Business Considerations in proposing a learning ecosystem to your organization

A learning ecosystem is a way of thinking about how your organization embraces the ability to open up the relationships between your employees, your culture, your customers, and your products. It is not just a set of tools but also a way of thinking about how everyone who touches your company learns and interacts with information and information sharing. In this presentation I made for CLO magazine, I present factors to consider when creating an ecosystem and also ways of approaching the conversations around ecosystems with various groups within your organization that will have a hand or a say in what gets implemented and how that gets used.

Feel free to connect with me to discuss any or all of this as it applies to your organization!

Building a Learning Ecosystem

Reflections on DevLearn 2016

DevLearn has been a great experience this year as expected! The theme this year, creativity, was woven through all of the keynotes as well as many of the sessions that ran concurrently for three days. If you are an Instructional Designer or Technologist, you should strongly consider attending this conference. It's filled with new ideas, interesting perspectives, and a whole lot of learning-nerdy people to spend your day happily talking about your passions: coding, learning, instructional objectives, cool ways to create graphics, data and analytics about learning, virtual classrooms... and on and on. Awesome!



The keynote presentations were also from creative areas: Penn Jillette the amazing magician, Maxwell Planck from Oculus Rift, Tony DeRose from Pixar, and Karen McGrane from Bond Art & Science. Each of these fascinating presentations focused on things that explored the notion of  developing and using creativity within constraints. Penn Jillete talked a lot about being true to a story by allowing the participant to build it in their own imagination with your guidance and the lie that is the truth of a story. Maxwell Planck introduced us to a new way of thinking about looking at the world. It is an interesting idea that one can exist in the real world at the same time as ring immersed in in another experience. Those who are deeply into immersive games might not find it hard to understand this idea. Tony DeRose talked about how things that seem unconnected to each other in the traditional sense or the 'school' sense are actually part of the same thing. He demonstrated this by showing us how some of the best and most interesting art to come out of Pixar is actually only possible because of math that we started learning in our high school years. People don't usually connect art and math together but at Pixar they are dependent on each other. Karen McGrane spent time with us talking about delivering experiences in a thoughtful way thinking about the content in a way that will allow us to deliver a better experience paired with design and delivery details to make the content truly responsive and potentially tailored to the learner's context.

The interesting thing about becoming a part of this community is the way we build upon each other's successes. Just like the keynotes, many of the participants in this conference commented and demonstrated their commitment to thinking about every day things in a new way, creatively solving problems, and collaborating with both very experienced learning people and new ones. This is a key feature of the conference. People came here from all over the world (seriously, some even came from Singapore!) to work together! Even those attending solo had a way to connect with others so as not to eat alone, run alone or think alone (unless they wanted to of course!)

This conference is an affirmation of our professionalism as learning professionals and is a call to continue to build our community and exercise our ability to work together to solve problems. We may not be performing surgery or deep strategic planning - we are teaching it! Our responsibility to develop learning in a way that will allow adults everywhere to grasp their work and their own responsibilities is an important one and we will have to be more and more creative as we go along in order to help build a better working and living community, wherever we are.

Observations from Ecosystems 2015 Conference Orlando

Having spent three valuable days with colleagues from the eLearning Guild at the EcoSystems Conference, I have a better understanding of what I might define as an ecosystem for learning. I would say there are three ways of looking at an ecosystem:

1. Technology and Infrastructure
2. People and Workflow
3. Content Input and Output

I think it's important to note that while we are approaching this from the perspective of learning it would be narrow-minded to believe that this is the only angle we should be looking at an ecosystem. If we are to truly build an environment for employees to live, grow, and develop their expertise, themselves, and the organization's goals we need to collaborate with the other groups within our organization that also share our common purpose.  Here's my observations about the three perspectives above.

1. Technology and Infrastructure

Systems that track and reward employees should talk to each other where there is a need to consider the data flow a continuum for the workflow, employees and reporting, in order to provide meaningful stories and information for business planning. Examples of systems that should be connected could be those in human resources management (performance, talent management, recruiting, payroll, learning) and other systems that help to manage information like performance support systems, knowledge repositories and communication portals that connect employees to experts as needed.

