Learning to change culture

To me, culture seems like gossamer, hard to touch and see; even define. It can be oddly attractive as it settles around you, even comforting. Yet it can pervade the environment so surely, that when something needs to change, it may as well be fishing line.

So when myself and Tony Gleeson  were planning how to prepare our session on ‘Changing your organisational learning culture to ensure eLearning adoption’ at this week’s eLearning Connected Forum (Ark Group), we knew we needed to challenge our own thinking about what that means.

The priority of the session was to get people talking, to light the conversational fire. And as well offer something of our own experience into the mix. We framed the conversation with a statement that we hoped would get people talking, even from polar opposites. So we put up one slide that said ‘eLearning as we know it is dead. What do YOU think?’.

We talked about the changes that are happening around learning: social learning, informal learning, participatory culture, virtual spaces, next generation elearning. Our focus was that the people in the room held the keys to understanding these issues around the discussion themes:

• Value: what is the value of next generation elearning to your business and employees?
• Audience: what (and who) is the right audience for next generation elearning? Is this just for 'the young people'?
• Change strategies: what change management activities would you use to implement next generation elearning successfully? What would you do to break down resistance to change?

I loved the energy in the room. It was clear that people wanted to get talking as soon as possible, because once they started, it was challenging to get them back into the room for the group sharing bit! (thank goodness for microphones).

I noted the main themes on the whiteboard…

And some of the take-outs:

• It’s about being truly ‘Learner-centric’: ensure the value for the audience
• What creates value for the learner? There are now more options to suit learner needs
• Learner determines the meaning: connectedness is the key
• Create hunger and intrigue; then learners will identity value for themselves
• The language we use needs to change too
• Next-generation elearning helps to maintain equity for those in remote locations
• Its not the age of the people, its the age of the organisational culture that is the issue
• The power of networks: we need to value this, use & extend it
• Be more inclusive of IT people: involve them in strategy development, planning, etc
• Lets drop the ‘e’ from ‘elearning’
• It's about knowledge generation
• The ideal learning culture is emergent, collective, with transparency

Self-directed learning came up a lot in the conversation. I like this – I think it’s evolving where there is much more choice about when and how we learn. Learning doesn’t even seem like learning; it’s just part of the flow. Our own preferences can drive the learning. We can participate and be involved. Culture change starts with us.

Did I miss anything?

Holiday reading, how far have I got?

About a month before breaking for the end-of-year period, I started compiling my list of books to read.

This may seem counter-intuitive since I am such a fan of following clues and links of people on the web via Twitter and blogs, etc; however at this time of year I really enjoy the expanse of time created by holidays and lying around reading a hard copy paper book (purchased online of course).

So here is the list I've been reading through. Considering I've only finished one and I'm going back to work on Monday, this reading is going to extend w-a-y past my annual leave.

• Change by Design (Tim Brown): now this is the one I have finished reading. The concepts here are familiar to me, as I believe they dovetail neatly into other types of thinking that revolve around human needs, and then meeting them in innovative ways. Even in my former career in the performing arts, the study of human motivation and actions was a fundamental part of the 'design' of a character, to then elicit a response in the audience as a result of the performance.
  I think that human-centred design is pretty much fundamental to everything, even more so in the 'knowledge age.' I found Tim Brown's approach to design thinking useful and straightforward, especially the way he explains the concepts through visuals.
• Enterprise 2.0 (Andrew McAfee): I've just started this one. It's a great read so far, it has some great case studies and of course he's a key guru for Enterprise 2.0 and the practicalities around how it transforms organisations.
• The Cluetrain Manifesto (Levine, Locke, Searls, Weinberger): An oldie and a goodie, prophetic, insightful and entertaining. It's been published free online for years, yet I felt the need to have a hard copy. I read it years ago and I'm looking forward to revisiting it.
• Digital Habitats (Wenger, White, Smith): Another one I'm looking forward to. I've followed Etienne Wenger's work for years, and I participated in a few activities with Nancy White when she was in Melbourne last year. Great ideas and thinking in different ways about communities.
• Drive (Dan Pink): Actually, this one was a late inclusion, I only discovered it last week when doing one of my regular scans, following clues for interesting material. It follows a theme I'm fascinated by, human motivation, particularly our intrinsic motivators to connect and share what we know with each other, and why we want to achieve and learn together.

So that's it for now, I have lots to occupy me and prepare me for reading and reflection into 2010!