Tag Archives for culture

Navigating Context: Why Focus is critical for solving 21st-century problems

soulofmedium-1

“Where does a system start and end?” asked the bird outside the cage.

CHARLOTTE, NC – May 2020.  With the global spread of COVID, I’ve been thinking about the many factors that influence social ecosystems large and small, and our (in)ability to affect outcomes, at least to the degree we’d prefer. We just want it to stop. But it’s not that simple.

There are some important stories to unpack.

Unlike the structured, linear, mechanized world that we’ve spent a century learning to control, we’re now realizing that the vast majority of the world’s social ecosystems, and all of it’s natural ones – including humans, and unfortunately, viruses – are guided by unstructured, dynamic modes of interaction. It’s the organic, adaptive approach of complex systems.  It’s a place of uncertain outcomes, but significant implications.  It’s how plants and animals – and pandemics – evolve according to diverse environmental factors.

We can’t know with certainty how these systems will evolve. There are simply too many variables.

We can, however, learn to better anticipate trends and patterns, and perhaps even have some influence on things. Economists and meteorologists – good working examples of what I call “mainstream complexity” – can report some forecasting improvements over the last few decades, fueled by data, tools and experience. We still can’t stop tornados and hurricanes, but we better understand them. And now, living a global pandemic, we’re consumed in learning how to “flatten the curve” via social distancing, which is proving a critical (but still evolving) mission.

Getting our heads around complex systems is not easy, especially in social spaces like teams, where work needs to get done.

This is where context enters the narrative.

A DIALOG ON ADAPTIVE SYSTEMS

I was part of a fascinating conversation in July 2018 among several thinkers in the compexity space, related to systems thinking.  The pop-up discussion was on the challange of multiple system layers, as they interact in shifting contexts. To paraphrase the thread, it’s very hard to visualize all the layers of a complex system interacting with all the external variables, in one coherent view.

Our sense-making abilities and mental models, while powerful, have practical limits.

I’ve always loved Twitter because insightful conversations can “pop-up” around useful hashtags. Here’s one on the topic of systems:

Jan Höglund – @janhoglund – 3:40 AM – Jul 11, 2018 – “Not only is everything radically connected, but it is all moving, and with every move the nature and impact of the interrelationships can change. Worse yet, the rate of movement is random and differential.”  ~Harrison Owen, Wave Rider, p.49 #quote #systemsthinking
Maz Iqbal – @maz_iqbal – 3:52 AM – Jul 11, 2018 – Deep assumption that is worth challenging: that there is the context, and there is the system, and the two are distinct or can be treated as distinct. @NoraBateson what do you say?
Nora Bateson – @NoraBateson – 4:34 AM – Jul 11, 2018 – It depends on where you draw the edges of the context or system. There are contexts within contexts & systems within systems. And—For many the notion of context is another word for system. Interestingly people are more inclined to think about system change than context change.

 

My takeaway on this?  When thinking about complexity in layers of systems, its easy to “max out” due to the number of variables and interactions. Our mental models of the moment essentially crash. We need a way to manage this.

When we’re sense-making, we need simplifying assumptions.  Our mental models can help us. All models seek to approximate what’s really happening in front of us, and a useful model needs to allow enough clarity to make sense of what’s going on, at a level that makes sense for the problem at hand. We can’t “let all the complexity in” at once, or we drown in information. So in the above example, we must simplify things, by saying to ourselves, usually subconsciously “I’m in a reasonably trusting group that needs my input; let me focus on the question.”  Anything short of that personal investment finds us in another useless meeting, with limited value and virtually no collaboration.

Holding context – think of it as focus – is especially important for complex adaptive systems, that learn – like humans – where it is essential to hold most variable and external factors constant, so that mental faculties can stay focused on a specific problem, in a specific context. Both individuals and groups can do this for short periods. Some individuals and most larger groups will struggle. And I’ve found the duration for holding context, for true focus, must be limited, working inside the classic psycho-physiological ‘time box’ – no more than 60 to 90 minutes.

Ultimately, this is how we achieve results in a team setting, moving beyond idle thoughts to useful actions and purposeful work. We try to focus our energies like this every day.

Often, we struggle.

It is the process of complex adaptive (human) systems functioning in the world, not only surviving, but learning and creating, which means navigating context is a core (if not subconscious) element of our creative process. And all of it, ultimately, is fueled and driven by our individual and collective ability to make sense of what matters in the moment.

The key is setting and holding context while we make sense of what’s happening. When we have an idea, a few theories, something to work from, only then we can shift that context, and let in more or less data, to further refine our thinking. The lens can zoom in, or back out. It can expose more details of a system, and it’s subsystems, or less. Neither are right or wrong to the sense-maker – only more or less useful, in the moment.

