Do online communities depend on digital skills for their success?

Back now from an absolutely stunning holiday in Iceland - for those of you able to get there! it is a must! But more of that in another post.......

My work on behalf of my African client has repeatedly brought up stark contrasts in the development of learning between Africa and the northern hemisphere environments. It has also highlighted the massive differences between the supposedly more sophisticated and emerging economy of South Africa, the continent's apparent powerhouse, and the creativity in the use of technology enabled solutions evidenced in some of the world's most poverty stricken and least developed places. One of the consistent themes in all those situations is the degree of digital skill available to learning professionals in seeking to help their clients - whether executives of a European corporate, students in a South African university or a pregnant lady in rural Tanzania.

A new post about the levels of digital awareness, skill and patterns of usage in the UK's massive Open University suggests that the dominant factor amongst its students is nothing to do with age, and even the hardware and platforms employed are secondary to the student's motivation.

"What the researchers do find interesting and worthy of further study is the correlation – which is independent of age -- between attitudes to technology and approaches to studying. In short, students who more readily use technology for their studies are more likely than others to be deeply engaged with their work.

“Those students who had more positive attitudes to technology were more likely to adopt a deep approach to studying, more likely to adopt a strategic approach to studying and less likely to adopt a surface approach to studying.” (http://bit.ly/mXggrv)

Cheryl Brown and Laura Czerniewicz (http://bit.ly/mUfQZU) found that only 22% of students entering university in South Africa were computer illiterate, but that virtually all of them were mobile literate. So what is the meaning of digital literacy? The reason is that computer access (whether desktop or laptop) is very restricted in poor communities and bandwidth costs restrict things even further. Students therefore use the medium that is available to them and which they can afford. There are many good examples in South Africa of creative use of the social media in back-channels to supplement both face to face and formal learning presented through mobiles. In South Africa there is a high penetration fo Smart phones, especially amongst young people.

In East Africa, where there is virtually no access outside the commercial and urban world to computers and where Smart phones are economically out of the reach of a large proportion of the population, there are amazing examples of simple mobile telephony being harnessed as a cheap, easy to use and accessible means of delivering learning.

The Open University study shows a different picture if looked at in the light of computer versus mobile literacy, with the younger generations using more mobile technology than their older counterparts, but not necessarily from the basis of skills - rather more about the natural medium each group uses in which to communicate.

What is apparent in all three of the scenarios is that

• Students commitment to learning is the dominant motivating factor - overcoming apparent shortcomings in both technology and skills
• Provided there is accessible technology, access and content - students will adapt and learn

Terrie Lynn Thompson's work at the Digital Opportunity Trust shows the same kind of conclusions from a global study (http://bit.ly/krF6Fd)

What Terrie Lynn's post goes on to illustrate is that some simple re-arrangement of curriculum and presentation can give great advantages in the take-up and application of formal learning

So how does this apply to online communities?

For me, the lessons are clear. It starts with the motivation to learn. Whether it is

• the frequently seen situation of several students to a desk, sharing a pencil and a single sheet of paper in a rural African school, but with the guidance and leadership of a committed, enthusiastic teacher who inspires the student
• 100 children in East Africa gathered around a single TV to watch a virtual classroom maths lesson, guided by a teacher to answer questions after the broadcast
• Mastercard's phenomenal take-up rate of their leadership programme once htey opened it to all employees globally in real time that entailed people around the world logging in at all hours of the day and night
• the student back-channel using Twitter to help one another understand a face to face university lecture
• a British primary school class of 9 year olds creating their own Facebook community to provide excellent homework responses on a mutual help basis (much to the chagrin of the teacher who was initially outraged by perceiving that the kids were simply copying!)
• Telecomms artisans and technicians using mobile phones and YouTube to record their experiences real time to help their colleagues learn
• learning professionals coming together through informal and open access communities to share experience, ask questions and explore issues eg http://c4lpt.co.uk/shareandlearn/

the medium is secondary to wanting to learn. In seeking to develop learning communities that work we need to be conscious of what is possible in terms of platforms and media - and to choose from those that are possible, ones that will make the intended participants feel comfortable and empowered.

