stickylearning

TEDxMelbourne - a great day of learning!

A quick post to review today's excellent TEDx day. For those who don't know of TEDx or TED, a quick explanation. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design and is an event originally held in the US where notable thinkers spoke in these three areas spoke to other (invited) like-minded people in a spirit of "Ideas worth spreading". In more recent times talks have themselves spread beyond the three original areas to now encompass innovative and important ideas from any area and the talks themselves are now available free to anyone who wishes to watch and listen at TED.com. 

TEDx is related to the original TED but is local and smaller. For example today I attended TEDxMelbourne, an event with a limit of around 100 attendees, at a TEDx day the format is that there are videos of TED talks and live talks, after each talk attendees break into small groups to discuss the ideas brought up by the talk. This format really appeals to me as it really mirrors what I do with this blog and my reading, I like to bring ideas from diverse disciplines together to then exert influence on how I think about what I do, learning and education.

And so to today's event. (with some of my own and others ideas scattered through - it is really what TEDx is all about, it gets you thinking!)

Introduced by Warwick Merry and Rod Sherwin we were told to expect to be "out of our comfort zone" and that whilst we could listen to some of the talks at home the benefit here was that we could then discuss our ideas with others. We were then shown a brief intro to the TEDx concept by Chris Anderson (curator of TED). And so it began....

First up was a video talk by Juan Enriquez. This was filmed in the US at the height of gloom and doom about the credit crisis and the talk begins with a quick review of where things were at in the US (summary not good!) He then used this as a counterpoint to highlight the upside of the future, human's use of science to 'improve' our own biology. That is through our mastery of science we will not just control nature but also control human evolution. My take - yes we are gaining control of a whole lot of new things but in many ways it is just an extension of what human's have done for millennia, agriculture, urbanisation, industrial revolution and so on. For me change is just what happens, I'm an optimist. I'm not meaning that there won't be major challenges and questions to answer about our use of technology, however I believe that human's will work their way trough these issues and then move on again.

The next talk was excellent - Temple Grandin - speaking about how the world needs all kinds of minds. So many good points and a great talk, Temple has autism and as she describes it this means that she has a 'specialist mind', not great at everything but excellent within certain spheres. She describes how she thinks strongly in pictures and how she sees the world in quite a different way to many other people - but she doesn't see this as a problem, but rather as different. In fact the point of here whole talk is that it is the variety in people that provides strength, or as she says, "the world needs all kinds of minds". There is a bit of Ken Robinson in what she says, lamenting the pigeon-holing that occurs in education today. A super talk and well-worth the time to listen to it!

Now we went to the first 'in person' talk of the day - it's good to have a mix of video and live!

Pat Naughtin, who runs a consultancy called Metrication Matters, spoke about the costs and benefits of metrication, or the lack thereof! A one person said afterwards, he didn't imagine that he'd ever be interested in a topic such as this, but the really enjoyed it! A fair point I reckon! Pat is a very good speaker, throwing in a good dose of dry humour along the way. The key point of his talk was that where people don't use metric measurements (mainly the US!) thee are huge financial and other costs associated with this, examples quote included deaths in medical errors, some due to confusion over non-metric measures. The key point I think though is that Pat's talk was about simplicity and communicating this clearly and unambiguously. He showed a slide with 199 words/measures that have been used to describe energy during climate change debates in recent times. How can anyone be expected to really understand science when people trying to explain it use so many different words and measures to try to describe something. It becomes impossible to really understand. Science must use simpler statistics if they hope to clearly understand climate science!

After a very enjoyable Korean lunch with 4 other TEDx attendees the next speaker (again in person) was Mauricio Buchler. Mauricio spoke about education - obviously close to my heart! he demonstrated an online virtual world he's been working on to assist with English language learning (see here). Mauricio also spoke of his frustration with the education system and passionless teachers, a tricky question really. What comes first? Do people enter teaching with no passion or does it disappear later on? My view is more often than not the latter and it is this that needs to be addressed. Mauricio also believes that passion must be an entry marker for prospective teachers (but how to keep the passion).

Mauricio also spoke of how he believes learning should be fun. OK, my view, yes pretty much, but sometimes more than this it needs to engage learners, this mightn't always look like 'fun' but learners are 'loving' the learning (if you understand what I mean?)

The TEDx day finished with a brace of 3 short videos arounf the theme of success.

First was Richard St John with his 8 keys to success - only 3 minutes long, short and to the point. 

Our next video was Derek Sivers - a really interesting talk that shows that there is more than one way of looking at things. What is true and obvious to me is not to another person. I liked his example of how in most Western countries city blocks are the un-named places between streets, whereas in Japan it is reversed, streets are the un-named places that surround blocks. If this confuses you watch the video, t's only 2 minutes long!

