Jay Cross is one of my elearning and blogging mentors. He is on the forefront of the elearning movement and a prolific writer and speaker, sought after around the world.  He is one of the first persons to coin the term elearning. I am inspired by clear thinking and concrete explanations of elearning and the benefits or informal learning to organizations and individuals. On his Internet Time Wiki, he has a list of services offered to corporations. I copied in his service list below and one of his informal learning videos to give readers a sense of what he is about.

Through my blog, I’m offering related services to the non profit and educational sectors. By posting this excerpt on Jay Cross, I am drawing attention to how how successful leading edge companies are utilizing social media tools to fulfil their mandate.

Services

We help organizations profit from informal learning, Web 2.0, and related approaches. Some solutions are simple: social networking, encouraging conversations that matter, and beefing up networks. Others require more investment but can be transformative: nurturing communities of practice, trusting peer learning, and building bottom-up knowledge systems. The profit potential is phenomenal. My clients tend to be progressive organizations: high tech, pharma, and change agents. These companies are already the best; they are always exploring for ways to stay on top. In contrast, most rigid, centralized, conservative companies are waiting things out and may be beyond hope.

Brent Uncategorized Learning Community

Circles of social fluency per Chris Lott, with a bit of help from me.

This week’s program on the Connectivism MOOC is about new roles for educators in a connected world, and the most interesting input was Nancy White talking about how we bring about change.

Christy Tucker took great notes from the recorded discussion and the backchanneling of participants.

My top 10 takeaways:

1. Communities are the basis for change, and what they need more than anything now is excellent stewardship. Facilitators, please stand up.
2. The great value of networks is that they enable groups of people to organize, collaborate, do the work each is best at, and share the work needed to bring about the change, and then show others its value.
3. Change has to start with an identified need, not with a good idea. Generally, we only change when we must. Listen for needs.
4. We need to create safe places to explore and work on bold ideas. Skunkworks can often accomplish more than large amounts of funding.
5. Change, like great research, begins with asking important questions, and provoking respondents to self-change instead of trying to persuade or impose it.
6. To bring about change, be prepared to work with people, listen and understand what works and what is important for them, and engage them in ways they see value in and relate to. And be totally, brutally honest about what you don’t know, aren’t sure about, or difficulties in the path of desired change. And stay open to other ideas and concerns.
7. If you want to accomplish great change, give up the idea of getting the credit for it.
8. Experiment. The best, profound changes come from masses of iterative learning and exploration of possibilities.
9. Create the starting conditions for momentum, enthusiasm, sufficient resources, the right people, and don’t worry about outcomes.
10. Make it easy. When you make it easier to change, to do the right thing, it will succeed more quickly and profoundly than if it requires a lot of work from every person.

PS: I’ve switched to a Mac today, and it doesn’t seem to support my my blog on the ancient creaky Radio Userland platform, so if I’m down for a few days, bear with me.

Brent Uncategorized

I am very interested in learning more about the impact of digital inclusion on young people, adults, seniors, the community and the economy. I found this report via UK Online Centres Website. I can see how this report and the other resources at this site can go a long way towards explaining why it’s so important for youth serving organizations and any non profit group to increase its use of Internet communication technologies for clients and for community development. I believe Canada is still many years behind the UK in making digital learning accessible and supportive.

The two slideshares I’ve posted give a very clear picture of the cost of social exclusion and the work of the Oline Learning Centres operating in the UK. You can access and Digital Inclusion – a Discussion of the Evidence Base

Benefits to individuals

The accelerating adoption of information and communications technologies (ICT) in the workplace and in everyday life is having important impacts on the lives of the majority of people in the UK. Those who are able to communicate, interact and transact through ICT can benefit in many ways, including:1

• Facilitating communication – allowing people to stay in touch more easily, more cheaply, and in new ways.

• Consumer empowerment – more convenient, cheaper retail opportunities have become available, with a greater range of products available, and more information and price transparency.

• Easier access to information of all types – from public-sector service providers, private-sector companies, voluntary bodies, or social or community groups.

• Reducing the burden and costs of transacting with service providers.

• Improved productivity at work: the majority of jobs now require some use of ICT. Technology is also helping to make the workplace more inclusive, with better opportunities for flexible working, homeworking, and improved access for disabled people.

• Making and maintaining contact with interest groups.

• Improved access to learning opportunities.

