Off Course-On Target

Kudos from Tiger Woods and Lance Armstrong

On New Year’s Day 2006, I started jogging regularly. One of the many nice things about jogging (apart from the physical high, the being outdoors, the doing-something-with-your-body-rather-than-only-with-your-brains-heart-and-soul) is that you can really measure progress. A plethora of web sites are available that can help you set your goals (run more often, faster, longer, …  ) and guide you through a scheme of intermediate steps to get you there.

For me, music is a big part of the running experience. And, as in so many other domains, technology is now really creating new opportunities to enhance the music-and-running experience. An iPod with the NikePlus sensor is one example where you can “snowflake” your runs (i.e. customize them for you, without any annoying overhead on your part). By “snowflake” I’m referring to the Snowflake Effect that Wayne and I have written about before..

Basically, the NikePlus sensor fits in your shoes and transmits its data to a connector on your iPod. The iPod records the data. When you dock the iPod, the data gets sent to a NikePlus web site and you get a nice overview of your runs.

  

More interestingly, you can set yourself one or more targets, like the distance you want to run, or how often, or how fast, etc. The Snowflake Effect works really well in this context: when you improve your personal best time, you get a nice message with kudos from Tiger Woods or Lance Armstrong. Yes, I know that this is a pre-recorded message, and that neither Tiger nor Lance knows me personally, nor are they interested in my very mediocre jogging results, but this kind of feedback works really well nevertheless! There is something quite addictive about improving yourself and getting the recognition and encouragement from others when you do.

My key point here, I think, besides this being another example of the Snowflake Effect (my goals, my music, my runs), is the directness and relevance of the feedback loops. Time and distance can be measured quite precisely and are essential characteristics when you run. (Oh yes, you can also measure how many calories you burn if your interest is more on that side of things!) What surprised me at the beginning is how well we understand how we can take someone from one level of running performance to another. From personal experience, I can tell you that running for a full hour seems completely out of reach when you start doing this—I literally ran out of breath after 3 minutes on my first run!—yet, if you follow simple running advice, everyone can achieve it after six months.

I think there is a lot that we can learn from the world of sports that can be directly transferred to the world of learning. How often do our learners (and we as learners!) set their targets explicitly? As a computer science professor, I have very few students who have a more or less precise idea of why they are taking a particular course and what they want to achieve. How often do we provide them with a clear schema that is already proven to take learners from where they are now to where they want to be? How well do we measure progress towards their goal? How often do we provide the feedback to keep them on target—even when they’re off course?

Of course, things aren’t always just about farther, higher or faster, and that makes measuring progress sometimes quite a bit harder. Not everything we learn can be reduced to meters, grams, or seconds. Still, sometimes measuring progress is easy (drill-and-practice, spelling errors, ...), sometimes it is kind of in-between (project work, sales, repair errors, ...) and sometimes it is downright difficult (moral education, longer-term career planning). This obviously relates to the fuzziness of the word “learning”, a word we use in all these and many other contexts.

So, here is your homework assignment: can you think of examples of how to measure progress in learning? Can you think of ways to exploit those measures to provide motivating feedback?

Incidentally, NikePlus also has a very strong social component:

• Runners can challenge one another to run faster or farther (today, there are about 100,000 runners in more than 30,000 challenges on the web site, and more than 37,000 runs were logged in the last 24 hours).
• They can share power songs and play lists that work well for them (which you can of course buy on iTunes J ).
• Forums are available for exchanging tips, etc.

This social component must sound very familiar to those of us involved with computer-supported collaborative learning—or should I say Learning 2.0?

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Erik Duval is a computer science professor at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium. His research interests include metadata, and how they enable finding rather than searching, and a global learning infrastructure based on open standards. He teaches courses on Human-Computer Interaction, Multimedia, and problem solving and design. He serves as the president of the ARIADNE Foundation and the chair of the IEEE LTSC working group on Learning Object Metadata.

Back at Last!

Well, after an extended amount of time off, much longer than expected by the way, I'm back! 

I learned a lot during my time off, some expected (and some very much not expected!), but learning of any kind is always a goal and a good thing for me, so it was a great success in this regard. I have more thoughts and ideas than ever to share with you here at OCOT, and I have renewed energy to apply towards making 2008 the best year yet for all of us. 

