The #Blimage Challenge

I do love fun, original ideas. My buddy Jane Hart (@c4lpt) has just tagged me in the #blimage challenge. What is it? Steve Wheeler (@timbuckteeth) says: “You send an image or photograph to a colleague with the challenge that they have to write a learning related blog post based on it. Just make sure the images aren’t too rude. The permutations are blimmin’ endless.”  

Here's the image Jane sent: 

My first thought was that this is a wonderful metaphor for reaching for -- and finally getting to -- that ah-ha "lightbulb" moment that changes our perspective, or clarifies a concept, or illuminates an idea. The trees represent those around us -- those with whom we live and learn --  who one way or another help us reach that goal.

It's interesting that at nearly the same moment my #blimage assignment arrived another colleague pinged me with a question about PLNs. Another thing I see here, probably because of that conversation, is that in achieving this ah-ha several trees wrapped around and directly supported the tree reaching for it. Other trees stand close nearby, contributing in ways that may not be direct, but with roots touching and supporting below the surface, not serving only as onlookers. Such is the nature of social learning. 

See also my recent Learning Solutions Magazine piece on "Causing Serendipity" . 

And now... I hand the #blimage challenge off to David Kelly (@lnddave) Sue Beckingham (@suebecks), and Connie Malamed (@elearningcoach) . Here's your image:   

Be sure to check out this Pinterest board for results!

Accessibility Is More Than "Compliance"

I'm always surprised that so many in the training/instructional design/elearning business aren't more concerned with accessibility issues. In my experience this comes more from lack of awareness than intentional disregard. Here are some musings on accessibility, usability, and universal design. Be sure to check the resources offered -- and don't miss the informative, helpful comments! 

About that Brain Tumor...

This month's column takes me into new personal-revelation territory with a story of terrifying surgery, recovery, and the ways training did (and didn't) play into it. Bottom line: Performers are actors in a system. The things L&D so often focus on don't happen in isolation. 

Causing Serendipty

In my social media workshops I find that participants struggle most with ideas for supporting serendipitous, accidental, and spinoff learning. This month's Nuts & Bolt's column offers tips for that.  Among them? Be a curator & connector, encourage reflection, and put rocks in the path. We can’t schedule accidents. But we can work to help create an environment in which opportunities can serendipitously occur.

A Spring Treat: Connie Malamed's New "Visual Design Solutions"

Much better than a hollow chocolate bunny, my metaphorical Easter basket this year held a review copy of Connie Malamed’s wonderful new Visual Design Solutions: Principles and Creative Inspiration for Learning.  

As a career-long government employee I’m always interested in low-cost solutions so appreciate Connie’s attention to the idea that good design is not necessarily about money or software. She offers  examples created with PowerPoint, tips for taking your own photographs, and ideas for making something better by, for instance, mixing photographs for a more complete effect. My other career challenge, again a product of my government environment, is the unending demand for learning experiences around deadly-dry-content areas like policy and compliance. Malamed helps here, too, with ideas for making content more exciting and offering suggestions for challenges like working with numbers. Some other highlights:

-          Visual fluency and the role of symbol in developing a common language

-          Overcoming simple challenges that often bedevil new designers, like working with gradient backgrounds
Alternatives to bullets and other layout challenges
Grouping to support the brain's gift for pattern sensing 

-          Techniques for creating emphasis   

If there’s a central message, though, it’s the idea of designing with intention. As I like to say in one of my own design workshops: “Put your hands in the air and step away from the computer.” Think about the look and feel and the feeling and the view from 10,000 feet. What is the whole experience you’re after? It is hard, looking at an authoring tool, to refrain from wanting to start loading content and searching for templates and images. Malamed wants the learner to have an elegant, complete experience. To that end she focuses on the view of a project as more than the sum of its parts. Typeface matters: Even people not trained in design “pick up cues from a typeface and ascribe its characteristics to a personality” and are aware when the typeface doesn’t match the message.  Color matters: It conveys mood and stirs emotions, especially pleasure. The palette has psychological impact.  The tone of the writing matters. The choice of when and how to, or not to, use white space matters. In other words: Everything matters.