And (this is also key) we must capture takeaways. We need contextual stakes in the ground, to inform and spark follow-up, the critical, final learning step that most philosophers called “synthesis” – but that’s another thread.

Much to process. But more and more, I see it like this:

Navigating context is our principal tool for understanding complexity. To the deep thinker, it takes a flexible process and some mental gymnastics to learn how to hold and ultimately shift context on demand.

Doing it a group is harder still. Harder. But not impossible.

I’ve laid out some of these core, interdependent dynamics in my book on collaboration.  As we speak, I’m mulling ideas for two additional books, and a 2nd edition of the first.  The journey of deeper learning starts with looking around, and asking better questions.

Join me for conversation here, on Medium, Linked-in and/or on Twitter

We have much to discuss.

Chris Jones | Charlotte

Building Social Capital (the series): Taking on Community Engagement

Are u building Social Capital? (c) 2013 Amberwood Media Group

CHARLOTTE, NC. June 2013, by

As builders start building again and we resume the race to keep up with the 21st century, I’m compelled to ask:  how long has it been since we’ve felt truly connected with our communities?  Many I know are reporting gaps .. whether it be with their church, gym, PTA, or even the local neighborhood association.  Oh sure, we may still be there physically.  But ..

To what extent are we participating?  How many of the people around us do we actually know?  Are we in the crowd going through the motions, obsessively checking our smart phones, but not engaged?

Chances are we know the answer to that one.  Here’s another key question:

If and when we DO engage in our communities, what are our motivations?

If we answered the second question:  to “survive”,  “fit in” or “claim our rightful share” I’d argue that we’ve lost touch with what’s important.  Where once we knew our neighbors well and we knew what we stood for .. ok, I may be going back a few decades .. now it seems we find ourselves more and more isolated, cut off from the deep and nurturing social connections that humans thrive on.  Our consumer and work-saturated culture seems to have trumped our core values, and the path to a better place is less than clear.  We’re in a bit of a pickle.

A Clarion Call for Leadership.  We need a new vision, to me that’s clear.  But leadership in the societal (not using “social” here on purpose) space is tricky.  For community leadership to work, the energy must come from the rank and file .. from the inside out and the bottom up.  Seth Godin in “Tribes” builds strong arguments around the need for leadership from the inside .. getting people who are used to not leading to start leading .. sometimes, by creating spaces and situations and cultures that empower.

No small task, that.  But one that holds significant possibilities.

Why?  Because it’s an approach that can scale.

But that means some of the leaders, if not the vast majority, will be folks like you and me.  Working types.  And for many of us, leadership is not something we’re  used to.  Can we play?  I say yes.

Social Possibilities.  Communities offer a broad landscape of opportunity, really.  I’d argue that we need to invest our time and energy before we find our social systems past a point of no return.  Cynics have declared that we’re too late.  But ..

I believe we are just now starting to mobilize our thinking. We’re learning to focus our energies, and .. this is important ..  connecting people in ways that literally unlock their creative potential.

It’s time for us to stop being alone with our televisions  and to start engaging in our communities again.  The applies both offline (in real life) and online (virtual).  It’s not so hard.  We learned how to do it on the playground.  If our kids are out their having fun, taking chances, building sand castles, and making new friends, why can’t we?

When we engage in a real way, we’re building social capital .. putting together the skills, resources and networks that can help us learn, in turn helping us to help others.

As that happens, we start raising the water level of what’s possible.

Ultimately, we can change the game.

Get Started Getting Social.  This post starts a new blog series on social capital.  In coming posts we’ll take the notions apart so we can rebuild them into something that we’ll find practical and useful.  And we’ll tap some of the approaches in my book, helping us to take inventory of the barriers and enablers we’ll need to master along the way ..

I’ll post links to subsequent posts here, as well as in the sidebar Editorial Calendar.

In the meantime?  No waiting around.  Connect.  Engage.  Get social. We’ve lost ground, and some precious time.  If you have to, ask your kids how they do it !!  [ .. on that note? .. cue Angela Maiers and her Sandbox Manifesto .. ]

I hope you’ll stop back in.  We’ve got work to do.

Collaborative Learning 2013: In Search of Common Ground

In my last post on Collaborative Learning, I pondered synergies among practice areas that had traditionally been hallmarks for how we learn. Public Education quickly came to mind.  So did Higher Learning. But what about the commercial space?  Organizational Development (OD) and Knowledge Management (KM) have staked claims to learning too.  And don’t all entrepreneurs, especially in social change spaces, seek to discover ‘what is possible’?

