CivieBlog

Harold Jarche, Michele Martin and I are pleased to announce a new workshop offering that relates to the recent posts on Tool Set 2009 and to the issues of Work Literacy.

Work Literacy Skills Workshop

Was the last formal training you had on knowledge work skills the use of a card catalog and microfiche reader? You aren't alone in that. While there has been incredible innovation in tools and methods that support personal work and learning over the past 10 years, most of us have had a hard time with our Work Skills Keeping Up. We are left trying to figure out where all these new tools fit in our day-to-day work life and our professional life.

This workshop is a hands-on, collaborative, fun experience focused on the new knowledge tools and methods that are core to effective work. It will focus on what is important to learning professionals.

The workshop puts you into small groups of fellow professionals as you work as a remote work team to experience first-hand the use of these tools in work and learning settings.

What You Get

1. Foundational methods for effective work and learning in a network
   
2. Hands-on use of various tools to give direct experience of their effectiveness
3. Job aids for after the workshop
4. Introduction to an international network of learning professionals
   

Workshop Format

We have designed this workshop for either a one-day, in-person session with an online follow-up, or an online workshop with a flexible format. The online session is designed to support small groups of learning professionals going through at the same time. Participants are partnered in small teams as they work together learning new methods and tools. The specific length of time and scheduling is flexible given the availability of the teams involved.

Participants

The workshop is designed to work well for learning professionals and delivered through:

• Learning Departments
  
• ASTD Chapters

If you are an individual or small learning department interested in participating, then please contact us, and we will see if we can have you participate in a public workshop or via an ASTD Chapter.

Topics Include

• Collaborative Work and Learning
• Top-Down Work Tools and Methods Assessment
• Better Memory
• Information Radar
• Networks and Communities
• Search
• Collaborative, Informal, Self-Direct Learning

Instructors

Harold Jarche has found a passion in the area of sharing, learning, reflecting, and collaborating using Web tools such as social network systems, blogs, and wikis. He constantly tries out new tools and techniques, and then uses his pragmatic business bent to recommend the right ones for clients and colleagues. Harold has been a freelance consultant for the past five years, and blogs about learning and working on the Web at jarche.com. Previously, Harold worked as a Chief Learning Officer of an e-Learning company, Project Manager at a university, and Training Development Officer with the Canadian Forces.

Michele Martin is an independent consultant who specializes in using social media tools to support learning, and career and professional development. She has worked with federal, state, and local governments, nonprofits, and corporations to design and deliver a variety of learning interventions. She used online tools such as forums, listservs, and a “virtual office” to support learning in the late 1990s, and has added tools such as blogs, wikis and social networks. She's a co-founder with Tony Karrer of Work Literacy, a network of individuals, companies, and organizations focusing on the frameworks, skills, methods, and tools of modern knowledge work. Michele blogs at The Bamboo Project.

Tony Karrer is CEO/CTO of TechEmpower, a founder of Work Literacy, and a well-known consultant, speaker, writer, and trainer on e-Learning and Performance Support. He has twenty years’ experience as a CTO and leader of software development, and eleven years experience as an associate professor of Computer Science. He works as an interim CTO for many start-ups, and was the founding CTO at eHarmony. His work has won awards, and has led him into engagements at many Fortune 500 companies including Citibank, Lexus, Microsoft, Nissan, IBM, and Hewlett-Packard, among others. His blog eLearning Technology won the best e-Learning Blog award the past two years.

For More Information

Contact:

Dr. Tony Karrer
akarrer@techempower.com

I saw a post by Bryan Chapman discussing how long it takes to select an LMS. I've known Bryan for quite a few years - more than 10. And he and I do a lot of LMS selection and implementation work. And I think we are both pretty good at it. I may even be the person he's talking about in his post as the other consultant, but I'm not quite sure.

So, the real answer to how long it takes is, of course, it depends. But to give you some better answers than that the eLearningGuild has some great survey data on it. I put out some of that data in my post - LMS Team Size and Time - Wow 23 Months!

