The Art of Knowledge
A Human Approach
It's funny to think of myself thinking in a human approach when it comes to technology and education. Not funny in that I can't see how they go together, because it is more and more obvious with every passing day that our intention with technology and education need to be more human. It is funny because I may have trouble doing it. Anything I have trouble with, I first laugh at and say, "Oh that's nonsense. Why would I want to do that?". But, as my thinking evolves it becomes more and more evident that my previous ways need to change, or at least evolve. And the evolution continues by heeding your advice so I'll give it a shot.
What I can see as the start of the system used to heighten our learning experience looks like a huge field of crops. All the corps are different but it's so vivid and so vaste that you can tell where one crop starts and another begins. You can see the individual plants. And if you want an ear of corn or a head of cabbage you know exactly where to go to get it. This is (or was for some) the dream of the Internet. The dream of the learning Internet, just to use an easier phrase, or learning paradigm is to not only have this field but to take the choosing out of the minds of the people. Not necessarily the entire choice process but at least the leg work. You see they already chose the field to be at. ....DAMNIT DAMNIT....this isnt coming out well...i'll continue it later!...sorry
Link posted by JVMM : 1:18 AM
Learning Objects & Colin
I agree that you should approach this the way youre doing it, weeding through whats out there, because if you dont know what the other players in the market are doing, theres no way you can steal their knowledge and build on it. So yeah, keep on keeping on. I didnt mean to come off sounding like "youre wrong, do it my way" because thats no use, you gotta look at it how you gotta look at it. And I gotta look at it how I gotta look at it. So we're even. Anyway, blah blah blah.
But yeah, I think the key to all this is to see how regular people are already "voting with their feet" in terms of what are they already doing to develop relationships with knowledge sources through technology. Relationships! People! Thats what you have to think about. To me, thats the way this has to be clothed, the kind of language you have to use to support it. I think whatever the hell it is that "Learning Objects" are (and I really have no idea, its a completely vague term) you won't see ordinary people wanting to interact with them. Its like, you wouldnt want to go to a party thrown by a bunch of "Learning Objects," cause, shit, it sounds mind-numbingly boring. Whatever the core idea of it is, it may be useful, but I'm trying to get you to steer out of that kind of language domain, because its going to draw you further and further from normal human thinking, into the world of meaningless techno-babble.
Take for example Colin. If you were to walk back into Catalyst, get a job, etc, and then be like, "Colin, I have this great idea to use these Learning Objects, and Cisco is doing it, blah blah blah." He's just going to stare at you blankly, and possibly you'll both get frustrated that you can't communicate what the hell it is youre talking about. Actually, I think thats a good test for you with a lot of this stuff, is to imagine yourself trying to explain it to Colin, cause he's both conservative, and has an open mind, which is a rare mix - I think you'll usually find the just conservative side. Anyway, I'll try to throw down more as I think of it.
Link posted by Anonymous : 11:53 AM
Whoosh Your Ass Right Back in Here
Your approach is great. And I love the higher level thought process, but I think that the people thinking about this aren't as stupid, or as much of an enemy as we think. Learning Objects are definately a way to distribute dynamic content and it is the missing link to creating personalized totally organic curriculum. I don't think anyone has really realized that.
Now, that I know that they can be used to do what I want then I can go about abandoning most of their other things. But, I still think there is some good being done out there. Let's put it this way, God didn't strike down and hit me on the head and say "You are the chosen one". I think there are people out there attempting to do the same thing and I need to go through these articles, including the corporate ones to weed out what's good and what's bad. I haven't really formulated any ideas beyond what I have read and what we have already talked about.
- Knowledge Mapping
- Incorporating modern mediums to build nodes
- Making mentors, students, and tutors interhchangable in a pyramid paradigm
- Using technology intead of human power to deliver answers and track results.
More later, your advice is good. I'll take it to heart.,
Link posted by JVMM : 1:37 AM
WHOOSH!!!
All this stuff you're talking about is way over my head. Well, not reall, I mean, I understand it, I just don't see why it is important, or what, if anything, does it have to do with teaching people, and with getting people to a point where they can teach themselves, and then teach others.
I think you need to sit down and figure out just what you are after. Right now, I think you are doing something valuable, and that is "learning how the enemy thinks" so that you may find their weak points, walk in, and lay their country flat. News flash! All of it is weak points. There are NO strong points to the things these people are talking about. Not that I have seen. Maybe I just havent read in depth enough, or maybe its because the way that I evaluate ideas is whether or not I find them (1) exciting, (2) expansive and (3) they push me to have to reorganize what I know around new information brought into the core of what I know, and how I think.