Fortunately for me, and for you as well, I'm blessed to be surrounded by a cadre of very special and very interesting people, and as you've noticed I'm sure, several of them have been sharing their unique perspectives and points of view with you here at OCOT. I hope you've enjoyed them as much as I have. My sincere thanks to Murry Christensen, Marcia Conner, and Robin Wilson for the time they took out of their hectic schedules to post some of their ideas and perspectives.  Better yet, there is much more to come!

As I mentioned previously, my plan was to experiment with the notion of "guest bloggers" here at OCOT, to push the "blog boundaries" a bit, to provide some additional new outlets and audiences for the guest authors as OCOT "producers", and to provide additional new content, perspectives, and ideas for OCOT "consumers". 

With the success of these initial contributions, I'm delighted say that you'll be seeing more of these posts and more guest authors in the coming months. In addition, I'm now working with some of these authors to create some additional new formats for OCOT including interviews, video, and virtual world-based content. 

PLEASE keep your comments, critical feedback, and contributions coming via e-mail and calls, so we can continue to evolve, expand, and improve upon the OCOT experience, your  involvement, and benefits that OCOT provides to us all.  I'm excited to be back. Stay tuned for more thoughts and ideas that promise to be ever more off course, yet ever more on target!

Hard to believe that we are already 1/6 of the way through 2008. As this is my first chance to do so, my very best wishes to everyone for a year full of life, love, learning, and happiness.

w
a
yne
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Digital Chaos – When will it be Avoided? (Part 2)

In my last posting, I discussed how the adoption of manufacturing standards, which did not occur overnight, was driven by the realization that component logistics were becoming so unmanageable, that the manufacturers were in danger of failing.

Today, the need for digital identity on an Internet-wide basis is bringing us to a similar crossroads. With so many identity protocols, standards, and specifications, will we be able to avoid digital chaos?

Is the digital identity problem really so complex?

Currently, each digital content package has its own media format and content with its own particular twist—no one has yet agreed what learning objects should have as a unique identifier. A unique identifier is a number or string that is used to identify a specific object. This number or string cannot be used to refer to any other object. For example, an ISBN can be considered a unique identifier for a book. Although a number of books might, for example, be titled Intellectual Property, they can still be differentiated by their unique ISBNs.

According to Wilbert Kraan, who is on staff at the Centre for Educational Technology Interoperability Standards (CETIS):

“The essence of the identifier problem is the reconciliation of the need for identifiers to be the same forever, for everyone, independent of where the resource is, who owns it and in what kind of system it resides in. Not an easy task when the resources—ithe learning objects—are themselves composed of multiple objects, can be changed, have alternative versions, copied and aggregated into, and disaggregated out of, larger learning objects. Add to that the necessity of maintaining different sets of metadata (and thus metadata identifiers) about the same object for different groups, and you have quite a puzzle.”

The idea of using unique identifiers to manage and track learning objects is extremely attractive. Persistent identifiers, such as Handles, DOIs, and PURLs, offer a superior solution over URLs, which can change easily by being moved. However, the added time and effort needed for their initial development, despite their long-term benefits, seems to have hindered their usage. Economic and cultural factors in education that tend towards a short-term view will have to be overcome if persistent identifiers are to be adopted.

Why do so many identity protocols, standards, and specifications exist? In truth, manufacturers like things to be proprietary. Each wants its own standard. The publishing industry, for example, may require a very robust system with a central authority (e.g. DOI) that guarantees the one and only identifier for a specific object. Such functionality is necessary for the kind of rights management systems they would like to see.

Learning content and information: what do we want?