These systems should record data in a way that data scientists can help to make meaningful and relevant stories for those who do not have data and analysis expertise. Notice I haven't said provide data in reporting; that is intentional. I don't think that an ecosystem should narrowly define information as 'reporting' because sometimes it isn't the data but the trends one needs to develop and observe. More than exact data, correlative information that can help tell the story of an employee's performance and development is often more relevant in helping them to progress and achieve their work goals.

Technology that should also be included  might also include systems that are used to measure other human-interface business metrics. Examples of this might be elements of pipeline or portfolio management, error rates, billable hours, client satisfaction ratings, or complaints customers or peers.

2. People and Workflow

There is a storm brewing in learning and development that is miles away but still coming. I am referring to the blowback from the desire to measure every click, action and reference someone in a workplace makes to better themselves and their colleagues and the need to understand that an autonomous human being has to be able to operate without the constant observation of their supervisor or employer. As we move from having our X and Y generations occupy the bulk of employment demographics, we will see an increase in the desire for the next generation (what are they called, Z?) to preserve their privacy and autonomy. Trends are already being seen in the exit of this generation of people from places like Facebook and other data mining environments. While we may be wishing to record (for the benefit of employees and recognition) all instances of learning, it is called 'informal' for a reason! The inclusion of new learning recognition with standards that include xAPI and CMI5 will certainly help us track those learning opportunities and activities that we genuinely believe to be learning but can't be tracked in something like an LMS. These standards will also help to make the tracking of these activities more automated by recording the acquisition of a magazine article, a blog post, or a contribution to a discussion board directly to the system LRS as the employee does them, rather than having the employee formally track their activities in a portfolio or development plan. But what about genuinely informal learning and the genuine wish to not have everything tracked to allow for lateral thinking and innovation? Workflow and people in the ecosystem has to allow for some 'outside the walls' activities as well in order for the ecosystem to be voluntarily engaged.

When looking at how people work and interact with the world around them, it is very important to map actual workflow and groups who will interact in such a way that impacted groups (HR, technology, sales, C-Level) understand how their changes cause changes in other places in the workflow. (Sprout Labs has a great set of resources for this if you're interested, including a Learning Model Canvas)

3. Content Input & Output

Content into the ecosystem might come from learning and development course completions and assessments, from talent profiles and from mapping of role competencies to skills and tasks in a performance system. Content should also come anecdotally and informally from expert blogs and contributions, discussion boards to share best practice and centres of excellence (or competency) to provide standards and templates for exemplars of performance. 

Content out of the ecosystem might be reporting and metrics from individual systems or might be data  stories (aggregated and correlated information) in a dashboard or data visualization system.

What is important to understand is that whatever is contributed to the system (input) has to be of sufficient quality that it will be useful to measure and report on once people interact with the systems and workflow. Just like learning content, a snazzy display can't help really boring or inaccurate information - it remains inaccurate or boring but in a nice display. 

I think this is the most important piece to consider when looking at an ecosystem - the inputs and output. It is important when starting to map the systems and workflows to understand where the data is coming from and to build good data going in. To this end, it makes it imperative that all of the stakeholders be considered and brought in to consult and collaborate before making the move in only one area (in this case, learning) to an ecosystem perspective. 

Creating an ecosystem within a learning organization

One year ago today the organization I work for held it's collective breath as we flipped the switch and moved to a new Human Resources and Learning Management system. For the first time the two were connected together; employees find themselves in both systems with the same hierarchical structures and activities. We didn't lose anyone, we didn't lose any payroll entries! All in all it was generally a success. For the first time, we have the opportunity to connect people, learning, performance, and compensation. 

So what have we learned and what do we still need to learn or grow into?

First, as a conservative organization, we are slowly learning how to make the systems work together from the 'people development' perspective. We, like all organizations, have made mistakes in believing that a new technology is 'the' answer to whatever misses or issues with learning offerings. This is the case here as well. 

Technology alone isn't the answer to making a system work. We are continuing to hear (and starting to hear anew from some) that the system (the LMS, the performance management system, etc) isn't solving problems because the systems are.. fill in the blank. True. All of it. To make the system work, you as a human need to do that work to connect your people and their activities and use the technology to record their activities. The technology isn't the system; the people are the system and the technology is a tool.