What do you want out of all this? Do you want a job at a company studying statistics of cost and success? That's all most business care about anyway, and it will be hard to convince people in any other kind of language about how things can and should work. For that reason, I think the angle you're taking will be useful to you, but I do not think it is "organic" as you keep touting.
That word keeps tugging at you, I can tell and I think thats what you should be looking at. You should be looking not just at what huge listless corporations are doing and failing at doing, but you should be looking at what real live people are doing with technology to enhance their lives. The trends are all there, you just need to open up to them, and start figuring out how to turn them into a business model, because that will be, I think, ultimately the most successful approach you could take. Don't start at the top. Start at the bottom.
Systems I would look at and think about their implications are all of the obvious ones: instant messaging, file sharing, message boards, blogs, commenting systems, shared network spaces (like friendster) where people are actually creating and interacting in an environment. Maybe it seems useless and futile, and like pointless internet socialization, but its not. Its people realizing that something important is happening, and casting about for ways to make it useful and meaningful in their lives.
I think the clearest example I can give to support any of this though is blogs, and the vast communities that are supported by them. I'm not saying that blogs are the answer, but I am saying that they contain an element of the answer, and that part of the reason they are useful is that they give people a playground space to throw down ideas and links, for themselves and for others. They promote interaction and advancement.
I think the biggest problem of all the CBT systems that I have seen (besides that they just fucking blow goats) is that they dont seek true interaction. they just spew out facts, and have a series of links and menus. That sort of resource, has a place, but its not the central piece. You should look back at those ideas we implemented back at Catalyst about the order of resources that people should use, and how the internet and books were the first line of defence, and the absolute last resort for them was to come to us with a complete explanation of all the resources they had found already, but which didnt help them. Basically, after a certain point, all I would have to do with them was ask them questions about what they already knew, what they needed to know, and then help them outline steps of how to get there.
Knowledge mapping. You strike on that at some point in one of these posts. Basically finding out what people know, and then helping figure out what they need to know to proceed, and helping them access that knowledge, and then move on. I think thats really the heart of all this. Or, one of the two pieces at the heart of it. One is obviously the learning system itself (blogs, instant messaging, friendster, file-sharing) and the other is teaching this skill of knowledge mapping to teachers (guides) who then teach it to students. So that people arent frustrated by what they dont know - which is how school works now, i think - but they are able to identify the holes in their understanding, and then seek out some way to fill it.
Anyway! Keep up the good work. You're onto stuff, but you need to make it more human, or else you will never be able to convince anybody of this. It needs to feel practical, comfortable and dare I say pleasant. Right now, it sounds boring, distant, cold, terrifying. Hehe. I hope this helps. Ill shoot you some more sometime.
Link posted by Anonymous : 6:08 PM
SABA - Ananlytics in Human Capital Development
Ok, so why I am so interested in this stuff you ask? I think once you come to some sort of material peace with yourself and you no longer seek the strange pleasures in life as your only motivation, you start to seek out how you can help and still be important. For some, after little deliberation, it's family, other's, God. I think those are the two major players for an unselfish outlet. Mine, right now is Human Capital issues. It interests me. I know that without solutions or at least ditch diggers our economy will cotinue to struggle and even scarier, the wealth and socio-oppurtunity gap will get larger. I don't want to see that. So I need to help in some way. Plus, it would be nice to be able to sustain myself off of what I feel is important. It's also a budding industry open for people with ideas. Anyway this article was sort of boring but important to read because it gave analytics to human capital and turned me on to some metrics used in the industry.
- Cost of learning is at 2% of the payroll
note - I wonder what the cost of lost initiative due to uninformed or underqualified staff, disgruntled stagnant employees quitting or worse wasting and stealing, and layoffs - Quantify ROI by defining competencies directly attributing to the corporate objective
note - - PDP! - Why are people investing in learning? - Learning and skills are a horizontal quality in what is becomming an evermore vertical economy.
note - - Learning is being bulked into human capital and rightly so but with analytics it is now able to be written to the bottom line and ROI. Qualifying learning expenditures is a tough bag though. - Software and retail companies are spending upwards of 10% on learning. These are volatile markets.