Recent posts about the accuracy and relevance of Prensky's 90:9:1 participation model then become irrelevant other than as guideline. London Business School's study of the highly successful Capgemini consulting company's Yammer community indicates a 98% lurking population, which on analysis is made up of professional consultants using the community simply to access high quality information posted by their colleagues and the company's thought leaders (amounting to about 0.03% of the community). Paul Schneider's post (http://bit.ly/pZfE4J) suggests that Prensky may be out of date as the digital community has developed as a concept, suggesting rather a 70:20:10 model. Again what is clear to me is the need for relevance and appropriateness - choosing a medium which works for the content it is designed to encompass, the skills and comfort levels of the participants, and the accessibility of the technology.

These are challenges indeed for the modern learning professional seeking to help those s/he works with to work smarter. These are just some of the things we need to be as Champions in a world of Social Continuous learning

Even Porcupines do it! - An example of Social Learning "Just in Time"

I am going on holiday for a week or so tonight with my wife to celebrate our recent 40 years of happy marriage, so there will be a liitle while before my next post.  Thanks for your interest in my Insights into Communities in social learning.  Before I go.......

I just love this little story, a perfect example of social learning that occurs out of peer experience and common necessity:

It was the coldest winter ever. Many animals died because of the cold.  The porcupines, realizing the situation, decided to group together to keep warm.  This way they covered and protected themselves; but the quills of each one wounded their closest companions.  After a while, they decided to distance themselves one from the other and they began to die, alone and frozen. 

So they had to make a choice: either accept the quills of their companions or disappear from the Earth.  Wisely, they decided to go back to being together.  They learned to live with the little wounds caused by the close relationship with their companions in order to receive the warmth that came from the others.   This way they were able to survive.  

Moral of the story: The best community relationship is not the one that brings together perfect people, but when each individual learns to live with the imperfections of others and can admire the other person's good qualities.

Even the trees do it! Collaboration and learning in a complex communications world

Over the past few posts I have been writing about online communities needing to understand the need for, and to create within them the same kinds of behaviour that enable the face to face networks in which we live our lives to succeed. I have tried to draw parallels between the lovely community where I live, and those precious online meeting places where I experience so much common interest, desire to share and to help.

I have been alluding to the fact that any community to which we belong has some kind of structure and norms that it follows.  Whether the elephants or something else, communication seems to be essential to everything living in order to establish mutual support, safety and above all the learning that allows us to progress. 

Professor Sir Paul Mellars, Professor Emeritus of Prehistory and Human Evolution at the Department of Archaeology, Cambridge University, has recently written about why the Neanderthals were overtaken by the modern human. He says:

“Whether humans also possessed more highly developed brains and associated mental capacities than the Neanderthals still remains a matter of intense debate, but experts have pointed to their sophisticated cave paintings and use of spears for hunting as evidence of their innovations.

........In any event, it was clearly this range of new technological and behavioural innovations allowed the modern human populations to invade and survive in much larger population numbers than those of the preceding Neanderthals across the whole of the European continent.”
( http://bit.ly/qOkvLC) 

What this says to me is that humans developed and embraced a new form of communication that was previously primitive, unsophisticated, or maybe even missing in other societies (communities) that existed at the time.  Their discovery and exploitation of visual symbols became a new focus, a new means of spreading information and learning, a new way of passing on ideas and recording information.  That is what enabled them to develop and become the dominant species – they learned how to collaborate to mutual benefit.  

Is that so different from the change we are now experiencing with the development of social media?  The point is that it was embraced and developed to become a highly potent tool in the kitbag that enabled the success and prosperity of our ancestors.  

Written language, the printing press, radio, TV and so on provided further step changes in the way we communicate with one another.  Now we are in the digital age of the social media and virtual communities.  Why is it that we are so suspicious of them when the history of our race has been bound up with discovering, exploiting and developing ever more sophisticated ways of communicating and spreading learning?   

There are times when I feel that a change –resistant L&D function has become an evolutionary cul-de-sac, doomed to eventual extinction.  But that is not right! Yes, there is frustration from those (myself included) who see the potential of our new means of communication and collaboration for exploding the impact that learning can have on the organisations and communities in which we are involved. But there is movement – a growing understanding, hotly and passionately debated around how to harness and use the power which many people see in advancing learning through the use of technology.  It is only those who will not see that in the end will be left behind. 

