A good working or training method is invisible

Yesterday Sibrenne Wagenaar and I finished an evaluation process of a knowledge sharing/linking and learning programme. One of the questions was what methods worked best for knowledge sharing.

We had only one hour and didn't want to do a presentation (we had presented our rough findings earlier on). We thought carefully what we wanted to achieve in this one hour: that people started playing with the recommendations and think what the most important improvements to work on are. So we decided to print and cut the recommendations and asked them to make three piles:

1. You agree and you understand how to do it
2. You may agree but you have questions how to do it
3. You have serious doubts

In groups of two people made their piles, discussing the recommendations. And fortunately pile number one was the largest in all groups. This is not spectacular in terms of method, but we got a lot of compliments. The regular way of doing such a session is presenting the conclusions and recommendations in the form of a powerpoint. People enjoyed engaging in this way with the ideas behind the recommendation and felt it helps to learn collectively.

It made me think even more about what a good method is. It has always puzzled me that there are so many toolkits and toolguides in the development sector. As we wrote in our report: "There is no universal answer to the question what the best methods are for a training or working session. The key question is what method works best in a certain setting and matches the needs and purpose." As a participant I always get annoyed when the method is very 'visible' and you are clearly part of a trainers or facilitator's plan rather then participating in a natural exchange. And I've definitely been guilty of it myself in some organisational assessments where I had thought of so many tools and we had to go through all of them.. It became an exercise that you have to finish rather than a meaningfull exchange. So I guess it is also a matter of a method seamlessly supporting the conversations and the purpose of being and working together. Such a method is almost invisible, suits the situation and the facilitator.

Switch for social media

I read the book Switch some time ago. Change management is definitely one of my favorite fields! Even though I am now not using the field as consciously as when I was guiding organisational change trajectories, I feel when I work on introducing social media I may apply it too and could improve. But maybe I already do it unconsciously based on my experiences.... Anyhow I also bought 'organisatiedynamica' by Thijs Homan and it's competing with social media for trainers by Jane Bozarth for my attention...

I want to use my blog to see if I can apply the lessons from Switch to the introduction of social media, whether for groups, organisations or networks. First a short intro of the ideas put forward in Switch. The book starts with a short story about moviegoers. Moviegoers were given wretched popcorn (I actually didn't know the word wretched but I assume it means that it is not nice to eat!). Some of them got a medium sized bucket popcorn, others a large one. The question was: will people with a large bucket eat more? And Yes! The people with a large bucket ate 53% more popcorn (21 extra hand-dips). Now suppose you want to stimulate people to eat healthier and less popcorn. Rather than changing the mindset, you could also give them smaller bowls. That's an easy solution to a difficult behaviour change. This was quite a revelation for me, doing a lot of work in the international development sector. Everything always end up complex, and I often think it could be more fun with a lighter approach. And here it is! The authors call it: shape the path, tweek the situation so that change is easier. But that's not the only thing to do.

The full three-part framework to follow is:

1. Direct the rider. Provide crystal-clear direction about where to go (and where not to go)
2. Motivate the elephant. Engage the emotional side
3. Shape the path. Shape the situation to make change easy.

(The metaphor of the elephant, rider and path is explained in the book but very shortly our emotional side is an elephant and our rational side is the rider).

So what happens if we apply these ideas about change to introducing social media in organisations?

1. Direct the rider. Make it clear that you want (some) people to use social media and why.. What is your vision about using social media? Is it to increase internal communication and how will that help the organisation to achieve its mission? It is to connect to customers/stakeholders? Ofcourse it takes some time to know this yourself. So don't introduce it widely unless you have a vision yourself. Don't introduce a technology and insist on people using it without giving a clear rationale. And make sure you have some ways of measuring that your rationale is true. For instance, if you are hoping to get more donors through social media presence, keep track of the number of donors referred to you via social media.

2. Motivate the elephant. Try and find out what makes people interested. You may allow them to use the new technology for private purposes first. I have seen people learn about social networks and putting up a social network space for their family reunions and sports clubs. That's a great way to learn and become enthusiastic. So allow people to learn new technologies in connection to things that excite them. Invite people to experiment and allow them space to experiment. Experimenting is fun, having to use new tool because you have to is boring. Furthermore the fun of social media is in the social, so work with groups who can link up together.

3. Shape the path. Make it easy for people to use the media. Offer them a set of tools and shortcuts, work on their own computers. It is discouraging if you are starting a wiki not knowing what type of wiki to use. Make sure there is an accessible helpdesk. Help them for instance to set up an RSS dashboard. But also work on integrating social media in their routines (says the person who is now struggling with finding time to blog and to read blogs :). We are doing a 40-days coaching experiment whereby you have daily contact with one coach. That seems to work well! The idea behind the 40 days is that people can build up new routines in 40 days if they practice every day.

