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

What It’s All About

Want to see what it is all about? Want to see a real live humanitarian and all around great person?

Check out this video of my dear friend Linda English, a founder and Director of Membership Development, Learning for International NGOs LINGOs, www.lingos.org

This is from the Microsoft Alumni Foundation, Honors 2009 Integral Fellows ceremony on Wednesday (Nov.18, 2009).

You GO girl!

Experts...like you and me?

In previous postings, I’ve pointed out that we're living in a world of exponential change and that this is affecting all of us in many different ways. You can find my thoughts and references on this with a quick search on exponential change on OCOT as well as my overall article and podcast. 

To continue with this theme, today I'd like to explore how this world of exponential change has affected our concept of expertise and experts. Has it changed as well? What do you do when you need some assistance and there are no experts to be found based on our traditional definitions? 

The rapid introduction of technologies such as entire new programing languages, new software and hardware; or on the social side, things like social networking, un-conference event models, and so on, challenge our understanding of expertise,  and our traditional models and techniques for obtaining expertise and for finding those who have it.

While it is often true that there are very few completely new ideas and so many very new things are based on very old ideas, previous work, models and products, it still seems as if we are seeing more that are truly new and different. Being so new, we have no Ph.D programs,  certification programs, or other credentials in place, and in many cases, not very much experience or expertise at all because these technologies  and models are new to everyone. It helps in part that large scale adoption of anything new typically takes 10 or more years (see this “Long Nose” post by Erik Duval for more on this) but it often takes even longer for us to establish the traditional forms of denoting expertise and creating the experts themselves. What do we do in the meantime and even more so what do we do as the rate of change trends ever upwards?  Will our traditional models continue to work at all? For example:

• What does this mean for “boards” or other committees of experts for an organization, company, association?  If these are becoming less effective what is the better choice?
• In the absence of any “formal” credentials, how to you find and deploy individual experts and consultants? 
• Is there a value to a “panel of experts” at a conference?  If so, who should be on the panel?
• How does our understanding of new more contrarian models such as “wisdom of the crowds” and the “Blink” approach affect our definition and use of experts?

You get the idea, and I’m sure you can come up with your own list as well. 

Finding Solutions

I quite like and often quote Einstein’s observation that:

"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."

More often though, I think our problem is that we are restricted by our thinking which as been shaped by the previous paradigm and so we search for solutions to the new paradigm from within the old. As we seek to find and develop solutions to this new challenge of identifying and finding expertise and experts, we can take advantage of the way other things are growing exponentially.  For example:

• The degree to which these technologies can help us find and connect with others who are focused on the new “thing” we are interested in.  There are usually many more experts and more expertise out there than we assume or were previously able to find.
• The increased exposure more and more of us are having to new products, programs and ideas and therefore pursuing our curiosity with them thus taking the first steps towards developing more expertise.
• The increased access and availability for learning about and experimenting with these new ideas, products and services.  This is especially true in the form of the more informal learning we are increasingly doing through our daily forms of (re)search, reading, listening and otherwise consuming the exponential growth of “content” available to us.

Experts "R" Us!

So how do we find the right experts and expertise at the right time?  First, we need to get better at finding expertise that often goes unnoticed or remains unknown to us.  If you don’t know it’s there, then it essentially doesn’t exist!  In my experience, we often fail to find experts because it doesn’t appear in most people’s job description or title.  Have you ever had the experience of meeting someone AFTER a project was over (typically in an informal setting) and realizing that they have this incredible expertise and experience? Have you caught yourself saying something like “Where were you when I needed you?”  And worst of all, did you find that they were right under your proverbial nose, right next door or even already working for or with you?

I’ve long advocated that we need to work to dramatically scale up the amount of metadata we have for each of us. By this I mean the enormous list of individual attributes that define and describe us as unique individuals—deeply detailed metadata inventories of our skills, competencies, experiences, aptitudes, attitudes, knowledge and so on—and have it all being dynamically updated on a constant basis as we acquire new skills, have new experiences as well as those we lose from lack of use.  Just imagine how valuable it would be to find just the right person at just the right time when you need to add someone to a project team or have a question you need answered or an idea to test out.

