Dave's Whiteboard

The other week, a #lrnchat discussion explored large training efforts.  Eventually the topic turned to fun.  In real life, when organization trainers start talking about fun and learning, I start looking for the exit.  I figure it’s not long before the Happy Gang shows up, determined to make you laugh no matter what, and I want to clear out before they do.

“Making Performance Reviews Fun.”  Sounds ghastly.

I think I have a good sense of humor.  It’s just that institutional attempts to impose humor are a lot like institutional attempts to compose music.  I end up feeling in tune with the universe’s most morose android.

Here’s what got me musing about this: at one point (around 9:35 in the transcript), the #lrnchat question was,  “What are some creative ways, in a mass approach, to make training stick?”

• Cammy Bean said: Use humor. Turn things upside down. Make it worth repeating.
• A bit later, Craig Wiggins said: @cammybean you know, i’m a big fan of humor and levity in elearning, but in some hands the idea of humor is…not humorous.

Craig’s right. Not everyone has a knack for humor.  That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to be open to it.  You shouldn’t force it, thought, as if it were the interpersonal version of making people eat their brussels sprouts.

Which is what I meant when I said in two tweets:

• I am NOT a fan of “fun” sprinkled over learning like pixie dust (clown noses, loud noises, what veg are you)…
• … But humor or just enjoyable attraction can arise from relevant context that has value in eyes of participants.

In the genial chaos of a #lrnchat discussion, people don’t always pause to define their terms.  I have the luxury of taking that time here.  What does “humor” mean in a structured-learning context?  What does “fun” mean in a training program?  Depends on who’s talking.  And on who’s listening.

I believe what people are striving for is engagement: how do you create opportunities for learners to involve themselves with what they’re learning?  This is the sort of thing Carl Sagan meant while about new discoveries in cosmology: they “remind us that humans have evolved to wonder, that understanding is a joy.”

Admit it: some stuff just doesn’t seem all that joyful from the outside.  Adopting vendor-managed inventory systems, for instance.  Deciding whether a building needs an elevation certificate in order to qualify for flood insurance.  Shepardizing a legal case.  Learning basic statistics.

The answer is not (necessarily) to provide balloon animals and confetti, or to toss miniature chocolate bars at the participants while they chant answers to quiz questions.  Often that’s like putting frosting on those brussels sprouts.  Even if people try eating that, all they’re going to remember is a weird taste.

For an organization, the challenge is helping people learn and apply skills that will achieve the group’s goals.  Assuming the people in question do in fact need to acquire or strengthen those skills, of course, so you’re not boring them to death “teaching” things they already know.

That depends much more on relevant, realistic, worthwhile experiences.  Out of those, levity can emerge–if it makes sense.  Horse first, then cart, then passengers and cargo, and then (maybe) mood lighting.  (Later this week, I’ll give a couple of examples from one of those dry topics I mention above.)

So, instead of trying to sneak brussels sprouts pass some unsuspecting diner, work on finding fresh sprouts, demonstrating recipes and cooking techniques that capitalize on their flavor and texture.  Then work them into, say, creating a meal for a restaurant guest who insists on having five different colors of food as dinner.

The customer’s a bit of an outlier, but the core skills (menu planning, item selection, preparation, technique, timing) actually matter.

Humor as an addition to the main topic can also emerge naturally.  By naturally, I mean people use humor to make new connections with the main focus, or to reinforce the connections they’ve made.

• Marcia Conner (at the end of that #lrnchat session) : Last 2 days spent at 100% pixiedustfree event (#wire) & can attest to the fact it can be done beautifully
• And Mason Masteka added a final garnish: My name is Mason, I am a eLearning Dev in Maine and I am celery.

CC-licensed images:
Marvin the android from Wikimedia Commons.
Sprouts with bacon by sling@flickr / Steve Ling.

I’m never going to accomplish anything; that’s perfectly clear to me. I’m never going to be famous. My name will never be writ large on the roster of Those Who Do Things. I don’t do anything. Not one single thing. I used to bite my nails, but I don’t even do that any more.

– Dorothy Parker

I had a phone conversation today with someone I’ve met only through blog posts and tweets.  That happens often enough that it’s not actually surprising, but it’s always a pleasure to add the immediacy of voice to the connection.

I mentioned during the conversation that this blog is mainly for me–hence the tagline “interests, ideas, notions, tangents.”  I do think that if you put things into a public forum, or at least one that’s publicly available, you’d like to have some interaction; I certainly do.  But ultimately for me, the noticing and thinking-through is what matters most.

