I read this book and took notes from it as a significant part of my 2nd Working Out Loud circle goal in 2017 Q3/4.
Week 1 - A: Introduction
“Everybody works. They create documents and presentations. They schedule and attend events. They comment on other people’s work.” (John Stepper)
Simon: This starts me off with the view that anything I do is fair game for "showing", from "draft" (initial thoughts) to "completion" (job done). Gary Vaynerchuk recently memorably talked about this as documenting your process and not just documenting the end result. See his video. This was a huge challenge to me to start and in past few weeks is why I started using Snapchat.
01: Call it What you Like
Remember showing your workings in maths problems at school/university.
Do not be hung up about what you call this.
Free etc tools now make this really easy to do.
Simon: often if we just present things in final state it is hard for people to grasp without presenting it incrementally with a rationale.
Showing your work benefits everyone.
Cf YouTube videos which are highly specialised help people see how to do something.
Simon: I often hunt for articles for how to do things in Word/Excel etc and increasingly videos as they are easier to follow visually if a textual explanation is not clear.
Simon: Cf error codes from programs that are explained by people on the internet.
We are good at documenting standards but unfortunately most of what we need is exception handling i.e. what to do when things go wrong.
Simon: cf Use Cases where there is a happy path that I tend to document first i.e. no errors and then revisit to add in all the alternative routes when there are issues each step of the way.
02: Showing Your Work Isn’t New
Apprenticeship is show you work with instruction and feedback.
03: Showing Your Work Isn’t Mystical
Sharing your work should just be a part of our everyday workflow.
Simon: reminded recently of the use of decision logs on projects to record for later why and how a decision was made.
04: It’s Not Just for “Knowledge Workers”
This is applicable to all workers doing any form of work.
Simon: see "Running a restaurant in Slack"
Example of a recipe where when you do it it looks nothing like the picture.
Include everything that a novice might not know - do not assume - and that an expert might not think to write down.
05: Before Anyone Says “Yes, But...”
06: No One Said it All Had to Be Public
Some work may be private or confidential to a group or a company, or only applicable to a geographical region.
One of the challenges is deciding where to share content for maximum benefit to all.
Simon: this is an increasing challenge to me as the number of platforms increases and as I start to lose control/track of where I have put content. Even a 2-sentence response to a Facebook post may be gold to me that I later want to reuse if only I could find it !! I have started using Evernote more and more as a central repository of my content but I do need to be more disciplined. These notes are typed in Evernote first before copying and pasting elsewhere. It also has the added benefit of being saved without me having to press a button!
07: No One Said it Had to Be Instagram
There do need to be guidelines for where to share what but let's not overdo it.
Diagram of where to share what based on type of content, if it conforms to policies/ guidelines, and if answers/responses etc are expected.
08: Finally: Showing Your Work is Not About “Information”
Many outputs are simply about outputs (or information). We should add the how and the journey and issues etc.
Simon: reminds me of doing "meeting" audit checks at the end of meetings re how was the meeting for you, did it yield value, right people in the room, agenda issued prior, actions noted etc.
09: Better Customer Service
10: Reducing Space Between Leaders and Others
Example of a CEO blogging and in one blog post indicates that he has changed his mind on something.
11: Other Benefits of Showing Work
Supports recruitment when people see official channels dscussing real wiork.
Business continuity.
Connecting with remote staff.
Improved staff morale via work visibility.
12: Organizational Communication Case Study: Nasa’s Monday Notes
Wernher von Braun, Director, Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) developed "Monday Notes” a management tool he developed in the early 1960s. Work updates from senior staff on single sheet titled with date and author.Widened out to others. Each got a copy of all the others.
See article.
See full archive.
Simon; cf Slack article in #resources-slack about how to run status meetings in Slack.
13: Benefits to Organizations?
Finding people who know.
Better communication.
Finding information that is helpful to your task.
Increased efficiencies.
Simon: reminding me that exceptions take time to work through and to document all such conditions and the current and best way to handle them.
