Learning is Change

I was a nose picker. When I felt as though there was an obstruction, I went after it with gusto. I was not proud of this habit, but I didn’t know what else to do. I thought for a while that I might have an overly active snot producer. It got so bad once that I had a scab under my nose for about a month in 3rd grade. The teacher would stop class occasionally to comment on it when my finger was hovering close. It was bad.

The problem, I realized later, was that no one had really taught me how to use a kleenex. Or more accurately, they didn’t tell me that there was more than one way to use one. I was under the impression that the only thing to be done with a tissue was to hold it up to your nose and blow. While this takes care of things when you have a cold, there are a great many reasons why a tissue is manipulable into other configurations.

It wasn’t until I was older that I realized a kleenex could be tightly wrapped and shoved up your nose to stop a nose bleed. I didn’t know that you could cover your fingers with it and then work at what had to be removed. I had no idea that closing off one nostril and blowing increased the efficiency of each blow. I didn’t know because I was under the impression that the cartoon version of blowing your nose was all that could exist.

I talk about unconventional uses and hacking everyday objects to bring new things to light, but what I am referring to here is just a simple lack of understanding for appropriate and acceptable use. I made assumptions about the acceptable uses of a kleenex and was then bound by those assumptions. I was ridiculed for merely guessing at the boundaries and failing miserably.

I feel as though the acceptable use policies for technology can be the same way. The faults are two fold. By not reading what is possible and truly understanding it, we are missing out on a great deal of what we can do. By not having good acceptable use policies we are doing an even greater disservice. If we only prescribe a single use for a technology, we are denying all other uses. By saying that collaborative documents are for notes we are denying all of the other uses of those documents. By writing out best practice, we may be denying all other practice.

Acceptable use should be expansive and open ended. It should look at static tools and see them as emblematic of the needs of users. A kleenex is for cleaning away nearly anything. Prescribing a single use for it is ludicrous. So is it with a phone or a blog or an email. Our acceptable uses should hint at possible future iterations. They should pay attention to power users and write uses that are not for everyone. Things should not be left to those who “figure them out.” They should be available to anyone with the interest.

If someone would have shown me how to use a kleenex in all of the different ways that it is possible, I wouldn’t have been a nose picker. While I would have missed out on this particularly strong character building exercise, I would have been eternally grateful for that AUP.

For the first time in about 5 years, I get to pick out a new cell phone. I was bound by a 2 year contract that transitioned directly into a district-approved phone. I haven’t had choice of provider, phone or plan for all of that time. Now that I must give up my well-worn but not well-loved Blackberry, I find that I am struggling to figure out what it is that I really care about. It is all well and good to critique the new protocols and gimmicks offered on each device, but now that I am faced with the decision for myself, I am balking at the choice.

Here is my current thought process:

I can’t imagine continuing on with a phone that can’t do voice and data at the same time. Too often I have had to hang up on someone in order to search through my email for important details, just to call that person back with them still up on my screen. This means that all CDMA carriers are out, including Verizon and Sprint.

I can’t imagine going with any OS other than Android or iOS. There are just too many apps that do too many great like control my computer remotely or edit video on the fly. Both have respectable communities of developers and both are competing hard with one another for the most innovation, and I am in favor of that continuing for a long time. This does mean, however, that Blackberry, Symbian, Palm and any other proprietary OS phones are out completely.

I can’t imagine buying a phone without both HD video and a forward facing camera. The idea of chronicling my life and the live of my children on a daily basis with a High Definition camera with me at all times is nothing short of revolutionary. The ability to do a video conference on the go as well is icing on top for sure, but it will shortly become the norm. This means that pretty much anything not made by either Apple or HTC (and possibly Motorola if I wait a bit).

I can’t imagine working with a tool that doesn’t talk to my other tools. It had better sync up with my computer, my iPad and all of my other cloud-based devices that make my learning environment rich. This does not mean that I need flash or that I have to have it be as screemingly fast as everything else. When I want to tether, I should be able to. When I want to present from my phone, I should be able to. When I want to sync all of my contacts and calendar and tasks, I should be able to. I just need something that works, all of the time. Right now, the only things that seem to fit that bill are the iPhone 4 on ATT and the Mytouch 4g on T-Mobile.

I realize that this decision is incredibly trivial. I realize that there are so many more important things that I have decided to do in the last week. However, having not had choice in this area of my life for 5 years means that I want to consider everything before I commit. And as I go over these ideas in my head, repeating the same logic until I figure out what makes the most sense, I know that I am getting that much closer to understanding the true choice of our times.

Once we have decided to take a leap into open competition, the only thing that limits us our choice what we “can’t imagine.” All of the things that I listed above that I can’t imagine doing is a means of limiting what is possible. It is the way we must make choices in a world of abundance, but it is also the way in which we will lose out on some of the most unique and interesting opportunities of our time.

