The influence of technology on professional identity

In january I facilitated a MOOC about knowmads

A knowmad is what I term a nomadic knowledge and innovation worker – that is, a creative, imaginative, and innovative person who can work with almost anybody, anytime, and anywhere. (John Moravec)

The most intriguing element of this concept in my opinion is that professionals need a personal fascination with a subject. There is emotion involved. You can link your work to an experience or strong conviction. For instance I was so pissed in Ghana because I felt I never got any appreciation for my work within the organization. The start of a community or practice was a great relief. Professionals who appreciate each other, give feedback, listen to each other and therefore learn a lot from each other. Finally appreciation! I was so impressed that I decided to do an online course about communities of practice with amongst others Etienne Wenger, became a member of CPsquare and I am still working with the concept of community learning.

 

Shortly after the MOOC I bought the book 'Je Binnenste Buiten' by Manon Ruijters and colleagues. I think it's a great subject they explore with the book: professional identity. It is also a central concept in the theory of communities of practice. The book is recommended if you are also interested in developing professionals and knowmads. They argue that more attention is needed for professional identity in case of changes in a domain, career- and cooperation issues. Professional identity is not something that is fixed, but your identity is continuously developing, and therefore requires maintenance and attention. Unfortunately, the book is 'technology blind'. Surprisingly, I often read books & articles which are completely focussed on technology, or they are about other topics, and do not really address technology influences. The interface is still not fully explored. Or do I have a professional deformation?

The knowmad's identity is strong
The definition of professional in the boek is:

A professional is a person who chooses and seeks to be able to serve customers in a competent and comprehensive way, with the help of specialist knowledge and experience. In addition, he uses, and actively contributes to, a community of fellow professionals who continuously develop the subject.

I love this definition, because it clearly describes that a professional wants to develop his or her knowledge and compentencies like the knowmad, and also contributes to a community of peers. The knowmad is by definition someone with a strong identity and self-knowledge. These people prove to be more stress-resistant, to be more successful and to have more self-esteem. A strong lesson I take away from this book is that stimulating knowmads and knowmadic work in organizations means paying attention to professional identity. We do a regular exercise by making an I-cloud with topics of interest to you, but there could be more questions.

Serial masters
Lynda Gratton describes the new professionals as serial masters. A serial master has deep knowledge and competences in a number of domains. So, you need to specialize yourself, and you will be in a new domain for a year, but building on your past experiences and interests. A strong and rapid development in identity. I think the identity of a knowmad meanders more and changes more rapidly than the average professional by curiosity and changing assignments. Identity questions and self-knowledge are therefore more important to stay grounded.

Technology's influence on professional identity: online identity 
An important influence of technology on contributing to professional development is that professionals are increasingly online in (informal) networks: sharing about their work and thoughts in Tweets or other micro-messages. This is a new level of contribution to professional development that previously did not exist. Identity has to do with what makes you unique? In the book, working on your identity is linked to self-knowledge and influence by how others think about us. Social media forces you to work continuously on your professional identity. If you are very active online, this forces you to make choices and think.

Boundary crossing
A second change is that it is becoming easier to look around you and cross borders with other professions, become members of communities you would not normally become members of (eg, like in my case marketing communities). A knowmad not only contribute to developing his profession with fellow professionals, but also innovates by looking across the boundaries of his own domain into other communities- boundary crossing. Online it is incredibly easy to take initiatives with others with different expertise to contribute to new areas. An example? I got to know Jos Maasen and Peter Staal online and we are now writing a blog together about using community principles to design social MOOCs. In other words, there are numerous new ways to work on professional development.

Personal branding
I once wrote a blogpost about personal branding. As a consequence of the need for personal branding, the process of professional identity formation will develop in a substantially different way, and way less linear. You can already build a reputation as a young, starting professional. I think that Erikson's identity creation phases (trust, autonomy, initiative, fidelity, identity, intimacy, care, integrity) do not apply anymore. To give a practical example. The book shows the example of co-assistents who struggle with who they are. Solid feedback during their internships influences their identity. However, the online world offers a whole new space, contacting other co-assistants in an online community, possibly online valuation from unexpected angles. The new space that the online world offers is huge.

Conclusion: A great book that puts the theme of professional identity on the map, but with very little attention for the influence of technology. Huge need for a new chapter about online identity!

Working as knowmads: How to stimulate knowmadic working in organisations?

Imagine, you work in an organization and you are convinced of the importance of knowmads. You know this is the future, and knowmads are needed as crucial to drive innovation in a learning organization. You also know what skills are necessary as a knowmad. You already working as a knowmad yourself. But organizations need more employees who work knowmadic to be innovative. How do you stimulate a movement ... how do you create a collective of knowmads?