Exponential Growth of Experts?

And perhaps most of all, we need to consider the potential of developing more expertise within each and every one of our exponentially expanding world population (currently 6.7 Billion and counting!).  We need to learn to see and find the expertise in all of us, both collectively and individually. By collective, I am thinking of the growing awareness and understanding of the latent expertise that lies within a large group of people. This idea is nicely captured in James Surowiecki’s book “Wisdom of the Crowds”.  This is increasingly happening as we become more and more connected to more and more people and things. 

Individually I am thinking that if something is very new, then an “expert” could be defined as whomever has the most experience—often the individuals who have been early adopters, high risk takers, and those who jumped in from the beginning and have the most experiential learning as a result.  If you believe, as do I, that every one of us has some degree of expertise and our numbers and our amount of expertise is growing at an ever faster rate, then therein lies much of the solution to the problem of finding experts for the exponential growth of new ideas, products, and services. It all sounds very “loopy” (consider the source!), but it seems to me that we can indeed invert Einstein's observation and best find solutions for a new paradigm from within the NEW paradigm.

We probably need to get much better at learning in real time as we jump in and try out these new products, services and ideas.  We need to get better at doing a lot of post-mortems to analyze what worked, what didn’t would be smart.  Getting over our apparent reluctance to admit to or review failures, and instead learn from what doesn’t work well. If increasingly more things are very new and we have less and less experience with them, should we not expect to be in an almost constant state of exploration and discovery and expect “failure” to be more common than success? 

I don’t mean "failure"in a negative sense, nor do I mean that failure should become the goal. Rather, learning from what doesn’t work seems in my experience to be at least as valuable or more so than that which does. We’ve long known about the value of “practice” but usually separate and distinguish this from “the real thing” and regard practice as what we do to get ready for the real performance.  Perhaps we now live in a world where ALL we do is practice and strive for continuous improvement.

But I also believe in the old adage that “the more things change the more they stay the same”, and so we will continue to have the more traditional types of experts who are deeply specialized.  They will remain highly valuable and sought after.  However, given the enormity of the number of problems we have to solve, both large societal ones and small daily ones, and the fact that these are growing exponentially, we need, as they say,
"all the help we can get."  And I for one simply can’t imagine how we can be effective in solving problems through linear approaches, such as continuing to depend upon our traditional model and definition of expertise. 

As we start to live and work in this world of exponential change, we need to think exponentially as well. We need develop solutions and models which scale exponentially. Rethinking our definition of expertise and experts to be on more of a sliding scale and where we assume that each and every one of us have valuable expertise to offer seems to me the best direction to head as we search for more experts like you and me!

Memories of Philip Dodds: We've Lost a Great Navigator, but Not Our Way

It was a sad weekend for me and many others as we received the news on Saturday morning that Phil Dodds had slipped away peacefully after a long and valiant battle with cancer.

It has taken me awhile to be able to write this, but I join the many others who share in the wide range of emotions and memories invoked by thinking of Phil. 

Referencing one of Phil's many claims to fame when he starred as a young man in the classic movie "Close Encounters of a Third Kind",  (center person in the screenshot from the movie), Elliott Masie wrote this typically thoughtful message:

"What are we saying to each other?"

That was a single line, spoken by the sound engineer at the end of Close Encounters of a Third Kind, as he played chords and a friendly alien spaceship played music back.

The role was played by a young sound engineer who was spotted by Steven Spielberg and given the on-screen role as the interface between these two worlds. That man, Philip Dodds, was still young and inventive, when he passed away this Saturday morning.

Philip Dodds was the Chief Architect of SCORM and the force behind sharable and reusable content. He was deeply involved in the evolution of interactive multimedia and expanding the possibilities for learning via technology.

If you use a Learning Management System, author an interactive learning module, or talk about the future of Web 2.0, take a moment to thank a man who you probably never met. Philip's work was KEY and CRITICAL to the exciting world of learning, knowledge management, and collaboration that we take for granted.

Philip's dreams were to create a global set of standards and specifications that would allow content to be searchable, reusable, and expandable.

Philip, we thank you for all that you have done, and we'll keep asking that question: "What are we saying to each other?"

