Velocity Made Good » #L2009 http://velocitymg.com Chart the Smart Course Mon, 11 Apr 2011 15:08:50 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 Day 2/Take 2: Key Takeaways from the Rest of Learning 2009 Conference AND More Twitter Newbie Revelations http://velocitymg.com/explorations/leveraging-learning/day-2take-2-key-takeaways-from-the-rest-of-learning-2009-conference-and-more-twitter-newbie-revelations/ http://velocitymg.com/explorations/leveraging-learning/day-2take-2-key-takeaways-from-the-rest-of-learning-2009-conference-and-more-twitter-newbie-revelations/#comments Fri, 13 Nov 2009 01:22:31 +0000 Beth Chmielowski http://velocitymg.com/?p=1776 For me, day 1 of Learning 2009 primarily focused on great ideas, and day 2 focused on great examples of real training solutions. Day 2 kicked off with an inspiring interview with Captain Chelsey B. “Sully” Sullenberger III, he of successfully-made-emergency-landing-on-the-Hudson-river fame;  and moved from there into sessions on case studies: Julie Clow from Google presented an excellent example of a light-weight, agile learning program for internal audiences leveraging Google tools, discrete, right-sized content pieces, and a mobile delivery platform. Christian Finn of Microsoft presented a high-fidelity YouTube style social learning solution, also for internal employees. And Don Strimbu of Autodesk described converting a 5-day conference-based training session with over 1,700 channel partners into a virtual event. Then on Wednesday morning (final half-day of conference) I made it to Wayne Hodgin’s mind-blowing session on the “Snowflake Effect” and the concept of mass personalization.

Finally, at the bottom of this far-too-lengthy missive, I have captured a few more Twitter “revelations” that emerged over the course of this conference. It seems this is the next installment in what is turning into an ongoing saga of how one not-so-early-adopter slowly figures out how to get the most value out of this tool.


Sully

Masie introduced Captain Sullenberger by playing this simulation of the infamous flight. It was chilling and almost visceral in conveying the gravity of the situation and the astonishing water landing. Sully then took the stage, described himself as an, “ordinary guy who found himself in extraordinary circumstances" and credited the team (co-pilot, crew, controller, and emergency responders) for the incredible outcome.  Listening to the recording of his conversation with the control tower during the event, he sounds so cool and controlled, you’d think it could be any mundane flight communication, were it not for comments like “hit birds”, “lost thrust in both engines,” and “we may end up in the Hudson,” delivered as calmly as if he were saying “landing gear up, setting course to destination.” He clarified this on stage saying, “If you think I wasn’t startled, you misunderstand. But we did our job in spite of that.” And, “the cockpit was a crucible where we fought for our lives…what kicked in was the judgment that only comes from experience.”


I must admit that when I first read that Masie had booked Captain Sullenberger as one of the keynote speakers for Learning 2009, I didn’t get it. I didn’t see the connection between his astonishing feat and a learning conference. But you don’t have to be in the man’s presence for long before it is perfectly clear. His feat exemplifies the results of both deep experience and life-long learning.  Though he (understandably) had never before practiced losing both engines or doing a water landing with a plane full of people, he describes it as assembling the learned building blocks to instantaneously adapt to what was needed in the moment. If this is not the ultimate goal for learning and development, I don’t know what is.


Sully talked about the role of training in providing the building blocks we put together to solve problems. He spoke of the importance of situational awareness. He described constantly flying the plane with his mind (regardless of level of automation) anticipating potential issues, and adapting as needed.  He emphasized the importance of the human element, reframing the discussion form the role of the pilot in the automated cockpit to the role of automation in the piloted cockpit. He pointed out that technology doesn’t lower the requirements for training, but instead increases them, both in terms of using the technology correctly, and in that pilots must constantly synthesize what automation is doing.  He noted that technology changes the nature of the errors that are made, pointing out how the connectedness of the technology can lend itself to cascading failures and that while technology can prevent many small errors from happening, it also allows huge errors to be made very precisely. And most importantly, he noted that not everything can be anticipated, programmed, and put into written guidelines;  at no point does technology relieve us of our most critical role: that of rapidly assimilating never before encountered variables and adapting to the unknown.