- "If you can't measure it you can't manage it"
- Kirkpatrick Model
- Only 9% of companies can measure learning impact on job performance
- Only 6% of companies can measure learning impact on a business objective
- With analytics corporations can create causal relationships between the learning efforts they make and the results they get
note - These numbers tell me two things. 1) Analytics is now vital to proposing any sort of learning initiative. Companies aren't stupid and eventually they'll stop funding what they can't prove is working. 2) With this analytical systems and the numbers being that low there will be a huge boom soon. In fact it's happening now in the big boys who can afford it, but wait til it gets real mainstream.
- Only 9% of companies can measure learning impact on job performance
- Developing the system
- User Friendly - Static reports aren't analytical. You need to be able to drill down and see exactly what's happening and where. You need to know that Bob's group in pheonix is not retooling and why. Each user's system should be designed to personally (organically) fit them. No training should be necessary to use it.
notes - Ok first off, "No training to use it" goes against the entire principle of the learning economy (oh schnapps Tim..."the learning age"). Secondly, if I see the term "user friendly" one more time I am discrediting whatever it is I am reading. - Out-of-the-box Analysis - they basically talk about designing a system.
notes - Duh...this article is starting to disappoint me - Intuitive and Effective Data Sharing - Users of the system do not need to be analytical. They should receive emails with reports. Get everyone involved and make it a mandatory experience.
notes - Ok I'm not thinking like these people are. The way I envision any system that I create from here on out is that if they are confused about the system then they can learn about it right there while they are attempting to work. I have never used a system, software, or piece of machinery without having to "feel it out" first. The thing is, with Learning Objects and the new LMS paradigm we don't have to have trial and error. We can just learn about it right there. Come on people let's start thinking like we are going to change something not just get our own little niche and make a quick buck. And to reitterate, the LMS is the key. The system that supports this is the key. - Enterprise Scalable Architecture - Base the system on a data warehousing paradigm. Think beer and diapers.
notes - OK so I may be getting sidetracked. This article is about being able to qualitatively diagnose learning initiatives. Ok, but damnit I want them to start seeing the light of the sun, not just their own flashlight. Basically, analytics is a nice way of using current data warehouses to mine data analytically to show results and prove theories. It can make elearning viable and that is good.
- User Friendly - Static reports aren't analytical. You need to be able to drill down and see exactly what's happening and where. You need to know that Bob's group in pheonix is not retooling and why. Each user's system should be designed to personally (organically) fit them. No training should be necessary to use it.
Link posted by JVMM : 9:20 AM
Adval Group - A Pancea or a Cultural Change
This article proved to start out strong and fade towards the end. It looks a little wonky at first first because of the big guy's picture and it's cheesy font and color scheme but it has some solid ideas. It came up with this great scheme for competencies and answers and really put everything into a much clearer light for me. I like that he doesn't mention Learning Objects at all because I can totally see where they fit into his scheme. He says something about SQL databases and dynamic content instead...ehh...anyway here are my notes.
- He starts out by attacking the rigid medium of web based flip books and CD-Roms or CBT's and their role in distributing elearning.
note - Well duh, but it's nice to see someone finally come out and say it. He's probably saying it because his company is new and he wasn't the one in charge of educational expenses in some fortune 500 company where all these other white papers get written, and at one time said that the 2 million$ CBT program would solve all of the eduational problems within the company. He specifically says that these CBT"s lack the most in their abilities to immitate anything human or real-time. They show glowing failures in the areas of interview preperation, HR studies, Social work, or anything with more than one variable. They excel in the engineering fields and should still be considered a viable, although antiquated method for elearning within heavy load information industries where immediate practice outweighs learned consumption. They can be considered important if for no other reason than their content value.
note - Why are we still assuming that this passive and sometimes boring medium will take us to the next level despite delivery or content. Pro's of CD-Rom auto-broadband/Pros of web-based - customizable. Inexpensive content might be able to be extracted from some of these old CBT's. - Why elearning? - it supports the typical modern organization where process and products are subject to continuous change (ex?...software company). Mediums currently available for CBT's - CDROM, WBT, video, simulators, emulators.
note - Stop getting hung up on the medium already. The medium is not the problem nor is it the solution. Retention that leads to learning evolution and permanent, stable, seeking growth is the goal - the real change. It's not the price tag or the commercial that you can envision coming from these products. We aren't going to change anything unless we address the idea of combining technology with the new information gathering patterns and then assessing how people can best mine and use. - There stands to be a new incredibly close linkage between technology and HR.
