Category: facilitation

Monday Video: Conformity

Via Howard Rheingold, Face the Rear: An Illustration of Social Influence rings true like a bell. I love playing with “elevator etiquette” by not standing the way the group is. Last month at eLearning Africa in Dar es Salaam, our hotel had one elevator out, and tons of people moving in and out of their rooms on the same schedule. Yup, crowded elevators. I was on the 7th floor of my 13 floor hotel and each morning as I sought to descend, the door would open showing me a packed elevator. Overpacked according to standards here at home. Body to body. But everyone seemed quite comfortable, if hot. But I had to switch my tactics (because the lights were burnt out on the stairs, so that was a tricky option as well.) I hit the up button, got on as the car was going up in the morning and rode down 13 to 1 on the ever filling car. In the back. In the corner. Watching — you guessed it — how people behaved. How they accommodated a suitcase. What Africans did vs colleagues from Europe or North America. So when I saw this video, I was hooked. Watch the video. Then one more comment at the end…

When I think of group dynamics both face to face and online, there is this dynamic of conformity. It is stronger in some cultural contexts and in my experience, stronger F2F. But it also exists online — despite all the talk that people act with less inhibitions online. Some people do. Not everyone. 😉

And for my US friends, Happy Fourth of July!

7 Minute Segments & Experts

CC Some rights reserved by Mundoo on Flickr

I’m not a big fan of “training” — it feels like something we do “unto” others. But something from this Fast Company article on training at Google caught my eye. I’ve highlighted the bit…

Once a quarter, the company tosses a larger training at the staff, called SalesPro, which takes a deep dive into one particular strategic issue, like display advertising or the mobile business. The soup-to-nuts program takes about six hours, but rather than delivering it all in one fell swoop, or even through a series of hour-long, do-it-yourself modules, Google breaks the information into bite-sized chunks lasting no more than seven minutes each, so agents can download and peruse them at their desks, on their commutes, even on their cell phones while watching Little League or waiting in line at airport security.Online games help agents dial in their knowledge. Leaderboards foster friendly competition. And quizzes following each training make sure the agents are absorbing the new information.“This is a new, complicated, and very fast-moving market,” Dennis Woodside, who took over as President, Americas, in 2009 when Tim Armstrong jumped ship to become CEO of AOL, tells Fast Company. “The challenge is: How do you get a comprehensive overview in a short period of time?”Google’s new tack is a far cry from the traditional methods of corporate training, that of corralling staffers into classrooms or having them click through tedious online modules.

via Training Secrets From Inside The Googleplex | Fast Company.

I’ve been doing a lot of online events and I’ve been trying to break things down more or less in seven minute segments to try and alternate information delivery with more intentional group interaction (shared whiteboarding, polls, chat, etc) If nothing else, it is a good reminder for me to shut up for a bit! It seems to help quite a bit in my experience.

Now here is another interesting segment on the Google efforts that resonates

“People learn best from experts,” Newhouse says, “but they learn best from experts who are not droning on and on.” The secret to the Product Spotlights, she says, is that rather than relying on product managers to dream up a course, the moderator simply guides them to the aspects of the product most relevant to the sales staff. Woodside says the new training method probably costs about the same as the old approach. Its more investment, he says, than cost.

I’d replace the word “expert” with “practitioners.” And really work hard to help those practitioners know/see/feel/hear how important their knowledge is to others. One of the things that always amazes me is how often people think what they know isn’t valuable to others. Most often it is. (Funny, there are also a few who think they are the center of the universe. And they probably aren’t!)

eRealities Online Presentation – Magic Moments

It is hard to say “no” to friends. It is harder yet to predict what will happen when you say “yes.” When you will stumble upon a magic moment.  Months ago I agreed to do an online session for one of my Australian pals, Frankie Forsythe, who I’ve known online for years since she took my (now dormant) online facilitation class.

The event was the Australian Flexible Learning Frameworks’ eRealities online conference. I was to kick of the second day.

Frankie and her colleagues asked me to do a session that wove together a ton of things and I was worried about a total fragmented mess. So after a few back and forths, we came to this description which you can see, could get one into trouble!

It’s a story with three hearts. It has a scaffold with three legs. It is a story told for the ears, the eyes and the heart. Join me as we explore how we got to this crazy time of “social media” and what it means for our learning with and from each other, how we can do it the best we are able to in a rapidly changing and often tension-filled context, and consider together what kind of future we want to build going forward.

At the end of the session participants were able to:
• understand how the intersection of technology and group forms impact our learning together online
• identify ways to work generatively with the tension of many opportunities and a scarcity of time (hey, what can we STOP doing?)
• identify steps to prepare to move forward positively in a time of rapid change

I had not overprepared for this session. I went in with 7 images and some thoughts, which is risky when you are in a “keynote” position. But my instinct was right. I was able to be really present. To listen. To follow and respond to/incorporate the chat stream into the conversation. We paused three times for full group input and people jumped in with head, heart and hand. You know those moments when you FEEL something. I was feeling it and I think at least some of the people in the online space were feeling it too.

Dancing Into the Future with Head, Heart and Hands

View more presentations from Nancy White

So what was resonating? We were telling stories and using hand drawn images to reduce our electronic distance and barriers? We were talking about experiences that resonated for people in their work of teaching and learning online? I’m not sure. But it worked for me. I was grateful for the opportunity. When I was asked to send my invoice I said “contribute my honorarium to some local good cause. You gave me a gift.”