I’ve been in at least 4 Twitter chats on this topic since that original post in December, and had a highly energized conversation every time. We’ve answered the question at a high-level:  YES, there should be synergies across practices.  The many comments on the previous post supported this, and provided numerous sources and examples from personal experience. Thank you Blake Melnick, Jon Husband, Bas Reus and Kira Campo for those contributions.

There’s something to be said about how we, as learners, can learn differently (and perhaps better) in groups with other people, as opposed to learning alone.  A solo effort might involve a book, a teacher, or a computer screen, but in all cases, the learner is generally on their own to discern the material, with only an instructor and visual content (words, pictures) to guide their learning.

Collaborative learning means learning in groups or teams, deriving deeper insights from discussion, alternative perspectives, and open dialog.

Call it social learning if you like.  That’s an interesting frame all it’s own, with important implications for social media, many of them covered in an excellent book, The New Social Learning by Tony Bingham and Marcia Conner.  In fact, by reading this blog post, you and I are using social media to connect the dots on this thinking, with the potential of further engaging in collaborative research ..

But as you will see in our framework, many more factors will influence our success, extending beyond social technology.  Areas like intention, culture, and our ability to think deeply in a variety of modes come into view.  We’re not just talking left-brain vs. right-brain here (though that enters in .. see Iain McGilchrist on RSA for a fascinating update).  We’re talking about critical thinking, empirical thinking, and design thinking, 21st Century frames from the 3 high-order Learning Dimensions in Bloom/Anderson.

From ECODNA 2009 - a discovery thread (detail)

From ECODNA 2009 – a discovery thread (detail)

In our 2/18 #CDNA chat, the group weighed-in in favor of a “spiral” path, not following rows or columns.  Is this possible?  How would be able to keep our bearings?  We’ll be discussing it at hashtag #CDNA on 2/25 at 8pET.  Watch for the transcript.

To get you thinking, the image at left is an excerpt from ECODNA, a reference framework which evolved via Twitter chat in October 2009, part of the genesis of #ECOSYS.

I hope and believe we can bring new energy on “learning to learn” in every direction possible .. the workplace, the classroom, and our daily lives.  We solve problems every day. That means we tap our ability to summon the right solution, or to call up the right set of factors to determine a new solution.  Are we successful?  Sometimes.  But I contend our ability to make sense of the 21st Century is going to be ever more difficult.  The problems are more complex and intertwined.  We will need both the rigor and depth that comes with “learning to learn” at a new level.

The commercial and education implications are significant.

In 2013 at hashtag #cdna we’re going to fill in the blanks on this framework.  At hashtag #ecosys (explained in the ECOSYS blog) we’re exploring Learning Models.

No high stakes testing or forced curricula in sight, folks.  We’re using collaboration to get to the next level of results.  Would love your thoughts as comments here or online using Twitter.  For a deeper dialog, stop by our new Collaborative Learning community at G+.

Don’t look now.  We’re learning to learn as we speak.

Learning to Learn: Can KM, OD and Education Find Synergies that Change What is Possible?

These days, the ability to achieve deep, meaningful learning seems more and more of a challenge.  Hamstrung as we are by an ever growing mountain of content, dwindling attention spans, fewer available hours of focused energy, and pressure to prove results, it’s a wonder anyone can truly learn anything anymore.

Some say we can’t, and that increasingly .. we aren’t.

Rather than piling more fuel on the pyre of discontent, I’ve begun to focus my energy on new ideas in the learning space.  For most of the last 4 years I have been reading, researching, and discussing the challenges.  Much of that has happened over at the #k12 #ecosys, where deep & insightful discussions continue.

The result?  It certainly remains a work in progress.  But I’ve begun to put increasing stock on how to drive a synthesis across professional practices that claim much of the high ground on what it means to learn:  KM, OD and Education in particular.  Here’s a discussion framework that has emerged out of these conversations.

What do I mean by these?  I’ll offer a working definition of each, in the context of “learning how to learn”:

  • KM – Knowledge management, a business practice from the 90’s that seeks to  define, capture, and reuse knowledge across an organization, helping its members to share and ultimately learn from past achievements
  • OD – Organizational development, a business discipline most commonly in HR (human resources) that seeks to increase the productive capacity of the people and teams within the organizations walls
  • Education – the immensely broad ecosystem of teaching professionals across K12, colleges and universities, deeply immersed in the art and science (mostly science) of helping our young people learn

Challenge me here. Is this a good foundation?

Assuming so, would cross-pollination of experts like this be unthinkable?  It seems daunting on the surface.  Getting experts working together is hard work, as I’ve explored throughout The DNA of Collaboration.  But to me, crossing these boundaries is precisely the challenge.  We must work together to redefine the problems in solvable ways.  It means changing the stakes so that all the generations around us .. Boomers,  X, Y, Z and beyond .. can embrace new ways to learn how to learn.