I will probably choose and iPhone 4. I will probably be happy with that choice. But, that won’t change the fact that the things I can’t imagine doing would simplify my life and make me less dependent upon my device. If I can’t do data and voice at the same time, I would do that much less talking or that much less surfing. If I can’t imagine going with a different OS, I will probably miss out on the radical departures in that space. If I can’t imagine a phone without HD video, I will no longer have the pleasure of taking my video camera and just worrying about that without wondering where I will post it and how much bandwidth it is going to eat up. If I can’t imagine a tool that doesn’t sync, I will lose out on a singularly useful experience. I will be weighed down by all of the other things that I subscribe to instead of moving forward with the device I can work with now.

And yet, I will still choose the iPhone 4. And my imagination will just have to work on other things.

Related articles

• iOS Platform of Choice for More Than 50% of Developers (nytimes.com)
• Android devices outselling iOS by 2:1 in US (q3) (computerworld.com)

I realize that I have spent a great part of my professional life explaining things. I explain how tools work or how to write a persuasive paper. I may take others through an experience to help them understand and figure things out for themselves, but in the end I am still responsible for explaining and outlining that experience. When I teach, explanations go a long way into creating the ripe environment for action. If I don’t explain how Google Docs works (even a little bit), no one will use it. If I don’t explain my use of Twitter, then no one will engage in that space that hasn’t already made it their home. When I am working in conjunction with others, I tend to explain the workflows that make sense to me and then I watch as either they are systematically rejected or accepted into the project as the way everyone should work. Sometimes, no amount of explaining will change behavior, but still I keep on trying to explain the virtue of not printing out a wiki page because it keeps changing. This is my reality. I am an explainer.

The last few days, however, I haven’t found the need to explain. I haven’t had to tell people how to collaborate or take then through how to set up a skype account in order to communicate with the team. Over the last few days, I have been added to collaborative experiences already in motion. I was added to perpetual skype chats for different departments within Edmodo. I was added to a documentation Google Site which has future plans and previous history of the product. I was added to events as they were happening and I was consulted each step of the way.

As the Android app launched, everyone in the organization knew within 15 seconds. We all brainstormed for five minutes on how to get the word out and then we went on with our business. It was a standup meeting in the hallway that actually took the five minutes that standup meetings are supposed to take. I wasn’t the one who was explaining the strategy. It was all of us, coming up with it from our own perspectives. The developers were proud of having launched the product, the social media folks were thinking about how to start a conversation and the teachers in all of us wanted to take a moment and reflect about how students were going to use it to learn. One of the first comments was whether or not we should contact the schools that are already using the platform as a part of their mobile pilots to make sure that they were feeling supported. I didn’t explain any of it. It just happened.

When you no longer have to explain how to work together, then you can simply collaborate. When you no longer have to explain how to document your work, then you can all simply benefit from the accumulated knowledge. When you no longer have to explain how to communicate, then you can all just stay on the same page and make the work that much better.

When I’m not explaining, I’m learning.

I have never fired a gun. At least unless you count pellet guns at camp in middle school. Sure, I won minor marksmen awards for accuracy and consistency. Sure, I loved the feeling of loading up the tiny pellets and shooting them off one by one. I may have hung up the targets that had a few bulls-eyes in my room for a few months and looked on them as a source of pride. I guess, technically speaking, I was firing a weapon capable of maiming another person. I suppose if pressed, I could have seriously injured someone’s ability to have children or at the very least, lodged a piece of metal in their body. Even as I lined up those tiny pellets on the wood floor of the firing range facing the woods, I knew there was something to the process that made sense. Not the gun part, but the trigger part. I didn’t want the power of harming something else. I wanted to simply concentrate everything I had into a single action that would propel my intention forward with aim and untold force.

I performed that single action again today. Not with a gun, but with a job.

At the beginning of this year I said that I would start a new company.

Today I find my vision colliding with another.

Edmodo is where my vision met its equal. They started the startup that I have yearned for every day. They let me sit in on what it is like. They brought me into meetings where all contributions are counted. They implemented updates on the software as I talked about what it should look like. They listened.

And, I want to listen too. I will take all that I have learned in creating spaces for learning and collaboration and I will work for them because they will teach me how to craft the future. They are already working on it. And, I want to play in their playground. I want to get dirty and find out just how big we can make the intersection between networks and learning.

Today I pulled the biggest trigger of my life. The pellet now holds my future within it. As far as I can tell, it left the barrel straight and true. And as I watch it find its target, you can trust that I will be hanging up that bulls-eye for years to come.

You see people loitering and being congratulated for doing so.

You hear authentic and original voices throughout the day.

You see the sunlight hitting everyone and nothing is left in dark corners.

You entrust your fate and the fate of your children.

You simply don’t want to be anywhere else.