Clearly, there is some disconnect between Bryan's timeline of

entire process from beginning to end in about 2 1/2 months

and the 23 months cited by guild members. Now he's talking only about the selection process rather than the implementation process. So the actual numbers reported by Guild members is roughly 11 months to select. So, we have a difference of 11 months vs. 2.5 months.

Where does this come from? Well if I compare the steps in his process vs. the steps in the LMS Selection Process that I describe, there's a lot of overlap. However, a few differences jump out to me.

Learning Strategy Defined?

The first steps in my process are:

1. Form a core selection team and define stakeholders
2. Define business and learning strategy
3. Agree to process with key stakeholders

Bryan jumps by these. I'm sure that in reality Bryan includes these but is not counting them in his 2.5 months. In other words, you would need to have business and learning strategy and a core team identified before you start. What often happens when you go to select an LMS is that you realize that you don't really have the strategy defined. This is a common LMS Selection Gotcha.

Tail of Process - Demos, Hands-on Testing, Negotiation

The tail of Bryan's process is:

Week 9 - Read and Grade Proposals
Week 10 - Final meeting to pick system

8. Demos
9. Pilot or hands-on tests
10. Negotiate
11. Final selection

Bryan talks about having demos earlier in the process:

In my model, I have learned the value of moving the demo upfront, rather than waiting until after the RFP. It makes all the difference in the world.

I personally like to have demos after you've defined your differentiating use cases and know where the system is likely going to be more challenging. We don't want a standard demo, we want to see how they handle the challenges.

Similarly, if you can afford the time and effort, there is almost nothing better than using the LMS with a hands-on test or a pilot. When you look at LMS Satisfaction the people who report the lowest satisfaction are the administrators who have to work with it day-to-day. How about giving them a chance before final selection? This is likely the best way to really know what it will be like to have the LMS.

Given the generally low marks that LMS systems get (LMS Dissatisfaction on the Rise), it's best to take a bit of time and make sure that you are doing what you can to get what you need.

I also would suggest that you don't plan to rush through negotiation. Bryan and I probably both save our clients lots of money during negotiation - more than our fees for large deals. But if you are up against a spending deadline or try to finish negotiation in a week, then you put yourself in a weaker negotiating position.

I do believe that Bryan and I can greatly shorten the time and improve the resulting satisfaction. And there have been cases where selections have taken less than 2 months. For me that's been the exception - and often I'm involved when things are more complex. But I thought it would be good to have the rest of the picture.

Some other posts around LMS:

• LMS RFP
• LMS Selection Presentation Reformulated
  
• LMS Selection Team and Stakeholders
• LMS Selection Process
• LMS Satisfaction Features and Barriers
• Learning Management Systems (LMS) Gotchas
• Tracking Without an LMS
• LMS Dissatisfaction on the Rise
• Do You WANT an LMS? Does a Learner WANT an LMS?
• Moving from One to Many - LMS Products are Two Generations Behind
• Leading with an LMS - Harmful to Your Health (or Skipping Stages ...
• Tools for On-Demand Information - An LMS?
• Point Solutions vs. Suites and Composition
• eLearning Learning - LMS
  

Most descriptions of tool sets start with the tools and proceed to describe the features of the tools. Starting with the tools is what I consider to be a bottom-up approach. It's left to the reader to interpret where they fit into their day-to-day concept work. I understand why most authors start with the tool. Trying to fit any tool into the myriad of different work lives is really hard. For example, where does blogging fit - well it depends on who you are talking to.



From the perspective of identifying a tool set for yourself, I recommend looking top-down as well.

What's a top-down strategy?

I'm sure there can be many top-down strategies, but for myself and in work literacy workshops I use a particular top-down strategy. It starts by looking at your key knowledge work:

• Roles
• Projects

For myself, these might be:

Roles

• Small Business Owner
• Manager
• Acting CTO
• Community organizer
• Expert / Speaker / Writer
• Client Advisor
• Family Vacation Planner
• Fine Dining Planner
• etc.
  

Projects

• Design and Conduct Workshops
  
• New product design
• Online workshop
• eLearning Learning product design
  
• Staying up-to-speed on eLearning 2.0
• Spring break plans
  
• etc.
  

