Learning is Change

Question 250 of 365: Can we see through our own environment?

I can see now that everything is clouded by our own vision. We don’t perceive things as they are, but as we think they are. We see our situation in terms of us, and not in terms of everything that surrounds us. It isn’t fair.

Today, I attended multiple events that referenced a difference between physical and online space. Each side seemingly could not understand the other for the simple fact that they couldn’t see it. They couldn’t perceive the community that supports them is the same one that supports others.

There had to be all of these caveats and excuses for why we were talking to one another and how things could apply more broadly. We have to passively agree that everything is different and that we can only pay lip service to our similarities. There are no real connections made, only those that we force because know it makes things go more smoothly in terms of working together or establishing a false common language.

There is nothing we hold in common so long as we can’t see with the same eyes.

It is a wonder that we can reuse anything at all. Each environment dictates mutual exclusivity. We are islands. But, do we have to do it so badly? Do we have to make it so everything we experience is so terribly awkward when held up to other people’s realities? Can’t we just listen and take the stories as they come and know that some things will never apply, but that some inevitably will?

Question 249 of 365: Why do routines win?

Nearly every night I throw my son’s diapers into the wash. They are gDiapers, which are kind of like the hybrid of the diaper industry. They are machine washable, but allow for disposable inserts. I take apart the liners and seal up the outer casing before starting the high heat, two rinse cycle that they require. This kind of a ritual is only interesting to me. For most, it is incredibly gross to everyone else.

This is the stuff of my everyday life. The moments that occur so often that I don’t even think about them. They don’t require analysis or improvisation. They require a steady dedication to the task and a regularity that keeps it in the subtle background of my life. Doing my son’s diapers is one of the times that I can think aboutother things and let my hands do the same repetitive gesture that leads to cleanliness.

And these actions win.

Not because they are interesting or worth doing other than for their purely utilitarian use. They win because they comfort the world inside of us that requires some order and vigilance to being in charge of our own actions. They are the trust we put into the things around us for permanency and understanding.

Because as we travel and see novelty, we are left without the feeling that nothing is in our control. We feel out of place when we leave the we tasks behind, as if we are living out of a constantly shifting suitcase of a life that never seems to have the same clothes in it.

We hwve expectations for our routines that they keep us safely involved in our lives. And we take part, not out of obligation, but out of pride. We are proud of doing diapers and brushing teeth. We are proud of getting ourselves dressed everyday, or having a cup of coffee. These are the things that ooze a love for the life we have created, rather than one we wish we had.

Sure, it can be boring. But, only in the third person. In the first person, it is the way we measure out our lifes.

Question 248 of 365: Who are the scumbags?

Walking around the streets of Chicago at night with two small children
can be a harrowing experience. At the very least, it can be an
education.

For the most part I do not buy into Stranger Danger. For the most
part, I trust those who are around me to be courteous to a fault. For
the most part, I believe that there is a certain reciprical nature the
the interactions I have on a daily basis.

When someone claims not to be a scumbag, I generally take them at
their word. When that person completely refutes that claim with their
actions, it makes me question their grasp on reality.

In a progressively louder, chant like voice a young man approached our
family and spoke “excuse me” in an aggressive tone as he crossed the
streat to meet us. Maybe we read all of the wrong cues, but we (in an
unspoken pact of young family solidarity) decided to ignore his
initial request. As it grew in volume, our suspicians were confirmed
that he was not someone who truly needed our particular ears, but
rather somone who would acknowledge him in the night, something we
were not entirely in the mood to do in a city we do not know.

Eventually, after about 10 excruciating pleas to excuse him, he
blurted out that he wanted to know where the train station was (mind
you, the train is directly above our heads). He then proceeded to
preach to us about his non-scumbag status with a few choice words
thrown in for good measure.

This was something that made us all feel dirty. When faced with a
confrontation, we stayed mum. We judged first and then assessed the
situation. We may have gotted the initial contact wrong, but I don’t
regret our lack of engagement. The world is different at night. It is
different in a forein place. And, it is most definitely different
pushing our two small children toward the hotel, trying to enjoy the
last days of summer air.

So, here is the truth:

Scumbags are those that can’t sense what is important to others.

