Off Course-On Target

Reflective Reduction Sauce

As many of you know, I am privileged to live in two parallel universes: one where I am the strategic futurist at Velocity Made Good Inc. (VMG), as well as speaker, provocateur, etc., traveling the world by planes, trains, and automobiles, and living at the speed of thought; and the other where I live and work on my sailboat, the good ship Learnativity, wandering and pondering the world one nautical mile at a time. Each time I move from one universe to the other, the shapeshifting process produces a tremendous amount of new learning for me.

Upon my most recent return to my fast universe, where I was immediately immersed in the Learning 2009 conference in Orlando last week, the learning was wonderfully severe. 

With a few days to reflect and do some cognitive “simmering and sauce reduction”, a few recurring themes and observations emerged for me: 

• Authenticity
• Curiosity
• Confidence
• Faith and Trust
• Unconscious Assumptions
• Redefining Experience
• Uncertainty
• Readiness for the Unexpected
• What If the Impossible Isn’t?
• Personal Capitalization

I’m sharing something about each of these with you in the hopes that they will be of some value and spark additional feedback and conversations. Each of these deserves and demands some explanation and discussion, so I’ll write about each one in a series of posts to follow. Today, I’m starting with Authenticity.

Authenticity

Authenticity has been a recurring topic for me for several years now, and it is one I am finding in both of my parallel universes. For me, authenticity is about the quality of being genuine, and it is one of the best examples of how the most profound and important things in life are the simplest. 

Authenticity can be and is applied to products and things such as content. In a previous post “The Land that Never Was”, I outlined some of my views on how the whole definition of what is real and genuine is either getting more difficult to determine or perhaps is just being redefined as the difference between real and synthetic becomes less and less and, in some cases, the distinction disappears completely. 

At the Learning 2009 conference, I heard both the topic and the word “authentic” in many of the sessions and in the hallways. There was a lot of conversation about authentic content for example. Authentic content is not to be confused with simply the poor quality of content, but rather it is about how accurate and relevant the content is, how true the “voice” of the content is, how relevant is it, and so on. 

A few months ago, while in my other nautical universe, I had a very personal experience with authentic content when I found myself on my sailboat in Pago Pago harbor in American Samoa on September 29th, a day which I have since referred to as “Tsunami Tuesday”. You can read more about this fascinating experience in on my Learnativity blog (Part I, Part II, Part III) and in my previous posting here on OCOT “Tsunami and Technology: Powers That Be at Sea” where I discuss how I found myself being the on-the-scene reporter (by virtue of being there in person), which I shared via the wonders of current technology, such as my satellite phone. This technology enabled me to send out test messages to Twitter and hence be picked up by many other bloggers and then by the world press.

In the weeks that followed, I was deluged by emails, texts, calls, and tweets from some of those who had been staying informed about the tsunami and about their friends and family who were also there at the time. What most struck me though were the common comments I heard about how extremely effective the reporting was, especially via those who were sending out tweets and writing blogs using firsthand accounts from those who were actually there. 

What I picked up from all this was that it was much more than the obvious fact that we were there. It was the authenticity that came from living this experience. We were being directly affected by this amazing natural phenomenon and were dealing with the reality of saving our ships, our possessions, and our friends and family, and were sharing it as it happened.

In the case of content for learning, training, and education, I am hearing about increasing awareness and demand for content that is similarly real, firsthand, relevant, and coming from those who have direct experience. Perhaps this simply goes back to emphasizing the age old advice for any writers or content creators to “write what you know”.

However, this conversation about authenticity and genuineness goes way beyond the narrow definition of content. Most notably, it is about us as people being genuine. Previously this quality of genuineness has been applied mostly to organizations such as businesses, governments, and non-profits, and has been about exposing when these are organizations are not representing and presenting themselves accurately and genuinely.  More recently, however, with the increased depth and breadth of the conversation that now takes place between consumers and producers, teachers and learners, and politicians and constituents, authentic and genuine conversation has become possibly the predictor and predicator of success.

One of the most direct and best versions of this idea came from the conversation between Elliott and Betsy Myers at Learning 2009. Betsy impressed me both for what she said as well as how she said it. She is extremely engaging and effective. One of Betsy’s primary topics is “authentic leadership” and in her conversation with Elliott, she stressed key issues such as curiosity and courage. She spoke to me particularly when she recommended that each of us should “have the courage to be your authentic self”. 

For me, cultivating this quality is not something reserved for those who knowingly obfuscate their real selves, but also is something each of us needs to keep in mind when we fail to be who we really are—when we create too great a gap between who we are on the inside and who we present on the outside.

While it has always been a laudable goal to be true to yourself, I think that with the advent of modern communications technology, and most recently, the rise in the use of social media such as blogs, podcasts, Twitter and Facebook, authenticity and genuineness are being rigorously tested for and demanded far more than ever before. 

There is no question in my mind and experience that being your “authentic self” takes real and constant courage. However, there is also no question that the benefits of doing so are greater still. Does this match with what you are seeing and experiencing? What other ways are you seeing authenticity becoming an increasing priority?  I look forward to hearing from you.

Wayne

Wish Upon a Star(fish)?

In a previous posting on September 21, 2007 called “New Perspectives: Looking Down and Under”, I wished for a “sea” feature to compliment the “sky” feature Google Earth had recently added back then. While I have no illusion that I had anything to do with it, you can still imagine my delight when Google Earth recently did just what I was hoping for... and then some!

With the new update to version 5, Google Earth now gives you the ability to explore and see the sea—you know, that stuff that covers more than 70% of the planet and of which we know embarrassingly little of?

But don’t take my word for it, go get this major update to an already fantastic tool and check it out for yourself.  If you already have Google Earth installed, then just go to the Help menu and choose “Check for updates” and it will install version 5.  Otherwise, head on over to the Google Earth download site and install it now.