So you have other tips? Does this make sense?

From virtual classroom to workshop and back

I'm getting so busy that blogging gets harder (if I want to have some off computer time too!). I guess the good thing is that I can imagine it is the last thing on your list in a hectic job. Since I blogged in Dutch about our most recent trajectory about social media that started online (on the NVO2 blog- interesting new initiative for Dutch people interested in HRD) I thought it would be an easy quick win to translate it in English.

Evert Pruis had blogged about the fact that only 20% of the training efforts lead to results. This ressonates with my personal experiences, the reason why I follow very little training and formal education, as I learn more from experience. I like doing new things and working together with people from a different background. But I strongly believe that the effect of a training can increased by starting online.

Together with two other trainers I'm in the middle of a half year trajectory for organizations to learn to use social media to achieve their missions. We train and support an international group of organisations from countries in Africa, Europe, Asia and South America. We have chosen to start with a skype talk, then first three weeks online training followed by a week in the Netherlands. Currently we are in the coaching phase. I am very excited about our approach to start online and was very proud when a participant talked about 'our four weeks training'. That's really how people should perceive it, not as one week with some online fuzz beforehand. Some advantages I see:

- Because we started online, people could easily invite colleagues to join us. Hence, we had 65 people online, compared with 15 in the face-to-face week. What we see is that those who attended the face-to-face training are more active online now than the others. Nevertheless there is an enthusiastic fellow who is very interested and doing the face-to-face exercises too.

- Practicing a number of tools (like Skype) is easier at a distance. At a distance you can really exercise. This would also apply to exercises with different behavior in the workplace, that would be easier to guide online than in a training. On the other hand the twitter exercise did not seem to make a lot of sense from a distance. Seeing twitter at work and being able to ask all kind of questions made it much easier to grasp.

- The first day was very funny, you know each other already quite well! The group dynamic is very different as a result; people are far less occupied with group dynamics and with their place in the group. The atmosphere was immediately relaxed.

- Online there is plenty of room for everyone to talk. If you ask a question, anyone can respond. Face-to-face, there are many people and airtime is limited. Online offers the potential to make knowledge and experience of the various participants much more visible. One participant had many interesting experiences to share, which was highly visible online. Face-to-face this was much less visible.

- And last but not least, the learner is three weeks long in the "driver's seat. Online you can click away and skip anything, face-to-face it is rude not to listen. This culture also entered the training room. When people were interested in a presentation, they would even stand up and come close, in the opposite case, people would start multitasking (hard to avoid when you have your computer in front of you..). The online training made participants start their thought process.

This sure sounds like there are nothing but benefits. Yet I would not start with online exchange in every training. It takes a lot of time and attention from the trainers, it was wonderful to do this with three trainers but would be exhausting for a single trainer. The added value is difficult to visualize. Thus, I am convinced that people are better capable of linking what they learn to their own situation, because the thought process started online. However, this could also be achieved by an early intake conversation.

Do you know of any proper studies done to compare training with and without online components?

Flipchart or Twitter the best tool for trainers?

Flipchart- the most important tool for trainers? photo by hockadilly

I'm a big fan of Clay Shirky's book Here Come's Everybody . I even had two copies, because I have won a copy, but I organised a photo search competition in the social media training of this week. This was fun by the way, I had selected a picture from flickr under the tag web2.0. It was harder for the participants to find that picture online than I had expected. First of all everybody was searching in google images, not in flickr. Secondly people started searching using the words in the picture, not on tags. Clay Shirky says that "social media do not get socially interesting till they get technologically boring ". In other words, the major revolution in the way we work together and share information and learning will only occur if everyone is handy with the technology, so everybody is at ease twittering, blogging, around. I am very curious to know how the world of coaches and trainers will change.

It always strikes me that the marketing and media people seem to be more at the forefront of embracing and experimenting with social media. But why not trainers and facilitators? This continues to be fascinated me. On the one hand it could be that trainers (like teachers) like to be seen as the authority on a particular discipline and it is easier to shine in a face-to-face training situation than online, where you are more equal. On twitter you are one of the group, in a room you are in front as trainer. It is also possible that trainers and coaches enjoy the face-to-face dynamics in a group and are good in handling that dynamics. They may be convinced that this would not work online. Or that trainers are more often socially-oriented, less interested in technology. They may perceive social media as something technical. (you don't have to be technical, but they may think so ..). Any ideas?

Are you a trainer and want some inspiration? This wiki Beth Kanter are already some ideas such as using Google Forms for evaluations, Delicious for an online small library, Wiki as a central place for a training group, and Twitter integration as a back channel .. I have received the book by Jane Bozarth for social media trainers today, so I will promise you a bookreview soon!

