Social Tools: Organizational Learning's Uber

I had my first Uber service recently in Austin, TX.  It was nothing short of remarkable.  A few glitches (mostly self caused) but a far better experience than I have ever had in a cab. It was during this ride, and conversation with my driver William, that I made a few connections between business, learning and needs. It's got me to thinking that if content, context and connection is king, queen or some other type of royalty, then the Platform is God.

Uber, a platform, connects wants with resources. Nothing new.  But it is probably the most understandable idea of a platform for people who don't understand or think about platforms all that much. A service that connects a driver and their car with a passenger and a need. Simple.  The success of Uber (and other share platforms) is all predicated on the idea that 1. resources are plentiful (cars and drivers) 2. demand is greater than the current model of supply can support and 3. convenience and simplicity reigns supreme. It is also a great example of a modern paradigm shift for people who don't understand or think about paradigm shifts. For the better part of a century city dwellers couldn't see it any other way. This monopoly, like all monopolies, had some stress, like:

• If you needed a ride, you had to hail a cab
• hoping the driver speaks your language,
• hoping the vehicle doesn't stink 
• hoping you get to your destination safely,
• hoping you get to your destination quickly,
• hoping the cost was fair.

Sound familiar? Just swap out the word taxi for L&D or HR. 

These same criticisms have been levied against each for years but never so loudly as today. L&D and HR have long been the organizational learning taxi service, monopolizing organizational learning for far too long and supported by organizational leaders themselves like cities support taxi services; establishing a Learning Department has been default.  For the better part of a century employees couldn't see it any other way. This monopoly, like all monopolies, had some stress, like:

• If you needed to learn something, you had to hail L&D.
• hoping they speak your (business) language,
• hoping the (learning) vehicle doesn't stink, 
• hoping you get to your (learning) destination,
• hoping you get to your learning destination quickly,
• hoping the cost (your time and attention?) was fair.

But technology, and specifically the same technology concept (sharing) that launched Uber and others is changing this paradigm of the learning taxi service. People in organizations, through technology, are not waiting for the next course to be developed, instead they are using social platforms to building networks upon and connect with people and content regularly, and just-in-time as both are plentiful. Employees are not standing by waiting for the next resource to appear hoping it will meet their needs, they are actively seeking them out - rating them and their content as easily they do an Uber ride experience (for the benefit of others). The learning vehicles, like Uber's cars, vary in size and type. The drivers of the content, like Uber drivers, are not specialized but are knowledgeable and can offer quick value.

People are discovering the power of social tools to get just the information they need at the moment they need it. The power is in their hands to build strong networks and choose their own hassle free vehicle. In a recent Washington Post article about how Taxi services were uniting against Uber and other ride sharing services was this statement: "[Uber] threatens a taxi industry that critics say has been slow to modernize and keep up in a technology-driven era." 

Sounds familiar? So when people question the power of social technology to change the paradigm of learning, just ask them to look at Uber and the paradigm of transportation. 

Embraceable Me

Yesterday Tracy Parish challenged me to do a #Blimage. If you are unfamiliar, this is an interesting and fun approach to inspiring a blog post. It was introduced by Steve Wheeler and friends and the original post can be found here. Tracy wrote an excellent post based on an image of a cemetery titled Learning While Wandering. I enjoyed that she looked at learning very personally versus professionally and focused on the importance of reflection. Like all #Blimage challenges the object is to relate the image to learning and so she provided me this Star Wars snap from Flickr. 

First, let me begin by saying I am not a big Star Wars guy and fortunately I was able to immediately move past that part and look a bit deeper into the image (as if Star Wars Lego people can really be looked at deeply). Maybe the intent of the image is a Father-Son relationship or maybe it is to portray the comfort of hugging of a doll? For me, with the challenge of "learning" in mind, I see the "importance of the smaller self".

The world around us seems to be all about The Big. Big announcements (watch how products are rolled out), Big technology (The LMS and Enterprise Social Network platforms to name a few), and Big data (analytics, measurement). Yet at an individual level we long to get smaller. Our personal lives merge with our professional ones as humility and being real is how we make sincere connections. Social technology puts the the large planet in our pocket. We find personal satisfaction in tighter, more focused networks where the work gets done. And real power is in being a node in these networks not in being the know it all. 

This picture reminds me that our smaller, less imposing persona is what breaks down barriers between people and putting our smaller selves front and center is what matters most today.