Malamed’s Visual Design Solutions is an excellent resource useful for anyone in the training/elearning design/presentation business but also anyone involved in design in general and communication in particular.  

What's the Story in the Slide Deck?

This month's Nuts & Bolts column looks to extend Cammy Bean's great session on writing better elearning scripts.  Key ideas include trimming the fat, editing ruthlessly, finding your 20%, and playing the old "classified ads" game.   Check it out!

Cammy Bean, "Writing Better eLearning Scripts" Training 2015

I'm in Atlanta for Training 2015. Our friend Cammy Bean so often live blogs other people's conference sessions, including some of mine, I figured I'd return the favor.

"How can we write better programs?" 

-Aim for short & snappy
-How do people talk to each other? Write like that. Use a lighter, accessible tone.
It's really critical to know your audience
(Form follows function) Comic books are fun and can support the fun affect.

-We are storytellers - that's why writing is so essential.
"It's all about the people, man. Sitting at the other end of that computer is a person. We need to make it accessible, conversational. What if you were sitting having a cup of coffee with someone and talking about this topic? Capture that tone.

-Object to learning objectives. These are objectives for the designer. Learners don't need these and won't read them -- and it's not how we  talk to each other.  (Jane: I have never had a boss ask me to "list" anything.)

- Read it out loud. Would YOU want to listen? That helps a lot with cutting jargon, wordiness. Make it something that's appealing to you. If you think it's boring, others will think it's even more boring.

- Inject humanity by letting real people talk. Use iPhones if you need to: "Here's what  I think." "Here's my perspective" "Here's how I do that." Work out loud/show your work.

- Tell great stories. See Heath & Heath's Making Things Stick . Use stories to help someone step into another's shoes. It will help them remember, will help with subsequent practice.

- Grab attention w tales of risk & intrigue. Provide a cliffhanger. Set up a curiosity gap.

- Find stories by asking questions of SMEs: Where do people get this wrong? What do people want to DO? Where can they get more information and help?

-"Ask your experts to think out loud. Get them to narrate their work and walk you through the process."

-"Have the SME tell you the story of their slide deck."

-Use the words they SAY, not the words they write. Get it in their words.

- Activate your writing -- go for engaging, active. Pull the learner through a great story. Connect the dots so the story flows from one piece to the next.

- Cut the blather; focus on doing.

- Write the neverending story. Elearning may just be the beginning -- help learners take the action out into the real world.

-Clear call to action: get them to think about how they will change their behavior.

Learn more at cammybean.kineo.com. Today's slide deck is available on Slideshare.

Expand Your Surface Area

In this month's Nuts & Bolts column I extend an invitation to  expand your surface area beyond usual topics and readings and communities:
 
" A while back at an eLearning Guild event (DevLearn 2010), I was fortunate to attend a keynote by John Seely Brown, who at the time had just published his Power of Pull. Among my takeaways? His advice to “expand your surface area.” One great way to do this is to increase your nonfiction reading, or join in conversations, in areas perhaps not directly connected to your immediate work interests."

Take a look! 

Figure It Out

No time or money to do what you'd like? Not "allowed" to use this tool or that process? Shifting time constraints? This month's Nuts & Bolts column explores figuring things out, making things happen, and getting things done. Largely inspired by Euan Semple who said: “Quit reading case study porn and get on with it.”

"Social Media for Learning" meets "Show Your Work": The 21 Day Drawing Challenge

There's a fun social learning activity going on via Lynda.com., the "21 Day Drawing Challenge" . Led by artist Von Glitschka, the project offers a daily new assignment (like "draw a cat" or "draw a man on a unicycle using only a continuous line") along with a quick overview video and printable reference worksheet. 