Online professionalization (by professionals ofcourse)

Last week I gave two workshops 'online professionlisation' for the learninglane, a yearly three days event in the Netherlands. (together with Josien who replaced Sibrenne). It was a good opportunity to test a new theory. We have done a lot of webwork workshops where we teach professionals social media tools. The focus is thus on the tools even though having a goal to work with the tools helps to see the link and persevere. Therefore this workshop was organized around five strategies:

* Cooperation/collaboration
* Personal Branding
* Online conversations with peer professionals
* Networking
* Information processing and scanning

Although the strategies are intertwined (if you're blogging with colleagues to get input and exchange ideas, it can also work as personal branding), they can help you to gain focus. They can help to find a good entry point and may help you decide where to insert your/more energy.

I started linking professionalisation to informal learning and autonomous knowledge workers in my presentation with prezi. Here is the video I showed about motivation of professionals (Autonomy, drive, purpose). This is the real basis which explains why social media are important for professionals who are autonomous learner and eager to master an area or craft.

Reflecting on how it went: what struck me is that for quite some participants the thinking in strategies seemed to work out well, yet others are still in need of getting to know a number of tools, were very simple questions like 'how can I send a message to someone on twitter and others see it too?. Without this basic idea of the tools, talking about strategy seemed difficult for them. Probably there are differences in the entry points which help people to develop an online professionalisation practice, depending on preferred styles. Apart from focus and skills, participants suggested that you need enough guts to try out a new medium like for instance twitter.

I'd like to share a very nice example was shared in the group: In an organization the Director thought that employee participation should not only be shaped through the official organs like the 'medezeggenschapsraad', a sort of workers council. He has set Friday as the twitter day for his organisation. Staff from all levels of the organisation are invited to share direct questions and opinions via twitter. He is really available to respond. A good example of how social media can be deployed within your organization to stimulate new types of interactions and collaborations (I wonder now whether these tweets are public or private but forgot to ask..).

Voting and live-blogging to bridge the gap between researchers and practitioners

I started my first social reporting experiences with Euforic, back in 2007 through a blog, trying to cover an event online through social media. With a team of reporters we covered the sessions and captured participants and presenters' stories through videos. It was an awful lot of work and I kept wondering whether it was worth the effort. Sure, there were people who would watch the videos afterwards, but it was also a lot of work. If you are interested to learn more about social reporting David Wilcox and Beverly Trayner made a great social reporting toolbox with lots of tips to get you started.

What makes me feel uneasy at times about social reporting processes is not knowing whether there is an interested audience that is going to read and engage with the event through social media, beyond the people who are present at the event. Then it becomes a process of reification without participation, or in more popular term, collecting without connecting. In term of knowledge processes, it becomes a flawed process, the creation stops. Personally, I enjoy seeing tweets or blogposts from events I haven't been too flying by, but I hardly read them with a lot of attention. It's like overhearing a conversation that you are not part of and hence don't pay attention to. Futhermore, there maybe a potential audience, but not conversant enough with social media to make sense of all the reporting. Or there is a group of practitioners that may be potentially interested but can't relate to the seemingly theoretical language.

I would like to share an experiment we conducted recently to link a group of practitioners to a conference through social media. We had a group of 200 people online interested in a social network on forest landscape restoration, some researchers, but many of them practitioners working in projects on the ground. We started our process by telling them about the conference and sending out a series of polls, asking them which parallel sessions they wanted to be covered by their flying reporter (see the image for an example of a poll using Vizu). Quite a number of people (between 30 and 35) responded and even provided their reasoning for choosing a certain session. The reporter then simply followed the instructions of the majority, attended the sessions and covered them on a blog (click here for an example). The link to the blogsessions was also posted back to the online social network. Vice versa, there was also a face-to-face session in the conference discussing the issues that were raised online by the members of the social network.

I think this is a nice way of ensuring a process of participation and reification that makes sense. We managed to get practitioners interested in the conference. Unfortunately I don't have feedback yet to share with you but we are going to conduct an evaluation which includes this topic. It might be that the content of the conference is still too abstract or theoretical, but it might also be a nice way of bridging the gap between closed conferences and the outside world.

Start your online community or network the Tiësto way

Thanks to a column by Dutch management writer Ben Tiggelaar I learned about the working style of DJ Tiësto. He explains: "I start the evening with some different kind of music and various styles to see what is right for the audience. The styles that get the best response, is the way I continue."

I was struck by the similarities in the practices we've developed over the years in starting learning networks, especially online. Typically I propose to start a shorter experimental cycle (maybe 4 weeks, maybe 3 months in the most recent forest landscape restoration trajectory) and at the end discuss whether and how to continue. This is much easier than asking people upfront what activities they would like, since what they state in an interview or survey may work out differently in practice.

