Overlapping Social Circles

I came across this image by Joe Pemberton in Flickr the other day.  It (and the discussion attached to it) sums up my predicament of the blurring of boundaries between public and private social networks.

 

This is some thinking I've been doing lately about the ecosystem of social networks and the problem of managing it all and of keeping the personal separate from the professional.

Some overlap will happen in social networks but maintaining boundaries helps you keep professional contacts eyes off of your private matters, your personal goings on, your family status, your childrens’ accomplishments, etc.

[DOTTED AREA] Public. Your personal brand awareness happens here. Create digital acquaintances. Network. Be a person, but be sure to balance out your travelogue with your sharing of insights.

[CYAN] Professional. Limited to people you‘ve worked with. Don’t dilute this network with digital acquaintances.

[ORANGE] Keep these limited to friends and family. These are not professional networking tools. Avoid the urge to accept every friend request. Do you really want to connect with old high school acquaintances?

[MAGENTA] Keep these close; limited to people you hang with. Old high school buddies and people you met at conferences don’t need this layer of your digital life.

This is not a prescription for others but is pretty much a diagram of my own social network. And yes, as lame as it sounds, that's how I have to view it, as a brand exercise. After all, careers have become brand management of your personal expertise, experience, insights and beliefs.

 As one of Joe's Flickr respondents said,   "I have a real concern with recent professional contacts having access to some of my oldest goofiest friends".  

But the prospect of "de-friending" a number of professional contacts out of Facebook seems pretty tough too. 

And then there are the true boundary people - the professional contacts who have become friends.  What have I got myself into!?

It's probably far too late. 

 Perhaps it's just a fact of life 2.0 that we have to live with?   Transparency. Trust. Thinking our loud.  

And getting comfortable that that the rest of my social-media life will feel like my big four-o birthday party would have done last year, had I had the bottle to have one that is...  and  mix family, friends, colleagues, schoolmates and clients in with alcohol for several hours! 

Perhaps I'll save that for my 50th.  By then someone will have figured out the social media boundaries of politesse...

A minor case of Corporate Amnesia. US forgets how to make Trident missiles...

Came across this story via Twitter (@davidgurteen) RT KerrieAnnes Blog, via Slashdot...

I wonder how many other fogbanks we'll look back on in a few years time, as a consequence of the current financial crisis?  Still, I guess all that investment in re-learning and re-inventing will provide the global economy with a much needed boost...

US FORGETS HOW TO MAKE TRIDENT MISSILES.

I was incredulous and had always assumed  that military types save lots of records ... in the last year we had been issued with my father's World War II Australian Army service records. And thinking back to TV shows like Cold Case and documentaries on the 1919 Influenza Pandemic tends to lull you into a belief that the USA has enormous records repositories with nothing thrown away.

The story was released to Slashdot by Hugh Pickens on March 9 2009 and within a day was  relayed across over 500 web pages globally presumably via RSS feeds and blog following.  The situation is astonishing - and indicates the cost of not maintaining good archives ... it was hard to believe - but then more conventional news sites were also running the story, including Fox News on March 9 2009 . Within 3 days the 500 web pages had to grown to over 1500 covering the story. In fact initially the story seemed to be just a beat-up & re-run of a  New Scientist story covered a year earlier in its March 8 2008 issue and the UK's Guardian also on March 6 2008. However those aspects did not seem to feature in the US Congressional Defense FY 2009 Expenditure Hearings transcripts.

Hugh Pickens  wrote "The US and the UK are trying to refurbish the aging W76 warheads that tip Trident missiles to prolong their life and ensure they are safe and reliable but plans have been put on hold because US scientists have forgotten how to manufacture a mysterious but very hazardous component of the warhead codenamed Fogbank.

 'NNSA had lost knowledge of how to manufacture the material because it had kept few records of the process when the material was made in the 1980s, and almost all staff with expertise on production had retired or left the agency,' says the report by a US congressional committee.

Fogbank is thought by some weapons experts to be a foam used between the fission and fusion stages of the thermonuclear bomb on the Trident Missile and US officials say that manufacturing Fogbank requires a solvent cleaning agent which is 'extremely flammable' and 'explosive,' and that the process involves dealing with 'toxic materials' hazardous to workers. '

This is like James Bond destroying his instructions as soon as he has read them,' says John Ainslie, the co-ordinator of the Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, adding that 'perhaps the plans for making Fogbank were so secret that no copies were kept.' Thomas D'Agostino, administrator or the US National Nuclear Security Administration, told a congressional committee that the administration was spending 'a lot of money' trying to make 'Fogbank' at Y-12, but 'we're not out of the woods yet.'"

