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 Business, pre-smtwl, purpose Learning Community, newjobs

Connectivism & Connective Knowledge

I am pumped. This will be an incredible experience. I know I will never keep up with all the reading assignments and the other activities. I’m determined to give this my best shot though. I’m super busy with my work right now, but will sneak time in between my workshops and other commitments.

Here is the Moodle site

Here is the wiki

Here is the Daily

Here is the Connectivism Blog

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Harold Jarche » Changing the training and development role in the 21st C.

Changing the training and development role in the 21st C.
Posted on September 1st, 2008 by Harold Jarche

I received several comments on my last post on Learning and Performance in Balance. This post came about as I examined the role of training and development (T&D) in the workplace. My contention is that many organisational learning initiatives don’t achieve what they set out to do. They don’t enable learning at the individual level unless the person is already motivated and few are connected to performance objectives at the organisational level.

Instead, I think that a better approach would be for the organisation to focus on measurable performance and give workers the time and support to direct their own learning. The T&D function then provides support, but not direction, and also provides a feedback loop to develop better performance support from the organisation. This goes with Klaus Wittkuhn’s statement that:

It is not an intelligent strategy to train people to overcome system deficiencies. Instead, we should design the system properly to make sure that the performers can leverage all their capabilities.

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From Digizen.org, this report looks very promising as a resource for educators and individuals working with youth using social tech tools.

The project is designed to investigate how social networking services can
and are being used to support personalized formal and informal learning
by young people in schools and colleges.

The work opens by asking “What are social networking services?”
This section investigates current definitions of social networking
services and provides a comprehensive review of current social
networking service types and activities.

In Evaluating social networking services,
this report then describes how to use a toolkit – a social networking
evaluation chart covering six different social networking services, and
an accompanying checklist,
which are available to download from the Digizen website to evaluate
services. The chart is not definitive, but provides a comprehensive
framework covering significant relevant issues such as site age
restrictions, the presence of adverts, collaborative tools, security
issues and data management restrictions.

Benefits and opportunities evaluates
the potential educational benefits to individual users, as well as
outlining some of the opportunities that educators and schools using
social networking services might take advantage of. This section looks
at issues around digital literacy and social engagement, skills and
identity development, and opportunities for better understanding
e-safety and data management issues.

Barriers and risks
looks at current barriers to using social networking services within
education, including staff development and support issues, and risk
evaluation and management approaches. Risk areas that educators should
be aware of are outlined, and approaches to manage these are addressed.
Issues include users’ perceptions of the environment they are posting
in, personal data management, and cyberbullying and potentially illegal
behaviours.

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I love the name and tag line. It really speaks to some of my feelings about moving into this type of work. Beth Kanter started me down this path which brought me to the world of Forrester Research. I liked the YouTube video and as a collector more than any other type (see video) I am posting it on my main blog. I will be setting up a separate blog to collect specific resources related to my social tech goals and also my creator goals. For now, it’s here in my main site.

CHARLENE LI is one of the leading voices in the area of Social Computing and Web 2.0 through her work over the past nine years with the respected technology and market research company Forrester Research. She is one of Forrester’s most quoted analysts. An accomplished and frequently requested public speaker, she often appears at industry events and delivered the keynote speech at Forrester’s Consumer Forum in 2007.

Charlene analyzes how companies can use technologies — like blogs, social networks, RSS, tagging, and widgets — to meet business objectives. She started her own analyst blog in 2004 and is regularly cited as America’s most influential analyst blogger. She shares her blog with Josh Bernoff.

Recent Research

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What a fine time I am having. I have scanned all my pictures from my 1967 Basketball Year Book album put together by my mother. This was the year we won the first ever Canadian National Championship hosted by Luther College in Regina Saskatchewan. You can see the full picture album on my flickr site.

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I can not get enough of Stephen Downes. Here is his latest slideshare titled Applications of Social and Collaborative Technologies in Education.