In every gymnasium I have ever been to, whether it is at a recreation center, athletic club or school has a ball or balloon stuck somewhere in the rafters. There is never very much of a story behind it, but everyone knows that it is there. Kids and adults tried in vein to knock it down for months or even years. And eventually, it does come down. The helium and static abate and let it float to the ground or the natural vibrations of the court game below are enough to push it from its perch. Yet, whenever the ball or ballon makes its way down, it is a mere matter of days before another gets lodged in a new place. It is an equation of sorts within this space. If you have one gym, you require one ball or ballon for getting stuck. Its a 1:1 relationship that cannot be sacrificed because it will throw the entire balance of the gym off.

Without the ball up there, kids who are too bored to watch what is happening will not have anything to contemplate. Without the ballon’s string getting wrapped around those steel beams, adults will not have something to get conversations started with.

Everyone asks how the ball got up there. And we start to make up stories, even if we know the truth. We tell each other about amazing competitions gone by or little children who wept when the ball didn’t come back. These are innocent deviations from the truth and we all perpetuate them because we know that the relationship of one ball to one gymnasium must be respected.

Really, we know that the ball looks down on us and protects us. It makes sure that the scrapes and pushes aren’t too bad. It makes sure that everyone says “Good Game” after they are finished. The ball is benevolent. It doesn’t pressure us into playing our best, it merely suggests that everyone will feel better if they do. It is flawed by being up there and it represents this flaw to everyone watching. We do not have to be perfect. We just have to be witnesses.

My belief in the balloon that floated up the rafters never waivers. It is steadfast because of how special that balloon gets to be. It is the symbol of that event that gets to outlast everyone else. It is the after after after after party. And it continues the pageantry even as it shrinks and shrivels up and hangs on by the string, just waiting for the non-existent wind to tug it down. The balloon is sacred. It is the memory of a moment and as long as we let it hang there, the moment will not really be in the past. While it hangs there, we can speak about it in the present tense.

We need balls and balloons up in the rafters. They are reminders that things exist after of our little games and events. They are the ones that know when we cheat and they are the ones that see when we succeed. They may not say much, but they know when a good day is had.

I know that any time I walk into a gymnasium and there isn’t a ball or balloon waiting for me in the rafters, it is my responsibility, and the responsibility of everyone there with me to make sure one finds its way up there before we leave. This relationship is too vital to be put off for too long. We all need our guardians and our cheerleaders. We all need something to just watch us. Watch, and not judge.

Making a decision is the hard part, but letting everyone know requires skill. You have to be tactful and allow everyone their own time to process. You have to pay respect to everything that has come before, but the clean break is so enticing. You want to run as fast as you can to your new opportunity, but tying up all of your loose ends is the only way that everything will get done.

So, you spend a day packing up your stuff. Everything goes in boxes and into your car. Everything that you have worked on and seen through to completion will seem small and insignificant. And you will realized just how much you coasted on those accomplishments because they are what you are known for. Even if you did a great many things, the ones in these boxes are going to be your legacy. The plaques and the notes and the computer cords. These are the objects you now have to remember your time and how others will too.

You spend a few more days telling everyone what you would have done if you stuck around. You forecast how everyone will have to pick up where you left off. You will write things out for those who will fill your shoes, even as they attempt to get a different pair to stand where you did. You tell everyone that you will miss them and you spend a few moments with each one in remembrance of  time gone by. And you will regret for brief seconds what will never be.

You spend one day going to every meeting you possibly can and alerting everyone to your new job opportunity. You will then go on and make sure that everyone has your correct contact information and that they know they can come to you for anything that needs explanation. Your meetings will be short because there is nothing left to say when you can’t have any action items. So, you disseminate all of your information and you go. That is pretty much all that anyone in the meeting has in them.

Two days are spent wishing that everything would just hurry up and you could move on. You avoid every contact you have in the hopes that no one will try and give you anything more to do before you leave. You eat by yourself in your office, if you stay at your office at all. You come in late and leave early, otherwise. You are a ghost because nothing of importance can be saddled on you, and you want it to stay that way. You want none of the credit and none of the blame for the things that are decided. You just want to slip out of the back door and let everyone go on without you.

One day is spent telling your bosses. They will be shocked and they will try and get you to stay. They will tell you about all of their big plans for you and how the next few months are going to be better. They will go through all of the stages of grief in a 20 minute cycle, and then they will start the cycle again. They will snub you the rest of the day, and unless you are careful, they will start to backtrack every compliment they have ever said about you. You will stand by your bosses and not say a word while this happens. They have every right to be mad about your departure, and you have every right to leave. You both know this.