The very last video was of Joachim de Posada speaking on really interesting research that links the concept of delayed gratification (in childhood) with later success in life as adults. He shows humourous footage of experiments with children trying to resist the temptation of eating a marshmallow that was put in front of them (they were told not to eat it). I must say that I'd not do well in such a test, now or back when I was a child. Could there seriously be a link between this and later success? Perhaps it has got something to do with the ability to focus. To resist eating the marshmallow a child must keep the thought of not eating it foremost in their mind, they are able to focus their attention. Back in Richard St John's talk he certainly listed focus as a key element of success! (along with persistence)

And so the day ended. I really enjoyed the day. Warwick and Rod were right, I was (happily) "out of my comfort zone" and on top of that I got the chance to meet people in person whom I'd only ever tweeted with, met others for the first time entirely, found many others who read similar books to myself (see my book ideas here) and thought about things I certainly don't normally do on a Saturday. Thanks to all who helped organise the day, I look forward o the next!

Why do we label learning?

OK, this is a post written as I'm thinking. I was just reading comments from my post on Autonomous/Formal/Informal Learning and thought I'd put some of my thoughts down in a post as they come! Let's see how it goes?

My thinking is this - formal/informal/autonomous/individual - they are all labels, descriptive in their own way. Part of the problem though is that they may all mean slightly different things to different people. And, if you are speaking to an employer and are extolling the benefits of informal learning - one, they want/need a definition - two, they want to know how it works - and three, it just seems to add to the other 'boxes' of 'types' of learning that exist.

As I said I'm writing on the fly, what I mean is this (quick break to make a diagram).

OK, on the right is a crude picture representing the current arrangement. A small box of formal learning and a larger box of informal learning exists within the circle that represents all activity within a workplace. 

Most businesses, it is probably fair to say, focus on the red formal box. The business may then be introduced to the concept and benefits of informal learning, another box is introduced.

Whilst the box sizes may not be accurate, my point is that putting learning into boxes, no matter what size, colour or name still creates a separation - learning/business operations.

And here's my point, maybe to change the perception of business away from learning as an event, or as a function separate to business activity we, (that is, learning professionals, L&D consultants, ID's, whatever we call ourselves) should drop all labels and only speak of learning. 

Let's just say that when anyone is at work, they are learning, it should look more like this diagram.

Basically, if you are at work, you are learning. Sometimes you might need to go to an organised activity but most of the time you're just getting better at doing your job.

The move from diagram one to two is really about behavioural and cultural change. Once a business has made this shift all learning modes are available to be combined to meet any operational need.

You need to change HOW people think. Learning doesn't happen in boxes, learning is what we do ALL the time. 

So, there is my post on the fly. I'll probably read it tomorrow and not be entirely happy, but I reckon the guts of it is OK. The key change is to see that learning is integrated within the very nature of what all workers do whilst at work, it isn't formal or informal, it isn't an added extra or something separate, it is learning. And...(you mightn't like this!)....perhaps one good place to demonstrate this is by NOT having a separate learning department. 

Exploring the learning landscape

In my previous post I asked the question, 'Is Autonomous Learning the same as Informal Learning?' I'd been reading Daniel Pink's new book Drive and my mind had turned to thinking about autonomy, learning and motivation. The post itself was a fair reflection of this thought, but not the end. Over the last week I've kept being drawn back to questions about, and relationships between, informal/formal/autonomous learning.

This led me to doodle a new thought:

In my post on autonomous learning I had looked mainly at who was in control of the learning, in fact I defined Autonomous Learning as: "you are in control of what you learn, where you learn and with whom you do the learning". Generally however, the difference between formal vs informal learning is defined in terms of how structured the learning is, for example, whether a set curriculum exists.

Now look again at my doodle. I've now combined both these variables, on the vertical axis is control and on the horizontal axis is structure. I think it leads to a range of interesting conclusions and applications for amplifying the impact of informal learning within businesses. I'll start however by clarifying what I mean by structure and control.

Structure

When I think of learning in structured settings I see learning that includes:

• assessable outcomes
• detailed curriculum
• defined learning outcomes
• formalised learning materials
• set order of 'learning'

On the other end of the scale, learning with no structure includes none of these characteristics.

Of course, the horizontal axis of structure is a continuum, so that all levels of structure in learning may exist.

Control

In terms of control, at one end of the scale I saw a place where decisions about what someone learnt were made entirely by someone other than the learner, I called this extrinsic control. At it's extreme, it's a situation where decisions regarding learning participation lies in someone else's hands, indeed participation in learning may be 'compulsory'. For example you are told that you will be completing the company's Leadership Programme. Extrinsic control may also be less transparent, for example it may be, 'if you do this....then I'll give you this." It may even include rewards for achieving business KPI's, for example, "if you can figure out a way of increasing sales by 10% you get $$$$!"

In this last case the 'how' of reaching the target is up to you, but your motivation is tied to the $$$ - control still sits with another person. So, in this case, the structure is loose but control exists.

If one end of the control scale is extrinsic, then the other must be intrinsic control. I see this as a place where decisions about what is learnt, how you learn, when you learn, why you learn, where you learn and with whom you learn sit entirely with the learner.

