As I'm typing this, I am hoping against hope that a certain sleepy toddler doesn't wake up. My 20-month-old son Felix woke up this morning with the telltale runny nose and eye gunk that said "Change your plans, Mom." I got him dressed in hopes that he'd perk up and we could send him off to daycare - but when I felt his forehead, I knew that all bets were off. And so I'm home, in my living room, listening to the quiet house and sitting in silent awe of my own life and the delicate thing that we call "work-life balance."
I used to hate the phrase "work-life balance," and I insist it's a false dichotomy. Work is very much a part of my life, and my personal life informs and shapes my professional perspective.
But the more I think about it, especially now that I have two small human beings in my care, the more I understand that it is a balancing act as complex and awe-inspiring as anything you'll see in Cirque de Soleil.
I have a theory that I call "The Rule of 4." There are four great endeavors which can consume an adult's energy:
1.Working
2.Going to school
3.Caring for children
4.Maintaining a home life
Most emotionally healthy adults can reasonably expect to do exactly two of these things well at any given time. You can focus on three in short bursts - e.g., finishing up your degree while working and having kids, but only because you know that it's only one semester, you have a fridge full of Red Bull, and nobody minds that your house looks to be three days away from a Hoarders intervention. The Rule of 4 is also a great excuse to rationalize hiring a housekeeper.
My days are very full. My alarm goes off at 4:30, and I often wake up fairly certain that I forgot something. Is it pajama day at school? Are there field trip permission slips to turn in? Did I bring my laptop home last night? Do I have a meeting that requires me to dress more competently than usual?
When I was 25 and childless, I would never have believed that I'd wake up at such an unholy hour and maintain a cheerful attitude to boot.
And yet, somehow, it balances. Some days, I feel like I'm stacking plates while riding a unicycle, but I grab more of them: Swimming lessons? Why not! Piano? Sure! Of course I can fit in trips to the gym and make a digital scrapbook for my mother! Perhaps I'll take up yoga and Pinterest, too, while I'm at it.
I was marveling at this today, while I was dialed into a conference call with Felix's fever-warmed head resting on my lap, Yo Gabba Gabba! playing in the background. I muted the phone and said "I love you," and for the first time ever, Felix said "Love you" right back.
There is a formula for this, I realized, and it's both simpler and more complex than my Rule of 4. It's love. Love (and my alarm clock) draw me out of bed and give me the energy for the people in my life - those who are related to me, and those with whom I work. Love makes it a no-brainer that I had to stay home today, and it's there in the trust that I have with my manager and my team, knowing that the work I'm responsible for will get done, when it needs to get done. Love also gives me the courage to say hard things, like telling my 5-year-old "I can't play with you now, I'm working" and know that she'll forgive me because I will keep my promises and play with her later.
I won't pretend that I was as productive today as I would have been in the office. I'll probably be online for awhile tonight, and may have to scramble a bit to meet my to-dos for later in the week. But I'll approach that work with love, enthusiasm, and gratitude because it meant I got to be here today. And that, to me, is work-life balance.
Monday, March 19, 2012
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
The Rhythm of Career Development
Last week, I had the exciting opportunity to be part of a panel on career development. Here are some of my speaker notes:
It's important not to confuse career development with career progression. Career progression is something that you can influence, but also depends on a multitude of factors. Career development, on the other hand, is within your control. You can tell your career is developing if you can look at the work you're doing today and say to yourself, "There's no way i could have done this a year ago." If you're smarter, braver, or more connected than you used to be, then you're moving forward, regardless of your job title.
I approach career development as a constant cycle of listening, learning, synthesizing, and sharing information. In this process, you're also building relationships around the knowledge you acquire and share.
Here's my ideal rhythm of career development activities:
Daily:
It's important not to confuse career development with career progression. Career progression is something that you can influence, but also depends on a multitude of factors. Career development, on the other hand, is within your control. You can tell your career is developing if you can look at the work you're doing today and say to yourself, "There's no way i could have done this a year ago." If you're smarter, braver, or more connected than you used to be, then you're moving forward, regardless of your job title.
I approach career development as a constant cycle of listening, learning, synthesizing, and sharing information. In this process, you're also building relationships around the knowledge you acquire and share.
Here's my ideal rhythm of career development activities:
Daily:
- Be in conversation with interesting people. Do this in person and online. Approach your interactions, inside and outside of work, with an open and curious mind.
- Say Yes often. You'll learn more, and people will like you more.
- Keep an ongoing list of things to check out when you have time: Book recommendations, websites, magazine articles that you hear about in passing.
Weekly:
- Make time to read. Go through the list of articles or books that you've been compiling. Spend a half hour reading a blog, news site, or forum that pertains to your area of interest and development. Scan the headlines and click into the articles that speak to you. In my line of work, I draw a lot of value from the corporate communications information on http://www.ragan.com/ and the technology news on http://www.mashable.com/.
- Share something. Whether it's on your work blog or Facebook or a friendly conversation with a coworker, pass along a bit of knowledge or insight that you've learned and think that someone else would appreciate knowing. As a bonus, you're building your brand as someone who is insightful and generous with your knowledge.