That may seem a bit far-fetched – but look at this… 

“The pattern of life is a network pattern. The individual links in the network of life, of course are strands of DNA. But without the network of connections linking DNA and our cells, those individual strands are useless.

The pattern of intelligence also is a network pattern. The network pattern of neurons in our brain provides the pathways for human intelligence function.

Social systems of course operate as networks as well. Human society has always functioned as networks. Not surprisingly, organizations, as social networks also follow the network pattern of life. True, we have imposed a hierarchical network structure on certain relationships that we call the organization chart, but the work depends as much or more on the informal networks

In addition, as living networks, companies and business webs engage in more than material exchanges - they also engage in cognitive exchanges. Sustainable business success depends on exchanges of information, knowledge sharing, and open cognitive pathways that allow good decision making. These exchanges not only have value, but are essential for the success of the enterprise, so they must also be considered as economic exchanges.

Modelling business as value networks brings us one small step closer to the reconciling our business and economic models with the fabric of society and the web of life” (http://bit.ly/nGkb2U)

Then I came across this fascinating post about the way even trees do it!  

“Graduate student Kevin Beiler has uncovered the extent and architecture of this network through the use of new molecular tools that can distinguish the DNA of one fungal individual from another, or of one tree’s roots from another. He has found that all trees in dry interior Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii var. glauca) forests are interconnected, with the largest, oldest trees serving as hubs, much like the hub of a spoked wheel, where younger trees establish within the mycorrhizal network of the old trees. Through careful experimentation, recent graduate Francois Teste determined that survival of these establishing trees was greatly enhanced when they were linked into the network of the old trees.Through the use of stable isotope tracers, he and Amanda Schoonmaker, a recent undergraduate student in Forestry, found that increased survival was associated with belowground transfer of carbon, nitrogen and water from the old trees. This research provides strong evidence that maintaining forest resilience is dependent on conserving mycorrhizal links, and that removal of hub trees could unravel the network and compromise regenerative capacity of the forests.” (Suzanne Simard http://bit.ly/rcLvCg)

Yes, even amongst trees there is a need to preserve established behaviours and linkages! 

In pursuing my love of the African bush and my understanding of it I learned that some trees when “attacked” by browsing antelope, such as the kudu, rapidly excrete distasteful tannins to deter the attacker – and at the same time discharge chemicals into the air that, carried downwind, warn similar trees of the proximity of a hostile species – and guess what? Those trees increase the amount of tannin in their leaves in order to deter the antelope searching for more palatable food! 

Throughout living organisms communication exists as a defence mechanism. As humans we have the ability to develop and exploit new ways of communicating – and to absorb them into the complex range of communities in which we live.  

So there’s the clue! Our early ancestors lived in single communities, or at most in loose and transient associations of small groups. The trees and the ecology of the bush are relatively static and with a very slow rate of change.  We live in a world of increasing change and where the overload of possibilities for communication is exhausting us. 

This is scary!

It comes from Nova Spivack’s post Sharepocalypse Now: Why Social Media Overload Means New Opportunities for Startups (http://on.mash.to/nNWVHD)

It is a graphic to show just how complex our communication world has become. 

“It’s a perfect storm: A massive expansion of networks on which to share and track information, but all the while, its users have less and less energy to make choices. The result will be a lot more confusion and noise.” 

Writing about a recent conference she attended Jenny Mackness says  

"There was an expectation that we would share our experience of communities of practice with a view to learning from each other. However, whilst the sharing was easy enough, the understanding of where people were coming from was more difficult. Participants came from very different backgrounds" (http://bit.ly/pDU7uK) 

Where is all this leading?  In our online communities we need to be very clear about purpose, channels of communication and the behaviours that will take with us all who we seek to incorporate, include and invite in our learning and exploration. 

In my last post I drew lessons from the elephant herd that is focussed specifically on ensuring that the little ones learn and are protected as they do so. 

Surely that’s our role in leading L&D forward?  In helping people to learn we have an obligation to help them to experience what the world has to offer as mechanisms. We have to assist them in exploiting the full potential of those mechanisms so that all of us learn together – that way we all prosper! 

In our virtual communities we have to take as much care for the individual as we do when we meet people live.