Sully emphasized the importance of experience, and also the importance of passion, curiosity, and a willingness to learn. I haven’t explicitly called out any key learning takeaways from this keynote, though there are many. In this case, though, my prevailing takeaway was deep awe and respect for a truly heroic man.


Google and Microsoft Case Studies

In my last post I alluded to the whiplash affect I felt moving from the minimalist footprint approach of the Google case study to the high-production feel of the Microsoft case study. In a way, a very yin and yang set of learnings. Here’s a bit of detail on both sessions, followed by some thoughts on their unexpected overlaps.


Julie Clow of Google described a “gLearning” program on the foundations of leadership for early career Googlers across the globe. (For a short time, the slides for this presentation can be found here.) The program design leveraged self-paced learning components (videos, articles, books, movies), content that was largely already available, collaborative Google Apps communication tools, and virtual classroom “debrief” sessions. She emphasized authentic collaboration (vs. simulating human interactions via WBT), leveraging both tools and content that already exits (vs. developing all content from “scratch”) and this approach - Key takeaway #1: design small content pieces for self-paced consumption within the boundaries of an expected completion date. She also described their use of Moving Knowledge, a tool for delivering and tracking learning via mobile devices. (For a demo of this tool, either email demo@movingknowledge.com and type the word 'demo' into the body of the email and the subject line, or text the word ‘demo’ to 407-421-7408 to register your mobile device. If you have trouble contact support@movingknowledge.com )


Christian Finn of Microsoft described Academy Mobile, a YouTube style intranet site where all Microsoft employees can post podcast that they have created on any (presumably work-related) topic.  You can find an early blog post (August 2007) describing it here and a YouTube video about it here. It’s based on the premise that what the learning organization can cover and teach nowhere near approaches what the organization knows. Therefore, it is the responsibility of learning orgs is to tap into this expertise, and to connect people to the knowledge and expertise of other people. Academy Mobile provides a social learning platform built on SharePoint with some custom code to layer in social media capabilities such as ratings and comments. I’m sure I can’t do justice to this highly-polisshed solution from a few hastily written notes and tweets, so I’ll jump to the list Finn provided on “Top 10” Takeaways for designing a social learning solution and how I understood them (a lot of overlap here with my earlier blog post on Top 10 Reasons Enterprise Learning Communities Fail):
  1. Have a clear scope and purpose: think about what you’re trying to accomplish and build for that.
  2. Design for ease of use and access: disintermediate as much as possible. (Miicrosoft does not require an approval process for podcasts to be added, but it does require the person’s name; thus relying on  accountability vs. regulation)
  3. Focus on low to no barriers to participation: Microsoft provided the video recorders for its initial push for content; provides multiple tools and avenues to encourage comments and ratings.
  4. Stock the pond: seeding with initial content is important. People won’t return to a content site (user-generated or otherwise) if there’s no “there” there.
  5. Enlist champions: get some early users and evangelists.
  6. Provide incentives: users get points for various acts from adding podcasts, to rating or commenting on them. Those points can be converted to prizes. (My favorite: Microsoft lets people convert their points to dollars to give to charity, and then provides matching funds as well. LOVE that.)
  7. Iterate rapidly: don’t wait for perfection. Get something out there, see what’ working, and where people are stumbling, continuously make incremental improvements. (Pleasantly surprised to hear this coming from Microsoft.)
  8. Provide great search: absolutely critical with user-generated content. It’s no good if people can’t find it. Academy Mobile provides for both taxonomy and folksonomy.  It also lets you filter on highest rated, and most downloaded.
  9. Promote the solution: don’t just put it up there and expect people to find it and use it. Have a plan to get the word out.
  10. Have a network mentality: you may start small with one content area or one functional org, but have a long-tail mentality and plan for expanding into other areas over time.
  11. Provide users unlimited data plans: this one should be pretty obvious if you’re providing mobile access, but good call-out to start here rather than to get a costly wake-up call post-deployment.
In both of these examples, Google and Microsoft showed their willingness to push the envelope to design effective learning solutions. Google used a quick-hit, leverage content and tools already out there approach, and Microsoft used a build the infrastructure to tap into the collective knowledge approach.  Takeaway #13: some cool design things they both did:
  • Stepped away from the “I am the keeper and/or creator of all wisdom” position that learning teams can so easily fall into
  • Provided content in small, discrete pieces
  • Built in authentic exchange between people (Google: collaboration and debriefs; Microsoft access to UGC, ratings and comments)
  • Reached them where they were at (online and mobile) vs. pulled people into a classroom
  • Used a launch and iterate approach
  • Built on their own tools

Autodesk Virtual Event Case Study

Full disclosure: my company supported Don Strimbu and his team with this endeavor, so I may be overly-enthusiastic about its merits.


