(The picture is where all the good ideas happen :-)) The premier episode of "Root and Branch" focused on how I thought that while brilliantly written by Dan Pontrefact, Marcia Conner and Kerry Brown, their piece; Revolutionize Corporate Learning, didn't go far enough. Now I'm thinking that I need to go further as well.   So let's say we change the names of the products/activities that we're talking about to something more reality based - instead of e-learning we'll call it "training" or "performance support" or "collaboration"...then we've changed the curriculum of all the ISD programs in the country to reflect new design sensibilities and to incorporate the latest research on things like how people remember (HT to Jay Cross). After we've done all that, we've also basically convinced the rest of the organization that training is a good thing yadda yadda. You might think we're at ne plus ultra but I don't think so.  The first additional hurdle is organizational structure. This article is a great start to thinking about new organizational structures.....the sad truth is though that 99% of the org.s out there, even the ones talking a good game are still organized in a way that Frederick Taylor would easily recognize. There isn't a whole lot of room in that structure for outside-the-box thinking trainers to move and innovate so even if we've changed all the other stuff, we're still stuck with an Industrial Age system of lines and channels (see also: Silos of Excellence). The second bonus hurdle is our system of accounting. If you thought using an Industrial Age org model was bad, how about a system of accounting that was codified  in the 15th century by a Franciscan friar? Ever get a look at those books? Tell me how people are accounted for. Simple, they're liabilities. They are a drain on the profits of the organization. What's amazing is that in the face of such widespread reaction to and recognition of things like a "talent war" and trying to recruit and retain the best and brightest - at the very base level of finances, we still regard and treat people as liabilities. Want to know why it's hard to do ROI on training efforts? One reason is because it's hard to look at the ROI on a liability. Have you ever seen a spreadsheet that reflects an uptick in the value of an employee because they completed a training course? Maybe org.s need what those of us who've been playing RPG's for most of our lives are super familiar with...the character sheet...tell you your attributes, skills, points to the next level.  So...semantics, curriculum, marketing, organizational structure, accounting methods...that's starting to be a good list for a revolution. 

I have a Mini Cooper (that's it under the snow - Winter IS Coming). Great car. Over 100K miles on it and I just keep putting oil, gas and tires in/on it and it just keeps going (knock on wood). I've also had a lot of cars - not like a Jay Leno lot of cars but a regular amount I guess. Here's the twist though - when I bought my Mini, one of the things that I got was a username/password to the "Mini Owner's Lounge"...then when I was driving around, I noticed that other Mini drivers would wave...it dawned on me that I was part of a community. So let's fast forward to now. The car does have a lot of miles and I am looking around but now I have a different decision to make - do I not only buy a new car (other than a Mini) and if I do, that also means I have to leave a community...I have to choose to not be a "Mini Owner" anymore.  How many people do you think feel that way about your products? Do your clients feel like they are part of a community? Do you think that it would be difficult for them to leave because they feel so linked to you? Let me ask this a different way - what is the cost (your sales team should know this answer) for your company to acquire a new client and what is the cost to keep an existing client? So when someone asks you what the possible ROI scenarios are for training  - think about crafting a response that includes customer-facing efforts to train/educate your customers...then <gasp> think about letting your customers train/help/educate each other...help them build a community that'll be hard for them to leave. Become social don't just do social. 

When in the course of human events.... As a nation, the United States declared its independence from Britain over 230 years ago. I've been thinking this 4th of July weekend about independence on a more personal level. First, I'll say that being independent does not equal being alone, in fact I couldn't think about declaring independence from these things without my wife and partner - I'm thinking more about things I want to break away from.  I want to declare independence from holding myself back; sounds trite and very "successory" I know but sometimes there's a grain of truth in there. I will say that I've already done some work in that area and I feel lighter than I have in years. Some of that is physical, I'm literally lighter than I have been in a while - I'm a stress eater so getting into great shape tells me that I'm on the rigth track. My soul feels lighter too. My son has made great strides in school - he made honor roll 3 out of 4 times this year and I could not be more proud. My wife and I have also been tossing out some literal and emotional junk that we've held onto for years. It's amazing how when you dump, slough and toss all that extraneous crap out, you're able to focus on what's really important and what really makes you happy.  So I'm declaring my independence from the following:  From quantity over quality From things that suck life out of you instead of building you up From fearing to succeed From not trusting people  - especially people I really should trust There's more I'm sure but that's a good start. So since we're here, about halfway through the year and consequently about halfway from our New Year's Resolutions, I think this is a good time to think about declaring independence. I'd like to encourage all my non-US friends to join in too :) What will you be declaring independence from?