Aside - Speaking of Spring Break plans, does someone want a workshop in an exotic location over spring break?

For each role and project, I ask myself:

• What are the key tasks?
• What methods and tools do I use for that task?
  
• What information do I regularly consume?
• What do I regularly produce?
• What sometimes goes wrong or seems harder than it should be? (Problems)
  
• Where do I believe I could have opportunity for improvement? (Opportunities)
  

I generally look back at the Knowledge Work Framework and its task categories as a trigger to remind me of these things. In other words:

• Scan - Staying up-to-speed on a topic.
• Find - Includes Evaluate, Narrow / Adjust
• Keep / Organize / Refind / Remind
  
• Leverage / Present
• Network
• Collaborate

I do all of this in a Word document - capturing it as a series of notes. I make sure to identify how my roles and projects fit with the tools and methods that I use. I look closely at my information consumption. And where I spend time. I highlight anywhere that I've identified problems or opportunities.

Based on having done this exercise formally or informally with quite a few people, I can almost guarantee that you will have a few aha moments. Many times it is simply because you force yourself to ask the question - is there a better way to handle this situation.

This also sets you up for aha moments as you encounter information along the way. Any information source that was not in your list should be questioned. If it wasn't on your list, is it just entertainment? Or is there an additional role or project that I should have thought about? Maybe I should get out of the way of this information source?
A really great exercise is to go through this with a peer or as part of a workshop ... hint :) ...

Spend some time to do this reflection, it's well worth it.

Other Posts in the Series

• Tool Set 2009
  
• Work Skills Keeping Up
  
• Top-Down Strategy
  
• Better Memory
• Information Radar
• Processing Pages with Links
• Networks and Learning Communities
  
• Collaborate
• Twitter as Personal Work and Learning Tool
• LinkedIn Guide for Knowledge Workers
• Search
• Browser Short Cuts
• Work Skills Workshop

In November 2008, I made my CoComment Co.mments Switch and now just received a notice that Co.mments is shutting down. Argh. Given that the reason for the switch is that I wasn't happy with CoComment, what should I use now?

In New Work and New Work Skills, I discuss the fact that most of us have not participated in formal learning since college on foundational knowledge work skills - especially metacognitive skills. Our last formal learning used card catalogs, microfiche readers, Xerox machines, libraries, etc.


Most of us have strong skills in some areas and are much weaker in others simply due to the fact that we acquire our skills in completely ad hoc ways.

When were you taught:

• how to take take notes on a laptop during a meeting,
  
• how to filter a flood of new content,
  
• how to reach out via networks to find expertise,
  
• how to leverage the wisdom of crowds?

Tilde Effect

What epitomizes the situation for me is the Google ~ operator. A lot of people who are concept workers use Google every day and have no idea that the ~ operator even exists. Sure they can get along without it. I only use it in about 2-3% of my searches. And folks can probably get along without using the filetype, inurl or a myriad of other search operators and techniques.

But, the fact that concept workers claim in surveys to be above average in their search skills but they don't incorporate these operators tells me that there's a gap.

Tilde Effect - gap between available tools and methods and the average capabilities of concept workers due to the ad hoc nature of work skills acquisition.

My strong belief is that the foundations of knowledge work are changing fairly quickly and most of us learn completely through ad hoc mechanisms that are not likely to yield good coverage. If you could have an expert look over your shoulder at how you do things on a day-to-day basis, you likely could find many improvements. Every one of us would be somewhat embarrassed to have that expert sitting there because we know that we could stand to do things better.

Tangible Impact

The Tilde Effect at an individual level has massive aggregate impact.

A recently released Workplace Productivity Survey, reported by MSNBC, had the following findings:

• 62 percent of professionals report that they spend a lot of time sifting through irrelevant information to find what they need;
  
• 68 percent wish they could spend less time organizing information and more time using the information that comes their way.
• 85 percent agree that not being able to access the right information at the right time is a huge time-waster.
• More than 40 percent of the survey participants indicate an inability to handle future increases in information flow.
• White-collar professionals spend an average of 2.3 hours daily conducting online research, with one in 10 spending four hours or more on an average day.