I’ll let many of my fellow bloggers and reporters provide you with reviews and details to help you find some of the new nuggets that may be lurking below the surface (sorry!).  A quick search will give you lots of choices, such as this review in the NY Times and this one from the BBC and these videos over on CNET News.

I thought there were some very telling quotes from the Google Earth staff, such as:

“We had this arbitrary distinction that if it was below sea level it didn’t count,” recalled John Hanke, the Internet entrepreneur who co-created the progenitor of Google Earth, called Keyhole, and moved to Google when the company bought his company in 2004.”

And as fascinated as I am with the sea and this major addition to Google Earth, don’t let me limit your exploration of the new version to just the underwater world.  Google Earth has many other new features that are almost as exciting, such as “Historical Imagery” which let’s you go back in time and scroll through satellite images to see a time lapse visual display of things like the spread of disease or urban sprawl (or maybe those are the same?)

And for those like me who are also interested in the learning aspects of all things, be sure to check out new features such as a function called Touring which the NY Times article described as:

“.. let’s you create narrated, illustrated tours, on land or above and below the sea surface, describing and showing things like a hike or scuba excursion, or even a research cruise on a deep-diving submarine.”

And as Christopher Dawson reported in his blog on ZDnet Education

“Google has partnered with National Geographic, the BBC, Cousteau’s Ocean World, and several others to provide a wealth of information about everything from the global fishing crisis to footage of shipwrecks. Marine life census data, scientific expeditions, and countless links to information outside Google Earth make this a free treasure trove for science, social studies, geography, and even math teachers (how better to learn about coordinate systems?).”

OK, enough from me. Stop reading this and fire up this latest offering of Google Earth and have fun doing your own exploratory and experiential learning.  Enjoy! 

Lucky for me, I am off in the morning to help a friend sail his boat from St. Martin to Miami. While you are in Google Earth, you may also want to check out this area and get a bit of a geography lesson while you’re at it.  Meanwhile I’ll be busy doing an even more intimate form of exploring and experiential learning. Which, by the way, is part of the reason for my limited access and postings of late, something that will continue for another week or so while I’m making this 1400nm crossing.  "Sea you" on the other side!

Time to "Tearn"?

For a number of years, I’ve been pondering how the Snowflake Effect¹ could influence learning. For those who are new to this concept of the Snowflake Effect, in essence it’s about the transformation of society from a model of mass production to one of mass personalization. Think of it as providing just the right things for just the right people at just the right time in just the right context.

Many times everyday, we all have the need to learn about things that are just right for us, and ideally the perfect learning resources are available at just the right time. We hope for the Buddhist saying “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.”

Since a very young age, I’ve been fascinated by the “teachable moment”, when someone is perfectly ready, willing, and able to learn something new. How can we develop more ways to foster teachable moments every day, and how can we provide just the right resources (people, content, and environment) exactly when we need them?

A Growing Demand for Teachers

When you start to think about this on a worldwide scale, the demand for teachers and teaching forums is increasing exponentially. More than 6.6 billion people have the need to learn everyday, yet the learning assimilation gap (the gap between what we know and what we need to know) is widening.

What’s driving this need? There has always been much more to know than we ever could learn, and we always discover that the more we learn the more we understand how much we don’t know. This situation, however, is being exacerbated by the exponential growth of new “stuff”: technologies, techniques, content (text, audio, visual, etc.) and new concepts, as well as additional means of communication (anything from email to podcasts to Twitter). Add to this the need to solve problems (and challenges!) that are also growing at matching rates and you can see why the demand for learning is increasing exponentially.

Traditionally, the model for formal teaching and learning has been one where a single teacher instructs multiple students. Now this model is inverted. Today, most learners (we still have much to do in many regions where this is not true) are essentially surrounded by multiple resources, instructors, coaches, and trainers.

Initially then, we reach the point where, oddly, we need more teachers than there are learners. If we multiply this by the number of learning experiences everyday, then we find ourselves needing “n” times more the number of teachers than there are learners! And those numbers start in the billions and rapidly increase from there.

Rethinking the Relationship Between Teachers and Learners

Are we really to the point where we need many times more teachers than learners? If so, then we have to start rethinking the relationship between teachers and learners. And where would all these teachers come from? The answer is quite seriously “in the mirror". In this new world, we would start thinking and acting as both teachers and learners simultaneously. We would all become “tearners”.

Let me give you a reference point for this term “tearners”. I’ve borrowed the idea of blending existing terms to create a new one that represents a new concept from Alvin Toffler, who you might remember as the author of several books from the 1960’s and early 1970’s, including Future Shock and The Third Wave. His term “prosumer” blended producer and consumer into a single word that represented the concept of a society where the functions of producer and consumer would be combined.²

Now, I’m not suggesting that we’re all going to quit our jobs and become teachers in a formal sense. Rather, we’re going to augment our ability to learn by making all of us adopt this role of being a teacher whenever it is needed. In this context I am using the word “teacher” to describe the situation where one person is helping others learn something new. This could be anything from answering questions, suggesting a new technique, recommending a new tool, referencing some useful resource, etc. In this context, teaching is not necessarily an in-person real-time event. Today we can capture and publish our individual and collective “intelligence” through the use of blogs, podcasts, wikis, email, Twitter streams, and all of the more traditional means such as books, movies, songs, etc. We can continuously create teaching/learning resources for others to benefit from when their “teachable moments” arise.

The vast majority of our learning today is already done informally, that is, outside the bounds of a formal classroom setting. According to most estimates about 75% of the time, our sources of learning come to us this way. So this would suggest that we need to have about the same percentage of “informal teachers” as well. And as all of us become “tearners”, how can we dramatically increase the effectiveness and rate of learning?

In the past 20 years, we’ve certainly seen an increase in our focus on learning. Yet if we really look at our learning effectiveness (the speed with which we can acquire new skills, knowledge, and abilities), we don’t seem to have achieved an appreciable increase, despite the addition of new tools and new technologies throughout the entire e-learning and technology-enhanced learning era. I’m not suggesting that this era has been a complete failure. Certainly technology has augmented the number of learners who can be reached and it has increased the number of resources available, but I’m not convinced that it has increased the effectiveness of learning in any significant way. Thus, I am interested in not only the quantitative side, the idea that all of us can become teachers, but also the qualitative side, that all of us can become better teachers (and learners).