If you’re not Part of the Solution - an Introvert’s Perspective on the Shift to Social Working Practices

Following my posts about the behaviours needed to create and maintain effective Learning Communities and Communities of Practice, this post from Steve Gardener gives an illuminating perspective on the battle that introverts constantly fight to be able to contribute to communities in the fullest way.  Thanks Steve for your insight and honesty.

 

Posted on 21 Jul, 2011 by Stephen Gardener
As Henry J. Tillman said, “If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the precipitate”. Geeky chemistry humour aside, there is an analogy to be had here. For any system, there always seems to be some fallout. A group that gets left by the wayside. If our goal is to set up a system or environment for learning or working together, some will cope very well, and others will get left behind. This is not due to their lack of intelligence, talent or ability, but simply because we all have our strengths and weaknesses, and particular systems will tend to favour certain strengths, and under-appreciate others.
Introversion is one of those strengths that tends to get forgotten about. My post here today is about this group, the one to which I feel I belong.To have a tendency towards introversion is almost a given for a software developer. But I have recently moved from my pleasantly lonely (I prefer the Norwegian word ‘ensom’ here, having less negative connotations, being more of an actively chosen state than the English word ‘lonely’) chair in front of my computer, into the very social world of business. My wife Ollie, coming from a Learning and Development strategy background, has always thrived working with others. When we started our own business last year, I was the programmer, but necessity has meant my moving more and more into the business and people side of things.

Noddlepod and the new social learning

We decided to build a tool to encourage the informal side of learning in learning networks. With the help and advice of many people in the industry, it evolved into Noddlepod, a tool for parallel working and learning. The idea comes from the fact that people rarely work or learn in isolation, but tend to be part of a bigger picture. That bigger picture might be a specific process that you and others are working through - it might be the class you are taking at university, or the training programme you are working through at work. It could be a project your team is working on, or even your department in relation to others. Innovation, discovery and learning tend to arise at the intersection between different disciplines, interests and ideas. Parallel working brings these different disciplines, interests and ideas together.
The more I have worked on developing our application, the more I have come to learn about and understand the ideas behind employee/student engagement and the advantages of more social and informal approaches to work and learning. Much of what we promote focuses on the idea that ‘the network is the future’. Traditional hierarchical approaches to learning and working just aren’t suited to many of today's businesses and universities. Information changes too quickly. Hierarchies slow down the decision making process, and by only allowing a small number of individuals the final say, they also greatly restrict the outcomes.
If people can be brought together in their work and learning, seemingly unrelated areas of expertise could trigger an explosion of learning and discovery. It works equally well looking at it from the other angle - the varied backgrounds and points of view of the individuals in the network make it much more likely that problems are spotted before they become issues.
So how does this shift to more social work practices affect someone like me, who is much more comfortable and productive working quietly alone? Am I to be the precipitate of the new system that I am working so hard to promote?
I see three issues that might cause some people difficulties (and not only the introverted among us).

• Communication - how we can encourage the quieter amongst us to work comfortably and to contribute in a more social environment?
• There are differences between formal and informal approaches, and people have a preference towards one or the other.
• In order to fully benefit from this approach, we all have to be more comfortable sharing unfinished ideas.

Encouraging communication

Encouraging communication, is possibly the easiest to solve. I find am better at communication when I have time to formulate what I want to say. The current trend towards online communication is perfect for this - forums, blogs and other social media allow the more introverted among us to ‘lurk’, getting a feel for the network and the people in it before contributing. In addition, they give the individual time to consider how they might want to word their contribution. Chances are there will still be a strong extrovert bias, but the playing field is definitely levelled. Of course, our ‘precipitates’ now are those that are not comfortable with computers, those who would rather just pick up the phone or chat face to face. How we might balance the technical and the human approach to communication will have to be discussed in another post. Let’s stick with the introverts for now.