note - This brings IT back into the main fold once again. People are now starting to really realize that IT is the heartbeat of their company. But combining it even more with HR is a huge step forward. There is still a huge gap (despite what you see on TV shows like CSI) between the computer generation and the rest of the work force. Most middle management and senior executives have the technological vocabulary and usage of a five year old. IT has only been around for maybe 20/25 years and it's only been allowed in the board room over the last 3 or 4 of those years. It now has really become integrated to the rest of the company. It is only in that time that it has been given a face. IT gets closer to HR with LMS. - Adopoting the Correct Philosophy -
- Univerasl Domain of Competencies - A common reference frame that comprehensively charts all the competences needed by the organization, defining and documenting the specific skills, knowledge and behaviors that every individual needs, closely following existing individual job desciprtions, core competences and succession planning. note - YES! I think every company has this in mind but now we actually don't have to turn away people that are bright and willing and eager just because they don't have 2 years experience. We assess the competencies they need and then...
- Universal Domain of Intervention - a catalogue of all the possible learning solutions in use - and the specific skills, knowledge and behaviors they can train for. note - So we say, "ok you lack this competency (check) and now we give you this intervention (check) welcome to IBM." Well not quite but it's a start and it's semi-eutopic. I know this is what some companies mean by orientation or pre-job training, but they haven't applied these to a real system yet. They haven't streamlined it in anyway.
- Personal Development Plans (PDP)- can be used to identify the existing skills, knowledge and behaviors of every individual, compare them to the required competences and then map out a PDP using interventions to fill in the holes, or prepare for promotion or job change. note - OK I know this all sounds a little too wonderful, but I think with the proper LMS and Learning Objects this is highly possible. Don't you see what this means? It means it can be applied well beyond the corporate HR system and can be moved into schools, colleges (where I think it is really needed), antiquated work force(see colleges). These three steps do it for you. They do what most people don't understand. They conquer that enigmatic vague quality that happens in job interviews or entrance exams. People can now check it off as they do it, or even better companies can recruit or promote properly by retooling their staff instead of laying them off. Holy beauty! But the key is the LMS.
- Univerasl Domain of Competencies - A common reference frame that comprehensively charts all the competences needed by the organization, defining and documenting the specific skills, knowledge and behaviors that every individual needs, closely following existing individual job desciprtions, core competences and succession planning. note - YES! I think every company has this in mind but now we actually don't have to turn away people that are bright and willing and eager just because they don't have 2 years experience. We assess the competencies they need and then...
- Elearning is only the delivery method it is not the answer note - ok he's getting symantec. But if I follow his logic, than elearning is just the content. It has nothing to do with the system. hmmm...
- Elearning is only the medium - not the message - and the message needs to be relevant meaningful and appropiate to the person it is aimed at. notePerson implies an organic/bioligical system (not just personalized). This with it's PDP and the reassesment is getting close - but I think it's missing something. It's missing foresight and growth with the combination of medium delivery, assesment, and retention. It just hasn't baked the whole pie yet.
- A culture change is also required to move from a procedural model to an object model.
- Selection and recruitment on the basis of personal attribute rather than skills. This is important to assure the process is selecting the "right stuff" noteKnowledge base and behaviors may vary which is what the competences and interventions are for. How do we accept the "right stuff"? Is that a way to start? Maybe we should start by saying this is the "right stuff" and retooling them to excel to that level first before we attempt to give them competences in-line with the corporation or job. That would mean I have just developed the first bi-level tier in Learning Object history. The level before the introduction. The level that starts before any tangible competency can be assessed. The core areas of behavior which include motivation, professionalism, dedication, responsibility, etc...
note - Who should help write those proficiencies- HR, fellow employees?
note - This would also mean corporation have to view individuals in a different way. They have to incorporate knowledge base solutions into their most basic processes and decisions. Unfortunately, corporations have few KM infrastructures and thus take the first tech-based solution available and the roll it out and watch it crash.
note - I need to get a better feel for what PeopleSoft and SAP really are.
note - Look into the EPSS "carry active knowledge and learning beyond training and into every facet of working life."
note - For every competency there should be an intervention that achieves proficiency and that intervention should absolutely be based around the idea of learning objects.
note - There is a nice energy about this paper that seems to feel right. I read the CISCO, IBM, and the ORACLE papers and they just came off like dinner with your crazy, rich, mean uncle Henry who has your inheritance but whom you hate. This paper feels like it's helping rather than selling or telling.
