As Collaboration author, Morten Hansen, discovered bad collaboration is much worse than no collaboration, so some of Ricci and Wiese’s hard-earned lessons at work may help you.

2 - The End of the Web, Search, and Computer as We Know It, [...]]]> 1 – What makes collaboration actually work in a company? Forbes, 2 February 2013

As Collaboration author, Morten Hansen, discovered bad collaboration is much worse than no collaboration, so some of Ricci and Wiese’s hard-earned lessons at work may help you.

2 - The End of the Web, Search, and Computer as We Know It, Wired, 1 February 2013

The space-based web we currently have will gradually be replaced by a time-based worldstream. It’s already happening, and it all began with the lifestream, a phenomenon that I (with Eric Freeman) predicted in the 1990s and shared in the pages of Wired almost exactly 16 years ago.

There is a paradox in the concept of a learning culture : how to set up such a culture when by essence, culture is more a conservative force aiming at reducing cognitive anxiety by making things [...]]]> 1 – Lean, Social Business and Schein’s 10 dimensions of the learning culture – Cecil Dejouz, 23 January 2013

There is a paradox in the concept of a learning culture : how to set up such a culture when by essence, culture is more a conservative force aiming at reducing cognitive anxiety by making things predictable, shared and meaningful ?

2 – It’s time for intrapreneurs to lead change inside the company – Brian Solis, Altimeter, 23 January 2013

See, inside every organization is a sense of aspiration. The truth is that organizations are slow to change, if at all. One of the greatest threats to executives, whether they realize it or not, is the fine line between aspiration and the internal obstructions that prevent meaningful change. This eventual shift from hope to despair naturally gives rise to low morale and the loss of any agility to remain competitive in the long term.

3 – Major Ed-Tech trends for 2013 (infographic) - OnlineColleges.net

4 - Tweet to Learn - Jody Passanisi and Shara Peters, Scientific American, 24 January 2013

Twitter and other social media can’t (and shouldn’t) replace professional development conferences, retreats, forums, etc. Twitter, or whatever is next that replaces it (that’s inevitable, right?) should be made a part of professional development in schools; it is professional development that can happen every day, even every hour.

5 – Are you committed enough to invest in yourself – Strategy Focused HR, 24 January 2013

Yes, you must invest in yourself, so I “invest in the night.” That’s because once you embark on your chosen profession you must create a process of investing in yourself. That is the ultimate ROI.

6 –  Why Experts Think Twitter’s 6-Second Videos Could Be Huge – Wired, 25 January 2013

There’s big potential in Vine, say the two experts in online socialization we spoke to, but it’s unclear how, and how often, people will use the six-second video service.

7 - Twitter Success Story: Training Hospitality Students With Twitter, sprout insights, 18 December 2012

Since his students were learning about how to market and manage snow resort operations, Barrick came up with the idea of having his students create Twitter accounts representing a variety of fictitious resorts. The accounts were designated as private so the tweets from each account would only be seen by the students (and the instructor) who were granted permission to follow these simulated resort accounts.

8 - 5 Sure-Fire Signs Twitter Has Jumped The Shark – TeachThought, 26 January 2013

A twitter notepad–this one is charming. It even limits the number of characters you can use. If you really want to disturb the space-time continuum, fill it out, take a picture, then tweet that. If someone actually responds, fill out your reply tweet here, being sure to @ mention others you want to bring in to the conversation. Your cat, your mom, or your district instructional specialist.

1 – Prepare for the future of work, Harold Jarche, 17 January 2013

“[PKM] processes are not taught in schools or training programes. There is no right answer in PKM. There are only processes that work. The test of PKM is [...]]]> Another catch-up post with links I’ve shared on Twitter over the last few days

1 – Prepare for the future of work, Harold Jarche, 17 January 2013

“[PKM] processes are not taught in schools or training programes. There is no right answer in PKM. There are only processes that work. The test of PKM is whether it works for you. My experience is that a person’s PKM changes over time, and the most important aspect is being aware of how we seek sources of information, make sense of our own knowledge, and then share it at work, in communities or through networks.”