Second, we have to think more about how the real life activities of individuals contributes to their development as much as the formal learning systems we've put in place. As I've mentioned earlier, workplace learning is more than simply plunking people down into a classroom or having them complete projects for their development. Workplace learning is developing an environment (eLearning Guild and others would call is an ecosystem) where formal, informal and accidental learning is made available to help employees get better at their roles, find a place in the community that is the organization, and move the organization's goals forward. This is more than structuring classrooms, eLearning, on-the-job activities, mentoring, and performance tools for an individual. This is about purposefully creating a community from the employees' perspectives and creating spaces where opportunities to grow, connect and practice are available. Technology systems can help provide locations and structures, but they can't create environments - organizations have to do that on purpose.

Finally, I think the team I worked with has started to learn about the strength and power of saying 'no' to things that aren't a fit to the technology. We've started to learn that there is strength in considering the differences between what we can do and what we should do. A technology system has purpose-built functionality and we are learning to work collaboratively with our partners and vendors to find ways to work within the technology and find new technologies to support requirements that our learning partners have which don't fit with this system. We aren't ignoring or MacGuyvering the system; we are finding new ways to help our learning partners accomplish their goals. So we are learning too!

This shift in technology, in design thinking for building a learning ecosystem, and the literal move of millions of pieces of data has made quite a year. We birthed the baby and now it's sleeping through the night. Next year it will grow and develop; I hope we can keep up!

Shifting design thinking to true workplace learning

Over the past year I have been helping people make a huge paradigm shift from delivering learning in web portals and through other singular delivery channels to a more blended approach to learning design and delivery. While doing this conversion I have been struck by the level of repetition within learning programs and the embracing of whatever trend or fad seemed to have popped up on the usual national industry sites for that year. It was almost like looking through the strata of earth to see each major shift in learning design. The one enduring thing about the learning I've seen though is the consistent misstep of applying pedagogy instead of androgogy to learning design and delivery.

Most people, including our clients, remember learning as 'school'; whichever level they last completed. This means that most of our clients remember going to college or university, sitting through lectures with slides, textbooks, and what seemed like trick tests. Now add to that the ID's desire to make the learning 'fun' and the inundation of the tool and media people to use the latest and greatest gadget or delivery mechanism. What do you get? Well, what I saw was a well-intentioned and repetitive content dump or overly simplified activity set that missed the mark of what workplace learning is.

Workplace learning is not about 'sheep dip' or 'death by Power Point' (sorry Microsoft) or 'fun and games'. Workplace learning is about knowing who your learner is, where they are working every day, and what they have to work with to complete their tasks and meet their goals. It doesn't mean individualized learning for every person in the company or not blending a variety of tools, methods and activities to provide variety to the learning; but it also doesn't mean building for the sake of building either.

To really make the shift from what you remember learning was to what workplace learning really is, you need to build a profile of your learner. I've seen (and used) Empathy maps (Dave Gray has a great one), character profiles, 'day in the life' narratives and other tools. Building and seeing these first allows you, the learning professional, to connect with the target audience. It also allows the learning to be protected from the enthusiasm of the subject matter expert's desire to teach the learner everything, and allows the business to see the value in application of the learning.

Building a profile of how the worker gets to work and what their goals are in doing their job also allows you as the learning professional to get a sense of how much time and what priorities drive everyday decisions. I have built training for forklift drivers, sales professionals, high school principals and leaders of giant companies. I don't know how to do those jobs, but as a learning professional, knowing how they do those jobs, what kind of time they have, and what helps and hurts their accomplishments helps me choose the delivery method, quantity and variety of learning that I choose to build. It also helps me help my sponsor (the management or other group actually paying for the learning) understand how to situate the new task or concept that the learning is supposed to deliver. 

So is what you remember about high school or college or university wrong in the way that it taught you? I don't know. What I do know though is that my working experience was nothing like any of those (even when I taught in a college!) so the way you learn can't be either.

More metaphors for digital cultures and the digital divide

It's a great infographic. It talks all about how digital cultures are dividing single countries (in this case the US) along more than simple education, wealth, or race lines. Of course, there are these divides, and of course one could argue that as you go down the societal privilege line, if you are black or aboriginal, poor, and don't have a great education, then you are not going to have access to the Internet, the web, the net.