To end my day two, and in keeping with the break-me-out-of-the-classroom theme, I sat in on Don Strimbu’s presentation on converting a large conference-based even to virtual.  Most fascinating about this was the breadth of its scope and the incredible high-stakes underlying this move.


A bit about the breadth and stakes. Strimbu described how Autodesk’s channel partners are the intermediary between the customer and Autodesk and that 85% of Autodesk revenue comes from its channel. That means partner training is a high-stakes proposition for Autodesk, and one they are very invested in. For the past 20+ years, Autodesk has been hosting annual events that coincide with product releases, to bring over 1700 partners together and get them trained on the deltas. This year, they converted a 5-day event into a blended, virtual event, consisting of some eLearning pre-work and a series of webinars organized by track. The scope of the event spanned multiple company divisions, multiple product tracks for each division, differentiated learner roles for each track, multiple requirements for each role, and multiple sessions for each learning path component. All of this added up to hundreds of sessions that needed to be set up, delivered, and supported.


One of the ways Autodesk made this happen (and a recurring theme for the day, I am just realizing) was to use technologies that were already available to them and in use. This minimized risks associated with new or unfamiliar tools. In Autodesk’s case, they used SumTotal as a hosted LMS, and Adobe Connect. The LMS was used for registration, eCommerce, deployment of learning paths, and course completion and tracking. Adobe Connect was integrated with the LMS, and used to deliver the sessions themselves.


For the most part, execution was smooth and most of the challenges that arose came from the unreliability of the internet itself, in terms of connectivity and more important, latency.  In terms of things Autodesk could control, Strimbu offered the following – Takeaway #14: Recommendations for pulling off a large-scale virtual event:
  • Need to thoroughly work through the technology requirements, constraints, and logistics
  • Need to make course registration, requirements, and access to materials as easy as possible
  • Content design must be adapted for virtual interactivity
  • The delivery team should include:
    • A dedicated moderator/host
    • A technical producer
    • Multiple trainers when possible
  • Trainers should be trained on how to deliver effectively via webinars
In terms of impact, Strimbu said that though feedback was mixed, the top resellers (responsible for 80% of the revenue) resoundingly agreed that the virtual event was both valuable and effective. They supported this transition, and hoped it would continue to be the approach used from now on. In terms of cost savings, Strimbu didn’t use specific numbers, but indicated that it was significant. He said that production costs were the about the same, however, the savings came from eliminating the need for facilities and hospitality.  (Presumably the channel also saved significantly on T&E and lowered opportunity costs.) Multiply this by however many similar events Autodesk holds in other geos, and their perpetual need for update training, and it is not at all hard to see why Strimbu concluded with this thought - Takeaway #15: even when the economy recovers virtual training will be more than good enough for most of what we need to deliver.


Wayne Hodgins, The Snowflake Effect, and Mass Personalization

Takeaway #16: it is very hard to distill Wayne to 140 characters. I’m not going to even pretend like I could do justice to Wayne’s session. It’s not just that he talks really fast, but that he thinks really, really fast. Or perhaps that he’s just been thinking about this stuff for a really long time, so it rolls off his tongue as easily as you or I might describe what we had for breakfast.  Only he’s not talking about breakfast. He’s talking about complex concepts, and seems to be synthesizing them and coming up with new applications for his ideas as he speaks.


So I’m just going to sketch the basic premise and leave it at that: we’re all unique, each and every one of us. Even more, every situation is unique. Yet, if we agree that we are unique, why is it that we design for sameness? Instead, we should design for mass personalization, or the idea that we can deliver every person just the right content, in just the right amount, via just the right method, and at just the right time for what they need. Sound ambitious? Indeed. But after listening to Wayne for an hour, you start to believe that this might just be possible. In fact, he tells us - Takeaway # 17: much of what is needed to make mass personalization a reality already exists. And then he gives examples. Lots of ‘em. Really fast. Some examples are things you’ve heard of, but may not have thought about in this context. (Online dating engines and algorithms as a model for matching people with the type of training they need, for example.) Other things you may never have even heard of. (3D printing of complete assemblies? Really?) It’s a bit mind-boggling. And very inspirational.


