Learning is Change

Question 178 of 365: Are we backwards compatible?

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I am on an old computer today. It doesn’t work with all of my newfangled iPads, Keynote files, or the standard version of Gmail. I feel a little bit lost on it, actually. I can’t do the things I would normally. I have to figure out workarounds. I don’t have any issues with doing this. I am energized by figuring out how to do new things with old hardware. But, it does make me think about just how little backwards compatibility really exists. Not just with our technology, but within ourselves.

It makes me think back to when I was using this tech the first time around. Who was I then? Am I compatible with that person, even? Back then, I had no idea about what two children meant. I hadn’t made some of my current closest friends, and I certainly hadn’t figured out that there was something after teaching. In short, I was probably about 25% of who I am now just a few years ago. And I don’t think that today’s me is all that compatible with the one I was. 

I’m pretty sure that the two of us would fight, actually. We would fight about what is the most important thing to be doing with our lives (creating greater change or teaching kids how to think for themselves). We would argue over money and influence and connections. He would probably read books right in my face (seeing as how I hardly have time to do that now). I would probably shoot back about how much I know about life through my son. He would laugh at the grey hairs and the bags under my eyes. I would poke fun at his uninformed workflow and lack of vision.

I am not the man I was, but I don’t want to be. I would never give up what I have for what I have been. That is why I feel as though backwards compatibility is overrated. While it may make sense for some technologies, I realized through the process of having to recreate a presentation from one that stripped out all of the links and some of the images, that the whole thing needed to be reworked anyway. I realized that the person that gave the presentation last time isn’t compatible with who I am today. Why should the presentation itself be that way? 

Sometimes, we should be forced to give up 70 percent of what we had so that we can become what we can become. In a presentation, it will transform the message and the intent. In a person, it will transform our actions and our personalities. 

So, are we backwards compatible? No. And we shouldn’t strive to be. We should go forward, relentlessly. We should forget and retry and revise until we can look at one version and the next and see the actual progress. Kind of like the ways in which we look at Internet Explorer 6 now. It is time to retire who we were (IE6 should die, actually). We can always look back, but we don’t have to keep building who we are so that compatibility is assured. It is convenient sometimes, but most of the time it just holds us back.

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Question 177 of 365: What is plan b?

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Preparation is something I had to learn. While I have always planned, true preparation has always eluded me. I mean to say that the ability some people have for seeing the way things will work out before they do has never been my gift. I have to play my way through everything and push the boundaries in order to get at what is possible. I have to see which questions get asked and which conversations are essential before it all makes sense.

That is why when streaming three concurrent sessions at a conference with two video feeds and one audio feed each, I new that everything would eventually work out. I knew that there would be a plan b that I could put in place. I just didn’t know what that plan b was until I saw it.

Originally we were going to use rented powerful laptops, but we didn’t have the right converters for our video feed. Then we were going to use our Boinx TV mixer to give the pictures nice overlays, but our own laptops weren’t capable of handling all of the multimedia. We were going to have the audio pumped directly to the mixer but the Ustream broadcaster wasn’t having any of it. Ultimately, we had a great stream being pumped out with both the powerpoints and the live video. This is super nerdy and all, but I think that the plan b we came up with was exactly what we wanted in the first place, but it took us a few revisions to get there.

It was the process of finding the plan b that was actually most engaging to me. Knowing that things would work the first time is not interesting to me. It is only through troubleshooting and creating a new solution that I feel valuable. It is about the workaround and the new workflow that everything comes together and I truly learn something.

Which is why I am much more inclined to give my children and the other people that I work with a tool that isn’t specificially meant for the task at hand. Perhaps I don’t have the right one, but more likely I know that it is the process of figuring out just what the tool can do that will bring about the greatest change.

People say that the iPad isn’t a creation device. By making it into one, I am learning more than if I just accept that limitation.

Some say that blogging is dead. By figuring out how to make my writing alive and valuable to me, I am able to find it’s relevance.

The conventional wisdom is that boomers aren’t interested in a networked workplace (Personal Learning Networks and the like). The plan b is in figuring out where we can go from a place of resistance.

I don’t believe that we are ever done planning for the future, and that includes creating a perpetual plan B. I want to make sure that all of my actions are in the creation of the best possible option for what comes next.

We are not creating the first version of the future. Everything is a revision, a second and third and fourth attempt at getting things right. So long as we keep at it, I know that it will be everything that we need. It may not be what we hoped for, envisioned or prepared for. It will be what we deserve and what we work for. It will be our best plan b. I promise.

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Question 176 of 365: When is networking just drinking with friends?

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Long Three Days "at" ISTE NECC 2009
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The largest technology and education conference has come to Denver. Is the one time of the year when people from all over the world get together in a single space and talk about the issues that are most important to them, whether those are of equity and access, 1:1 computing, open source software, social media, online learning, or curriculum standards. All of those conversations are going to happen this week, and it isn’t the first time they have happened, either. In fact, many of the people who are here this year were at this conference last year, and perhaps the year before. And even if they weren’t, it is highly likely that these people have met online or at another conference.