So this morning, I had a not-so-random thought. Inspired by a comment made by Eugene Eric Kim - the thought went like this:  "Organizational learning" never took hold because we are unwilling to envision new orgs & we don't know what we mean when we say "learning" I tweeted it, G+'d it and "updated" on LinkedIn (what do we call that anyway?)...I did it on all those channels because I think I'm part of some different communities on each and wanted to see what each had to say. That was about 4 hours ago...to date, ut's been retweeted twice, had one like on LinkedIn and over on G+, has sparked two conversations in two different communities with one now up to 22 comments.  The big lesson I'm taking away here is that I need to make more of an effort to engage with folks on G+...but hey Twitter, still a couple more hours to go ;-)

Every week over on G+, I'm on a panel hosted and organized by the wonderful @LizCpher and @davidchris via Stop.Think. Social. One recurring theme is that "social" isn't something you do but something you become.  I think this is a critical point. This is what separates social systems from other enterprise-wide systems. No one ever had to ask about "becoming" a payroll system. I talk to folks all the time though who think that the all you have to do is buy and deploy a social platform and poof! you're a social business. (BTW, if you'd like to talk about Socialtext/Peoplefluent's offerings, I'd be happy to ;-)). Well its not true, to become social means to change any number of things about how you think about your business. There are whole books in here about this, 11 Rules for Creating Value in a #SocialEra is a good one. The point to this rambling post though is that I have one really good example of how far down this has to go. Follow this link to the Valve Software Employee Handbook. Find out why the desks have wheels. Find out how far your company needs to go to become social - it's not about technology. 

(from Full Metal Jacket) Colonel:Now answer my question or you’ll be standing tall before the man!Private Joker: I think I was trying to suggest something about the duality of man, sir!Colonel: The what?Private Joker: The duality of man. The Jungian thing, sir!Colonel: Whose side are you on, son?Private Joker: Our side, sir!Colonel: Don’t you love your country?Private Joker: Yes, sir!Colonel: Then how ‘bout getting with the program? Why don’t you jump on the team and come on in for the big win?     There is a great discussion that started over on Facebook, migrated to G+ and now I want to blog about it...kind of the Oregon Trail of content. It stars a lot of my favorite folks (Greg Lowe @Greg2dot0, Luis Suarez @elsua, Richard Rashty @richardrashty) and it was this last comment of Richard's that prompted this little post.  To avoide a 1:1 scale recap - let me just say that we had come around to point about who owns "social" efforts and who should and so on - this is where the duality thing comes in (I know you were wondering). I find myself saying a lot of things like "social is different" but it is and here are some of the ways it has a dual nature.  Social is not reliant on any one tool, but often tools (like Socialtext for instance ;-)) can lend scale and speed and additional capabilities to efforts to make more of the organization visible and transparent. So we need at least two owners - we are going to need an owner who writes the check and an owner (can be the same as the first) who makes sure that all the tech details (LDAP integration, SSO, etc) are mapped out. THEN we're going to need someone (hopefully not the first owner) to "Own" the effort within the company to change behaviors to use th new system. Ideally senior leadership will jump in and start using it but if it's not them at first, it will need to be someone and that someone will have to be passionate about it. I don't want IT to take this wrong way but I agree with Richard that IT should not own the cultural side of social. It's too important and it has too much to do with changing behaviors to be lodged in any department, I believe, below the CEO level.  When implementing an Enterprise Social Network (ESN) one time, I was asked by senior leadership what I needed to make this effort successful. I knew what the question meant - how much money do you need to buy this? I responded the best way I could, I said "all I need is for you to change the way you work." Now who will own THAT?  

