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By Dan Pontefract, 04/08/2010 10:13 PM

In the title of this post, I’m paying homage to Dr. Don Morgenson, professor emeritus of psychology at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.

Recently, Dr. Morgenson wrote an opinion piece in The Globe and Mail entitled “Open Spaces, Open Minds”. In it, he cringes at the uprising of physical fences in our neighbourhoods and as a general consequence, the closing off of our minds, our ideas, our innovation, our future.

NIMBY now takes physical form, with most backyards today inaccessible. Clearly, some of this territoriality results from fear – of thieves, burglars and more, but the symbolic aspects of these changes may indicate not merely closing off properties but as (John) Updike suggests, a closing of minds.

I could not help but think that the fence in Morgenson’s piece is analogous to the business unit silos in today’s organization.

Organizational silos occur not from thieves and burglars, but from apathy, hierarchy, red tape and fear.

I can’t think of a single benefit when it comes to organizational silos. It is another example of how we are closing our minds, walling our innovation, and foregoing a more productive and networked organization.

Morgenson goes on to write:

Great nations have become great partly because of accessibility: the central notion of preserving wide open spaces for all, but also they have sought the preservation of wide open minds. Very simply, such openness stimulates the imagination, promotes new ideas, new approaches to old problems, and creates new communities, all of which ensure the growth and development of the country itself.

This astute professor is first suggesting that we, as a society (at least in Canada) are closing our minds and becoming territorial as we erect fences in our neighbourhoods, shutting ourselves from the imaginations of each other. Subsequently, to remedy the issue, we need to set fire to the fences and re-establish the open neighbourhood.

Enterprise 2.0, Social Learning, Learnerprise, whatever you want to call it, clearly articulates that an open 2.0 culture can and will instil said openness, imagination, growth, and promotion of ideas and innovation.

A reclamation process must begin. We must reclaim our generosity, our openness, our accessibility as individuals. The solution to fenced-in minds is to bring the fences down, bringing us together, as this great nation’s people.

I wholeheartedly agree. Our organizations need to embrace the open culture, Enterprise 2.0, Social Learning, Media and Networking; not because it’s cool but because it stimulates the very growth of the organization through open borders, broken silos, and connected people.

If the C-Suite is looking for ROI, let’s not prove it by return on investment, but by return on intelligence. The intelligence being returned to the organization through an open culture, leading to innovation, engagement and overarching profitability.

Our reclamation process must begin. It’s the reclamation of an open, networked, and dare I say wirearchical organization.

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By Dan Pontefract, 03/22/2010 3:21 PM

Last year, I posted some thoughts on the evolution of the training vendor entitled “An Updated Business Model for Training Vendors“.

This is the bulleted form follow-up to that post.

Formal Learning Thoughts

• Instructor-led classes are not going away … but don’t make it your only value proposition, make it part of the arsenal
• How can you package up your ILT into small bite-sized ’snacks’ (as Martin King suggests)?
• What used to take 5 days to teach … can it be done differently, incorporating formal, informal and social learning means?
• eLearning is an important piece to the puzzle … but I don’t want to go to your fancy LMS to take it
• eLearning also shouldn’t be any longer than one hour these days
• Are you building formal simulations and beginning to utilize gaming? (I know Koreen Olbrish would want you to)
• How are you addressing virtual world or virtual ILT delivery?
• Is all of your formal learning taking too long to develop? If so, and you are spending too much time/money on the design and development costs … maybe you should think about shifting some of your talent to informal or social learning delivery models versus spending so much time, effort and money on the ‘perfect course’ (we don’t care anymore if it’s perfect)

Informal Learning Thoughts

• Your staff should be allowed to provide their expertise via informal learning approaches such as mentoring, coaching, live webcasts, recorded webinars, etc.
• Informal learning thrives when experts can repurpose their knowledge in, well … informal ways. Seek out a model that allows this to happen.
• Do you have an informal content plan? (ie. remember the days when we talked about ‘rapid development’ … well, now we need our content fast and fresh, and delivered in some informal vehicles, so how are you going to provide this?)
• Work together – why are training vendors so afraid to work together with one another. Form some partnerships, strategic alliances, whatever … it’s hard to find one shop that can do everything for a company, yet informal learning lends itelf so well to this model
• Books – for those companies that utilize Books 24×7 or Safari Books as their employee ‘bookshelf’ or ‘library’ … find a way in which to repurpose this informal learning investment into your strategy