Part of the reason why I think this tearner model is possible is because we’re already redefining what “expert” and “expertise” means. Historically, experts have been recognized by their credentials. We’ve had degree programs, certification awards, and other formal means for acknowledging someone’s expertise in a tangible way. We still need this kind of verification of expertise, but since new technologies are being introduced at a more rapid rate all the time, we’re also seeing a transformation of what an expert is. In many cases, an expert is simply someone who knows more about a product or a technology than you or I do, and can therefore be an effective teacher.

We no longer have sufficient time to create the formal learning tools and environments, such as masters and doctoral programs, textbooks, and credentialing systems, to address these significant changes in technology or methodology. We need experts to teach us about new programming languages, new equipment, new approaches, and new ways of communicating no matter how quickly they appear on the scene.

I also think there is a relationship between this new definition of “expert” and this new way of teaching and training. Can we get better at attaching the responsibility for teaching to the idea of “expertise.” Many countries I have visited or lived in—Germany comes to mind—have an ingrained understanding that as you become an expert or master in a craft or profession, you inherit the responsibility, formally and informally, of becoming a teacher as well. What if everyone who mastered a competency, skill, or knowledge area also accepted the responsibility of helping others learn in these areas?

The historical model of formal education as the sole means of producing experts and providing teachers is not scalable. But maybe we can take the essence of it; that is, someone with expertise in a craft or profession not only has the potential to become an effective teacher of others who want to acquire those same skills, but also expects that teaching is simply part of what their “expertise” is all about.

So, What If We Were All “Teachers”?

What would it mean for each of us to think of ourselves as teachers? How could we become more effective in this role? First, we’d need a change of mindset. Every one of us would assume the responsibility of helping others to learn. We would also need to develop new skill sets. Some of the skills that would make us better are:

· Capturing and sharing what we know.³

· Being able to articulate our thoughts and ideas to others well through storytelling, metaphors, visual illustration, and problem-solving.

· Being more empathetic—improving our ability to see what the other person really needs to learn effectively.

These would be good skills for us to have anytime! It is intriguing to me to note that all of these skills are predominantly “right-brained” and that this scenario adds to the arguments I’ve made previously in my OCOT entry “Getting It Right” about the increasing need for right-brained skills in business.

This idea of all of us becoming teachers to help others learn is not just a one-way street. All of us as teachers gain the added benefit derived from the old adage, “The best way to learn something really well is to try teaching it to someone else.” When you have to explain it to someone else or help someone else become competent at doing something, you almost always learn more and become more competent yourself. Therefore, we can also look at being tearners from the standpoint of enlightened self-interest. If taking on the role of teacher causes us to learn something even better, then our collective learning will go up. We all stand to benefit in this role as “tearners”, since in the process of teaching others, we are addressing some of our own learning needs.

New Tools, Technologies, and Techniques for “Tearners”

As we move toward this model of tearners, let’s also look at ways to enhance teaching. What new tools, technologies, and techniques for teaching would we need? For example, search engines and recommender systems have mostly been focused on content thus far. Just as the exponential increase of content on the Web drove the need to develop these tools, so too might the exponential increase in teachers drive the need for better “expert-finding” tools. For example, we could develop tools that would help us find the experts we need in any given situation. I think a lot of the same technology that we apply to content could be applied to people. Metadata, such as characteristics, words found within, the audience it was written for, who else looked for this content, etc., could be applied to people and skills. Could we have more metadata about us individually? Could we get better at itemizing what each of us knows: our skills, knowledge, abilities, experience, expertise, to enable us to find people who are just right for us at just the right time and in just the right context?

Unlike the current mass production model of learning, which often assumes we are all somehow the same and need the same things at the same time in the same way, this new model of tearners, which supports mass personalization, draws upon our uniqueness as “snowflakes”. This model is sustainable because each of us can take on these roles of learner and teacher mutually. This model is also one that can grow exponentially because as each of us learns more, we can teach and share more, so the supply of “teachers” will naturally grow to meet the demand for learning.

And as teachers of others, we learn more ourselves so we have a built-in form of self-motivation and another multiplier to the overall effect. It all starts with you. Could it be time for you to tearn?

___________________

NOTES:

¹If you’re interested in learning more about the Snowflake Effect, check out the The Long Slow Chat, my joint effort with friend and colleague Erik Duval, and this collection of articles from Off Course – On Target.

² I’ve written about this prosumer concept often on Off Course - On Target including:

• Redesigning Rather Than Crying Over Spilled Milk?
• New Perspectives: The Third Wave?
• Jumbled Joomla: there is no "B" in Joomla!

³ I see the increased amount of capturing and publishing that we are witnessing via email, blogs, wikis, social media such as Facebook and MySpace, video on YouTube, and comments and opinions on Amazon, as signs that more people are sharing what they know, though in relative terms it is still only a small percentage of people who do so and only a small percentage of the expertise and knowledge that people have is actually captured and shared.

PhotoSynth: Mashups of Our Collective Intelligence via Photos

I don’t know about the rest of you who have your own blogs, but I seem to add many more items to my list of things to write about than I get around to finishing, so my list just grows. Here is one item that I am finally catching up on and which I feel even stronger about than when I was first writing it up several months ago.

I've found a particularly compelling example of the power of mashups. Here is one of those capabilities that you think you understand quickly and then, as you think about it more, you come up with whole new possibilities on how to make use of it. Truly an enabling technology for me!

Intrigued?  I’m referring to the recent release of a combined set of tools (in itself a mashup) called “Photosynth,” which was developed at the University of Washington and by Microsoft Research. Photosynth can take a large collection of photos gathered through a browser search for example, analyze them for similarities, and display them in a reconstructed three-dimensional space with each of the individual photos properly registered to their respective location in the 3D model.