Simon: when you are doing something "live" it is often hard to think back and remember after the event what the issues were to provide hints and tips eg trying to recruit and schedule a 12-week multi-timezone WOL circle. Lots of issues to address, how you recruited people, how you set up Slack, how you invited people to Slack, what channels you set up and why etc.
Document and share lessons learned on projects and where there was a big issue to be overcome.
If you narrate your work it can eliminate status meetings.
Implement a document repository to make files available.
Narrating what you do can help you get work done.
The problem of undersharing and the reasons behind that e.g. power.
Simon: classic Sir Humphrey line in Yes, Minister (BBC drama series) when the minister told him he would only get info on a need to know basis and retorted "I need to know everything!"
Video of a teacher learning from her mistakes.
Information in email often gets lost as locked in specific mailboxes of the parties and gets deleted when one of the parties leaves. Compare that with someone who blogs etc about their work.
Write something. Writing creates a deliberateness and encourages reflection.
Quote from "Better: Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance" by Atul Gawande (longer quote than is in the "Show Your Work" book):
"My fourth suggestion was: write something. I don’t mean this to be an intimidating suggestion. It makes no difference whether you write five paragraphs or a blog, a paper for a professional journal, or a poem for reading group. Just write. What you write need not achieve perfection. It need only add some small observation about your world.
You should also not underestimate the power of the act of writing itself. I did not write until I became a doctor. But once I became a doctor, I found I needed to write. For all its complexity, medicine is more physically than intellectually taxing. Because medicine is a retail enterprise, because doctors provide their services to one person after another, it can be a grind. You can lose your larger sense of purpose. But writing lets you step back and think through a problem. Even the angriest rant forces the writer to achieve a degree of thoughtfulness.
… Most of all, by offering your reflections to an audience, even a small one, you make yourself part of a larger world. Put a few thoughts on a topic in just a newsletter, and you find yourself wondering nervously: Will people notice it? What will they think? Did I say something dumb? An audience is a community. The published word is a declaration of membership in that community and also the willingness to contribute something meaningful to it.
So choose your audience. Write something."
Week 2 - B: Workers: What’s In It For You?
Saying "i don't have time to narrate my work" is akin to saying "I'm too busy cutting down the tree to stop and sharpen the saw".
Simon: love Covey's Sharpen the Saw as 7th Habit of Highly Effective People and how he applies that to all our roles in life
many/varied benefits
whether you share your work and how well you do that is down to you
finding ways to share your work as part of your everyday workflow will help make this easy to do
most of us already talk about our work so how do we do that in a way that makes is more widely available
objection: clients do not pay us to reflect, they just want our output
response: this is a virtuous circle, sharing your work helps you reflect and get feedback from others, our output improves as a result
01: Establishing Credibility/Expertise
eg this explanation from 2012 of font/ typeface for a blog, 1st para:
"We’ve been sharing our process and company values on Signal vs. Noise since 1999. It’s where we’ve planted the seeds for Getting Real and REWORK. And for many readers, it’s their first taste of 37signals. Yet, we haven’t given the look and feel any serious attention since 2005.
So I decided to tackle a much-needed redesign. In planning the overhaul, I wanted to focus on creating a beautiful, clear, focused reading experience."
Simon: loved this related page “Reminder: Design is still about words”
02: Raising Your Profile
When asked to review/ change something eg a presentation for someone, do not just change it but explain your thought process including why it is better
Simon: I sometimes do this via Word etc comments when reviewing or collaborating on content. Also see Hypothes.is for reviewing public web pages. See my Hypothes.is page eg for some comments on Groupthink responding to someone who thought WOL circles might be suspectible to Groupthink.
03: Improving Performance
WOL can help build connections needed for learning not just what but how work is done and continuously improved (eg nurses coaching each other)
04: Creating Dialogue
Not just showing your work but asking questions prior and along the way
Simon: rapidly learning in WOL circles that instead of you looking for people to help you with your goal, it is amazingly powerful to simply state your goal and see who responds, it is often people that you do not know or people who you would have never thought would want to be involved!