Choices, Choices

When I was a kid we had about 7 maybe 8 television channels (I grew up somewhere between rabbit ears and cable). It was easy then to decide what to watch or if to watch at all. Today though I can have options of up to 650 channels. Do I need that many? No. Are most worth my time? No. But I will experiment and give some a chance. If I find value, they stay in my line up. If not they are quickly removed. I learn which channels present the best content, consistently and some I just visit from time to time. Some I've never selected based on title alone; just not of interest to me. New channels appear and others disappear, I make room when I can. This is not difficult even with hundreds of channels to choose from. To me that number could be 60,000 and I feel no stress in the fact that I can't watch them all or that I'll miss something important.

We know what moves us. We know what we need or want. We learn and can separate the good from the bad. We find something we treasure and we tune in. We talk to our friends, those people who's opinions we trust, and get their take on different programs and make choices from that. Who have you ever heard say TV is information overload or that they were suffering from a form of TV filter failure? Online time is the new TV time and yes, it's all the time but we have choices. And yet people speak of too much information, unreliable content, and going down rabbit holes online but not of television. I find it interesting that the technology parallels of broadcasting ideas and opinions are eerily similar, yet the societal complaints aren't at all.

Big Social Isn't Always Best

I've been thinking more about how Social has become SO big, so fast. Maybe it's having been in Texas recently (where everything is bigger!) for mLearnCon last week or it's because I've been reading a lot of Stowe Boyd's reviews and research tied into his ideas on "sets vs. scenes." Social is not necessarily getting bigger in the sense of popularity but in the sense that enterprise social, to be deemed successful today, has to involve the entire organization - the scene as Stowe would call it.

My observations and conversations have led me to believe that technology is ruling the day and leading the narrative. And having a vibrant ESN is the golden calf (or is that hippo?). Successful social is not however in the depth and number of connections but in the meaningfulness of the social activity. Often, unfortunately, the larger the networks, the more superficial the relationships can be. Whereas In organizations, our closest, most impactful relationships are those that are around the work we do. A simple principle to grasp is that Social forms around objects, and the object in organizations is the work. The farther one is removed from the work we do, the farther they are from our interests and that is quite natural.

By PJ KAPDostie CC BY-SA 3.0 

In my work promoting "social" in my various organizations, I found another principle to be true; the smaller the better. Specific groups, already with a clear "object", be it shared work (department, project, program) shared experience (on-boarding, training), or shared problem (solutioning, crisis) were most successful. Larger roll-outs, not so much. Social technology success was achieved when it was used as a tool to solve small specific problems. From here it could scale, but please don't call it a community. People sharing, collaborating, and conversing should not instantly be seen as a community. A feature in a tool called a "community" is not a community, it is marketing spin by ESN vendors. True communities form when their is trust, common purpose and mutual support. This takes time, not tools. Can these gatherings in virtual places become communities? Absolutely. They can also scale but that takes nurturing and attention, support and communication. If your organization is not ready for this, it's OK. Organizations as community is not always the end goal or often immediately realistic. If groups come in and out of interactions using social tools to solve business problems then this should be seen as successful social too.

Maybe the message is as simple as the one I tell my kids; don't let others define what success is. Celebrate the small wins, they add up.

We Don't Do Social Here

Implement, Do, Start, Launch, are all terms that indicate a program or project is underway. It's the language of the business initiative. But when these words precede the action of "Social", it's a bit perplexing.  

We don't "do" social, we are social. 

Being social is just connecting, communicating, and sharing usually with the key action of conversing. Don't let anyone tell you different. We should know too that being social is not purely positive. People can connect for the wrong reasons, communicate inappropriately, or share way, way too much. Therefore being social is neither something exclusively good or bad, it is just the essence of being human. To say things like "we are going to start doing social in our organization" is like saying "we are going to start doing breathing." This comparison is equally similar and different. Similar in that both actions, social and breathing are naturally occurring and required (in an organization or otherwise), and different in that breathing is not something that can ever be consciously done poorly or insincerely.

You can encourage people to increase their social connections, expand their networks, start more meaningful conversations and share ideas. But make no mistake, your organization is already social, it just may not be healthy enough to transform the work that's being done or make the environment less toxic, or draw people to connect with your service or products.

So if you're still thinking about "doing" social in your organization, maybe start by "being" a better organization, leader, employee, peer. Somethings you just can't project manage. 

