Off Course-On Target

More on Metadata

While catching up with my online reading after a very hectic and productive week in Berlin, I was delighted to find that my posting in October about a keynote I presented on the Future of Metadata and Learning Objects at the International Conference on Digital Archive Technology (ICDAT) in Taipei had stimulated a series of comments in other blogs. I was particularly interested in comments by Scott Wilson and Andy Powell who are very well versed in metadata, and by Stephen Downes, a prolific blogger and presenter on related topics.

I always find it interesting how others interpret what I’ve written or said. Their comments serve to remind me that posting slides from one of my talks without the accompanying audio can make it difficult for the reader to know what I intended. When I posted the slides, I tried to fill in the missing audio using supplemental text. Stephen, perhaps wisely, often posts his presentations by capturing the audio portion, and then offering it as an MP3 file for downloading.

After reading my postings again several times, I’m still puzzled as to why the slides and accompanying text were sometimes misinterpreted, but since each of their postings made several good observations and since more discussion about the important topic of metadata is much appreciated, I encourage you to read them.

• Scott Wilson's comments are at http://www.cetis.ac.uk/members/scott/blogview?entry=20061130132607

• Stephen Downes posted two comments at http://www.downes.ca/archive/06/11_29_news_OLDaily.htm and
  http://www.downes.ca/archive/06/11_30_news_OLDaily.htm

• Andy Powell joins in at http://efoundations.typepad.com/efoundations/2006/11/index.html

To further the discussion, over the next week or so, I plan to expand on some of these comments. Thanks again to Scott, Stephen and Andy for taking the time to read and comment on my previous postings.  I hope this will stimulate even more discussion by others.

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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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