05: Getting Help/Saving Time/Not Reinventing The Wheel
06: Getting Help: Author’s story
Crowd-sourced definition of "professionalism" for work Jane was doing with a US state:
Approaching work in the spirit of collegiality, commitment, altruism, and accountability. Putting in an honest day’s work effort while caring about our work and working toward successful accomplishment of it. Doing things well even under challenging circumstances, and carrying out our work because it is the work we have accepted to do.
Simon: loved this on "professionalism", everybody has a different view! I am a big fan of the work of David Maister. See his "True Professionalism: The Courage to Care About Your People, Your Clients, and Your Career" book. Also this article is a good summary on this.
07: Getting Help: New Ways of Working and Communicating at Yammer
real-time collaboration not just 2-way email and shared drives, speed of producing output
"Quite often the answers to problems that are plaguing you can be gained by educating someone else about the problems you face .. during the process,you will see the answers for yourself" (Luis Suarez in Wasko & Faraj, 2000)
An Aside: Public v Private?
Consider whether what you are asking really should be private or public ...
08: Replacing Résumé with Something More Meaningful
Portfolio is wider than a CV: shows how you think, make decisions, how you work and what leads to what results. Visibility of your output is evidence of your words.
Simon: loved the Sketchnoting Workflow graphic and then rabbit trail-ed for a while on Sacha's web site! She produced the graphic!
09: Explaining Your Thinking Helps You Learn
When we are asked to articulate ideas to other people, we learn better.
10: Teaching Others Improves Practice
Simon: reminded me of Lifehacker's How I Work series. Great way of showing your working life processes.
11: Reflection Improves Practice
A challenge finding time to reflect at the end of an activity.
Lots of roles require reflection via journalling eg entry-level social workers, lawyers, teachers.
"Reflect on what you're really doing all day; email is not work" (Jeffrey Zoller).
12: An Aside: Tips for Becoming More Reflective
Develop your own supervisor. Learn to evaluate your own performance.
Simon: I often say I am harder on myself than others are as I am such a perfectionist and know I can always do things better.
13: Exercise 1
At the end of a big activity, some questions
- What do I know now that I did not know at the start.
- Why did this event/ barrier, success, accident happen? How can it be explained?
- What can I do differently next time? How could I have made this go faster, better, more smoothly?
- What political issues emerged?
- Problems I ran into ...
- I fixed, overcame, circumvented it by ...
- How did outcome measure up to my expectation?
- How well did actuals meet estimates on time, challenges, difficulty, people?
- I could not fix, overcome, circumvent it because ...
- Did this highlight any deficiencies in my preparation, training, skill level? What do I need to do to correct that>
- What assumptions did I make? How valid were these?
- How did they affect what I did?
- What do I know about ... now that I did not know when I started?
- Why did ... happen? How can it be explained?
- What did I learn from this?
Simon: this is classic lessons learned activity in project management. Always done at end of project but not always on the way through.
14: Exercise 2
Talk something through out loud even if only to yourself: story-boarding the thesis structure
Simon: Post-Its for structure used to good advantage in the design stage of a MOOC I was building. See this layout.
15: Exercise 3
Produce a template of the questions in Exercise 1 and answer at the end of each major (or even all) tasks.
And why not share your learning of what you thought about yourself. Who else would benefit from your review comments?
Simon: in a leadership team context, it is really easy to only do this when there has been a major issue of some sort. I advocate regular review of activities so when it does get done people know this is how we review things around here.
See Atul Gawande's "Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science" for a new surgeon's experience of learning to learn.