If you don’t blog yourself, you may not think much about the administrative side of the blogs you read–what the machinery looks like to the blogger.  No reason you should.  But when I find myself getting impressed with myself, WordPress can help tone that down.

For example, WordPress tells you what search terms people have used to find your blog.  Here in ascending order are the top ten all-time search terms that led people to Dave’s Whiteboard:

10th place (with 79 hits): monopoly money

Well, that’s the random stuff you get in tenth place.

9th place (85 hits): how to keep your volkswagen alive

I’m guessing my blog is a disappointment to these searchers.  The link comes from my post about John Muir’s classic repair manual, an exemplary job aid.

8th place (92 hits): aplysia

You owe more to Aplysia californica and to Eric Kandel than you might have thought.

7th place (93 hits): (I’d rather not say)

No, that’s not what the 7th most used term is.  In reality, it’s a person’s name–but an annoying person whose name happened to appear in the “so to speak” quote here.  Seems to be a relentless self-promoter, so I removed the quote from my database.  The only one who gets to be relentless here is me.

6th place (95 hits): whiteboard

Imagine that.

5th place (154 hits): 10000 hours to become an expert

Dave’s Whiteboard shows up on the first page of results here thanks to my review of Daniel Levitin’s book, This is Your Brain on Music.

4th place (182 hits): miranda july

The mention of her was one of my side trips.

3rd place (194 hits): dave ferguson

How about that?

2nd place (204 hits): gideon v. wainwright

You wouldn’t think 372 U.S. 335 would bring that many people to the Whiteboard, would you?  The match comes from a “generic musing” post about case law.

And in 1st place (with 1,814 hits): lego people

I’d never figured this one out until today.  The phrase “lego people” does appear here, but at the end of a post, in a credit for the photographer whose image I used.  How the heck could that pull in nearly two thousand visitors?

Then, today, I searched Google:

I clicked the fourth image (the one on the right); it links to one of my posts about John Medina’s book Brain Rules.  I adapted this photo by Joe Shlabotnik (Peter Dutton), thanks to the CC license he released it with.

Anytime I start feeling smug about myself and what happens on my blog, I use stats like these as a reality check.  Sometimes it’s not about me; sometimes it’s all about the Legos.

Collaborative Enterprise’s blog carnival this month looks at formalizing the informal–are there ways to deliberately harness social media to foster learning without losing the (presumed) value of personal connection?

Sure.

Now, I tend to slightly resist two of the implications I see here.  First, while it’s true that “training, education, and schooling are not learning,” I don’t think it follows that learning can’t occur where these are present.  And second, learning did not start happening only after the invention of internet-based social media.

I know that Harold Jarche doesn’t think that, and I’m pretty sure Frédéric Domon doesn’t, either.  I just wanted to make my thinking explicit.

I’ve been watching the Winter Olympics and thinking about how it combines individual and organizational goals.  And just as I write this, I see multiple organizations that aren’t all in a single hierarchy:

• Small, individual sport groups (German women’s bobsled)
• Related-sport groups (sliding sports)
• National teams (Germany)
• Judges, referees, and other arbiters
• Timekeepers, scorekeepers
• Coaches
• Trainers
• Volunteers
• Fans
• Reporters, writers, bloggers, and other who opine
• Local, national, international Olympic officials
• Technicians
• Security
• Sponsors
• Donors

You couldn’t ever satisfy all these groups, let alone their subgroups and individual members–but they find enough common ground to bring about an Olympics.

I see a dynamic for the competitors: each has his or her personal goal, but each had to fit into a larger structure, especially but not exclusively for team sports.  If you want to compete in Nordic combined, you agree that your performance on the jump will determine your starting place in the cross-country element.

Since we’re talking athletic competition, psychomotor skill comes into play, and “training” (in the sense of focused attention, demonstration, feedback) plays a major role.  You do learn as you train–by which I mean, not only do you build the muscle memory and automatic physical behavior, but you also refine and deepen awareness and the potential to respond to outside stimuli.

Another thought came to mind when I was getting annoyed by local-news people focusing relentlessly on medal count: so-and-so “had to settle for silver” (because she was favored to win gold, but didn’t); someone else “won a stupendous bronze” (because he performed much better than expected).

Those phrases got me thinking about how, if you work within a large organization, you need to find ways to align your personal goals with the organization’s in a way that’s authentic for you and helpful to the organization.  In part, it’s the old concept of the king’s shilling: if you’re accepting the paycheck, you’re granting the organization’s right to set and pursue its goals and to ask you to help achieve them.

When you can’t ethically do that, it’s time to get out.