Formal vs. Informal

The idea behind more informal approaches to work and learning is to encourage a more relaxed environment where people feel more able to contribute, resulting from the tempering of bureaucracy and a shift from rigid, hierarchical leadership structures to a flatter, more democratic approach. Informal approaches often involve removing structure and putting more of a focus on social interaction. This can cause minor panic attacks for the more retiring of us! Many introverts struggle with open-ended social activities. However, we don’t need to, and in fact we should strive not to abandon all structure in our quest for the informal.
It’s all about balance - too much structure restricts, but not enough leaves people floating aimlessly, with no direction. We need clarity around our roles and our tasks, and we need to understand where we fit in to the overall scheme of things. But we also need freedom - freedom to step outside of and away from our roles and tasks. We need opportunities to interact with others sharing those same freedoms.
This balance suits the introvert well. Working with others can provide a welcome opportunity for social interaction that might not come very often, or very easily, to the introvert. Doing so in a relaxed and positive environment, with enough structure that people are not feeling uncomfortable or directionless, but at the same time encouraging social exchange, I suspect would suit most people well, not just the introverted.

Making a fool of yourself

To get the most benefits from social learning in a network, the participants need to be comfortable sharing unfinished ideas and making mistakes in front of each other. I think this is the biggest hurdle, and not just for the quieter among us.
As Ollie discussed in a recent post, most of us seem to be genetically programmed to try to avoid making fools of ourselves in public. But while I’m sure genetics are involved, culture also plays a big part in this. Of course, we all want to make a good impression and only show our good side, and many of us are afraid of being ridiculed or put down for saying something daft. So how do we encourage people to share not only their polished, finished end product, but also the process they went through, the mistakes they made and the dead ends they came to? (see Ollie’s post for more about why we should be encouraging this).
It’s all about culture. Others need to be seen to be able to voice their opinions and thoughts without repercussions. Encourage those that are comfortable to do so to contribute and share thoughts and ideas, regardless of the state of completion, or the correctness of their contribution. It doesn’t matter if it’s only a handful of people initially. The more people see others openly exploring and experimenting, and (perhaps more importantly) the more people see the community responding positively to those contributions, the more likely they are to contribute themselves. It is bound to take some time, but then most worthwhile things do.

Introverts and the new social workplace

I was worried when I started writing this post that it would be all too easy to come to the conclusion that this is simply the way of the world - that it is the people who thrive in social situations, people who are unintimidated by others who will dominate, when even the most intelligent and mindful, introverted individual struggles to make themselves heard above the often loudly spoken opinions of the extrovert.
However, at least in the field of parallel working and learning, this certainly doesn’t have to be the case. We can appreciate diversity in all its forms, actively listening to what everyone has to contribute, even if (maybe especially if) they don’t seem to have anything to contribute. It seems we all have an inate need to understand and to be understood. The hard part is actually trying to understand other people and what our ideas might mean for them, when they are probably living in very different mental worlds to our own.
New opportunities for communication mean that the more introverted among us have a fresh opportunity to contribute and be heard, and hopefully to be listened to. With understanding and a bit of planning by the people responsible for our networks, as well as caring attitudes from those within them, we can produce richer, more productive and more representative communities.

E-learning – E is for Ellie!

Elephant that is! 

1997 in the Serengeti National Park, Tanzania and our guide pulls our Land Rover up close to a small group of elephants.  Sheltered in the middle of them, his mum and Aunties, is a tiny baby – all 200 and some pounds of him. We are warned that we are too close and may need to pull out quickly, but can stay and watch until Mummy and the Aunties show signs of restiveness. They watch carefully and protectively as we sit still, admiring their size and the bizarre sight of the little one, so young he has no real control over the un-coordinated tube will one day be his incredible, sensitive trunk.  

The group seem to relax, able to cope with newcomers lurking on the edge of their circle. Emboldened, the little guy suddenly scutters out from under his Mum and between his aunties, makes a noise that in years to come will become the terrifying sound of an angry giant trumpeting a warning – but today sounds a comic and inconsequential squawk – then rushes back to the security of the family and the guidance of his elders. Secure in the knowledge of the caring adult community around him, the little fellow had made one of his first forays into the world of being the herd male (a mantle he would not assume for maybe 20 years)– and had clearly established a distance between us.  

Do our learning communities offer that same security for people within them to experiment, secure, supported, and with other more experienced members ready to share their knowledge, encourage the learning and above all provide a safe environment for experimentation? 