- Send recognition. Set a weekly calendar reminder (mine is on Friday mornings) and think through all the people you've worked with this week who might deserve thanks or recognition. My company has an online program that lets us send e-cards and buttons, but a simple e-mail or wall post will suffice. It takes a few minutes to send a nomination, but the positive impact can resonate for years.
Monthly:
- Dig a little deeper. Attend a webinar (there are many excellent free ones out there), download and read a white paper, or listen to a TED talk (http://www.ted.com/) or podcast. Take a community education seminar in your neighborhood. You can do this alone or enlist a teammate and enhance your learning by sharing and discussing it.
- Create something. Career development isn't just about soaking up knowledge - it's about synthesizing and sharing that knowledge for the benefit of others. For me, it's this blog. I'm not sure who will read this, but if someone draws value from any of these words or ideas, then I have created some good in the world, and that feels like career development to me.
- Make a difference for someone. Reach out and do some mentoring. If you think it's too early in your career to be a mentor at your company, volunteer with Junior Achievement or see if your college has an alumni/student mentoring program. Mentoring isn't the only way to make a difference. Sometimes it's taking an hour of your day to help somebody with a task that's nowhere near your job description.
Once or twice a year:
- Change your scenery. Bust out of your daily routine and go to a conference or seminar in a different city. While you're there, forget about the day-to-day and immerse yourself in the learning experience. Take copious notes and be prepared to present and/or blog about it when you return to work.
- Set a goal that scares you. Whether it's writing a book, running a marathon, or earning the job of your dreams - you don't have to tell anyone what it is - but keep it in your own mind, and think of what you could do today, next week, and next month that might help you get there.
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
The Magic of Social Networking
This is my speech from a presentation I shared at work, modeled after a TED talk. I omitted the slides because they contain information that's confidential to my employer, but they're basically screen shots of our systems combined with pictures of my kids, my friends, and spaceships.
This is my daughter, Evie. She’s four and a half. When Evie is really impressed with something, she declares that it’s magic. She’s also the reason I’m standing here today, talking to you about why social networking is magic.
When we learned of Evie’s impending arrival, my husband and I were living in Reno, Nevada, and all of our family was here in the Midwest. I wanted to give updates and share ultrasound photos and talk about nursery colors and naming philosophies and do all the things that excited pregnant women do, but it was exhausting to call everyone, repeating the same story each time. So, I posted a blog on MySpace – It was 2006, after all - to share the latest news with family and friends. It was great, especially after the baby arrived, when I was too tired to see straight but could post enough photos and cute stories to keep Evie’s admirers feeling connected. I had been using the Internet for some time, but this was when the real power of social networking hit home for me.
The need to communicate with other people is an essential part of being human. It’s also critical to our success as a company, and it’s part of my job to think of ways we can do it more effectively. A couple years ago, the bank invested in social networking tools that employees can use to connect with one another: Blogs, wikis, profiles similar to the ones people use on Facebook. I was fortunate enough to be one of the pilot users of these tools. The idea was that social networking tools could make employees more efficient and productive. I think they can move space and time.
Space and Time are the two largest constraints on our ability to communicate effectively with other people. And let’s be honest, they’re pretty big.
Space – Our relationships have always been, for the most part, limited to people in our physical proximity. In school, you talked to your classmates. At work, your cubicle neighbors and office mates tend to be the coworkers you know best. Relationships aren’t just about proximity, of course - We build relationships by connecting to people with shared interests and compatible personalities – but we most of the time, we’re drawing from that pool of people who are in our space.
Now, you can work around the space constraint. Did anyone here ever have a pen pal? It’s a neat idea – by building a relationship with someone whose life experience is distant from your own, you’ll learn things, gain a broader understanding of the world and have some fun in the process. How many of you lost touch with your pen pals after a couple of letters? There, we’re bumping into the other constraint – Time. It’s a hassle to write letters, address and mail them, and then wait for a response. Plus, what if your pen pal is a dud? I actually met my 6th grade pen pal during a family vacation to Germany. It was awkward and she stole my Swatch.
The time constraint is especially noticeable when you’re trying to work with groups. Groups of people are great at solving problems and brainstorming ideas. Group discussions can provide a diverse set of perspectives, the ability to see something from multiple angles at once. The problem with group discussions often comes back to time: It is really, really hard to get a group together. Think about the planning that went into this conference. Could you do this every week? Every month, even? Not without tremendous cost and effort.
So what’s a large organization like the bank to do? We sort ourselves into silos. We don’t create silos because we’re grumpy, or don’t like the other groups, we do it out of practical necessity, so we can actually make decisions and get things done. But we all know, deep down, that we need to collaborate more. We know that there are lost opportunities for idea sharing and project synergy.
So we send e-mail and we have meetings.
Meetings are great, but very expensive in terms of time. A one-hour meeting with 10 people isn’t a one-hour meeting; from the bank’s perspective, it’s a 10-hour meeting.
E-mail seems easy, but it quickly adds up to a time burden as well. Does anyone here get too much e-mail? Do you ever spend work time deleting e-mails that you didn’t really need to receive in the first place? Stop and think about that one for a minute. If you’ve ever done that, then you’re receiving too much e-mail.