Again, the vertical axis of control is a continuum, so that all levels of control in learning may exist.

The Learning Landscape

When you put all this together you get an interesting result, you are able to map all types of learning across the landscape, from structured, company specific workshops on the one hand through to autonomous exploration and play - and everything in between.

I've mapped out a whole range of different learning scenarios in the diagram below. In each case I've placed items according to how I assessed the structure and control of each item in a typical (fictitious) business, of course in your own situation you may decide that there is more/less control/structure in your own workplace and the items may be placed somewhat differently. It doesn't matter, what does matter is that you are now able to map all learning in your business onto this landscape.

I've numbered 5 examples to discuss further - let's look at what these show.

1. University/College courses selected by the learner. These are courses strong on curriculum and set outcomes, in many senses this is 'formal' learning, but the choice to undertake the learning is sitting with the learner. They are paying, doing the learning in their own time for their own reasons. The business the learner works for has no control over what happens but they may end up being a beneficiary! The benefits for the learner will vary upon their motivation for undertaking the learning, the business however will gain the windfall of new knowledge and insights.

2. Company newsletters. The information contained within newsletters in controlled by the business, the structure is generally fairly freeform. People do learn from information contained in newsletters but the learning is quite informal.

3. Internal social networks. There is generally some structure underlying social sites within businesses, rules of engagement, layout, use and so forth. Participation in social sites is however generally up to the individual so control is low.

4. Compulsory eLearning courses/workshops within your business. We could safely say that this area represents the traditional concept of formal learning.

5. Reading blogs. Generally pretty unstructured learning and in most instances the decision to read blogs is up to the individual.

(You can see that I've added many other examples as well. Can you think of any other type of learning activity that I haven't placed? If so have a go at adding it. I can't imagine any type of learning that won't fit within this learning landscape.)

What is the use of all this?

Try this activity. Print out a blank copy of the Learning Checklist and the Learning Landscape . Use the checklist to rate the control/structure of each item then map your results onto the blank Learning Landscape. (I've been finding it easiest to do this stage all on a whiteboard, though it would also work well as a team activity if you used post-it notes to help you move things around depending upon team input)

Once you've done this you will have created your business's current learning landscape. What does it look like, any surprises? Here are some of my guesses as to what you may have found!

A. Your team find ways of learning that you were not aware of!

B. There are some gaps, let's call them deserts on your learning landscape.

C. The activity has got you thinking......'what if I could help change deserts to rainforests?' Imagine if my team were learning across this full landscape!

You will also be left with many questions!

Where to from here?

I've realised that this topic is too big for a single blog post and there are many areas I'd like to keep thinking on!

So, over the next week or so I will continue to explore this model. I've already got a series of topics in mind to run with including:

• Challenges created by the learning landscape
• Benefits for businesses of intrinsically motivated learning
  
• Control and motivation - carrots and sticks
  
• Where are we now...where would we like to be?- designing a learning landscape to deliver results
  
• There is no map
  
• You're the learner - build your own learning landscape
  
• Way-showers and learning

I hope they get you thinking!

Autonomous Learning - is it the same as informal learning?

Formal learning and informal learning. I get the idea here, there is learning that is structured and there is learning that happens outside of structured environments. Marcia Conner's explanation of informal learning is a good starting point in understanding the thinking underlying informal learning. I have also written previously on informal learning in these three posts:

• Informal/Social Learning - Concertina Style
• Permission Learning - encouraging the informal
• Fish are the last to recognise water = informal learning
  

As you can see I've used the term, informal learning myself, however, my question in this post is....

Is the term, informal learning, the best description of non-formal learning?

Jay Cross, author of the book 'Informal Learning', says:

"In my book, formal learning has a curriculum: informal learning does not. Hence, exploration is generally informal, i.e. at the will of the learner rather than the teacher. This is not always true since all learning is part formal and part informal. If I'm told to explore a cave in order to earn a merit badge, is that formal or informal? It's a little bit of both." (also look at his video explaining informal learning)

OK, Jay Cross knows more (alot more) about informal learning than yours truly, however I want to ask, is there is a another (better?) way of defining and separating formal learning from non-formal learning? I'm wondering whether instead of focussing on whether a curriculum exists in order to separate formal/informal, a clearer delineation could be achieved by simply focussing upon who controls the learning.

I'm not just trying to be divisive here, I think it is possible that a term other than 'informal' may better describe non-formal learning. I just ask you to stay with me for now and then let me know what you think when you've finished reading!

How I started thinking about this!

I have just finished reading Daniel Pink's latest book, Drive. (also one of my book's of the month) To start with the book is a good read, I like the way Dan writes, a book filled with stories, learning that is easy to digest. I'll 'borrow' the 'Twitter Summary' of the book to give you an idea of it's main premise:

"Carrots & sticks are so last century, Drive says for 21st century work, we need to upgrade to autonomy, mastery and purpose"

Drive is all about motivation, what makes people want to do things? Carrots and Sticks represent the way things are in most workplaces, that is, 'if you do this....then you'll get this', a world focussed upon extrinsic motivation. Dan Pink presents evidence of another approach, one that focusses upon a person's intrinsic need for autonomy, mastery and purpose in what they do. He believes this is the way of the future.