• Smart content with inherent information identity – Nine industry-leading organizations have agreed to be the anchor investors in a project, sponsored by the Common Cartridge Alliance, develop a Common Cartridge (CC) format, which defines a commonly supported content format, able to run on any compliant LMS platform. CC will enable end-users and learning delivery organizations to develop and share community source tools that allow cross platform support, content portability and more effective learning materials. 
• Personal identity – The use of identity federation standards can reduce cost by eliminating the need to scale one-off or proprietary solutions. It can: 
  • Increase security and lower rise by enabling an organization to identify and authenticate a user once, and then use that identity information across multiple systems, including partner web sites. 
  • Improve privacy compliance by allowing the user to control what information is shared, or by limited the amount of information shared. 
  • Drastically improve the end-user experience by eliminating the need for new account registration through automatic “federated provisioning” or the need to redundantly log in through cross-domain single sign-on.

Leading enterprises around the world have already deployed identity federation to get closer with partners, improve customer service, accelerate execution of business partnerships and alliances, cut cost and complexity of integrating outsource services, and free themselves from vendor lock-in. In addition, by adopting OpenID, end-users and consumer-focused web sites are also starting to engage in identity federation.

We shouldn’t be surprised: these things always take longer than expected

The world of engineering took seventy-odd years to get to a steady state on some standards—even back then international agreement was poor, countries still competed, and events prevented unity. If commercial gain is part of the debate, it will take longer for countries to adopt digital identity standards. Industry resists de facto standards unless there is a compelling value for all involved. So what must those benefits be?

• Reliable and safe personal identity that the individual can manage and trust, and that the individual can use to access and link to services anytime, anywhere. 
• Content that, because of its inherent identity, is digitally smart and can therefore connect you properly to the information you require.

To make progress toward achieving truly reliable personal identity, we must be able to:

• ID the person – The ID owner must be able to self-manage his or her own private and public information, and the managing intermediary must stringently validate (locally, nationally, and internationally) the user’s identity— all personal data must be encrypted and validated by an expert and trusted third party. 
• ID the content – Content must be reliably identified. Each digital content package must have an assigned identifier that is unique, which enables us to search and inquire, to find out if the content is what we want, that we are entitled to have it, and that we agree, via an identified transaction, to hold a copy (no back door copies).

Bottom line: we already have the interoperability standards for content and what is needed for a true Internet-wide user identity system. The only hurdle that remains—and this is a big one—is adoption. And one of the key barriers to adoption that must be overcome is finding the kind of intermediary who will behave much like a Swiss bank—one who respects each person’s privacy and always acts on the person’s behalf.

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Guest blogger Robin Wilson, founder of RWCS Ltd., is a leading information architecture expert with extensive business development experience across a wide portfolio of client, contracting, and consulting organizations in both the UK and internationally. An acknowledged expert on Digital Identifier Policies, he is closely linked with leading-edge views on design information decision practice. RWCS Ltd. provides high-level support and resources for the development of Digital Information Architectures.

Digital Chaos – When will it be Avoided?

Without a doubt, one of the biggest challenges to the success or failure of what’s come to be known as Net 2.0 is the need to solve the problem of digital identity on an Internet-wide basis. The absence of a standardized (and generalized) Internet identity mechanism is keeping the digital community in a chaotic state.

In its simplest form, digital identity is the user name, and the password provides authentication. The purpose of digital Identity in the Net 2.0 universe is, according to Phil Becker, Editor-in-Chief of Digital ID World, “to restore the ease and security human transactions once had, when we all knew each other and did business face-to-face, to a machine environment where we are often meeting each other for the first time as we enter into transactions over vast distances.”

The Digital Wild West

Currently, digital identities are limited to specific domains, such as corporate enterprises, or specific sites. The absence of standards, according to Phil, is driving content suppliers to create private “silos and walled gardens” where entry is controlled with localized identity mechanisms, and little or no content is exchanged between domains. Phil argues that the large Internet content sites already find themselves in this position, and in the absence of a better alternative, have no incentive to organize by any other method. He asserts that the point where “silos” will crumble and “walled gardens” will break apart cannot happen without first solving the networked identity problem. Until then, we will only see either one walled garden replaced with a different one, or a form of virtual entropy that destroys the new Internet constructs.

But...would it be virtual entropy, or would it be similar to the historical example of the emergence of realizable engineering standards in Victorian times?

So, how come the engineering world “gets it?”

