Look, listen and learn - video how to's get media attention, again

So it's not just me, even Metro have got in on the video for learning debate- not that I'm knocking Metro, in my opinion it's the best newspaper in the UK and it's free.

Metro's article Look, listen and learn on Wednesday said

'How to' videos are gaining pace as a form of learning without having to pick up a textbook or phone a parent. VideoJug – dubbed 'the thinking person's YouTube' – launched last September with step-by- step guides on everything from 'how to check for testicular cancer' to 'how to make a delicious mango chutney'.

Dan Thompson, VideoJug's CEO makes an important point in terms of the value of video for knowledge management

According to Dan Thompson, VideoJug's CEO: 'So much knowledge is lost when people fail to pass it on to future generations. We hope to stop this. VideoJug is a visual encyclopedia of life.'

A plethora of sites hosting video style guides have appeared - videojug, ehow, how to.tv and a host of other sites. As Streaming Media Magazine says

...these do-it-yourself sites bear witness to the power that video content can have in daily life

Only last week, Videojug launched their Ask The Expert service, which offers professional advice for free on areas like health, technology, money and property.

I can only see this getting bigger and bigger, with really practical as well as entertainment application. If we really are at the beginning of the web 2.0 explosion, who knows what we're going to see in the future. With so much power in the hands of the people, it's going to be an exciting ride.

Links to previous posts on video
Little Videos That Educate - Making Learning Viral
More on video for learning
Viral Learning Centre - spoof video

On Intuition

Over the last few days I've experienced some really quite amazing coincidences, most of which relate to inituition in some way.

I recently met a lady who talked of intuition in terms of "just knowing things", and related this to being "fey" or in touch with her spiritual side. Another I met through a different situation, told me she'd been on a course examining intuition in business terms, and today, I was identified as "the intuitive", and told my skills were interesting.

A coincidence or not, it's got me thinking...

Personally I've always had a nightmare with my tendency towards intuition and "gut feeling". I seem to intuitively see a solution, but then I have to work out how it was I reached that solution so I can explain it to all the analytical people who ignore what I've said, because I haven't gone through the correct process to reach that point.

I had the pleasure of being able to actually show how the solution I'd identified could work today, using a process map, but as always I felt frustrated that it took so long!

An interesting post on blog.gkaindl.com, aptly titled Exploiting Intuition, points out that

When a person acts intuitively, the purely analytical mind is prone to either dismissing their results as luck or to attribute them to a level of understanding and mastery that is unique and exceptional. However, as the benefits of intuitive results as either a starting point for further analysis or as a quick way to make highly accurate predictions are manyfold, the actual concern with intuition should be: Can I train it, and how?

It's an interesting point, but I think in some spheres there needs to first be a sea change in terms of how we see intuitive reasoning. In fact, it doesnt even warrant a Wikipedia page! Intuition itself only gets a brief philosophically orientated commentary. But according to many, if we trust our intuition, it's surpising how many times we are correct.

this article on Building an Intuitive Organisation from Chief Learning Office Magazine says on the benefits of using intuition:

When used in innovation intuition becomes part of an applied creativity process, among other necessary components, like imagination or creative idea-generation. It contributes to having an innovation strategy and training plan.

Individuals who use intuition in decision-making can achieve far better results than those who use facts and logic alone. Highly integrated individuals are able to do both well. Specific learning processes can be used to train people on intuitive decision-making.

Intuitive people have a better chance at recognizing the symptoms of stress and can take the steps required for better self-care and reducing burnout. This improves productivity while reducing losses and absenteeism due to stress.

An area worth some consideration I think...

Methodology for Web 2.0 Collaboration for Reluctant Organisations

Dave Pollard has developed a A Methodology for Web 2.0 Collaboration Experiments (in Reluctant Organizations). which he discusses in his business innovation and knowledge based blog How To Save The World.

This diagram explains the process he envisages will enable organisations to mitigate the three key areas he says people have difficulty with...

What's perceived as urgent in most organizations (i.e. what's keeping management awake at night) isn't collaboration or innovation or technology or worker effectiveness, it's cost reduction and risk management. Nothing else gets any executive bandwidth.

You can't change an organization's culture (short of firing everyone and starting over with new managers and staff). The best you can hope to do is help people adapt to the existing culture in useful, valuable ways.

Organizations are, mostly, complex adaptive systems, so one-step needs identification is futile. You have to let a full understanding of the organization's problems and needs, and the solutions that address those needs, co-evolve. By the time you have an intelligent answer, your understanding of the problem is usually vastly different from what it was at the outset.

The methodology he advocates is one based on experimenting with collaborative technologies. He's developed what looks to be a very pragmatic approach, grounded in the reality of business, which relies on what appears to be an action research approach, which spirals through four phases of planning, acting, observing and reflecting.