Two additional days will be required to send and respond to emails. Each person you know in the organization will ask for a reason why, and you will provide them with one, you owe them one. The emails will be short and long, but they will all question how happy you will be in your new position. They will appeal to reason and to duty as if you hadn’t already made your decision. They will also be happy for you, but this will be a veiled insult about the fact that you have gotten out while they remain. They will lament how much more work they will have to do now that you are gone, and they will malign your timing. You, of course, will not care. Your responses will all be open invitations for praise and reminiscing. You will love all of it.

And that is how you will spend your two weeks of notice. Those events can happen in any order, but expect them to occur in quick succession. You may experience some compacting or expansion of these events, but they will all be major part of your life for as long as you are at your old company, school district, or organization. This is a part of the process. Take it and run with it.

I once waded out into a river where other children were happily playing. I found myself unable to go in past my knees. My legs started to feel like dead weight and it was everything I could do not to run out into the warm sun and let them dry off. But I stayed with it. I let my calves get used to the water. Then I introduced it to my waist. I stood for a long time there, breathing in shallow and quick. My belly button I then submerged and I was onto my chest. I had to crouch down in the shallow part of the river because I didn’t want to go further in. From this position, I inched toward the center of the river. I paused for minutes at a time just to make sure that my fingers were still working. I was finally able to get all of me under the water, save my head. That was the last thing I wanted to get wet. I thought that perhaps my brain would freeze and I would be stuck in the rushing water. I looked downstream, though. I saw the other kids playing and splashing and not fretting about how cold the water was. So, in the hopes that I too could join in, I dipped my head below the water. I was in. My body got used to the cold as I held my breath for a long time. When I came up, I realized that I was going to be okay. My brain wasn’t frozen. My legs worked. I could now go and play catch. I could take part. I could be happy in this water.

As I have tested the waters of my own ideas, of starting a company, of venturing further from my working past I have had moments of fear. I have found the water cold and uninviting. I have found that there is nothing to be done until I let myself come to terms with how much I have invested. As I continued to invest more and more, I become both more afraid and more emboldened to try and go further. Someday, maybe tomorrow, I will take the plunge. Someday, maybe tomorrow, I will know what it is like to feel the unfamiliar sensation of being weightless and fluid. I will hold my breath and count as everything around me acclimates and I become someone who knows what it is like to feel the free and easy sunlight on my face and make the conscious decision not to stay there.

Someday, maybe tomorrow, I will have decided that it was better to go through each and every cycle of pain and waiting to get to where I can play. I will pick up the ball and throw it to others that have done this trip too. And we will share and exchange ideas that aren’t possible on land. We will make swimming catches. We will dive down deep and see what is on the bottom. We will know every inch of this river, and we will become a part of helping others to join us.

We will say: “Come on in, the water’s fine.”

I once bought a snoopy diary. With my own money.

I took it to the Rec. Center immediately because I was proud of having some place to put my innermost thoughts. I wasn’t quite as proud when I got laughed at for it. They laughed at my secrecy and my interest in writing. They laughed at the little lock on the side that could easily be broken with a little force. Probably they laughed at Snoopy too, but I didn’t care about that. Snoopy is cool.

I kept that diary for approximately five days. It took me about that long to figure out that I didn’t lead a very interesting life. I didn’t have daily realizations or go on adventures. I was about 8 and I knew that my life couldn’t be lived internally. I couldn’t be Emily Dickenson, even though I didn’t know who she was. I couldn’t just imagine everything and have that be enough. I also couldn’t just write for myself. I needed someone else to know about it, to take a look. I think it was probably about then that I realized my words couldn’t just go down on paper that was locked away.

In middle and high school I tried again. I kept journals this time. I wrote in them every day and they were very important to me. But, I would copy out of them for others and I would read them out loud constantly to my friends. I started writing and sharing so much that I would write on scraps of newspaper that had little bits of white space. I would write poems and ideas that made sense to me, and then I would seek out feedback. My words were still so incredibly mine, though. I didn’t even contemplate letting others use them or do anything other than think about what I had meant by them.

Then I started blogging. And that’s where my words went. And I stopped guarding things, and I stopped forcing people to listen to me or dragging my notebooks and diaries around just so that people would discovery that I was a writer. My blog became that same space that was formerly so limited. I no longer control the words or where they end up. Some end up in a teacher’s course. Some end up in a tweet. Some end up captured in a PDF on someone’s hard drive.

I am giving these words away.

I realized in three hundred days that I don’t own them. I am using them to get somewhere and other people may use them to get where they are going. These stories are mine in that I have lived them, but they only really exist if they are told. They belong to anyone who finds them useful. These questions belong to anyone who is asking them.

If our words are going into diaries, we need to know why we feel the need to hide them from the rest of the world while we advertise the fact that we have things worthy of writing down.

If our words are going into journals and scraps of paper, we need to know why we are desperate for an audience of the few people around us we trust most.

If our words are going on blogs, we need to know why we are setting them free to live among everyone else’s stories and ideas.

I write now because my words are making meaning. For Me. For Us.