2009, Thula Thula Gme Reserve, Kwa-Zulu Natal, South Africa, and on my wife’s and my very last trip to the bush before we returned to England after 17 wonderful years in Africa, we sit on another Land Rover watching a small family of elephants that have been brought back from the threat of culling by Lawrence Anthony, a remarkable man known as the Elephant Whisperer (The Elephant Whisperer - Lawrence Anthony ISBN 978-0-330-50668-7).  Rogue, violent, unpredictable and dangerous, Lawrence patience over nearly a decade had given Nan the matriarch and the group a confidence and a security to lead a natural and peaceful life.  Again we were warned about needing to move quickly if Mabula, the dominant bull, still scarred by his early life where he had seen his parents and siblings shot, decided we were too close or threatened him in some way.  The fact that we were there at all was a consequence of the Elephant Whisperer’s patience in learning about his client, winning their confidence, providing a supportive environment and being involved in their lives as the tiny herd learned that there was a life beyond trauma and abuse. 

What lessons are there for our L&D practitioners in Lawrence Anthony’s remarkable success?  He learned to “read” them as a group and as individuals – spending countless hours with them, observing, listening, interpreting, and eventually being able to respond by his actions to what he came to understand of their language.  It was at that point he became able to truly help them to become a new, secure and strong breeding unit. How able are we as learning practitioners, using the new languages and environments of our technology enabled world, to get close to our clients and to interpret to them and give them security in the new networked and collaborative world so that they can take advantage of the opportunities for learning that it offers? 

March 2011, Pilanesburg National Park, South Africa, and I stand early on a cold morning with Jane Hart, clutching a cup of hot coffee,  looking out over the waterhole at our lodge, captivated by a large herd of elephants coming to have a drink.  On the fringe is a young bull, already becoming some kind of threat to the group, so distanced but allowed to remain close for his own security.  He jousts with one of his erstwhile playmates, entwining trunks, jabbing with his forming tusks, butting heads, until the matriarch of the herd decides he is getting too familiar and gently but firmly intervenes and pushes him again to the fringes. One day, in years to come he will return to the herd as its dominant bull, responsible for the succession of the herd. 

In the middle of the group a youngster is having difficulty climbing over the dam wall that contains the waterhole.  Both front feet on the top, he raises one back foot but then cannot get up completely.  Mum gently puts a supportive trunk behind him and gives him an encouraging heave – he still does not make it.  He calls, she tries again but success eludes the little one.  Mum moves a few metres away and the little guy struggles once more, secure in the knowledge that his experimentation is only going to meet with encouragement and that when the herd leaves he will not be left behind. Next time he will receive the same support as he gathers strength and seeks to learn. 

Is that a characteristic of our online learning communities that we care enough for the fringe members to give them security while they find their strength to eventually participate fully – perhaps as thought leaders one day? Are we aware enough of those in our communities who are struggling a bit – maybe it’s the technology, maybe it’s that they just don’t get it yet, maybe they are being blocked by something or someone in another circle about which we know nothing? 

A fellow guest on that occasion, on her first trip to the bush and after a drive during which we had seen little, asked me when was a good time to come to the bush?  As we stood entranced watching the herd and their learning community in action - my response was “now is a good time”.  Are we interested and excited enough by our businesses and the people who work in them to watch, listen, learn and then give back through our encouragement, knowledge of the technology and desire for the strength of everyone in the community?  The elephant herd depends on it – it is the way of learning! 

Social learning is about giving and receiving – building a strength of community at which others will gaze in awe at its power – but will not be afraid to seek to participate themselves 

(Thanks to Jane Hart – who later that day said to me “e” is for ellie-learning!)

Supporting one another in Online Communities - Encouraging the right Behaviour

My reading and thinking and my experience over the last few days stimulates this post.  It’s about online behaviour which sounded a discord either for me or for others.  I may even have unwittingly been the cause of one or more difficulty for you in my enthusiasm to explore and to learn.  If I have, I apologise. The occurrences lead me to discuss how we use our online learning communities. 

I have written before about the fact that every community in every sphere of life has some kind of boundaries and a set of norms (spoken or unspoken) for what’s “OK” in that community.  So how does this work out in practice? 

I’ve mentioned before that I live in a small but very inclusive and welcoming rural community.  In that community there are unwritten norms that one is expected to adhere to in order to be seen to be a “member in good standing”.  They stem from values of respect, politeness and a recognition that the community needs to be mutually supportive.  However it is not as simple as that! Someone in the village said to us that even in a small and caring community like this great care needs to be taken about what is said and done in order to maintain the unity and the supportive environment “It’s like treading on eggshells!”  If you have lived in a village you will know what I mean! 