Scumbags are those who cannot see apprehension for what it is and fend
it off with civility.

Scumbags are those who get angry about not winning in a conversation
with strangers.

Scumbags are those boys with bushy white beards, hoodies drawn over
heads, and enormous backpacks that insist on being seen as those
going for a jog around the block.

Scumbags are those who scare my children with their speach.

I do not claim to be innocent of judgement or bias, but I feel as
though I give every new connection in my life a fair chance. As it
turns out, sometimes I have all of the connections I need.

You sir, were one too many.

Posted via email from The Throughput

Question 247 of 365: Why do we get married?

As far as I can tell, it is one of the only truly respectable and
meaningful things I have done with my life. Not that it is worthy of
respect on its own, but rather that it means something to everyone.
Whether holding good or bad memories, hopeful or unfortunate
situations, it is a universal act, complete unto itself.

My older brother gets to do that act today. I am proud of him, happy
for him and flabergasted at the beauty of his version of it.

He has done this well. For that and by virtue of being my brother, I
know that his “why” has been answered perfectly.

I love you, Jake. Be married.

Posted via email from The Throughput

Question 245 of 365: What is our social media policy?

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An institution will be known by its use of social media. They will be seen through the lens of every contributor in their ranks. They will either be well represented or incredibly absent, nothing in between. The identities of every Facebook and Twitter user will build into an army of advocates for the institution, so long as the institution doesn’t squash that reality.

Social media policies govern what can and cannot be posted, connected, and learned from the networks that drive many of our work and personal decisions and plans. And mostly, they do it rather badly. These policies tend to confuse guidance with enforcement. Here are my biggest infringements with social networking policies that have been floating around for the past few years:

  • They are overly long. There is no reason to have a 4 page social networking policy. Either people will follow the guidelines or they won’t. There is no reason to have a stipulation for blog posts that is different from Facebook updates.
  • They try to regulate privacy settings for employees. By asking people to hide certain parts of information about themselves, you are asking them to not represent themselves completely online. You are asking for less real interactions than if they had the option to reveal more.
  • They try to separate professional and personal life. While this may have been easy to do in the past, it is nearly impossible to sanction when “working hours” happen for many positions. I wake up at 3:00 am some days (because my daughter felt it was a good time to get up, mostly) and get started on answering emails and working on the things that require most attention. These kinds of policies would mean that I couldn’t tweet out about anything else but work during those times. It also means that connections that are made based upon work can never become more than those connections. Some of my best friends are a part of my twitter network as well. They aren’t one or the other. They are real people that live and work really hard. Let’s not regulate that out of them.
  • They dictate (or try to) what company ownership of ideas is. Many communications and legal departments see anything that is done on company time as being a part of the company’s assets. Their understanding is that there is very little co-ownership of reflections, annotations, or conversations about the work that is going on. In essence, they claim everything. And at least according to my understanding of copyright law, unless they have signed something to that affect (which most places, unless there are strict non-disclosure agreements) this is not the case. The one thing that claiming everything does to employees is that they decide to save their best ideas for themselves. They don’t post things that could help the company, but rather they separate out what it is that is beneficial and they take it elsewhere. This drains value from the organization and takes away a big incentive for staff to want to contribute in a collaborative way to the projects that are in front of them.
  • They impose disclaimers for all social media that do not have any basis in what social media is or can be. By putting a disclaimer on everything that says you can in no way speak for your organization is incredibly disempowering. The whole point of social media is that you are speaking for a unique perspective that others will want to listen to. By adding this disclaimer, you are essentially saying that you don’t want any of the value that others are creating to reflect back upon the employer that helped him/her to grow. These disclaimers are superfluous in a day when everyone has a profile and the profiles most certainly are not official. It is clear that when John McCain is tweeting, he is not speaking for the entirety of Arizona or for the whole senate. He is bringing his unique perspective to bear on the events of the day. This is what social media does; it gives a voice to everyone. Those voices are ones that we should celebrate and reward, not cut off at the knees in the hope of getting disavowing the disgruntled employee.