Additional support and participant interaction happen via a Facebook page.  There Von Glitschka offers additional tips and sometimes directs participants to tutorials in other courses. Even better: People use the comments area on the daily Facebook posts to share pictures of their own drawings and to talk about what they found especially challenging or describe the technique they used. It's a great example of people interacting around a shared purpose, showing their work, helping each other learn.

Many people are also sharing their images via Twitter (#draw21days); @kristinrtaylor tweeted a picture and said: "My first go at @lynda #draw21days challenge. Getting over my fear of others seeing my work. Have to start somewhere!" 

So if you're interested in using social media to support instruction, and/or seeing how "show your work" really works (or if you're interested in learning to draw!) do pop by and take a look. Day 3 has just started so there's still time to catch up if you'd like to join the fun. 

Reflective Practice

. Consider investing more time in working toward improving in the future, reconcilin
We spend a lot of time in this business talking about how to do things: build it, program it, deliver it, launch it, or sell it. We don’t spend much thinking about what to do after we’ve actually done it. Consider investing more time in working toward improving in the future, reconciling your walk with your talk, and building your role as practitioner in a professional pursuit.

See the July Nuts & Bolts column for details on becoming a more reflective practitioner. 

Show Your Work!

We know that a lot of “traditional” knowledge management approaches don’t work very well. We have piles of status reports and documented standard operating procedures and what have you, and still, data says we spend a quarter of our time looking for something—or someone—with the information we really need.

Working efficiently and effectively isn’t just about capturing “information.” We need to do better, not at documenting what people do, but how they get things done. This will help our organizations, our coworkers, and others who engage in our practice. It will support your credibility and establish or strengthen your brand. And it’s how we help each other learn.

See this month's Learning Solutions Nuts & Bolts Column offers an exploration of how showing our work can help solve some of organizational life's most bedeviling problems. 

Available now! 

Managing Expectations of Social Tools

I find that many organizations have rather unrealistic expectations of what will happen when they move to employ social tools. See this month's Nuts & Bolts column for more: "Every member in an organization won’t participate equally. There will be noise. And some of that noise will end up having value, or building a bridge that will prove useful later. Just like in real life.”

Headed to Learning Solutions next week? I've got breakouts...stage presentations...a panel... and live #lrnchat! Hope to see you there. 

Building Community

A lot of my time is spent hearing about, and talking about, and reading about, and endeavoring to, building communities.  I find that people come to the conversations often too focused on the same things (mostly control, platforms, and, er, control) without much regard to desired outcomes, user experience, and dangers. See this month's Nuts and Bolts column for more.  

Punish the Learner

For those who've been keeping up with Project Ukulele, I found a nice local group that has a uke playalong meetup every 1st and 3rd Monday. We meet in a small coffeehouse that hosts small concerts so there's something of a 'stage' up front.  In months that have a 5th Monday -- like September 2013 -- there's an open mic meeting. People come prepared to perform a song or 2,  and with the smaller group that shows up it's a fun time to share and learn some new songs. 

Last night as we were winding down, and after a good deal of nudging from the man next to her, a woman named Vivian got up on stage. She's been playing for 2 1/2 weeks. Weeks. Before she began she said:

"I took piano lessons for a year when I was six. The night of my recital I walked out on stage in my beautiful blue satin gown my grandmother made for the occasion. We weren't allowed to have music; we were expected to play our pieces by heart. I sat down on the bench and started to play and then -- I couldn't remember what came next. I just froze. And I hung my head. And I remember now how it felt when I looked down and saw big teardrops falling down onto my beautiful new satin dress. I haven't touched an instrument since then."

She put some printed music on a stand, then played and sang a lovely rendition of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah". 

In my work I run into a lot of "blame the learner" mentality: "They can't use the technology, and they don't want to learn, and they don't care, and no matter how many times we go over it they go back to work and do it wrong."  And I recently read -- really --  "There are no learning problems in corporate settings. There are only people unwilling to learn." 

I promise you no one wanted to learn more than 6 year old Vivian. But put a good performer in a bad system and the system will win every time. 