"Reflective practice is the ability to reflect on one's actions so as to engage in a process of continuous learning. According to one definition it involves "paying critical attention to the practical values and theories which inform everyday actions, by examining practice reflectively and reflexively. This leads to developmental insight". A key rationale for reflective practice is that experience alone does not necessarily lead to learning; deliberate reflection on experience is essential." (Wikipedia entry)
"Writing the blog has inspired me professionally: it has helped make me more disciplined with my working habits and it has undoubtedly made me more creative. It can make you more efficient and even work less! It can make you a better teacher. In one year I have undoubtedly learnt more than my last six or seven years in the job combined. It engages you in disciplined deeply self-reflective examination of failure, marginal success and barely perceptible improvement." @huntingenglish (from The Economist)
16: Paying it Forward
You have benefitted from others who have shown their work. So it is only right to pay it forward.
6 reasons journalists should 'show your work' while learning & creating
Simon: Through the 21 MOOCs I have done, I have been exposed to Open Educational Resources (OER). This is an amazing video on that subject and sharing generally.
17: Benefits to You
Range from career enhancement to paying back/forward.
Through this book, see the many and varied benefits that the sharer gets.
Key is to find ways of getting this into your workflow by making it part of everyday practice without it being another onerous chore.
Simon: I am trying to do this more. I have shared templates I have created for running WOL circles. A challenge for me is that I want to do things once and once only so when I get the idea of creating content it soon gets out of hand as I go wider and wider to cover the scope I have in my mind. Another challenge is to ship and not overthink all the time.
Week 3 - C: What Is Knowledge? and Why Do People Share It?
Share is the new Save
What is Knowledge? Three Views
- discrete bits of data cf formal knowledge mgt processes
- cf industrialisation, Taylorism
- knowledge saved in spreadsheets/ DBs
- decontextualised
- exists independent of actor
- org goal to codify it
- owned by org
- new knowledge comes from accessing it
- "need-to-know" only preserves the status quo (see Liz Guthridge post "Avoid undersharing at work")
- often hidden in email
- resides in people as "experts"
- irony is if they are identified often get overwhelmed for their expertise and cannot develop new expertise
- issue where ppl not identified as experts but they are
- often hard for these people to say what they do and what they know especially when asked when they are not doing something at the time
- embedded in communities, in habits, routines, shared language and stories
- developed in context of working with others and in solving a problem
- ppl become knowledge resources not disseminators
(Organizational Learning and Communities-of-Practice: Toward a Unified View of Working, Learning, and Innovation; article; John Seely Brown; Paul Duguid.)
"knowledge detached from practice distorts and obscures the intricacies of that practice" (Wasko, Faraj) from ""It is what one does": why people participate and help others in electronic communities of practice" journal article, from there also see the table "Knowledge strategies and key characteristics"
Simon: interesting to read about knowledge. I have never formally studied this as a subject. I have just taken it for granted over the years. My interest in ESNs is now making me thing I need to explore this more formally.
But Why Would People Share What They Know?
"In today's environment, hoarding knowledge ultimately erodes your power. If you know something very important, the way to get power is by actually sharing it.” (Joseph Badaracco)
need to get past "what's in it for me"
Other Reasons?
- public good, give back, pay forward
- connect with others
- interact with people who appreciate your competence
- peers viewing us as knowledgeable and skillful
- maintain the community/ profession
- recognising having knowledge does not add value until it is shared, convos, sharing what you know, helping others and getting help
article: "What's Mine Is Ours, Or Is It? A Study of Attitudes About Information Sharing" (1994):
- difference between what we share and why
- products (created in the course of work) viewed as owned by company
- what you learn is shared with colleagues/ communities
- "emotional communion": "experts will want to contribute to coworkers who need them, who will hear them, who will respect them, and who may even thank them"
True Story: “I Care and Want to Help”
examples of Yammer employees - Matthew Partovi and Steve Hopkins - posting time-lapse videos of how he works - org goals include openness and transparency - helped them/ teams move more quickly
Share is The New Save
given the tools we now have, the end of hand-it-in mentality and more of a post-it-publicly for a wider audience to use and apply themselves
And Finally
showing your work means we all learn from each other's experiences so we do not all have to learn the hard way
Simon: wondering if it is worth reading the seminal book on knowledge mgt "Working Knowledge: How Organizations Manage what They Know"; Laurence Prusak and Thomas H. Davenport
Week 4. “This Is How I Do That.”
