Wonderings October 2008

What makes people commit to a concept, idea, process? Why are employees satisfied to "fill in the blanks" according to a formula with as little thinking as possible? How can we become more thoughtful in solving problems? Is there a connection between problem solving and commitment? When is figuring something out more effective than being told - instructed how to do something? When is it important to get instructions without having to figure it out? What is the relationship between the KASABs and the compliance/commitment issue?

Some Preliminary Conclusions

It's been a while and my poll asks about frequency of checking on each others' blogs, hmmmm. These are just the thoughts rumbling in my head and I needed to get them down. I'll fine tune later - if I wait until I have time to document the entire thing it will be too late and I will run out of TIME.

• Time is quoted as an issue for lots of the LC members. Time to read, time to respond, time to do the work, time to research, time to reflect. Seems like we never have enough. Conclusion: Plan for what is reasonable, make sure everyone in the LC understands the expectations, make sure that the supervisors are aware and support the expectation, and then live by it.
• Number of people in a LC does make a difference. Everything I have heard and read said 8-10 tops. Conclusion: Limit LC size to 8 but keep it crossfunctional. Focus is important but it's nice to learn from those with a different perspective and a different focus - it helps stretch the brain. Some may prefer to have an identical focus - not me.
• Commitment is necessary. Compliance may get some rudimentary work done but commitment creates energy, advancement beyond expectations, and is just more fun. Conclusion: Again planning is important and part of the plan should be to get commitment to required tasks. If commitment is absent, non-committed participants should not be forced or feel forced to participate. Commitment may be easier to come by if the LC work relates directly to the job.
• People are not BORG. Humanity still requires the "human touch" or face-to-face meeting. Conclusion: Build in real-time when people can look at each other or at least hear each other and talk, discuss, reflect, disagree, agree...LEARN

Variety is Good

My last couple polls have indicated that the 4 choices provided are responded to almost evenly by the LC members. That makes it more difficult to determine what I should do or what the future model should be, because I am not finding any one thing outweighing the others, to a significant level. What drives the members to participate, how they prefer to collaborate and what exactly they are doing in the LC is almost evenly split. The most recent poll is not quite as evenly split.

This week's poll (the one pictured above) does indicate more people participating in the developing of podcasts rather than studying or developing ways to use them. The second highest indicator is those viewing for their own learning. That one at 25% is interesting because those are the people looking at different podcasts of their choosing and actually gaining some knowledge and skills - I wonder if this group of 25% can shed light on what they look for in a podcast and which ones they found to be most effective. The information from this group could help the 37% who are creating them. There is definitely some satisfaction in knowing that 37% of of the respondents are actually developing with this technology. 66% of remaining members have created or worked on podcasts with either GarageBand or iMovie. The majority of these people had never done developed a podcast before this year. Amy's study may yield some more interesting data on HRD personnel and the use of podcasts. Can we safely conclude that learning has taken place not only in the LC but among our colleagues?

I'm looking forward to some lively exchange and enlightment on March 2...we need a face-to-face.

The Team or The Individual

At www.techlearning.com - according to Craig Ullman in an article titled "Wiki Nation",
"...collective intelligence is more accurate than the insights of a single gifted writer".

On YouTube
a video titled "The Machine Is US/ing us" (very cool video - take a look. on YOUTUBE ( you cannot access from within sbbc because of the firewall) A video depicting web 2.0 and suggesting we rethink ourselves and we are a collective force - should we embrace this idea?

In the Wall Street Journal Feb 8, 2007 journalist Walter Mossberg describes how he records video commentaries to post on his columns - he does it much like we do only then he sends it to The WSJ Web producers who add titles, insert footage, and then the "team" posts it to the WSJ website. Should we do our developing in more of a team structure rather than a-z individually and then share? Is the Henry Ford assembly line way better?

Released in September, "The Workforce Readiness Report Card" from the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, The Conference Board, Corporate Voices for Working Families, and the Society for Human Resource Management reported teamwork/collaboration among the top five most critical to success in the 21st century workforce. Do we model for our children the skills they need to succeed?

I am not sure what to think of this...could the Borg have been right? It works in sports. It works in families. It works in companies. It probably works in lots of places ...but sometimes you don't have to be a part of the "collective".

Preferences for Communicating/Collaborating

It's pretty even once again. We have a variable group with various needs and various preferences so as professional development providers we need to address them all. I did find it somewhat interesting that CAB Conferencing was slightly lower. Interesting because despite the fact CAB conferences have been around at SBBC for some years - it is not as popular as e-mail or face-to-face. I wonder why? That could be another study or it could have ramifications for this one. I have noticed that the CAB posts are limited to only some members of the LC. Maybe 2 places for information is too many? Maybe it is confusing as to the purpose of CAB vs BLOG. That should be clarified if we intend to use a model like this one.

Driving Forces

Lots more responses than in previous polls, and a balance...it seems that the participants of this LC are driven equally by the 4 factors in the poll

• their work
• their peers (not as important as in youth)
• personal accomplishment (slight edge here)
• facilitator instruction
My conclusion is that all need to be addressed. The LC work must be related to the daily work, collaboration is helpful, guidance from a facilitator/s is needed and of course....participants must WANT to participate for their own personal accomplishment.

Barriers

Technology seems to be the greatest barrier but not one that cannot be overcome. The good news is that 10 people responded and these 10 people have successfully created at least one original podcast. Identifying the barriers is a step in moving forward. I wonder if the barriers will change as participants become more familiar with the technology and adept at creating podcasts.