With respect and sadness,

Elliott Masie

For those of you who knew Phil well and are feeling a bit melancholy, as Tom King put it, you may want to head over to this thread that Tom started on Phil on the AICC blog. Phil may be most publicly remembered as "the father of SCORM" or Shareable Content Object Reference Model but there is so much more that Phil accomplished, and Tom kindly provided links to some of many other ways that Phil left his imprint on this world. As Tom reflected in a recent e-mail, "perhaps reading the comments will be a bit uplifting for you too." Please add your memories of Phil to the thread as well, and here are a few of mine:

My Memories of Phil Dodds:

I remember all those late night and early morning meetings working on what Phil usually referred to as "the devil is in the details" and his quips about "working code trumps all theories". 

While many of these meetings were held in conjunction with a standards meeting of IEEE or AICC or ADL or ISO meetings in yet another city in yet another meeting room, we also had many of these meetings out at Phil and Sue's wonderful and historical Weems family farm house in Annapolis, Maryland.

I dug up this photo as it is so very fitting of Phil and these memories.  Not only does this show Phil (on the left), beaming as always, in front of a flip chart full of notes after one of these many meetings at the farm, but this is the photo that Phil chose to send me a few months ago when we were dealing with the loss of another great contributor, Claude Ostyn who is in the middle of this picture, along with Tyde Richards on the right.

Sue and Phil always encouraged us to stay over for the night, and though part of Phil's ulterior motive was to get more work done, it was also to have more time in the evenings to play music, enjoy a good Scotch, and discuss some of the wonderful history of the original Weems house and family. 

If the name Weems is not familiar to you, in the days before there was Global Positioning Systems or GPS, it was Phil's grandfather and namesake, Captain Philip Van Horn Weems, the "Grand Old Man of Navigation" who modernized celestial navigation with the ingenious "Weems System of Navigation" and who invented such things as the Second Setting Watch.

I fondly recall Phil recounting some of the of the Weems family history and tales of his grandfather as we were taking a break from SCORM work and sitting in the study in the farmhouse which would more accurately be described as a wing of the Smithsonian navigation museum. Phil told of how Charles Lindbergh studied with Weems before attempting his 1928 transatlantic flight, and Admiral Byrd, a classmate of Weems at the Naval Academy, came to Weems for instruction before setting out for the North Pole.

Whether he knew it or not, Phil admirably carried on this family tradition by acting in so many ways as the "grand old navigator" himself for so many of us.  It was like a déjà vu experience for me to read in the following tribute to Captain Philip Weems:

Captain Philip Van Horn Weems, the "Grand Old Man of Navigation," is renowned as a pioneer in the field. He modernized navigation by simplifying techniques; invented and adapted new, time saving methods; and most significantly, shared this knowledge through the tireless teaching of his discoveries and insights. His pupils were naval officers and adventurers. His advancements, which began during his career as a naval officer, now stretch across all types of navigation - from maritime to aeronautic, from underwater to outer space.

Just as with his grandfather before him, Phil too was a pioneer, inventor, engineer, and teacher who worked tirelessly to convert his visions to explicit form and share them with all of us so passionately.  Phil has left us with a plethora of navigational instruments, tables and maps in the form of things like SCORM documents and tools, ADL-R and so much more to help chart our way forward in the often confusing seas of learning, education, and training.

On Saturday, we lost our "grand navigator" but Phil Dodds has left us well equipped to find our own way now.

Thanks for the memories and the navigational aids Phil!

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The Power of 20/20 PowerPoint

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While catching up with this month’s Wired magazine, I noticed a short article with a very clever and descriptive title of “Get to the PowerPoint” from one of my favorite authors, Daniel Pink. Seems that Daniel has recently been introduced to the fun form of presentations known as Pecha Kucha (pronounced peh-chak-cha), which you may recall from my recounting using this format back in March and the great time I had. You can read about my thoughts on doing a Pecha Kucha style presentation and more details of this format and its history in the previous OCOT posting "Fast, Fresh and Furious".

Daniel found this Pecha Kucha to be much more than just a novel form of presentation, as did I.  As he put it, the simple 20/20 format of Pecha Kucha, (20 slides each displayed for precisely 20 seconds each):

".... turned PowerPoint ..... into both art form and competitive sport."

