Perspectance

Is your organization characterized by conversation silos? I’m betting most organizations are structured as departmental hierarchies that coincidentally keep conversation to a minimum. The focus is probably on getting assigned work done. Therefore conversation, especially between employees across functional team lines and even more so, up and down the “chain of command” is likely viewed as interruption, unnecessary, and typically a waste of time. Can anyone give me an example of an organization that behaves otherwise?

One might be hard-pressed to imagine a more structured organization than the US Army, and so I read with interest LTC Pete Kilner’s description of consequences when one aspect of the C4P community design model (last post) is missing or weak:

If conversation is missing, knowledge may transfer but is unlikely to be generated. If connections are absent, there will be fewer contributions of content and conversation, and the contributions will have less context. If information context is absent, the community is prone to misinterpret content or apply knowledge inappropriately to new situations. Finally, without purpose, knowledge-building will founder.

As Jay Cross continually points out, 80% of what people learn occurs through informal means, yet companies spend 90% of their education budget on formal training. This is a complex problem, but the formal training, conversational silo, limited cross-boundary connection approach constrains knowledge capital to a transfer model, and ignores knowledge generation.

This gets to why it is so crucial to foster conversation in today’s economies. I’m intentionally using the word “economies” to highlight the value proposition inherent in communities of practice design for organizations. What business today still really thinks that knowledge transfer is sufficient? What educator today believes this? Knowledge sharing, building, and most importantly, knowledge generation is necessary to compete in today’s rapid pace of change condition.

Which of the five parts of your knowledge-building community is weakest? Is knowledge generation even occurring? Is it valued?

Tomorrow, I am delighted to be playing host in a CPsquare Research and Dissertation Fest community conference call to Alice MacGillivray, a Canadian knowledge management researcher.

Alice published a chapter in the Handbook of Research on Knowledge-Intensive Organizations entitled, Knowledge Intensive Work in a Network of Counter-Terrorism Communities. There are three things intriguing me in her work:

1. Alice applied a model that considers community of practice design that she learned in 2004 from (then Army Major) Pete Kilner, practitioner designer who created CompanyCommand, a community of practice that has been transforming Army officers.
2. In addition to applying a practitioner’s model, Alice also used a phenomenographic methodology in her research design. Her study approach appears to be replicable.
3. By applying Pete’s model, and publishing a replicable study in an academic work, a practice approach heretofore known mainly to the practical domain in which it originated has the chance of being tried and disseminated through the academic domain.

Alice is bridging a scholar-practitioner divide that exists and many of us experience but is often times difficult to discuss. This may come up in the call tomorrow along with discussion of the applicability of the C4P model.

Pete’s C4P model is an interesting tool that I will immediately apply to my support of curriculum and faculty development communities. You really should read the well-written short paper, but this definition section might tease you:

The C4P framework defines each of these terms in a specific way. Content refers to explicit, static knowledge objects such as documents or video clips, whereas conversation refers to face-to-face or online discussions. The key distinction between content and conversation is that content involves a one-way communication of information (monologue), whereas conversation necessarily includes at least a two-way exchange of information (dialogue) [25]. Connections, as used in C4P, refer to interpersonal contacts between community members that involve some level of relationship. When one member sends an email to another member, a connection has occurred. Information context is the who, what, where, when, why, and how that enables community members to assess whether and how information is relevant to them. This context provides the richness of detail that makes information meaningful and memorable. Finally, purpose is the reason for which the members come together in the community.

Alice’s chapter is available through the publications section of her artful blog (third item down). The CPsquare call tomorrow from 1-2 PST is free and open to invitees. If you are interested, contact either Alice or myself for the bridge number. Skype is good ? : suewolff or amacgillivray.

Most people at NorthernVoice, a blogger’s unconference that took place this past weekend in Vancouver, B.C. blogged in some fashion during the conference about the conference. Many tweeted. A tiny bit of tweeting was all I could muster. I was in a relaxed, chilled receptive canvas mode – stark contrast to last year. Took lots of notes and used the time as a soft mirror I could fold up and look at later. Since a fair number of participants (like myself) might be reviewing tagged blogs this week, I want to write something about my takeaways. The best thing for me about NorthernVoice is new online friends, and those can start with the sketchiest of blogged ideas.

The session that keeps sticking with me was one of the last ones: “Navigating the space in between – Create relationships, not distance” . It was a sure bet going in due to the everthoughtful Barbara Ganley, Laura Blankenship and Nancy White.

A Tale of two Dances was a neat little video that set the tone and they had us draw a picture of a face together with a partner to illustrate how we are constantly straddling across boundaries to connect and co-create.

Laura stated, “We both have left comfortable spaces.” She knew how to do the online world and was wanting to be there, but wants to try and make some connections outside, into her neighborhood. Her community neighbors are not online. How does she connect? How does she find the ones who know what Twitter is? She feels like she is in the limbo space and doesn’t know how to do the dance yet. She knows she’s not the only one trying to bridge that space.

Barbara is very comfortable in that space in between, at the edges, with the chaos. As a Middlebury College veteran faculty member, she regularly moved her students to that edge space, “but students are one thing. How do you move people in neighborhoods to those places?” She asked, “How do we use the boundaries and borders as places of deep learning potential, to find one another for help?”

Nancy talked about how it’s “some of me, some of we”, and how “the network creates a whole new me.” She asks, “Where are the juicy spots for each of those ways of being?” and then answers for herself, ” It’s about noticing the transitions and using them positively.”

Then they asked the group what people are doing to make the crossovers a rich space. What are people doing?

With far too little time, some people challenged the premise that the gap needed bridging. Dana Boyd’s identity work came up and brought back for me ongoing struggles with choosing and defining personal and public identities: “Some people need to rely on the separation provided by the two worlds.”

Someone, (I think maybe a thoughtful Heidi, but correct me if I’m wrong) stated what for me is the point I have been mulling over since the weekend,

“It’s a consciousness thing. It takes some self-confidence and/or foolhardiness. It takes not caring about what people think of you, maybe. It’s more taking more comfort in one’s identity. Learning to be ok with someone not liking that.”

For months, I have felt so stuck and befuddled with my not blogging despite the urge, that this message was a shiny key. Traversing worlds… integrating digital and embodied identities, requires a certain self-knowledge to even know if, when, why, and what one could, should, would want to BE present and engaged off and/or online. How can I know when I spend far too much time in front of my closet wondering which clothing is me today? What makes me so full of adolescent-type ambiguity the older I get?

I wonder, just a little bit, if my state of unease and mixed emotions toward on or offline social engagement has something fundamental to do with my serious intentional empty nest choice to return to school and delve into this ever emerging field as an online professional technology steward . Perhaps my choice keeps me in a more permanant transition forever swimming the tidal margins. Perhaps I am simply adapting to this brackish condition and need to realize my salt and fresh, off and online worlds allow me to flourish in the mix -but it’s still me BEING in the middle here. What do I want to BE doing?

And if you have read along this far and anything resonates, what is your story? Do you also see yourself in some kind of life transiton that overlays your online profession? How are you adapting (or not) your identity to the conditions of emergence?