It’s easy to assume that the engineering world of standardized part numbers and components had the foresight to prevent the “silos and walled gardens” of today’s digital world. It actually took a long time to get to where everyone could reliably identify “the right part for the right machine.” In the early days, too many people had a vested interest in preventing interoperability between machine components (nuts, bolts, fixings, bearings, threads, etc). It was, in fact, not in the interest of some manufacturers—those who wanted to trap and retain customers so that they would return for further business.

In 1841, Joseph Whitworth, a British engineer, presented a paper before the Institute of Civil Engineers where he introduced his revolutionary thread system for screws. Up to this time, no conventions existed for screw threads. Although a Whitworth thread is stronger than its SAE counterpart, Whitworth’s American contemporary, William Sellers, didn’t like the shape of the thread on the Whitworth screw because it took “three kinds of cutters and two kinds of lathe” to make one.

Sellers proposed that the thread pyramid should have an angle of 60 degrees and that the top of the pyramid be flattened, which is much easier to make than the fancy rounded top of a Whitworth screw. Sellers claimed that his thread would need just one cutter and one lathe, and was therefore easier, quicker, and most importantly, cheaper to make. By 1883, the American railroads, which were the largest corporations in the USA, almost universally adopted the Sellers screw thread. This forced all of the railroad’s suppliers to use the Sellers screw thread.

Whitworth and Sellers: the Second World War

The final chapter in this saga took place during World War II. In the northern winter of 1941 – 1942, German tanks in the Panzer Division battled those of the British 8th Army in Africa. On both sides, the tanks broke down as bolts and screws wore out and loosened. American factories sent tons of bolts and screws to the battlefront—but they did not fit the British tanks. So for the rest of the war, the American factories ran two separate lines—one for British screw threads and one for American. Everyone agreed that having screws that didn’t match would be a very stupid reason to lose a war, so in 1948, the British agreed to use the Sellers thread, which by then was already called “US Standard”.

Also during the war, Packard, an American company, made British-designed Rolls Royce Merlin engines for US aircraft. Astonishingly, Packard replicated these engines right down to their Whitworth screws. But those same Merlin engines used two types of US-designed Bendix injection carburetors, both of which used US Standard threads. And British-built Merlins employed SU carburetors using Whitworth threads! The job facing Packard when it undertook manufacture of the Merlin was daunting, to say the least. Since no toolmaker in the US made Whitworth taps or dies, Packard was forced to make its own.

So, what drove adoption of standards?

The tipping point which drove the adoption of manufacturing standards came when component logistics because overwhelming. If manufacturers didn’t standardize on parts, their businesses would fail. According to Phil:

“…the ‘engineer’s mind” (versus the ‘marketer’s mind’) naturally seeks the ‘perfect solution’. That’s the blessing of the engineer’s mind. It is, of course, also the curse. As any student of technology history knows, the ‘perfect solution’ has rarely won the battle of the marketplace. Instead, the solution that solved the problem set using ‘the principle of good enough’ and also attained a critical mass of adoption has won.”

Thus, the superior design of the Whitworth screw lost to the faster-cheaper-easier design of the Seller screw.”

The key question is then, “When will the digital object world hit this point…or has it already in some sectors?

I'll address this important question in my next posting. Stay tuned!

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Guest blogger Robin Wilson, founder of RWCS Ltd., is a leading information architecture expert with extensive business development experience across a wide portfolio of client, contracting, and consulting organizations in both the UK and internationally. An acknowledged expert on Digital Identifier Policies, he is closely linked with leading-edge views on design information decision practice. RWCS Ltd. provides high-level support and resources for the development of Digital Information Architectures.

Shaping the Future

Over a decade ago, Wayne and I (along with our friend Doug) began writing a book. Although our target was clear, our time off course took so many turns that we ended up finding ourselves on different moons—connected through the stratosphere, but also miles apart.

When Wayne asked if I would be a guest blogger on Off Course - On Target, I agreed without hesitation. We frequently compare notes on where life has taken us and and we laugh about the parallels, knowing synchronicity isn't optional when your shared vision is so clear.

From the (unpublished) archives, here is a piece we collaborated on, which I've updated for this posting. If you heard either of us speak back then, it may seem familiar to you. I share it now, because although it's infused into all we do, I realize it's a topic neither of us writes about or speaks on actively these days—and perhaps it's time to bring it back into the light.