As is often the case, simple things are often the most profound and valuable. This certainly seems to be the case with PowerPoint slides where everyone is given but six minutes and 40 seconds (20x20) from start to finish, when every slide is given equal time, and then you're done! Think of how much time would have been saved and how much productivity would have been gained if even a fraction of the slide presentations you've sat through were compacted into this size, and presenters were required to boil their messages down to such succinctness. I got a kick out of Richard Nantel of Brandon Hall Research who was so taken by the economy of PK that in a posting earlier this week he suggested:

"I believe the designers of pecha-kucha should be awarded the Nobel prize in economics."

And YES, I'm quite aware that many of you may be wishing this for MY presentations!

I don't think that all topics or presentations are suitable for this format. But I have found it to be both liberating and humbling to approach presentations with this new insight into how often it is true that less is more. And I'm doing my best to practice what I preach! I'm honored to be touching down in Chicago tonight (Aug 28) just long enough to do an encore performance of one of my Pecha Kucha presentations at an Autodesk Leadership Summit. Then, at the Learning 2007 conference in October in Orlando, Elliott Masie and I will be hosting a Pecha Kucha Night as well as encouraging attendees to use this format elsewhere in the event.

Continuing my perpetual theme of the value (and rarity) of experiential learning, I strongly encourage you to try this out. Many of these events are done in a social context in the form of a Pecha Kucha Night. This format has worked well for the ones I've been involved in because they stimulate some great conversations when the PK presenters mingle with the crowd afterwards. The format also works well for helping to find and mine some of the gold nuggets that are hidden away within some of the more introverted and quiet individuals. Better still, think about scheduling an event or grab an opportunity to try out this PK style on one of YOUR next presentations.

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BTW, Daniel is the author of a book that I HIGHLY recommend called "A Whole New Mind: Why right-brainers will rule the future"  His views on the future are very much aligned with mine.  I think you'll find a lot of insights in his book that will change the way you see the world of the future and will show you how to excel within it. I'm looking forward to joining Daniel on the stage at Learning 2007 at the end of October and will have more to report to you after that fun experience.

Obviating the Org Chart

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Many of my audiences have asked me to comment  on my observation that we are seeing the obviation of the org chart in most organizations. Org charts and organizations are typically organized by grouping people by their common functional roles—accounting, engineering, marketing, sales, etc. but while I see continued relevance and value in these functions I don't see much value in grouping people this way. In fact, most of the time is seems that individuals and groups succeed in spite of the way they are organized, not because of it. Perhaps this is because in reality, almost all work is project-based and project teams are very multifunctional and made up of people with a very broad range of functional roles, skills, and expertise.   

How many times have you been shocked or surprised when you see the job titles and locations on the org chart where your fellow team members come from? How often have you found the most valuable members of a very successful project are the ones who were "accidentally" on the team or discovered by pure serendipity at the water cooler? Or how often have you been such a "surprising success" on a team? 

Over the past 10 years, as I travel to more and more locations around the world and have the privilege to be with more and more diverse groups, I've found this to be an increasing trend and pattern of success.  Similarly, when project teams are staffed according to the more "formal" type of classifications or "by the org chart", they are much less successful or at least rarely peak performers. 

But we still need some help in finding the right people, in being discovered ourselves and put on project teams where we can make significant contributions and truly realize our potential.  So if the org chart and other traditional methods are not working, what is? The social networking analysis that I noted, as well tapping into the "informal organization", are two areas that will help significantly. However, there is a way to apply these larger meta-trends to how we can be more effective in putting ourselves together for success as organizations, teams, or any other "assembly" of individuals.   

For example I've suggested that such collections of individuals are yet another form and a great application of the "mashup" models that are emerging (search "mashups" on OCOT for more details on this topic)  Successful teams and groups are also following some of the "un" trends such as unconferences and unlearning which are becoming more and more common and successful as they too focus on the informal aspects of these activities.   

I also see great promise in following the meta-trends of metadata and "getting small" as these apply to people. No, no, not smaller people <g> but smaller characterizations or categorizations of people—all of us. Recognizing each of us us as the unique "snowflakes" that we are. 