I'm not going to fully review the ideas in the book here (I recommend you buy it), instead I'll use the book as a platform for my thoughts on formal/non-formal learning. In reading Drive, I was struck by the clear links between formal learning and extrinsic motivation on the one hand, and informal learning and intrinsic motivation on the other hand.

You see, after reading the book I think that 'Autonomous Learning' better describes non-formal learning than the term 'Informal Learning' does.

So, what is autonomous learning?

Firstly, look up any definition of informal learning (for example, here on wikipedia) and simply replace the word informal with autonomous. OK, that's easy, but I think the term autonomous learning actually adds real meaning and value. Here is my short definition:

Autonomous learning: you are in control of what you learn, where you learn and with whom you do the learning.

There is a clear difference here from what is termed formal learning but it also better describes the process of learning 'informally'. It is in essence a difference of control. Formal learning is controlled by 'somebody' else, autonomous learning is controlled by you.

Your views?

What do you think? Does formal vs autonomous learning do a better job than formal vs informal? Would it just be easier to modify the definition of formal/informal learning to include the concept of control? For me, I'm currently sold on the concept of autonomous learning and am already thinking through another post that spins off this. I'll be interested in your views!

PresentationZen Design - Review

Garr Reynolds' new book, PresentationZen Design, is his follow-up to his first book, PresentationZen of 2008. His first book was in many ways a summary of Garr's presentation style, looking at presentation preparation, design and delivery. I suppose it is no surprise that his second book expands on one key area from his first book, slide design - I say it is no surprise because it is Garr's design style that most defines him. If you already have his first book, this new book is really chapters 5, 6 & 7 expanded, however don't take this as a negative, what Garr has done here is to write a whole book about slide design.So what should you expect from a book that's subtitled, 'Simple Design Principles and Techniques to Enhance Your Presentations'?

Design Matters

The title of the first chapter gives you a good idea of the focus of the book - Design Matters. As most people who create slides for learning and presentations are not trained designers, Garr takes us on a journey through his design thinking, drawing heavily on the Zen design traditions of his adopted home, Japan.

It is clear that design matters a lot to Garr....

and quoting the designer Donald Norman,

I mean if it was all about content, why have live presentations and workshops? You may as well just send out pages of text and let people read it themselves! Slide design is Garr's passion, and to be honest, thank heavens it is, because his approach to presentation slide design may just save us all from having to sit through another slideshow chock-a-block full of bullets, complicated charts, corny clipart and flying text!

So what does PresentationZen Design teach us that will improve the design of our slides. The book is divided into three key sections:

  

Components

In this section the book covers the often ignored importance of Typefaces, particularly the choice of type and it's placement on the slide. Next Garr looks at Communicating with Colour. In addition to looking at some expected terms related to colour and it's use, for example hue, value, saturation, colour combinations, emotional connections and colour choices, Garr brings in aspects from the Zen aesthetic through a lesson in Sumi-e. In Using Images and Video to Tell Stories we enter the area that in many ways defines the PresentationZen style, the use of full screen images to complement and strengthen the spoken and written message - I particularly liked this area! Area covered here again include some technical aspects of image creation and editing as well as reviewing 10 things to avoid when using images. Finally in the component section Garr looks at how best to Simplify Data, how charts can communicate and indeed miscommunicate key messages, I know from experience that many presentations use charts that are barely readable, with far too much data, if all presentations followed the advice given here there would be less sleepy and bored learners and audience members!

Principles

So many slides used in presentations and workshops are full of text, bullet points, charts, and data. 

The first part of this section looks at Seeing and Using Space, beginning with a lesson in the Japanese art of flower design, Ikebana. Garr looks at the importance of white space, symmetrical/asymmetrical balance, Gestalt theory and the importance of 'less is more'. 

The use of focal points in slide design is illustrated through the Japanese room design feature known as a Tokonoma, in essence this part of the book, Creating Purpose and Focus, is about how to ensure the audience's eyes move see what you want them to see. Too often there is too much clutter on slides overloading the brains ability to focus on what is important, indeed once overloaded it is likely that no information will be retained, so less is actually more. 

Finally the section looks at Achieving Harmony in your slide design. Here Garr looks at the 'rule of thirds' and grids in general when aligning aspects of our slides and working to connect the various elements to create balance and harmony. Garr must adore his food, because he loves a Bento Box, I've seen photos of his lunches uploaded via Twitter on more than one occasion! There is a point however, Garr sees harmony in a Bento Box, a balance of flavours, colours, sizes - doesn't food always taste better when it looks good!

Here's an example from my lunch yesterday!

The Journey

Finally Garr provides pages of examples of great Slide Samples that illustrate the principles outlined throughout the book. It is always good to see examples, as just as the book reminds us, visual messages trump the written word. 