Shameless plug: I’m breaking my own rule about keeping this kind of stuff out of my blog, but only because it comes from a true sense of awe in what Wayne has to offer in terms of vision and inspiration – so here it is. Contact VMG if you’d like to have Wayne speak to or consult with your org.


More Twitter Newbie Revelations

Finally, since I love nothing more than to display my ignorance, I’m going to outdo myself with this section. Here are a few more newbie Twitter “revelations” I had this week, driven by my concentrated and active use of Twitter tools (especially TweetDeck) during the conference:
  1. I had already figured out that I can use TweetDeck to create custom groups of people to follow (friends, thought leaders, etc.) Suddenly, I realize I can do the same thing by – get this – topic. Who knew?
  2. The little icons at the bottom of the TweetDeck groups do things. Really cool and useful things, in fact, to further aggregate and sort your already filtered streams of tweets:
    1. Filter: search for tweets containing a specific word.
    2. Tag cloud: click the little cloud icon to index all the content in that group and see a tag cloud of recurring words. This not only shows what’s trending in the tweet slice indexed, but provides hyperlinks to the subset of tweets to the word clicked.
    3. Starting to see how people manage the deluge.  (Next up, I need to figure out what’s the deal with lists. Anyone have some quick tips or a favorite reference they could point me to?)


    So it was a great event. As @swacheson put it on Twitter, headed home, tired but full. If you also attended, please point me to your own blog posts, or add any thoughts to the comments. I’d really love to hear what some of your key takeaways were.
]]> http://velocitymg.com/explorations/leveraging-learning/day-2take-2-key-takeaways-from-the-rest-of-learning-2009-conference-and-more-twitter-newbie-revelations/feed/ 0 Key Themes and Takeaways from Masie Learning 2009: Part I http://velocitymg.com/explorations/key-themes-and-takeaways-from-masie-learning-2009-part-i/ http://velocitymg.com/explorations/key-themes-and-takeaways-from-masie-learning-2009-part-i/#comments Thu, 12 Nov 2009 22:13:04 +0000 Jon Lloyd http://velocitymg.com/?p=1765 Also check out Beth's Learning2009 posts at Explorations

Twitter: #L2009, @jonll, @bethchm

Speakers

This was my first Masie event, but I absolutely loved the up close and personal interview style that Elliott had with all of the keynotes, and impromptu supporting cast of characters. John Abele and Lem Lasher were really awesome speaking with Elliot about innovation, Charles Fadel blew my mind with the ability to be funny, eloquent but not over the top, and really personable for a guy that does brain research for Cisco, phew!

Two of the speakers really stood out for me - Malcolm Gladwell to some extent, and surprisingly, Capt. 'Sully' Sullenberger. More on them in Part II.

Break it down!

Wayne Hodgins, who is the VMG Strategic Futurist wound this theme through many of his presentations, and believe me, it is even hard for us VMG folks to break Wayne into sound bites, the guy just has too many big ideas to boil it down sometimes. But for this particular topic, it was about mass personalization, getting the right content, in the right context, in the right moment, on the right device, at the right level, etc. You get it? We are indeed all unique ("The Snowflake Effect") and our learning needs to reflect that. Two examples were howcast.com and smart.fm, both really interesting places to explore (try boosting your Spanish at smart.fm!)

Wayne believes that mass personalization is only limited by our own ability to decontruct and disaggregate what we already have. The technology is there, we're the holdup. The only way to begin to understand Wayne is the dripfeed method, check out his blog and tweets (@wwwayne).

I'll post a link to the slides when Elliott finishes get all the conf materials up on the site.

ROE, not ROI

At the CLO lunch, all six leaders agreed, ROI stinks. You don't need it. What you need is executive sponsorship to the point that ROI is a given and that success is measured by engagement. Obviously, if you are asking for a lot of money (or in this environment, any money) you need to have a strong argument but in the end, if you are supporting the business needs and mapping to strategic imperatives, you will find support in your program.