We start with a wide range of online activities, like open questions, expert inputs, watching videos, teleconferences, virtual field visits, etc. From the interactions, you can see what kind of topics and what kind of activities are attractive for people. You can observe what triggers the most interest (though you may need statistics too). In every trajectory you see that the balance of interest towards discussing own practices or outside research/expert opinions is different. In some groups, people like to be personal and have a need to discuss their own work. In other groups, they relate more to experts bringing in new perspectives. Long stories may work in one case, but do not resonate in another.

So the key is: experiment and don't be scared to abandon a certain approach!

Online tools for internal communication

Image by Velo Steve via Flickr

Netsquared's question this month is: Tactics for using online tools for internal communication. Though the deadline has passed, I am now typing hard to make sure I can make a contribution.

My take is that there are so many tools, for lists of tools see for instance the web2.0 awards. The tools are like the hammer. It is not so hard to buy a hammer. What matters though is the way we use the hammer: to build a house or to nail a painting on the wall. Ofcourse the tool choice is important too, after all you may need a screwdriver instead of a hammer when your wall is so hard you need to drill a hole. But what is more important is the art of using the tools; the art of the carpenter. Here come's the difficulty in organisations: more and more we will work in organisations where preferences differ. There will be a huge diversity in communication habits. Some may enjoy twittering (and their pitfall may be to forget to have real face-to-face dialogues), others prefer to use the phone and may not like an email overload. Some will be perfect carpenters, while others haven't even heard about hammers and fear their impact. This makes using online tools for internal communication so complex.

How to avoid mis-communication and tools that make collaboration worse? Together with Sibrenne Wagenaar I wrote a Dutch article called "So you wanna be a virtual team?" In the article we give our tips to pay sufficient attention to the choice of tools and the effect of the tools on the communication within the team (that may be an organisation too):

• Start with an exchange of experiences with tools for collaboration; start with familiarity Every tool has a learning curve (though the curve may be lower for people who have worked with many different tools). If you start with familiar tools you can leap forward.
  

• Choose a starting toolset together with the team and discuss the particular way it is going to be used. Discuss whether the toolset is simply email, or includes a yammer group, skype, chat etc. How often are we going to mail? Discussing this allows the team to understand the preferences of its members.
  

• Stimulate an experimental culture within the team. Though it is good to start with a familiar toolset, there may be other ways to support communication. If nobody twitters, nobody may think of creating a yammer group. It therefore helps to identify the people who know quite some tools or to simply experiment.
  

• You can introduce new tools but don't overdo it. If the experimental culture is there already within a team, the pitfall may be to try and test a lot of tools or to devote a lot of attention to the tools. Be aware of this too. After all, it's the communication that matters. If a team is happy to mail to and fro, and doesn't need a discussion forum, this is fine.
  

• Monitor individual feelings of ease and unease. Various tools may put people at an advantageous or disadvantageous position. Monitor this and use it to support so that everybody contribute his/her ideas and talents to the best of the task at hand.

In the end, it is all about putting the use of online tools on the overall agenda for monitoring the team effectiveness...

7 lessons how to use social media in an event with social media beginners

Last year we've experimented with various social media to improve a sharing event for about 100 participants (for more details see my older blogpost). This is not too difficult when all your participants are social media adepts, you announce your hashtags and off they go. However, in this case the majority wasn't actively using social media. So how can you still use social media?

Our main goal of using social media was to improve networking and aim for real collaboration between participants to take off. We found out the goal was set too high. People don't start new projects after meeting each other for the first time, ideas need greenhousing. But we had some impact: 86% of the participants said they got new ideas in their session that they had used or were planning to apply. We managed to let people connect beforehand through a platform (ning) and afterwards link participants to other networks or initiatives (like the outcome mapping community). The evaluation was quite positive about the effect of using social media. People were especially happy to connect and read before the event. (the exception was the twitter wall- people not on twitter didn't really get it and I can't help sympathizing with them)

From the experience and various sources I've collected I can distill seven important lessons:

1. Use social media to find and connect your event to existing (online) communities. An one-off event is not going to create communities, but can give a space to communities to connect with new people. Through your event people may also get to know new communities that they may join. Because of social media - it is much easier to join, lurk and decide whether you want to leave or stay in communities and networks (and become active). Use tools like socialmention.com or through know spaces to search for relevant groups and communities. Or you may know offline networks working on related themes. Connect to those groups. Beginners may be familiar with forums, or may get to know online community life through your event.
   