The book concludes with a chapter on Continuous Improvement, a good way to end, reminding readers that improving your slide design is a journey not a destination, that through continually learning from the lessons that are all around you - Billboards, Advertising, TV, brochures, package design - your slide design will continue to improve.

Finally I really liked how the book was scattered with 'guest appearances' from Nancy Duarte, David Rose, Maureen C. Stone, John McWade and Scott Kelby. They add further information and another perspective to the book.

The Conclusion

If you want to design slides that engage your learners/audience this book is the one, it must be on your book shelf!. If you live near me, that is Australia, the book is rather hard to find, (I got my copy via Amazon, click here to get to Amazon), but that's no real drama at least you won't have to drive around looking for it, it's only a few clicks away!

10 Best (Learning) Books of 2009

After my longest break away from the stickylearning blog I thought a good place to begin was by reviewing the 10 books that I got the most from during 2009. When writing blog posts I draw ideas from a pretty wide range of areas and my reading over the last year has been equally wide. If you haven't seen or read all the books in the list, I can highly recommend all of them!

1 The Designful Company

A clear winner for my best 2009 book! Marty Neumeier's book has had me coming back to re-read bits of it time and time again and has definitely influenced how I view design in learning. I think this should be a must read for anyone involved in learning!

2 Delivering E-Learning

Kenneth Fee's book was a timely read for me in 2009! With a clear focus upon elearning strategy I found Kenneth's approach towards learning design refreshing, up-to-date and it fitted well with how I see learning moving in the future.

3 a fine line

a fine line continued my reading in 2009 around design, not specifically learning design in this case. This is an easy book to read with clear explanations of Esslinger's design approaches with clear applications for learning design.

4 The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs

This book by Carmine Gallo should be added to your shelf along with recent books by Garr Reynolds and Nancy Duarte. Like it or not powerpoint and other slideware is used in many learning environments. This book is a must read for anyone involved in facilitating learning workshops, it is chock full of useful tips!

5 Six Pixels of Separation

Mitch Joel's book fits the times well, increasingly we are becoming more connected through a myriad of online tools. Without a doubt this will is already influencing how people learn and will continue to effect learning environments into the future.

6 Twitter Power

I've included this book because it really helped me understand the potential of Twitter for my own personal learning and for learning in general. If you haven't used Twitter, or would like to get more from it, this is a great book to read.

7 Design Thinking

Edited by Thomas Lockwood, this book brings together 23 chapters by a range of design experts focussing upon integrating innovation, customer experience and brand value (all important from a learning design perspective).

8 The Backchannel

Cliff Atkinson, also author of the presentation skills book, 'Beyond Bullet Points', has written about what we all see in conferences, workshops and learning environments - The Backchannel. Increasingly learners share their thoughts on workshops with others via social networking sites such as Twitter. Whilst this backchannel can provide another learning tool it also has the potential interfere with learning. Cliff's book provides great ideas on how to accentuate the positive and minimise the less desirable aspects of the backchannel. We can't ignore that this new channel exists so we must learn to use it to assist learning!

9 Ignore everybody

40 creative ideas bundled up together, quick to read, and it gets your mind thinking (and we all need to get our minds thinking!)

10 Pow! Right Between the eyes!

Not your average choice for a top 10 book list on a learning blog! OK, true, but, Andy Nulman's book is really worth a read. I have his ideas in the back of my mind whenever I'm designing new learning materials and programs. Simply put, we don't remember boring things!

(10+1)the art of the idea

And just because I couldn't leave this book out, it expands my top 10 list just a little! A simple, visually beautiful book with 20 thought provoking observations. The book also shows the importance of the visual, each observation is accompanied by a graphic. The ideas work better with the visual (always worth remembering when designing learning materials!

In the next week I'll add a new post that looks at the books to put on your reading list for 2010, I've already had three new year deliveries and expect 2010 to be a great book reading year!

Online social networks, learning and viral expansion loops

It's just about Christmas time and now is the time of end of year catch ups and Christmas parties. The most common question at these is, 'so what have you been up to lately?" I respond, 'well I'm becoming more and more interested in the use of social media and microblogging for learning', I then get puzzled looks that say, "too much time on your hands", "what is he talking about?" and they nod politely! Some go as far as to put words to their thoughts with "isn't that sort of thing just for bored celebrities?"

Well, maybe that's what bored celebrities do, who knows? For me though I see a real role for social media as a platform for business learning.

Social media - fad or forever?

I suppose I'm attracted to new ideas and approaches, I like to bring together ideas from different spaces, I like to innovate. I did however miss the first wave of social media on the net, there are many who have written blogs for 5-10 years and are a great deal more connected than I am and are across everything web2.0. So, whilst I may be a little late, I keep being reminded that there are many, many people who are a whole lot less aware of blogs, social networks, wikis, microblogging and so on than I am.