So the main thing I took from that was the PDP. I think those 3 points are going to stick with me for a while.
Link posted by JVMM : 8:27 AM
Stats From National Board of Education Center for Statistics
Ok I have been taking notes like a mad man...I just have to put them up here now...maybe tomorrow. Here are some of the educational stats that are tracks by the National Board of Education...they have tons of stuff on their website if you wanna check it out...
ALl stats are delayed from 99'-00'
- Female degrees across the board are up.
- Females now graduate more frequently than males.
- 600,000 AA degrees - will rise 18% in the next 10 years
- 1.2 million Bachelor degrees - has risen 25% over the last ten years - will rise 16% in the next 10 years
- Female Bachelor degrees grads jumped 39%
- 500,000 Master degrees - has risen 58% over the last 10 years
- 45,000 PhD degrees - unchanged
- 85,000 first professional degrees (law, dentistry, theology) - slight increases
- There are 53 million kids in elementary and secondary schools
- There is a 9% increase in the west for enrolled students and 6% decrease in the Northeast and Midwest
- 15 million people are enrolled in degree seeking institutions - has risen 15% over the last 10 years
- 9% increase in HS grads - 17% in the west
- 16% increasein bachelor degrees
What does all this mean? Well to me it means that Edu is big business. Maybe the biggest business. It is also a business that has no moral ambiguity. I.e. everyone agrees in education but not everyone agrees on dish detergent. But, they are both playing in what seems to be a consumer based market. The number and the website also show me that more people need education in order to survive. The question is, are they getting what they really need or are they just joining a club that gives them a piece of paper. And if the answer is the latter than are clubs and social structures the most important and vital aspect of education?
Link posted by JVMM : 1:25 AM
Enhancing the Learner Experience Cisco version 1.1 Notes
Here is a paper that I thought would be interesting but again came out to be a little dry. Anyway, I need to keep tabs on everything anyway. Lucky for you I'm doing the work and saving you the time. If you see anything interesting, because I didn't really skip anything, then by all means go check it out and let me know.
- Learning ecosystem - online all the time system for providing information and learning.
- 4 primary learning approaches - information, communication, collaboration, training
- The learning experience should be a transfer from restricted knoweldge and skills with limited user control to and exploratory approach where learners are free to find their own answers.
- A succesful ecosystem will be one that takes learners and turn them into peers and eventually mentors for future learners.
- 4 distinct learning approaches with deisgn and delivery accounting for cognitive skills - Sidenote - the theories you want to create encompass all skills. Does this mean you have to become proficient in everything from maintenance to sales pitches.
- Receptive
- Predetermined path
- Suited for novice performers
- Medium - video training, instructor lecture
- No felxibility
- Directive
- Content -> Activities -> Assesment ->Summaries
- Suggetsed learning paths of hierarchies
- Page turning approach
- Guided discovery
- Job scenario is initially set to frame the discovery
- Lay out of new skills needed to accomplish task
- Medium - rich multimedia (why?), case study scenarios that reflect real life
- For experienced or graduated learners
- Exploratory
- Experienced learners
- This seems to allow for room for additional skills to grow (hence maybe it shouldn't be classified to only experienced learners but more motivated learners). Skills such as communication, professionalism, information navigation, time management
- User has complete control of resources.
- Receptive
- Learning Ecosystem example - web based and ILT are the mediums. Even though they are antiquated systems they are still built from RLO's "Reusable Learning Objects". This allows for reassembly and reuse. They make a nice reference to using scenarios to retool professionals. And the choices of medium delivery are vital. The only thing different here that they are talking about is the use of the RLO''s. The RLO's are described so vaguely in how they actually work that this is just becomming useless to anyone who really cares about this stuff from a learning perspective. I mean it's all drawn out into little bits of data it feels like school in a computer. Where's the learning come in? The screen shots look like Oregon Trail for God's sake.
- The future
- Streamlining RLO's to support more concise content (see how vague that is)
- Virtual classrooms (so lame...)
