Dave’s Whiteboard

Jen Jones’s post on Social Networking for Humans talks about how “the balance of our attention shifts back and forth between people and tools.” She mentions that she’s tried various tools that show the connections between people in her networks, but that she’s not satisfied with the results — in part because for her it’s the communication that’s important, not the hardware (and software) that facilitates it.

She reminded me of an undergrad course in modern sociological thought (hey, I’m slow getting started this morning). I enjoyed the course, though I realized even at the time that I spent about 80% swimming over my head. I had a lot of difficulty with the work of Talcott Parsons, who wrote in a language that resembles English, except that all the nouns are abstract and all the adjectives, polysyllabic.

One of his many concepts is pattern variables, “‘the principle tools of structural analysis outlining the derivation of these categories from the intrinsic logic of social action.” (See what I mean about this English-like language?) Among the five sets of such variables is the notion of specificity versus diffuseness.

Dr. Bauder explained that in a specific relationship, you have to justify including some new action or behavior, while in a diffuse relationship, you have to justify leaving something out.

She gave the example of the grocery store. In general, your relationship with the cashier is: you put the groceries on the belt, the cashier rings them up. Conversation fits into the buying-groceries relationship. You’d have to have a reason for saying to the other person, “You know, that outfit makes you look kind of heavy.”

Then Dr. Bauder asked what type of relationship exists between a teacher and a student. Thinking of the free exchanges that characterized her classes, I said, “Diffuse.”

“Okay,” she said. “What are you doing Saturday night?”

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Here’s how I see this fitting with Jen’s comments about social network tools: having someone as a friend on Facebook, following someone’s tweets, commenting often on someone’s blog — these things in themselves don’t make my relationship with that person diffuse. That requires time — as in the proverb that to know someone, you have to eat a bag of salt together.

Of course the more specific relationships have value (ideally for both parties). But the transformation of any one relationship is subtle and easily overlooked. As Jen says, “You may have thousands of virtual friends, readers and followers, but if you don’t have two-way communication with them, the connections are truly virtual and will not withstand the potential failure of the social networking tool.”

I’m not too concerned about having thousands of virtual friends. Jen’s post and my own musings remind me to focus more on what I communicate, to whom, and why; the how, to me, is far less important.

Advice photo by QwirkSilver / Kristine.

SharpBrains has an interview (Why Smart Brains Make Stupid Decisions) with Ori Brafman, co-author of Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior.

A striking example: a professor at the Harvard Business School had his class participate in an auction — for a $20 bill. The kicker was that the winner would get the $20, but the second-place bidder, while getting nothing, would have to honor his bid.

And yes, the bidding did pass $20.

Brafman says that awareness that we can be swayed might help prevent us from being swayed. He offers the example of a highly structured job interview, less likely to influence the interviewer than the informal, what’s-your-biggest-strength approach.

A comment on this post led me to In Bias, Meta is Max at Overcoming Bias. Robin Hanson writes about an article suggesting that “being more aware of biases makes us more willing to assume that others’ biases, and not ours, are responsible for our disagreement.”

These biases or distortions are connected to our faith in our own objectivity, which brings to mind Benjamin Franklin’s observation:

So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do.

A depressing observation that Hanson quotes from the Science review:

People also behave more conflictually toward those whom they suspect will be biased by self-interest. Participants in one study were instructed to consider the perspective of their adversaries in a conflict over limited resources. That instruction had the ironic effect of leading them to expect that their adversaries would be biased by self-interest, which, in turn, led the participants themselves to act more competitively and selfishly.

(Hanson provides a link to the review, but the Science site requires a subscription.)

I found the Brafman interview thanks to the latest edition of Encephalon, the brain science blog carnival. If brain-related topics, or cleverly introduced collections, tweak either of your hemispheres, take a look at Encephalon 48, The Usual Suspects, at Neuroanthropology.

Distortion photo by Photochiel / Argos Panoptes.

In the past week or so, I came across @injenuity, Jen Jones’s blog. She writes often about viral professional development (VPD). That’s her term for “a technology, tool, or teaching strategy that is quickly spread from one person to another.” (She works with instructors from kindergarten level up, through her main focus is e-learning in higher education.)

In a post last January, Jen gave some characteristics of VPD. These included:

• Instructors learn to use the technology largely on their own and with support from each other.
• You can’t worry about those who refuse to adopt instructional technology… they need to see success from their peeres first.
• Workshops are not the foundation of VPD, although they may be one component.

If like Jen you’re someone who believes people can reap great benefit from applying tools and techniques, what can you do to help?

• Model the tools and techniques… if someone has a how-to question, send a screencast with the instructions… and a little about how you made the screencast. (Why does the name Stephen Downes come to mind?)
• Communicate at the other person’s comfort level. (I read this as, if someone’s not on Twitter or not publishing on the wiki, but they send you email or call you, then use that channel.)
• Join in when people on your personal network test tools. “Any time I can jump in on someone else’s test saves me…searching for a tool and people to try it with.”

