Random Connected Ideas

2004¦~8¤ë23¤é

The Gillmor Gang: August 20, 2004. Steve Gillmor and Technorati's David L. Sifry have been working on something called Attention.xml for nearly a year, and this week they discuss the concept with the rest of The Gang. What is it? It's a specification for tracking, prioritizing and sharing what people are reading, looking at or listenting to in RSS and elsewhere. [IT Conversations (with enclosures)]
2:25:38 PM

9:53:00 AM

Wrost Pricing Model of Taiwan.

http://www.dragonfly.com.tw/asset_c/index.htm

9:51:19 AM

Pocket TV, nay. Pocket TV, nay: Mike Masnick of TechDirt rips the BBC a new one on its boosterism of "An ambitious project is under way to find a way to send TV broadcast signals to mobiles by 2010." Mike observes: "Television is... [JD on MX]
9:23:53 AM

Dog wags tail, not vice-versa. The human brain is a trickster. It takes in a gusher of visual, auditory, and sensory input, throws 99.99% of it away without our knowing it, and presents us with a coherent picture of the world. The pre-conscious brain chooses the slides in the show we see. It even gives us the illusion that we're in control.

Brain wave studies show that consciousness lags reality (and then covers its tracks).. Your pre-conscious mind is a lot closer to "now" than you are. The brain decides to hold up your right arm--and you think it's something you thought up. Hah!

We can only see what we know. People accustomed to medieval paintings couldn't appreciate the perspective of Rennaissance painters. Caribbean natives couldn't see the ships of Columbus until perceptive medicine men told them what to look for. Consciousness is low-bandwidth; being oblivious to things we don't recognize is a survival strategy.

This train of thought was leaking into my consciousness as I read through the agendas of the five conferences I'll be attending in the upcoming months. From the topics, you'd think that the only thing that trainers see is training.

Despite my fanning the flames for the last year, the training community is taking a wait-and-see attitude about what I've been calling workflow learning. Some say they'll get to it when the time is ripe. Or when the powers that be express interest in the future beyond getting through the next month.

There's a flaw in this logic. The trickster brain has you thinking you have a choice. Listen up: a new way of computing is on the way. It's web services-based, decentralized, rich-client, Internet logic, interoperable, process-driven, individualized, real-time, pervasive, and absolutely inevitable.

The new framework will be everywhere within five years. Early adopters are taking advantage of it now. It's compelling because it routes around IT and hands the management of business processes back to business people. It does this by overlaying what's already in place instead of replacing it. You can implement it on a pay-as-you-go basis. In time, tapping into real-time process management will be as necessary as having a phone or a website today.

What do senior executives expect from training professionals in all this? Nothing. Why? Because training is not driving this decision. The new computing, what IBM calls "On Demand," is on the way because it clears bottlenecks, cuts costs, empowers workers, speeds things up, reduces IT busywork, future-proofs applications, plugs into a universal value network, facilitates process outsourcing, puts managers in charge of improving business processes, and lets the organization focus on its core strengths.

It's difficult to understate how little say-so the training function is going to have in choosing the new approach to conducting business.

Training is but a grain of sand in a very large desert.

Resisting the future is futile. The world grows more complex by the hour, and a return to basics is not going to simplify it. No one's asking us to make the major structural decisions. Our function is to help people do their jobs well. Our challenge is to figure out how to leverage change, not resist it, for change will happen with us or without.

This is akin to VCRs in classrooms. Every teacher has access to one. Because of sound pedagogy? Because of a study at Columbia? Because we wanted no child left behind? No, no, and of course not. VCRs became plentiful because millions of adults purchased them to watch pornographic movies, and economics of scale brought the price down from tens of thousands of dollars to less than a hundred. The new computing will proliferate because it makes good business sense.

What the Workflow Institute has been calling workflow learning is no more than the optimal way to improve worker performance in the new environment. It's up to us to make it relevant, timely, easy to access, and enjoyable to use.

Workflow learning is not the right term for this, but it's the best I've come up with. Workflow has the baggage of document handling; we're more focused on the progress through the value chain. Learning calls up images of courses and class, but we foresee more focus on small bites, collaboration, reference look-up, and imbedded support.

We're not convening the Workflow Learning Symposium in San Francisco to sell our vision of the future. Rather, we hope to engage you in a dialog about the new technology and how to take advantage of it to improve individual and organizational performance. Maybe we'll even come up with a new name for workflow learning.
[Internet Time Blog]
9:21:20 AM

When the Computer Opens the Closet. For many women who marry gay men, the truth comes out late at night, not in the bedroom but in front of the family's computer screen. By By JANE GROSS. [The New York Times > Technology]
9:20:44 AM

Good Presentation Tips + RSS Newsfeed. Ellen Finkelstein does it again with a great resource of information for PowerPoint presenters. PowerPoint Tips brings together the best and most useful advice collected by the author over the years. Tips include everything from how to utilize a Summary... [Robin Good's Latest News]
9:19:21 AM