The figure from Basex as reported in the New York Times of $650B as the cost of interruptions and the total cost information overload is $900B (see comment).

When you couple this with the fact that we have moved to a knowledge economy where the dominant value is our concept work capabilities and where pace needs to be continually faster - we can't afford to have a workforce that lags in their concept work skills. This is a big reason behind new offerings like the work skills workshop.

Bottom Line

The bottom line for the Tilde Effect is that we live in a time of incredible innovation that directly affect the methods we use to work and learn. Our work skills cannot sit still. There's a lot of discussion about 21st century skills to be taught in schools, but what about the rest of us?



And how important is this? Let me rely on a few other people to help here:

We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run.

Roy Amara, Institute for the Future.

It’s not the strongest of the species that survive, it’s the ones most adaptable to change.

Darwin

Being adaptable in a flat world, knowing how to ‘learn how to learn,’ will be one of the most important assets any worker can have, because job churn will come faster, because innovation will happen faster.

Friedman

The most important contribution management needs to make in the 21st Century is to increase the productivity of the knowledge worker.

Drucker

We are truly in a time of incredible innovation of work skills. We are struggling to keep up. And we need to collectively be focused on this issue!

Other Posts in the Series

• Tool Set 2009
  
• Work Skills Keeping Up
  
• Top-Down Strategy
  
• Better Memory
• Information Radar
• Processing Pages with Links
• Networks and Learning Communities
  
• Collaborate
• Twitter as Personal Work and Learning Tool
• LinkedIn Guide for Knowledge Workers
• Search
• Browser Short Cuts
• Work Literacy Workshop

I'm hoping you will help me ...

My blogging cohort Ken Allan - reported to me that he was having trouble access the eLearning Learning content community. Ken lives in New Zealand, but having worked on lots of international sites, I have a hard time believing that it's something to do with that.

So, can you help by clicking over to eLearning Learning and letting me know if you have any kind of problem?

I thought I'd kick off this year by posting a series of posts on topics related to tools and methods for work and learning. I'm hoping to address questions such as:

How do you create a personal tool set or Personal Learning Environment (PLE) for yourself? What should be in your tool set? What are the most important methods to adopt in addition to the tools? Should twitter be part of your tool set?

The information in this series has been something I've been presenting, writing, blogging about and more recently doing workshops around.

But I'm worried, because while I just got through writing about my concern in Using SharePoint that learning organizations seemed to be making the same mistake of Not Preparing Workers for Web 2.0. Setting up a SharePoint for a community or work team is very different from teaching them about Personal Learning. It is our personal and professional responsibility to Improve Personal Learning - A Continuing Challenge for Learning Professionals.

In fact, the lack of attention to this topic was the reason I founded Work Literacy in June of 2008. I still don't think it is getting nearly the attention it deserves. But hopefully 2009 will be the year when that begins to change. We are now beginning to offer work literacy workshops.

As an aside, what finally pushed me to create this series was a great post by Sue Waters' about creating your own personal learning network (PLN). This made me look back at a post I did quite a while ago - Personal Learning for Learning Professionals - Using Web 2.0 Tools to Make Reading & Research More Effective. And I realized that I really needed to get moving on this topic again. So, here goes ...

What is a Tool Set?

First, let me say that we all have a tool set and a set of methods and frameworks that go along with that tool set. We may not think of this in terms of a personal learning environment and a particular set of methods, but it's there. Being unconscious about your tool set is unconscionable.

Sue's description of a personal learning network is:

Personal Learning Networks (PLNs) are all about using web tools such as blogs, wiki, twitter, facebook to create connects with others which extend our learning, increases our reflection while enabling us to learn together as part of a global community.

This sounds a lot like a personal learning environment, personal knowledge management (PKM) and personal work and learning environment (PWLE) and PIM. Yes there are distinctions, but probably not worth considering. So, for the purpose of this description, I'm going to focus on day-to-day tools that the average concept worker should have in their tool set and discuss a few methods for using these tools.