For example, type in the word “Notre Dame, grab all the photos that come up, and run them through Photosynth, which will then display them in a reconstructed three-dimensional space.

As is often the case, seeing is believing, so I strongly encourage you to first take a few minutes (7:42 to be precise) to watch this video of a TED Talk given last year (2007) by Blaise Aguera y Arcas, one of the main developers of the technology,

Photosynth provides an enormous enhancement of automated registration and metadata tagging, finding the commonality of images, the creation of these 3D models, and the network effect that comes from combining photos from any source. As you begin to understand it better, start to imagine how powerful this new means of creating 3D models from existing information (photos) is, and how it enables design to start with what is already in existence and then work from there, by subtracting and adding to it.

Among other things, this type of technology enables you to zoom in from “outer space” down to earth using tools such as Google Earth and MS Virtual Earth, and then when you get to ground or street level, you can start looking around any area with not just satellite imagery but the added information from thousands or millions of photos from “you and I” that are posted up on any of the many online photo storage services.

Think about this for a minute, and you'll start to understand that this means we can now go INSIDE of buildings by “seeing” things through all the photos which are stitched together to create these 3D models and have each photo registered in the right place.

Watch the video clip below to see a fascinating depiction of a scenario where Photosynth is used to help solve a crime.

 

How could this form of a mashup-creating tool be applied to teaching and learning? You and your students could build some amazing history, geography, art, or other learning resources on the fly on an as-needed basis. You could reconstruct a field trip after the fact or set out on a field trip with the express purpose of capturing a location of interest, and then you could construct these highly detailed models from all the photos. Just imagine the new collections (or “synths” as they might be called) that would start showing up by the thousands and then millions as this kind of technology catches on.

Best of all, you can do this right now.  Download Photosynth and take it out for a spin!

The most powerful takeaway for me is that the merging of individual bits of knowledge—in this case photos—creates both better and unexpected new results, such as 3D models and a new form of collective intelligence. The information one can glean or discover within is a huge step forward in human knowledge. Take some time to both wander around in some of these examples and ponder these potential of new developments.

Loving Lexicographical Learning

Related to my theme of languages, but through pure serendipitous discovery via my addiction to watching TED Talks, check out this TED talk by Erin McKean on Redefining the Dictionary.

I LOVE this lady and her TED Talk for several reasons:

• As much as anyone, she’s in charge of the English language.
• She loves words and so do I.
• She gets to call herself a lexicographer, which as she explains also lets her say things like lexicographical which is a double dactyl like higgledy piggledy.
• Her desire to be a word fisherman rather than policeman, so she “… can go throw her net out and see what she can drag up from the bottom of the sea.”
• Her great sense of humor and ebullient presentation style.
• Her wonderful irreverence towards what makes a word “official” or “proper”, good or bad. Instead she focuses on what is useful for communicating.
• Her focus on inclusion rather than exclusion.
• Her appreciation and support for neologizing, which is the invention of new words and something I’m all too fond of doing!
• An entire presentation without ONE bullet point or text slide!  I’m inspired!

This is DEFINITELY worth 16 minutes and 02 seconds of your precious time!

Erin also maintains several blogs that are also worth checking out.  See her bio info below for links to a few of them and then go from there.

And if you liked this presentation, you probably will enjoy her great Slideshare presentation on “If Language Weren’t a Commons”.

If Language Weren't a Commons ...

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: isummit08)

From her bio on the TED site:

Why you should listen to her:

Much to Erin McKean's delight, her job as editor in chief of the Oxford American Dictionary involves living in a constant state of research. McKean searches high and low -- from books to blogs, newspapers to cocktail parties, The New Scientist to Entertainment Weekly -- for new words, new meanings for old words, or signs that once-favored terms have fallen out of use. ("Information Superhighway," anyone?) And it's clear that she relishes the hunt.

McKean is also the editor of the language quarterly Verbatim ("language and linguistics for the layperson since 1974") as well as the author of multiple books, including That's Amore and the entire Weird and Wonderful Words series. All that, and she maintains multiple blogs, too: Erin is the keen observationalist behind A Dress a Day and Dictionary Evangelist.

"Ms. McKean is part of the next wave of top lexicographers who have already or may soon take over guardianship of the nation's language, and who disprove Samuel Johnson's definition of a lexicographer as 'a harmless drudge.'"

The New York Times

View Erin McKean's Profile

Cool Tools I Use: Digital Pen and Paper

I truly believe that every one of us (yes, that includes YOU!) has cool tools that we use on an everyday basis and stories about how we use these tools and how we came to find and use them.  I'd like to hear about yours.  Meanwhile, here's another one of mine:

This tool is one of those great examples where the very best attributes of the past can be updated with the advantages of today's technology. In this case, it's by combining good old pen and paper with digital technology.

I use Logitech's io2 and have been using it for over 5 years, pretty much nonstop.  It does require that you use special "digital paper" but it comes in a good variety of sizes, pads, sticky notes etc., and they don't cost much more than regular paper and last a long time. The paper itself is very interesting and uses technology licensed from Anoto, one of the first companies to really break through with this type of digital paper, and is licensed by many makers of digital pen and paper. The Anoto-based paper works by having a very fine almost invisible set of little "dots" on each page.  Each of these dots has a unique identifier and so as you write on the paper with the pen, a sensor in the top of the pen keeps track of which dots you are passing over, so it knows exactly what your pen movement and motions have been and stores this digitally.  Then every time you insert the pen in its small pen holder base that hooks to your computer via USB, the software creates a full digital image of everything you've written or drawn on the paper. Think of it as digital carbon paper (if you're old enough to remember!)

Sounds complex, but the beauty is that you just have a very plain looking "regular" note pad and a slightly larger than normal pen that you use exactly as you would any other pen and pad. However, now you get a complete digital copy and backup of every page, which is not only handy, but also enables you to send your pages of notes and diagrams to others.