How?  By shrinking the organization from a set of boxes on an org chart to a collection of individuals, and "shrinking" individuals down into a long list of rich "metadata" that details all their skills, knowledge, experience, attitudes, aptitudes, abilities, etc. Each of these pieces needs to be as small (detailed) as possible.   

Yes, the length of this list would be huge—millions or more "lines" for each snowflake (person), multiplied by how many individuals are in the organization, and multiplied again by the relationships, past and present, and the "network paths" between them.

But so what if the size of this "database" is daunting? Storage availability is increasing exponentially, cost is on the asymptote to zero and computers love large, so let's take more advantage of all this.  Imagine if you could put together a detailed list of exactly the characteristics or skills or experience you were looking for, and launch this as a rich query into that equally rich database!  Imagine  pattern recognition and recommender tools could help you put together these queries based on the peak performance of individuals and teams that are similar to the one you are putting together. Now compare this to how things have been done to date with blunt instruments like org charts. No contest right?   

And yes, I also see this as another example of how pervasive the simple Lego block model is, not by treating people as blocks, but by enabling each of us to discover "just the right" people... or be discovered ourselves. This discovery model could not only be for full project teams, but for almost any combination of individuals for any purpose—finding the right person to ask a question, to add to an IM conversation, or to meet at a conference.   

This model also helps to show why I'm always advocating that we look way beyond our individual fields of interest and expertise when we are looking for tools, technology, techniques etc. We need to see through the specific context of those being used ,so we can see the underlying and even greater value, if it is there. For example, in the case of this topic of finding "just the right people", I'm hoping that we will start to see how something like the newly advanced forms of "dating technology" can be even more powerful just by changing the context from love to learning, or from romantic relationships to peak performers. 

Yes, dating technology and org charts seem a long way apart as do Lego blocks, snowflakes, and social networks, but hopefully you are finding your time here at Off Course - On Target to be worthwhile and that it is living up to the description of "Where unexpected paths lead to great discoveries".  Here's to more unexpected paths and more discoveries for all of us!

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Brazil or Bust! (Part 2 of 2)

In my previous post, I told you about my adventure getting to this year's eLearning Brasil 2007 conference in São Paulo. The theme of this year’s event was The Influence of Leadership and Technology on Organizational Learning and Performance.

The conference itself was (and always is) very interesting for me and for all the attendees, based on past and present conversations and comments I have received. Obviously the majority of the attendees are from Brazil, but a growing and significant percentage of attendees are from other South American countries, such as Argentina, Chile, and Ecuador, as well as from Europe and North America. A full range of academia, especially universities and trade schools, commercial businesses, government personnel, and technology vendors are also well represented and are similarly diverse geographically.

Along with the eLearning conference, there is an awards ceremony for an annual competition t on technology that supports the visually impaired. The results are always amazing, and this year was no exception. So you can see why this is one of the only events that I regularly attend and why I get so much out of it.

As I mentioned earlier, Elliott Masie came to the conference via Internet-based video from his home in Saratoga Springs, New York, which worked extremely well. Elliott covered a range of key issues that he sees coming up over the next few years as well as some that are appearing now.

For example, he noted how people worldwide are feeling overwhelmed and distracted and the impact this is having on learning and performance. In this context, Elliott posed the question of whether good learning can take place at your desk and particularly, at work or on the job.

Next we discussed with the audience how there are similarities between cooking and eating, and learning and training, a comparison Elliott and I have found fascinating and valuable for several years. We reached a consensus that there are deep similarities between these two very human practices, so much can be learned from comparing them. The connection between learning and the world of food and eating appears to be so strong that Elliott is having master chef Bobby Flay join him at Learning 2007, where he will be cooking while Elliott is interviewing him about the design, innovation, and evolution of cooking, and how it relates to our world of learning. Best of all, we will get to sample some of what Bobby has cooked up. Now THAT is performance and learning at their best, don’t you think? ?