Social media - a platform for learning

This year I have become more and more interested in the use of online social networks as a platform for business learning and knowledge management. Credit where credit is due, a great deal of this increase in awareness has come through my use of Twitter (especially #lrnchat) and through a number of online social networks, such as Seth Godin's Triiibes, LearnTrends, Problogger and LinkedIn groups. As I've used each of these I've been struck by how easily this format (social sites) could be used as a platform for business learning. In fact I've written a number of posts through the year that now track the development of my thoughts on this. (Permission Learning, Fish are the last to recognise water,  Breaking the learning drought, Informal learning - it's not new)

Where are we at?

At this point in time the successful use of social networks within business is rare and the use of social networks as a platform for learning is even more rare. Why is this so?

I see there being two key challenges to overcome:

1. The first issue is that businesses are generally uncomfortable about introducing online social spaces into their workplaces. I have previously written a post addressing this point, so I won't go into detail on this again here, however it seems to have a lot to do with a 'fear' of losing 'control' of conversations.
2. Secondly, if (when) businesses do introduce social media into their workplaces, the next challenge is to encourage employees to want to use it. In my post, "Permission Learning" I looked at one angle on encouraging uptake and usage of informal learning such as social media.

The remainder of this post will be looking at one another approach to improving the adoption rates of social networks. This approach is known as 'viral expansion loops' and is a way of conceptualising how organisations can implement and build user acceptance of social networks within their businesses.

 

Adoption of social sites
The image above is familiar to anyone involved in marketing, it describes how readily a new product is adopted by people over time. Without spending too much time on this, one issue with new technologies and especially social media is that there is quite a lot of hype when the product is first launched. The Innovators talk about it and spruik its benefits, however too often it stops there and never reaches a tipping point where it's use becomes commonplace, it's use never becomes commonplace and therefore it dies a slow (or sometimes quick) death. The aim therefore must be to make sure that the use of your social site moves beyond the Innovators and Early adopters through to the majority of your employees and perhaps eventually to the laggards.

Viral Expansion Loops

I first heard of this term whilst reading Mitch Joel's excellent book, Six Pixels of Separation, I'll explain the term with a story. One day Mark Zuckerberg launched Facebook, no doubt on the first day there were only a handful of users. It looked good, but with only a few users there were only so many connections you could make. Each of these early adopters saw that if they got all their friends to join, the platform would be a great way for them to keep up with what their friends and families were doing. So these people promoted the site, more people joined. These new people saw that the site would be better if all their friends joined and from there Facebook grew and grew.The key here is that it isn't just 'word of mouth' marketing at play, users saw that their experience would be improved by having more people connected. There were clear benefits in helping to expand the loop. Facebook would never have worked if users hadn't brought in their existing networks of family and friends. It succeeded because of Viral Expansion Loops.

Building a successful social (learning) site

Now I won't go into any technical details here. Businesses are able to adopt a range of systems and platforms for social sites, you can get sites fully customised for your business or you can use existing social platforms. The way I see it, there are two important parts to a successful social platform:

• Design and
• Content

Design

Again, I won't use this post to look at everything! From a design perspective I have previously looked at putting design into learning design, and this makes sense in regards to designing a social site as well. It would also be worthwhile to consider broader graphic design concepts as well to help ensure usability and overall simplicity. I reckon Garr Reynolds' PresentationZen, site and book, are a great way of looking at the visual side of design! And I'd really recommend pre-ordering his upcoming new design book! However, whilst design is important, it isn't everything! You need compelling content if your social site is to be spread virally through your business!

Content

When all else is said and done, employees will use a site if it gives them something that they need or want. Now the question is, "but what content do they need/want?"
The short answer here is that users within a business will want content that:

• will help them do their jobs more effectively and
• lead to greater personal/business success.

That's pretty broad isn't it! (but true)

A Case Study

I'll use a multi-store medium retail store business as an example, I'll rename it (imaginatively?) "A Retailer". This business had a creative owner (we'll call him Bob) who saw the potential of a social site to improve business communication and to share great ideas around stories. He didn't really see this as 'learning' at this stage, he just thought that it seemed to make sense. He began by using the Ning platform, set it up and sent out details to his team. He didn't just build it in the hope that 'they would come'. He had already got 4 of his best store managers 'on-board', they kick-started the site by using the discussion board to ask and answer questions.
This was a retail business so some of their discussions were around:

• setting up for the mid-season catalogue (pictures were included)
• how to reduce unnecessary markdowns
• recruitment tips
• handling difficult customers

These are all important points for retailers, every retailer could use tips on these points! Each of the 4 initial users began to talk about the site with other managers, spruiking how it had helped them. Soon there were a dozen users (the retail chain had 50 stores). Use of the site grew weekly, within 6 months all store managers were signed up and in many ways the site was replacing many other communication channels (eg email). A range of key business indicators were all positive, sales were above budget, staff turnover was reduced and overall morale really seemed more positive. It was at this point that one manager said that she'd learnt more through the new site that from many training sessions she'd been to. Now Bob saw the real benefit of the site, it meant that the best ideas from his team were shared, anyone could come up with a great idea and over time the site was becoming a resource for all types of knowledge.