You also have the option of converting your handwriting to digital text by doing some "training" to recognize your personal style of writing, and this is working better with each release. I don't tend to use this feature too often, since my purpose is to have a visual archive and I'm the only one who needs to read it. Good thing, since I'm often the only one who can!

The Logitech/Anoto paper I use also has a bit of "smarts" to it, so you can use areas on each page set aside to automatically create, for example,  a calendar item or an e-mail.  Or you can take other specific actions based on the notes you take. This is extremely handy, and it can be setup to take these actions automatically every time you put the pen into its cradle and upload the contents to your PC.

This same technology has also been used to create some other fun and interesting devices such as the "Fly" pen from Leapfrog.  This cool tool let's you do things like write a word in one language, and then hear it translated into another language through the speaker inside the pen. You can also literally draw a small calculator on the paper, and then start using it as a fully functional calculator!

Of course, what I'm really waiting for is truly digital paper and paint, where we have surfaces that are digital displays with resolution at the molecular level, but I'll save that for another posting and hopefully it will be a Cool Tool I'm using in the next year or two!  In the meantime, consider trying out the currently available digital pen and paper to help you preserve and share your notes and diagrams.

***********

Have  "Cool Tools" you use and want to share?  Send me your favorites with the following information:

• Name of the tool and source for getting one. 
• What does it do? 
• How did you come to discover this? 
• How do you use it? 
• Why is it on your top ten "Cool Tools I Use" list?

Google Oceans: Another wish comes true!

While I  can neither take credit for nor claim any influence on Google's recent announcement, I'm pleased to say that some of the things I wished for last year in my posting "New Perspectives; Looking Down and Under" are about to come true!  In that posting, I wished that we would soon have similar capabilities as those provided by Google Earth and Google Sky, but these would vary in that they would look down and under to the earth's oceans and seas. Well, the title of this posting pretty much says it all, and you can read about it in the WebWare article "Google Diving into 3D mapping of Oceans".

Google Ocean (the name is tentative), shares similar goals, as well as the potential of increased collaboration, mass contribution, and "networking" that Google Earth and Google Sky present.  See my previous posts "New Perspectives: Looking Up" and "New Perspectives: The Third Wave" for more details and context about how powerful this can be. These views were summed up in the article:

"In addition to the 'wow factor" Google Ocean will no doubt have for amateur oceanographers, marine enthusiasts, and anyone fascinated by the movie 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, the project has the potential to promote more collaboration and advance research."

They also reflect my previous comments about how little we know about the 70% of our planet that is covered by the seas:

"'We hope that one of the outcomes of Google Ocean will be an understanding of how much remains to be explored,' said Miller of Scripps. 'We know far more about the surface of Mars from a few weeks of radar surveying in orbit than we know of the bottom of the ocean after two centuries.'"

Unfortunately, Google Oceans is not yet released, and Google is not saying much officially yet.  I'll be watching for the first chance to start using this new capability, and let you know as soon as it happens.  Since I live full time at sea now, this announcement is particularly relevant and practical for me. I already use Google Earth extensively for surface information, such as exploring a port or anchorage I'm about to put into.  In addition to my charts of the area, the photos and the ability to fly over the area before I get there have made a huge difference in terms of safety and in my confidence for sailing to new places, especially at night or  in poor weather with low visibility.  But I suspect that many of you would have similar fascination with the earth's oceans and be just as anxious to learn more. Perhaps some of you will have research or other information to contribute, and we can add yet another way in which mass contribution and the power of networking helps us all get better at getting better.

This announcement about Google Oceans is yet another great example of the power of wishes and how they often do come true (you might want to read about another wish come true in my recent posting "The Future is about Winning!", which highlighted the wish that turned into Pangea Day).

Although we may want to be careful what we wish for, I could not be more serious or sincere about my wish that you'll keep believing in the power of wishing and do some of your own!  I'll continue to share some of mine. I'm also interested in knowing what are some of YOUR wishes for positive change.

More on Mashups

Last week I was honored to do the opening keynote for the symposium on Mashups put on by the New Media Consortium.  NMC, in collaboration with Educause, recently released the 2008 version of "The Horizon Report" which is "... a five-year qualitative research effort that seeks to identify and describe those emerging technologies that are likely to have a large impact on teaching, learning, or creative expression within learning-focused organizations." 

There is a full download of the Creative Commons PDF version here, which I recommend reading.  The report covers key emerging technologies, critical challenges, significant trends, and what they refer to as "Meta Trends", which have emerged after 5 years of producing The Horizon Report.

The Symposium on Mashups was a fun experience in and of itself, since the event was conducted entirely online using a parallel combination of the virtual world of Second Life and a more "traditional" online environment using Adobe Breeze. Sessions, where conducted live, lasted generally about 45 minutes with about one-third to one-half of that time devoted to dialog with participants using said audio tools.  And to add some additional uniqueness, I delivered the keynote from my "floating office" (a.k.a. the good ship Learnativity) while anchored near La Paz in the Sea of Cortez, Mexico.  I connected up via a combination of a web connection via my laptop data card and a cell phone for the audio portion.

For the past few years, I've been emphasizing and championing the power and potential that a more holistic perspective of mashups can offer, and you can refer back to some of my previous posts, such as "Mishmash of Mashups", "Mashed Up Snowflakes" and "The Future is a Monstrous & Marvelous Mashup", to get more about my views on this topic.

For this most recent opportunity with the NMC audience, I had the benefit and challenge of an audience who were very well versed on the topic and practice of mashups, but were still focusing and limiting their use of mashups to that of technology and content.  My objective was to take advantage of their expertise and experiences with mashups, and help them see how mashups can best be understood and used as an almost universal conceptual model that can be applied to almost everything and everyone.

In the slides below, I suggested that a simple definition of mashups should be something like, "A mashup is a unique assembly of bits and pieces from more than one source into a single integrated whole."