Mostly, the world of social media is so new that many places do not understand how to embrace a different paradigm of communication. The communications department can not control the message simply by putting out an reactionary policy. By assuming the worst of people, they are creating an environment of distrust and miscommunication. They are taking all of the bad things of social media out of context and convincing those with power that social media is bad for business. It isn’t. It is one of the things that will save your working life. It is engaging and invigorating because it brings all of our personality into a one space. We can be real people in social networks, and that is what we should want for our employees.

One of the best social networking policies I ever saw was this, from the blog Gruntled Employees. It is an entire policy put into a single tweet:

Our Twitter policy: Be professional, kind, discreet, authentic. Represent us well. Remember that you can’t control it once you hit “update.”

It is simple and authentic. It is exactly what we need for our organizations. Let’s do that and nothing else.

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Question 244 of 365: Why do users revolt?

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Image representing Digg as depicted in CrunchBase
Image via CrunchBase

Over the past week, something strange has been happening on Digg. Ever since they changed over to a new format for the website and a different submission process, an absolute torrent of users have decided that this site no longer has their best interests in mind. Whether it is the removal of the bury button (the ability to demote stories that are not relevant or interesting) or in the total site redesign, users have given more than an earful to the makers of Digg, including spamming the site with articles from competing news aggregators. They want it to go back to the way it was before, or at least to fix the glaring errors that are starring them in the face every time they use the site.

In the grand scheme of things, this doesn’t matter. A single web portal changed its platform and a few users (mostly hipster geeks) aren’t happy about it. It isn’t a tragedy or a massive privacy breach. It isn’t a power grab or a diabolical plan for torture. The website changed. That’s it. It is a blip on the timeline of the web, but it may be a symptom of a much larger problem. User revolts are becoming more common and more pronounced.

Facebook‘s privacy changes prompted congressional letters, a number of different startups to be created, and huge numbers of users to up and quit. Google‘s inclusion of Buzz into gmail without any notice prompted huge shifts in our understanding of what a company can do with a product that we have all come to rely on for our daily workflow. Even something like Microsoft‘s use of the .docx standard for all current generation word programs has been a slow burning user revolt that has many saving files in open formats or uploading them to Google Docs for fear of not being able to open them on other’s computers.

This may just be the fear of change that is the same in every generation, but I feel as though there is something different going on here. Users are revolting based upon the idea that their requirements for a service are no longer being met. This type of change is akin to an employees benefits being changed via a form letter, with no recourse whatsoever. One day, a switch gets thrown and the services we have come to expect have changed because the company responsible has other motives.

Users revolt because their trust has been compromised. They revolt over not knowing what the future holds and believing that the direction and progress is all wrong. Fear of change is warranted when the process for change is secret. Companies have every right to introduce new features and to try and advance into new markets, but their interests should still be to collaborate with users (all users) to find out what their needs are. Too many companies are advocating for fictional needs rather than focusing on the core pain that their software or service actually eases.

Facebook made up the need that people have for publishing all demographic information in a public (or easily monitized) way. Google made up the need that people have for having a social network in their e-mail (while I like this idea very much… it isn’t one that I hear a lot of people clamoring for). Microsoft made up the need that people have for proprietary document formats. All three of them did this because they saw a future opportunity based upon those fictional needs. Facebook could target better ads, Google could get more of the social graph information, and Microsoft could hold on to formatting standards. These are real opportunities, but they don’t necessarily lead to happier users. Because each of these needs are fictionalized, the cost benefit analysis that these companies are doing is severely flawed. The cost of the change is much higher for each user and the benefits are much lower for the company because the users revolt.

I understand that the vast majority of the services where users revolt are free. This may lead companies to believe that they can change anything they want to without repercussions from users. In essence, we should all just be glad to have the service at all. I would make the case that we have a social contract with Google and Facebook even if we don’t have a signature and a payment plan in place. This social contract includes the idea that major changes made to the service should be vetted. It includes working with users to establish needs rather than making them up. It also includes transparency. The process of creating something new should be an open one, and that is how revolts are stopped before they start. By making everyone a part of the new version, you will create buy-in and ownership and you may even find the elusive needs that are both beneficial to users and lucrative for the company.

Otherwise, we will continue to see more user revolts, more splintering of user groups, and more distrust of really great pieces of technology. I also like the idea of an undo button somewhere in the top left corner of everything, just in case.