“If what you’re doing isn’t worth sharing, then why are you doing it?”
Topiaries
- not teaching per se but Showing Your Work helps other learn
- loads of YouTube videos showing you how to do things
- eg A Man Named Pearl - self-taught topiary artist
Simon: easy to film screencasts/audio using Zoom outputs and Office Mix (free Microsoft Powerpoint Add-In)
Doctors in Surgery Wearing Google Glass
- 1st person, looking through surgeon's eyes, view helps others learn
Detailed Branching E-Learning Scenario
- Mission: Turfgrass
- sophisticated point and click with schematic of how pages link together
Cookies Become A Business
- Gloria Mercer had hand injury needed to rebuild strength, started baking cookies, article
Making an RSA-Style Video
Simon: loved the mix of things that are being taught here; I love this style of animation - helps me understand better than just hearing/seeing somebody speak
“This is What I Do All Day”: Médicins Sans Frontiérs/Doctors Without Borders
- finding out what colleagues do all day helps break down silos, find common ground, understand another's situation/ context - therby building better ideas for communicating and working together - and locating expertise across the org/ disciplines
- Storify of "A Day in the Life of ..."
“This is How I Spent This Day”: Designing A Mobile APP
- posting photos of visuals from a workshop
“This is What I Do”: The Consultant
- posting notes from a meeting
“This is How I Decided”: Visual Design Choices
- beware interviewing experts as they may be unable to explain how they make decisions
- find those who can explain their process via reflection and articulation
- The Typography and Layout behind the new Signal vs. Noise redesign
“This is How I Decided”: Yammer
- this is why we do things the way we do - 2013 video
“This is What I Did Today”: Attending A Conference
- notes/takeaways (video)
“This is What I Learned Today”: Attending A Webinar
- tweeting notes and photos
“This is How I Learned That”: How I Taught Myself...
“This is Why I Learned That”: New Employee Onboarding
- new starters blogging re what they are doing and learning and how that fits into bigger org picture
“This is How I Learned That”: Using New Web Tools
- video of a screen run through
“This is How A Government Agency Shows its Work”: The UK Ministry of Justice Digital Services Blog
- multiple blogs from UK Government digital teams
“This is How I Created That”: Matt Guyan
- article re health and safety videos for large plant machinery
“This is What I Did”: Demofest
- not only is work-in-progress good to share but so is completed work e.g. final versions of presentations
“This is What I Did”: How I Solved A Problem
“This is What I Did, and Why”: Bruno Winck and UX Design
“This is How The Collaborative Project Looks”: A Large Aluminum Manufacturer Engages in Narrating Work. Brian Tullis and Joe Crumpler Offer an Example in One of Their Presentations.
- (link died)
“This is What I Did”: My Portfolio
- now easily doable by anyone as tools now readily available - Marianne Abreu - example
“This is What I Can Do”: Résumé
- different approach - Amy Potts
“Here’s Something From My Work I Think Might Be Useful to Others”: David Byrne“
- How Music Works book by David Byrne (Talking Heads)
What are You Working on Right This Second?”: Snapshots of Working Days
- Yammer L&D q "what are you working on right this second?"
- and other qs
“Showing Workflow”: 2 Approaches to Organizing A Conference
- dedicated software vs paper calendar and post-its
“Showing Workflow”: Storyboarding My Thesis
- another use of post-its - blog post
“Showing Workflow”: The Evolution of A Painting
- April Barci on FB
“Showing Workflow”: Sketchnoting to Show ... Sketchnoting
“Showing Workflow”: Two Approaches to Planning A Book
- Nancy Duarte does hers in ppt then prints slides out to move etc
“Showing Workflow”: Book Layout
- Jane Bozarth starts in Evernote then prints off some with notes on post-its on wall - easy to move
Conclusion
- section not just about what people share or how or when
- BUT that it can be done in so many ways with so many different tools
- formal/informal
- professionally reviewed or draft
- each of value to someone else
- finding ways to make showing our work part of our daily workflow is a challenge worth meeting
Week 5 - “Learning & Development"
"The point is to extract learning FROM work, not impose more work" (Charles Jennings)
- Workplace Learning: Adding, Embedding & Extracting
- Re-thinking Workplace Learning: extracting rather than adding
What is L&D's Role?