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Therefore mashups are also another powerful implementation of the LEGO block model of modularity. In the Q&A session, I highlighted the importance of understanding that mashups require the use of modules rather than raw resources.  This concept focuses on the challenge of using components that are "just right" in size by ensuring that they are as small as possible, but not one bit smaller. I suggested that, in my experience, optimum size  is when two fundamental criteria are met:

1. Each component is large enough and complete enough to exist on its own.
2. By itself, each component is too small to be useful.

For example, each LEGO block is complete and exists independent of any other block, yet any one block is unlikely to be useful all by itself.  It is therefore important to note that mashups are not the same as creating something new "from scratch".  Buildings today are largely "mashups" because over 85% of the materials used to create a building are pre-built components, such as windows, door units, light fixtures, heating and ventilation components, cupboards, etc. These are then delivered whole to the building site.  Manufactured goods such as computers and cars are no longer created in factories that build them from raw materials. Instead they are assembled from pre-existing components, such as hard drives, keyboards, engines, wheel assemblies, etc., in flexible manufacturing plants. 

We are already seeing how large shrink-wrapped software applications are being replaced by unique collections (mashups) of small modules of code in the form of widgets, utilities or the combination of two pre-existing applications, such as Google Earth and your database of places visited, pictures taken, or customers served.

Mashups have huge economies of scale and speed of creation because they are are new assemblies created from pre-existing components or "blocks". And yet, each assembly will most likely be unique, because that specific collection of components has never been assembled that way before.  Therefore mashups offer the promise of enabling truly exponential scaling and mass customization or personalization, which is at the heart of my passion about a future based on the Snowflake Effect, where everyone of us can increasingly have just the right people and things at just the right time, in just the right context, etc.

Based on the questions in the discussion segment at the end of this session, as well as the follow-on comments I've received, I think that most of the audience seemed to really understand how mashups can be and are being applied to everything from software code to events and conferences, projects and even people.  By "people", I'm referring to such things as the finding just the right combination of people for a successful project team, or the mashup of your skills, knowledge, and abilities (also known as the description of your real job!).

Now that we have more and more examples of mashups around us, I'm hoping that many more people will see this as a conceptual model, rather than any one form of implementation.  As you consider this much broader view of mashups, what applications and uses can you see?  How are you perhaps already applying the concept of mashups to a more diverse range of problems and solutions?

Getting back to the NMC keynote, I had just enough time to close out the session by telling a short version of my story about "flapping", which cautions against the trap of trying to design innovative new solutions by copying old models.  I've received a tremendous follow-up response from many of the attendees, telling how powerful this perspective was for them and how much it helped them, both in the rest of the sessions at the NMC Mashup Symposium as well as back on the job.  Please see "Confusing Flapping with Flying"  for the full story. You too can see how much you are flapping versus how much you are flying.

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Moving aLOM

If you are a regular visitor here at Off Course - On Target, (OCOT) you know that metadata—characteristics that describe anything and everything—has been a major part of my life and a major focus for many years. If you'd like the full story of my initial recognition of metadata and its value, you can listen to or read my previous posting "Wayne's Wine Epiphany".

What is metadata?

Sometimes metadata is more commonly called "tags", such as the information you provide for things like photos that you upload or blog entries you create and search for. At a simple and personal level, metadata would include your name, phone number, address, family members, your likes and dislikes, skills, knowledge, etc. These are all of the literally millions of characteristics that describe, and to some extent, define you and the world around you.

Among many other benefits and uses, metadata is critical for improved "findabilty" and discovery, as opposed to searching. It is largely via metadata that we are able to find the "right"  people, places, and things (with "right" referring to our individual situations, context, and needs). This also works in reverse by enabling other people, places and things to find us, where appropriate and wanted.

What's been my involvement?

One of my more significant commitments to metadata started back in 1997 with the creation of the IEEE Learning Technology Standards Committee or LTSC, and within this committee, the formation of the Learning Object Metadata Working Group or LOM. LTSC is a group of volunteers who are devoted to development and implementation of standards for interoperability for use within the worlds of Learning, Education and Training (LET). LOM is a set of standards focused on the metadata required for more effective learning and performance.

I've had the honor of being the Chair of the LOM Working Group for over ten years, and this has afforded me the privilege of working with some of the most dedicated people I know. They have worked tirelessly, and often thanklessly, to produce several fully completed standards for metadata such as the IEEE 1484.12.1 standard for the LOM data model and the IEEE 1484.12.3 standard for the XML binding of LOM to enable the exchange of LOM instances (metadata records).

You may not understand or even be interested in these specifics, which is as it should be for most standards. How much do any of us care or know about such things as TCP/IP, HTTP, or the other standards which make the Internet possible? In a similar way, standards for metadata—of which LOM is but one—are part of what has enabled the improvement  of the creation and interoperability of metadata (though much is still needed).

To our surprise, LOM standards have been implemented broadly, both within the context of learning, education, and training, as well as within an eclectic and extensive list of other domains, including art, history, archives, and human relations. I know of no way to count the amount of such LOM-based metadata nor the number of implementations of LOM, but the numbers are globally dispersed and easily numbered in the millions and beyond.

What's Next?

Now it's time for both LOM and I to move on into our respective next stages and hence the title of this posting. As of January 1, 2008, I will be stepping down as Chair for the IEEE LOM Working Group, and I'm delighted to publicly congratulate Erik Duval for being appointed as the new Chair of LOM. I am about to make some significant changes in my roles and responsibilities, both personally and professionally (more on this in a future posting), and it is time for LOM and metadata overall to evolve to best fit the "Brave New World" we now live in. In spite of his relatively young age, Erik Duval has been one of the longest serving individual experts focused on metadata for learning, education, and training. Based on his work in metadata since the early 1990's, such as the creation of the ARIADNE project which is a large European based consortium focused on knowledge sharing and reuse, Erik was instrumental in the creation of the IEEE LOM WG from its very beginning.  Officially, Erik has served all this time as the Technical Editor of LOM and, along with Tom Wason, they created the initial kernel that grew into the full LOM standard. I could not be happier or more optimistic about the future of LOM and of the advancement of metadata than I am with turning over the leadership to such a capable individual and someone who has become one of my closest professional colleagues.

