Online Collaboration

I started to realise a while ago that although I knew a lot about technology that enables you to collaborate, I hadn't used it a lot. 

I also realised that I wasn't alone and in fact the adoption of tools that enable us to collaborate more effectively with others when we can't physically be with them aren't in wide use. 

When people work from home typically this involves being able to e-mail colleagues or perhaps access work on a VPN connection to the office but the richness of collaboration is quite poor. Telephone conferencing (and to a lesser extent video conferencing has grown) but sharing and collaborating with documents in my experience is not common place.

I have since started to make an effort to use technology more to enhance my normal way of working and it has been valuable. 

To share some of this experience I have created a blog of my reflections on some of my collaborations and also I am developing a course for Digital 20/20 that is due to be released on June 5th and can be delivered freely under a creative commons license by anyone.

Collaboration Reflections:

http://onlinecollaborationconsultant.blogspot.com/

Online Collaboration Course:

http://onlinecollaborationcourse.blogspot.com/

Instructional Design

I took time out (An hour and three quarters) to watch this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYqm8ao1i2c

I thought it was great. The guy is provocative and a little flippant but it seems to make a lot of sense to me about the need to design

training that is as near to the real environment as possible.

He also stresses the important principle of being focused on the learner and rather than trying to transfer the trainers content into the learner

actually faciliating the learner as they develop new awareness and understanding.

Scenarios – The Future of Education?

I was reflecting on the future of education and I am coming to the conclusion that a lot of the big educational establishments will be in danger of being overtaken by those who are able to manage change efficiently and effectively. I believe technology is enabling a global change in education which is in someways analogous to the aeroplane's impact on global transport in the 20th century.

This thinking has led me to create some scenarios:

Bill Ashbee marvelled at how he has managed to get the degree he needed to take up a new role as head of engineering. It all changed when he had been looking at a job site on the web and found an advert for a national website that offered the tools to explore possible career paths from his current role and qualifications. Using an Accredited Prior Experiential Learning (APEL) tool on the site he had been able to have his decades of experience recognised and identified some key areas where he required some new skills. He studied some modules at the local college, enrolled on a couple of online courses and now he had the qualification that enabled him to take the next step in his career. Just 6 months before he wouldn’t have imagined it was possible, he knew that he couldn’t afford to take a long time out of work and wasn’t interested in what he considered “academic” study.

Malcolm Jacques is the CEO of an asset management firm and he had been unsure about how to develop the skills of his team to support their plan to sell their financial products internationally. A local learning broker had been able to impartially introduce him to some institutions. He identified the best institution to partner with after engaging with several online. Now he is in the process of designing some modular learning programmes that map with his business strategy moving forward.

Katie Willingham is unsure about what to do for her future she has done some study at a local college and arranges a meeting with her local Inforamation and Guidance (IAG) advisor who is able to identify several different potential careers based upon her interests, the qualifications she has gained, what she is studying and the competencies she has demonstrated. This advice session is immediately incorporated into her personal learning system online. She initially decides she wants to be an Analyst Programmer. Katie utilises tools online that describe people’s experiences and she realises that the bit that really interests her is interaction with people and so she chooses to look for a potential role that focuses on interacting with people rather than technical skills. Following the process of reflection online with input from friends, family and some further comments from IAG advisor over several months she decides she wants to become a Business Analyst. She wants to investigate further options online to see what potential courses are available to her locally and internationally to pursue her career.

Mike Chambers the institution’s principal was reflecting on the massive changes that he had implemented, over the last 20 years, to take advantage of e-systems and enable people like Malcolm Jacques. In essence the way people were learning was not that different, the educational system had been transformed to align better with the workplace.

Opportunities (and competition) were widespread and he knew that the availability of high quality online learning internationally meant that local institutions had lost their captive market, he knew because they had taken advantage of it fully.

He had recognised that they had to change to take advantage of their physical location and engage more with the community around them to develop a unique selling point locally and globally. The ways of recognising learning had exponentially grown and so had the different organisations supporting people. What Mike had done was to shift the organisational culture to meet these changes in educational provision and put their selves at the centre of what had become a much larger, connected educational marketplace.

Do the right thing, don't be risk averse

I have come to realise that sometimes you can have agreement between lots of different people that a certain course of action will be good, but still it never happens.

Part of this is just down to the question of ownership, who's job is it anyway? ........... A simple example of this is at the church I go to different groups find that chairs have been moved from one room to another and it causes some frustration. Everyone agrees something should be done about it but nobody does anything as they don't personally own the problem (it falls outside their area of responsibility).

I think this can explain a lot of reasons for inaction however when it comes to big issues I suspect the reason for inaction is more down to fear! If you are paid as a senior manager for a company you might know that it makes sense to tackle some internal issues but due to the concern about people's reactions or possible failure you maintain the status quo.

Doing nothing may seem the easiest option as people may get a little frustrated but they won't get into a big conflict with you. Alternatively if you tackle the issue and make changes (even with the right consultation) you may get conflict as although people might agree something needs to be done they often don't agree with how to do it. If the changes don't work then you may come open to criticism and your career profile might be effected. There are a lot of maybes in this but often anxiety and fear makes them seem certainties with the worst possible outcomes. In reality inaction may lead to your fears being fulfilled anyway.

What is truly important is to be principled, do the right thing and act authentically with integrity - Ultimatley this will lead to better outcomes and a more enjoyable life and even if you do suffer some negative consequence you know you did it for the right reasons.

Better outcomes - because everyone knew there was a problem and so in the long term it will make sense to people.

A more enjoyable life - because you have made a difference to the world you live in.

IT is all about learning

IT has become pervasive in life and it isn't all good. The whole of modern business is built on it without most of us really taking too long to think about how dependant on it we are.



I learnt many years ago that in simple terms there are only two types of IT systems Online Transaction Processing (OLTP) and Decision Support Systems (DSS).



An OLTP is basically an automated process that has taken away the paper way of doing things and it could be anything from online banking to the home shopping telephone ordering system that I worked on when I was at Littlewoods.



A DSS is any system that provides the user with information either collating it or analysing it so the user can make better decisions. This could be as simple as an excel spreadsheet analysing where you spend your budget or a business intelligence system analysing the profits for a multi-national.



It occurs to me that it all comes down to learning.........The OLTP takes away the need for us to dedicate brain power to remembering repetitive skills and the DSS enables use or power of judgement to make better decisions.



Tie this all in with the power of enhanced communication with others to help us improve our information and application and we learn and make progress.

The best stuff in life works well without havng to show off

I was in a meeting with someone who was talking about how they had written this piece of software and it was really easy to use and provided a lot of value to the user. She was reflecting how really it was massively complicated and did all kinds of clever stuff that they would never get credit for because it seemed so simple. She was happy about it because it did what it was supposed to.

I thought that's great really. Most of my favourite gadgets and applications tend to be straight forward and I guess that it is something to aim for in anything I make or do.

Even in facilitation..... if I'm being a good faciliator it is because things are flowing and that means me not saying or doing anything beyond what is absolutely necessary to enable that flow.