The trouble with e-mail and meetings is that neither one is an effective or especially efficient way to catalyze a large group to action. The larger the group, the less effective they are. E-mail is not a group collaboration tool. Don’t let the Reply-All button convince you otherwise – please, don’t.
E-mail and meetings are what we call “push” communications. Someone, at the other end of your network connection, decides what you need to know and pushes that information in your direction. If you feel overwhelmed because you receive too many e-mails or meeting invites, don’t blame the sender – They’re just trying to be inclusive and transparent, because leaving people out of the loop is often worse than over-communicating.
In our daily lives, where information overload is a real problem, we’re seeing a shift from push to pull communication.
Gone are the days when everyone got their world news from a paper on their doorstep or the same anchor on TV. You can choose to get your news from CNN, or Fox News, or Huffington Post, or TMZ or US Weekly. You can click the headlines of the stories you want and skip the rest, saving yourself time – unlike when you had to listen to the news anchor read every story before he got to the one you cared about.
Facebook lets you engage in pull communications with your friends. It’s brilliant. You choose your friends, and then you choose how closely to watch them. You can click on someone’s page to see everything they’ve been up to lately, or you can just watch your news feed for the top stories. You can hide the people who irritate you or you can hide applications if you’re tired of reading about the potatoes your second cousin grew in Farmville.
This is US Book, our internal social network. You can’t hide or block people. But you can choose whom to follow and add to your network. You can filter your news feed a few different ways, including by key word or topic. You can follow the communities and blogs that you want to follow.
The magic of social networking is that it transcends space and time. Because it’s pull communication, the threshold at which you impose on other people’s time is much, much higher. If all you want to do is keep people in the loop about what you’re working on, a blog is an elegant way to do that. Instead of clogging everyone’s Inbox with your project updates, you can post them on your blog for people to read when they’re ready.
I’ve seen leaders use US Book blogs to summarize pricing calls for their teams. Now that’s an example of taking the time spent in a meeting – an hour out of the leader’s day – and turning that hour into more value for the organization. Imagine if every leader and project leader in the bank shared high level updates on their blog. Instead of wondering about the status of a project or chasing people down to send them e-mail, you could search for that person – or search by project name – and get the information that you wanted, when you wanted it. Pull communication. You could discover similar projects where different business lines were trying to solve the same problem. You could peek into other groups and find inspiration and best practices.
If you love the idea of everyone else having a blog, but aren’t sure you’d want to write one yourself, remember that people don’t read business blogs expecting poetry. The most useful ones are short, clear and to the point. If you can write an e-mail, or present an update in a meeting, then you can write a blog. Blogging isn’t a whole new thing – It’s a new tool that lets us do something we’re already doing, but in a more effective way.
“Crowdsourcing” is one of my favorite social media buzzwords. Crowdsourcing is when you ask a question of a lot of people all at once – is both easy and powerful. Through Facebook, I’ve asked my friends for help with cooking beets, choosing workout music, and entertaining a toddler on a rainy day. I got lots of great advice, often from people at the periphery of my social circle who had fresh perspectives and were eager to share. Can you imagine how annoying it would be if I e-mailed those questions to 300 people simultaneously? And if the people who had ideas for me clicked Reply-All?
I’ve seen some great examples of Crowdsourcing on US Book. One of my colleagues in Marketing was at her wit’s end, wrestling with an Excel formula. She posted a status update asking for help, and within minutes she had the answer. The number of employees logging into US Book daily is still in the 100s – but imagine if even half of our 63,000 employees were in the same conversation.
Managing a focused conversation with that many people can get a little unwieldy. That’s where communities and discussion forums come in.
Back to little Evie for a minute. When she arrived on the scene, I knew nothing about babies. I had read lots of books and articles – but information without context is just noise. I needed people. My family was half a continent away, and my friends – none of whom had children – were at happy hour drinking mojitos.
On the website Babycenter.com, I found a message board specifically for mothers with due dates in March 2007. People were asking health questions and talking about names and swapping tips. We were women from all over the world who wanted to talk about the exact same thing.
Discussion forums or communities are great for a few reasons. First, they accelerate the sharing of knowledge. You have a lot of people interested in the same topic, they’re all learning and doing research, and they can share ideas and resources with one another. Imagine how powerful this could be if you’re the only person at your office in your role – say, you’re a trainer – and you could connect with other U.S. Bank trainers to find out how they’re handling the same kinds of challenges you face every day. And every time you ask or answer a question on a public forum, that learning is visible to anyone who reads it – unlike if you asked your question by e-mail or phone call.
Secondly, in a community setting, people can build rapport that can grow into relationships. There’s a social karma factor – The more kind and helpful you are to others, the more people want to help you. Just like in real life. And real networking can develop when you find someone who has a shared interest or a compatible personality. Collaboration comes naturally when you feel like you know someone – and when you like someone. I’m a big believer in the value of non-work related conversations in US Book. If you know that a colleague shares your enthusiasm for basset hounds or Battlestar Galactica, you’re naturally going to be more inclined to collaborate.