Where I think he's spot on is what he says about the need for champions to meet face to face in the inital stages of the process. As he says,

...there is much work to be done up-front to understand the opportunities and challenges, and some sleeves-rolled-up face-to-face is needed to do this

When I've asked project managers about whether meeting face to face prior to taking part in a shared blog would have given them more confidence in the group, they've had mixed feelings. Some felt that yes, they would be more comfortable sharing with people they knew, others felt that prior judgements about individuals roles and organisations would have a negative impact on sharing face to face.

Many of these judgements had a power dynamic. As the group blog is anonymous, and anonymity is a great leveller, the power dynamic has been removed. It may be that new ones build in relation to the activity of the community members, rather than due to prior assumptions about individuals within a bureaucracy.

Recieved wisdom does suggest that face to face activities strengthen a community, but it appears we can't necessarily assume this is the case.

What Dave Pollard is referring to is more those individuals who will drive forward the experiments in collaboration, rather than the wider community, but the impact of face to face activites on online collaboration is definately something to consider very carefully.

What is Enterprise 2.0? - Web 2.0 technologies for collaborative working

I've been poking about on the incredibly linkful (is that a word? It should be) Green Chameleon blog and I found a link to a really simple but incredibly concise demonstration of how Web 2.0 technologies can facilitate collaboration in the workplace.

It's the sort of the thing that might help you to sell the idea of using them for collaboration, knowledge sharing etc to people who have little knowledge of what Web 2.0 is all about. It looks like it would be a useful awareness raising tool.

I've failed to embed it, here's the link

This video, by Commoncraft, is clever, short and amusing, and demonstrates how a wiki can be used. But it's NOT one for demonstrating the business benefits of using a wiki for collaboration to your CIO.

Every community of practice needs a focus

Something Caroline DeBrun from the National Library for Health (who runs the Talking Knowledge Management blog along with many other KM activities and sites) said in her presentation at the CILIP event yesterday has struck a chord with me.

She mentioned that she personally used blogs for reflection, and wikis for collaboration. I agree, that seems a sensible and effective use of both technologies, but what she said made me really think about potential activities a wiki would be perfect for, and which would facilitate knowledge sharing, particularly the sharing of lessons learned from the experience of project management.

It's becoming clear to me that what we (NHS CFH) are trying to gather and utilise, primarily tacit knowledge based on experience which is difficult to articulate, is nigh on impossible to collect with a blog. There may be many reasons for this, and it may not be true of all organisations or group blogs, but what I think might work is to focus more on faciliating community development via collaborate activity. This should in turn, increase community cohesion and encourage a culture of sharing.

Acknowledging that people really need to focus on activity which improves practice within their particular domain if they are to function as a community of practice, I think rather than asking people to write about their own experiences and lessons learned, we should ask them to collectively create guidance for others, using a wiki. This should draw out experiences and knowledge that they wouldn't offer up in iscolation on a blog. To a certain extent, it's getting them to share their tacit knowledge without knowing that's what they are doing. Crafty...

I can't believe I didn't think of that before...amazing what happens when you look up for a moment, look around, and listen to what others are saying.

Definately one for the recommended research section of the dissertation.

Friday Photo - on Saturday...

Got back far too late last night to post a pic...so not technically a Friday Photo but never mind...

This is another one from Cambodia - this time from a wonderful ancient temple, Ta Phrom, one of the temples in the complex outside Siem Reap. Everywhere you look there are trees growing through and over the temple, the result is a beautiful mix of natural and man made structures. I truly amazing place.

CILIP Blogging from the Backroom event - the many uses of blogs

Sadly I'm posting at 9.30 pm on a delayed GNER train from London, which has charged me £5.00 per hour to log on to what appears to be a Dutch ISP, I suppose I've learnt a wee bit which might be useful one day - Visa Blogg apparently is "view blog", "Redigera inlägg I think is "edit posts"...

The journey was worth it though - the CILIP event was great. Some very interesting presentations. Of particular note for me was a session by the Home Office on how they review news stories and , particularly how many feeds and blogs they read. They review 3,000 google feeds a day!

Their mission, to identify issues within their remit ie immigration, as well as what is being said about the Home Office. It was interesting to see the effect David Blunkett's resignation had on THOSE stats... But 3,000!!! I manage about 3 if I'm really focused. The skills required for analysing that much data and information are phenomenal! Maybe one day we'll all (have to) become that proficient at sifting through information.

See Alertinfo, with it's strapline "Crime, Justice, Society" for the fruits of the Home Office's labour.

Thanks to the very interesting Anne Welsh from Drugscope for inviting me to speak and for entertaining me after the event.