In the face of increasing pressures for results, seemingly ‘soft’ initiatives like these are often scaled back, reducing our capacity to learn and to innovate at precisely the wrong moment.

What are some of the requirements in gaining cross-disciplinary cooperation and teamwork?

  • Intention and focus – to define what it means to learn deeply, and to establish new benchmarks for what is possible and achievable
  • Cultures that evolve – fostering new levels of trust, risk-taking and collaboration, so they might earn a more venerable status: ‘cultures of learning’
  • Solution language – that help insights and ideas emerge and converge into fundamentally new possibilities
  • Releasing the flow of insight – surrendering structure to more organic and adaptive methods of exchange

Working across professional disciplines exposes visible fault lines.  Many are deeply entrenched in decades of research and practice, convinced that the only path to success is the one they learned in grad school.  For some, their deeply held convictions will need to be left by the door.

In terms of some key ideas, what might we be talking about?  Here’s just a starter list of topics, to spark the synapses ..

  • Social Capital – building skills, networks and resources to help ourselves to help others
  • Evolution of Teacher/Learner – teachers that learn; learners that teach
  • Learning Cultures – how do we foster them?
  • Weaving a Collaborative Learning Fabric – discussing 1Q13 at CDNA G+ Community
  • Self-Selection and Ownership – customization of the learning agenda
  • Motivation and Growth Mindset – removing fear of not-knowing
  • White space – exploring and exposing the creative urge
  • Social, Team & Project-based Learning – is all learning truly social?
  • Key Stakeholder Roles – including Community involvement, and the notion of Resilience
  • Open Knowledge Frameworks – via a 21st century read of Kant
  • Virtual Environments – the purposeful evolution of distance learning and e-Learning

Under the hashtag #cdna (for “collaboration DNA”) we have begun to explore what it means to learn deeply and learn together, across all the contexts described here.  To get at the issues more directly, we will use this space, related posts on the book site, and other spaces (join our CDNA G+ Community) to expand on what we mean by the practice of KM, OD and Education in the context of learning.

Change demands new thinking.  And as you likely know by now, that is the sort of discussion that  keeps me up at night.  I would love your input and ideas.

My fear is that increasing numbers will someday fail to learn how to learn.  It’s a slippery slope with serious implications.

We’ve got work to do.

Critical Thinking, the Series: Learning to ask “Why?” again

If intentional collaboration is the productive exchange of big ideas, then philosophy is an important foundation. From Socrates to Aristotle to Kant to Kuhn to Senge (and a host of others in between) there is a rich heritage of thought on the pursuit of understanding, with a host of cognitive models to help us work on the hardest problems.

For those willing to do the work – and it truly is work, no silver bullets to be found here – improving how we search for knowledge is central to all manners of collaborative solutions, framed alternatively as innovation (in the commercial context), or emergent outcomes (in the context of complexity). That puts intentional collaboration on the critical path to solving virtually all critical social, commercial and public sector issues.

The stakes are high.

Ultimately it comes down to a decision: are we willing to embrace and foster the hard work of critical thinking?

I’m neither philosopher, nor academic. But if Socrates, arguably the father of critical thought, were to give a guest lecture at a local college, I’d be on the front row with my laptop, taking notes.

At some level, I think I’ve always had a hunger to understand.

But even with a healthy bias for learning, it’s easy to lapse into a mode of passive acceptance. We’re deluged with so much information, it seems increasingly natural to tune much of it out. But where do we draw the line? Are we losing our intellectual edge? What legacy are we leaving for future generations?

Critical thinking may be our last line of defense. We need to unpack it and understand it, and frankly, we need to get better at it.

Let me offer a working definition:

“Critical thinking is the skill set we use to challenge our initial, surface observations of a topic or insight, enabling a rigorous understanding of root causes, relationships and meaning.”

The rigor that goes into critical thinking is among the main reasons we struggle with it so. It’s hard work. And it takes more time. Deep learning requires more than just surface observation or memorization of fact, which has implications in many important areas, ranging from business to education.

Let’s recap some subject domains – past and present – where critical thinking plays a key role. This list will serve as a guide for subsequent posts, as I did in my 2010 culture series. I’ll update this outline and add links as we go in the months ahead.

