Key Takeaways from Day 1 of Learning 2009 AND The Power of the Back Channel for Learning

Sat in a bunch of great sessions today at Masie’s Learning 2009 conference (#L2009).  Had a chance to tweet some of the things that caught my attention, and would have tweeted much more if my phone battery hadn’t died. (Takeaway #1: cell phone does not get a charge off your computer if your computer is turned off.) Wanted to consolidate and expand on some of the great ideas that came out of sessions with Laura Fitton (@Pistachio), Nigel Paine (@ebase), Wayne Hodgins (@wwwayne), and Malcolm Gladwell while it is all still fresh in my mind. Other conference goers – I’d love it if you’d add some of your key takeaways to the comments!
 

Laura Fitton

Laura Fitton, author of Twitter for Dummies, provided some insightful yet general thoughts on Twitter. She did not focus specifically on Twitter for learning, and I’d attribute this to the (lack of) expertise of the audience: the learning field’s fairly slow adoption of both Twitter and social media. (I’m pretty new with Twitter, myself.) For example, a quick survey of the room showed only about 10% were tweeting. But it takes very little extrapolation (if any) to apply her comments directly to learning. Here were some of the ideas that stood out for me:

• The number of people in the world able to communicate electronically via computers is in the millions, but the number of people with mobile devices tops 4 billion. Takeaway #2: mobile devices and media like Twitter exponentially expand accessibility, connectivity, and dialog.
• The shortness of Twitter is significant because it's so easy to create and consume content. This is absolutely critical these days, given the pace of business and change.  Takeaway #3: the shortness of micro-blogging lowers the barrier to entry. People can easily offer their perspective, provide examples, chime in with one little nugget or idea, or offer a relevant link, without having to dive into huge detail that they may not have the time or the inclination to explore.
• Twitter overcomes social isolation. This is huge for those of us who work from home. Both from a personal perspective – tools like Twitter and Facebook become our water-cooler exchange mechanisms – and from a professional perspective: I can find experts, advice, and support without having to be co-located with someone, or even having ever met them face to face. Takeaway #4: the social side of social media drives engagement, access to expertise, and, ultimately, effectiveness.
• Laura’s two word guide to Twitter: be useful. Her four word guide: listen, learn, care, serve. Indeed. How can you not love this, as a person, or as a learning professional? Takeaway #5: as in so much else in life, authenticity and a genuine interest in others wins out over solipsism. (Ok, not really a surprise I hope, but don’t you just love how she characterizes it?)
• Twitter lets you surround yourself with successful people (that you might not have access to otherwise).  Or, takeaway #6: from an L&D perspective, Twitter lets you provide a light-weight “mentorship” tool in a profoundly scalable manner. How might it affect retention and engagement at large corporations if execs provided this level of real-time transparency into their thoughts and vision?

The session with @Pistachio was a great start to the day. Sorry I missed the Tweetup this evening!

Nigel Paine

Not to be outshone, Nigel Paine, former CLO for the BBC, led a thoughtful session on what it takes to be a learning leader. Really, he led a session on what it takes to be an effective business leader in the domain of learning. Takeaway #7: we must think and act as business people first, and learning experts second. Here’s a list of qualities we identified as critical for being an effective learning leader in our ever-evolving field and world:

• Vision
• Business savvy
• Strategic thinking
• Innovation/supporter of innovation
• Inspirational communicator/executive influence/ courage/credibility
• Nimble
• Curious about the business
• Able to assemble and support a strong team
• “Customer” facing (internal or external) and multi-lingual – as in, can speak the language of various organizational units (sales, IT, marketing, etc.)
• Problem solving (able to find solutions from both inside and outside of the organization)
• Technically astute

As well as facilitating a lively discussion, Nigel had a few great quotes to offer: my favorite (I forget the source) was that leaders define reality, as opposed to letting reality define them.

 

Wayne Hodgins

I was lucky enough to sit in on a number of sessions led by Wayne Hodgins. I could go on and on about how engaging and thought provoking he is, but I’m a bit biased, having the incredible good fortune to work with him as a colleague. So I’ll just say, if you missed him today be sure to catch him talking about the “Snowflake Effect” and “Mass Personalization” on Wednesday morning at 8:30 in Durango 1.

Malcolm Gladwell

The day wrapped up with an awesome keynote from Malcolm Gladwell, best-selling author of Blink, The Tipping Point, and Outliers. Rare to find an author whose talks are as engaging as their books.  There were a lot of tweets about his presentation, so I’m going to scrape some that came through most often to synthesize key takeaways from Gladwell:

• Malcom Gladwell @ #l2009 defines success as the opportunity to engage in meaningful work. (via @tinac)
• Malcolm Gladwell: culture trumps genes in explaining social phenomena. #l2009 (via @da5idm)
• Company Cultures hit you in the face the moment you walk in the door (via @bmosh )
• Overconfidence is the disease of the expert. Ignorance is the disease of the novice. -Malcolm Gladwell #L2009 (via @johnjambrose)
• World-class expertise requires more than 10,000 hrs of deliberate practice (approx 4hrs/dayx10 yrs) @Gladwell #L2009 (via @johnjambrose)
• Expertise: the ability to crunch data in seconds in the unscripted moment. -M. Gladwell. #L2009 (via @randomdazzle)
• Excellence is not a permanent trait, you need to fight for it everyday. Gladwell #L2009 (via @DerekCunard)

And finally, having these kinds of notes provided by many bright colleagues and so nicely compiled and at my fingertips, ready to grab out of the ether, leads me to the bonus topic promised in the title of this blog post…

The Power of the Back Channel for Learning

Those of you who have followed conference hashtags before are likely thinking, “well, duh!” so please bear me with for a moment while I get all gooey about the novelty of it. Having a conference-focused twitter stream running throughout the day was great on a number of levels. First, I was able to check in on highlights being captured from other sessions, which is the next best thing to being in two places at the same time. Next, I found it to be a really valuable way to take quick notes on ideas that caught my attention in the moment, and then read back through them later when I had more time for reflection. Greater still, my own thoughts were augmented and at times echoed by other people’s notes, helping me catch nuances that I otherwise might not have. At content-packed conferences like these, ideas can quickly slip away, tumbling over one another, fighting for attention, and disappearing down the echoing halls. The back channel lets us capture these illusory snippets, refer back to them when there’s less going on, and integrate them soundly into our long term memory when and if we so choose.  It lends an intimacy and a congruity to the reflection process that is invaluable.


There’s also a comfort and a sense of belonging in being able to check in on and participate in the chatter. Sharing and reposting thoughts with other tweeters makes me feel like a much more active participant at the conference this year than I did last year merely floating from session to session and asking the occasional question – almost to the point of feeling a sense of ownership over the experience. Driving buy-in at that level does wonders for retention and application.


Plus the banter is just really fun.

~ posted by Beth Chmielowski on 9 Nov 09
   tagged as: #L2009, Learning 2009, social media, twitter

 

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