Social Inconvenience is Important

Social networking is not always convenient. Our networks can be large, small, and many are in niche areas of interest but in all we've historically driven for miles, run in groups, flown to new cities, met in questionable venues and navigated personality differences to connect with the people that matter. 

The inconvenience of connecting with our network is never so great to dismiss them, we work at what brings us value.  Social tools are our new places. We comment "in" and post "on" no differently than when we meet "at" or go "to".  Our new places for social interaction are equally numerous, unique, and sometimes as difficult to traverse. Yet after clearing the initial hurdle of a new social technology, we happily find our people and learn to move within and between new tools no different than we do new physical locations.

Organizations though, forever looking to catch lightening in a bottle and corral an advantage, provide their employees approved "places" to use for this activity, often a single place like an ESN. This of course is typical of business as usual and is equally unnatural, as are most organizational decisions which aim to control and guide human behavior. Hierarchy though is no match for Wirearchy. Technology affords us the opportunity to extend our relationships and conversations further and expand farther than ever before. These actions should be encouraged by employers not discouraged, as today an employee's value is in the quality and diversity of their connections. 

Real knowledge doesn't exist within us but between us, in our conversations

No doubt some enterprise social tools are used successfully for sharing and learning on the inside, but much of what influences this sharing and learning came from the outside and this is where organizational leaders miss the mark. By trying to drive people to a single location and expecting community to flourish and innovation to follow is a mistake. The organization needs their "place" to be in the mix of places but not sit above them all. Encouraging relationships to form with diverse people, ideas, groups and in different places presents the greatest opportunity for organizations and individuals today.

Social Inception

Have you seen the movie Inception? It's a fantastic sci-fi film where people infiltrate other people's subconscious while they sleep and remove information or, in the case of the title, plant an idea. When the person awakens, they think the idea is their own.

Now I do believe that the same idea can spring up independently from different people in different locations at the same time. Historically speaking, you can see that Pyramids of various sizes and constructs appeared all over the globe by different civilizations in or around the same time where the people had no contact with each other.  However time and space are no barriers anymore. As more and people find their voice online, begin sharing their stories, experiences, and ideas, an unintentional form of "Social Inception" can occur. When we engage in social networks we accumulate many ideas from many sources. Some can be fleeting, like those seen briefly in a Tweet. Others are deeper like those in articles, blog posts or videos and of course conversations. For me, I recently wrote about change happening one conversation at a time. The gist of my post was that we can just cut through all the fat about social media technology barriers, it's really as simple as helping people ask their internal questions out loud to those who are "connected" - Things like "where do you find the time?" "how did you start?" "How has it helped you?", etc. Good idea? Maybe. Was this my idea? I'm not so sure now. 

When I wrote it I was like, this is an interesting thought, I wonder what others would think? Flash forward to today. I'm scanning some favored Tweets looking for something in particular and I see:

It got me to thinking so I re-read the article. I was left with two thoughts. 1. This is brilliant and 2. Did I steal this concept?! 

Well, no, not consciously, not completely, and not with any intention to do so. I have always been very careful to sing the praises of the trailblazers (not sure that's a good term but I'm not a fan of the word Thought Leader). I vigorously read and promote the works of Jane Hart, Harold Jarche, Charles Jennings and many others in the learning/social learning space... including Euan Semple.  But here, over 115 days ago, he wrote an article of a very similar title to mine. Did I read this 115 days ago, process it internally, experience a triggering event and spew out my own interpretation as something really original? Did Euan plant more than a seed in my mind? Is this more common than I think?

Today information comes at us so fast, influencing our thoughts and practices in positive ways. We consume so quickly that even when we have trusted networks through which we have information curated the lines can blur between what is ours and what is others. Our thought, other's thoughts, our practices, experiences and reflections all blending together and in the end attribution is practically impossible as you walk away thinking... "This is an interesting thought, I wonder what others would think?"  

Well, then this is all I can offer - my mea culpa moment. For starters go read Euan's article here, as mine pales in comparison. If you can only read one, go to his.  Going forward, in addition to continuing to recognize the ideas of others in my posts and presentations, I'll revisit my Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) strategy and tools, and I'll continue to add to my blog roll as it serves as a great list of those who's work I find inspiring. These people continue to influence my thoughts and practices and I guess, as long as I keep them upfront and getting the attention they deserve, maybe my unintentional imitation is a sincere form of flattery. 