(Spoiler alert) I just finished re-reading Ender's game and now I can't wait to see the movie. I hope Harrison Ford nails Graff and Rackham is played to the hilt by Sir Ben and I hope that the relationship between Valentine and Peter comes through as important as it is but all that isn't really the critical part. What I hope they get right and why I'll go see this movie even though I find Scott Card's personal beliefs appalling is that the core of the book isn't Buggers or Battlerooms or games that aren't games (cue music of Games w/out Frontiers), it's about understanding. That's what Ender's genius was. That's the heart of the book (and the next two btw) and in bringing THAT, that lesson across, I hope the movie makers are truly successful. I also hope that in an Ender-like twist Scott Card has been too clever by half. He has created a compelling hero whose genius is to so completely understand an alien race that he can think as they do. Ender's message is the antithesis to Scott Card's. The Locke to his Demosthenes if you will. If the movie brings that message out, that will be awesome and inspiring and if it doesn't but it inspires more people to read the book, the same goes. It has already inspired more and more conversation around the topic of human rights and I'll always think that's a good thing. So yes, I'll support with my patronage, any message or story where the hero is gifted with the ability to understand and to even love those who might be seeking to hurt him. Hmmm, where have I read another story with a hero like that? Namaste y'all.

Thinking out loud.....From Vintage Tomorrows:  "A subculture is a group of people whose values or behavior set them apart from the cultural mainstream. A counterculture is a subculture that seeks to change mainstream culture. Fact: steampunk is a subculture. Hypothesis: steampunk is a counterculture. Keep an eye out for change." I think we have a truckload of subcultures but I think we need a more unified counterculture. Unified is the wrong word. I'm interested in change, change at a large scale. I think that the 'net is great at creating subcultures or allowing them to bloom but is it the same for countercultures? We also talk a lot about cultures in organizations...what about sub and countercultures inside organizations?  What are elements that can be present in counter and subcultures that can make them more or less appealing? 

I've been to a lot of conferences and so much that is good about getting that many people together are the conversations that happen. I think that applications like the brilliant Intronetworks are great ways to start those conversations beforehand and maintain them afterwards but I've never really seen anything click in that "during" phase.  So we're missing a way to powerfully surface conversations but the good news is that we're not missing a chance for it. Almost every conference with an expo floor also has a reception on that expo floor at some point during the conference. How about this.... First, let's stock that reception with craft beers or craft bourbons (ok, that part isn't critical but I thought I'd include it just in case). Second, we get rid of the drink tickets (don't worry, we'll get to them evetually). Now instead of just getting drink tickets, there is a huge whiteboard or mural-sized slab of paper and baskets and baskets of the finest post-it notes.  The way you 'earn' drink tickets is by writing down and posting ideas from conversations you've had, want to have, people you want to meet, etc. You can also earn tickets by using the yarn that's also available to make connections between the post-it notes.  You're right though - we have to have some QA here so I see people standing off to the side/mingling/browsing, watching what you post and the connections you make and voting somehow (cheers, hisses?) based on the quality of your addition. That's right, your role in the community isn't just to add content but to help the community evaluate that content - think of it as live curation.  The only other piece I'll add is that I'd like this board/process be running from after breakfast on the first day. OK, so we good? 

I know how trite it is to go all definitional and all but it's my blog so I'll cut myself some slack. So from Merriam-Webster we have for technology: 1 a : the practical application of knowledge especially in a particular area     b : a capability given by the practical application of knowledge; 2 : a manner of accomplishing a task especially using technical processes, methods, or knowledge 3 : the specialized aspects of a particular field of endeavor Therefore, what we do is technology - therefore it follows (at least to my simple mind) that when I read in a book like Vintage Tomorrows the following quote, I have to think it applies to us and to what we do.  "We learned that people really do want a different relationship with their technology. They don't see technology as a cold dead thing that is cut off and separated from people. When you grow up with a smartphone in your pocket, technology is a part of your daily life.......We learned that people want their technology to have a sense of humor, a sense of history and most importantly a sense of humanity." This is all a long way to go to ask a simple question; if what we do is technology and this is what people want from their technology, how are we using these deeply held human desires as design principles?