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Question 243 of 365: What is our greatest coup?

The greatest accomplishments of my life have been evolutionary. I went to college after high school. I got married after college. I had children after getting married. I was hired in a district role after working in a school. There is nothing revolutionary about any of those moves. They were safe, almost expected. Sure, I did them with my own little flair, but I don’t think that anyone would consider that too extravagant of a path. Sure, I enjoyed every minute, but I don’t think that makes for a particularly good movie of the week.

Now there is something inside of me saying that I should attempt a coup.

There is something that is driving me to reach for more than an evolutionary step would allow. It is telling me that now is the time curing which I need to take all that I have learned and created and try to stack in such a way that I could jump up and grab what is just out of reach.

In middle school I thought that there was a metaphorical casino for popularity. You got so many chips to start and depending on how you played, you could win more or lose everything. I believed that if you cashed out at just the right time you would walk home without a better girlfriend or an invitation to the right party. Needless to say, I was not at all popular in those days. By viewing the world in this way, I could make everything a gamble without any kind of relationship setup or long term interest in the actions of making friends or having interesting conversations. As I got older, I started to notice the give and take of popularity and value. I noticed that it didn’t really matter which community I was a part of, so long as I felt supported and loved.

The casino metaphor is highly limiting in that it only relies on the social capital that you yourself have raised. It does not take into account that we are all the sum of the connections we maintain. And that is why I feel I have a coup brewing within me. It isn’t so much that I know it is time to move on, it is that all of the other people in my life know this for me. They are bracing themselves for a coup and not an evolutionary step.

I don’t think that a job reclassification is going to do it. It must be something that disrupts the hierarchy that I have been working in to the point that others question what they are doing and why they didn’t think to attempt the coup themselves. It will leaves those who trust in the status quo for their information and power with an uneasy sense that their expectations are about to be swept away.

Words like director, founder, owner and consultant keep filling my head. They are supported by everyone feeding me ideas and fulfilling the part of me that senses the shift coming. It isn’t an attempt at vanity or at wishful thinking. I know that those words don’t work for wishes. Coups don’t come to those who wait. They are in themselves single acts that have been contemplated and reworked until the plans are perfect.

I think mine is a pretty good one, but the one thing about coups is that you never know that they have happened until they are over. Mine is no different.

All Educational Twitter Chats in One Calendar

Update [05.20.2011]: Sarah Kaiser made one of these too, and it may be more up to date than the one below.

I few weeks back I recognized a need for all of the hashtags and twitter chats to have a single calendar that could be added to my own Google Calendar. I looked around for such a thing, but all I found was a really nice list of every chat with dates and times. I have compiled this list into a Google Calendar that I would like to share.

Here is what I would love to happen:

  1. Other folks would comment on this blog post and ask for me to share the calendar with them directly so that they can add their own educational chats and information (including links and documents that might be important) about the chats in the description section of each chat.
  2. Anyone who wants to, can add this calendar to their Google Calendars so that they can stay up on when these great educational events are happening each week.
  3. We share this calendar (with all of its contributions) to any new teacher, administrator, parent or student that gets interested in the educational conversations happening on twitter.

If all of those things happened, I believe the communities we are all trying to create will have a much better understanding of what the entire community is up to. We will be able to pay attention when it is time to do so, and learn from one another much more easily.

Without further ado, here is how you can access the calendar:

Embed:

Here is the code for you in case you want to embed it too:

<iframe src=”https://www.google.com/calendar/b/0/embed?title=Educational%20Twitter%20Chats&mode=WEEK&height=500&wkst=1&bgcolor=%23FFFFFF&src=9k50j34spec6pailr59uo2becg%40group.calendar.google.com&color=%23060D5E&ctz=America%2FDenver” style=” border-width:0 ” width=”600″ height=”500″ frameborder=”0″ scrolling=”no”>

HTML Page:
Use this if you want to see only the calendar without adding it to your own Google Calendars.

Calendar ID:
Copy and Paste this into your Google Calendar to add the whole calendar: 9k50j34spec6pailr59uo2becg@group.calendar.google.com

iCal Address:
Use this one if you want to add the calendar to another program besides Google Calendar (iCal, Outlook, etc.)