If you are leading a team through this, give them the tools and support that they need to make it happen. By enabling them to innovate and clearing the path to success, you are giving them life skills, opportunity, and loyalty to you as a leader. Also, it's just dang fun to watch your team get fired up and make it happen. A good leader should be almost entirely without ego here, bask in their glory but don't take it from them.

One final point - if you make your pitch, and the 'business' (whatever that might be, a product, division, line of business, etc) doesn't fully buy in, get engaged, and jump behind you to demonstrate their support - go find another business to help. They may never come around, or they may succumb to peer pressure when you blow the doors off with someone else. Life is too short to be spinning your wheels and pushing rocks uphill. Go make a difference somewhere!

Nigel Paine is in the house

Nigel Paine led a fantastic session named "So you want to be a Learning Leader", which I can only analogize to a combination of some sort of crazy British game show and being interviewed by Fast Company. Nigel led an interactive discussion with about 60 or 70 folks most of whom were not learning leaders. Nigel probed, questioned, and drew out a list of qualities that if you were a CEO, would want to explore in an interview with a prospective CLO. It came together nicely - with the list looking something like this (add some if I missed any, the marker was fading fast)

- vision
- problem solving
- trust "It's not about you, it is about the TEAM, lose your ego."
- strategic
- business acumen
- technical
- cultural fit
- innovator, leading innovation
- listening, information gatherer
- multi-lingual fluency (of business)
- global
- customer focused

In the end, Nigel summarized that vision, innovator, business acumen were among the top 3, and having a great cultural fit were really key. He ended with a great message that brought it home from Peter Drucker's definition of innovation - "change which creates a new dimension of performance."

Nigel was a model of my dream boss - someone who mentors, pushes, pulls, laughs, and creates an environment where the sum of the parts is exponentially greater than the 'whole'.

Add your thoughts on the conference, PLEASE! Would love to hear more about what resonated with YOU!

]]> http://velocitymg.com/explorations/key-themes-and-takeaways-from-masie-learning-2009-part-i/feed/ 0 Punting: Key Takeaways from Day 2 of Learning 2009 Conference http://velocitymg.com/explorations/leveraging-learning/punting-key-takeaways-from-day-2-of-learning-2009-conference/ http://velocitymg.com/explorations/leveraging-learning/punting-key-takeaways-from-day-2-of-learning-2009-conference/#comments Wed, 11 Nov 2009 03:46:34 +0000 Beth Chmielowski http://velocitymg.com/?p=1760 Takeaway #1: Putting “Day 1 of Conference” in a blog title kind of obligates you to post something about Day 2. Unfortunately, the Dayquil is wearing off and I can no longer string together 140 coherent characters, let alone synthesize all the yin and yang insights gleaned from today’s sessions. (Seriously. Had a bit of whiplash moving from fabulous Google presentation immediately into fascinating Microsoft presentation. Very different solutions and design approaches, but with more in common than you might think. More on that once I get some rest. Promise.)

Meanwhile, some of the most interesting hallway conversations I’ve had here came from asking people what sessions they have really loved, or what has jumped out at them so far. So how about it? If you’ve been attending Learning 2009 this year, or even if you’ve just been following the back channel (thanks to @helmitch for calling out that the back channel lets people who aren’t even here share in the learning) – anything in particular that has resonated? What have you found most compelling? What do you think will stick with you after the event?

Please add your thoughts to the comments.

]]> http://velocitymg.com/explorations/leveraging-learning/punting-key-takeaways-from-day-2-of-learning-2009-conference/feed/ 0 Key Takeaways from Day 1 of Learning 2009 AND The Power of the Back Channel for Learning http://velocitymg.com/explorations/leveraging-learning/key-takeaways-from-day-1-of-learning-2009-and-the-power-of-the-back-channel-for-learning/ http://velocitymg.com/explorations/leveraging-learning/key-takeaways-from-day-1-of-learning-2009-and-the-power-of-the-back-channel-for-learning/#comments Tue, 10 Nov 2009 06:56:14 +0000 Beth Chmielowski http://velocitymg.com/?p=1707 (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.]]> http://velocitymg.com/explorations/leveraging-learning/key-takeaways-from-day-1-of-learning-2009-and-the-power-of-the-back-channel-for-learning/feed/ 6