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Although the Apollo mission, from which this blog found its name, illustrates so many fascinating themes, the metaphor has flaws. One flaw is that the target of a lunar mission is nothing like a typical organizational target. It's easy to predict exactly where the moon will be in, say, ten years. Anyone who knows how to calculate exactly where a market will be in ten years will be a guaranteed gazillionaire.

Organizational targets in general, and business targets specifically, exist in a future marketplace, and they are anything but predictable. This is truer now than ever before. Unexpected advances or shocks can turn markets and technologies upside down in a matter of days. The river of progress once may have flowed smoothly along, but as Peter B. Vail puts it: life is permanent white water now.

Being ready to alter course at a moment’s notice makes you most flexible in responding to the white water. But you also should know how to correct your course effectively—in such a way that it gets you to your target—unpredictable future and all.

Anyone who has ever made a decision has dealt with the uncertainty of the future. Sometimes, we deal with it effectively, sometimes not. One contribution of OCOT thinking is to boost your batting average in dealing with this uncertainty, by emphasizing how to promote the future you desire—even to invent your future. Although this is never completely possible, it is more possible than most people and most organizations seem to realize.

One way to shape the future while being off course and on target is through scenario planning. The most famous practitioner is Royal Dutch/Shell, the giant oil conglomerate, which has already developed global scenarios through 2025. Planning teams generate "what-if" possibilities of how the world may develop for no fewer than 400 alternate futures. They explore challenges arising from changes in the business environment that need to be faced by its businesses.

What if winter in Siberia is unusually cold, and there’s a drought in the Midwest affecting oil operations there, and a pivotal leader in Saudi Arabia dies, and...you can add your own contingencies. Shell makes a point of considering what to most people are unthinkable and unimaginable possibilities. Economic collapse. National turmoil. Terrorism.

These are not predictions, but are credible, relevant, and challenging alternative stories that consider the forces that may push the future along different paths. They help managers understand the dynamics of the business environment, recognize new possibilities, assess strategic options, and make long-term decisions.

The result is that Shell has a well-considered plan no matter what happens. They have 400 different courses to choose from as conditions warrant. They are, therefore, much more likely to pick the most effective route to the target, rather than being tied to an outmoded path.

Shell is not merely ready to react to whatever happens. Scenario teams identify the futures that Shell would most like to see happen, and then the corporation takes what steps it can to foster those futures.

They have more than the usual resources necessary for influencing events, and, as its former planning lead Peter Schwartz notes, more than the usual need to consider broad social developments.

Even a small business can (and should) apply the same principles on its own scale. Any organization's plan, for example, should include the scenario, “What if several key employees leave?” While it’s important to have contingency plans for that possibility, it’s even more important to recognize the many steps you can take to minimize the likelihood of it happening.

I was once the head of a department that learned it was going to be merged with another one. Members of our department brainstormed about the various ways senior management might organize that merger—having our department subsume the other one, vice versa, having us cover that function, having them cover it, and so on—and we developed plans for each contingency. We also, however, picked the outcomes we most wanted to have happen, and thought about how to present those outcomes to the executive team so as to maximize the possibility of their being chosen.

You can apply this same process even if you're an independent consultant or a department of one. In charting and then progressing along your own career path, this kind of scenario planning becomes invaluable, perhaps even indispensable.

In all of these cases, identify a clear target and then consider many different courses—along with their contingencies—that will bring you closest to where you want to be. 

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Guest blogger Marcia Conner, author of Creating a Learning Culture and Learn More Now, writes the Learn at All Levels blog for Fastcompany.com and coaches executives worldwide on using learning as a source of competitive advantage. She was VP of Education Services at PeopleSoft, founding PeopleSoft University and the first usability department in the ERP field, and was a senior training manager at Microsoft. Learn more about her at www.marciaconner.com.

Everything's Alive (Part 2)

In the first part of this posting, I discussed the coming world of self-aware objects, along with co-mingled realspace and dataspace. I then closed with a short mention of a broken “social contract.” Social contracts deal with the unstated agreement that the individual makes with the larger society to establish and maintain social peace—that is, “I behave by these rules and in return you give me this back.”