Let's talk about Vivian. She was 6 years old and:
Was expected to perform.
Before she was ready.
In an unnatural setting.
In public.
With "bosses" watching.
By memory.
Without a job aid. 

I suppose you get my point. 

Last  night Vivian was ready to try again. It wasn't quite this, but it wasn't bad at all. And it only took her 56 years. 

(Elissa Stapley)

Making Video More "Social"

Something new next week, hosted by KZO Innovations: Video used in formal training, or to support informal learning, doesn't have to be just another passive viewing experience.  Too often online video becomes just another publish-only venture, but there are easy ways to make it more of a social and reflective endeavor. Join me for a look at the ways video can be used effectively to extend learning experieces and help generate new ones. September 26, 1:30 pm, free (note: 50 minutes). Sign up. 

The Myth of Best Practices: Update

In 2009 I wrote a post, "The Myth of Best Practices"  , that described problems with both context and fidelity. Here's a great example of what usually happens when "best practices" are transferred from one setting to another: 

Be A Learner

This month's "Nuts and Bolts" column explores the ways an instructional designer can learn from her own learning. In my line of work there’s a lot of conversation about instructional design and common design flaws, and I spend a lot of time evaluating eLearning courses and products. I find it helps my perspective immensely when I set out to learn something new for myself, the more unrelated to work, the better. Among them: Play the song, draw a picture, and lose the ferrets. 

See more at http://www.learningsolutionsmag.com/articles/1218/nuts-and-bolts-instructional-design-101be-a-learner . 

"Show Your Work" Event Today

I publish a lot, and few things have gotten me more response than last August's Nuts & Bolts column, "Narrating Our Work". It clearly resonated with readers, so much so that strangers now contact me wanting to share their own examples. (I am always interested in seeing more, by the way.)

As I wrote in the May issue of T+D Magazine:
" Sharing and showing what we’re doing and learning can ease several pain points for organizations. First there’s the capture of tacit knowledge:  it helps fill the gap that so often occurs when someone leaves a job but those remaining don’t know how to pick up where the former worker left off. And it helps others learn about executing work not easily captured as a step-by-step process. Then there’s the matter of connecting talent pools, branching across organizational silos, and surfacing expertise. How many times have you finished a project , or researched an idea, or hunted down a resource, only to find someone else had already done the same thing? For T & D, a willingness to learn from what workers share can help to reveal where training issues exist, provide artifacts that can be repurposed as training content, and help make workplace training more relevant and real-world based.  And:  showing what we’re doing -- narrating our work in a public way -- work helps make learning more explicit. It surfaces informal and social learning to help make it visible to the organization and and management, whereas often now it is only opaque." 

Join me today, June 11, 2 pm ET,  for "Show Your Work", a webcast hosted by ASTD. We'll look at a lot of real examples and talk about why, how, who, and what we in L&D can do to support it. The session is free but you do need to jump through some registration hoops.


Curious? Here's a Pinterest board that should give you an idea of the kinds of things we'll discuss today. 

Are You a Positive Deviant? (Updated June 1)

Update: I curated some resources for webinar attendees that others may find interesting. Due to the buzz this topic generated we're continuing the conversation in #lrnchat on Thursday, June 6, 8:30 pm ET, 5:30 PT. (Sydney? That's Friday June 7, 11:30 am.) 

"In every group there are a minority of people who find better solutions to the challenges at hand…even though they have access to exactly the same resources as the rest of the group, their uncommon practices or behaviors allow them to flourish.”—Jerry Sternin

You know one: the one manager of 30 in the building who never misses deadlines and consistently shows good results while retaining great staff. The one teacher who’s successful with technology integration, while 50 others don’t “have time.” The one state government classroom trainer of 500 who instead of saying, “We can’t do e-learning because it’s too expensive,” asked, “How can we do e-learning without much money?” 

Read the rest in this month's issue of Training Magazine.

And view the recording of the May 29 webinar (Training Magazine Network)  "Tips for the Positive Deviant"  .