What ideas do you have to create a buffer against unintentional Social Inception?

Enter the Rectangle

Today when we encounter a little white rectangle on a screen, we instinctively know what to do don't we? 

Keyboard + interface with a text box = type. 

We also know through experience that selecting publish, send, post, or tweet can initiate a change in both ourselves and others, yet so many still hesitate or refuse to try. What really prevents people from engaging is not a technical barrier, not any more, it's much more complicated than code and functionality. 

It's about humility - "I've nothing to share." 

It's about fear - "how will I be perceived?" 

It's about confidence - "I don't have enough expertise in this topic." 

It's about time - "I have enough to do."

It's about value - "I have better things to do." 

Too many fight their basic human instinct to connect and share even when it is made incredibly easy. Looking again at the brief list above, maybe the way to overcome the complicated is to simply take it head on. Help people make these internal questions external. Real change happens one conversation at a time, so online or face to face we can start by asking others who are more open how they feel they are perceived, about the expertise they share, about how they make the time and what value they receive. 

Knowledge doesn't exist within us, it exists between us. But for that to be really understood, one must first get outside of themselves to get over themselves. 

Shortening the Social Tool Learning Curve with Open Office Hours

We strove from the onset to make the technical part of social networking as easy as possible and really modified our ESN platform to focus on the basic elements of social; community, collaboration and sharing. No frills, no unnecessary functionality. Our strategy has been "grease the wheel only when it squeaks," meaning that we will present functionality and features when the needs arise.  Even with a Simple is the New Black belief, an ESN is still foreign territory even for regular users of open tools and platforms. There is a learning curve for some especially when it comes to settings, notifications and the creating of streams to be more laser focused on the conversations they want to be a part of.  In addition to video demos and job aids being available in the platform itself, we would be naive to think people would naturally seek those out as their default learning action. We know people are much more apt to give it a try and then pop their heads in another's cubicle and ask for assistance. It's human nature to do first, ask questions later.

Early on we launched a series called Friday Features Feature and tagged it as #FFF in the platform. These 20-25min informal webinar events happened around lunch time where people could register in advance and set their calendars to attend. Very informal with a single objective highlighting the "how to" of a certain feature but with significant emphasis on the "why to." My Performance Specialist, Nona Gormley wondered aloud if we couldn't take this a step further, to make it even more convenient for our workforce as this has always been my battle cry: limited (learning) friction on the workflow. Her suggestion was to make it possible for anyone at anytime to reach out and have somebody walk through a feature or process. From this the idea of Open Office Hours was born.

Using a combination of Join.me and an internal conference line, I set up a 6 hour window where my screen was being shared (showing our ESN) and the conference line was open. No registration and 3 simple steps. Below is the invite.

From 9:00am to 3:00pm the lines were open.  We had 3 callers/observers attend in our first effort with specific questions about settings and other features. In some cases the questions were beyond my understanding of the tool's capabilities but it led us to explore together, in the open. Humbling to some extent but I think it was also quite humanizing to the attendee, as it makes things a bit less intimidating when someone like me who has success with social tools reveals that he doesn't know it all. This took me back to the point I was making in my post Learning Through Inexperts, that learning with and through even those muddling about can be beneficial to build community understanding.

By Snowded CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

To sum up, technology is logical, people are not. People are inconsistent and emotional. So in terms of Dave Snowden's Cynefin model, when environments are complex, such as organizational ones, sense making only happens in retrospect. So the efforts to enable and support people using social tools can't have a rigid strategy but require more of a flexible 'Probe-Sense-Respond' process.  For me this means to try something, see how it works and either expand it, or move on from it.

An Open Office Hours approach is just that, and although only 3 took advantage this time, it's far from a failure and more likely something we will tweak and try again soon.

Learning in 2024: Same As It Ever Was

The eLearning Guild posed the question of: "What will learning look like in 2024?"  Of course I could be snarky and say well, learning is learning and that's an internal process that's been the same for thousands of years... but I know what they mean - How will the external influences on learning be different in 10 years.

On Friday they sponsored a Twitter chat (#LRN2024) which got me thinking of how difficult it is today to predict what will be in 10 years let alone in 3 months.  However, regardless of technology and methodology changes, I simply see learning going the way of work.