You can watch all the recorded sessions – you’ll have to register (free) but once you are in, you can find them all. Here is the information:

For those who couldn’t make it to the live conference, or didn’t get to attend all the sessions they were interested in, session recordings and resources are now available.

Just follow these steps:

  • Log into the conference site – http://flexiblelearning.net.au/networksevents – if you have not previously registered you will need to do so to access the recordings
  • Click on the Program tab
  • Select the Title of the Session you would like to review
  • Click on the blue “Enter’ button to open the recording of the session.

    • Here are some of the event artifacts:

    Dancing Into the Future with Head, Heart and Hands

    View more presentations from Nancy White

    Chat text from ere11 session

    Carl Jackson on Supporting Online Communities in International Development

    Carl Jackson of Westhill Knowledge Group (formerly at IDS – Institute of Development Studies), colleague at KM4Dev, friend and all around smart and funny guy took 20 minutes to share some of his experiences supporting and participating in online communities in international development. He has worked with a number of IDS’s Eldis communities, including Africa Adapt. While you can peruse the communities’ websites, nothing replaces hearing about the practice of stewarding and participating IN the community.

    Click below for a listen — it’s about 18 minutes packed full of practical advice.

    Carl Jackson on Online Communities in Development

    Here are some of the nuggets I extracted:

    • People are seeing  online communities and networks as core instruments of how we work.We can now cheaply create broad based activist networks. For example, Africa Adapt – with participatory researchers, policy makers, community advocates around climate adaptation. In 1.5 years built a sense of community, and has organized F2F events at a continental level. Used to be much harder to get off the ground. Now people prepared to give it a go or at least a benefit of a doubt.
    • Focus, focus, focus: Carl reinforced the importance of subject specific focus… this then attracts a specific kind of people
    • Some groups are harder to attract than others. On the whole, the one group where it has been harder to get awarness and buy in is with is the scientists in climate science community. In international development there is quite a strong divide between the natural scientists and social scientists. They have different networks and ways of sharing knowledge.
    • Policy makers CAN be attracted with focused offerings. Within Eldis communities had a debate between experts on food security and gender, convened by BRIDGE at IDS. Researchers and policy makers from a range of organizations.
    • Preparation for events matters. With a focused, short time frame event, they did substantial bilateral engagement w/ potential participants 3-4 weeks leading up to the date. A lot of work went into brainstorming themes they could focus on in the discussion, and in gathering and synthesizing brief bios of participants. They noticed in other discussions of this type a lot of initial energy gets soaked up in introductions, getting comfortable.
    • Open conversations with less clear focus are still important. People are looking for more increasing awareness of the landscape, who the actors are, events are, values and languages. For that kind of orientation, open discussions are still really valuable. They allow you to discover things. In time delimited, you drill down, but not much discovery.
    • Why has ELDIS community succeeded? Primary value of ELDIS communities: be in there for the long haul. When the communities  were set up there were other spaces like that, but the level of demand for ELDIS communities and level of initial participation was quite low. When you have short term performance requirements — could have bombed quickly. But the grant makers that work w/ IDS have a longer strategic vision about the value of collaboration, bringing in diverse and little heard voices — commitment was there. Seedbed for initiatives.
    • Reputation still matters: IDS has been able to – because it has established reputation for research and training beyond its online work gives a certail level of brand recognition and associated knowledge resources on the broader Eldis portal. Quality and back up that can be hooked into community spaces. Drawing on the resource guides.
    • Individually driven spaces require less support.  The largest number on ELDIS are set up by members for a blog or event, sharing documentation or share videos.  They are doing stuff in a very unsupported way beyond the provision of technical support and troubleshooting advice for things like setting up profiles and adding functionality to their personal spaces.
    • Events benefit from strong staffing and preparation. The Food security and gender event was part of a wider programmatic effort around that subject, purpose of gathering knowledge for publication. 3 people working on the preparation for 2 day event with a 2 month lead time. Carl estimates that  total time of individuals that went into prep and facilitation, follow up was 30 person days. Consider the value of convening 30 experts internationally to have a very detailed cutting edge discussion. If you’d have looked at how else, the costs of convening that kind of group logistically in a physical space – order of 5-10 x cost.
    • Design as if you are in their shoes. In thinking about design, especially new group coming together, it is important to try and think your way into where they are coming from, scenarios they might consider participating in. That’s a way of designing a process that leads to an online collaboration with as little logistical friction, anticipates some of the interests and needs they may have. Policy makers want a tractable output of feedback to policy. Researchers want highlights of current research or gather ideas for new research topics. Put yourself into the shoes of the participants and construct a process that is useful for both participants and commissioners of the event.
    • Light facilitation rules the day. Now that people are much more comfortable participating in online spaces, the facilitation needs to be when it is live needs to be much more light touch. People don’t need so much hand holding. Facilitation should not be acting as chair of discussion– neither necessary or helpful. More about holding the space, backchannel matchmaking/connecting, draw out the quite – pastoral care behind the scenes. Then the energy the participants bring to the discussion doesn’t get blocked. I don’t think you can lead discussions online, you can only nudge them
    • Any other advice? It’s important – when the community does come together in a good way, has a powerful discussion, important to translate that something as quick as possible into something tangible. There are often good intentions of producing outputs, but the wheels grind slowly, nice polished in 3 months. You have to be prepared to quickly synthesize and publish some kind of project. Rough and quick is better than polished and slow. They can immediately get the extra value.

    You can find Carl on his company website, www.wkg.uk.net or on Twitter at @Carl_WKG