What is the key?

Use of the Bob's site grew through a viral expansion loop because of it's:

• Design concept - it was easy to navigate through and use
• Content - it met users needs, providing a forum to ask questions and source solutions

Most importantly however it worked because it was social. Users had pictures and profiles, they all had similar problems to solve and worked in similar environments, they were talking with people just like themselves. The site really helped to bring the team of managers within the business closer together, sharing their expertise and looking out for each other.

Where to?

At the end of the day, learning is as learning does. Social sites mightn't look like learning, however if people learn through using them then let's not complicate things, they are a learning tool. I've really only scratched the surface in this post, as social sites become more and more embedded within a business's culture and users become more familiar with the platform and technology, users begin to create their own compelling content for the site, content that moves beyond write only into read/write and the use of multimedia such as audio and visual media. As the use of such sites grows, they will be seen as an essential component of business communication. My view is that they will also be seen as a key platform for knowledge sharing, innovation and business learning!

Anchors and Twists - making learning stick

It should come as no surprise to readers of my blog that I'm a fan of the book Made to Stick by Chip and Dan Heath - I mean where did I come up with my blog's name!?

Today I was sent a link to a video from a friend in Texas (thank's Sue!) The video features Dan Heath speaking on the subject of 'Selling your Innovation". Unfortunately I'm unable to embed the video in my blog (well I could if I illegally copied it....) however just below is the link to the video. It's quite short, after watching it come back and read what I've got to say about it!

Video link: Dan Heath - "Made to Stick-Selling your Innovation"

Now, as I watched the video I was thinking, "this is similar to how learners process new ideas". Dan's key pont in the video is the importance of using an anchor and a twist.

Anchor = existing knowledge

Twist = old knowledge with a new angle.

This screenshot illustrates an example used in the video. When cars were first invented Dan Heath asks, 'how would you have described what a car was to a person who had never seen a car?' As it turns out the description that stuck was 'a horseless carriage'. Everyone already knew what a carriage was, so this became the Anchor, next a twist was added, Horseless, now people could visualise what a car might be. 

Mirror neurons

Anchor and twist, is a good analogy for how we learn and taps into recent research on a concept known as 'Mirror Neurons' (see an earlier post on this blog) In particular look at the later sections of the post looking at 'Mirror Neurons' and 'How can mirror neurons assist learning'.

Anchors, Twists and Learning

You may understand now why I like the concepts of anchor and twist. The anchor activates the mirror neuron, retrieving existing knowledge. The twist then uses existing context to build a new idea in our mind. I suppose I'm using the idea of 'anchor and twist' as I'm writing this blog post. My anchor is the video and it's take on selling innovation, my twist is to replace the term innovation with learning.

Remember anchor and twist when your designing your next learning program or writing a presentation!

Why do I write a blog?

I've been blogging for a year now, time flies! But with one year down my mind has turned to the question I'd imagine many bloggers ask themselves "Why do I write a blog?"

I've written on books I've read, webinars, design thinking, presentation skills, twitter, informal learning, personal learning spaces and more. Am I an expert on all these areas - the answer is simple, no, I am not! 

So what value is there in blogging? 

Putting fingers to keyboard and then publishing your thoughts isn't always the easiest thing to do, you do make yourself vulnerable. Some things you write may be good, some very good, some (possibly) 'utter tosh'! Everyone sees things differently!

The benefits I get from blogging

1. It encourages me to read more books and blogs
2. I need to think more about ideas when I blog about them
3. I interact with others and share ideas
4. It makes me question ideas, my own and others'
5. I think more
6. I think about things in new ways
7. I learn more
8. I become more thoughtful
9. I leave some ideas behind and take on new ones
10. I hope I get other people thinking as well!

A few months ago I saw this video (you may have seen it before) featuring Seth Godin and Tom Peters. I think this sums up why blogging is important.

For those who have read a number of my posts over the year I hope you have found ideas that have made you think differently. Many of my posts in the last year have been around the influence of design thinking on how we design successful learning. From this came my interest in Informal Learning. These two topics have been the most important things I have taken away from the last 12 months and I can only see these forming the basis for further posts into the next year!

Learning styles and fixed ideas

Where am I coming from?

Over the last few months I've read a number of blog posts about learning styles (see references at end of post). So, do learning styles indicators measure what they say they do? (for what it matters, I'm in the 'no they don't' camp) However, this post isn't so much about whether or not they do measure actual learning styles, rather I'm more interested in why people believe so strongly that learning styles indicators do in fact provide a measure of how an individual learns best.

Let's put aside our opinions for a moment!

Just for the sake of it, put aside your personal view for a moment and join me. Say to yourself, "There is no evidence that learning styles indicators actually work". Believe with me that the weight of scientific evidence is strongly behind your point of view. Now imagine that you meet another learning professional and the conversation happens to move on to learning styles. You mention that there is no evidence that learning styles indicators actually work. The person you are speaking to turns towards you with a look of questioning shock, basically they think you are mad! They say, "What do you mean? I use them all the time and they really do work!"