2 - As the world keeps churning, work today is all about learning, Harold Jarche, 18 January 2013

I also developed a Pixar pitch:

Work used to be fairly straight forward. You had a job, knew what to do, and were paid to do it. Then the Web appeared. Everybody got connected to almost everyone else. All these connections made things more complex.  Some work was automated. Some of it outsourced. Much of it became more complex. Making sense of complexity, and developing ways to keep up, is how I help people and organizations.

3 – How teachers can sell love of learning to students, Mindshift, 18 January 2013

“Most of our education is heavily, heavily, heavily standardized,” Pink said … One of the reasons, Pink said, is the “appalling” absence of leadership on this issue. “One of the things that I see as an outsider is that so much of education policy seems designed for the convenience of adults rather than the education of children,” he said. “Start time is a perfect example. Why do we do that? It’s more convenient for the teachers. Why do we have standardized testing? Because it’s unbelievably cheap. If you want to give real evaluations to kids, they have to be personalized, tailored to the kids, at the unit of one. Standardized testing: totally easy, totally cheap, and scales. Convenient for politicians and taxpayers.”

5 – The Influencer Checklist, John Stepper, 19 January 2013

The approach comes from “Influencer” by Kerry Patterson, et al. …They’re very clear that “verbal persuasion rarely works” despite being the most common tool we use. Instead, when it comes to altering behavior, you need to help others answer just two questions: “Will it be worth it?” and “Can I do it?” And, in answering them, you need to examine all three levels.

6 – Google and the future of search, The Guardian, 19 January 2013

Google has revolutionised the way we holiday, shop, work and play. Now, with Knowledge Graph, it plans to radically transform the way we search the internet… again. But some voice qualms about the company’s ambitions

7 – Why isn’t L&D embracing informal learning, Jay Cross, 20 January 2013

A Google+ Hangout with Craig Wiggings, Charles Jennings, Enzo Silva, Pascal le Rudulier, Clark Quinn, and Jay Cross.

8 - Cool research: happy sheets hopeless, training failed…..failure-led, spaced practice worked, Donald Clark, 21 January 2013

So happy sheets were hopeless, straight text based and interactive e-learning was not significantly better than a placebo BUT spaced practice delivered as learn by doing worked magnificently well. 

9 – Starting from scratch, Clark Quinn, January 2013

From a conversation with my ITA colleagues, talking about the (self-imposed) death of L&D that Charles wrote about, Jane wondered what we might do if we were starting from scratch.  I decided to take this on, thinking about an org that was already in operation, with it’s goals, processes, and practices, and what I might do if I were to come in and get it going (with the support of the executive team to do what I thought was right).

10 – WorldBlu

WorldBlu LIVE 2013 is the world’s premier gathering on freedom in the workplace. It is designed for individuals and organizations who recognize the power of freedom and democracy as a leading tool for boosting the bottom-line, promoting innovation, attracting top talent and inspiring full engagement.

11 – Less is more, Harold Jarche, 22 January 2013

The future for Learning & Development, if it has one at all, is to find the 1%, by thinking like designers do. Remove everything that is extraneous and find the essence of a topic, subject, or field. Society and business are changing. Old businesses are collapsing and new ones are being created, some collapsing even quicker than the old ones did. Why would the training and education world be immune from these changes?

12 - What Do People *Really* Think About That Course You’ve Designed? David Kelly, 22 January 2013

We’re so used to having courses and learning management systems as part of the learning structure that we see all solutions through that lens.  We also tend to forget LMSs and many other tools we use exist for the benefit of training departments, not for the benefit of learners. They may be necessary for some organizations – a point in itself that can be debated – but instructional designers need to stop pushing learning through ‘our process’ and start finding ways to support learning through ‘their process’: the work itself.

13 – Culture Shift – When the learn owns the learning, Personalize Learning, 22 January 2013

When the learning starts with the learner, the learner takes responsibility for their learning. The report states that the learner owns their learning. There is no evidence in the report how this happens. The teacher, data, and technology guides the learning in the model provided in the report — not the learner. It needs to be about the learner first.

14 - Old -> New, Clark Quinn, 23 January 2013

I’ve previously addressed how we can now be using tech for more of the full suite of performance, but it occurred to me that there are some ways we could and should be thinking differently about the ways in which performance can be supported. And while these old:new lists are fun and sometimes overdone, and these may have been covered elsewhere by others, it seemed fun to go through a few that occurred to me.