And thirdly, communities allow for richer and deeper participation from larger groups of people. If you hold a meeting with 70 people, how many of those people will really be part of the conversation? There will be the one or two who have a lot to say – you know who I’m talking about, there’s at least one in every meeting. There will be a lot of nods and “Me toos,” and maybe a couple of counterpoints here and there, but the majority of the people in your meeting will stay silent. Some of this is personality style: Extraverts tend to think out loud, while introverts prefer to have some time to mull things over and digest before sharing their thoughts.
My team, Corporate Marketing, has an US Book community. At a recent department meeting, we had two agencies present us with proposals for marketing materials. Our leader wanted all of our opinions – not just the opinions of most extraverted people in the room. After the meeting, she instructed everyone in the department to post in the discussion forum with the three most compelling things they’d seen in the meeting, their preference between the agencies, and any other observations. It took a couple of days for everyone to respond, but she got more thoughtful and useful feedback than would have been possible in a meeting.
Social networking is magic. It’s a spaceship and a time machine in one.
But the real magic is something else. It’s the most basic thing of all, it’s the connection of human beings who want to help one another, who want to learn and to teach, who want to listen and who want to be heard.
The moms I met on that pregnancy board 5 years ago continued talking. Parenting is similar to work in this regard: Once you finally know all the answers, they change all the questions. So my friends and I created our own online community and we continued to share our experiences and learn from each other. We’re still in daily conversation, with 76 members and over 250,000 posts (as of this morning) about everything from disciplining preschoolers to the latest episode of Survivor. It was my experience as a moderator of this community that inspired me and helped shape the professional point of view that I’ve shared with you today.
I’ll leave you with some pictures from my family vacation, the third one I’ve taken with friends from my parenting group. I have no doubt that social networking works, that online connections are real, and that the effort you give to an online community can repay you in something that looks and feels just like magic.
Monday, April 12, 2010
How Social Media Has Made Me a Better Person
I'm more self-aware. I was an official social media junkie the moment my internal monologue switched into the third person: "Monica is contemplating her internal monologue." By trying to formulate tweets and status updates from my thoughts, I've gotten better at listening to myself, moment to moment.
I'm a better writer. I love writing for an audience, and social media makes it easy to practice and improve. Less time-consuming than a writers' workshop, online comments provide instant feedback. Trying to fit my thoughts into a 140-character headline reinforces clarity and conciseness.
I'm a better friend. In the past, I lost wonderful relationships because we simply lost touch. Maybe one of us moved, had children, or life got too busy. Thanks to Facebook, I can wish my friends a happy birthday, chat about TV shows, and even play Scrabble with them, without travel or rearranging of schedules. If I'm thinking of someone, I can tell them instantly. While there's still value in a handwritten card or a phone call, an online conversation is no less meaningful just because it's easy.
I archive my memories. Some people scrapbook; I write. The nurses laughed at me when I blogged in the delivery room the day my daughter was born, but not only did it keep my family and friends apprised in real-time, I'll always love re-reading that blog.
I'm more effective. This summer, I coordinated a cross-country move for two adults, a toddler, and an ill-tempered cat. It was a big project, with a cast of family and friends who lived in Minnesota and all along the way. Once I got the schedule planned out, I posted this Facebook note: Monica's Note and didn't have to worry about keeping track of who knew what, and who I needed to call. Everyone had the same information, and I knew it was accurate.
I'm a better parent. If you read my FB note, you'll see that I mention camping with Internet friends. Some of my closest friends are parents, mostly mothers, whom I met on a public website nearly 3 years ago, when we were all pregnant. Now that we have toddlers, we share parenting tips, philosophies, personal stories and jokes on a daily basis. We meet for camping trips, exchange Christmas gifts, and call each other on the phone. But most of our interactions are online, and we learn from each other constantly. It takes a village to raise a child, and my village is virtual.
I'm smarter. With over 300 Facebook friends, I hear a variety of perspectives and learn from each of them. My friends are diverse in age, background, and world view. I often "crowdsource" questions: Which movie should I see? What skills help a person be successful in social networking? I posted the second question as my status a couple months ago, and got a reply from a consultant on my friends list. We had attended the same webinar and "friended" each other after. We exchanged a few messages, learned we were working on similar things, and she shared a wealth of knowledge from her own projects. Although we barely knew each other, we connected and learned from one another.
I'm better at my job. I may be the only person in my department who's trying to roll out internal social media, but I'm not an island. All over the world, people are solving the same problems I am, facing the same challenges, using the same technology. We talk to each other on Linked In, on vendor websites, and anywhere we choose to create a community. I follow social media experts on Twitter, I subscribe to blogs, and I follow the trends in my favorite topics on del.icio.us. I don't have to wait or pay for conferences to find out what's happening in my industry; I just launch a browser window.
I'm happier. Social interaction is a basic human need, and it feels great to know that when I turn on my computer, there are dozens of people who would love to hear from me, and I have the time and ability to talk to all of them if I so choose. My life is richer thanks to the friends I have met online and those who I met in the "real" world but live only a click away.