2. Co-create your event and program with a wider group of participants Traditionally a small group of people/volunteers design the event and make decisions about the program, themes and speakers. The exciting thing about social media is makes it easy to call for wider participation in program design. You can ask participants to come up with ideas and may use tools like uservoice or crowdcampaign. See for instance how KM2010 is using social media to get proposals from potential speakers and they've asked the audience to decide on the most interesting ones. However, we experienced that participants may be quite consumptive. In our case suggestions were few (but useful!) and the organizers still had a large part in designing the program. This brings me to the next point of building new habits of co-creation.
   
3. Build new habits in using social media event after event It pays to invest in the persistent use of social media. Last year we experimented with a ning platform, a twitter account and a few videos. There were 90 people at the event, but the platform has currently 117 members, the twitter account 91 followers and the videos have been watched by 200-300 people. This year, we can start with an platform that has already assembled 117 members interested in the event. It will be easier to engage them then last year when everything was new. The first tweet to ask for input has already been sent.
4. Enhance networking between participants and the quality of connections by using social network media. The members profile feature was one of the best used features of our social network platform. Offering a space where people can view the other participants before the event and connect on themes can help to make sure the right people connect and connections are meaningful. The profile questions (or other ways to allow people to present themselves) are hence important. Personally I've experienced this by connecting with two members who working on intercultural communication. Since I'd known them online, I wanted to meet them and had nice conversations. Without the social network platform, I could have missed them. Be creative in how you do this. In ning, there is a new application which is called member-mix. It allows member to connect randomly with a buddy before an event. This can also be a great way of connecting people (though not on interests). Another possibility is to create network walls or offer LinkedIn Live corners where people can connect directly on LinkedIn (without having to exchange business card which you loose anyhow). Or use advanced search to find people with common interests. Make sure there is enough time for networking live during the event.
   
5. Connect to the participants' reality by using polls. Polls are very powerful (and popular) to tap into the ideas and reality of the audience. It's a method to get everybody's ideas and opinions out and make people think about their situation. It may be a good step up to interaction. The kind of question matter a lot. Doing a short poll at the beginning of a session or before the event can help to know what level the participants are at, or can trigger interesting discussions. Polls can be done in many different ways. I always like the line ups- or how do you call them? (people who don't use social media line up at this side of the room, people who are active users line up there, others in between). Twitterpolls are popular, but the downside may be that you exclude the people who are not on twitter. So you may use a web-based poll before the event, an SMS wall or polleverywhere which can use both. Or simply raise hands or coloured papers. That brings me to the next point
6. Make sure you are not sidelining people through your choice of social media Don't use media because they are cool to use. Last week I was part of a polling exercise which used small devices and a laser reader. Everyone had a polling device, I thought it was brilliant. Someone wondered, however, why they didn't use Twitter. I thought using twitter would have sidelined half of the audience, unfamiliar with twitter. A twitterwall is fun and looks nice, but may not add value. Hence, you may choose not to project a backchannel. Simply because the presentors are not comfortable with it or the majority of the audience may feel excluded. Making use of an existing, spontaneous backchannel by having someone scan and read it is fine ofcourse.
   
7. Make information from sessions available in attractive, short formats for people who can't make it. People may be interested in your event but can't make it on that day or have to choose between two interesting parallel session. We tried to stimulate session organisers to report and upload information to the platform. This was hard en not very energizing. On the other hand, the videos had a good number of views. This time, I think it is best to try and use short videos to gain some insight into a session and make sure the presentation are available (eg. on slideshare). Stimulate live blogging and live tweeting to get additional coverage of what's happening and attract wider attention. Last year we did not have wireless internet connections. But audiences are mixed, so this year we will have wireless and stimulate blogging and tweeting for the people who might enjoy this.

Do you fear technical things?

Image via Wikipedia

One time I got a call whether I know what to look for when you buy a laptop. Or people ask if I know how you can make Outlook address list. Or what a great mobile provider is in the Netherlands. Things I do not know but apparently I have given them the impression that I might know. People are surprised to discover that I do not know how turn up the volume of my phone too (secretly they are glad too:). Somehow my ICT knowledge is overrated because I work a lot with social media and facilitate online.

On my blog I recently wrote about various responsibilities of an online facilitator. You can organize tasks in different ways, of course, but I have used the following main categories:

* Managing / promoting social networking and connections
* Guiding the process of online learning and communication
* Technical tasks
* Monitor progress (this may sound like a logical task, but online is important because you have less visual feedback loops..).

The funny thing is that the technical tasks are hence only one aspect of online facilitation, while it receives a lot more attention. At times solutions to difficulties are sometimes sought in the technology, while the problem lies in the social process; for example when the right people are not hooked up. In our online course facilitation, we asked participants what they dread to see, and most of the responses was about failing technology! A skype connection fails, a bad sound etc.