15 – Bersin by Deloitte Study Shows Continued Surge in Learning and Development Spending as U.S. Corporations Focus on Reskilling their Workforces, Bersin by Deloitte, 22 January 2013

The L&D footprint continues to shrink. Although many training teams added staff during the year, these additions were outpaced by faster growth in learning populations. As a result, the overall “footprint,” or ratio of training staff relative to the learner population continued to decline in many companies. This trend is one sign of the changing role of the L&D function, which no longer is “the place” for learning. Instead, the role of the L&D team is to facilitate and enable learning. L&D teams should build skills in performance consulting, gain expertise in new technologies including social and mobile, and work to cultivate strong learning cultures within their organizations.

16 – Work environment design for learning, Harold Jarche, 23 January 2013

In some cases, companies keep social media separate from the core in order to prevent the technology from getting bogged down in corporate policies and procedures. That’s a legitimate concern, but don’t let a skunkworks social-media project get so far [...]]]> 1 - Look Beyond Your “Social Media Presence – HBR Blog Network, 16 January 2013

In some cases, companies keep social media separate from the core in order to prevent the technology from getting bogged down in corporate policies and procedures. That’s a legitimate concern, but don’t let a skunkworks social-media project get so far outside the mainstream that it can’t make effective use of common platforms and other resources. In other cases, companies worry that social media will threaten the core. And yes, it’s true that social technologies typically require companies to redesign core processes. But that’s a good thing. For example, if you make crowdsourced innovation a core capability, you have to integrate it with marketing functions that take care of customers.

2 - The Need to Adapt to the Speed of Change or Die: lessons for L&D from the retail industry - Charles Jennings, 16 January 2013

HMV and the other failed institutions didn’t understand how rapidly and extremely their worlds were changing. By the time they did (if they did at all) it was too late.

L&D professionals need to take heed.

The world of learning and development has also changed. The same drivers are disrupting L&D as disrupted the music retail industry, and the camera sales industry, and the DVD rental industry, and the publishing industry, and the automotive industry, and the marketing industry, and the finance industry and countless other industries. People expect to be able to solve their problems with their performance quickly, and they expect to do so without leaving the workplace. They expect to manage their own career development, and build their own portfolios of experiences. They expect their employers to support them and provide resources to help, but they don’t expect their employer to ‘manage’ their learning and development from start to finish.

“Unlike the fiscal cliff, there is no sign of any immediate solution to this problem, other than taking the pain. There’s no way politicians can do a 180 degree (sic) turn on this but that’s what’s needed. After [...]]]> 1 - Student cliff – 7 reasons for plummeting student numbers – Donald Clark, 13 January 2013

“Unlike the fiscal cliff, there is no sign of any immediate solution to this problem, other than taking the pain. There’s no way politicians can do a 180 degree (sic) turn on this but that’s what’s needed. After decades of expansion, the whole system has ballooned out of control with quality, and now quantity, falling. The danger is in behaving like lemmings heading towards the student cliff without adequate planning.”

2 – You are not the only bee in the hive – Harold Jarche. 14 January 2013

Since our default action at work is usually to turn to our friends and known colleagues for help, we need to share more of our experiences with others in order to grow our trusted networks. The more colleagues we can depend upon, the better we can get work done. The time to start is now.

2 – In defense of skipping college and enrolling in the real world, Forbes, 11January 2013

Learning by doing is the best way to learn anything. Organizations like Enstitute, a two year apprenticeship-based educational experience designed to turn incubators, companies, and [...]]]> 1 – A visual primer on learning theory – TeachThought, 11 January 2013

2 – In defense of skipping college and enrolling in the real world, Forbes, 11January 2013

Learning by doing is the best way to learn anything. Organizations like Enstitute, a two year apprenticeship-based educational experience designed to turn incubators, companies, and start-ups into classrooms for 18-24 year-olds, are trying to make this method of learning cool again. In Mastery, Greene writes, “Masters in history: a youthful passion or predilection, a chance encounter that allows them to discover how to apply it, an apprenticeship in which they come alive with energy and focus. This intense connection and desire allows them to withstand the pain of the process — the self-doubts, the tedious hours of practice and study, the inevitable setbacks, the endless barbs from the envious.”