Next, we kept Elliott on line and on the screen and brought two other global leaders—Dr. Alistair Benson, Academic Director of Manchester Business School Worldwide, and Eric Shepherd, President, Question Mark Corporation—onto the stage for a Socratic Dialogue on “The Influence of Leadership and Technologies in Organizational Learning and Corporate Performance”. In a wide-ranging discussion, we covered observations such as:

• Contrary to the rhetoric that large numbers of workers are retiring and so we should be concerned about the “brain drain” that this would produce, we are seeing the opposite happening in several ways. First, just because people are eligible to retire based on age and years of employment, doesn’t mean they will, and indeed many are choosing not to. While in many cases, this change in the age of the population may involve a change in the kind of work and conditions, such as shorter work days or weeks, more flexibility, different roles, or more of a facilitative and consultative role, the real change is that people are living longer and working longer…A LOT longer.

Secondly we noted that this change would produce a broader range of chronological age among individuals on a team and in an organization. In many places, for example, we are seeing people enter the workforce earlier, sometimes because they are sought out by employers and are convinced to leave their education and training programs earlier because they already have sufficient skills and the knowledge that is so badly needed. Combined with the people from other end of the age spectrum, we can expect teams whose membership spans teenagers to centenarians. A good discussion ensued on what this means for learning and for working.

• An audience member from the São Paulo area talked about the challenge his company is facing from the lack of people with engineering talent and what should be done about this. The ensuing discussion found that this phenomenon is broad-based in most countries in the Americas and Europe and quite the opposite in developing regions, such as India and Asia.

The discussion included the trend of “mass contribution” by increasing numbers of people. Knowledge and expertise is now being captured through e-mail and instant messaging to blogs and wikis. There is, however, a missed opportunity to “mine” the growing repositories of such communications for the nuggets of knowledge, patterns, and other value within.

After a short break, I had the audience to myself—a wonderful opportunity. Beforehand, I had them choose one of several themes that they’d like me to talk about and to my delight, they chose “The Snowflake Effect”. We took a fun hour or so going through what is currently my favorite topic: uniqueness and the Snowflake Effect. Here are the slides from my talk:

One of the things I value about the support I’m afforded from Autodesk is being able to spend time with bright. eclectic people in different locations on this planet every day.  This gives me the chance to test just how broad and applicable are the trends that I see. This diverse range of people from Brazil and South America confirmed once again just how powerful these notions of mass personalization, mass contribution, and the Snowflake Effect really are and how well these translate into their context. 

Given this tremendous validation and confirmation from so many locations and so many contexts, my close colleague and friend Erik Duval and I are hard at work developing the Snowflake Effect into a full conceptual model and articulating this in much greater detail. Please stay tuned for upcoming announcements when we will have a site dedicated to the Snowflake Effect where we will be asking for your input, reactions and critiques.

For now, I hope you find some good value from my most recent experience in the great metropolis of São Paulo. And my sincere thanks to Francisco and the super staff of MicroPower for the great job you do of making eLearning Brasil somehow better every year. It’s an honor and a privilege to be a part of the whole experience.

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Trust is good!

In a previous posting, I talked about “trust as a competency” and my discussions with Stephen MR Covey about his recent book The Speed of Trust: the One Thing that Changes Everything. So I was intrigued by a recent article “Corporate Philanthropy Inspires Trust: Does It Also Prompt Higher Profits?”  on the Knowledge@Wharton web site. This article also ties in nicely with two topics that I will cover more in the future—trust and “doing good to do well”.

As summarized in the article's introduction:

"Wharton finance professor Vinay B. Nair and two other researchers looked at whether being charitable -- such as donating money to medical research or to organizations that promote economic self-sufficiency -- helps a company's financial picture. They concluded that it all depends on the type of industry.” 
And “They cite a survey last year by the Economist on corporate giving. Of the 135 executives and 65 investors who responded, 85% said corporate social responsibility was a "central" or "important" consideration in investment decisions. That figure was almost double the 44% who responded similarly five years before.  But Nair and his colleagues theorize in the paper that charitable giving may be good for the bottom line because it helps to convince consumers that a company and its products are trustworthy. Trust factors into many purchases, particularly when it is not obvious why one product is better than another. Nair uses the example of "natural food" products, which typically are priced higher than standard items even though they may not taste any better. Natural foods are a rapidly growing business."

