Manage To Change

Look out Rosetta, I’m Hooked on LiveMocha!

I’ve wanted to learn Spanish most of my life, but I’ve never gotten passed a couple of classes in high school and college.

I tried again a few years ago.  Even after spending a few hundred dollars on Rosetta Stone, I stopped using it after a couple of weeks.

That’s about to change thanks to LiveMocha, a social networking site focused on language learning. 

LiveMocha offers me something I was missing, community.  

 

Taking Lessons
Every lesson has four required sections (Learn, Review, Write, Speak) and optional exercises.

The software grades the Learn and Review sections and the optional exercises. The community evaluates the Write and Speak sections.

 

Feedback
One of the most satisfying features of Live Mocha is helping others in the community learn English.  Reviewing submissions is addictive!

In offering feedback, members of the community can type comments and record responses.  The recorded responses are terrific.  They allow the learner to hear the nuances of native pronunciation and sentence formation, much like what we’d hear in a public setting.

As you review exercises and others review your submissions, you start build your personal network. 

I’ve found myself committed to certain connections.  As soon as I see an email (delivered both to my LiveMocha and external email inboxes), I attempt to offer feedback as soon as possible. 

Why It Might Work

• A human connection.
• A large and growing community.  Even without connections, submissions are reviewed relatively quickly.
• Mutual benefit.  Many of my connections are native Spanish speakers learning English. 
• Notifications to external email. Having emails delivered to my inbox has helped me stay engaged.  This is especially true because the emails are from people that need their work reviewed, not marketing copy from a faceless company.
• Free and paid options. There are tutors, exportable content, and other options available to premium subscribers.

It's been almost four weeks now. 

I may not be as far as I’d like, but I’m still engaged.

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Communication is Key

We hear it all the time.

Without effective communication every interpersonal relationship, every goal, every strategy, every organization, is at risk.

Misunderstandings, poor morale, and ineffective relationships rooted in poor communication are commonplace.

Effective communication is hard.  It can be uncomfortable.  It can make people angry with you.

But, it's the only way to solve problems.

When times are difficult and emotions are running high, how can we be sure we're communicating effectively (and respectfully)?

It's time to get back to basics. 

Listen to what others are saying.  Adjust your style to try and connect with them effectively where they are. 

Don't think it's the other person's job to communicate with you no matter where you are on the organizational chart.

Remove yourself emotionally from difficult conversations, at first.  Listen. Ask questions. Stick to the cold, hard facts when assessing a situation. 

However, when it comes time to implement a decision it's time to let emotions back into the picture.  

If you find that a conversation or a topic is annoying you in some way, get another person's perspective.

Effective communication is like exercise.  We all know how to do it.  We all know that we should do it. Yet it's often neglected.

Are We Strangling Innovation or Strengthening It?

Lately, the economy is all we hear about in the news.  It seems as though there are constantly more layoffs, more programs being cut, and more industries asking for help from the government.

When so many individuals, companies, and industries are worried about their survival, what happens to innovation?

Is opportunity a side effect of our pitiful economy? 

Some might argue, as Guy Kawasaki did in 2006, that limited resources aren't the worst thing that could happen to an entrepreneur.

What are your thoughts?

Communication: Know What You Know

Image by maveric2003 via Flickr

Not everyone in a company hears the same thing at the same time.

Everyone hasn’t gone to the same meetings, had the same hallway conversations, seen the same PowerPoint decks, read the same emails, or had the same amount of time to digest the information.

This impacts change initiatives, including “restructuring efforts”, in several ways.

We can’t expect people to understand actions for which they have no context.

We can’t get frustrated when someone asks us questions about something we feel pressured to accomplish quickly.  We certainly can't get defensive.

We can’t keep information about changes from the people they impact and then expect them to jump off a cliff with us with confidence in the depth of the waters below - especially when, if we're honest, we don't know how deep they are either.

Times are tough and there are difficult decisions to be made, but people can support decisions they understand, and to which they've had some input, even when they don't like them.

When you've been included early in the communication chain, and understand the context of the message, it’s hard to be patient with those just hearing about it.

What can we do?

Include people at different stages of the thought process to properly assess the impact of the change, worry about accuracy more than secrecy.

When it comes time to spread the word more broadly, take a deep breath and remember the thought that went into defining the action. 

Remember what you know and the process your team went through to come the decision, and try to give your colleagues, audience, staff, the context they need to understand the change in front of them.

Virtual Brainstorming: Expect the Unexpected

Image via Wikipedia

Most of us have brainstormed with a group. 

Someone puts an idea out there, someone adds to it or adjusts it, and the group iterates through possibilities. 