Social Learning Thoughts

• Most of you aren’t there yet when it comes to a Social Learning model … but think of it as an extension of Informal Learning. (that should make Lance Dublin happy)
• You need to utilize the systems and tools of an organization that are already established or about to be, and free your people/staff up to extend the formal and informal learning opportunities via social media, social networking and social collaboration inside of the virtual private network of an organization itself
• NOTE: like the LMS … we don’t want/need to go to your social systems – please find a way to utilize ours
• Coach your people that are reticent to ’social learning’ that it’s not going away, it’s here to stay … and that they need to step up their ‘learning game’ (ie. branch out)

And finally, course-by-course bums in seats modelling is not going to cut it.

Think of it as electricity. When I need it, I turn it on … but it’s always there, reliable and able to transmit light, power, sound and experience with whatever I throw at it.

(and yes, I still hate the word training)

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By Dan Pontefract, 11/15/2009 9:40 AM

Seeing as it’s been almost 3 years since I’ve been with the likes of Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter (at various entry dates) I thought it would be interesting to analyze my own personal / professional network to understand if any trends might be occurring. Secondly, I’m using this analysis as a basis to personally reflect on the importance of such tools being made available inside an organization to facilitate a ‘culture of collaboration’.

First, to the data.

If you take a look at the following pie graph (click for larger view), you first need to make note of some context points:

• Total number of network connections between Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter is ~1650
• Duplicate or triplicate entries have been reflected, and thus used to collapse the N value
• Immediate family members were removed
• Mutual Twitter entries (both sides following one another) were also reflected, and used to collapse the N value
• No entries from Outlook/Blackberry contacts, Ning, Yammer or other online networks were utilized
• Individuals not a part of any online tool (neighbours, friends, colleagues not in the systems) were not reflected
• Irrelevant Twitter entries (orgs, companies, groups following me or associations that I follow) were also removed. Only industry relevant individuals were kept in the Twitter category
• Thus, total N value equals roughly 1300

Alright, what have I observed?

• Those that I’ve become more chummy with in ‘work circles’ (whether internal or external) seem to be found in both LinkedIn and Facebook
• There is a very discrete line between Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn connections
• Disappointed that only 1% of my total collapsed connections are found in all three categories
• Interesting that 16% of all connections are found in combinations of 2 or all 3 tools – will this grow in the future?
• With cross posting of ‘tweets’ now available on LinkedIn, will this be detrimental or positive in terms of the quality of my connections (as well as pure number)
• Twitter and LinkedIn seem more aligned for me professionally – Facebook is perhaps the odd ball
• New ‘industry’ or ‘circle of influence’ connections seem to start at Twitter versus LinkedIn
• I have only 1 individual on both Facebook & Twitter & not LinkedIn - do you know who you are?

Implications for the Org?

I think it’s fair to say that the sample size of ~1300 is stastically significant for purposes of juxtaposing against the organization of tomorrow.

Facebook is a place where I can share knowledge, photos, videos, a bit of lifecasting, documents and even engage in live chats, etc. This is social learning at its best from a personal perspective but throw this into the mix in the org, and you have something very powerful that’s brewing and only going to taste like a fabulous English Ale in the future if implemented and deployed properly.

LinkedIn is much better at the ‘who am I’, and ‘how can I help’ aspects of social networking … as well as the obvious network contact control mechanism. This too is something critically required in an organization through both hierarchical team structures as well as heterarchical/wirearchical teams or communities that come and go through the natural evolution of projects, ideas, and actions in the org.

Twitter (albeit relatively new versus the other two) provides a much deeper way of sharing concise pieces of knowledge, links, ideas, comments and ‘what am I up to’ that is important to have in the organization as society moves away from the physical water cooler, to the virtual water ’schooler’.

Mix in the standard practice of wikis, blogs, federated search (including formal learning assets via a hidden LMS somewhere) and voila … you have the Social Net-Work-Life Balance an organization needs to drive a ‘culture of engagement’.

In summary, we need tools like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter in the organization (not these ones specifically), but ideally (and somehow) federated with the other tools already in place, or being thought about for the future. Culturally, this is the right thing to do for tomorrow’s workforce.

Thoughts on either my data points, or the latter org points?