I think this fear of technology deters some face-to-face process facilitators to move online towards 'boundaryless facilitation' as coined by Lisa Kimball. Too bad, because I think these people would be great online facilitators! Do you recognize this fear of technology? How do you deal with it?

The dynamics of managing/nurturing networks of practice

Image by D'Arcy Norman via Flickr

I received a beautiful article (thanks to Julie Ferguson!). Just got a tip through the comments that it's also online. This is the full reference to the article:

Agterberg, M., Van den Hooff, B., Huysman, M., & Soekijad, M. (2010). Keeping the Wheels Turning: The Dynamics of Managing Networks of Practice. Journal of Management Studies, 47(1), 85-108

The authors make a distinction between NoPs and CoPs; networks of practice and communities of practice. In their definition CoPs are co-located and NoPs are dispersed. I would not make that distinction, because the closeness between members does not depend on distance, people can really feel part of and identify with a community of practitioners who are based in different location all over the globe.

CoP or NoP doesn't matter, there are important insights into the management interventions to support NoPs (or CoPs I'd say...). The research question was: how can intra-organizational NoPs be managed without being 'killed'? Research has been done in a development organization founded in 1965 and headquartered in the Netherlands (Dutch people can easily guess :). Twenty-two NoPs were formalized with the goal of integrating existing, dispersed knowledge. Management created the formal position of a manager or functional line manager responsible for the NoP. This brings a central dilemma: how to balance emergent self-organization and autonomy on the one hand and some degree of formal management influence on the other hand?

I've never held the belief that communities are fully self-emergent and that you can not intervene/facilitate in communities of practice. Wenger has also written a lot about this management paradox and prefers to call it nurturing rather than managing. Managers should support and energize communities, not neglect and ignore them. (see also my previous post which includes an interview with Wenger).

What are the findings from the study of 22 NoPs in one organisation? Data reveal four sets of dynamics that influence the way NoPs function to integrate dispersed knowledge:

1. Organizational embeddedness- the extent to which the knowledge shared is relevant for the organisation. It includes institutionalization, the extent to which outcomes of the network can be applied in the formal organization as rules, routines, strategies, trainings etc and relevance for the organisation- the extent to which knowledge in the network is considered valuable for the organization.

2. Embeddedness in practice- the extent to which the knowledge being shared and created s relevant to and integrated in members local practices. It includes relevance to practice, as connection to daily local practices and common practices, extent to which the network members use the same practices.

3. Relational embeddedness- the presence of strong social ties. It includes the group feeling, trust, reciprocity as willingness to help each other and face-to-face contact.

4. Structural embeddedness- The structure of connections among people. It includes connectedness and Know who is where and knows what (and how to reach them).

Personally I feel relational and structural embeddedness are very connected to each other and both relate to the level of social capital.

But what did the study find out about management interventions in all these types of embeddedness? Management can enforce the dynamics or degrade the dynamics (which Wenger call 'energize' or 'de-energize'). A few examples of enforcing/energizing interventions:

• Translating experiences into formal publications and training
• Informing members about relevant developments in the domain
• Kick off meetings (to support relational embeddedness)
• Formalizing networks
• Providing tools like the E-group (online tool) and travel money to meet face-to-face
  

A few example of degrading interventions (de-energizing):

• Asking the networks fo formulate strategies (lowers embeddedness in practice)
• Setting the agenda (topics introduced by management were not the topics advisors perceived as relevant)
  
• Requiring specific outputs from the network (lowers embeddedness in practice)
• Making top-down decisions which counter the principles of commitment and organisational learning (lowers trust)
• Giving assignments without focusing on social issues
• Instruct people to attend a network meeting without the interest of advisors to be connected
• Install a network without encouraging advisors to participate
  

In the end, management interventions can have both a reinforcing and degrading effect and it sometimes depends on the context what the effect is. A strong focus on organizational embeddedness denies the practice based and socially embedded nature of learning and turns NoPs into teams.

Another conclusion is that managers "who play the role of primus inter pares seem better able to intervene successfully, but it is no easy task to identify such people." This relates directly to CoP literature indicating that the role of coordinator should be taken up by a practitioner in order to be effective. CoP literature makes a better distinction between the role of the practitioner- coordinator as member of the CoP versus management who are outsiders/sponsors. Nevertheless, I find the list of management interventions very useful, concrete (and even recognisable from experience!).

What does a facilitator of an online learning trajectory do?

I'm helping different people to facilitate online trajectories. It's always funny to see that people who are experienced facilitators face-to-face are so scared for an online process. And then suddenly they see they can use the same basic facilitation skills online. In the beginning, most are disappointed by the number of responses to messages. Somehow online, participation seems lower because the people who are reading with attention are not visible. Face-to-face facilitators are used to read the attention on the faces of participants, but online readership is invisible (though you can use statistics ofcourse, but that's more indirect).