While I’m very supportive of this notion of “doing well by doing good”, I think this article unfortunately exemplifies a very traditional approach to corporate philanthropy. In doing so, they miss an alternative model that can have much more impact for both sides and provide a very sustainable way for corporations to be very philanthropic. This alternative model is characterized by “enlightened self-interest” and is what I like to refer to as “strategic philanthropy”.

The Wharton research missed an opportunity when they specifically excluded from consideration:

“… good deeds that could also have the effect of boosting a company's productivity and, in turn, its profits. For instance, a company's decision to operate an environmentally friendly plant could increase efficiency. Likewise, a company that offers flex time and good maternity leave benefits may reap the benefits of a more loyal and productive workforce."

Strategic philanthropy is not an oxymoron!  Some define it as "how companies can provide money, capabilities, and partnerships to charitable causes in ways that sharpen their own competitive edge.”  One of the best explanations of this different approach to philanthropy was in a 2002 Harvard Business Review article “The Competitive Advantage of Corporate Philanthropy” by Michael Porter, University Professor, Harvard Business School, and Mark Kramer, Managing Director, Foundation Strategy Group.

In their article, they asked "Should corporations engage in philanthropy at all?" and argued that companies might be better off NOT engaging in traditional philanthropy if it is done in an ad hoc way, (such as a small amount of dollars being given to a charity or local cause) or is used just for public relations, advertising, or high profile sponsorships. However, Michael and Mark believe that when the philanthropy is strategic and tied to companies' social and business objectives, there are greater benefits.

Porter and Kramer found that only a few companies actually engage in strategic philanthropy. At the time, they cited Cisco as a company that has truly maximized the value of philanthropy by focusing on both its economic and social objectives through the development of the Cisco Networking Academy Program.

Since this Harvard Business Review article can only be ordered as a reprint , here is a good synopsis of the article:

“When it comes to philanthropy, executives increasingly see themselves as caught between critics demanding ever higher levels of "corporate social responsibility" and investors applying pressure to maximize short-term profits. Increasingly, philanthropy is used as a form of public relations or advertising, promoting a company's image through high-profile sponsorships. But there is a more truly strategic way to think about philanthropy. Corporations can use their charitable efforts to improve their competitive context—the quality of the business environment in the locations where they operate. Using philanthropy to enhance competitive context aligns social and economic goals and improves a company's long-term business prospects. Addressing context enables a company not only to give money but also leverage its capabilities and relationships in support of charitable causes. Taking this new direction requires fundamental changes in the way companies approach their contribution programs. Adopting a context-focused approach requires a far more disciplined approach than is prevalent today. But it can make a company's philanthropic activities far more effective.”

With this different model in mind, you might want to check into the “what and how” of your organization’s philanthropy.  I suspect that most of you will find that the traditional model is being practiced. And while I want to be clear that just about any form of philanthropy should be applauded (and certainly there is no end to the need for such giving back), I’d like you to consider how much more effective and lasting it could be if we were to adopt the model of strategic philanthropy. Wouldn't this approach be more effective, sustainable and able to increase over time?

As I mentioned at the outset, this topic of “doing well by doing good” and specifically this model of “strategic philanthropy” is one that I will return to in future postings. In the interim, please let me know if you have any examples or comments to support or refute this model.

For now, I’ll leave you with a great summary of philanthropy that I found on the web site of a company called Strategic Philanthropy:

An Effective Giving Strategy:

• Meets personal, corporate or organizational interests and passions
• Defines an essential mission, purpose and priorities
• Addresses/responds to real needs in local and world communities
• Incorporates clear, established rationale and operational procedures
• Integrates an ongoing evaluative component that is meaningful, flexible and accessible to all involved
• Benefits from, and contributes to, the experiences of others by connecting to the larger philanthropic community
• Is a journey of learning and listening

And…most importantly…is fun and deeply fulfilling.

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Melting your way to creative thinking

In my last post “Building teams with tires?”, I introduced you to PIT Instruction & Training's award-winning program "Inside the Box” where two teams compete against each other to successfully change all four tires on a real NASCAR race car. The program teaches participants about critical elements such as feedback, process improvement, and breaking everything down to small steps—all  to improve the process and the team. How might you use this information to do some “outside the box” thinking to come up with similarly effective forms of learning and performance? 

