (SME) who will not involve themselves in a learning community (virtual or F2F) because they "do not feel valued for their contribution"?  There are very few parents who will not give everything they can to help their children. We need to tap into the same emotional energy in working in our communities.

Towards Maturity - Benchmarking our Communities in Learning

My brief examination of Community as a fundamental aspect of our humanity and at the root of any collaboration that succeeds, together with my forward look at the opportunity for discovery of community in the workplace as a result of platforms and tools provided by technology, leads to a need to strategise - and to do do that there is a need to reflect on plans, progress, and future direction.

Towards Maturity, an independent and supplier neutral organisation, has for a numbr of years been active in providing an easy to use benchmarking tool which provides a dispassionate and third party means of generating information to service that reflection need.  As well as providing organisations with a confidential and specific report, generated in comparison to over 1200 other enterprises, participants are provided with a "state of learning" report on an annual basis.

I have participated in Towards Maturity over the past 2 years on behalf of clients.  The time spent completeing the survey, a mere 40 mins, answering questions to address a 6-point model of Learning Maturity, has been well spent.  The reports I have received have highlighted successes, areas for attention, dissonances, and ideas for future improvement.  Comparing the organisations with which I have been involved with other learning organisations has provided stimulus to learn from the best and to address areas of weakness.  Laura Overton and her team are additionally available to explain and help with any aspect of the report or its implications.

This year's Towards Maturity survey is still open until 31 July and can be accessed at

www.towardsmaturity.org/2011benchmark Participation is free!

If you haven't done it before - it's worth the effort!

If you have participated - you know what I am talking about!!

Community - an important component of performance support

The growing understanding that L&D's prime role in the second decade of the century is as a highly specialised and potent performance support function makes it important for us to undertsand how that support happens.  Don Taylor has written quite brillinatly about this in the Training Zone (http://www.trainingzone.co.uk/topic/strategy/four-things-ld-must-do-stay-relevant-part-4-performance-support/160973).  However is there something missing?  What is the factor that will power the move of L&D into its true role in the business? Allison Rossett writes about the convergence of learning and work at http://edweb.sdsu.edu/Courses/ED795A/key1/Rossett_Schafer_aboutPST.pdf

Improving performance always means implementing change, and with change always comes risk, insecurity and some degree of resistance.  The means to overcoming the inevitable lack of confidence, hesitancy, and unwillingness to take initiative that ensue is well documented as helping people find a new and comfortable place to be, supporting them with answers to questions, providing information, enabling new skills, encouraging experimentation, allowing failure and other points on a check-list.  It is only when people begin to regain confidence that performance will improve and individuals will reach out for new and challenging targets.

So what is the role of community in performance support?

• A place where people are able to find comfort - whether out of common need, fear, or interest, or whether out of a sense of adventure, or even an understanding of the need to carry the whole along and thus help one another
• A place to retreat to and share feelings, needs, anxieties and to ask questions of others experience,
• A place into which to adventure to express ideas, share and validate insights
• A place where those who "can" help others with knowledge, experience and affirmation
• A place of discovery, where energy is gained to push and cross boundaries

And how is this relevant to our technology enabled learning world, powered by the Social Media and full of new and sophisticated tools?

• Our quest for performance support in our connected world of wierarchies means that almst anywhere we look (for help, experience, ideas, experience) we interface with and join (even if only sign up and gain access!) to networks.  In many cases these are groupings of people who don't know one another and who only come together out of common context or content. 
• In joining networks we become unconsciously part of communities - in which we readily empathise with others we find there, where we are able to explore ideas dispassionately and maybe even to disagree vehemently
• In our quest for that essential comfort zone we experience another kind of discomfort in joining an unfamiliar technology, new and anonymous people, an unwritten code of practice about the rules of the community.

I could continue, the point is that in seeking to position L&D as a performnce support lever in our enterprises we need also to recognise that the media we are now so proudly using to fuel that leverage is one that requires as much attention to its human aspects as any other process we use in doing our work.  Our networks are actually living and evolving communities which if developed with good human vlaues in mind become powerful and treasured palces for seeking improvement.  If not they will sooner or later fall into disuse - and rescuing something virtual will always be a difficult task. People turn away when they see no benefit.

The meaning of "I"

When I spoke recently at the E-Learning Network Conference in Bristol (#elnil) about Enhancing Informal Learning through Communities of Practice, I began with a teaser about "the Meaning of I".

I stands for

 

• Inspiration - that comes from exploring through communities
• Information - that we absorb, interpret and apply
• Inductive - as we learn by doing not by being told
• Involvement - with others in learning that is of mutual interest - engaging with them on a common journey
• Infection - that enthusiasm which maintains our presence in communities - because we see benefit from them - and which draws others in
• Intensity - which motivates and energises
• Instilling - the will to improve performance as we see and share others successes

All of those meanings come from within oursleves.  They are about our willingness to find and join communities where we feel at home and comfortable, where there is value, and where there is a welcome and a mutual desire to achieve.

Do we need to be constantly involved? No, but we do need to keep in touch!  A Community depends on its members each doing their bit to ensure its health and prosperity.  In our learning world that means people asking questions to stimulate others thoughts and to draw out experience.  It means sharing with others what we know and what we have experienced.  And it means indicating by our presence and our activity that the community is a live and valuable place to be - the encouragement, the word of thanks for an idea or a piece of help, the critique, the question, the sharing of an insight.  All of these things help a community to grow, develop and become self-sustaining.

We are not all able to be energetically active in our communities all the time - but we do need to do more than just be members.  All of us have something to give and a mutual responsibility to do so.  That collective is fundamental to the meaning of community