Question 69 of 365: Why is action such a surprise?

I have had a number of conversations recently that have resulted in someone saying that they were surprised that things were getting done. They were surprised at action. While I was somewhat baffled by the reaction, it made me think about what the root of this surprise might be.

Getting things done has traditionally been hard. It has required labor, huge amounts of time, or many people who were highly skilled in the areas that needed attention. Action has required a level of organization and planning that almost insurmountable considering everything else that needs to go on. It also has necessitated permission to actually “do” something. Meetings must be had, protocols must be followed, the chain of command had to remain intact.

In fact, we had so much protocol, there is even an entire mystique and formula for who you should cc or bcc on an e-mail. We have created a space that requires little action in any given day. We have set up systems to look like getting things done: Things like conference calls with the vast majority of participants muted, like conferences without the time to implement what you learn, like tracking systems for time/milage/payment that are removed from the ideas and the tasks that generated them.

Action has become foreign to many. Because we don’t produce any products, we don’t have things to show for our work at the end of the day. We have become inbox cleaners and document hounds. We wait, in a bad way, for people to finish their part of the problem for us to start on ours. Action is a surprise when we find it.

I am a firm believer in creating at least one thing every single day of my life, and I believe that this is my humble (or not so humble if I keep talking about it, I suppose) way to make action unsurprising in my life. The things that I create (Blog posts, trackable conversations, online courses, companies, learning objects, and collaborative spaces) may not look like much in the face of people who create real objects, but I believe that in my own way, I am trying to stave off the starvation of ideas. I am trying to figure out how to solve the problems, and then actually solve them. I am trying to answer my e-mail, not pass it around to someone else. I am trying to engage those who are unengaged in the process. I am trying to solicit others as directly as I can to act on their own behalf.

Because action should not be a surprise. It should be a regular part of our day, something that we celebrate and see in everything that we do. We should see the change we create. We should see the products, even if they take some time. We should see the spaces that we inhabit as malleable, because getting things done isn’t hard anymore.

It stopped being hard when we could create virtual goods and services. It stopped being hard when we could create things on our own and solicit help from people outside of our organization. It stopped being hard when organization became as easy as a hashtag.

So, start a school. Start a business. Start a project that requires something important of you. Be deliberate in engaging others in conversation. Intentionally break protocols in your organization so that you can get things done. Not haphazardly. Not unreasonably. Purposefully and with a huge amount of hope: Act. Do things. Now.

Question 40 of 365: Why can’t we focus on making something, rather than the something itself?

It is the product that we are after: the book, the video, the iPhone, the worksheet, and the report. These products are the result of a huge amount of processing, working, collaborating, and creating. And yet, we are so focused on the product itself that we have almost no idea how it came into being. We are so interested in what the product can do for us, the idea that we could be learning from  the creation of that product and helping ourselves to the knowledge of what it takes to create something great is simply left behind.

I have three examples for this kind of misguided focus.

The first is of a single YouTube video. For effect, let’s choose a meme: Takeing a picture of yourself every day for a number of years. The result of this meme is a serious amount of introspection, reflection on what matters in one’s life and an amount of dedication to an idea that many people do not choose to follow. The video is just the byproduct of this reflection. It can garner a huge level of interest, but the process is what matters, not the object at the end of it.

Other videos are even further removed from the process. One of the most engaging videos in education, social media, and technology in the last 10 years was created by a friend of mine, Karl Fisch. He did a powerpoint presentation that gathered a lot of data about technology, schools and the ways in which the world is changing. The process that he went through to create the powerpoint was rich and worthwhile, and every iteration that has been created off of his original vision has undergone some version of the process. Yet, all of the people that have watched the video believe that the final product is what should be the conversation starter. I believe that the process of thinking through the implications of technology, education, informatics, design, and comparative analysis is where the power lies. If we truly followed the example of this process, we would all be trying to find the data in our own lives that will enable us to anticipate and engage in the future instead of taking someone else’s observations on data and declaring it to be gospel.

A second type of product worship happens when a piece of technology becomes the focus of endless discussion. Facebook is a product that you would think could focus on the process of creating intricate networks of people for all kinds of reasons, but in fact, the majority of the conversation about Facebook is about how to get the most friends, make money, or all of the content (read: products) that gets shared on that ever expanding network. The conversation rarely is about what an individual’s social network requires in order to be a sustaining and engaging aspect of a healthy social life. Facebook, as a product, too often wins out to Facebook, as a creation of interconnected stories that add value to your life.

The final way in which I see products being the focus of all attention is within the “upload” button. The upload button has become a pervasive part of the online ecosystem and it has quite simply turned all of our actions into looking for a product that we can “upload.” Whether it is a powerpoint uploaded to Slideshare, a photo uploaded to Flickr, or any type of file uploaded to Google Docs (now that it is basically an online hard drive); all of this uploading is causing us to focus on getting everything we do into a package that is uploadable. While I am seriously in favor of placing my work on the cloud, the fact that all of the collaboration and thought behind each product doesn’t get uploaded with it is a serious problem. Google Docs gets it right when you start from scratch in there. You can look back at the revision history and see what contributions and thought process made it an important document. However, that is only one path, and it is still incredibly hard to follow a thought process through a revision history.