And it might have all seemed like  a conspiracy story by the Anti-Nuclear Fraternity ... however in fact it is all officially reported in a March 2009 US GAO (Government Accountability Office) Report - viz

"At the beginning of the W76 life extension program in 2000, NNSA identified key technical challenges that would potentially cause schedule delays or cost overruns. One of the highest risks was manufacturing Fogbank because it is difficult to manufacture. In addition, NNSA had lost knowledge of how to manufacture the material because it had kept few records of the process when the material was made in the 1980s and almost all staff with expertise on production had retired or left the agency. Finally, NNSA had to build a new facility at the Y-12 plant because the facilities that produced Fogbank ceased operation in the 1990s and had since been dismantled, except for a pilot plant used to produce small quantities of Fogbank for test purposes.

 To address these concerns, NNSA developed a risk management strategy for Fogbank with three key components:

(1) building a new Fogbank production facility early enough to allow time to re-learn the manufacturing process and resolve any problems before starting full production;

(2) using the existing pilot plant to test the Fogbank manufacturing process while the new facility was under construction; and

(3) developing an alternate material that was easier to produce than Fogbank.

However, NNSA failed to effectively implement these three key components. As a result, it had little time to address unexpected technical challenges and no guaranteed source of funding to support risk mitigation activities."

Interestingly, some sort of solution must have been found as one refurbished W76 has just gone back into the stockpile, according National Nuclear Security Administration's February 23 2009 media release. 

 

Ultimately a new facility was built at the Y-12 National Security Complex near Oak Ridge, Tennessee, to begin production of Fogbank once again, but was delayed by poor planning, cost overruns and a failed effort to find an alternative to Fogbank, and so the project overran by a crucial year costing at least an extra $US69 million  according to the GAO report.

Elvis has left the Forum...

Elvis McGonagall - Performance Poet I had the pleasure of meeting "performance poet" Elvis McGonagal at the annual Henley KM Forum meeting last week. (Yes, he did wear that jacket.)

Elvis did a fantastic job of summarising the inputs from the likes of Bill Lucas from the Centre for Real World Learning at Winchester (who was inspirational), Leif Edvinsson, Raj Datta from Mindtree and Verna Allee, plus a number KM Forum projects from the last year - in a uniquely delivered poem.

He picked up from Vanessa Randle, of Thinking Visually, who has provided a brilliant visual summary of the conference for the last two years.   This year Vanessa taught the forum participants how to draw- one of these days I'll post my attempts up here...

Here's the final offering from Elvis, entitled Mister Know-it-All:

I've eaten all the fruit from the tree of knowledge

I know what's what, I know who's who

I know my onions, I know the ropes

I know a thing or two

I know the way to Amarillo

I know the way to San Jose

I know who let the dogs out

I know the time of day

I know what happened to The Likely Lads

I know what happened to Baby Jane

I know what's eating Gilbert Grape

I know the rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain

I know who's been eating your porridge

I know who ate all the pies

I know which side my bread is buttered

I know the wheres, the whens, the whys

I know a hawk from a handsaw

I know chalk from cheese

I know they know it's Christmas

I know "thank you very much" in Japanese ("domo arrigato gazaimas")

I know where the bodies are buried

I know whodunnit, I know the score

I know what it's all about, Alfie

I know the capital of Ecuador (Quito)

I know how many roads a man must go down

I know where we go from here

I know why birds suddenly appear

Every time that you are near

I know the known knowns that I know I know

I know the unknown knowns that I don't

And as for Mr Rumsfeld's unknown unknowns -

Will I admit I don't know I don't know? No I won't

I know that unlike Barack Obama

Most politicians don't have a single scruple

I know that one of the speakers today

Used to be a roadie for Mott the Hoople

I'm a walking wikipedia

I'm a mobile reference library

I've got more knowledge than a London cabby

I know the quickest way from Highgate to Highbury

But little do you know that I know that you know

That I know what I know is no use

Unless I pass it on, put it over and get it across

There's no mileage in a mastermind recluse

For facts are fine as far as they go

As long as new ideas come from what we glean

Just knowing stuff is not enough

We gotta innovate - know what I mean?

And even if we know who wants to be a millionaire

We know they know that others must cooperate

That they'll have to ask the audience, they'll have to phone a friend

Communicate, convey, collaborate

We've got to work as a team, pull together

Join forces, pool resources, play ball

We gotta sail in the same boat baby

It's all for one and one for all

So - I know who put the "ram" in the "ramalamadingdong"

I know who put the "bop" in the "bop-sh-bop"

But the best piece of knowledge I'll share with you today is -

I know when to stop

by Elvis McGonagall

for the KM Forum Conference

January 2009

A trip to the Zoogle...