Rapid growth in the use of digital technologies in recent years indicates that large numbers of people are convinced of these benefits, and take advantage of them in their day-to-day lives. For example, nearly nine out of ten adults in the UK own a mobile phone, and six out of ten use the internet (Ofcom 2006; ONS 2006a). The UK e-commerce market grew to over £100 billion in 2005, accounting for 5.5% of the total sales of non-financial sector businesses (ONS 2006b).

It is perhaps surprising, then, that there are still large numbers of people who do not make full use of ICT. The observation that non-users tend to be also among socially excluded groups has concern for the digitally excluded in society, and is why HM Government has adopted a Digital Strategy (PMSU/DTI 2005).

In principle, socially excluded people have as much or more to gain from effective application of digital technologies as anyone else: Inclusion Through Innovation (Social Exclusion Unit 2005) highlights that ICT can help individuals to ‘address some of the key drivers of social exclusion’, including:

This list draws largely on Enabling a Digitally United Kingdom (Cabinet Office 2004) and Inclusion Through Innovation (Social Exclusion Unit 2005).

• Early years disadvantage

• Educational underachievement

• Worklessness: with easier access to information on employment opportunities

• Homelessness

• Health and health inequalities: improved access to advice and treatment information (Cabinet Office 2004, p. 21)

• Crime and being a victim of crime

• Reducing isolation, especially for those with mobility problems, or people who feel confined by geographic communities (Loader & Keeble 2004)

Brent Uncategorized Business, digitalinclusion, Education

I can relate to this post about collaborative projects and putting a huge amount of energy into setting up a structure to “share knowledge”. With the Streetjibe project we are now closing in on the 3rd year and there is little sharing going on by others, however that does not diminish the value that our Project is bringing to our community in York Region. It’s taken me almost three years to focus on doing it myself rather than cajole, bribe, plead etc. for sharing by others. I still don’t have a lot of comments, but it’s not bothering me and I’m feeling like the quality or our blog is increasing and we are starting  to get noticed. I’m going to keep on this track of “just doing it” instead of looking for ways to get others to “just do it”.

This post comes from Scott Leslie (blog called EdTechPost), an educational technology researcher and emerging technology analyst. He currently works as the Manager of BCcampus Shareable Online Learning Resources, a multi-disciplinary ‘open content’ repository.

I have been asked to participate in many projects over the years that start once a bunch of departments, institutions or organizations notice that they have a lot in common with others and decide that it would be a good idea to collaborate, to share “best practices” or “data” or whatever. It always ’sounds’ like a good idea. I am big on sharing and have benefited much over the years from stuff I’ve shared and stuff shared with me by my peers.

But inevitably, with a very few exceptions, these projects spend an enormous amount of time defining what is to be shared, figuring out how to share it, setting up the mechanisms to share it, and then…not really sharing much. Or sharing once but costing so much time, effort or money that they do not get sustained. Does this sound familiar to anyone else? I don’t feel like this phenomenon is isolated to me or somehow occurs because of my own personal ineptitude, but you never know.

Brent Uncategorized collaboration, projectmanagement, sharing

I am transforming my self and my career. This short post from Seth Godin is a nice reminder of possible jobs for me in the coming months and years.

From Seth Godin’s Blog

Three new jobs you might want to consider

Every company that works online today ought to consider hiring three amazing people to lead these projects:

1. COMMUNITY ORGANIZER. Find and connect and lead a tribe of dedicated users that contribute to and benefit from the work you do.
2. STATS FIEND. Measure everything that can be measured. Do it efficiently and consistently. Find out what metrics are important and cycle until they improve.
3. MANAGER OF FREELANCERS. Find and hire and manage the best outside talent in the world. If it can be defined as a project, and if great work defeats good, seriously consider having the MOF get it done.

With three superstars doing these jobs, it’s possible you can create almost

Brent Uncategorized Learning Community, newjobs

This wiki is one of the most comprehensive site for understanding, learning and applying social media in your work and learning environments.

Brent Uncategorized socialmedia, socialmedia web 2.0 slideshare, wiki

This slideshare production simply and concisely presents the value of blogs to enhance reflective practice.

Brent Uncategorized blogs, elearning reflective blogs, Organizations, Personal Learning Environment

This study is important. I am going to follow this up within my educational community and use it to keep cracking the bias against social networking in schools. This study will help me a lot as I present to teachers and school staff.

A University of Minnesota study reveals that the tools of social networking are truly democratizing the web, giving low-income students the same advantages as their privileged peers.

MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL ( 6/19/2008 ) — In a first-of-its-kind study, researchers at the University of Minnesota have discovered the educational benefits of social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook. The same study found that low-income students are in many ways just as technologically proficient as their counterparts, going against what results from previous studies have suggested.

Brent Uncategorized Research, socialnetworking, youth

This post describes the challenges faced by a large corporation in adopting a wiki as an Intranet and the cultural barriers faced in implementing this wiki. It is a great resource for any large corporations considering a wiki. The post comes from Nathen @ e-gineer blog.

Introduction

JCintra, our Intranet Wiki, has seen incredible levels of adoption and participation, with a positive impact on the way information flows in our organisation.

Over 18 months, JCintra amassed 23,335 content contributions from 239 (~70%) people. The number of contributions per month continues to increase steadily.

But, JCintra continues to function as an incredibly easy to use Intranet, rather than as a genuine Wiki. In fact, 85% of our 3000 pages only have one contributing author. (Interestingly, this behaviour occurs even at Atlassian, who build Wiki software as their business!)

This article documents our cultural journey so far, and outlines our ideas for driving the next phase of change.

Technical and Cultural Maturity

What does success look like?

Decisions about information sharing in organisations like Janssen-Cilag are complex. Some information should be open, but isn’t. Some information needs to be closed and controlled. Some ideas should be discussed in the open, while other ideas need to be carefully communicated.

Success is defined by what we do, not what we have the opportunity to do. Implementing a Wiki isn’t success, building an organisation that will take collective ownership and collaboratively edit content is. Technology creates opportunity for changes of behaviour and helps shift the conversation away from excuses (it’s too hard) to reasons (it’s too risky).

Frankly, at Janssen-Cilag, we don’t yet know exactly how we should be communicating and collaborating. But, we do know that the steps we’ve taken so far have improved communication, increased our flexibility and given people the power to run with ideas. We want to continue this journey, pushing more power to the edge of the organisation.

The Enterprise Collaboration Maturity Model

All knowledge work is either individual or group based, and it is always performed in an individual, shared or open environment.

The Enterprise Collaboration Maturity Model depicts these work models, and incorporates the cultural journey that enterprises take to reach each stage. Currently, Janssen-Cilag provides an open Wiki (high capability maturity) but primarily uses it as Groupware (medium usage maturity).

To continue our journey, Janssen-Cilag needs to become comfortable with the idea that published content is not finalised. Specifically, we need users to:

1. Make contributions in an open space that are not policy or announcements.
2. Edit work or information that is owned collectively.

Successful Enterprise 2.0 style collaboration requires both technical and cultural maturity. While technology opens immediate potential, organisations must grow towards new patterns of usage and collaboration. Read more here….

Brent Uncategorized

I was very pleased that my suggestion to use Voice Thread as a community engagement tool for the launch of the PhotoVoice Project was accepted by the PhotoVoice Planning Committee. I was a member of this collaborative Project and when I came across Voice Thread, I saw the benefit to using this interesting social media tool as way to include comments from people attending the exhibit.

You can’t start the Voice Thread in this post as Word Press does not support this tool. You can click here to view the results of the community engagement tool. I think you will be impressed in how easy it is to use and the quality of the comments demonstrate the impact the photo exhibit had on visitors to the exhibit. Since then, the engagement tool was used at the Poverty Day event held at the Newmarket Municipal offices and we will continue using this tool as the exhibit moves around the Region.

The PhotoVoice Project is a project of the York Region Alliance to End Homelessness and the Krasman Centre. PhotoVoice is a participant action research method that puts cameras in the hands of those with lived experience to document their voices n efforts for social change. Hidden in Plain Sight is the Exhibit of photographs and narratives that the PhotoVoice Project put together over 18 months. The United Way of York Region and the Region of York provided much needed resources to launch the exhibit at the Varley Gallery in Unionville.

The PhotoVoice Project was launched at a wonderful opening night session on Friday, Oct. 3rd. On the following Monday the Exhibit was used to highlight the release of the Region of York Community Plan to End Homelessness.

You can click on this link to take you to the Hidden in Plain Sight community engagement tool that the planning committee used to gather comments and feedback from Exhibit visitors. Once you are on that page you can view all the comments made by those who viewed the pictures and listened to the presentations. You can also add your voice to the exhibit by following the simple instructions on the page. You can create your own identity or use the window blinds picture as a generic identity..

Brent Uncategorized engagement, voicethread