I’ve been working with a diverse group of Learning professionals in Madrid today, exploring the Social Age and the ways in which learning has evolved. I sketched this up with a small group, to capture the narrative of ‘what learning is about in the Social Age’ and share it now, not really as a finished or polished … Continue reading Learning Postcards: The Reality of Learning #3 Personal Context

Each of our individual Learning Landscapes is different: we come with different knowledge, context, ability, and motivation, amongst a host of broader pressures. I thought it was worth exploring a few of these: my motivation being that, as we consider Organisational imperatives and contexts of learning design and delivery, it’s all too easy to forget that learning is, at least … Continue reading Learning Postcards: The Reality of Learning #2

The pace of change in Organisational approaches to learning is being far outstripped by evolutions in the reality of learning itself. In the Social Age, technology allows us to access knowledge, and make sense of it, ever faster, and more collaboratively, than before. Today, I want to share some thoughts on four aspects of this change: the … Continue reading Learning Postcards: The Reality of Learning

To be curious is to inquisitive as to what lies beyond the horizon of our own ignorance and understanding. It’s a primary driver of human nature, a strong motivator into action, and gets us in equal measure into hot water or cold. As we seek to unlock (or unblock) curiosity within our Organisations, we should be … Continue reading Learning Postcards: The Landscape of Curiosity

I’ve been working with a diverse group of Learning professionals in Madrid today, exploring the Social Age and the ways in which learning has evolved. I sketched this up with a small group, to capture the narrative of ‘what learning is about in the Social Age’ and share it now, not really as a finished or polished … Continue reading Learning Postcards : The Social Age of Learning

Sticks and stones may break bones, but words are, allegedly, harmless. Or maybe not. There can be a violence in communication, not an act of physical aggression, but aggression nonetheless. The violence of vitriol, carefully constructed to cause pain. I was struck by this in a conversation about change, a conversation that moved to blame, fault, and … Continue reading The Violence of Stories

When the banks collapsed in the last financial crisis, there was a phrase bandied about, that some were ‘too big to fail’. This week i’ve been pondering something of the opposite: are some organisations ‘too big to succeed’. I’m not thinking specifically of their headcount, their geographical spread, or the physical weight of their buildings, … Continue reading Radical Complexity

The idea that Social Learning is somehow separate from other types of learning is a misnomer. For me, it represents simply the ownership of, and engagement, with the learning story. ‘Formal Learning’ is a story written by the organisation, and distributed to people: it’s ideal where you need consistency, conformity, where you are trying to … Continue reading The Ecosystem of Social Learning

Trees grow, and we can nurture that growth. They are part of a wider ecosystem, and both contribute to the health of that system, and rely upon the overall connectivity of it. They are cyclical, and carry their growth as rings. Trees both burst into blossom, but also shed their leaves, in annual cycles of … Continue reading Social Leadership Trees: Growing Capability Across An Organisation

We are relocating from a space of certainty, to a place of doubt: our domain based Organisations, with the systems of education that feed them, and the markets that sustain them, all evolving. This is not a time for answers, but rather a time for questions, and to consider the mechanisms of sense making that … Continue reading A Time for Answers?