  1. Philosophy (posted 5/21). How we think. Our rational minds use principals of logic every day to solve problems, but we pay little heed to the dynamics of reason, and the role our mental filters play. Tracing the heritage through Socrates, Aristotle, .. (ok, it’s a long list).
  2. Language (posted 8/16). How we communicate. Language is the essential foundation for framing our inquiries and our proposed solutions. Our words matter greatly, but we give them so little thought. Foundations in Wittgenstein.
  3. Metaphor (posted 8/31). How we find common ground. The power of metaphor in story and discourse has been central to our social learning process since we began to converse with our parents. Are we trained in the art of story telling? Is the intentional use of metaphor a lost art? A look at Lakoff on an important topic.
  4. Knowledge Frameworks (10/31). How we attack ‘the problem of knowledge’. This post will trace two evolutionary threads over the last 2500 years. Both are rooted in antiquity, but their most recognizable branches are empirical science and rationalist philosophy. The two roads diverged some time ago. Can we contemplate the paths coming back together?
  5. 21st Century Kant: Complexity (1/22). How we adapt. We’ve learned some behaviors of complex systems, but how can critical thinkers make sense of what seem to be increasingly unsolvable problems?  Can a new semantic analysis of Kan’t Categorical Framework provide any insight?
  6. Public Education. How we learn. This is doubtless the most fertile ground for this discussion in the modern day. Few argue the importance of teaching critical thinking, but to what degree are teachers able to foster it? What level of command should high school graduates possess?
  7. Business. How we innovate. There’s a raft of challenges in the commercial space, where inertia from our past successes has led to an endemic lack of critical thinking. What skills must executives employ to get ahead of the curve? (I’ve expanded on approaches for workplace at Talent Culture, and found a useful innovation frame started by Pat Lefler at Blogging Innovation).
  8. Thought Leadership. How we inspire. From academia to corporate enterprise to the political realm, our leaders want us to follow them. But do their messages makes sense to us at a cognitive level, or are we simply responding to emotional appeals?
  9. Collaboration. How we engage. We need to unlock new ways to interact in teams, bringing the potential of networked critical thinkers to bear on difficult problems. How do we get there? (see also Design Thinking)

No wonder there’s energy on critical thinking from all sides. There’s enough research in this framing for the balance of 2011. At this point, we will definitely spill over into 2012.

As we explore the depths and the many dimensions of this topic, we’ll need care to navigate the chasm between keeping it simple (aka accessible) versus the demands of academic rigor. Both are important.

Challenge me to strike the right balance.

As always, your comments and tweets will help expand and enrich the conversation. I look forward to them.

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Collaborative Culture: Peter Senge on the Foundations of Organizational Learning

CHARLOTTE, NC. January 2011, by

On the road to unlocking collaboration, our culture series has taken us through a review of Schein’s many layers, Handy’s four structural models, and Kotter’s eight steps for change – lots of ways to slice and dice the cultural barriers.

To me, it was important progress and worth the deep dive, tapping dozens upon dozens of insightful comments, for which I remain grateful.

Looking back, I’m increasingly convinced:

Cultures can, over time, be intentionally shaped and directed by visionary and resilient leaders. But the complexity of organizations, markets and other social ecosystems invariably worsens with scale, raising the bar for mitigation ever higher.

We need some breakthrough thinking. How can we foster collaboration and cultures that encourage it?

Where do we turn now?

Peter Senge, in his 1990 watershed work The Fifth Discipline (latest ed. 2006), laid an important foundation for Learning Organizations that still resonates today. As we look to frame the core dynamics of effective collaboration and the many challenges of the necessary culture change, I think we need to go back to the source.

While Senge advocated 5 critical disciplines for the modern organization, I struck gold on several foundational takeaways, each resonating with my views on collaborative innovation. Not all of them qualify as ‘disciplines’ as he defined them, but they all seem to have strong relevance to the challenges at hand.

Let’s look at them:

  1. the power of dialog to weave new insights on broader, divergent ways, in his words “open to the flow of a larger intelligence” and “taking us in directions we could never have imagined.” (is it just me, or does that sound a lot like Twitter?)
  2. exposing the vital role of context as the critical lens through which our ideas relate to the world, to each other, and to potential innovations
  3. understanding our social ecosystems, with a nod to “systems thinking”, exposing relationships across parts of the whole; this was an important stake in the ground for interdisciplinary thinking, concepts at the core of the collaborative model and Senge’s view of organizational learning
  4. recognizing that cultures can and must promote learning through deeper inquiry, encouraging us to challenge the rigor of our thinking; ‘critical thinking’ has lost focus in the commercial space and across western society, creating a fundamental problem in education priorities (but that’s another stream!).
  5. harnessing heuristics and paradigms to capture the mental power of abstraction, which he called “mental models;” these help us frame ideas, solutions, and (eco)system relationships in visual, more intuitive terms
  6. importance of the study of nature’s patterns, many holding secrets to how our world and our problems relate, with key messages for ecosystem sustainability and a means to understand complexity around us.