Typology of professionals in use of technology in relation to work

The participants of our Dutch MOOC 'Help there's a knowmad in my organization thought about this challenge with the starting question "How do you stimulate a move toward knowmadic work?" The above model from our book Learning in Times of Tweets, Apps and Like was provided as thought provoker. In this model we describe four types of professionals. They differ in the way in which they employ social technology in their work, depending on the motivation to develop the subject and affinity with social technology. The typology of professionals was recognizable to the participants. The online exchange led to the following strategies to initiate a move towards a more knowadic work and learning climate in organizations:

Start with the knowmads The most logical choice seemed to be focus on knowmads. "Knowmads make your adrenaline flow" is the experience. Finding and combining knowmads can trigger an oil leakage action, with more and more people joining and working on new ways of working. This group can also develop further.You may use the Seek-Sense-Share model to work on sharpening individual practices. You may also pay attention to professional identity. If you show yourself online - what's your identity? These are, for example, questions you can discuss in a knowmad café (see the interventions at the end).

Connect knowmads and googlers  Another strategy is to link knowmads to googlers. Form duo's where the knowmad shows the googler new ways of working. Working with googlers keeps the knowmads realistic and prevents them from getting too far ahead from the troops in the organization. It may earn them some recognition too (and avoids frustration).

Focus on googlers and hobbyists  A large number of MOOC participants intend to focus rather on googlers and hobbyists. You can appeal to Googlers by talking about their field of work. They are likely to be interested in additional possibilities of working knowmadically to keep up with their field of expertise and networking. When you show this, you awaken their curiosity. Hobbyists are already handy online but do not put it at work within the context of their function yet. There may be several reasons for this. Knowing the reason is key to change. Perhaps they have learned to participate in and adjust to the way of working within the organization? For example, let hobbyists help short-term projects to help others get the right supportive media.

Koppel googlers en hobbyisten A number of MOOC participants would specifically choose to link the googlers and hobbyists - a strong combination because they can learn a lot from each other - on an equal footing. The hobbyist learns about the subject and the googler about smart online networks and tools. Think reverse mentoring.

And how about the followers? Few MOOC participants choose to focus on followers, although it is important to continue to encourage and guide this group. They may need, for example, a low-threshold helpdesk.

About the model
The 'Typology Professionals in the Use of Technology in Relationship to Work" model is intended to look at professional behavior. A bad use of the model would be to put people in the boxes. It should lead to a discussion about behaviours. Emphasize that people can change or at some level show google behavior and on another level knowmad behavior. It is important to emphasize that there is not one correct blueprint way of working, but that everyone has to develop his own unique way that suits him or her. Maybe there are offline knowmads who read paper magazines and share knowledge at meetings. "It's not all internet that is blinking". Ultimately, it is about finding an effective way of working, learning and contributing to professional development, not about online or offline. The model is especially helpful in reflecting on the right interventions to stimulate collective know-how work and to differentiate it into types of professional behavior. With a googler, you may not have to talk about blogging right away, with a hobbyist that's not a problem.

Mariëlle van Rijn wrote a nice blog geschreven using more detailled profiles and designing interventions. The Networker for instance is given the task of adding two new people to their network every month who can contribute to the organization and present this on the intranet.

Walk the talk, organize a knowmad café and share success stories
Apart from thinking about who you are going to focus on within the organization, it's equally important to think about your intervention strategy. Many MOOC participants intend to work on a shift in organizational culture. Hereby, the management style (space) and digital skills are important elements to work on. The following strategies emerged:

• 'Practice what you preach'. Make sure that you work as a knowmad yourself, but also show that you can deal creatively with technology: put up Padlet during a meeting or brainstorm ideas via Socrative. This will help people get used to technology as aid. 
• Do not focus on individuals but on groups /creating a movement. It's unpleasant if you're alone as a knowmad in an organization. A dynamic movement can attract new people and grow slowly.
• Organize a workgroup around this theme. Ensure to have  mix of all types of professionals represented in the working group. Or work with ambassadors. Of course, you can find plenty of ambassadors among the knowmads.
• Start experimenting with this working group. Get started. Don't remaining in policy making or talking modus but ensuring good implementation. For example, a practical experience of a participant is that the toolset in his organization changed too much and technical support was scarce, which made all initiatives fail. 
• Harvest and share success stories. For example, organize a knowmad café to share these stories. Success stories can trigger googlers in particular. They are already interested in the subject matter and if they see successful new ways to learn and connect, they become enthusiastic. 
• Engage executives. If knowmadic work is part of the official strategy, this gives you space to experiment and invest.
• Look closely at the context within the organization to define your strategy. Sometimes a community at the interface of various organizations is easier because it offers more space to innovate. Find a burning issue within the organization and link to it to make it important. 
• And last but not least - look also at knowmad behavior during the selecting process for new employees. The more knowmads, the more they can invoke a turning point. 

 

Do you read Dutch? This blog is one of six blogposts about 'Werken als knowmad':

1. De expertise van dokters vs internet. Over de invloed van online op de rol die kennis en expertise speelt in ons werk.
2. Hoe werkt het in de praktijk? Een verkenning van knowmadisch werken, toegepast in de praktijk van organisaties en netwerken.
3. Zonder gist geen pizza, zonder technologie geen knowmad. Over vaardigheden die je nodig hebt om knowmadisch te werken.
4. Een wereld vol knowmads in 2020. The future is here!
5. Hoe vervlecht je oud en nieuw?  Met mogelijkheidszin en progressiecirkels