Network Navigating

I've written recently about the futility of organizational internal social efforts. Their efforts to corral conversations into an ESN is ineffective and short sighted. Wirearchy is here. It exists with or without ones conscious effort as our networks extend in multiple directions and multiple "places."  We will go to where our people are and if our people overlap, all the better, but the reality is they rarely will. For example my running community members have zero interest in my social learning and social business discussions. 

So it is that we must learn to move in and out of various channels of conversations and relationships, adjusting as we need to to make it all work. However in the networked age this seems as overwhelming as the amount of information that comes at us.

Do choices have to be made? Of course. It's really no different than our behaviors prior to the advent of social technology. We made room and found balance then in things like our physical meeting spaces, telephone conversations, email, etc. We made choices then of how and where we would spend time. We (often unconsciously) seek out the people who matter most and in that seeking we inadvertently learn to navigate the places that keep us connected.

My networking "places" are as fragmented and unique as my relationships. Here are a few of my places I visit daily which I'm sure look much like yours.

• Twitter for amazing global relationships and conversations
• 2 Facebook groups for specific professional development and a book club
• LinkedIn for local ATD conversations and sharing
• iMessage groups (smaller, family & friends)
• Skype group for larger L&D discussions, tips, needs
• Evernote chat for project collaboration
• Yammer for organization cooperative and collaborative activities
• Slack for idea sharing in L&D topics for various activities

This is our reality. I doubt highly that as social tools evolve there will be one tool to rule them all or a way to link them. This reality may be inconvenient to many but social networking has always been inconvenient to some extent. Waving the white flag is not an option. We will learn these new network navigation skills through experimentation, increased exposure and they will strengthen with deeper experiences in the context of connecting. With modeling and guidance by those in the know, the learning curve can be reduced more quickly but even without the experts, we will learn to navigate, it's what we are built to do.

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.

Won't you open up your eyes?

Beatles songs have always given me pause. Some of my favorites include "Yesterday", "Hey Jude", "Across the Universe" and "Let it Be." The Beatles were ahead of their time musically and lyrically.

Recently, yet unfortunately, while running up a pretty steep hill the song "Dear Prudence" began playing on my iPhone. I say unfortunately because when you're climbing a hill you need Metallica or something.

Outside of the hills, running is meditative for me. My mind, wanders between work, life, calf pain, back to work, life ...etc and at the moment the song began, I was pondering the difficulties of convincing others of the changing nature of work and learning I see around me everyday. Most struggle to see what I view as obvious; the need for a connected workforce that shares and collaborates openly in networks enhanced through technology.

Dear Prudence hit me like lightening (probably the only thing worse than running up a steep hill). A warm song immediately took on new meaning, a bit if divergent thinking if you will, and one that will now serve as an anthem, playing in my mind when I engage those who just don't see it... yet. 

My new look at select lines in the song follows each verse.

Dear Prudence, won't you come out to play?

Dear Prudence, greet the brand new day

The sun is up, the sky is blue

It's beautiful and so are you

Dear Prudence, won't you come out to play?

Start with "Prudence." Sure, as the story goes, John and the boys were teasing Mia Farrow's sister, Prudence, who was held up in a tent working hard on meditation and missing out on the fun. But for my lucid, endorphin filled, running moment it is more the dictionary definition for those who show caution with regard to practical matters; discretion. What's more prudent than connecting people to communicate and share - it's what people do! In my experience those who show caution see only the status quo, stuck in old laws and paradigms of learning. These are the workers and leaders resting on ideas that led to "success" in the 20th century.  They hold back, or move slowly while the world changes rapidly around them.

"won't you come out to play?" "greet the brand new day" - The ideas and tools "breaching the hull" our organizations are worth exploring, trying, feeling. We have entered a new era of connection that is transforming society, business and learning; it is a brand new day.

Dear Prudence, open up your eyes 

Dear Prudence, see the sunny skies 

The wind is low, the birds will sing 

That you are part of everything 

Dear Prudence, won't you open up your eyes? 

"The wind is low, the birds will sing" "That you are part of everything" -The barriers, the headwind that slows down innovation, can be reduced when we encourage social learning, encourage networks which level the hierarchies that lock progress in political chains. People are truly at the center of this communication, knowledge, innovation, and technology, even the naysayers are "part of everything" and can greatly improve and contribute once they accept this reality. 

Look around round, Look around round round, Look around

"Look around" - See what is naturally happening already, what has been happening. Look at the technology but more importantly how that technology is being used. Mere tools, yes but pause and re-think their immediate applications. Look how community has changed, how networking has changed, how knowledge flows within these networks. See how hierarchies hold surface strength only and the nodes really do rule the day.

Dear Prudence, let me see you smile

Dear Prudence, like a little child

The clouds will be a daisy chain

So let me see you smile again

"Dear Prudence, let me see you smile." - Smile, the universal human symbol of happiness. "Happiness is the precursor to success—not really the result of it" says Shawn Anchor in his book The Happiness Advantage (see brief article/video here).   He goes on to explain the three main predictors of happiness are:

1. having an optimistic mindset, 

2. having the ability to see stress as a challenge and not a threat, and 

3. social support.  

The first two organizations can hire for but the third is what your organization's culture presents and encourages. Good social support systems enable community. Within community people share and collaborate. When employees share and collaborate they improve processes and products; they get work done. When employees get work done (socially) they are rewarded intrinsically and extrinsically. When employees are rewarded, they are happy. When happy, Shawn argues, employees are smarter, more energetic, and more creative.