I can’t believe how long it’s been since the last blog. When you wait this long, you feel as though you need to post something profound to account for the radio silence!

This isn’t particularly profound, but it was a lot of fun. I had the privilege to visit Google’s European HQ in Zurich last week, known by the local as Zoogle. I’d heard a lot about how creative the office environments were, but I was still unprepared for what I experienced in Zurich.The full-sized pool table and multi-coloured soft furnishings in the reception were a shadow of what was to come.Firstly I was greeted by a spiral metal slide (similar to the huge ones exhibited by Carsten Holler in the Tate Modern last year) , used by Googlites as an alternative to the lifts.Then came the coffee bar, which was actually the PC repair zone.“Oh yes”, said my friend – “If we have a problem with our laptops, we just bring them here for a new one, and have a latte whilst we’re waiting”.Nothing gets in the way of creativity and productivity. Needless to say, the Latte –and all of the food and drink – is free.Oh, and if you’re too old for the metal slide, there’s always the fireman’s pole!

Passing a room full of Wiis and other major game consoles, with Googlites playing RockStar, we went upstairs to what almost looked like a normal office environment with meeting rooms.Except that the meeting rooms were stranded cable cars (ski gondolas)! Only in Zurich!My friend assured me that it can get a little warm, so meetings tend to be to-the-point.A number of other creatively shaped meeting room igloos and egg meeting pods which would be the envy of any self-respecting Tellytubby also greeted me, but I was still carried away by the cable cars.

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Up to the next floor, I was taken through hanging silk threads into the quiet “water lounge”. As my eyes adjusted to the bluey darkness,I took in the exotically populated long marine aquariums, and a row of reclining chairs facing them, interspersed with the odd Victorian bathtub, filled with pink sponge cubes.

The top floor, which I didn’t get to see on my short visit, apparently has an antique-looking library with leather chesterfield chairs…Next time perhaps?

I couldn’t help but ask my friend whether Google ever employs consultants.“Why would we do that?” he responded. “That would be too traditional for us – it just wouldn’t be Google”.

Despite my love of independent consultancy, I had to admit - corporate monogamy rarely looked this good…

http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=zurich+google+office&page=2

***Update!  Video posted on BBC website:  http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7292600.stm

Business, knowledge and all that Jazz...

Fear no mistakes.  There are none.  Miles Davis.

Last week I had the opportunity to attend a stimulating day at the Henley KM Forum, exploring the use of metaphors in business, and particularly in relation to knowledge management.

We were assisted by Sergej van Middendorp and his gifted team of musicians from JazzinBusiness, who led us through the day, introducing a number principles for Jazz improvisation which the forum delegates discussed in a number of World Cafe sessions.

We looked at the power of minimal structures in the music, and of "taking turns" - how the musicians sense and make space for each other, giving each instrument the chance to solo perform as well as to support; - to lead and change direction as appropriate. 

Provocative Competence- where jazz musicians deliberately move to the edge of their comfort zones in order to generate something genuinely new.  As Sergej says on his blog, Once you feel comfortable with something you are not learning and growing, because learning and growing 'hurts'. Jazz musicians try to get out of their comfort zone on every occasion.

The group at Henley provoked their competence by asking them to play "Summertime" in a variety of genres and time signatures, including "Reggae", "Mozart" and "Waltz.

Embracing Errors as a source of learning - Jazz Pianist Folkert Oosting showed us how "forced, unforced errors" could be transformed in to completely new directions.  There was seemingly no dischord that he couldn't repurpose into a new musical direction.  Whilst technical professionalism in Jazz is key, the use of "off-key" errors can drive learning (when we pause to reflect) and innovation (when we pause to reflect and think).

Jazz improvisation is marked by a restless adventurousness, an eagerness to travel into unexplored territory. There are hazards, risks, gambles, chances, speculation, doubts. Jazz is an expressive art form that encourages players to explore the edge of the unknown and if improvisation legitimizes risk taking, it is inevitable that there will be discrepancies, miscues, and ‘mistakes’. Jazz musicians often turn these unexpected moments into something sensible, or perhaps even innovative. Errors are often integrated into the musical landscape, an occasion for further exploration that might just lead to new pathways that otherwise might not have been possible. Herbie Hancock recalls that Miles Davis heard him play a wrong chord, but simply played his solo around the ‘wrong’ notes so that they sounded correct, intentional and sensible in retrospect. Jazz musicians assume that ‘you can take any bad situation and make it into a good situation. It’s what you do with the notes that counts’ (Barrett and Peplowski, 1998: 559). 