Senge looked to future organizations to master these challenges, becoming increasingly skilled at complex problem solving, and increasingly motivated to take on harder problems, adapting to handle more complex environments and challenges. Successful organizations, he hoped, would demonstrate resilience, and an expanding, repeatable capacity for learning.

Like many visionaries, Senge challenged future leaders to pick up the cause and drive these conceptual ideas into practice. Where are those leaders when we need them?

Some of them may be staring back at us in the mirror.

As we depart from Senge (with much to mull over!) let me direct your attention to the work of Marcia Conner, who has produced a series of books that lay out much of the work ahead in crafting a viable, sustainable learning organization.

Perhaps you’ve connected with her at #lrnchat, on Twitter?

Read up, and listen in.

Ultimately, we must promote cultures that value both learning and collaboration. That’s where innovation and great ideas come from.

We’re at a crossroads, of sorts, and here’s why:

Talking around notions of collaborative cultures is easy, in the same way people banter about collaborative innovation. Small wonder there’s such a buzz about it. But fostering cultures that spawn collaborative behaviors is hard work. I wonder: do we have the resolve to take it on?

Ahead: I’ll provide more specifics on the mechanics of effective collaboration. The journey continues, and we’re picking up the pace.

Here’s some additional dialog just posted on Quora, based on this thread.

As always, I’d love to know your thoughts.

Parent Engagement: Exploring Key Roles in the K12 Ecosystem

From my experience, parents want their kids to have a great education, and most are willing to pitch in.

On a good day, it might mean helping them study for a killer algebra test. On a bad day, it’s a more thankless task: helping them reevaluate priorities, prying fingers from the high tech keypads, smartphones and controllers stashed under every pillow.

Education is a complex topic, which deserves and is getting much discussion. But as a parent, I think understanding our stake in the process is an increasingly critical conversation, one that doesn’t always get air time.

I’d like to frame the question like this:

With school districts grappling with troublesome finances and even more troublesome test scores, what roles can and should parents play in the education process?

K12 Education today functions like an ‘ecosystem’. Most of the many interdependent stakeholders (teachers, students, parents, administrators, legislators, policy makers, text book companies) work diligently, but not always in tandem. No one entity has full control of the process. Across the diverse stakeholder groups are multiple, often conflicting objectives. Each depends on the others in the food chain for the system to function, but there is little optimization taking place.

Across the education ecosystem, too often it’s become a challenge of survival.

You may have seen “Waiting for Superman” and learned that across the nation, drop out rates are accelerating. Or maybe you saw “Race to Nowhere” about the pressure schools and parents are together putting on children, and how we must reevaluate how to define success. A more extreme example is the “Parent Trigger” where states allow parent-led coalitions to takeover problem schools.

While education leaders have much to do in sorting this out, parents have an important voice. We often forget that kids acquire language, behavior, and foundational learning skills before they set foot in a public school. Approaches will vary, but parents have the first crack at making learning a priority, and must work ever harder to sustain that. Schools, in turn, must understand what the family is experiencing, to effectively participate in an open collaboration.

Let’s tee up a few discussion topics to help us get at the core challenges of Parent Engagement.

Q1. What is the ideal role of parents in the education process?

Q2. How could we, as parents, help in a meaningful way? Here are some starter ideas, to get you thinking (do these resonate?)

  1. quality time on foundational skills (especially pre-K)
  2. finding creative ways and times to teach (story, play)
  3. fostering respect for knowledge and learning
  4. focus on resilience
  5. focus on mastery (deep learning) over performance (test scores)
  6. focus on critical thinking
  7. making innovation in education a priority

Q3. Who helps parents navigate these challenges, and should schools play a role in supporting them?

Q4. Can parents and teachers find the quality time required?

Education is undergoing some much needed transformation. From multiple sources, we can see innovative schools working diligently on new approaches. But time is short. And that’s an issue on many levels.

I sense that kids today start kindergarten well behind the power curve, leaving parents with few choices and many frustrations, and often no sense of what they could be doing to help.

No silver bullets here. But that’s all the more reason for the conversation.

We’ll tee this up at our weekly #ECOSYS chat on WEDS 1/5 at 9pET. This opens our 2011 Education Topic Agenda, on our wiki, under “T1 Parent Engagement”.

As always, please share your thoughts as comments, I’d love to discuss your perspective.

Barriers to Twitter Adoption: Unlocking a new Communication Paradigm

Some people believe, as I do, that Twitter has the power to fundamentally enhance our ability to communicate, accelerating access to both people and information. By most definitions that would make it a paradigm shift. Others, perhaps the majority, remain skeptical.

Let’s dive a bit deeper, to see what we might learn.

Twitter simplifies communication, removing barriers of time and place. Without the overhead of email, conversations can spark around the globe. Every contact can be a source of inspiration, a new collaborator, a potential customer.