Tool Sets are Personal

A caveat that I make in every presentation on this topic is that studies of personal information management repeatedly show that tool sets and methods for personal work and learning are personal. The same tool and method can be highly effective for one person and not effective for others. It depends heavily on the person, the job, the needs, etc. Thus, whenever I say you "should" be using this tool, I really mean you should try this tool out and consider adopting it.

No Excuses

At one presentation someone told me that it was okay for them not to know about tools and methods because "they would find out about them when they needed them." I don't believe that this is really true. If you are unaware of particular tools then you don't know when they would be useful. And once you begin to really fall behind on this stuff, your skills will atrophy to the point where you are hopeless. There are no excuses. You need to understand your choices, try new methods and tools and adopting practices that improve your work and learning skills. We are all too busy. If you care about being relevant and valuable in 2015, you had better be making moves in 2009.

No Clear Tool Choices

One of the techniques I commonly use now that eLearning Learning has Related Terms is to look at a topic and see what relates to it. For example, Personal Learning, PLE, PWLE, PKM are all pretty closely related. But when I go to PLE and then look at the related Tools, I'm not seeing clear winners. In fact, the top results such as Drupal and Blackboard are likely there because people are discussing how they don't really support PLEs. They are associated by contradiction.

What that means is that there are so many tools out there that get discussed as part of people's personal learning environment that there is no clear winner. That also shows part of the value of something like Jane's Top Learning Tools in that it surfaces some of the top used tools. One note of caution on Jane's list is that these are both personal learning tools and tools used to create learning opportunities for others. For example, I doubt we are using an authoring tool for personal learning.

Productivity

This series is going to be way too long as it is, so I have to draw the line somewhere. I'm not going to cover a core literacy for concept workers that is what I think of as productivity. Getting Things Done is the classic example of this. If you've not adopted the core concepts such as:

• Only touching any piece of paper or email once
• Defining the immediate next step
• Setting up reminder systems

and the tools / methods of:

• Where you keep your task list
• Keeping the immediately next task and due date
• How you handle longer term things
• How you manage this list
• How you manage your time
• What you need to do

Then you really need to go do that. But, I'm going to mostly skip by these issues.

Recommendations

The intent of this series is to capture my thinking at the start of 2009 about the tools and methods for work and learning. There will be a lot coming at you through this series and it will be easy for you to become overwhelmed. So a couple of quick recommendations.

1. Slow and steady - adopt practices and tools in a slow, steady, measured way. Assess your adoption as you go.
   
2. Leverage others - this should be one of your tasks - continuous improvement of your tool set and work methods. And you should definitely engage other people to discuss this with in an ongoing basis.

I would also recommend considering participating in a workshop that will help you get going on these tools.

Other Posts in the Series

• Tool Set 2009
  
• Work Skills Keeping Up
  
• Top-Down Strategy
  
• Better Memory
• Information Radar
• Processing Pages with Links
• Networks and Learning Communities
  
• Collaborate
• Twitter as Personal Work and Learning Tool
• LinkedIn Guide for Knowledge Workers
• Search
• Browser Short Cuts
• Work Literacy Workshop

Other Places to Look

• Alternative list of skills - I've focused on the skills in the initial Knowledge Work Framework. There's another list of Needed Skills that is a different take and in some ways broader. I'm not sure if the tool set or methods would be different having used that list of skills, but it's important to consider alternative frameworks.
• PLE - Corporate vs Personal and IP Rights - personal rights to content in PLEs vs. Corporate rights to content. (See lots of thoughts on this in: Enterprises that love PLE's, Cross battles Downes: is corporate learning corrupt?, Blogging Inside or Outside the Corporate Firewall).
• Michelle Martin - My Personal Learning Environment and The Psychology and Skills of Personal Learning Environments
• Ray Sims - Personal Learning Environment
  
• Knowledge Work Not Separate from Learning
• Personal Learning Environments
  

Ongoing information from eLearning Learning: PLE, PWLE, PKM, Personal Learning, and Personal Learning and Virtual Learning Environments.