Please let me know if I can provide this calendar in any other format. I’m looking forward to the conversation about the conversation.

Question 242 of 365: How do we build things that we want to own?

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New Belgium Brewing '08
Image by JOE MARINARO via Flickr

The New Belgium Brewing Company has only been around for 19 years.

Every employee owns part of the company after the first year of work. You get a bicycle too.

After 5 years, they send you to Belgium and relive the founder’s inspiring trek through Europe.

After 10 years, the company plants a tree in your honor on the grounds of the brewery.

After 15 years, you get a 6 week sabbatical to become energized anew.

They haven’t decided what to do at year 20, but I have a feeling it won’t be getting a golden watch.

In short, these folks are building something that each and every person that works there wants to own. They have created a culture around it and have continued to refine it as they reach each new milestone. It helps that they are making beer, the process does seem more lubricated. And yet, they have decided to not build something that people want to work for. They are building something to own. There is an enormous difference, and that is where we all could take a lesson.

School districts build culture in the hopes that others will want to take part and continue to grow upon the foundation. There is no hope to own the district, only to give your service before moving on to something else. Unions are necessary because a district never lets you in close enough to be a real stakeholder. Instead, we pay dues to try and approximate what it is like to be a part of something bigger than ourselves.

Businesses build products and they make profits for those that had the original idea. They are not concerned with getting everyone’s buy in because each employee is expendable and fickle. They build redundancy rather than ownership so that if anyone leaves it isn’t a devastating blow on the whole organization. There are no mile markers at most corporations, except to give more vacation days or do yearly reviews with more compensation.

Perhaps the comparisons aren’t all that fair. Most businesses and school districts are entirely too large to start giving out large chunks to everyone that sticks around for more than a year. New Belgium set off in the beginning to do this. Oracle did not. Oracle, it is said, is more strategic than that. They buy up companies rather than build organically. Isn’t it that they don’t need ownership from their employees to survive? That excuse is uncompelling for one reason: Culture eats strategy any day of the week.

We build things that last through culture and not acquisition. Culture can’t be ignored, replaced or deleted without the consent of everyone who makes up that culture. It doesn’t work to try and build things without a consistent culture. They fall apart, having terribly high turnover rates that have a quicksand effect to any well-meaning initiative or ambitious project. And you can’t build on quicksand. No one wants to own that.

Upon visiting the brewery for the first time, I found myself less in awe of the nearly 99% of waste that is recycled and over 50% of renewable energy that is used in the factory. I was more amazed by the fact that everyone in the company wanted to be there. They want to own a better company, so they keep on making it better. The tour guide had 10 years of brewing experience, and he started in the tasting room 3 months prior after applying four different times. This is a dedication that no company sees without a culture of ownership. No one waits months to be hired into an entry level position without the hope of authentic experience (like being able to talk about beer with fellow beer lovers every day) and the promise of owning the company that you are helping to construct every day.

The real question here is how do we make students into real shareholders instead of just people who are passing through? How do we make employees work toward ownership and culture creation?

What if there were actual milestones in high school rather than just moving from one grade to another or going to a dance? What if you were actually rewarded for doing well with a 6 week sabbatical to investigate a passion of yours? Students could earn their laptops or work toward an ownership of a social network. They could become more responsible in a tangible way for the transcript that will one day represent them. There is no limit to intrinsic rewards, but they are helped immeasurably by a culture that promotes them. So, let’s make it so the milestones students see are not the ends of the quarter but real accomplishments.

What if we let employees self-organize? What if they could choose team members and tasks? They should design their own development path and work toward owning each project they are working on, literally. If each employee felt as though they had co-ownership of the work they were doing (meaning, it could be taken and posted on a blog or showcased outside of the organization in some way), they would internalize their portfolio much better than keeping it a secret. There is no hope for organizations that don’t harness the raw power of their employees to create knowledge and productivity. We shouldn’t be afraid of what happens when employes own their creations. We should embrace their capacity to create.

Whether beer brewing is the perfect model for education and business is besides the point. 19 years on, New Belgium is a case study in what is right with community crafted value. It is one that is worth paying attention to it, and I for one am looking forward to what their 20th anniversary is going to look like for all of their employees and for the rest of the world.

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