While those of us who first began to put this focus on metadata knew it was important for the future, I'm not sure that any of us could have imagined the degree to which this would be true or the scale of use and generation of metadata. To meet these new needs and scale will require both the evolution of metadata as we know it, as well as a complete rethinking. Some new leadership and energy will be of great assistance in making this happen. As such, the other main purpose for this posting is to bring your attention to some important and recent developments in the area of metadata; the first is a series of new activities within and related to the current LOM standards, and the second is addressing the longer term future of metadata developments—it's worth keeping your eyes on.

Where is LOM heading?

Here's a short overview of the new activities related to LOM:

• Reaffirmation of the 1484.12.1 LOM standard, which is largely an administrative action required by IEEE for all active standards every five years.  As the name applies this is merely a check that an existing standard is still in active use and will continue to be so. As the millions implementing LOM can attest, this is very much the case.
• Corrigenda for the 1484.12.1 LOM standard, which will provide a list of all the minor (but important) technical corrections and edits to the original LOM standard, which have been discovered by those previously implementing LOM.
• Two New Parts for LOM:  After several years of work led by Mikael Nillson, the Joint DCMI (Dublin Core Metadata Initiative) / IEEE LTSC Taskforce has just initiated work on two new IEEE standards.  The previous link will provide you with access to all details of the work to date, previous meeting notes, and ways to contribute to these efforts.  As briefly and coherently as I can put it, these two standards are for:
  • Developing a Recommended Practice for Expressing IEEE Learning Object Metadata Instances Using the Dublin Core Abstract Model to meet the growing demand for interoperable definitions of Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI) metadata terms and IEEE Learning Object Metadata (LOM) data elements, which allow these to be used together in metadata instances.
  • Developing a Standard for Resource Description Framework (RDF) Vocabulary for IEEE Learning Object Metadata (LOM) Data Elements. In simpler terms, this standard will  address the increasing demand for definitions of IEEE Learning Object Metadata (LOM) data element semantics, which allow the expression of IEEE LOM instances in applications using Semantic Web technologies such as the Resource Description Framework (RDF). For some data elements, this expression can be achieved using existing, stable RDF vocabularies. The purpose of this standard is to define the semantics of data elements not covered by such vocabularies. This standard forms an important basis for making IEEE LOM useful in this larger metadata context.
• LOM next:  Over the last year or so, we've discussed how we want to make LOM evolve over the longer term. The time has come to consolidate that discussion, gather requirements, and start thinking about how to meet those. Erik and the LOM Working Group have begun a series of open, regular, synchronous discussions in order to first bring everybody up-to-date on these activities, develop a plan of action, and then to begin the necessary new work.
  • These meetings are open to ALL and will be virtual meetings accessible both online and via phone.
  • If you are interested in participating, please either contact Erik Duval directly via e-mail (Erik.Duval@cs.kuleuven.ac.be ) or subscribe to the LOM mail list on the LOM web site. 
  • While those with metadata expertise would be especially welcome, it is equally valuable to get input from a diverse range of others who want to use and benefit from significant improvements in metadata for LET in the future. Please consider adding your input to this important effort.

Trends in Metadata

Metadata is often unnecessarily limited by the popular "data about data" description, but it is so much more than this.  Metadata is perhaps most often applied to "nouns", and my simple minded recollection of the definition of a noun is a person, place, or thing. To date, most of the focus has been on metadata for content (which has been very beneficial and for which much more work is still needed), but the future will include much more attention on the other "nouns"—people, places and things. This post would go on for much too long were I to do justice to any one of these or countless other areas that would benefit enormously from improvements in their related metadata aspects, so I will only list a few areas and provide you with a glimpse of the future potential within. Watch for future developments in metadata for some of the following:

Metadata about PEOPLE

This kind of metadata, especially pertains to our skills, knowledge, abilities, experience, attitudes and competencies.

In one small example, the IEEE LTSC Working Group 20 recently completed a standard for "Reusable Competency Definitions" or RCD, and this Working Group is now looking at other aspects of competencies that would benefit from standards. 

Metadata about PLACES

For example, we are seeing the recent surge of metadata in the use of maps, and GPS metadata is being added to things like Google Earth", which will enable us to answer questions such as:

• "Where are you now?"
• "Where was this photo taken?" 
• "What does this location look like?" 
• "What happened here in 1782?"

Imagine the possibilities as more locations become "smart" with metadata about them and related to them. Photos and video might show what they look like now and in the past. Metadata will be increasingly available for every building, its contents, furniture, features, hazardous materials, fire extinguisher and escape information to name but a very few metadata elements.

Metadata about THINGS

Metadata about things provides the characteristics of all the physical objects in the world, such as machines, parts, equipment, food, furniture, music...well you get the idea. 

Add to this all the non-physical things, such as objects created in virtual worlds. Now imagine if all these "things" were connected and could start to share this information and "talk" to each other.

You are already familiar with bar codes, which contain the metadata for everyday things, as well as the more recent use of RFID tags to electronically capture and broadcast all of this metadata. This is sometimes referred to as "the Internet of things". See the 2005 executive summary of the Internet of Things for one perspective and more detail on this concept.

For example, imagine if all the ingredients in your kitchen made all their metadata available, such as how full or empty they are, when they are about to expire, which combinations might let you make a dinner along the lines of what you desire, and without a trip to the store.  It's all just metadata!

To learn more:

• Wikipedia provides this brief overview on the related topic of object hyperlinking.
• This short BBC article from 2005 discusses how the United Nations was predicting such a "network of everyday objects".

