Off Course-On Target

CNN “The Moment”: 2nd time’s the charm with MS Photosynth?

Since I received a lot of responses and follow up (thanks!) to the posting Photosynth: Mashups of Our Collective Intelligence via Photos, I thought you would be quite interested to know the most recent use of  Microsoft Photosynth, which creates 3D spaces from a mass of 2D photos. 

CNN is using Photosynth to create a 3D space they are calling “The Moment”, when Barack Obama raised his hand to officially accept the position of President of the USA.  To do so, CNN is asking everyone to send in at least one photo they took of this defining moment in history, and CNN will then use these to create a 3D environment with Microsoft Photosynth. 

CNN recently experienced a very different kind of “CNN moment” when their systems were unable to cope with the spike in demand for their live streaming of the event.  So here’s hoping that this new “moment” that they are proposing is a much better experience! 

It's worth checking out.  Since I wasn’t in the country or near any TV coverage (other than in airports),  I missed seeing the inauguration, so I'll be interested to see “the moment” myself.  And I’ll be curious to learn what your experience with this new capability is like. Looking forward to reading your responses.

Twitterpated

When my kids were very young, we used the term “twitterpated” to describe a person who is particularly taken with something or somebody else or are falling for something or somebody, and are in that state of infatuation or excitement that comes from discovering something special.

According to the Urban Dictionary, twitterpated is “1. The happy jumpy feeling you get that causes you to smile uncontrollably, and 2. The way birds and other animals act during mating season (as seen in the Disney movie Bambi).”

So I immediately thought this was the perfect word to describe a phenomenon that I’ve been observing for almost a year now. It seems like the whole blogosphere and tech world is all “a-twitter” about Twitter, the latest communication utility.

This new form of communication is something most everyone I know seems to be using (myself included). If you haven’t tried it yet, I recommend that you do. Today I’d like to share some of my experiences with Twitter, and some of what I’ve learned from talking with others who have used it.

What is Twitter, Really?

Twitter is actually quite a challenge to explain. The facts about it are pretty easy really, but understanding how, when, and where to use it is the harder part. You’ll find LOTS of very good and varying descriptions about Twitter online. Twitter gives you the ability to send out short text messages called “tweets” that you type on your mobile phone, PDA, or personal computer, and then they are broadcast to anyone who would like to read them. Tweets are limited to 140 characters so they are quite short indeed. For those accustomed to using SMS or “texting” to send messages from their mobile phones, Twitter is essentially the same thing, but with some significant twists along the way.

People who want receive these messages sign up to “follow” you. You can decide to allow anyone to receive your messages or you can control who receives them by approving only those you want to follow you. And you don’t need to follow all those who follow you, so you can find the balance that works for you.

To use Twitter, you assign yourself a username so people can know where to send their “tweets” to you. The username is used much the same as an email address or phone number. However be advised that because the username is the first text in EVERY tweet you send, your name counts as part of the 140 character limit so keep your user name short (My thanks to Marcia Conner for this thoughtful advice!) The messages themselves are simple text strings—no @ symbols or other special syntax is required)—and you will quickly start to acquire the skill of finding a way to say something meaningful in a very few words.

• Some of Twitter’s other features include the ability to:
• Add links (the URL can’t exceed the tweet’s limit of 140 characters)
• Feed tweets to a blog.
• Tag tweets, such as those that are all associated with a particular event.
• "Re-tweet" a tweet you’ve received to all those following you, which leads to a networking effect where information is spread and people get connected.

As I said earlier in this post, the hard part about Twitter is figuring out how, where, and when to use it. Frankly, I know of no other way to do this than by experiencing it yourself. It’s another great example of something we’ve talked about a lot here on OCOT: experiential learning.

Twitter is a great additional form of communication and a great awareness-raising tool. I’m particularly intrigued by this new “bulletin board” model of communication. You’re not talking to anyone in particular. Basically, if you choose not to control your broadcasts, you’re leaving a note that anyone who might be interested can look at. This is another form of indirect communication which is similar to Facebook and MySpace, where people can put up thoughts, ideas, and notes about themselves, and then leave it up to others to choose to read it or not.

I’m also finding that it’s a New Age version of a diary or more accurately a logbook, which is one of the ways I’ve been using Twitter. Because it is so quick and fast to send out a tweet, and because you can do it from either your mobile phone or computer, you are more likely to capture a thought in real time, just as it occurs to you, and share it with others. You do it with no expectations about who is going to read it, nor that anyone will read it, nor are you expecting a response. I guess you might hope that you get a response, but that’s not really built into the Twitter model. The model is simply one where you send information out and receive information in kind from those you are following.

