The May issue of Chief Learning Officer magazine went online today. Inside the covers, you’ll find a major article by Clark Quinn and yours truly entitled Become a Chief Meta-Learning Officer.

The scope of the job of the CLO is mushrooming. CLOs will neither prosper nor even survive if they fail to take responsibility for the overall learning process within their organizations. Here’s why — and what to do about it.

Organizations must seize the opportunity to change while things are in flux. It’s time for them to leap from current conditions to the brave new world of the future. Crossing a chasm takes a bold leap; baby steps won’t get you to the other side.

Getting to the future will require innovation, luck, and perseverance, but that’s the price of staying alive. In this article, we call this big-picture, longer-term viewpoint meta-learning, and we call upon all CLOs to become Chief Meta-Learning Officers.

Your charter as Chief Meta-Learning Officer is to optimize learning throughout the organization, not just in the pockets that once belonged to HR. This takes a broader perspective than what you deal with day-to-day. You’ve got to rise above the noise to see the underlying patterns, and then optimize them.

We will be exploring our recommendations on the togetherLearn site.

The article calls for participation in an online survey of corporate meta-learning practices. When you take the survey, keep a copy of your answers so you will be able to benchmark your organization when the results are released in a month’s time.

Informal Learning 2.0 is for foxes, not hedgehogs?

The philosopher Isaiah Berlin famously divided thinkers into two categories: hedgehogs (like Plato, Pascal, Hegel, Dostoyevsky, Nietzsche, Ibsen and Proust), who know one big thing and tend to view the world through the lens of a single organizing principle, and foxes (like Herodotus, Shakespeare, Montaigne, Goethe, Balzac and Joyce), who know many things and who pursue various unrelated, even contradictory ends.

According to Joshua Cooper Ramo’s provocative new book, “The Age of the Unthinkable,” one study – in which hundreds of experts in subjects like economics, foreign policy and politics were asked to make predictions about
the short-term future and whose predictions were evaluated five years later – showed that foxes, with their wide-ranging curiosity and willingness to embrace change, tended to be far more accurate in their forecasts than
hedgehogs, eager for closure and keen on applying a few big ideas to an array of situations.

THE AGE OF THE UNTHINKABLE
Why the New World Disorder Constantly Surprises Us
and What We Can Do About It
By Joshua Cooper Ramo

Today’s world, he suggests, requires resilient pragmatists who, like the most talented Silicon Valley venture capitalists on the one hand or the survival-minded leadership of Hezbollah on the other, possess both an intuitive ability to see problems in a larger context and a willingness to rejigger their organizations continually to grapple with ever-shifting challenges and circumstances.

Hedgehogs

I’m not so sure.

After all, we are in the midst of a total re-set of capitalism, business models, and democratization. When I look at Informal Learning Flow, an aggregator that works over the sites I visit to keep informed, it’s a totally hedgehogian experience. These are all pieces of the puzzle. The issue becomes “what’s the puzzle?”

You’re tracking all that, right? The article stream continues for another 2,000 pages.

Uta and I have an extensive collection of stuffed hedgehogs. Our collecting pre-dates this fox/hedgehog stuff. The hedgehog is a symbol of good luck in Germany. And they are cute as can be.

Reflection is vital to learning. I am delighted to report that recordings of the April Learntrends sessions are online. Congratulations to Scott Skibell for creating and uploading both standard-format videos and mp4s that you can download to your iPhone.

Someone whose opinion I respect emailed me that they “think that there is a stronger moderation / content role needed for the sessions to give them a bit more push / direction,” to which I replied..

I don’t know that I agree on being more “pushy” in the sessions. To be sure, I’d firm up some of the individual offerings had I to do it over again. However, in terms of sticking things in people’s heads, the informal combo of free-flowing discussion and audience interaction probably got more across than covering more topics in an efficient manner. This was an experiment in making an event more informal and spontaneous. Consider what participants are likely to remember a month from now.

After all, April Learntrends was an experiment in socially-mediated learning in lieu of traditional presentation. In putting the sessions together, I consciously attempted to shift from presentation to conversation. Consider the origins of these terms from the wonderful Online Etymology Dictionary:

presentation. c.1380, “act of presenting,” from O.Fr. presentation (13c.), from L. præsentationem (nom. præsentatio) “a placing before,” from præsentatus, pp. of præsentare (see present (v.)). Meaning “a theatrical or other representation, thing presented” is recorded from 1600.

conversation. 1340, from O.Fr. conversation, from L. conversationem (nom. conversatio) “act of living with,” prp. of conversari “to live with, keep company with,” lit. “turn about with,” from L. com- intens. prefix + vertare, freq. of vertere (see versus). Originally “having dealings with others,” also “manner of conducting oneself in the world;” specific sense of “talk” is 1580.