3 - Productivity revolutions and the most misunderstood man in history – Esko Kilpi, 13 January 2013

When Taylor started working, nine out of ten people were manual workers. Today, nine out of ten people are knowledge workers. We ask some of the same questions but this time Taylor’s answers are not only unhelpful but totally wrong. But the struggles we face with productivity may be the same. If you look at what the labor unions and employer organizations are opposing today, you may find the seeds for the next revolution in productivity.

4 – Greater task variety means no more standardized work – Harold Jarche, 13 January 2013

I have often said that anything that is simple enough to be automated will be, and that any work that is merely complicated will be outsourced to the lowest cost of labour. But a funny thing is happening with manufacturing in the 21st century. It is becoming complex. Manufacturing today requires interdependent workers with initiative, creativity and passion. The new manufacturing workplace has higher task variety, which is based on a greater percentage of tacit knowledge and requires more informal and social learning. This is not Ford’s assembly line, nor is it based on F.W. Taylor’s Principles of Scientific Management.

The old model of getting educated in four years and coasting for the next 40 years” is growing increasingly less relevant, says Andrew Ng, co-CEO and co-founder of online education startup Coursera, which offers free online courses from universities like Stanford, Princeton, and Duke. “In the 40 years [...]]]> 1 - CNN Money, 10 January 2013

The old model of getting educated in four years and coasting for the next 40 years” is growing increasingly less relevant, says Andrew Ng, co-CEO and co-founder of online education startup Coursera, which offers free online courses from universities like Stanford, Princeton, and Duke. “In the 40 years we continue to work, tech will allow us to continue to learn in a way that wasn’t available.”

The companies that can keep pace with students throughout their lives—offering the right products to them each step of the way—will likely own the future of education.

1 - “Hashtag” is the 2012 Word of the Year, American Dialect Society, 4 January 2013

In its 23rd annual words of the year vote, the American Dialect Society voted “hashtag” as the word of the year for 2012. [...]]]> A catch-up post today with a number of links I’ve tweeted over the last few days

1  - “Hashtag” is the 2012 Word of the Year, American Dialect Society, 4 January 2013

In its 23rd annual words of the year vote, the American Dialect Society voted “hashtag” as the word of the year for 2012. Hashtag refers to the practice used on Twitter for marking topics or making commentary by means of a hash symbol (#) followed by a word or phrase.

2 – Leadership and networks: a new resource, Networking Action, 7 January 2013

Traditional organization approaches to leadership can lead to disaster with networks – I’ve seen wrong headedness turn networks into hierarchical organizations that unwittingly eviscerate the benefits for choosing a network in the first place.  What are the core principles of leading with a network mindset, and what strategies support their development?  These are two key questions addressed in a new report:  Leadership & Networks:  New Ways of Developing Leadership in a Highly Connected World.

3 - Predicting technology in 2013: Rise of the machines? BBC News, 8 January 2013

Ignore the January blues and try desperately to cling on to memories of the new year celebrations and part one of the annual Technology of Business lookahead, as you crack open the fortune cookie that is part two.

4 - PERPETUAL CONNECTIVITY WILL CHANGE HOW WE EXPERIENCE THE WORLD, Forrester, 8 January 2013

Increasingly, going online isn’t something we do. It’s something we are. Instant access to information and services isn’t just convenient — it’s how we live our lives. And it’s changing our desires, our needs, our demands, and our expectations. It’s changing how we experience the world.

5 - Redesigning work, Esko Kilpi, 8 January 2013

To become a social business and to improve the productivity of work will require very different thinking and big changes to ICT-systems, management, and even, the structure of society. In knowledge work the “machines” necessarily have to serve the workers. It is the knowledge workers who decide what to do next and how to do it.

6 - Coursera Takes A Big Step Toward Monetization, Now Lets Students Earn “Verified Certificates” For A Fee, Techcrunch, 8 January 2013

Coursera today unveiled its next phase and what will likely be its most significant source of revenue: Verified certificates. Students who take a course on its platform will now be able to earn “Verified Certificates” for a small fee. The new option, called Signature Track, is available on a course-by-course basis and is designed to provide verification for the work students complete on its platform, giving value to that work in the form of the startup’s first foray into credentialing. The certificate, however does not include credit toward a degree program, it simply aims to give them a more meaningful way to prove that they’ve completed the course.