Where else can you message the world and get answers?

Many have seen the potential of Twitter and are running with it. From custom news feeds to social activism, from blog promotion to chats and book clubs, from corporate promotion to a new era of participative journalism. Access to people and information appears to be accelerating.

So what’s the problem?

No issue, for the brave. On the surface, it seems easy, and it can be. If you’re able to multitask across dozens of threads. If you have unlimited free time. If you know exactly what you’re trying to accomplish during all your waking hours. Ambitious? More like impossible. Not enough caffeine in my latte for all of that. Control of the world’s information feeds is NOT the goal. Our families like to see us from time to time, and there’s this useful notion called ‘sleep’.

Still, my instincts tell me we’re leaving significant value on the table. The fundamental question for me remains:

What are the true barriers for adoption of the evolving Twitter and social media paradigms, and what can we do to unlock new levels of collaboration?

On WEDS 12/15 at 1pET, #SMCHAT will be joined by Laura Fitton, aka @Pistachio, CEO of oneforty.com and co-author of Twitter for Dummies. It’s part of her sweep of Twitter Chat’s for the TFD #BookTour. A true ‘early adopter’ herself w/ +70,000 followers, Laura has been at it longer than the rest of us. Let’s ask her to join us in brainstorming our hardest open questions:

  • Q1. Engagement. New rules include need for authenticity, clarity of intent, agreed semantics, less broadcasting & more listening. What else?
  • Q2. Influence. CW says numbers don’t matter, but marketers know eyeballs equal hits. What are dynamics of smart social network building?
  • Q3. Saturation. With so much info streaming in, Tweetdeck can barely keep up. Hashtags are imperfect. How do we manage the deluge of ideas & when is enough, enough?
  • Q4. Convergence. Apps & options keep proliferating, adding to the confusion. Should there be convergence to fewer tools, or is integration a better path?
  • Q5. Upside. Time for your crystal ball. Will twitter growth plateau, or will there be mass market adoption? What role does culture play?

The New Year is approaching. What better time reflect on the “State of the Social Network?” Let’s use the 90 minutes with Laura to good advantage. They’ll go fast.

Bring your questions and ideas, and join the conversation. It promises to be a good one. (click here at the appointed time)

Help me plan our time. Which of the topics above resonate the most for you? In which dimension(s) do the most significant barriers lie? Leave a comment, let’s discuss it.

It Takes a Village: Insights on Culture and Community in Local Government

In prior posts, we’ve looked at the many aspects of culture that affect large organizations, including the cultural dynamics in government that play out in large state & federal agencies.

A few days ago, a reader wrote and asked: “What about local government?”

That really started me thinking. So let’s have a look.

Similarities

Government agencies share a common service mandate, regardless of scale. That means local government exists to support its citizens, and that many aspects of the overall mission would logically be the same. Examples of this: revenue collection, protection services, health & welfare, even natural resources.

There’s also a similar political dynamic. Elected officials are voted into office to provide leadership and direction to full-time administrative branches. That can lead to a philosophical divide between the elected and the civil servants, an interesting cultural rift that is unique to governmental organizations, as I covered previously.

The net result is that local governments, like their larger state & federal counterparts, will encounter challenges of silo thinking and culture clashes, often resulting in small-scale bureaucracies.

Differences

It’s the differences that really bring home some interesting new factors. The most important of these is a sense of community. I wrote on virtual community a few months back, but the ‘brick and mortar’ community – including neighborhoods, businesses, recreation areas, and the like – makes up what is typically the strong, vibrant foundation or our day-to-day experience.

In a real way, our local communities serve as the backbone of our society.

These are critical factors for any town or region to remain healthy. Where these elements are absent, as is the case in regions with long-term economic decline, the systemic problems can be overwhelming. That means local communities and their governments are vitally important to create safe, healthy places for people to live and work.

Several things come with community that can benefit the cause of local government, with opportunities to drive a more open, participative culture

  • Citizen engagement – most want to live a good, healthy lifestyle, and want their neighborhoods safe, their schools effective, their tax dollars put to good use. This bodes well for engagement, because local citizens have an immediate stake in the affairs of local government
  • Proximity – by being nearby, it is far easier to participate in local government events and elections, including hearings, council meetings, and the like. Not so with state or federal.
  • Visible results – the effect of government can be seen locally, reinforcing value in real terms

I’ll argue that an “intellectual distance” has caused state and federal government to grow more removed from their constituents. It’s a chasm that hurts relevance to the average citizen. Small wonder the feds have long embraced a “town meeting” approach, in hopes of capturing the level of engagment that normally accrues locally.