AUTOMATED metadata generation (AMG)

Once you start to consider the massive amount of metadata that is required and possible for each and every person, place, and thing, you quickly "do the math" and realize the overwhelming problem of "How will all this metadata ever be created?" Our initial tendency has been to assume that metadata is all human generated—literally "typed in" to forms. If this were true, there would not be much of a future for metadata, since there is most likely more metadata than data and certainly more metadata than there are people, places, or things! 

While human generated metadata, especially the more "subjective" metadata elements, will always play an ever more critical role in the future, it will become the minority of the overall volume of metadata. Increasingly, metadata will be generated automatically.

To learn more:

• See this article on AMG which comes from one of the many groups that Professor Erik Duval leads at KU Leuven, a prestigious Belgian university.

USER GENERATED metadata

Did you know that literally all the metadata for all the CD's and music you see displayed on your MP3 players, iPods and computers, artist name, title, album name, etc. is generated by other listeners, such as yourself and NOT by the record companies or publishers? What if we could tap into the metadata that each one of us (eventually all 6.6 billion of us) are probably generating every day, such as the tags and captions we add to photos, the PowerPoint slides we create, and search terms we use, to name but a few?  Such is the power of user generated metadata and there will be much work in the future to increase the generation of, capturing, and putting to effective use the flood of metadata that will result.

ATTENTION metadata

Attention metadata is a common term for all the metadata that captures your likes and dislikes, and which can help you find everything from great music to listen to, people to get together with, TV shows and video to watch, etc. We can think of it as the things we "pay attention to"...hence the name.

Attention metadata is what recommender systems are based on. One such effort to address some of the needs for better capturing and interoperability of this type of metadata is that of the attention.xml group. You can listen to this 2004 podcast with some of the originators of attention.xml and this podcast and blog from Alex Barnett discussing attention related topics.

Why would you need this? Consider shopping sites that track your buying patterns, and your opinions and preferences after such purchases, and use these to help you find additional items that you may want (if you let them). How does the system know if you are buying the item for yourself or as a gift for someone special? Currently they do not, and therefore the recommendations become less relevant and you likely stop using them. However as these issues begin to be addressed, there will be more and more "decision support" to help us deal with the growing problem of an economy of abundance and too much choice for those of us privileged enough to live in such situations.

Metadata UNIQUE and SPECIFIC to LET

While some of the metadata standards, such as LOM, are intended to cover the application to LET, most of the initial work to date has been much more general and largely applied to content. There is an enormous need for much greater focus on metadata that is unique and specific to learning, education, and training. This would include metadata to assist with evaluation and assessment—matching learning styles with teaching styles, and helping each of us as unique individuals to have LET options that are just right for us at just the right time and in just the right way.

And trust me, this is but a minor scratch on the vast surface of but one slice of metadata and its very exciting future! 

So LOM, for now....

I certainly have mixed emotions about reducing my direct involvement in LOM and the development of some of these future metadata related topics. However, I can't imagine leaving LOM in better hands than those of Erik Duval and the many, many other dedicated individuals, old and new, who have such dedication and passion for improving learning, education, training, and performance and indeed the world in general, through better use and generation of metadata.

Whether or not you consider taking an active role in this future development of LOM and metadata standards and specifications, I certainly encourage you to pay more attention to the role of metadata and how it serves as a fundamental principle in the future of your life, both personal and professional, and the future of the world around us.

Wayne

The Encyclopedia of Life and the Network Effect

We are rapidly evolving towards a networked world—NOT "network"  in the technical sense, but the concept of networks wherein literally everything and everyone is a "node" and is connected to every other node. As this degree of connectivity becomes more and more pervasive, a whole new set of characteristics begin to emerge and our world as we've known it changes dramatically. 

One of these characteristics or traits of a networked world is what has been referred to as the network effect wherein the addition of more "nodes" multiplies the value to all the other nodes and to the network overall. Historical examples include technology such as the telephone, cell phones, FAX machines, e-mail, IM, etc., where we can easily see the power of the network effect as each new "member" or node of these networks multiples value of the overall network of all the other nodes.  For example, the value of the first cell phone, FAX or e-mail was essentially zero, and the addition of each unit multiplied the value for everyone else in the "network".   As a result, as soon as you had one of these items you immediately started persuading everyone else to get one because otherwise the value to you was diminished.  An early example of the so called "viral marketing" effect we are seeing much more of now.

The term "network effect" was first coined by Robert Metcalf, a brilliant mind and the founder of Ethernet, among many other things. But what is becoming clearer is that the network effect is not limited to technical networks and is, in fact, extremely pervasive. The Encyclopedia of Life is one such application of this network effect.

Encyclopedia of Life

The Encyclopedia of Life (EOL) is best summarized by the opening text on the site:

"Comprehensive, collaborative, ever-growing, and personalized, the Encyclopedia of Life is an ecosystem of web sites that makes all key information about life on Earth accessible to anyone, anywhere in the world. Our goal is to create a constantly evolving encyclopedia that lives on the Internet, with contributions from scientists and amateurs alike. To transform the science of biology, and inspire a new generation of scientists, by aggregating all known data about every living species. And ultimately, to increase our collective understanding of life on Earth, and safeguard the richest possible spectrum of biodiversity.

And here is a good review of EOL by National Geographic News as well as the ubiquitous Wikipedia reference.

Of course pictures and video are even better so be sure to check out their video clip that will quickly show you how EOL works and and this collection of demonstration pages that show how rich and extendable the data will is. 

If you have a bit more time  (about 22 minutes) I highly recommend that you watch the following video:

As E.O. Wilson accepts his 2007 TED Prize, he makes a plea on behalf of his constituents, the insects and small creatures, to learn more about our biosphere. We know so little about nature, he says, that we're still discovering tiny organisms indispensable to life; yet we're still steadily destroying nature. Wilson identifies five grave threats to biodiversity (a term he coined), using the acronym HIPPO, and makes his TED wish: that we will work together on the Encyclopedia of Life, a web-based compendium of data from scientists and amateurs on every aspect of the biosphere.

But EOL represents even more than the two themes I've touched on here and in my last post. More about this next time.