Open Everything
[ image : mitch haile ]
I’m watching the winter Olympics with one eye, rocking the baby gently with one foot, tapping this in with one hand.
One finger actually.
Which brings me to Leigh Blackall’s crys for help amidst his own baby carnage….and assertions that the institution is stronger than the revolutionaires. I’d imagine that it would be hard to accept that being one actually meant that you have to adapt to cage fighting when boxing and it’s routines had humdrummed the sport of brutality into something less cogent and strangely now socially acceptable.
I’ve heard it said( and learnt the hard way ) that criticism is cheap and that shitting in your own nest is cheaper.
Likewise teaching…and learning or both or in opposite orderas the instituition might have it. Stack the chairs, file the students through the door, pat the backs of funny guys wearing feathers and gowns, pay homage to the seemingly unending array of compliance measures, benchmarks, deadlines, slapdowns and any number of ways to describe what to others see as their main opportunity to moved on, ahead…..
“……Oh,but the rhetoric of openness, access, equity and networked futures.”
Rubbish….or at least now you’ve experienced what open everything might mean to those trapped in the pickled concoids of an institution, get on with better describing it rather than lamenting in a historical quagmire.
Go find some local neckbeards who connect cool things together.
Read More...Staging Connections : Next Steps
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[ image : mobology ]
Staging Connections is a global organisation with some incredibly well mannered and minded employees who for the best part are sitting on a goldmine of opportunity…..the ones that I’ve been in contact most particularly.
Yesterday I spent the day with the SCGL Elearning Innovations team who are examining the context for online and always available access to technology delivery for their trainees and employees. I’ve spent the last 3 months with them introducing them to an array of free tools, of intense conversations about networked learning, ebusiness, strategic infomation and process design and generally acting as a motivator for some lateral thinking beyond their current job description.
Yesterday I amped up the ‘critical moment’ rhetoric and it’s use led to some very interesting dynamics and discernable ( intended ) outcomes. As always I can tell that I’ve struck a chord with a few in the group and no doubt annoyed a few others as is always the case when your pushing for the best outcome from an otherwise exploratory insight into the use of networked technologies in a training context.
This is an opportunity as I travel on the train to see a client in Wollongong NSW Australia to reflect on what has been different and valuable about working with the SCGL team.
Firstly, inherent with any consultation role with a client comes a period of time where the need to demystify my facilitation role and to engage the team in trust building activities is imperiative. To ensure this has occured and what I’ve enjoyed most about working with the SCGL group has been a self realization that they have prospect, a realisable goal and most importantly have the organisational IT and the management group on board. This is not often the case and it’s a pleasure that this is the case here in this instance.
Largely I work with a diverse array of clients, some small RTO’s to very large corporate organisations. Staging Connections strikes me as awaiting it’s next big role in engaging e-business beyond it’s current focus of the service industry for events management. The context of training in this organization I can see is very much driven by face-to-face delivery which involves a certain amount of passivity from the client. I predict that the next big step in availing an always on solution and access to knowledge is about to happen for SCGL with gusto and with the same passion they apply to assisting clients to reach their goals otherwise.
One of the team members, Zofia, produced a Powerpoint yesterday that summed up the organisational demographic, the scope of potential in the organization and some statistics which for the better part of valour posed elearning as complementary to current training schedules. What struck me, as always is the heavily weighted male oriented employee base with an avid interest predominantly in the technologies employed to produce shows, run gigs and generally connect others to performance.
What I’ve been posing ( yesterday with gusto ) is that the same theatrics and love for impression can be employed with clients online using a range of media embedded in course ware.
I must admit that is one of the few times that I’ve sat captivated by statistics on a screen !
Robyn Jay, Manager of Elearning Innovations projects in NSW Australia funded by the Australian Flexible Learning Framework joined us yesterday as a guest contextualising participation beautifully and the need for buy-in from management and IT to ensure sustainability of initiatives…..most especially considering the applied use of web 2.0 technologies which for the better part get used for social purposes that intertwine work with family, friends and vice vera.
A number of guests from the Sydney Opera House joined the conversation also and some people from around the country online. As always the technology got the better of us for the synchronous participants and we had to abandon the DET Adobe Connection we had brought others in on. Dissapointing but for the better part of the project it’s been possible to bring others on board using this technology.
Our day culminated in a series of decisions to follow through on……a rare moment where a project synthesises it’s findings and narrows it’s focus on a sustainable range of actions including;
* Hosting of an LMS and a wiki which for the better part will engage clients beyond lock-step timetabled didactic delivery.
* Strategic steps to engage upper management in using elearning platforms to conduct events management
* Critical infrastructural connections between the hosted external solution and the internal IT team
* Continuous improvement cycles to explore and employ technologies which interface with an e-training regime
* an active engagement with industry partners to explore connections and information sharing
It was interesting for me to see the union and realization appear between staff in similar organizations that e-business could involve a participatory dynamic that didn’t necessarily mean they were competing for employees rather collaborating for commercial purpose. I’ve really enjoyed that part of working with SC…discovering the vast array of prospects this client has to engage others and the connections that the staging community has in general.
All in all I consider that these brilliantly talented people have a great deal of learning ahead of themselves, that they have a colossal amount of prospect in bringing on things not already on scope and for the better part of valor have a opportunity to engage with a vast array of connections that introduce best practice and sound androgogical practices into the equation.
A critical discussion was achieved and thanks to Julie Downs, a major milestone has now been realized. Staging Connections for me has been a successful union of ideas and the outcomes for this project….and for me are a step forward in engaging others with a discernable and positive practical purpose.
Two stops to go and I’ll be drinking coffee with Brad from Mtraining and beginning the consultation journey with Janelle Morris from IML Pathology in Wollongong.
This is living life to the full as an ebusiness consultant 
Plaxo : The Pulse
[image : eschipul ]
Today, like any other day my email inbox is full of Bacn.
Today, like any other day I received 11 phone calls, 78 emails, 5 IM’s, two text messages and a host of other link spam which I’m not after although some of it makes hilarious reading despite the paradox of the desperateness inherent.
What I would like though is to use services like Plaxo that effectively centralise personal updates, who send me things by MY election, who promise not to share my details without my consent and who like any other business related profiling web 2.0 company show me who’s connecting to whom and why.
Unlike Facebook, Plaxo seems to be centralising service for purpose without all the fanfare, flashing advertisements and entertainment oriented connections. Sure, like anyone I’m keen to connect for positive practical purpose however I like to to be on my terms. I’m inbedding my services elsewhere and hopefully Plaxo will see that they can ‘out’ my profile as I’m still the same person inside as I am on the outside.
So, today like any other day, whilst I was building a website for one client, installing a Learning Management system for another and generally having fun with my youngest son Ethan , partner Jane and doing the housework in between I got to thinking about this once a week Plaxo message which I generally delete. I opened it this time, logged in, updated my profile a bit and then realised that 870 other people on my gmail list are not part of Plaxo and unlikely to know unless I email them what I’ve been up to or no offer as an E-learning & E-Business Marketing Consultant.
Hence the idea of this blog post which I’ll point to via the Plaxo message I’m sending through to those whom I’d like to re-connect with……not because I went to school with them, nor because I fancy them rather because as business goes the broader the access and connections with others the more likelihood of them returning my message and perhaps even commenting on this blog post……when I’ve worked out what code has dropped off to stop this happening.
In the meantime, please drop me a line via my email which you can find in my contact page above. Looking forward to hearing how your careers are going and how we can connect and have a great time otherwise.
Till then….I’m online.
Skype me if you get a moment to say hi !