I grew up in Detroit, where the social contract was roughly:

“I work for Ford's, they set the work rules, lay me off every August for model changeover, and do overtime when told. In return, I get annual raises, a solid set of health benefits, a paid pension and can pass my job on to my children so they can live the same middle-class life I’ve enjoyed.”

And the educational system reinforced—was in fact an integral part of—that contract.

Today, as we all know, that’s not the deal anymore. Pensions are no longer a benefit; they’re a liability to be shed. Lifetime employment has been replaced by a radical version of “employment at will.” At the deepest level, risk is being shifted from the employer to the employee. That’s the core distinction between defined benefit and defined contribution pension programs.

And we should be OK with that. Remember, we really don’t have a lot of choice. So, if we’re going to get serious about being educators, we have to change our relationship with learners. More radically, we have to support our learners by helping them to shift how they think about the way they make their way in the world. In line with Foucault’s analysis of power, knowledge and their embedment in institutions like social contracts, like lots of other seemingly neutral activities, instructional design embeds a view of the world. In this case, the world view is about power structures, and therefore, it’s about implicitly shared responsibilities.

This view is all well and good, and pretty much well accepted. But there’s a question buried in this articulation: in a rapidly-evolving world, how can I, as an educator, stay ahead of the needs of my audience? How can I even know what problems they confront in job performance, to say nothing of how to help them address those issues in a timely manner? And finally, can any of this be done within the current (albeit broken) social contract? My argument here is that the answer is "no".

So here’s my proposal: we need a new social contract, one that reflects these changed conditions, and mediates our shared responsibilities between the individual and the society and its instruments. Specifically in this context, we need a new view of how learning occurs in the context of the world we live in and we need it starting today.

Simply put, we need a new theory of learning. No current terminology exists for this yet, so bear with me for a second. If pedagogy guides us on how children learn, and androgogy helps us to engage adults in learning in a traditional setting, what can we call the type of learning that is required in a radically speeded-up, decentralized environment—especially one in which the world itself can participate in the experience?

Let’s call it “autogogy” for the sake of this discussion. Nice word…now what does it mean? For me, it means radical self-sufficiency in learning. I, the learner, am closer to the career decisions I confront than anybody else. By the time my learning needs get sent up the system and the solution comes back down, it’s too late to be effective…way too late. I, the learner, need to be the driver and the leader in my personal career learning. I need to own it and I need to make the crucial decisions. Because given the risk-shifting that’s taken place, I’m going to be the one who lives with the consequences.

From the other perspective discussed earlier—the coming of a world populated with self-aware objects—we could call it “nanogogy” in recognition that the learning will be constructed out of hundreds of tiny learning events, not large structured curricula. This is bottom-up, learner-driven, perpetual learning.

And what does this say about the educator to learner relationship? For me, it means that the educator becomes a servant of the learner. It means that educators (myself included) have to think about becoming editors, not leaders. I’m drawn to the newsroom model of learning. In a newsroom, the editors provide direction, organization, and quality control. They don’t make judgments about what an individual reader will find important. They set an overall editorial tone—think about the Wall Street Journal vs. the New York Times—but they report the same basic universe of news.

In the future, I think learning will be consumed in a way that is similar to how news is acquired more and more today: grazing, self-constructed, driven by the consumer’s view of importance. I know this idea bothers people, especially those who focus on the integrity of the learning experience. But “integrity” gets redefined by circumstance. I’m arguing that in the next five to 20 years, the educator’s job will be to provide resources and the meta-skills that allow those resources to be used by the learner, in service of the learner’s individual goals. And the largest and hardest of those skills will be to learn how to take responsibility for our own life as a career, living as a professional, no matter what our job description might be.

That’s a pretty large order, especially for those of us invested in the current order and its power structures. But we’ve got pretty large problems to address, so the remedy ought to match the scale of the problems, don’t you think?

Guest blogger Murry Christensen has 20+ years of experience in solving the people-process-technology equation. He currently works for JetBlue Airways as Director Learning Technologies, where he applies the range of available technologies to the learning and performance needs of the premier provider of low-cost air transport services.