"The clouds will be a daisy chain" - Wow, really?? was Lennon so deep into meditation that he had an out of body, time travel experience and saw Cloud Computing?? OK, a stretch but "daisy chain" today is a term that most can understand beyond the counter-culture reference (which I have to assume was a Flower Power ideal). As the definition in the link explains, a Daisy Chain is: 

"an interconnection of computer devices, peripherals, or network nodes in series, one after another. It is the computer equivalent of a series electrical circuit."  

The keyword here; interconnection.  Networks are made up of nodes and people are the knowledge nodes. Through these connections they are learning, collaborating, and sharing ...improving.

Dear Prudence, won't you let me see you smile?

Dear Prudence, won't you come out to play?

Dear Prudence, greet the brand new day

The sun is up, the sky is blue

It's beautiful and so are you

Dear Prudence, won't you come out to play?

"It's beautiful and so are you" - Next time you are presented with resistance or outright mocking reaction to building the connected work force rather than spout off about 70-20-10, Social Learning Theory, Collaborative tools, etc.... speak to the reluctant ones of their own value, skills, knowledge and motivations and how this "beauty" works perfectly within the "new systems." 

Whistle or hum Dear Prudence...it may be all you need to give yourself that pause. 

Dear Prudence - Composed by The Beatles. Author: Lennon; Lead vocals: Lennon, McCartney

A New Age of Reason

As a former HS History teacher, the Age of Reason (17th-18th Cent.) was one of my favorite areas to teach.

I was always in awe of some of the great minds in human history that seemed to all live within about a 200 year period. Locke, Rousseau, Voltaire, Franklin, Hume, Kant just to name a few. These folks and their peers in science and technology all lived at an incredible time in history when an awakening of inquiry took place. Although real time collaboration rarely happened, these folks influenced each other over time and space (sound familiar?). This era was chock full of revolutions in technology, politics, science, economics, and society.

As I personally question my own professional understandings and am constantly influenced by thinkers over time and space, I am wondering if we are entering a New Age of Reason. In particular in the area of organizational learning? The parallels seem pretty close in my opinion.

To start, here's my quick-n-dirty on the Age of Reason (purposefully simple & non-exhaustive!) to set the stage for some small comparisons.

One can argue that the era began with the Renaissance, a “rebirth” of ancient beliefs from Greece and Rome. This in turn led to new scientific “discoveries” about our solar system, gravity and physics. This “Scientific” revolution spurred on a questioning of the physical world. The new scientific questioning began to challenge and threaten the Catholic Church in Europe (supreme authority). New technologies (e.g. the printing press) hastened the transformation and new ideas were quickly and economically shared with the masses. Questions of faith and questions of government authority led to New Protestant faiths emerging. Capitalism and Democracy grew as colonialism and industrialization challenged agrarian social traditions. Discontented and empowered people rebelled and self-determinism led to political change internally and overseas…

Simply put, this was a time when the mysticism, religion, and superstition of the Middle Ages was challenged.

What do you see happening today in organizational learning?

Today, Thought Leaders are questioning the mysticism of formal learning being the end-all-be-all, they are disputing the religious doctrine of L&D departments and “learning” organizations, and they are contesting the authority of today’s “Cathedrals of Knowledge” – the LMS.

Are we in, or on the cusp of, a New Age of Reason in organizational learning?

The ideas of Democracy challenged traditional political organization (Absolute Monarchy) much as Connectivism and Wirearchy stakes their legitimacy among traditional theories and ideas of knowledge and organizational learning structures.

• Representative government displaced Feudal Kingdoms much like we see the long standing Training and Development Departments giving way to empowered learners making their own decisions about what to learn, when to learn and how to learn.

Web 2.0 is our time’s Printing Press…Twitter, Blogger and Amplify spread ideas quicker than if they were posted on a Church door.

This is a time of Enlightenment for many. And like German philosopher, Immanuel Kant described it; enlightenment is the “freedom to use one's own intelligence.”

Kant, further defined enlightenment this way: “Enlightenment is the liberation of man from his self-caused state of minority. Minority is the incapacity of using one’s understanding without the direction of another. This state of minority is self-caused when its source lies not in a lack of understanding but in a lack of determination to use it without the assistance of another.”
http://bit.ly/6dsHm All About History - Age of Reason-Open Society

So today, in organizational learning, it is not that many do not know what to learn, what to use to learn or how to drive their own learning that prevents real knowledge and stellar performance... it may partially be our blind obedience to the institutional structures & traditions in the places we work. It may be our "state of minority" that causes us to unquestionably follow the "learning experts" within organizations; many of whom shackle workers to archaic systems and worse, archaic thinking about what and how best to learn.

In the Age of Reason, political discourse in local coffee houses inspired revolutions. Today, we can find Thinkers like those of the ITA challenging conventional wisdom in the modern coffee houses of the Internet; Blogs and Twitter chats are today’s Penny Universities.

Spurred on by obvious logic, Learning professionals and workers at all levels are fighting the good fight in their organizations- expanding their opportunities to learn through social and informal channels.

The perception of the Enlightenment during its time, and the new ideas that were presented, were often seen as radical, and even dangerous. Today though these ideas of inquiry, democracy, self-determinism, and rationality are taken as unquestionable truths... Some day too, and I suspect quite soon, these truths in the New Age of Reason will be self-evident in that we have the right and responsibility to to learn anytime, anywhere, and by any means.