As the way we work changes, learning will follow suit or better -flow more within the work. Work will continue to change of course due in great part to technological advances and that technology will ultimately automate many tasks. The automation and outsourcing of work will continue and create increased productivity but also reduce the need for certain jobs.  The jobs that will be needed will require more emphasis on cognitive skills.  So rather than look ahead, let's do look back. And not just 10 years, humor me and think of where we have been as a species in say the last 10,000 years.

Thousands of years ago, during the Agricultural Revolution, I suspect the way most everyone learned was through Observation, Experience, Conversation and Reflection, what Charles Jennings has referred to as "Real Learning". This learning was individually and independently organized, and happened in the work. The tools for learning were the tools of work. Learning was informal and social, an outcome of the work itself. Later, in the Industrial Revolution, mass production was the work model. People were appendages of their machines and like mechanical parts bolted on, people were bolted to seats for uniform training - which was then mirrored in the academic settings. The products of industry were identical and so was the education. Organized learning shifted to formal and consistent because the work was consistent. The formula was still the same but the mixture was different - Experience, Practice, Conversation and Reflection was mostly managed by others. The time for each dictated and directed by instructors not the individuals.

So again, the work is changing. Rather than consistent and uniform, the real work of people will be inconsistent and growing more complex. Mass production remains but with fewer people and more machines. Machines will handle the simple rote work. The work that requires training, slightly more difficult, is increasingly being outsourced and likely too will be automated. The work then that will really propel organizations tomorrow is creative work, involving critical thinking and problem solving. Fast changes requires fast learning and that can't be supported by classrooms or elearning courses, it can't. The learning to support this will be highly independent and individualized. It will again heavily favor social and informal. At it's core learning will always remain with the same elements of experience, practice, conversation and reflection but like during the Agricultural Revolution, I see it more happening in our work and through and in the tools of our work. This will be critical, as the work of the future will be many people coming together for short periods and disbanding,  a swarming economy. The outputs or products and the collaborative knowledge will be equal in value as "learnings" will not reside in a summary document but in an ever evolving portfolio of various content types to be tapped into and continually added and edited.

Learning is still and will always be an internal process. What will change most will be where the dependency resides; no longer on the organization outside the work but once again upon the individual in their work.

Stand and Deliver

A social network conjures an image of people connecting and sharing from personal to professional and driven by ones own interests. Although it can be large in terms of connections, the conversations can be small in nature which in my opinion builds stronger bonds between the participants.  When Enterprise is added to the title, as in Enterprise Social Network, the nature of it all seems to change and the expectations tend to increase. The organization becomes the center point and work and profit are more the focus. 

When these tools are open, enabling people to share their stories without expectation, however large or small, great opportunities to transformation individuals arise. And organizations ultimately are individuals. Some of these transformative moments are so small that their impact is hardly felt at all. But over time they can accumulate, they gain momentum, they infect and spread.

"Culture is an emergent property of the many practices that happen every day. Change the practices and a new culture will emerge."

                                                                            - Harold Jarche

A few weeks ago we launched our ESN. And as we monitor, model and encourage, I take more stock of the small things; the many minor "shares" becoming the big things for that is what I believe are the seeds of a community.

For example I've watched (and participated some) the conversation about the purchase and use of a standing desk. Certainly not a direct impact on the bottom line. One employee posted that they had one, shared a photo and briefly wrote of it's health benefits.  As I passed through our office a few days later I did a double take as one of our Project Managers was standing and typing! Coincidence? I didn't engage him but instead went back to review the series of posts and comments and noticed he hadn't contributed to the conversation at all. 

I proceeded to casually asked him about the desk and how it was working out. He explained that he was getting used to it and was working it in throughout the day.  When I inquired as to how he heard of it he mentioned the colleague who originally shared as well as another in the thread of about seven different people.  I openly wondered if it was because of them that he purchased it?  He confirmed it was, as he knew both well.

Another two days passed and we got to talking again in passing.  When I asked about the benefits of the desk he spoke about his increased energy. He shared that usually he fades around 4pm but yesterday had no such feeling. I expressed my surprise as I only thought about back discomfort being alleviated. When I asked him to share his experience in our network he laughed and said "I don't Jive."  To which I smiled and replied, "apparently you do and owe it to the network to share your experience."

At 8:00am the next morning he posted about the positive impact of the desk.

A new idea shared by a trusted colleague leads to an experiment with surprisingly productive results... and all openly shared.