So we explain ourselves

You explain to your friend that you have just finished reading some papers (here and here) by a bloke named Frank Coffield and they have convinced you that what you had wondered about was true, learning styles questionnaires do not provide any indication of a learner's learning style. You suggest that they have a look and see what they think.

A week later

You meet your friend again, the first thing they say is, " I read a paper by that Coffield bloke and, 'what a load of rubbish.......'" You ask, "why?" They reply, "what a lot of scientific mumbo jumbo, I bet he's never worked a day of his life in a real classroom, what would he know........!"

Now, let's forget about learning styles for a moment

This post isn't really about learning styles. It is more about why people hang on to ideas that evidence indicates are not true. This is really the very essence of education and learning, as isn't all learning a matter of processing new ideas to replace older less well-formed ideas. It's what my 4 year old boy is doing all the time (and he's very happy and ready to throw away his 3 year old ideas for the more up to date 4 year old version). But adults are not always so ready to accommodate the new.

Back to how I started on this train of thought

Late one night a couple of weeks ago I read a series of tweets from Martin Shovel and Marion Chapsal. It began with a blog post about "The Dangers of Co-opting Scientific Explanation", (great article with some good reading in the comments as well), from there I slept on my thoughts, waking in the morning to read another excellent blog post by Simon Bostock on learning styles, "Learning Styles: fable-ous and tragic", now my mind was really working.

Where my mind went next

The beauty of the iPhone is that when you think you'd like to find out something, you can anywhere any-time. My reading late the night before had got my mind thinking of Plato's cave allegory (it's true, eating muesli, thinking Plato!) So, I looked it up on my iPhone in Wikipedia. Somewhere in my head I had thought that the belief that learning styles indicators worked was in a way similar to Plato's cave story explaining how people form ideas and beliefs through limited experienced. From wikipedia is this explanation of the cave allegory, a fictional discussion between Plato's teacher Socrates and his student Glaucon:

"Socrates begins by describing a scenario in which what people take to be real would in fact be an illusion. He asks Glaucon to imagine a cave inhabited by prisoners who have been chained and held immobile since childhood: not only are their arms and legs held in place, but their heads are also fixed, compelled to gaze at a wall in front of them. Behind the prisoners is an enormous fire, and between the fire and the prisoners is a raised walkway, along which people walk carrying things on their heads 'including figures of men and animals made of wood, stone and other materials'. The prisoners can only watch the shadows cast by the men, not knowing they are shadows. There are also echoes off the wall from the noise produced from the walkway.

Socrates asks if it is not reasonable that the prisoners would take the shadows to be real things and the echoes to be real sounds, not just the reflections of reality, since they are all they had ever seen or heard. Wouldn't they praise as clever whoever could best guess which shadow would come next, as someone who understood the nature of the world? And wouldn't the whole of their society depend on the shadows on the wall?"

I read this and thought - "yep, that fits what I was thinking!"

It does fit! When learning professionals 'use' learning styles indicators in learning environments they 'see' a result - they link this result to learning styles, so they say, "it must be true!" But really all they are seeing are Plato's shadows. If learning professionals could only  'move outside the cave' they might see that what they thought to be true was not. 

The allegory continues to describe how a prisoner leaving the cave eventually comes to see that their earlier view of reality was false and the allegory also deals with how this person's new view on reality would be received by those who remained in the cave (a hint - not well!)

Back to Learning Styles again

So, why are so called 'Learning Professionals' so caught up with a debate about whether or not learning styles indicators work to show how individuals prefer to learn? Every day we deal with learners who are tied to ideas that we have been tasked to 'develop' (ie change!), isn't all instructional and learning design about moving prisoners from the cave? The problem is though that we all want to understand reality so much that we convince ourselves that what we believe is reality. This in turn becomes even more strongly embedded when we share our 'reality' with others who also see things as we do, we now have a shared belief. "We must be right", they tell themselves, "look at all these people who agree with me!"

Just another fallacy?

At its core, isn't the learning styles indicators debate just another case of false ideas, another set of shadows? I admit here I am no philosophic scholar, however I recently some interesting thoughts on the philosophy of fallacies. All around us are fallacies that some people believe strongly in! Once it was a flat Earth, later it was 'peace in our time' and today they continue. 

It keeps us in work!

I suppose it will always be true, there will always be more to learn, there will always be new caves to leave. Our task as learning professionals is to make the transition from cave to sunlight simpler for our learners. We also need to remember that we learning professionals have caves of our own to leave.

So....finally!

Two weeks after I began thinking I've put my fingers to the keyboard to write this post! It does deal with many points but I hope you can all see where I'm coming from. It can really all be boiled down to one thought, "we live and learn".

Other recent reading

CreativityWorks: The Dangers of Co-opting Scientific Explanations

Bunchberry & Fern: Learning Styles: fable-ous and tragic

TeachingExpertise: A Teaching Elixir or best-fit pedagogy? Do learning styles matter?