often removed from the action
often accused iof not being part of the real world
helping people show their work can extend L&D's reach and inform our practice - L&D uniquely positioned for this:-
- involved with staff at all levels - enormous potential for influence
- identify stronger workers, those whose knowledge should be captured
- assuming roles such as online discussion facilitators & community managers place us as bridges/ connectors between people/ talent pools/ silos & identify expertise/ anecdotes for capture/ retelling
doing this helps us support learning in work not just learning at work
helps us get into spaces between formal training events
helps learners find each other not just learner with training dept
What does learning look like? Pinterest board - not sat in rows etc as in "formal" learning
learning happens when people explore an idea, talk to each other about it, explain their thinking, share what they are doing - helps us learn and helps others learn
What can L&D do?
help people capture, publish and find info:-
- training in using tools with org guidelines - examples of how/what others are doing, best tools are easy-to-use
- help with idea capture e.g. how to take pics/videos/screenshots
- who will share what/where - public/private/which community & platform, tags, how design/structure platform
- include those who are not knowledge workers and not strong writers - use other media
include lessons learned from failures
things do not have to be professionally published/recorded
Fill new roles
e.g. community manager, curator, data wrangler
natural space for L&D to help nurture communities
Support serendipity
help make introductions, make connections, help people find each other, find spaces for people to gather IRL/virtually
The Science of Serendipity in the Workplace (WSJ article)
L&D needs to narrate work too:-
- set the example
- not just deliverers but partners/ examplars not just voyeurs
- participate, get feedback
- encourage continuous sharing
Lead by example:-
- introduce tools
- show it can be done
- be the change
- be the positive deviant
- "Positive Deviant" Turning Chat to Collaborative Playlist (YT vid)
- be the one to make it public
- post from your L&D sessions - helps with course marketing & communicating what goes on in that event
Simon: created 2 Spotify playlists earlier this year in 1st WOL circle
L&D practitioners: great way to ensure you are included in and viewed as a part of making work visible/ discoverable is to go first
Here's your chance to show what L&D can do
often L&D pros frustrated that biz people do not understand what they do or could do OR think that this is just lectures and slide decks
1:1 helping solve 1 problem often more powerful than just creating a "How to create better presentations"
Showing learning spawns new learning
learning rarely happens in a straight line cf the Gloria Mercer cookie story
beware Learning with capital "L"
learning for biz people often unintentional and serendipitous and frequently unconscious re "solving a problem", "getting an answer"
helping people narrate their work can help them become more mindful of learning as it happens and perhaps more intentional about sharing what they are learning
"Social communities leverage an increasingly expensive asset - people - by allowing them to work out loud, connect with more people, establish trust and find relevant information and solutions more quickly"
(Rachel Happe; “Coffee Break with Game-Changers Radio", 19 September 2012)
as mentioned earlier, explaining our thinking to someone else helps us learn
a critical part of L&D function is helping learners become better learners ... few ways more powerful than helping people to show their work
making the process of showing work painless and, if possible, fun also helps finally L&D make their work more a process than an event
Week 6 - “How?
over last 24 hours, what stories could you tell your youngest family member?
01: Ship It
The key to getting started is to start.
If no one else is doing this in your organisation you may as well start and be the leader, set the example, lead the effort
- leverage things already in place in your org re tools etc
- locate ambassadors, those already doing things in this area and demonstrating willingness to share
- get help/ideas from them
- break old habits e.g. never/ever send attachments any more, always links
Simon: day 1 in new job decades ago, asked for cross-org public share and was confronted with why on earth would you want that?!?!