I'm a better writer. I love writing for an audience, and social media makes it easy to practice and improve. Less time-consuming than a writers' workshop, online comments provide instant feedback. Trying to fit my thoughts into a 140-character headline reinforces clarity and conciseness.
I'm a better friend. In the past, I lost wonderful relationships because we simply lost touch. Maybe one of us moved, had children, or life got too busy. Thanks to Facebook, I can wish my friends a happy birthday, chat about TV shows, and even play Scrabble with them, without travel or rearranging of schedules. If I'm thinking of someone, I can tell them instantly. While there's still value in a handwritten card or a phone call, an online conversation is no less meaningful just because it's easy.
I archive my memories. Some people scrapbook; I write. The nurses laughed at me when I blogged in the delivery room the day my daughter was born, but not only did it keep my family and friends apprised in real-time, I'll always love re-reading that blog.
I'm more effective. This summer, I coordinated a cross-country move for two adults, a toddler, and an ill-tempered cat. It was a big project, with a cast of family and friends who lived in Minnesota and all along the way. Once I got the schedule planned out, I posted this Facebook note: Monica's Note and didn't have to worry about keeping track of who knew what, and who I needed to call. Everyone had the same information, and I knew it was accurate.
I'm a better parent. If you read my FB note, you'll see that I mention camping with Internet friends. Some of my closest friends are parents, mostly mothers, whom I met on a public website nearly 3 years ago, when we were all pregnant. Now that we have toddlers, we share parenting tips, philosophies, personal stories and jokes on a daily basis. We meet for camping trips, exchange Christmas gifts, and call each other on the phone. But most of our interactions are online, and we learn from each other constantly. It takes a village to raise a child, and my village is virtual.
I'm smarter. With over 300 Facebook friends, I hear a variety of perspectives and learn from each of them. My friends are diverse in age, background, and world view. I often "crowdsource" questions: Which movie should I see? What skills help a person be successful in social networking? I posted the second question as my status a couple months ago, and got a reply from a consultant on my friends list. We had attended the same webinar and "friended" each other after. We exchanged a few messages, learned we were working on similar things, and she shared a wealth of knowledge from her own projects. Although we barely knew each other, we connected and learned from one another.
I'm better at my job. I may be the only person in my department who's trying to roll out internal social media, but I'm not an island. All over the world, people are solving the same problems I am, facing the same challenges, using the same technology. We talk to each other on Linked In, on vendor websites, and anywhere we choose to create a community. I follow social media experts on Twitter, I subscribe to blogs, and I follow the trends in my favorite topics on del.icio.us. I don't have to wait or pay for conferences to find out what's happening in my industry; I just launch a browser window.
I'm happier. Social interaction is a basic human need, and it feels great to know that when I turn on my computer, there are dozens of people who would love to hear from me, and I have the time and ability to talk to all of them if I so choose. My life is richer thanks to the friends I have met online and those who I met in the "real" world but live only a click away.
Monday, September 21, 2009
From bards to bloggers: What's old is new again
It was the cranky old grandpa on The Simpsons who said it best:
"Why, a fax machine is nothing but a waffle iron with a phone attached."
Really, a lot of the "game changing" technologies that we've seen over the last few decades are improvements on things we had seen before. E-mail is a speedier, lightweight version of the same 1:1 written communication that we've known for millennia. One could argue that Paul's letters to the Ephesians, as published in the Bible, were an early form of blogging.
So, what's the big deal about social media? Are we really shifting paradigms and redefining communication, or are we just doing the same old things in faster, shinier ways?
Think of the different ways we spread our ideas to other people. There's 1:1 communication: Two people speaking, listening, and responding to one another. Face to face dialogue, phone calls, letters, e-mail, private chat, Skype calls... all of these are the same fundamental dynamic in which one human being connects to another.
Broadcast conversation is old, too. From cave paintings to books to speeches to TV shows to Youtube clips, the idea of a person standing before a group of people and broadcasting a message isn't new either. One important shift is the opportunity for feedback that social media allows: Suddenly, broadcast communication is two-way. People can (and do) leave comments on videos, ask questions of bloggers, and spark debates about the news articles they read online. In this way, we harken back to the ancient tradition of the oral history - in which the traveling storyteller could hear the audience reaction and refine his narrative as he wandered from place to place.
Where I see the biggest, deepest shift is in many:many communication. These types of connections aren't new; we've all sat around a table or campfire and swapped ideas with a group of people. In an online discussion forum or social network, the conversation stays after the people have left. It doesn't disappear. It doesn't get forgotten or filtered or retold with changes and self-serving edits. You can see the exact words that people used in their lively banter, you can watch an idea unfold, you can watch the exact process that a group followed to solve their problem collaboratively. You can also watch an idea go down the tubes, watch a project fail as if it were a bacterium dying in a petri dish. And not only can you see it - so can everyone else who shares your network.
This openness is at once exciting and startling. It requires some personal and rhetorical skills that don't always come naturally: The willingness to be open, the courage to put your ideas into a public space, the consideration to reply to other people's posts, and the emotional maturity to learn from your own missteps and review your dialogues without censoring.