Many ideas come to surface.  Some are “good” (meaning that for our particular purpose they have potential application). Some aren’t.

Until recently what we’ve called brainstorming has usually occurred with a limited number of participants, often people we know, over a fixed time period.

But social networking has changed all of that.  If you allow them to be, social networks can be giant brainstorming sessions. 

Throwing around ideas with a changing group of people we know, don’t know, and know of, but never actually met is a tremendous source of both innovation and energy. 

We can churn through concepts, tools, business models, or whatever interests us over an indeterminate amount of time with whom ever happens to be available.  At any time we can jump off with an idea and play with it in another context. 

It's experimentation and idea sharing that's completely organic, unstructured, and "open source."

Everyone has access.

All we need to do is stay connected to the group and see what happens - because I'm willing to bet that we’re no where near done yet!

Now, isn't that exciting!?

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Writing for the SSP Scholarly Kitchen

I've just started contributing to the Society of Scholarly Publishing blog, the Scholarly Kitchen.

My first two posts are:

• Conferences of Infinite Dimension
• Since When Does Community Mean Everybody

If you haven't visited, come by and take a look.  We have some pretty interesting cooks in the kitchen!

O'Reilly Tools of Change: Come on in the water's fine!

Come follow all of us at TOC on Twitter.

More later...

Products, Platforms, Content, and Human Behavior

Having attended several conferences throughout the fall, I seemed to get hit with the same two product development points over and over:

• The product is the platform (and sometimes the process)

• The platform allows consumption, production, and sharing

The platform caters to the idea, brilliantly covered by Clay Shirky, that people don’t just want to consume. They want to produce and share as well.

The content business is no longer a one-way street. 

In fact, one-directional products were never in line with how people really act.  They existed because of physical limitations. 

Bi-directional traffic is increasing because the factors that have historically constrained it are being removed. 

Now if you don’t embrace interactivity you’re in trouble.

GIIS: Ammy Vogtlander of BlueInsights

Ammy Vogtlander, Managing Director of BlueInsights, participated in a panel discussion on copyright at the Global Information Industry Summit (GIIS).

According to Ammy, networks of people with common interests (like LinkedIn), information sharing communities (like YouTube or SharePoint), and groups that organize information (like Connotea) are merging.  That’s why she co-founded BlueInsights.

As these groups and tools converge to enable “social discovery,” networks increasing become potential content discovery platforms.

And with ease of discovery come issues around copyright.

Different platforms have taken different approaches to protecting copyright.  You tube, for example, is reactive.  They take down infringing content if there is a complaint.
 
MS SharePoint doesn’t really do anything to prevent infringement.

There have been other companies (like Ezmo - no longer in business) that interpret copyright themselves and limit the number of people with whom someone can share copyrighted material.

While publishers often see online communities as a threat, Ammy fears that they may be underestimating their value as a forum for peer recommendation.

She also believes there are opportunities to develop standards to minimize copyright infringement and that, addressed correctly, online sharing as a form of promotion can generate quality traffic and increase revenues.

Read more about GIIS Day One on the Really Strategies Blog.

A plan gives us something to change

Creating an execution plan forces us to consider options and alternatives, weigh current information, and make decisions. 

Without perfect information, however, those decisions are an educated guess.

Today, with fast moving markets, the information explosion, and people getting stretched thinner as “project resources”, priorities are in constant flux and plans that span beyond days are almost guaranteed to need adjustment.

Does that mean we shouldn’t plan?

Absolutely not!

It means that the role of planning has changed.  And even more importantly, the role of those managing plans has changed.

Practical Advice
When possible create shorter duration project plans, measured in weeks. Understand that beyond a certain time horizon, the plan becomes less concrete.

Don’t beat dead horses.  In areas where there are unknowns or change is probable, consider the two or three most likely outcomes, build the plan to address them, and move on.

Simplify complex situations into actionable items.

Reassess planned actions continuously.  Collaborate on and communicate all required changes.

Redefine failure. Missing a date on a plan is not failure.  Failure occurs when we don’t incorporate new information and continue down an outdated and incorrect path.

And finally, the best known advice for project planning: Under promise and over deliver!

Disclaimers
This isn’t easy and requires both intuition and analysis.

Redefining failure is very dangerous.  Spinning our wheels and producing nothing is certainly not success either.  We need to discriminate between legitimate flexibility and the inability to execute.

There are many different kinds of projects with different levels of unknowns. 

• The plan for a product development effort in an emerging market will likely change a great deal.  It should be planned as a series of small steps and evaluations. 
• A project to implement a well established software system may have fewer unknowns and should change less. 

Now it’s your turn.

Do you have practical advice or disclaimers to add?