I've prepared a handout for an online facilitator in Rwanda and thought I could share part of it in a blogpost. I did Nancy White's course a few year's ago, and have developed my own style since. First two definitions:

Facilitation – “Group facilitation is a process in which a person who is acceptable to all members of the group intervenes to help a group in the way it communicates, identifies and solves problems and makes decisions, in order to increase the groups effectiveness”- adapted from Schwarz

Online Facilitator - “Online Facilitation is the set of activities used to assist a group in achieving its desired activities together. This may be done by an individual or it may be the collective practices of a group to facilitate itself. The practice emerges from the classic skills of offline facilitation, but adds the elements of the technical practices using online interaction software, along with the complicating factors of distributed interaction where we cannot rely on accustomed offline communication elements of body language, tone and the affects of being in the same space at the same time.” Source: http://www.fullcirc.com/community/communityfacilitation.htm.

Then I'd like to share the table of tasks of the online facilitator in four categories; technical tasks, social networking and relationships management, support online learning and communication and monitor progress. I've used the definition of facilitator skills from the Facilitating Online Course Leader's guide and blended it with my own experiences. Somehow something seems to be missing... the list still makes it seem so easy. So any ideas are welcome!

The online facilitator has various tasks, ranging from technical to social. The tasks can be grouped as follows:

Technical tasks	Take care of online environments, organizing online spaces and update information, check links and make it attractive and easy to use. Solve technical problems or forward them, answer technical questions or make sure they get answered. Help people find ways to use or navigate the online tools that work for them. Initiate improvements.
Social networking and relations management	Give people a tip if something is posted that may be of interest to them or to which they may want to respond. Stimulate people to contact each other directly by mail, phone or face-to-face. Find out who are not participating/engaged and why.
Support online learning and communication	Initiate discussion topics. Monitor communication and communication patterns. Summarize and send updates. Upload documents and make sure they are accessible. Make short interviews and share them if relevant. Create a social and welcoming environment by modelling constructive communication. Talk to participants to find people who have something interesting to share and stimulate them to do so. Participate in discussions from your own perspective and knowledge base. Find people with different perspectives to contribute to conversations. Resolve conflicts. Facilitate or chair teleconferences or webinars if relevant.
Monitor progress	Monitor progress by logging in frequently and reading or scanning most (all, depending on the pace) messages. Use statistics. Organise feedback from members and improve the online interaction on the basis of their suggestions.

What motivates knowledge workers?

I just listened to a teleconference where the presentor has an accent and it was tough to listen. In those situations using visuals like a presentation or typing on an etherpad page or whiteboard can help too. Then I found this wonderful video here ... a cartoonist draws the story while it is told. A beautiful form!

But the content is equally appealing to me. Daniel Pink (I liked his book A whole new mind) explains how motivation of knowledge workers works. When paid more, they perform less. It does work to motivate people with payment when the tasks are mechanical. For knowledge workers, it doesn't work. What they are really looking for is self-direction and autonomy, mastery and making a contribution. That's what drives them. An example is giving of a firm where employees were allowed 100% self-direction for 24 hours. And then asked to share, which yielded nice work.

I recognize this from my own experiences working in organizations. I'm much happier working on my own, enjoying my autonomy. I think it is hard for organizations to offer that space. One thing I'm missing is that knowledge workers in organisations also need recognition. I had a hard time because I was always searching for recognition of my work, whereas managers were hardly interesting in what I was really doing. I hear this too in the experiences of friends who work in organizations. Managers tend to want to take the credit, which bereaves workers of the needed recognition for their contributions.

Well, if you have 10 minutes and are interested, watch it..

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• Book 60: A Whole New Mind (mootbox.com)

The dark side of online interaction

Articles about social media often emphasize the benefits: we can now start our own movement around something that concerns us (in seven easy steps!), without costs talking with people all over the world (via skype), or become famous via youtube (like Esmee Denters). I am excited about the new possibilities too and would not like to return to the days before social media.

However, you must not be blind to the drawbacks and the dark side of social media. Think of cyberbullying, and hate groups. Or privacy issues. Burglars read along on twitter if you're on vacation. The speed with which information is circulated on the Internet through blogs and twitter leads to hyping and creates room for manipulation. Journalist Nicole Carlier described in the dutch article "Knetter van twitter" how hard it can be to come loose from a relationship when you meet your ex constantly online.