The benefits of this type of collaboration are innumerable: By opening up many:many communication in a public and shared setting, we can gain a clear and powerful understanding of who we are, how we relate to one another, and what we can do to improve the world or our organization.
Is social media an exciting and powerful way to tap into our collective ideas? Absolutely.
Is it new? Not really.
Monica Wiant
"Why, a fax machine is nothing but a waffle iron with a phone attached."
Really, a lot of the "game changing" technologies that we've seen over the last few decades are improvements on things we had seen before. E-mail is a speedier, lightweight version of the same 1:1 written communication that we've known for millennia. One could argue that Paul's letters to the Ephesians, as published in the Bible, were an early form of blogging.
So, what's the big deal about social media? Are we really shifting paradigms and redefining communication, or are we just doing the same old things in faster, shinier ways?
Think of the different ways we spread our ideas to other people. There's 1:1 communication: Two people speaking, listening, and responding to one another. Face to face dialogue, phone calls, letters, e-mail, private chat, Skype calls... all of these are the same fundamental dynamic in which one human being connects to another.
Broadcast conversation is old, too. From cave paintings to books to speeches to TV shows to Youtube clips, the idea of a person standing before a group of people and broadcasting a message isn't new either. One important shift is the opportunity for feedback that social media allows: Suddenly, broadcast communication is two-way. People can (and do) leave comments on videos, ask questions of bloggers, and spark debates about the news articles they read online. In this way, we harken back to the ancient tradition of the oral history - in which the traveling storyteller could hear the audience reaction and refine his narrative as he wandered from place to place.
Where I see the biggest, deepest shift is in many:many communication. These types of connections aren't new; we've all sat around a table or campfire and swapped ideas with a group of people. In an online discussion forum or social network, the conversation stays after the people have left. It doesn't disappear. It doesn't get forgotten or filtered or retold with changes and self-serving edits. You can see the exact words that people used in their lively banter, you can watch an idea unfold, you can watch the exact process that a group followed to solve their problem collaboratively. You can also watch an idea go down the tubes, watch a project fail as if it were a bacterium dying in a petri dish. And not only can you see it - so can everyone else who shares your network.
This openness is at once exciting and startling. It requires some personal and rhetorical skills that don't always come naturally: The willingness to be open, the courage to put your ideas into a public space, the consideration to reply to other people's posts, and the emotional maturity to learn from your own missteps and review your dialogues without censoring.
The benefits of this type of collaboration are innumerable: By opening up many:many communication in a public and shared setting, we can gain a clear and powerful understanding of who we are, how we relate to one another, and what we can do to improve the world or our organization.
Is social media an exciting and powerful way to tap into our collective ideas? Absolutely.
Is it new? Not really.
Monica Wiant
Thursday, July 30, 2009
On tools and tools: A theory
Home improvement is not my forte. This weekend, I moved into a new house, and I wanted to try some little projects - assemble some particle board furniture, maybe hang a shelf or two. It was simple stuff that felt inspiringly doable.
I called my friend Becky and asked if I could borrow some tools.
"What do you need?" Becky asked.
I ran through my mental toolbox, which is very small.
"A screwdriver and a hammer," I responded. Familiar, easy to hold, easy to picture.
"If you're hanging stuff, you might want a cordless drill, a level, a tape measure, and..."
I stopped her. "No. Please, no."
Some people approach technology the way I approach home improvement - cautiously, fearfully, and eagerly reaching for the one or two tools that we can comfortably hold. It's not that we aren't smart or capable of using additional tools - but we're not quite ready for that learning period, that time of tension when the tool feels foreign and awkward. I know exactly how much damage I can cause with a screwdriver; a cordless drill in my unaccustomed hands might unleash an unstoppable (and portable!) torrent of destruction.
New and additional tools also make it more difficult to blame our shortfalls on a lack of proper tools. For example, I knew that if I borrowed Becky's level, I would have no excuse when my shelves were hung at an unfortunate angle. The blame would rest solely on my shoulders, because I had a level and either chose not to use it or (perhaps worse) used it improperly. In a world with no level, I could shrug off the crooked shelf and say I did the best I could, with the limited tools I had. Likewise, an employee without access to a good content management system can easily blame the lack of tools for the disorganized mess of files on his or her desktop.
So, how do we move past this mental model? How do we present an array of tools to our users and have them deftly and confidently select the right one, do the task at hand, and excitedly check out the shiny new tools we're working on?
* Teach people about their tools. Make sure the learning is customizable and reaches the audience at the appropriate level. A prolific social media user will not need a primer on the differences between Twitter and FaceBook. A newbie might need an explanation, a demo, a hands-on experience, and a cheat sheet for quick reference.
* Make expectations abundantly clear. If you want people to use e-mail for certain types of conversations, instant message for others, and make phone calls for other situations - explicitly say so. Offer usage guidelines and concrete examples. Don't expect everyone to walk in with a finely honed sense of netiquette.