7 – Big data; avoid major pitfalls, Daily Tekk, 9 January 2013

Sanjay Sarathy: “When thinking about big data, there are two fundamental issues to think about. The first is how an organization searches for and analyzes the data about which it knows something (the “known unknowns”). However, what is far more difficult and more relevant in the realm of big data is how companies analyze data about which they know nothing (“the unknown unknowns”). The biggest pitfall to avoid is to ensure you think about both ‘types’ of data when you implement a big data solution, rather than just the former which is more intuitive and, honestly, easier to manage.”

8 – Design is hacking how we learn

9 – The dark side of the connected enterprise, Forbes, 9 January 2013

This is today’s connected enterprise: always on, everyone linked to everyone else, a flood of information coursing through its electronic arteries. It’s partly a creature of collaborative technologies, such as email, instant messages, Web-based conferencing, internal social networks and so on. It’s also a result of globalization, capability sourcing and partnerships that extend beyond a company’s walls.

All this information and collaboration should make companies more agile, but technology often undermines organizations that don’t know how to harness its strengths. When that happens, critical decisions slow to a crawl, trapped in an endless cycle of data collection and debate.

10 – Keep a work diary, HBR, 10 January 2013

What’s the best way to use the last 10 minutes of your day? Take this short time to reflect on your workday: what invigorated you, what frustrated you, and what you plan to do next. Then write down 100 words about it.

11 – Join Jane Hart’s 10 Tools Challenge, Dave Kelly, 10 January 2013

In addition, in today’s business climate most of us don’t have the luxury to look at a problem and research different tools that best address the performance issue. We live in a world of NOW. By the time the performance need comes up, it’s already too late to try and find a tool that can be leveraged as part of a solution.

That’s why I like a challenge like this. This challenge involves looking at tools thatcould benefit you in your personal or professional life. As we look at these tools, natural connections will form to the past, to projects and tasks that might have been easier or accomplished more effectively  had the tool you’re exploring been applied to it.

“We first need to identify best practice” is a cry often heard in HR and L&D departments as organisations set out on their journey to develop a high performing workforce. “What’s wrong with that, then?” you may ask. There’s [...]]]> Determinism, Best Practice, and the ‘Training Solution’ - Charles Jennings, 3 January 2012

“We first need to identify best practice” is a cry often heard in HR and L&D departments as organisations set out on their journey to develop a high performing workforce. “What’s wrong with that, then?” you may ask. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with seeing how other organisations achieve their results and trying to learn from them.  But do not assume that if you do the same then your results will mirror theirs. That is simply bowing to determinism.

Few industries today have a worse business model than higher learning institutions.

Simply put, colleges are slowly pricing themselves out of existence. Tuition has consistently increased faster than inflation and household income, [...]]]> 1 - After Housing And The Stock Market, Is Higher Education The Next Bubble To Burst? – Avi Dan, Forbes, 1 January 2013

Few industries today have a worse business model than higher learning institutions.

Simply put, colleges are slowly pricing themselves out of existence. Tuition has consistently increased faster than inflation and household income, to the point that it is now four times more expensive to attend college than it was a generation ago. The result is that the average college senior carries $25,000 in student loans at graduations. The debt can follow students around for years, sometimes to the end of time, literally: $36 billion in loan debt is held by people over 60-years!”

2 – Happy New Year 2013 – Jane Bozarth, Learning Solutions Magazine, 2 January 2013

It’s become my habit for my January column to be a recap of the previous year’s, offered as my New Year’s resolutions for practitioners (I promise to try, too!) for the coming year. In looking over my work from 2012 I see three areas of focus.!

3 - 12 Skills That Will Help You Thrive in 2013 – Joe McKendrick, 2 January 2013

3. Professional networking skills: A classic skill for many years; now super-charged by technology.  Social networking keeps us connected to peers and potential contacts across all professions. But the digital aspect only goes so far — personal relationships and face-to-face interaction is still the key to success. One way to boost this is to get active with professional groups and conferences.