- A more directed move towards the Guided Discovery approach
- Automatically notifying users of content updates
- User preferences according to desired medium
- User preferences according to coaching levels
- Production and benefits program
- "Problem of the day" 15 minute real life problem (L-A-M-E for a white paper by Cisco)
- Organic learning! (that's mine)
Link posted by JVMM : 8:29 AM
Cisco Top 15 Questions about Elearning Notes
I can't believe I lost the link and the article wasn't really profound enough for me to go beyond my just 10 minute search. So here are my notes on the guys who are calling themselves the world leaders in redesigning how people learn. I hope that's not true. They have some good "techy" stuff but for the most part they are just taking your 8th grade textbook and putting XML all over it. That's not going to momentously change anything.
- "Elearning is accesibly information" - where does the learning come into play - people aren't smart enough, or I should progressively thought processed enough to make use of alien cold information that is presented like a toxicology report. Preparing people for use of vocabulary should be a high initiative. Synthesized learning through actual tasks.
- "How does elearning benefit business" - retention of involved employees, smarter people, happier employees, flexibility in volatile markets.
- "Oppurtunities that elearning provides" - a life long ambition of learning and evolving, change in socio-economic oppurtunities.
- "What are some elearning challenges" - students - change mindset, understanding of life long learning, want to change and grow / providers - fun, retention, mediums, organic to each user
- Elearning vs EDt - Elearning is how to work properly using all tools and to handle specific tasks. Sidenote - using the same mediums that you deliver elearning on to deliver everything else, intranet, meeting agendas, email, etc... Elearning is not what I'm after if it has to do with these definitions. I would like to encompass it and make it a dominant medium but personal interaction with mentors and a social infrastructure are vital at the early stages. You need to figure out a pattern using real people before you can give it a digital feel. Come on people haven't we learned anything from the early 90's. This just sound like the Matrix and people getting plugged in and learning Kung Fu....what hooey
- Elearning vs. Classroom training - EL - documented, interactive, customizable / CT - variable instruction, passive, one for all
- "Is there a lack of interaction in elearning?" - elearning doesn't, or shouldn't mean total absence of human interaction with a digital stage. Tim's node theory, fellow peers, communities, a bunch of other words that probably won't work because it takes a while for people to start talking to each other. But, when they do, and the internet has definately expanded our communication customs, nodes and peers and mentors could work.
- "How is elearning more strategic?" - 24 hours, multiple mediums, more control over information (or at least disinformation or useless info), specified, scalable, faster, trackable
- "What is the cost of no elearning" - employees will become antiquated as fast as your hardware. Instructor led training is damn costly.
- "How did Cisco get such a high elearning initative really rolling?" -
- Non-threatening with anonymous scoring (focus is helping not judging)
- Help aids for those who fail
- Track their abilities with a focus on a trophy like system
- Monetary incentives for training
- Mandatory for everyone
- Non-threatening with anonymous scoring (focus is helping not judging)
- "Why did Cisco need an elearning process?" - They had an inability to scale classroom training.
- Start-up advice - What business problems do you need solving? Effective and flexible elearning message. Vendors and demos.
- ROI of elearning - a bunch of facts and numbers...basically it's like warm honey
- RLO (reusable learning object) strategy - DB driven learning objects that can be reused, searched, and modified independant of the learning media.
Sidenote - I got a feeling with all these white papers and new tangential focus that Cisco is looking to make a bigger play than just "showing you the way" in the elearning realm. They are really branding this RLO thing and even IEEE gave it authnetication. That kind of scares me and excites me. Wait a second that's only 14...hmm
Link posted by JVMM : 7:55 AM
Cluetrain Derailed
Ok so I read this because Tim said it was good but I found it to be really synical and pretentious (well then Bret why didn't you like it). It did have some interesting points and I thought the premise for the manifest was solid, but I don't understand why it had to come off sounding like the fat comic store owner from the Simpsons wrote it.
- #7 - Hyperlinks Subvert Hierarchy - ...quite interesting and very true. When human's control most of the information on a network, and the playing field for access to controlling quality amongst information and technology has been leveled, than the truth has a tendecy to leak out via the hyperlink. Humans have this inherent ability to deceive and also to divulge information. They tend to divulge when they have nothing or little to gain - i.e. - a network or personal website. These mass networks are vouching for the truth and the quality tha has always been evident but was slightly muffled. Now there is human interaction interspersed with mass marketing and where once was only passive facts, now exists interactive communities collaborating and sharing. Our communities and friends used to tell us things such as, "Dawn liquid soap bleached my clothes. Don't use it" And that information would have spread through a small community. Now the community boundaries are starting to evaporated and their populations are growing exponentially. Sidenote - Look how you have been getting most of your news and information lately; from trusted friends and services via the hyperlink.