* Give feedback. You tried teaching, but some people just didn't get it. Maybe they send giant, texty e-mail missives without a single paragraph break. Perhaps they use the reply-all feature when it's just not appropriate. Or maybe their writing is so rife with acronyms that it reads like a 13-year-old's text message. If you have the skill and eye to identify these faux-pas, embrace it. Pass on the gift in the form of constructive, timely feedback directly to the person who made the error. If you had spinach in your teeth, wouldn't you hope somebody would tell you? Extend this courtesy to your colleagues.
* Make it safe to fail. Take it a step further and embrace failures. Learn from them. Celebrate them. Praise people for their contributions to the organization's learning. This is good advice all around, but it's especially important when people are trying out new tools and getting past the discomfort of holding something new and unwieldy in their hands.
Now if someone could convince my landlord of that last one, I'd like to get my hands on a power drill.
I called my friend Becky and asked if I could borrow some tools.
"What do you need?" Becky asked.
I ran through my mental toolbox, which is very small.
"A screwdriver and a hammer," I responded. Familiar, easy to hold, easy to picture.
"If you're hanging stuff, you might want a cordless drill, a level, a tape measure, and..."
I stopped her. "No. Please, no."
Some people approach technology the way I approach home improvement - cautiously, fearfully, and eagerly reaching for the one or two tools that we can comfortably hold. It's not that we aren't smart or capable of using additional tools - but we're not quite ready for that learning period, that time of tension when the tool feels foreign and awkward. I know exactly how much damage I can cause with a screwdriver; a cordless drill in my unaccustomed hands might unleash an unstoppable (and portable!) torrent of destruction.
New and additional tools also make it more difficult to blame our shortfalls on a lack of proper tools. For example, I knew that if I borrowed Becky's level, I would have no excuse when my shelves were hung at an unfortunate angle. The blame would rest solely on my shoulders, because I had a level and either chose not to use it or (perhaps worse) used it improperly. In a world with no level, I could shrug off the crooked shelf and say I did the best I could, with the limited tools I had. Likewise, an employee without access to a good content management system can easily blame the lack of tools for the disorganized mess of files on his or her desktop.
So, how do we move past this mental model? How do we present an array of tools to our users and have them deftly and confidently select the right one, do the task at hand, and excitedly check out the shiny new tools we're working on?
* Teach people about their tools. Make sure the learning is customizable and reaches the audience at the appropriate level. A prolific social media user will not need a primer on the differences between Twitter and FaceBook. A newbie might need an explanation, a demo, a hands-on experience, and a cheat sheet for quick reference.
* Make expectations abundantly clear. If you want people to use e-mail for certain types of conversations, instant message for others, and make phone calls for other situations - explicitly say so. Offer usage guidelines and concrete examples. Don't expect everyone to walk in with a finely honed sense of netiquette.
* Give feedback. You tried teaching, but some people just didn't get it. Maybe they send giant, texty e-mail missives without a single paragraph break. Perhaps they use the reply-all feature when it's just not appropriate. Or maybe their writing is so rife with acronyms that it reads like a 13-year-old's text message. If you have the skill and eye to identify these faux-pas, embrace it. Pass on the gift in the form of constructive, timely feedback directly to the person who made the error. If you had spinach in your teeth, wouldn't you hope somebody would tell you? Extend this courtesy to your colleagues.
* Make it safe to fail. Take it a step further and embrace failures. Learn from them. Celebrate them. Praise people for their contributions to the organization's learning. This is good advice all around, but it's especially important when people are trying out new tools and getting past the discomfort of holding something new and unwieldy in their hands.
Now if someone could convince my landlord of that last one, I'd like to get my hands on a power drill.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
The 6 Hardest Things that Great Facilitators Do
Facilitating classroom training seems like it should be easy. We've all spent time in classrooms, whether at school or at work, and we've seen it done well and poorly. Yet some of the most powerful facilitaton skills are counter-intuitive, surprising, or just plain hard.
1. Talk less.
Chances are, you became a facilitator because you have expertise, great public speaking skills, or a combination of the two. That's why it's so hard to stay quiet, but it's one of the best things that you can do for your learners.
You might think you're well prepared by having a detailed lecture full of facts, examples, and anecdotes about your topic. In fact, the person who best connects with your examples is you. Present a nugget of information, then ask the class to provide an example that illustrates it. Unless your topic is completely foreign or abstract, your learners will recognize the concepts, ground them in their own knowledge, and provide the context for deep and meaningful learning.
2. Count to 7.
So, you've decided to try tip #1. You ask for an example, wait for the class to respond, and... silence. You wait a moment. The silence deepens. You realize that nobody is going to answer your question. You answer it yourself, then move on.
How long did you wait before answering your own question? It may have felt like a lifetime, but it was probably closer to 3 seconds. Silence is uncomfortable, and people will speak to fill it. However, a 3-second silence that feels excruciating to a facilitator does not feel nearly so long to learners. For many, it's not long enough to gather the thoughts and courage to answer your question.
If you slowly, silently count to 7, then one of your learners will break the silence for you. If nobody does, then they may not actually know the answer, and you can provide additional context.
3. Allow your learners to fail.
In 7th grade, I blew my chances at the county spelling bee by flubbing the word "sadistic." I didn't make it to the state championship, but you can bet that I never misspelled that word again.