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I am unapologetically a dyed in the wool, heat seeking, nirvana searcher. Evelyn Rodriguez at her Crossroads Dispatches blog feeds me interesting and inspiring posts about her life journey. A few days ago, I read “enlightenment, not just for prisoners and reggae musicians anymore”. Its a remix of her original post on this topic, written in June of 2006. That post was called “Lightening Up, Coming Out of the Closet“. Not surprisingly, her writing about enlightenment as an everyday possibility and natural right was inspiring. She writes with a blend of humour, lightheartedness and deep sincerity. I enjoy reading about her adventures as it encourages me to enjoy and revel in following my own path. Here’s the introduction to her post.

enlightenment, not just for prisoners and reggae musicians anymore

“Because of the extremely rare, golden opportunities of April, we need to make ourselves very visible as who we really are. We need to dress as who we really are, move through all our activities as who we really are, and speak our truth at all times. Otherwise, if we are still disguised, we may not connect with those whom we are meant to meet. Listen for the numerous hints, clues and signposts that are coming our way. We need to be wide open and totally available, as well as ready to change direction in an instant.” – Solara, April 2008 Surf Report

Reading that paragraph above, I thought maybe it’d be right timing to re-post a June 26, 2006 post titled “Lightening Up! Coming Out of the Closet” below. This is definitely, if ever I doubted, the time to be true to ourselves.

The easiest way to be truly true to our self is to wake up to our Self.

Since that writing, I’ve come across a wide variety of bodhisattvas along my travels. Sometimes, as my former teacher Adyashanti said they wear guises of prisoners (he’d visited and taught at prisons – and met two awakened Buddhas – solitary confinement can do that), or grocery store clerks counting change in wayward towns.

Myself, I’ve encountered them guerilla gardening wheatgrass in the urban cracks of the sidewalk and dancing in purple dresses they salvaged off the streets of the Mission District, San Francisco. Or, sometimes they are a reggae musician I know. Or other times, a single mom and artist. Or, my faun friend last seen picking apples at an organic farm. Or, the barista that handed me the Om Tazo tea at this coffee shop where I type this crossed road dispatch this very moment.

I know, I know, you were looking for white-robed saints with crusty beards and hefty halos.

In case you’re thoroughly confused, I’m talking about awakening. Just the tip of iceberg, and really the so-called start of enlightenment. (As if beginnings and endings existed.) I’ve finally seen it’s not doing any bit of good to pretend to be otherwise than awake.

Awakening to Self is going to be quite common now that the earth’s shifted to 4D. So, you might as well get used to it. You will be next.

Again, this post was written 6/26/06, and the “awakening” such as it was “happened” somewhere in a nondescript Peet’s coffee shop in a nondescript strip mall in San Jose, CA precisely two years ago today, April 7, 2006.

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Kathy Sierra in her blog Creating Passionate Users,  has written a long but very insightful post on the workings of the brain and how individuals are affected by people who are very angry or happy. It’s a facinating read on neuroscience research and its helping me see why its important to be careful who I spend time with. Below is the introduction to the post. A quick trip to the Creating Passionate Users blog is well worth your time.

Everyone’s favorite A-list target, Robert Scoble, announced the unthinkable a few days ago: he will be moderating his comments. But what some people found far more disturbing was Robert’s wish to make a change in his life that includes steering clear of “people who were deeply unhappy” and hanging around people who are happy. The harsh reaction he’s gotten could be a lesson in scientific ingorance, because the neuroscience is behind him on this one.

Whether it’s a good move is up to each person to decide, but I’ve done my best here to offer some facts. [Disclaimer: I'm not an authority on the brain! I have, however, spent the last 15 years doing research and applying it, both in my work and also because I have a serious brain disorder, and my brain knowledge could be a matter of life and death. Another disclaimer: I haven't spoken with Robert about this; I'm simply offering some science that supports the decision he may have made for entirely different reasons.]

A few things I’ll try to explain in this post:

1) One of the most important recent neuroscience discoveries–“mirror neurons”, and the role they play in a decision like Robert’s

2) The heavily-researched social science phenomenon known as “emotional contagion”

3) Ignorance and misperceptions around the idea of “happy people”

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