So how is this relevant to our online communities – often far bigger than our little village, faster moving, impersonal, limited mostly to our work lives, frequently transient, invisible to one another and so on? 

The principles of social learning are based in an open culture of mutual support, transparency and a willingness to give in order to receive.  It’s one to which we all sign up almost unconsciously by registering in or joining our communities in expectation and excitement. Harold Jarche quotes the helpful metaphor of the rules and norms of dancing (http://bit.ly/nDjPgw).  We have all experienced the huge benefits that accrue when we are in this kind of environment.  

But with the instant and sometimes fleeting nature of the communication in an online community it is very easy for that atmosphere to be broken down and for it to become fractious, dysfunctional and hurtful to the point that participants are put off and withdraw (“I didn’t come here to be talked to like that – I came to share and to receive).  A perceived snub, a careless word, a treading on toes to continue Harold’s metaphor, (probably nearly always an accidental omission) through not attributing a contribution that is quoted, a failure to separate the substance of a disagreement from the person so that the matter becomes personal, a breaking of the unwritten community rules by doing something which is not fair or transparent, a hidden conversation (via another platform or a back channel)  which crosses the boundaries of our “circles” within the community – all of these are behaviours that can inhibit, damage or destroy that which we are all striving so hard to achieve. 

The moment we take each other for granted and fail to consider the reactions of all those who will read our messages and posts we risk alienating and causing discords that will distract both from our own message and the usefulness of the community.  It will become a more dangerous place to be. 

As L&D and Performance Support professionals seeking to understand and exploit “working smarter” we have a wonderful opportunity through our various “places” of contact to learn for ourselves. In them we can identify and practice in the virtual environment  the behaviours that need to be nurtured in the communities we seek to foster in the workplace. 

As our journeys in our communities progress and our understanding develops, so will we each gain insights that may differ from what was initially a commonly held belief.  It is then that sensitivity, respect and a care for the language we use in our Tweets, posts and other messages becomes important if we are to continue to have the confidence in one another to share what we are learning and to be able to comment honestly on each other’s work. 

I have written this in the context of “I” and “we” because I am aware that I am a member of a number of communities – some consciously, some by association and some of which I am unaware, taken into them by people even whose names I do not know.  This blog has an expanding readership of several hundred  for each post – which means its potential reach is many thousands.  My language and sensitivity may influence many. 

My desire is for this blog to become an enduring forum where the issues of living in virtual communities that have real value and meaning in our lives can be discussed, argued about and the results shared so that the inexorable and rapid move to the wirearchy, the networked environment, the collaborative workplace is one which is as comfortable for those we seek to help as it can be. You, the reader, like me the writer, can do your part by fostering in your communities those behaviours you value in working with others.  

Only if we can provide an environment that is attractive to the newbie and the shy, the reticent, the uncertain, the technophobe will we succeed in helping them to participate and to share the value that is in all of us from our experience and range of thinking skills. Encouragement, support, patience in explaining, getting “legs” under another’s practical problems to help find solutions, recognition and praise will go a long way in helping one another. If we can live together like this in our cyber space we will be able to begin to unleash for our organisations the enormous and currently hidden potential that lies within them – the ability to work smarter.

Being Careful and Caring with our Learning Communities

“Is everyone loving Google+ or are you still limping along like me?” @ChelleRobertson – 19 July on Twitter 

I’ve found myself getting personally involved in the “Is G+ a good development?” discussion. I made some comments on Twitter and received a deluge of responses, some of which were very much less than helpful in leading me towards either exploration or involvement in what may in the end turn out to be “a new social backbone” (Edd Dumbill http://oreil.ly/oCCTS5 ). Others were supportive and empathetic. 

The spectrum of responses has caused me to think about some issues we face as promoters of technology supported learning – and especially that which we know to be so richly enhanced by the social media.  Even Clive Shephard, in his flawed refutation of the fact that traditional L&D will diminish as the true power of the SoMe in enhancing social learning becomes apparent (http://www.epic.co.uk/elearningdebate/ ), acknowledges that the playing field of learning has now changed.  That change brings with it a challenge that is uncomfortable for the enthusiastic pioneers (evangelists) for new tools and technologies. 