When we talk about online facilitation of collaborative processes and online sharing of experiences, there are definitely dark sides. Here are some of the dark side that I have observed in online programs:

* Technology stress. Youth (the netgeneration) are generally quick and find it easy to pick up how to work with new online tools. For others, this can still pose a considerable stress and make them feel uncertain. You know how you come across in meetings and how to lead a meeting, then a part of the exchange is done online and you're the person who does not know how to do this ...
* Chaos and lack of overview. Online communication has been compared by a colleague with a "cauliflower". Face-to-face communication can be chaotic too but communication is time-bound and often lead by a chairman or facilitator who summarizes and guides the flow. Online; space is unlimited and discussions can go in any possible way. For people who like to have structure this must surely be a crime ... This is obviously even worse when several online tools are used. Decision-making and divergence is therefore often difficult.
* Continuous flow of information leading to the it-never-ends feeling. Book a meeting in your calendar and it is clear and time-limited. Online exchange goes on continually, and with a great intensity. It does not stop while you do want to know everything going on .. This can be a very unsatisfactory feeling. Have you read it all? Shouldn't you read more blogs as others do? This ofcourse leads to stress. The boundaries between private and work time are blurring (which is an advantage to me personally but is not universally perceived as an advantage...).

Occasionally you might also just choose not to encourage online interaction ... when to avoid online interaction? when to embrace?

(Photo by http://youngmarketing.web-log.nl/youngmarketing/2010/04/het-internet-he.html)

Do collective lessons learned exist?

I'm currently working in a team where we consult eachother and divide work. The team works quite well in my opinion. What we don't do is make short minutes or action notes and so it happens that we rediscuss what was already decided earlier on (everyone forgot). Or someone doesn't do what was agreed (forgot). It's interesting: isn't ending a meeting with action points and write them down and follow them up a lesson we all know? So why don't we do it in this case?

I've also worked in Kenya together with CARE-International on a credit program for female enterpreneurs in a rice area. This was in 1989 or 1990, south of Kisumu. An important principle was that NGOs (non-governmental organisations) are not good in managing credit programs because not thinking in business models and NGO workers are seen by farmers as 'friends' and 'supporters'. A different role than credit officer. So the program was sub-contracted to a credit institute. In 2007 (17 years later!) I visited an NGO in Ghana. They had learnt a lesson from their credit program: that they are not good in recollecting the loans because they are seen by the farmers as an NGO. So they thought of sub-contracting to a credit institute. But the damage was already done.

These kind of observations (I could make a much longer list!) get me thinking about collective learning processes and how difficult they are. The first example shows that there is more to the practice of working together than 'knowing' how it should be done. Probably the group is forming and trying to find a way of working together effectively with as little energy input as necessary?

The second example I think shows how difficult it is to learn collectively within a sector. And maybe that reading about something is not enough- you have to make your own mistakes first. It's like everybody is entitled to his/her own learning process. And if you've read this blog for longer you know I believe in the power of communities and networks to support collective learning. But what is then a collective lesson learned?

I really like the work of Nancy Dixon around these issues. She wrote a blogpost about the value of lessons learned not too long ago. She defines lessons learned at the individual level: "something I learned through an experience I’ve had that will cause me to act differently in the future" She explains the power of reflection in, for instance, after action review processes to stimulate learning and ends with the phrase: "The greatest value of lessons learned is for those who took the action". So should we simply lower our ambitions and talk about collective lessons learned? How easily we say, let's collect the lessons learned with the idea that it will contribute to collective learning. But for a collective learning process much more may be needed like sustained exchange of practices over a longer period of time.

The hardest phase: the coalescing phase in communities

Image via Wikipedia

In a lot of my consultancy work I use a social learning theory- about the functioning and growth of communities of practice. Even when people don't use the term community, but online network, platform, alliance, whatever. As long as learning is one of the goals. Every consultancy is different though- I find it hard to work with blue print materials because every situation is so distinct.

I can discern a red line in my work nevertheless. It is that people tend to underestimate the social capital side of online communities or online platforms. When you look at vibrant online exchanges, it may look as simple as inviting a lot of people by email to sign up, or announcing a new initiative in other online spaces. But this frequently leads to disappointments and leaves people wondering why it works for other online communities but not for their network.

So what are the challenges in the coalescing phase (the phase which follows the first phase when initiators have come together, defined the purpose, a platform has been built and sometimes an official launch has been organised)? I like the chapter in the book Cultivating communities of practice which outlines the following challenges:

• To balance the need to develop relationships between members and trust against the need to demonstrate (practical) value
• To keep the energy level up after a big launch event when everyone goes back to 'normal business'
• To get members to share 'thorny' issues when there is not yet a high level of trust..
• To stimulate private conversations (nothing wrong with those!) yet at the same time bringing private topics into the public community space

It is not an easy phase for coordinators /facilitators but it may help if they are aware of these issues and do not underestimate the art that goes into stewarding connections and knowledge in this phase (where they may feel not enough is happening).... And if the basics are not right- you might be working against the tide.