So, networking is hopeless for these people. They know each other. They have had these conversations before. The contexts are different. The setting is different too. Perhaps, even something new is created. But, the unbridled networking that is the signature of seeing new people and figuring out how they find significance in your life is not something that happens when the same people have the same conversations about the same important issues.

Instead, we just have friends sitting down for a drink with one another. And maybe that is the best thing that we can be doing right now. Maybe it has always been about finding the people that we can sit down with and share one true moment, without introductions. We need to know people before we really can see their potential as collaborators. We need to see them as consistent parts of our creative lives before we let them in to the rest of who we are and what we have to offer.

So, let’s sit down and have a drink. Let’s continue the conversations we have started. And for those new people who we have never met before, let’s start the next conversations so that in a few months or years we will be able to see those individuals as collaborators, and more than that, as friends.

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Question 175 of 365: Where does arrogance come from?

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It is impossible to know everything, or to even know all of the things that there are to know in one particular area. We all know this to be true, and yet there is a certain level of arrogance for people in positions of power that seems to imply the opposite.

Consulting and arrogance go hand in hand. You never have to stick around to see hoe things shake out. Anyone who claims to know the solution is a consultant and not a stakeholder.

Stakeholders are around for the long haul. They are interested in making sure that everything has been thought through and that backup loans exist. Consultants don’t worry about backup plans. They are never brought in again if the first time didn’t work out.

It is not to sway that consultants can’t care about the issues of the day, it is just that they are an expendable part of the community. The arrogance that comes from not doing any one thing for a terribly long time is so ingrained in their actions that they start to believe all that they are preaching. I am glad for their voices and their persecutive, but I don’t want them running anything. I want consistent voices, but ones that crack every once in a while. I don’t want the mighty voice coming down from on high and letting me in on the secret to a better work life or collaborative solution.

Arrogance comes from a place of will.

The consultant is under the impression that they can will something into being. It is their personality and charismatic leadership that are going to see us through. It is their vision and forward thinking that will place us ahead of the pack. It is their body of work that will speak for itself and show us the way.

I was once a consultant for the job that I now hold. Before I became a stakeholder, I had the chance to be arrogant. I consulted on creating an online school and provided professional development on how to create online courses. The school that I helped to first design had several flaws, not the least of which was that I wasn’t sure I would have to live with the results if I stopped consulting. I developed something that didn’t require me to exist and that made sense to do. Unfortunately, the results became readily apparent of how drastically different our vision was from what we actually implemented.

We had disjointed and inconsistent content. We had to switch learning mangement systems (3 times in two years). We had no way to insure that the tools that our stakeholders used today would be in place tomorrow, and we switched it on them many times.

All of these things come from a place of arrogance. I arrogantly thought that by providing 101 tools and resources for authentic learning that would be enough to spark the people I was consulting with to create an environment that we could all be proud of. But I was just a consultant presenting an answer. I didn’t listen to what happened before and I sure didn’t want to admit that I had never actually attended an online course. I claimed authority when all I should have been claiming was my seat at the table.

So, here is what I promise:

I will never consult on a project that I don’t ever have to see again.

I will never create a solution before I know the real problems.

I will never offer my experience as evidence that the current project will be a success.

I will never start a revolution without understanding exactly who’s head I will have to cut off to do so.

I will never stop being honest with those around me as to my bias, my understanding, and my plans.

I will listen to anyone who cares to speak with me.

I do not want the arrogance that comes along with consulting. Instead, I want to be so invested in my work, regardless of actual titles, that I feel as though I am staking all that I am with each action. “Becsause I said so” is not enough. At least not for me, and certainly not any more.

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Question 174 of 365: What is our coallition?

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My name is Ben Wilkoff.

I claim it as my own.

Here are the other things that I claim:

I claim a space that allows people to come together and air their grievances. A space that allows for all of us to learn from one another. A single place that we direct people toward that for debate and discussion about the things we care about. A place to ask questions and feeling like the process of answering the question is the most important part.

I claim a coalition. Of the willing, of the reluctant, of the undervalued and unfortunate. I claim the ability to take part with and without access.

I claim support.

I claim the ability to walk into a room and ask for participation and collaboration and to receive it without question. Where business cards are scrawled all over with the stuff that people won’t tell you unless you talk with them: pen marks that seem to stab out the doubters that can’t see what we see.

My coalition is the people that waiver over every decision and then make them and execute without hesitation. They are the ones that we see in passing and the ones we sit down with at a bar. They are the ones that come back after years of inactivity. They are the ones without titles and the ones with as much power as they dare to wield.

My coalition doesn’t stop. It is wondering out loud, at everything.

The space I claim accepts all kinds of contribution. It accepts the forward, the reply, the collaborative document. It gobbles them up without a single worry. It seeks out attachments and links and moves them to places of significance. It works with mobile devices with relish. It functions on nothing but content, aggregating and organizing it into what it should be: the truth of our own stories.

I claim moving forward and all of its consequences. The super majority and the awkward minority. The haphazard fantasy and the articulated vision.