Francine Hardaway says

. “The best use of social media for business isn’t really marketing, it’s learning.” (blog.tweetsmarter.com ) 

In the same post Dave Larson goes on to assert that “People new to social media, and Twitter in particular, have trouble conceptualizing what it is and how to best use it” 

He is picking up a specific of an issue that requires some exploration.  We need to put ourselves in the position of the individual who, as Performance Support professionals, (having made the transition ourselves from L&D), we are seeking to assist.  Most have grown up with a view of learning as a face to face classroom based activity. More and more have not – they have been educated using to some extent a variety of technology based methods.  They have a firm concept that learning is something that is provided to them, mostly from a top-down corporate model. 

With our bright, shiny, new toys, we convince them that there is a more effective way to learn (many of them knew that already) and we introduce them to the wonders of e-learning.  Having struggled their way to a level of comfort with operating the plethora of techniques we love so much, we now tell them that, actually, their best learning will come from social collaboration and networking – enabled through the various platforms of the SoMe. In many cases it won’t be the ones they use at home – Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, Twitter etc – because these are frowned upon as “trivial” by the organisational powers that be.  Instead they are “respectable” lookalikes such as LinkedIn or Yammer. 

We provide lots of help to people to get them to see and be comfortable with Tweets, Streams, Threads, Walls and the rest and we help them to use them to learn from peers and anyone else they can access through the ever-increasing range of devices – PC/laptop, Windows/Mac, mobiles (on one OS or another), tablets, using apps, clients, service providers and the like.  Then we tell them about the cloud and how that is going to revolutionise again the way they will do their work and learn from everyone in whose circle (I deliberately use a small “c”)  they happen to find themselves.   

Small wonder that we get glassy eyed looks of confusion, despair and disbelief about what we are doing.  

Jane Hart, in her great new post (http://c4lpt.co.uk/handbook/state.html ) says 

“L&D will need to "practise what they preach", and for those who are resistant to change in the organisation, show the value of new approaches in their own professional practice.” 

We preach making learning easy and accessible to people. If, in our enthusiasm we confuse, scare and deter people then we will have found another route to send L&D into oblivion. Changing what only recently was scary but has now become familiar may be a fast route backwards. 

Our embracing of new things, which laudably characterises many people who are working for the transformation of learning, must not spill over into headlong evangelism that destroys the very trust in the function that is being so carefully built as learning moves from being an overhead to a key business activity. 

We need to take our people with us at the speed they can go – it’s an old maxim that things move at the speed of the slowest component – so true as we seek to foster organisation and culture change to enable learning to make the business impact we know it can. Our reaction to peoples understanding, acceptance of concepts and appetite to change will be a major determinant in whether they move forward or become the resisters we so much want them not to be. Support is everything, criticism will slow things down and create negative reactions. 

“We don’t all have to keep changing ships every time a new platform or application comes along, It's OK for us to investigate new tools, but we shouldn’t make others feel bad if they don’t want to get involved or make changes.  If the new arrival adds value then of course use and promote it - but don’t make others feel like they are not keeping up!” (Jane Hart) 

“There’s too much going on to join in with everything and so I have to pick and mix what I will respond to based upon my own interests and preferences” (Steve Batchelder – Confessions of a Lurker http://bit.ly/oS7coj ) 

We have two aspects to our work in Performance Support as L&D professionals. The first is to help others and our employing organisations exploit the individual and collective potential that exists.  The second is to research and evaluate our rapidly changing discipline so that we bring the best to bear to improve outcomes and to encourage people to enter the social learning world.  We must carefully balance those roles.  

So, just a caution – rushing headlong into new platforms that are as yet unproven and ill-defined in their effect may damage achievement of the goal we so passionately desire. 

When choosing or purchasing a social learning platform to support collaborative learning – keep it simple!!!  

Michael Rose (http://bit.ly/rrV6tS) put this rather nicely 

"The tools and platforms that you choose should be fast enough, and easy enough to use that people will embrace the technology and start using it. Creating content, uploading content, sharing content, making it searchable, adding assessments and comments, viewing reports and bundling content together should all be easy to do.”