Improving the process of learning in organizations was our theme. Conversation struck me as a more appropriate way to foster the engagement that’s part of my vision for the future.

More dialog among the conversants in advance would have improved most of the conversations. I’m not so sure about more moderation.

• ended up being my talk radio
• you’ve got to be in it to ‘get’ it
• experimentation with teaching and learning that challenges assumptions of courses and conferences is intriguing
• Con la llegada de las nuevas tecnologías, las personas, a partir de una cierta edad, han tenido que aprender nuevas habilidades para poder desenvolverse virtualmente de forma satisfactoria. Y todo ello a un ritmo vertigionoso.
• love both the planned and impromptu presentations and discussions, which reflect what we all value in our informal learning. This also reveals that learning is taking place in an emergent social landscape other than the formal education platform and system.
• Night owl session going on now on value of learning
• participants were more active than during normal sessions because we had the back-channel in which questions were posted, answers provided and that already during the presentations. One did not have to wait until the last few minutes to ask questions, but could do that the entire time

Those of you who follow Jane Hart, Harold Jarche, Clark Quinn, or me may want to visit our new site; it’s only a few hours old.

Our premise, in its most abbreviated form, is that four heads are better than one. If you’ve got a really thorny, vital, complex, organization-wide learning problem to solve, get in touch.

PowerPoint is Tyranny.

Here’s a recording of my presentation at Spaces of Interaction: An Online Conversation on Improving Traditional Conferences.

What is April Learntrends?
Learntrends is a series of online conversations among people with an interest in improving the process of learning in corporations and government. It’s the April installment of Corporate Learning Trends and Innovation.

Who may attend?
Learntrends welcomes anyone interested in organizational learning. We are expecting a diverse mix of newbies, old hands, managers, practitioners, specialists and generalists. We hope to have storytellers and provocative thinkers joining in.

When does Learntrends take place?
The conversations begin at 9:00 Pacific time on Tuesday, April 21, and conclude 24 hours later at 9:00 Pacific on Wednesday, April 22. At any given time, some participants will be in their pajamas, others will be huddled around conference room tables, while others will be enjoying a cigar on their yachts after sumptuous dinners. Please see the main event page.

What does Learntrends cost?
Learntrends is free. You don’t need to register. Just come.

How do I listen in?
Click here to enter our conferencing system (Elluminate). Check your connection before signing in the first time.

How do I speak?
Plug in a microphone and check your audio settings in Elluminate. Put on a headset (to avoid echoes.) Tell the moderator you want to talk in the chat. We encourage all participants to speak.

What topics will be covered?
We’ve invited people to talk about the payback of social and informal learning, learning in an age of networked intelligence, new roles for learning professionals, making informal learning concrete, Twitter and enterprise learning in real time, changing corporate culture, selling the important of learning to clients, measuring learning across borders, future learning technologies, and more. However, we want you to hear about other topics that interest you.

Why should I say anything?
We all learn more when we’re participants, rather than just observers. Do yourself a favor. Take advantage of this learning opportunity. Introduce the topics you want to know about, talk about, or share experiences about. Get the feel of what social media is all about. If you’re shy, stay up until there are only a few people on line, but do ask a questions or share something with us.

How do I suggest a topic?
Got a large issue? Pick an open time-slot, invite some people to talk with, and give us the details here. Or bring it up live. We have left many hours open for discussion of whatever you want to talk about.

Do I have to be a member?
No. Members get occasional alerts and surveys, but we’re open to all people with good hearts and an interest in learing in organizations. Members can send one another private emails and post inquiries.

Why are you doing this?
We are members of an immense community of corporate learning & development professionals. Some of us see sharing information and inspiring innovation as our obligation to the community. People helped us learn; this is where we pay back. Everyone, us included, benefits from the new connections that get-togethers like this forge.

PS
We are looking for moderators for 15:00-18:00 Pacific and 4:00-10:00 Greenwich Mean Time (14:00 – 20:00 in Sydney). Experience with Elluminate is a plus but not mandatory.

Pulse of the Profession Webcast

Blowing Up the Training Department: Make Learning a Management Priority

Are training departments REALLY necessary? Leveraging social networking, informal learning and e-learning are just a few ways to manage learning/training in the 21st Century. The real message–traditional courses are not the best way to link learning with the business or to engage learners.  When will we GET it?

Panelists: Clark Quinn, Jay Cross, and Harold Jarche. Moderator: Kevin Wheeler.

April 22, 2009, 2:00 P.M.-3:15 P.M. ET

Register here. Member/Non-Member $39.95

Jon Husband sent me the link to short post by John Seely Brown, John Hagel, and Lang Davison on The Collaboration Curve.

Everybody knows about network effects: the value of a network increases exponentially with the addition of each new node. (Metcalfe’s Law.)