I do not deny the ambiguity of my claims, but rather I embrace what it means to walk in with no preconceived notions about my future. I believe that the only way onward for me at this moment is to take the meetings and the phone calls and the e-mails and the tweets that come my way and the opportunities that will prolong my ability to see where all of this leads. It isn’t about focus. It is about floundering and spasming into success. If I wallow away with the best people I know, they will surely show me the right mud to play in.

So, here is what I plan on doing:

Every person I see that is at all interested in becoming a part of what I claim, I will introduce to my coalition. I will tell them that I am interested in asking questions. I will see if they are interested too. I will tell them to contact my coalition with their answers. I will encourage them to tell their story. I will treat everyone I know as the right person for that moment. I will never let a bias beget failure. I will take all comers.

I will continue to expect more and more from them until we all burn out and are reborn as zealots for what we believe is true. I will cultivate the debate as someone who wants a fight but will be satisfied with peace.

I claim learning. I claim collaboration. I claim the future.

Nothing less than the entirety of human connection through a process of inquiry and reflection will do.

(Oh, and I want Jupiter too. I have it on very good authority that when claiming who you are, you should always claim something you can never hope to gain. That way, everything else is entirely possible.)

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Question 173 of 365: What should an interview be?

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I am on a panel to help choose the next Director of Online Learning at the Colorado Department of Education. The panel itself is an cross-section of interests, from higher education to non-profits to multi-district online programs, each of the people who are interviewing the candidates is looking for something  different. And, truly, that is the way it should be. If we were all looking for the same thing, there probably wouldn’t be any need for an interview at all. We could just decide based upon the resumes alone.

The interviews commenced today and all 9 of us were able to ask our predetermined questions. We listened as this candidate answered to the best of his ability, and we feverishly scribbled notes on the official document, our own personal notepad, or (in my case) typed in a few thoughts on a brainstorming app on the iPad. The hour it took to hear all of what this person had to offer was not an undaunting task for either side. I’m sure that he struggled in some of the questions more than he let on and I’m sure that there was some struggle on our part to really see how well we could get to know him in the short time we were allotted.

The more that I thought about the process we underwent and the process that happens in so many conference rooms every day is incredibly strange. We sit together and grill someone on questions that will ultimately decide their fate, but are incredibly inadequate to determining if they would actually do a good job in the position for which they have applied. The questions we asked, about vision and communication and specific data and standards, all of them were in an attempt to paint a picture of who this person is. But, what we really want to know (or at least what we should want to know) is who this person would be in this position. Because we had no crystal ball today (neither the candidate or the interviewers), no one could really see what it would be like to have him leading the department.

Even though we do not have such a gift of seeing into the future and predicting the fit that a particular person would have within a given position, I think that we have the tools for which we could create a much better process for getting the right person for the job. Here is what I have in mind:

  • Day in the life: I would like the candidates to take us through a day in the life of what he or she is doing currently, showing us concrete situations that cater to their strengths. The easiest way to do this would be to collect some objects that are of significance to their work (reports, documents, presentations, etc.) and show off their workflow within them in a synchronous format (live or in a virtual setting0. I would also like to demonstrate a day in the life of the position they are applying for. This would allow them to get a feel for exactly what they are getting themselves into. I think the easiest way to do this would be to take a snapshot of the director’s computer screen every few minutes and then do a time lapse of activities. I could also see this working for the candidate’s demonstration as well.
  • Real problems: Rather than asking generic questions, I would really love to see how a candidate would solve an issue that is concerning the current stakeholders. I think that the products from this type of collaborative work to solve a single issue would provide a much better comparison of applicants than simply asking them about a problem they have solved in the past.
  • Learning Network: I would like to know more about who these people turn to for advice and learning. I would like to see who their learning network consists of. To me, each of these candidates should have to demonstrate just how they go about dealing with a question that they don’t know the answer to. I would actually like to watch them put in a request to their learning network and see how long it takes to get a series of responses. A decent set of responses in a short amount of time would say to me that this person actually has set up a system of support that will be of value to the whole organization. It says that we are not only hiring this person but also all of the people that she or he knows.

While these may be a radical shift away from current interviewing practices, I actually believe that an emphasis on these three things is going to allow us to compare apples to apples. It will also show just how hard it is to fake your way through actual work, rather than just being able to interview well. It will show exactly what we value as well, which I think is important in any economic climate, regardless of how desperately the candidate is for the position or how desperate we are to fill it. In the end, our values are what will cause someone to stay with a job long enough to create lasting change and sustained growth. Let’s make sure they match up.

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Question 172 of 365: Who is our fairy godmother?

I have been reading a lot of children’s stories, as might be expected
with a soon to be two and four year old in the house. Many of these
stories have incredibly vague morals about finding happiness, or a
singular figure who seems to have everything figure it out. This
figure is often a fairy or mentor of some kind who is able to see into
the future or know what is going to be better for the characters than
they themselves can see.

I know there is something to be said for not knowing what is coming
next, but if someone around me could figure it out, that sure would be
nice. I’m not saying that I need to be in a storybook, but I want a
mentor who can see the things I can’t and perhaps sing me a song about
what I need to do. Yeah, that would be swell.

Posted via email from The Throughput