Twitter is an intriguing mix of the personal and the professional, at least it is with most of the people I am following. People share what’s going on in their lives. While this capability can be abused or misused by those who seem to feel it is important to let everyone know what they are eating or every little thing they are doing, this ease of sending out a quick thought has is very valuable as not only a record of your thoughts, but also it increases the likelihood you will get around to capturing and sharing them with others. As more and more people do so, you can see how the network effect becomes exponentially powerful.

As you start using Twitter PLEASE consider whether what you are about to tweet is really of interest and value to others. Clearly there is a lot of inconsequential stuff being broadcast and I’m sure some of the hype and negative press about Twitter is based on this type of misuse. Because it is annoying, you might simply stop following people who only send out these types of tweets.

But at the same time, Twitter can be used in a more “serious fun” way, as my friend Erik Duval would say, and a professional way. I follow people who are sharing their great ideas, links, questions, suggestions, and “pithy comments”. Some of this is very professional, job related, etc., but much of it is also about something significant going on in their lives, and this connection provides me with an awareness of how things are going for them.

This sharing of ideas, thoughts and insights into each other’s lives has the net effect of helping me to get to know people quite well, not necessarily in any kind of profound way, but I’m seeing them in a different light or dimension, filling in blanks, and gaining a fuller understanding of who they are.

Trying to describe the effect and effectiveness of Twitter is even more challenging, and that’s why you’ve just got to experience it to really find out. I like to say that you simply let all of these messages wash over you. It doesn’t take that long to read them, and you don’t have to respond to them, and over time you develop a peripheral awareness of others and what they are doing. Twitter may even be replacing something we didn’t realize we had lost.

When we were typically more physically present with others in our offices and homes, I’m not sure we were aware of the information we gathered almost subconsciously about others. You might have noticed that Sally was on the phone a lot today, or Bob was looking kind of worried, or Sally, Fred, and Mohammed were having a meeting today at 10:30. It’s this kind of information that you get as these tweets wash over you.

Is Twitter-ing Just a Waste of Time?

Despite popular opinion that Twitter is a waste of time (and it certainly can be), my experience is that it’s proving to be a significant productivity and performance tool. It’s saving me time and is enabling me to do things that I probably would not have done and are of great value.

I’m certain that one of the biggest benefits of all this “twittering” is how it is significantly adding to our collective knowledge. Simply the capturing of all the ideas, thoughts, and observations (many which ordinarily would not have been captured or shared with others) is enhancing the record of what’s going on, not for use as an audited record per say, but as a way to tap into all of this collective intelligence. For example:

• When you’re reading something in a book, magazine, or on the web, you can immediately let others know about it and also record your reflections, observations, and neat ideas about it.
• As you’re going about your day and you have an experience, or make an observation, as something puzzles or intrigues you, you can share it with others who have similar interests.
• You can use it:
  • As a log of your activities and your life as you go along. As a kind of mini-blog at a conference so others can gain from those immediate observations from the event.
  • To display tweets from the audience on a screen. Done well, it can help to tap into the pulse of the audience at a conference event, class, or other venue.
  • To ask a question or solve a problem you have. I usually get some very good suggestions and answers back very quickly.

I’m sure if you try it that you will find your own unique ways of using it. There are certainly many more examples than what I’ve discussed here.

One of the most effective ways that I use Twitter is as a kind of research tool. When I’m writing an article or I have something I’m pondering, for example, the ability to throw out a quick question and get responses from others out there is becoming extremely valuable for me.

I also use it to update others about what’s going on with me professionally and personally. On the professional side, I share things I’m pondering about OCOT and the Snowflake Effect. And personally, as many of you know, I’m off on a grand world tour on my sailboat, so particularly when I’m under way, others find it intriguing to find out where I’m at, what have I observed, and what’s going on.

A kind of interconnection starts to occur among all these “twitterati”. Even though you don’t necessarily know who’s following you (but you can if you like) and then who’s following them, still there’s a loose connection between all of us. And over time I’ve notice an indirect feedback loop where something I’ve talked about earlier shows up somewhere else along the chain of tweets and re-tweets.

I’ve also noticed that my use of Twitter is different depending on the device I’m using to receive or send tweets. For example, I like to use Twitter from my laptop when I want to:

• View a link that is attached to a tweet.
• Send out a tweet related to something I’m reading on the laptop.
• Review a lot of tweets with one of the many Twitter readers who are available.