- use new tools/ approaches
- encourage each other - likes, ask qs, extend convos
- organise around roles not org structure
- work with community managers to connect people/resources, identify areas where Show Your Work could be done
- make more things public
- on reports, ask for obstacles encountered and how overcome, key learnings
- teach people to create useful profiles not just bland name/title eg passions, strengths, not many people know this about me
- link things to profiles
Simon: I always try to link to author etc of anything that I link to or reference, amazing how many of those people respond in some way even if just Likes
- people need to feel its is worth doing eg learning, problem solving, locating skills
- look for natural communities
- ask - how did you do that, how did you learn to do that, how would you improve how you do that, can you show me how to do that .... and then make that visible
- work out how to get output in front of people
- replace existing activities - state a trigger and what you will do on that trigger
- think about new roles and who might fill them
- organise around roles not silos via new/existing formal/informal communities or groups that you identify eg new starters
- encourage serendipity - eg work with groups you do not normally work with
- look for easy wins - eg create communities on back of training courses
- link to anything that you mention that can be linked to
- focus on those who get on board more quickly and go from there
02: Name Things
set standards for naming things, tags - aids discoverability - beware going OTT (article)
03: Platforms, Templates, Formats
eg ask qs of people until they learn to narrate the story in a deep/ meaningful way
eg what have I done today, what have I been unable to do, what are the risks I have identified that will affect the project plan
what are my plans for tomorrow - add to this through the day then post it
Jarche quote re social networks require ownership
- issue of people contributing to ESNs not owning what they post
- & then start cross-posting on to platforms owned by them
Simon: this is a huge issue for me but mainly manifests itself in MOOC communities where you are at the mercy of how long the course community for your running of the course remains available. I now post content from Evernote and often simply publish that material on my blog as a record.
Simon: widening/worsening issue of proliferation of platforms and where is all my content (even comments on FB posts may be gold later!). Again using Evernote as my master copy of content.
04: How Not to Do it? Don’t Over-formalize or Over-engineer
consider what is quick and easy to convey your info to those that need your info
etiquette: not anonymous, if private then move to a private channel
beware perfectionism getting in the way of publishing
05: Consider The Value of Making Things Public
note that you would be surprised who makes up people's networks
06: Tools and Strategies
success depends on making the tools easy to get to, easy to search, easy to use
ideally, use what people already like using eg writers, video recorders, ppt producers
sharing bookmarks eg Diigo/Delicious
sharing presentations easy as slide deck already produced (see Slideshare)
shared canvases - Mural.ly
video: YouTube, Vimeo
photos: eg flipchart Sketchnote
voice-to-text tools
so when looking at which tool is best, better to ask what is comfortable, easy to use & fits with the workflow
07: Video
08: Remember to Turn the Recorder On
Simon: I have forgotten on 2 occasions so far and both were in WOL circle calls when there were people missing! #fail
09: Draw a Picture
Ask What Would Be Useful?
explaining a complex process
developing use cases to demo value to others in an org (Yammer use in MS)
10: Worker Concerns
examples (generate solutions):-
- not knowing how or what to show
- needing some help with the tools
- fearing what they show won't be useful
- lack of time
- fear of not getting credit
- fear of being criticised or being made fun of
- fear of talking
- fear of exposing failure
11: Evaluating Efforts
12: Wenger Value-Creation Story Worksheet
cycles:-
- immediate value - productive activities
- potential value - robust resources
- applied value - promising practices
- realised value - Return on Investment
- reframing value - new framework
Wenger, E., Trayner, B., and de Laat, M. (2011) Promoting and assessing value creation in communities and networks: a conceptual framework. Rapport 18, Ruud de Moor Centrum, Open University of the Netherlands.