Jen posted a follow-up just this week. She’s not sure VPD translates to organizations outside of higher ed, but it seems clear to me there’s a connection. She’s using a different angle to examine some of the things Tony Karren, Michele Martin, and others have been talking about at Work Literacy. One of the differences is that Jen’s looking at the organization, rather than the individual:

My concept of VPD describes an organizational strategy, rather than an individual personal learning environment or network…

While personal networks can have spontaneous learning events that lead to transfer of knowledge, my goal in working with VPD is to make a cultural change within a specific organization, rather than develop a personal learning network.

Most people work for organizations — 86% of all U.S. workers work for someone else, and half of them (more than 56 million people) work in organizations with more than 500 employees.

I’ve been thinking a lot about individual learning; Jen has reminded me that organizations, which need to continue their activities while accommodating the arrival and the departure of specific individuals, have their own learning needs, too.

Computer virus photo by Ted Rheingold.

Tony Karrer is hosting the June 2008 edition of the Working/Learning Blog Carnival (about the carnival) at WorkLiteracy.  (WorkLiteracy is “a network of individuals, companies, and organizations” looking to address “a growing gap between the work practices and skills that most knowledge workers possess and the resources available to them.”)

You’re invited to share your opinions:

• Is there a gap between how knowledge workers to their work, and how they could if they harnessed different methods, tools, resources?
• If your answer’s yes, where do you see the opportunities?
• Is the issue of work literacy receiving enough attention?

In a departure from the usual blog carnival format, you can participate by posting on your own blog and sending Tony a link, or by sharing your thoughts as comments to the “host post” (where you can see more of the thinking behind this issue.

The invitation’s open through the end of June.

I’m ending my term as a board member for the local chapter of a professional organization. I’m feeling bad, both because I’m pessimistic about the direction I see it taking, and because I no longer have the time or the desire to try and affect that direction.

How this started

The proximate cause of this musing was a pretty bureaucratic one. I’d worked with last year’s treasurer to try and convert the chapter’s financial data from a paper ledger and an envelope full of receipts (it was like something from a tax-time cartoon) to QuickBooks Online Edition. Not that QBOE is the ne plus ultra of accounting, but because it was inexpensive and easily accessible by the other board members. That in place of the all-too-common reality of our chapter: someone who knows software sets up some standalone system in the past, only to have the knowledge, the software, or the data not survive the transition to the next board.

That’s what’s happening now: the new board has a volunteer who knows accounting. He’s going to handle the stuff on local accounting software. I can peer down the road two years and see a new treasurer without that application having to not only reinvent the wheel but wonder whether it needs axles or not.

I’m not up to stepping forward and running for treasurer myself, though. So I’ve documented what we did in QBOE, and why, and sent that to the new guy with my best wishes.

Where this went

In the past eleven years, our local chapter has lost four presidents-elect. We don’t have a vice-president; you run as president-elect and then serve three years: the first as, effectively, vice-president; the second as president; the third as a board member by virtue of being “immediate past president.”

Those loses have been a real blow to continuity — in fact, I became president two years ago without ever having been president-elect. The then-president and a board member asked me to run as president. My hunch, then and now, was that they’d been working down a list, which made me (as the first person not to turn them down) president of last resort.

I think the local-chapter model of professional association is fast fading. When I first came to Washington, nearly 30 years ago, the local ISPI chapter was strong and vibrant. Members looked forward to the monthly programs; committees had ample volunteers.

Based on conversations with friends (and a spouse) active in similar associations in different fields, my guess is that there are a couple of trends at work, some of them contradictory.

• Many professionals don’t feel they have much time to give to local professional organizations — either as volunteers or as active participants.
• As members gain in experience, the things they focus on professionally tend both to vary and to deepen. They’re not as interested in general topics, and it’s harder to identify some specific area that will interest enough to them to make an in-person meeting feasible (in terms of topic, time, place, and cost).
• More experienced individuals, at least those who are my contemporaries, give or take eight years or so, don’t seem to adopt newer modes of networking. I’d be hard pressed to name three people I know who’ve been members of the local ISPI chapter who have their own blogs or whom I know through Facebook / Twitter / what-have-you. (I knew a few through LinkedIn, but it doesn’t seem to result in much sharing.)
• For professionals in the training / learning / performance-improvement area who do adopt newer tools for networking, I think the large professional organizations — ISPI, ASTD — seem much like their corporate counterparts: slow-moving, hesitant, and unsure of their ways.

No deep thoughts here, no great solutions. I’m not going over to people’s houses and nagging them into starting blogs or hounding them to do what’s clearly right (as in, what I’d prefer). I think I’m loosening some ties, if not severing them. I feel some regret, but the reality for me is that the local chapter and the international organization are not where I get my professional energy any more.

I’ve found tremendous stimulation and inspiration at the annual ISPI conference — but attending would set me back at least $2,500, and that’s more than I can justify. ISPI’s been offering some “skillcasts” (their name for webcasts). As with the others, the next one (July 9th) costs $49.

The topic? “Giving Away Power.”

“Missing image link” image by Brero / Miguel Librero.