But it is most extraordinarily effective for me when I use it as a mobile application on my cell phone or PDA. For example, I can be so much more impromptu about sending or reading a tweet, and do it when it is just right for me. And yet, Twitter also makes me be more conscious and conscientious about sharing my thoughts and ideas with others, since it’s so convenient and I can more easily choose when to send out a tweet or read those coming in to me.

And perhaps, its real power is in the brevity it imposes with its 140 character limit. My good friend Marcia Conner wrote recently in her article “Can Twittering Create An Economy of Words”, “… if you’re still stuck on the actual be brief part because you’re a member of my friend and colleague Wayne Hodgins’ ad-hoc club, ‘Why use a sentence when a paragraph will do’”, you can rest assured that if I can Twitter, so can you.

What’s Next for Twitter?

What I’m really hoping is that the Twitter folks won’t mess it up by adding more options or making it more complex. The beauty and effectiveness of Twitter comes from its simplicity. You type out a message and it’s done. No pictures, no options to extend. It’s just the essence of good ideas and thoughts.

Twitter is another great tool to add to our growing communications quiver and another example of how many of us are privileged to be living in an age of abundance. Having additional ways to communicate better is a great thing. The trick is to figure out how and where and when to use this tool in the right way at the right time. In this age of abundance, I believe that one of the most critical skills we can acquire is that of making smart fast decisions and choices from the plethora of options we have. Deciding when a tweet is the best choice or a phone call or an email or an in person chat is something we’ll all need to get much better at doing. It’s another great example of the Snowflake Effect because it can be used very differently by each of us. The goal is to use just the right tool at just the right time in just the right way for just the right person.

So go to Twitter and sign up for a free account. If you’d like to follow me, my Twitter username is wwwayne. Once you’re signed on, you can search your address book for others you might know and want to follow.

I hope that you too are about to be “twitterpated” with Twitter and that you’ll soon be more productive, will contribute to this mass collective intelligence of ours, and that just in general it will help you and the rest of us communicate a little bit better as a result.

Time to "Tearn"?

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

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

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

A Growing Demand for Teachers

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

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

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

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

Rethinking the Relationship Between Teachers and Learners

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So, What If We Were All “Teachers”?

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

· Capturing and sharing what we know.³

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

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

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

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

New Tools, Technologies, and Techniques for “Tearners”

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

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

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

___________________

NOTES:

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

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

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

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

Great Thoughts

Here's another posting derived from my ever growing list of items to blog about.  This one springs from an article I read in the IEEE Spectrum back in Jan 2007.   

Did I mention I’m behind in my postings and the list is growing? However on the plus side I like this delay because it acts as a check on just how relevant and useful things are.  If it stands the test of time, it gets posted, and this one passed the test with flying colors.

The title of this posting “Great Thoughts” is the same as the article by Robert W. Lucky (IEEE Fellow), now retired. In it, he wrote: 

“There is a theory of creativity that holds that creativity is most often the product of the unexpected intersection of two previously unconnected thoughts. If you are thinking very hard about one such thought, perhaps you are suppressing the other thoughts that could connect with it. On the other hand, if your mind is a perfect blank…”

This is an interesting conundrum: not focusing too much on one thing yet not shutting out all thought, something that my ADD riddled brain can't even comprehend!

But for me, the takeaway here has more to do with the question of what constitutes “new” these days?  What makes something original?  What constitutes plagiarism or copying?  What is at the heart of innovation and creativity in the world today?

In this era where more and more things are mashups, a new assembly of previously existing things, is there any such thing as an original idea, song, drawing, text, etc.?  The answer is more "yes" than "no", I think, but it is worth noting that most of the time what is new and what makes something unique is not the bits and pieces that it is made from, but the selection of certain items and the way they are assembled into a new whole. And most often, the value of this new assembly is much greater than the sum of the parts.

This concept is nothing new really. Think of some fundamental examples such as text, where we have almost all existing words available in the dictionary (although the list is growing and evolving all the time), yet from this finite set of letters and words we can create an infinite number of written documents (e.g. articles, books, poems, and scripts). Or music where we have another finite set of notes and chords that enable us to create an infinite number of new songs, melodies, and even ring tones!

This combining of existing things to create new things, the heart of the Snowflake Effect is what makes it a scalable model. Not that we won’t also be creating new bits and pieces along the way, such as the new words which are added to dictionaries every year, but for the most part I think most of what is new and valuable, most of the innovation and creativity we are and will be seeing, comes from the serendipitous intersection of two or more previously existing things, be they thoughts, ideas, notes of music, letters and words, lines, arcs or circles.

So here’s to celebrating and fostering the creativity in all of us by focusing on being the unique snowflakes we all are and designing more and more new original ideas and “stuff” from what we already have around us.