What I want is a system that allows me to see the process of creation, from start to finish. I want to see everything that goes into answering a big question. I want to hear the fits and starts of answers. I want the “umms” to hang in the air while someone formulates a new thought. I want the rough edges in the middle drafts and the clean lines of the final one. I want the upload button to be modified into a “record” button. I want that button to be the beginning rather than the ending.

In essence, I want a YouTube that can show me how the ideas were birthed and provide a backstory to fill in all of the things that were left on the “cutting room floor.” I want a Facebook that allows you to see the connections and understand the true importance of each one. I want a social network that can look at the quality of content and not just the quantity (or the ability to view huge amounts of it). I also want a cloud-based service that doesn’t let the upload button to reign supreme. I want the uploaded work to be an iterative process, one idea leading to the next.

I guess that is asking for a lot, but perhaps this is more about my process of building it than it is about the product I want at the end. Right?

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Question 14 of 365: What is the future of outsourcing?

I do not claim to be an expert in outsourcing, nor do I claim to know all of the terrible (and good) things that have come from an acceptance of outsourcing as a reality. What I am claiming by my attempt to answer this question is that I think I may know where it is going. It may be quite arrogant to claim that you know where something is going without really understanding where it has been, but I feel as though it may be important to take this stab in the dark.

The future of outsourcing is personal. It is within your own daily workflow. It is within the stuff that you always wish you didn’t have to put up with, and now you don’t. And, I am not simply talking about the Roomba. I am, instead, referring to the idea that all of the monotonous aspects of your daily existence will be put up for bid. And, if anyone is willing to do them, they will be outsourced. I think the only real way to prove this point is to look at examples.

Prefinery and UTest allows you to outsource your beta testing. No longer will you have to figure out exactly who your users should be. You can rely on the crowd and a company to do it for you.

Smart Thinking allows you to outsource your stack of papers to grade. You can have someone else give your feedback for you. Isn’t “peer” review and writer’s workshop just another form of this kind of outsourcing?

SendGrid gives you the ability to outsource your personal responses to e-mail. We can now scale what used to be a human reaction to having completed steps or done something with an organization, business, or school.

Seed will let you outsource photography, writing, or other creative (but time consuming) work. The question is, how low will the network of creatives go?

Do my Stuff will let you basically put any task you have to do up for auction. Even cleaning bathrooms is up for grabs.

LivePerson will give you life advice and possibly outsource how you should act in your love life.

So, why does this all matter? Why is it that these services are worth even looking at, even as I make fun of the idea of how our future will look when faced with these realities?

Outsourcing (and some people call this version, enlightened outsourcing) in general lets us focus our attention. If it doesn’t do those things, then the future doesn’t look good. If we are outsourcing what is essential to our happiness, then we need to take a step back. But, on the other hand, if we are outsourcing the non-essential then we are streamlining our own existence.

I believe in that part. I’m just not sure if some of this is the answer. While it may be the future of outsourcing, I’m not sure it is a future that all of us can buy into. There may be a huge backlash coming where people take great joy in cleaning their bathrooms and doing their taxes and working with students and users directly. So, what will that be called? Self-sourcing? Unsourcing? Besourcing?

Whatever it is called, I would like to find a balance if I can. I would like to do what I can to be human and involved in the daily events of my life, all the while, not getting bogged down by the things that I have no interest in attempting. That doesn’t have to be a part of a movement. That part can just be for me.

Twitter and Google Reader for Productivity

Too busy to work on workflow

The other day I was working with the principal of our online school on
creating a workflow for contacts, email, and calendar that would allow
her to add, read, and create from anywhere, meaning more productivity
for her.
 
I am pretty convinced that we need to be addicted to creating a better
workflow for ourselves, but that is a longer blog post. The reason for
this one was that Chris Lehman left a comment on my last post
expressing that he had a similar idea of people who were just too
busy. His post is right here:
 
And here is my comment on it:
http://practicaltheory.org/serendipity/index.php?url=archives/361-Hardest-Working-Teacher-Syndrome.html
 
I recognize that this happens everywhere. I love that you have a
better name for it, though. (The hardest working teacher in the
building syndrome)
 
I know that you were talking about teachers when you wrote it, but I
really think that admin and IT need this post quite a bit.
 
The lack of help, support, and sharing that goes on because we are too
busy is truly troubling. Taking time to recognize that busy (or hard
working) is no excuse for not sharing what you are working on or
taking time to see what others are working on.
 
I think recognizing that an addiction to finding a workflow that
actually works is not optional anymore. If a teacher or admin is “too
busy”, their workflow is probably out of whack. That doesn’t get
talked about enough in our conversations. We just assume that others
aren’t duplicating efforts all over the place because we don’t.
 
If everything (our learning) is connected, nothing is out of place,
meaning that we don’t have to add more, we just make it flow better.

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