But let's think about this. Digital communities are only one type of community. A fellow MOOCer showed us where he was learning this week (in a pub in Ireland - go +Jamie Simms and +Melody Polson!) and I have to admit I was waiting in the dentist's office for my appointment. The pub is probably as good an example as any to use as a metaphor for digital cultures and learning. Not everyone can get into a pub and stay there - you have to obey the rules (don't spit on the floor for example), you must have a reason to stay (someone interesting is singing, all your friends are there, beer), and you have to have the blessing of the pub owner (you have to be spending money). For generations people have been living and learning together in informal places such as pubs because they can learn from each other and they can collaborate to solve problems. In a pub you will learn and solve problems with people you know but it's also been my experience that you will learn from those you don't as well.

So back to digital cultures and learning. A digital culture is one more type of pub. People will congregate and problem solve (see kickstarter and other crowdsourcing locations), people will rally and add information to topics (see reddit and all the anonymous groups) and people will learn from each other and teach one another (hallelujiah YouTube and Vimeo!) The problem is, learning in a digital environment has a price, like a pub, and it isn't for everyone. A pub is good if you drink in public, if you like lots of people and potentially lots of noise, if you are the right age, economic status, race, religion... I could go on. A digital learning environment is a lot like that. It isn't a park. It isn't free and that's why it will never be a great equalizer like the ads we saw in class this week. (Did you notice the ultra anglo environments by the way in both commercials?)

I personally don't think you have to live or learn in a digital environment to get the most out of the world but I do think you have to have agency to make that choice on your own. If we are going to do one thing as a healthy privileged lot of educators, we need to work on helping those around us who don't have a choice to get in or who don't even know its an option to have that opportunity. #EDCMOOC

eLearning and anthropology connections

eLearning and Digital Cultures MOOC

So this course has begun by asking us to examine utopia and dystopia with regard to the concepts around technology in education. I'm reminded of two things that I haven't thought about in a long time. The first is my experiences as a linguistic anthropology student in my undergrad days. The second was this guy:


http://www.startrek.com/database_article/data

For those of you not familiar, this is Mr. Data from the American television show, Star Trek the Next Generation. Data is a character who is an Android; modeled after a human and built (or born) to be as human as possible. In fact, he displays all of the aspects of human behaviour and many of human thinking. Data can create, can reason, can develop and share his opinion, can make friends and have emotion-based relationships. Data represents a utopian view of human technological advances. He is the 'better' human because he doesn't age, he is symmetrical and evenly proportioned (which passes consistently for attractive). He is also kind, artistic (in his own way) and thoughtful toward the people about whom he cares. The thing is though, from Mr. Data's perspective, his personal internal existence is an eternal dystopia.

Mr Data is trapped in an endless loop of wanting to really be human. He approaches human in so many ways and demonstrates so much humanity you might wonder how close he really needs to be to truly be human. But he isn't; and this is the dissatisfier. He can't tell jokes. He can't feel extremes or emotions. From our perspective, the technology is perfect; from inside the sentient being, it is otherwise.

Which brings me to the second thing I thought of: the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis and Occam's razor. According to the Sapir-Worf hypothesis, people who speak a language together share a similar worldview because their ideas and the expression of those ideas is governed, limited, and moulded by the language they use. Following this, the translation of ideas from one language to another is relative to the shared worldview of the different language speakers. Essentially, people's language cloaks the information and ideas in relative terms.

What does this mean for Mr. Data, technology and education?

Educational technology can be seen as the savior of education by providing ideas and opportunities for many more people to share ideas and multiples of opinions and new creations. But it can also be seen as a limiter by only showing people what someone has deemed appropriate, linked, and 'close' to the work environment or the 'real' world. For the creators of this learning, like the people that Mr. Data works and lives with, it is good enough. Their perception of learning from within their experience as experts, learning designers, subject matter experts, etc. the training delivery, performance support and activities are going to bring about change to benefit both learner and environment. From within the learning experience though, the pre-determination of what is being taught in which format can limit and feel like something is missing, something is almost like the real work world... but not quite the same. Technology can limit how a person thinks about what they are learning.

We can't just believe that technology (from immersive simulations to paper support tools) is going to solve a learning problem. We also can't believe that the introduction of new technology or changes in how learners access learning opportunities is going to disrupt or limit a learner's opportunity. The focus really has to be on the learner; on Mr. Data. Helping the learner to construct a new reality and perhaps shift their mindset to apply information and create new meaning for themselves.

#edcmchat