Retrospective Sensemaking- because you can't fully plan ahead in Jazz.  The groove develops through a series of questions and responses, led by a particular instrument, or somehow by the music itself. Sergej and bassist Paul Berner challenged us around our listening - do we listen deeply enough to what's going on around us in business, so that we can respond with the next question or answer?  Or do we push through with a predetermined outcome and a set of well-rehearsed responses?   Sergej explores this with some excellent questions on his blog.

We  had some fun with the trio, asking them to play "blind" to test whether they use visual or auditory cues to keep in their "dynamic synchronisity".  They believed that they sensed by purely "listening" for direction, but when we placed screens between them, we all sensed that the output was less adventurous.  Perhaps we need the reassurance of a multiple senses to feel comfortable taking risks?

Some messages there for anyone who has tried to incorporate innovation into a virtual meeting.

Richard Potter - one of the Henley regulars, provoked the Jazz trio to improvise a piece of music which was precisely 67 bars long, and they genuinely struggled with this, spending longer planning how they might do this than actually performing and then (to our secret delight) failing the task! 

How often do we play the game of deadlines (year-ends, budget cycles, performance appraisals) and miss the opportunity to create something spectacular because we feel that we "have to" restrict ourselves and ultimately deliver something mundane?  Are we slaves to the 52 week score of the business cycle, or do we have the freedom to play by ear, and "create a new groove"?

Taking lessons back to school...

I've been thinking recently about "Lessons Learned", and how widely that term is used and abused, both inside and outside KM and Organisational Learning circles.  How often in the press do we see Government departments, Football managers, Chief Police Officers et al utter the immortal words:  "we will be learning the lessons from this..."?

I wonder what this really means.  Is a lesson learned when it is identified by a reflecting practitioner, after a specific experience?  Is it learned when it is codified and made available for others, in specific or abstract form?  Or is a lesson learned when another individual has applied it, and experimented with it?

That was the basis of Kolb's learning cycle...

kolb.jpg
kolb.jpg

...but I'm not sure that I could point to many examples of organisations where this cycle of organizational learning represents the norm.  Not

really.

The

Centre for Wildfire Lessons

puts it nicely: 

"A lesson is truly learned when we modify our behavior to reflect what we now know."

What I do see a lot of is something more like this.

Let's call it "Collison's Ignorance Spiral"

(I hope the name doesn't catch on!).

cis.jpg
cis.jpg

Somehow, the "abstract conceptualisation" bit seems to wear a bit thin - too many motherhood statements in lessons learned reports which fester on electronic shelves.   Now it might be that a deliberate abstract conceptualisation step can be short-circuited completely, through storytelling and the rapid exchanges and collaboration available through social media.  Perhaps abstract conceptualisation is a personal, subconscious step, rather than a clumsy organisationally imposed process. I need to think more about that one. 

But I'm still left with a lingering doubt that

we just aren't very good at designing lessons with a (future) learner in mind

. I've been in a number of lessons learned reviews where the intent of the meeting seems to be catharsis for the team or compliance with the process, rather than learning for the organisation.

So, just for fun - what does a well designed lesson look like in a

school

? 

Let's take a primary school lesson as an example (especially as I have a primary teacher conveniently sitting beside me right now!). I am reliably informed that a well designed lesson will have the following components.

Introduction - explain what you want them to learn; clear objectives. Test past learning, build on the results of past learning. Provide exemplar expectations - what would "good" look like? Be accessible to different learning styles (visual, auditory, kinaesthetic). Be capable of differentiate to multiple levels of capability. Combination of activity-based learning and theoretical-based learning, individual and group. Have a list of accessible resources. Conclude with a  plenary to summarise and test what has  been learned.

How do the lessons in your organisation measure up to that checklist?  Perhaps I should spend more time in the classroom...

Expertise development, communities and connectivism...

I spent yesteday at Henley Management College in a research workshop facilitated by Richard McDermott.  We were exploring a number of research topics relating to the development, transfer and retention of expertise.  We tabled a number of topics, including mentoring,  aging workforce, knowledge harvesting and salvage, lifelong learning and communities...  we're going to have to focus! Then I came across this recent post on Connectivism from Helen Nicol, who has talent for spotting good stuff in this arena. 

Helen's thesis is that "any community of of practice must have a mix of novices, experts and all those in between, which in itself has implications for the moderation or management of communities to gain the best result for organisations."

...which is consistent with Wenger's definition:

“Communities of practice are groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly.”

I wonder, though whether there are some limiting thresholds which illustrate Helen's idea - a community with large gaps in the continuum of expertise can generate frustration, elitism, "dumb questions and smart flaming"; whilst a communtiy with access to a great diversity of expertise can remain untapped if not well facilitated.

With apologies to Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, here's an attempt to illustrate this...

Flow and connectivism in communities