I completed Jemima Gibbon’s book Monkeys with Typewriters just before Christmas. As I mentioned in my comments on the first chapter here, I enjoyed the span of sources drawn on such as Arie de Geus and his book, The Living Company to de Moivre on distribution curves to Charles Darwin. As such, I found the “novelistic approach” of the book a powerful way of making-sense at different levels of social media at work and so is a useful companion to Andrew McAfee’s book on Enterprise 2.0. What also comes through very strongly through the six chapters is the diversity and warmth of relations between people facilitated by but not limited to social software. Technology may enable and extend relationships but does not replace more traditional notions of friendships, acquaintances and collegiality – the limitations of an fb ‘friend’ are well understood.
The chapter titles: ‘co-creation’; ‘learning’; ‘openess’; ‘passion’; ‘listening’ and ‘generosity’ reflect the importance of attitude and ethos in really gaining the benefits of social media and, to some extend, the culture of the organisations that understand the potential in the medium. The Tuttle Club is an obvious hero here – and team Tuttle pointing the way to how alternative organsiation forms are more feasible on the back of social media.
A good and timely book.
I’ve received mt copy of Monkeys with Typewriters by Jemima Gibbons. The book launch event has a good write-up here.
I’ve only read the first chapter so far but find the writing style really engaging – I could have stayed up and read a whole lot more …. What I particularly appreciated was the discussion of the drivers for web 2.0/ enterprise 2.0 adoption being based in notions of the learning organisation and particularly de Geus‘ living company book. I think this is the key potential for web2.0 as enabling those adaptive and autopietic organisations to become a realisable possibility. I also believe that the potential for autopeosis is far greater than realised – not just for small organisations/ teams, etc… but only for some. What often gets missed from many of these discussions is the requirement for more regulated, ‘boring’ and routinised work proactices and organisations to enable the more free-form organisational formats to operate. The cafes need to be open (and supplied), IT infrastructure support, snail mail needs to work blah, blah. So this 2.0 stuff is perhaps mainly applicable for those ‘higher value’ knowledge based occupations, etc. reinforcing occupational/ social divides and creating new ones. Will being an office working a sign of lower status compared to being able to say “I work anywhere”.
Anyway, this is an interesting book – inspiring in only its first chapter (motivated me to get blogging again).
Interesting post here from Jon Ingham on the CIPD conference in terms of a key value-adding activity of HR is in developing social capital – people interacting, talking, collaborating.
An interesting post here on the development of platforms – especially LinkedIn. The drive to tighten the “loose ties” of web 2.0 is interesting and may bring a degree of perspective on the “death of the VLE” debate (see here, for example, and my earlier comments here). There does seem to be a human desire to seek something clear, identifiable and “there” especially in respect of ‘identity’ and where “everything solid melts into air”. In some ways VLE (as a sort of platform) may well last is because they are something identifiable – a corporate brand not just for the supplier/ university but also for the individual student. I am not just an atomised student but rather a student of THIS institution. Similarly, as a professional, identity may come from being in a professional network and so the Personal Learning Network/ Environment is a way of solidifying that (in a digital manner!) – which also moves with the individual (I am an independent professional working for company X but my professional identity is in being part of a professional network which moves with *me*).
A bit rambling but I will try and build on this later (once the workload reduces – a mythical time perhaps!)
I noticed this post from the Centre for Learning and Performance Technologies [CL4PT] on ten key tools for learning. There’s a very clear triangle forming of course/ content “authorware” [eg, screenr or prezi], collaboration tools [eg, etherpad or dimdim] and individual tools [eg, evernote or arguable posterour].
This highlighted a question would be how these might work together? But also what it might mean for the L&D department that focuses on courseware suitable for routine learning for routinised work as opposed to collaboration and reflection that is potentially more focused on creativity, innovation and expansive learning?