Imagine what can happen if those nodes are people. Each new node gives them more opportunities to learn and to perform better. When people are actively pulling in learning resources rather than taking what’s pushed at them, the value of the network goes turbo, an effect the authors call the collaboration curve.

The evidence for the collaboration curve is, as yet, mostly anecdotal. But these curves may explain the rise of network-centric efforts ranging from open source software development to “crowdsourcing” to “networks of creation.” In nearly all of these group efforts, rapid leaps in performance improvement arise as participants get better faster by working with others. These leaps in performance describe the shape and power of the collaboration curve, a new force in our professional and personal lives that turns the experience curve on its side, and explains why the whole of us, working, playing, and, learning together, can often be greater than the sum of our parts.

This underpins Informal Learning 2.0. Learning is not like pouring knowledge into a pale; it’s like igniting a fire. A collaboration curve makes for a flammable learnscape.

At business school, I gained a reputation among classmates as “that guy who doodles during case discussions.”

An item in the current issue of Business Week notes, “Often viewed as a sign of a wandering mind, doodling may actually help us absorb information.” A study out of the University of Plymouth found that doodlers retained 29% more than their peers.

My pal and cognitive science tyro Clark Quinn affirmed the finding. Doodling helps one stay focused.

Ex-GM exec Bob Lutz says, “I can look at sketches done in meetings 40 years ago and experience sudden recall of the room, the table, the voices.”

Chief Learning Officer magazine, Effectiveness, April 2009

by Jay Cross

The Internet is so pervasive that Internet values are blowing back into real life.

For example, I have no qualms about walking out of a boring presentation, even if I’ve been sitting in the front row. The Web trained me to click past unrewarding pages and spend my time where it will do me the most good.

I expect attitudes like Internet values to underpin exemplary corporate learning in the future. Here are nine more to ponder.

Peer power: Networks subvert hierarchy. When information abounds, peers take over. In a knowledge era, workers are the means of production. To prosper in this world, forget command and control. Encourage bottom-up peer production. Knowledge workers do their best when challenged to figure things out for themselves. Management needs to set the direction and then get out of the way. Think of learning as a partnership with learners, not “delivery.”

Authenticity: Simpler is better. The spirit of the Net is to tell is like it is, to peel away the facade. “Be who you are!” wrote Nietzsche. It’s easier than faking it. In learning, being authentic means admitting we don’t have all the answers. It’s recognition that we’re all in this together. It’s hooking people up so they may learn from and with one another.

Transparency: Seeing the inside of an organization enables us to collaborate with it to make things better. People who hoard information shoot themselves in the foot: Nobody will know who they are. You’ve got to know an organization or person to form a relationship. You cannot make friends with someone hidden behind a garden wall.

Perpetual beta: Nothing is ever finished. Hence, it’s better to put an unfinished offering out there before the concrete sets. He who hesitates for typos is lost. Do it, try it, fix it. Drive changes with feedback from learners themselves. More frequent reviews translate into less time invested in going down the wrong path. If someone says a project is finished, it is.

The long tail: When it comes to learning opportunities, small businesses, esoteric specialists and fast-moving teams traditionally have been short-changed. It wasn’t worth the effort. You couldn’t reach critical mass. Now you can. Web technology scales. Five-person companies use Salesforce.com for customer relationship management. Expect to see a learning equivalent soon. As for the esoterica, distance no longer keeps specialists from talking with one another. Rich niches imply a need to assess upside opportunities more closely than out-of-pocket costs.

Connections: Connections are everything. If your learning plans don’t embrace the power of networks, go back the drawing board. Learning occurs through conversations, collaboration, knowledge transfer and other network phenomena. Learning leaders will seek out ways to increase the throughput of personal network connections with instant messages, higher bandwidth, searchable directories, optimized organizational channels and easily accessible watercoolers, both virtual and real.

Asymmetrical productivity: Twenty years ago, training departments prided themselves on consistency: providing precisely the same training experience to everyone in the organization. That’s no longer a good strategy for making money. In the old days, a highly proficient worker might outperform the average by 20 or 30 percent. Now that products are intangible, productivity knows no limits. Google figures a superlative engineer creates 200 times as much value as his middle-tier peer. Back the superlative worker, the wild ideas and the weirdness of the new. Experiment continuously. As IBM’s Tom Watson said, “If you want to succeed, double your failure rate.”

Loose coupling: Think “small pieces, loosely joined.” I am astounded how the ability to work with small chunks improves my productivity. What once took a rewrite now requires simply changing a link. No learning environment need resist improvements until it bites the dust. What we once thought of as maintenance is becoming more important than the initial deliverable. Changing a small item does not require unpacking the whole apparatus.

Ambient findability: Before the Net put the world’s knowledge at everyone’s fingertips, a lot of what passed for learning was rote memorization. Now you need to learn the big picture, not the little details.

Don’t bet against the Internet.