Learning professionals tend to be a helpful bunch, and it's hard to watch your learners floundering through a software application or a logic problem. It's tempting to grab the mouse, nudge a conversation in the right direction, or give a hint to resolve the tension of uncertainty.
You're doing a disservice when you interrupt those moments of doubt, because that's when the real learning happens. If you establish a safe and supportive classroom environment, where it's OK to be wrong and learn from one another's mistakes, your learners will do just that.
4. Admit that you don't know the answer.
If you think of your role as "subject expert," trying to convince the class that you know more than they do, then you might be tempted to make up an answer or dismiss the question as unimportant. However, there are some great benefits to acknowledging your own uncertainty: You show humility and relatability. You reinforce creative thinking beyond the curriculum ("Wow, that is a really good question!"). You also have a great opportunity for an impactful learning and teaching moment.
Search for the answer and bring the learners along for the ride. If it's as simple as Googling the question or checking in a book, ask one of the learners to do the legwork. If the question is complex, off-topic, or needs someone else's input, write it down on a "parking lot" to be revisited at the end of class or on break. You can either track down the answer yourself, or invite the learner who asked the question to research and report back.
5. Step away from the PowerPoint.
Microsoft PowerPoint is a presentation tool, not a teaching tool.
Please read the above sentence aloud. Repeat 10 times. Thank you.
6. Be a broken record (or, if you prefer, a scratched CD).
Sad as it may seem, your learners are not hanging on your every word. Most training has a retention rate of 15-20%, and you don't get to choose which 15-20% the learners remember.
If there is a particular concept, fact, or message that is essential to your course, know what that is. Say it. Repeat it. Have the learners repeat it. Have the learners translate it into a work of art, interpretive dance, or infectiously catchy jingle. Say it so many times, so many ways, that it becomes your class's favorite salutation and inside joke.
1. Talk less.
Chances are, you became a facilitator because you have expertise, great public speaking skills, or a combination of the two. That's why it's so hard to stay quiet, but it's one of the best things that you can do for your learners.
You might think you're well prepared by having a detailed lecture full of facts, examples, and anecdotes about your topic. In fact, the person who best connects with your examples is you. Present a nugget of information, then ask the class to provide an example that illustrates it. Unless your topic is completely foreign or abstract, your learners will recognize the concepts, ground them in their own knowledge, and provide the context for deep and meaningful learning.
2. Count to 7.
So, you've decided to try tip #1. You ask for an example, wait for the class to respond, and... silence. You wait a moment. The silence deepens. You realize that nobody is going to answer your question. You answer it yourself, then move on.
How long did you wait before answering your own question? It may have felt like a lifetime, but it was probably closer to 3 seconds. Silence is uncomfortable, and people will speak to fill it. However, a 3-second silence that feels excruciating to a facilitator does not feel nearly so long to learners. For many, it's not long enough to gather the thoughts and courage to answer your question.
If you slowly, silently count to 7, then one of your learners will break the silence for you. If nobody does, then they may not actually know the answer, and you can provide additional context.
3. Allow your learners to fail.
In 7th grade, I blew my chances at the county spelling bee by flubbing the word "sadistic." I didn't make it to the state championship, but you can bet that I never misspelled that word again.
Learning professionals tend to be a helpful bunch, and it's hard to watch your learners floundering through a software application or a logic problem. It's tempting to grab the mouse, nudge a conversation in the right direction, or give a hint to resolve the tension of uncertainty.
You're doing a disservice when you interrupt those moments of doubt, because that's when the real learning happens. If you establish a safe and supportive classroom environment, where it's OK to be wrong and learn from one another's mistakes, your learners will do just that.
4. Admit that you don't know the answer.
If you think of your role as "subject expert," trying to convince the class that you know more than they do, then you might be tempted to make up an answer or dismiss the question as unimportant. However, there are some great benefits to acknowledging your own uncertainty: You show humility and relatability. You reinforce creative thinking beyond the curriculum ("Wow, that is a really good question!"). You also have a great opportunity for an impactful learning and teaching moment.
Search for the answer and bring the learners along for the ride. If it's as simple as Googling the question or checking in a book, ask one of the learners to do the legwork. If the question is complex, off-topic, or needs someone else's input, write it down on a "parking lot" to be revisited at the end of class or on break. You can either track down the answer yourself, or invite the learner who asked the question to research and report back.
5. Step away from the PowerPoint.
Microsoft PowerPoint is a presentation tool, not a teaching tool.
Please read the above sentence aloud. Repeat 10 times. Thank you.
6. Be a broken record (or, if you prefer, a scratched CD).
Sad as it may seem, your learners are not hanging on your every word. Most training has a retention rate of 15-20%, and you don't get to choose which 15-20% the learners remember.
If there is a particular concept, fact, or message that is essential to your course, know what that is. Say it. Repeat it. Have the learners repeat it. Have the learners translate it into a work of art, interpretive dance, or infectiously catchy jingle. Say it so many times, so many ways, that it becomes your class's favorite salutation and inside joke.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)