- #14/15/16 - Language of the future is changing - How true this has become even if you don't see the real aspects just yet. Think on a very small level at first and then imagine how it could get bigger. Picture your messenger convo's, email messages, ... , abbreviations, less salutations and facts, pictures, and expressions via crappy keyboard imagery " 8^) " . Now understand how often you use the medium of digital as opposed to voice and how they are starting to overlap. This is the tip of the iceberg when you consider the working class TV generation and computer generation's attentions spans have been cut to 1/10 of what they already rediculously were in the 70's and 80's. This lack of attention will call for more facts, explosive emotion to gratify unbuilding instant-satisfying emotional needs, and exact timing. On the downside it will also bring an extreme shock value to the message. Look at the growth of porn and, violence on television and in the movies, in the last 20 years. But on the upswing we will be less likely to waste time or deal with bullshit run around. The need for instant gratification via communication and information will be of major importance in the way people are advertised to and the way companies exchange information.
- #27 - Arrogant Language - I never really understood this. When I used to sell computers (Oh Dear lord!) I begged the manager to stop using scary acronyms and simply rate the machines using charts or outlining simple points that make this machine right for the customer, "Do you like to go fast and play games. Then this is your machine", "Do you need word processing and Internet...". I think they do that now. But there was always this arrogance about the product that turned people off and made my job harder(lucky for them and me people needed computers at the time - 98') but now (and even then with Gateway) they have realized the draw to simplicity. I just wish programmers, programming products, advanced hardware (servers and routers) would think the same way. I see them starting to market to the world about how easy it is to be a programmer or own a server and run it, but it's always surrounded by aloof arrogance. It's not fucking rocket science guys. Anybody can be a systems admin, or web developer. So stop guarding your little lego forts of acronyms with polysyllabic swords made of shitty tin foil. Take your white papers and stick em' up your ass.
- #52 - #62 - I hate to say it but I don't think most companies will ever divulge to the public. Most companies seem like they were started to get them away from the public and create a little club so they could play(well some work hard) with all their buddies and ask 24 year olds to marry them. Companies you see now became companies to have control over rules and people who were at that time controlling them. So they built a little cocoon where they could hide and defend. I think the idea of an actual company needs to be redrawn form close to scratch(do I hjave the asnwers for that, Hell no, but doesn't something just feel askew with our economy and corporate world). There are no battles, or there should be no battles, other than making a better product or service, taking care of your employees and creating an environment that people would want to be a part of. Sidenote - Do you ever get the feeling as though you are walking into a prison rather than a corporation when you stand at the foot of one of those fortune 500 buildings. I think the company system as we know it is destined to fail.
- # 65-67 - Unfortunately the company you see today wasn't always that way. At one time they were 2 guys in a garage, Grandma was answering the phone on a cardboard box, or the $5.50 an hour employee hired in the sandlots outside was packing boxes in the back because the company just got their first big order that needed to go out tomorrow. But, the mob (us) overwhelmed them with our needs as proper consumers. Therefore, they needed to develop an infrastructure that was automated, often short-sighted, stand-offish and cold. And then this somewhere became the company and people became lost. So what will be next - a return to human? How? What infrastructure will support such a coming strain as result of our monopolistic type consumer land? Mom and Pops no longer exist. How can we make IBM our neghbor?
- #84-88 - I was just reading how internal branding is extremely powerful. If you can get your employees to believe and carry your flag, they may amaze you with their heart, imagination, and will. It is only when people don't feel apart that they become sloth. Just picture a highschool football team with a paycheck. Well it's not that extreme but you get the idea. Internal branding should be an extremely high priority. These are the people that help to make the product and if they don't believe in you or your company, odds are, noone else will either. Sidenote - Companies have aura's. Think about Microsoft or the Internet boom and how those companies looked to you and then think about walking into a franchised McDonalds or MBNA to go to work. They have different personalities.
Link posted by JVMM : 12:47 AM
REQUIRED Reading
Bret, I demand that you make time to really read this site, or at least the main page:
Cluetrain Manifesto
I was pretty blown away by how good it is, and I think all of this stuff is DIRECTLY RELEVANT to what we're talking about here.
Link posted by Anonymous : 12:11 AM