The other major delta that impacts culture in local government derives from smaller scale, with 3 immediate impacts:

  • Less-hardened silos – the walls of over-specialization become stronger (quite literally, hardened) with time and scale. Yes, local governments will exhibit turf wars and silos among departments. But because they are typically smaller scale, it should, in theory at least, be easier to begin working across them.
  • Greater impact of individuals – with smaller jurisdictions in particular (towns, small cities) it is possible for strong leaders to drive signifcant changes; this is more difficult with large-scale entrenched bureaucracy.
  • Low critical mass (smaller talent pool). Being ‘smaller’ means there is generally less expertise available locally; smaller jurisdictions may need to lean more on outside help.

What does this mean? For starters: state and federal governments should ‘think small’.

But it also means this:

Local government should be aggressive on capitalizing on the advantages that community and smaller scale afford. They enjoy unique levels of access to their constituents. Moreover, they are closer to organizational models that favor collaboration .. provided they can abandon the silos that are inherited via the notion of government as ‘bureaucracy’.

A strong message from our culture research still applies here: there are no silver bullets. Achieving change of any scale is hard, and culture is as strong a factor in local government as with the larger jurisdictions. Government must be willing to interact directly with their citizens, not hide behind the silo’d walls of bureaucracy. Being both small and local can encourage engagement, a fundamental enabler of social change.

Is it time for the resurgence of the local community? Maybe it takes a village, after all.

The 2.0 Business Relationship: Are you investing in your network?

Social media is getting plenty of traction, but I’m still intrigued by its untapped potential, both inside the enterprise and out in open spaces.

Stubbornly, several barriers to adoption remain.

We’ve been chipping away at these hurdles here, first exploring culture in the organization, and then engagement. Those conversations have helped to surface yet another challenge: how to build valuable relationships (call them “virtual” if you must) using social media.

Let’s tee it up this way:

What are the dynamics and limits of “relationship” in a virtual world, where connections are free, global, and easily made? Can true value be achieved? And can we navigate network overload?

We’ll start with traditional business relationships, to set the stage.

Whether inside or outside of organizations, people are constantly meeting, connecting, and communicating. Results will vary. Some will pass each other by completely. Others will move closer together in their thinking and spark a collaboration, or they might hit a snag, and move further apart. It’s all in motion.

A successful organization brings a master plan to the madness. Via work groups, partnerships and/or employment relationships, an enterprise uses structure to bind together groups of people with a shared focus. There’s still that constant flux of relationships: people connecting, communicating, and learning. But if and when coordinated, good things happen, and the organization has a chance to thrive.

The impact of social media.

Our hyper-connected world accelerates and multiply’s our ability to connect with people anywhere. Boundaries of time and place are removed. Whether tweeting or blogging, the potential to meet, share and learn from others – literally around the globe – is unbounded. But there’s a catch. As you start to engage and connections start flooding in, you are soon forced to ask: Should this person be in my network? Should I reach out to them? Or will I be wasting my time?

Up front, there’s really no way to know.

I think most people that exit social media, often in frustration, do so in face of those daunting, never ending decisions. And that’s unfortunate. The possibility of each new social media connection creates a fascinating opportunity. Each connection you make brings the chance to challenge your thinking, expand your horizons, and even to change your path.

Navigating the challenges of network building

What factors will influence the chances of an online business relationship in the 2.0 space? I think it boils down to a couple of key things:

  1. Clarity of your intent. Why are you here? Are you tapping social media and building your network for a reason? Get in touch with that. Share your intentions right up front.
  2. Common ground (context). With intent on the table, establishing common ground is a matching exercise. Search engines and hashtags and communities are all ways to get connected. Believe it or not, this part is becoming easier by the day.
  3. Investing in your network (learning to “time box”). Relationships tend to benefit from ‘going deeper’ but time is increasingly precious. This is where many connections with potential fall short. Set aside an evening, a cup of coffee, a few minutes a day for network building. Put a box around the time commitment. That “time box” can be small, medium or large. Change the time allocation as needed, but make a commitment, to yourself and your network, so they’ll know what to expect.
  4. Dare to adapt. Ultimately, you may find many connections don’t align with your objectives, but don’t be too quick to filter on that. You may find new opportunities or interests by being open minded and flexible.

Sure, building a network via social media can seem overwhelming. But as the virtual world unfolds around us, it’s time to look deeper at its potential to spark new levels of collaboration. We need to think hard about what it will take to build value into our networks.

It’s easier than ever to connect with people online in the 2.0 space.

But the ultimate value – for you and for your connections – is driven by a shared willingness to focus, to set aside a little quality time on a regular basis. Even if it’s in small chunks. A tweet here. A blog comment there. One or two twitter chats. Okay, maybe three.

Are you willing to make an investment?