In a former life I was an Industrial Technology instructor. One of my favorite areas to teach was metalworking, and specifically the foundry where you learn how to create hollow molds into which you pour molten cast iron, aluminum, bronze, and other metals to create any forms or shapes you want. Similar methods are also used to create jewelry using gold and silver or creating toys and kitchen goods with plastic.

What’s my point?  I learned that there seems to be a real difference between people who have this experience and those who don't—differences in how they THINK and their degrees of imagination and creativity. I don’t have any scientific proof but there seems to be something quite profound about realizing that something most people assume to be  “solid” and something you can only change or shape by cutting or gluing or welding, can actually be temporarily turned back to a liquid and then suddenly almost ANY shape or form becomes possible! This seems to have a deep effect on most people as far as their ability to be more creative in solving problems and in their ability to “design” simple and complex things.

Many seem to transfer this experience out of the physical realm and use it, often unknowingly, in a conceptual sense to help them create solutions to social issues, teams, and other applications. So just as the PIT group has come up with this very effective way of building more effective teams and learning six sigma concepts, I think it would be a great idea to offer similar short programs in foundry or jewelry-making as management and leadership or as creative thinking and problem-solving courses.

Think about it and see what you can come up with for other novel approaches. Send me your great examples of being “Off Course and On Target”. Post your ideas here in the comments field and let’s see what kinds of fun and effective learning approaches we can come up with. Or perhaps you know of other examples you can post as links or provide information about? 

Thanks for tuning in. More to follow.

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Building teams with tires?

Recently, at the Learning 2006 conference in Orlando, Florida, Elliott Masie presented several awards for the most outstanding examples of learning and performance improvement. One award, which went to PIT Instruction & Training  is particularly interesting because this team-building component is a relatively small program within a much larger set of training for the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR). If you’re curious about it, read the New York Times article on the full PIT school.

Along with full programs for NASCAR pit crews, PIT offers these shorter team-building programs for individuals who want to improve their management and leadership skills. These "Think Inside the Box" programs are based on desired outcomes and goals, where groups participate in a fun and interactive pit crew Entertainment Program or benefit from a custom-designed program to address specific challenges within their organization.

The phrase “inside the box” refers to the pit box area in which motor sports pit crews change tires and fuel the race car in under 13 seconds. These programs can last for a few hours or for several days and is “based on the theories and concepts utilized by today's most successful pit crews...preparation, specificity, communication, efficiency, accuracy, performance, outcome...and the list goes on.” "Inside the box” is also a call for businesses and organization to creatively refocus and control normal operations that influence business outcomes rather than more nebulous “outside the box” thinking, such as strategic planning. 

One example pits (sorry, couldn’t help it) two teams against each other with the task of successfully changing all four tires on a real NASCAR race car. Elliott personally attended one of these team building sessions at the PIT facility in South Carolina. He was amazed at how effective of this form of “visceral learning” is. Professional NASCAR teams can change all four tires in at about 12 seconds. At first, Elliott’s team took over 3 minutes, but dropped to around 30 seconds. This task involved critical elements such as feedback, process improvement, breaking everything down to small steps—all  to improve the process and the team.

Even more interesting to me is how this program teaches such things as six sigma concepts! For example, each pit stop presents a different scenario and challenge that the Team must resolve. These situations may include:

• Performance Expectations
• Performance Feedback
• Exchanging Team Members
• Exchanging Team Member Duties
• Loss of a Team Member
• Equipment Failure

To add some fun to the Learning 2006 conference, PIT brought a NASCAR to Orlando along with a full setup—the tools, jacks, and blue team/red team uniforms. Anyone could sign up for an hour’s worth of instruction and then get timed to see which team successfully changed all four tires the fastest. Thanks to Mike Parmentier from Booze Allen Hamilton, I was able to get some pictures for you of some fellow Autodesk employees who took the challenge!

There's more to say about this topic and how you too might be able to come up with similarly effective forms of learning and performance, so I'll talk more about it next time.

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