Another point of view emerged when I was reading an obituary for jockey and mystery author Dick Francis, who died this week.  He wome some 350 races in a nine-year career, and rode as jockey for the Queen Mother’s horse in the 1956 Grand National–where his horse, in the lead and 50 yards from the finish, suddenly collapsed.  In his autobiography, Francis wrote:

I heard one man say to another a little while ago [4 or 5 years after the race], “Who did you say that was?  Dick Francis?  Oh, yes–he’s the man who didn’t win the National.”

I’m sure Francis would have love to win it, just as every Olympian would love to win the gold.  But individuals and even organizations often need to reframe their goals, to redefine what success means.

In the workplace, I think that means organizations have to work harder at finding ways to match their goals with those of individuals within the organization.  I once worked across the hall from an ambitious young guy.  He had some “rules for success” on his wall, including “love the business.”

Me, I didn’t love the business–and I can think of at least one boss who’d agree.  But often I did love helping the customer perform better, and that didn’t mean beating him to death with PowerPoint.  It sometimes meant working with him to apply performance-improvement strategies while calling them “transfer of training,” because at the time helping that transfer occur was a lot more important than fretting about jargon.

CC-licensed photo: Olympic colors by kk+ / Kris Krüg.

I’m trying to remember the last time I looked something up in the phone book.  Honestly, I have no idea.  I do remember the last time I tried to remember.  It was a year ago, when the 2009 phone books arrived at my house.

Which means the 2010 books arrived today.

A year ago, I took the new books up to my office, where I kept them.  As I took the old books out, I realized I hadn’t touched them since I’d put them away a year ago.  I simply don’t use the phone book.

Things were different this year — the books go in the built-in desk in the remodeled kitchen.  Looking at new and old editions of the Yellow Pages,  I realized that I’m not the only one who doesn’t use the phone book  (2010 book is on the right):

Nothing remarkable (other than proof that marketing has completely trumped esthetics).  Notice the thickness, though:

First Class Plumbing LLC has stayed true to Verizon, though I have to admit it’s the first time I’ve noticed there was an ad on the bottom edge of the phone book.  For those who prefer hard numbers:

The new Yellow Pages (lower part of the picture) has a page count 13% lower than the old one for stuff that matters–the actual listings, as opposed to filler like seating plans for stadiums.

No real surprise here, just mild bemusement as I observe the Changing of the Phone Book ritual.  I realize that many people still do rely on the phone book–not everyone’s running around with a smartphone.  Many more, though, turn online for their first-choice source of information.  Inertia may keep the books coming for a long time yet, but friction’s going to keep whittling down their size.

One strand in the sleave of lrnchat topics a few weeks ago was the lurker, who hangs around a discussion but doesn’t take part.

I’ve engaged in online discussions since 1984. “Lurker” as a term often has a negative connotation; highly active participants seem to regard lurkers as unreasonably shy, terminally silent, or possibly parasitic.

Geeze.  Lighten up.

I’ve done more than my share of lurking, although as I said in the #lrnchat discussion, “I don’t lurk so much as lollygag.”

The real topic on #lrnchat was how internal social networks affect the performance of an organization, and what people can do to further that impact. A lot of the conversation centered microblogging, wikis, and other tools that can foster collaboration and cooperation.

Harold Jarche makes a useful distinction between those two terms: you collaborate with others via plans and structures; you cooperate via freely-chosen connections. Especially for people who work in (or with) organizations, both have their role.

Lurking’s actually not a bad way to get to know a new group. Outward-focused chatty early adopters might disagree, but some of us like (or have learned) to look around first. We’re seeing how the locals do things. We’re working out some of the modes of engagement.

(And, yes, we just may be noticing who talks too much about too little–you longtimers have that nailed; we’re just coming up to speed.)

As the #lrnchat discussion flowed, more than one person cited the value of someone showing you what he or she gets out of social networks. If you know a person who seems reasonably sane yet uses Twitter, you’re probably more open to hearing why, and to asking about the benefits that person sees.

Someone prone to lurking could read the #lrnchat transcript, maybe find a few voices of reason, and start following those people–on Twitter, or through whatever link they have in their Twitter profile (LinkedIn, Facebook, a blog, a website).

If you’re prone to encourage active participation by lurkers, good for you–just don’t turn that encouragement into nagging.  If on the other hand you’re prone to lengthy lurking, I think there’s genuine value to Hellmanism, a philosophy of interpersonal behavior found on jars of mayonnaise:

Keep cool but don’t freeze.

CC-licensed images:
Circuit board by quapan.
Mayo jars adapted from a photo by clango.