13: Leaders Need to Show Their Work, Too
examples:
- Richard Edelman (CEO), blogging weekly since 2004
- Paul Levy's Running a Hospital blog
- March 2016 "With 4646 blog posts dating back to August 2006, it's time to end this adventure. After over 9-1/2 years of almost daily output ...."
what to post:-
- annual plans and tangible items people are working on
- your thinking
- especially difficult decisions/tasks
- 3 things going well
- what you hoped to do when 1st in role and what reality has taught you
- your personal performance objectives in a public place
- strategy with links to action plans
- when start project with staff, explain the why and how fits with other work, teams, how they fit in
- when creating product, include at least one link to some other content to add value
- when setting up platform, give all staff access to it
- if cannot, double the number of originally intended readers and inform them they have access
- explicitly encourage/ reward collaborative/ visible work
14: Case: The Social Coo
How does a #socialtech CxO operate: Leveraging social tools to drive culture and adios 15,000 emails
15: Be Honest: Are You Ready? What Do You Need to Do?
readiness for showing your work questionnaire from Charlene Li (Open Leadership)
- two sections
- 6 elements of info sharing
- 4 types of decision making
- scores and give examples!
- facilitator's guide: Open Leadership: Transform the Way You Lead
- info sharing
- explaining
- disciplined approach to keeping company info confidential
- exec explains to employes how decisions made
- customers/ partners outside the organisation
- updating
- tech/ processes in place to facilitating sharing/ collaboration
- many execs/staff often use blogs etc
- shared updates useful & accessible
- conversing
- all staff all levels can blog if act responsible
- org committed to 2-way chat with customers/employees even when negative tone
- strong community of customers/partners who help expand scope of convo
- open mic
- channels through which employees/ customers can contribute ideas/ content
- org encourages employees and customers to contribute ideas/ best practices
- customers/ partners frequently contribute ideas that are adopted by the organisation
- crowdsourcing
- platform for large groups of ppl to be able to contribute ideas/ innovations & solutions in organised way
- appetite to seek out/ try new sources of ideas and innovation
- ideas from outside the org are frequently incorporated into products/ services/ processes
- platforms
- architecture/ data platforms defined/open for widespread access
- open platforms seen as strategic/ competitive advantage for org and invested in approprriately
- many employees, developers/ partners tap open platforms to create new products/ services for customers
- explaining
- decision making process
- rows
- acquisition
- partnership
- branding/ positioning
- product development
- budgeting
- workflow design
- hiring
- others
- columns
- type of decision making
- centralised
- democratic
- consensus
- distributed
- who is involved
- what shared info is used to help make the decision
- effectiveness assessment
- type of decision making
- rows
16: What Works? Lessons Learned
Reflecting on the “Narrating Your Work” Experiment (blog post) re microblogging, to start convos, ideally:-
- shorter
- timely
- include the thinking before and after
- issues encountered
- reveal something of author's personality, esp humour/fun
- sharing excltement or disappointment
17: Some Realities
do need to do housekeeping, clear out archives etc, reclassify content and so on
Simon: interesting to see how many of the links in the book are dead :(
Simon: worst example of me losing content was I used to use Readlists which were amazing and I did not move the content/links for all of them (https://youtu.be/IOXSzEPH44I)
some failures etc may point fingers at others so be careful
be careful of praising yourself to the skies, be real and authentic
18: When?
ideally in process - narrating - rather than just the end product
reminder that work in progress is often more helpful to others learning as you show your working
if you narrate it also helps to inform stakeholders of progress because they can see it
19: Just Do It
collaboration tools now enable us to co-create in real time
seek out co-creators
telling people what you are doing can also flush out co-creators
save files on shared drives
20: The End
how can we be better about narrating our work?
what did we do today that was worth capturing, that might help someone else, that might make something more discoverable in 2 years?
how can we encourage others to narrate their work?
21: Ask The Right Questions
do not ask what do you do!
ask what are you working on?
what problems did you run into?
what was easier than you thought?
how did you do that?
people talk about their work all the time - how can we make that more visible?
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