An interesting set of slides on a European survey of social media use (via Pontydysgu) suggesting aa decline in the use of email. A key issue for me is to what extent is the use of MSN/ IM/ SMS etc. compartmentalised as being for social rather than for studying/ work? My own experience is that students are heavy users of particular social media tools for social use but they don’t think about them in terms of their learning. Their use of certain tools such as blogs or twitter or googledocs is very limited while awareness of, eg, social bookmarking, basecamp… is pretty much nonexistent. Use of these tools in a learning context is thus largely driven by course requirements – in other words, adoption is a product of power/ the desire to do well rather than anything intrinsic to that generation (of course, this may change as time goes on and our students become ‘more millennial’). This reflects comments from Andrew McAfee on enterprise 2.0 and email making the point that the adoption of collaborative tools in any given project is an outcome of the views of the most powerful person in the team.
More on edupunk/ hacking the education “system” here Although I think there is a conflation of two issues here: (a) the brand recognition and market value of possessing a recognised degree (preferably from a prestigious university and (b) the power of the www to enable lifelong learning. So one is concerned with the confirmation that I have understanding of a particular body of knowledge in a form that others will recognise, the other is about learning and reflection in pursuit of my own interests, to be more productive/ innovative, etc. at work
This post overlaps many of the issues highlighted in the notion of the business as a social environment. If the ability to learn is key to competitive advantage then designing organsiational forms and practices around learning – social, informal, serendipitous – becomes an organisational imperative which is so much of what enterprise2.0 is about.
A well argued post here on personal learning environments as a dynamic environment rather than a product or device. This chimes with my own views on PLEs as something that is personal rather than a product as well as with the tension in views of enterprise 2.0 between the techno-determinists and those focused on people and culture.
A very interesting post from Dan Pontefract on the integration of corporate learning and development and enterprise 2.0 in to learnerprise 2.0. Obviously, the concept needs further development but makes a useful point that too much L&D provision is focused on formalised learning and this is exacerbated in the context of much e-learning which relies on linear learning pathways decontextualised from the work situation where it (might) be applied. I think this may be part of the issue in relation to the VLE is dead debate, whereby the nature of VLEs steers towards formal learning that is institutionally bound but other web 2.0 type approaches, such as PLEs emphasise informal learning but also can migrate with the learner. Most of my on-line learning activities take place within Netvibes and have been integral to how I’ve approached my personal professional development in three different and demanding jobs. Of course, this is not new and is being done in some companies (see the presentation here, especially slide 114 onwards)
The UK think tank Demos has recently published a report on the state of higher education in the UK, “the edgeless university“. In particular the report points to technology as a driver of change and as [part of] the solution for edgeless universities that are:
“no longer contained within the campus, nor within the physically defined space of a particular institution … This is driven by people finding new ways to access and use ideas and knowledge, by new networks of learning and innovation and by collaborative networks that span institutions and businesses.”
As Christopher Barnatt in a recent article suggests (International Journal of Management Education, 2009), the impacts of such change can be seen in students demands for multi-modal delivery, the availability of open learning resources (Open University or iTunesU, and in academic self-branding as well as requiring an institutional and professional mash-up mentality to emerge.
Of course, the implications are not simply ‘outward’ facing but may have profound implications for how universities organise and staff themselves – and so transform what might be meant by a university as an institution. As a recent article Zeitz (2009 International Journal of HRM 20/2) stated in the context of wider environmental (social, economic, etc.) change: “It is argued that networked organizations provide the requisite flexibility and innovation by making making extensive use of external companies and independent workers as suppliers and partners”. So a mash-up mentality extends from a multi-modal delivery of learning to more flexible, fluid and multi-modal approaches to knowledge production all occuring in an edgeless institution as network. The technology is here but as ever its a question of institutions supporting the changes in practices required.
In some ways, the issue comes to a head in the debates around the future of the VLE as discussed by @timbuckteethhere. In terms of both this discussion and other developments such the open learning initiatives, the adoption of personal learning environments as well others mentioned in a recent article from Fast Company the obvious tension is less with technological futures or pedagogical considerations both rather with the blend of notions of knowledge as possession and a managerial urge for control and a particular view of the value proposition of HE which is in part about its brand and position – certainly to its ’stakeholder’. Maybe the way forward is as suggested by Dan Stucke here where small parts are loosely coupled but clearly branded (as in easy to find!).
