JC learns

Stumbled upon: How To Create Better Solutions

noreply@blogger.com (Jago) — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 09:49:00 +0000

The Internet is a great place, you follow a link to a book someone highly recommends, but it is in the reviews that you find some truly great insight on how to create better solutions. I'm hanging on to this one:

The way to better solutions is:

(1) learn the value of measurements (nothing improves that is not measured)

(2) measure everything you can about important processes in your key activities (each measurement will teach you something you need to know)

(3) identify the best practices anyone has ever done in these areas (especially by looking outside your industry), and anticipate where these best practices will be in 5 years

(4) assemble best practices together in new ways that no one has ever done before to exceed the future best practice

(5) identify the ideal best practice (the best people will ever be able to do -- for communications this will be having everyone get the message in one second, like shouting "fire" in a crowded theater where smoke and flames are evident)

(6) find ways to approach the ideal best practice by applying the analogy of where humans do it almost perfectly now to your situation

(7) assemble the right people, resources and incentives to get the job done and

(8) repeat the process (you will get better at it and find better ideas, each you time you do this again).

Thanks Professor Donald Mitchell

De Toekomst van Leren

noreply@blogger.com (Jago) — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 12:10:00 +0000

Last week I was a speaker at the Media van Morgen symposium. I was one of 6 alumni of the master New Media and Digital Culture of Utrecht University who were asked to talk about the media of tomorrow - all from a different perspective.

Mine was learning and I just found out that the presentation has been put up online! It's in Dutch, so for everybody who's interested, here is the link:

Jago van den Akker - Media van Morgen

And the winner is...

noreply@blogger.com (Jago) — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 16:09:00 +0000

TinQwise!!

We did it! We took home both prices at the Dutch annual "E-learning Congres". Both the jury and the public selected our project Hairlevel XL as their number one.

And how could they not? Hairlevel XL is a three year program for students of hair academies where the curriculum is taught for the most part by video-instructions done by cutting edge (cheap joke, I know) hairdressers. Hours of digital video, supplemented with online tests, an online portfolio to upload your own models, laminated action cards for hands-on HOWTOs when you are training in the salon and a hairdressing bible for reference. Blended learning to the max.

Watch the (Dutch) Youtube movie to get an impression:

And see here our rising star Lonnieke holding the plaque with the people of Bespeak and Philyra - our partners for the enormous undertaking which was Hairlevel XL.

Check me out on YouTube

noreply@blogger.com (Jago) — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 11:31:00 +0000

I'm in Thailand at the moment, for three weeks of backpacking. To capture the experience, I've bought a minicamcorder and am making short vlogs about the sights, sounds and experiences I'm encountering. So if you're interested:

http://www.youtube.com/user/tiamat84

Great Expectations

noreply@blogger.com (Jago) — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 10:09:00 +0000

At the moment I’m in the midst of a project where things seem to be going awry with every turn. Approaching a point where both sides are feeling resented about the whole situation and formalities are being thrown at each other. All coming down to: “In our opinion, this isn’t what we agreed upon and you have it wrong.”

Where two parties are feeling this way, both are sharing part of the blame - obviously. It is when one party doesn’t want to reconcile, that it turns nasty. When the want of a solution is being exchanged for the want of an argument, the problem isn’t the absence of a solution anymore, but the bigger problem of having the argument.

How did this happen, I’m asking myself. Different expectations are what it all comes down to. Now it is becoming apparent that on the other side there is no realistic idea about the work involved with the project. Their assumptions are way off, trivializing our efforts and exasperation at the idea that more time is needed.

We were on a tight deadline to begin with, but we could make it if everything went exactly as planned. Of course, they didn’t and now more work is involved. Unfortunately the impression is still that we’ll get it done in the same time regardless. Like… no. So it’s up to me to go out there again and try to coax and reason for more time. Wish me luck!

Power Up! Your Presentation

noreply@blogger.com (Jago) — Wed, 13 May 2009 15:02:00 +0000

This morning I gave a presentation at my former job, for old times' sake and fun. The cool thing is: they recorded my presentation together with my slides and placed it online for the world to enjoy.

So if you want to take a look:

Click here!

(presentation is in Dutch)

The Paradox of Busy

noreply@blogger.com (Jago) — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 15:24:00 +0000

2 weeks ago I was rock-bottom. Yes, truly. I felt completely out of control, not on top of things and scared stiff by the amount of things that needed to be done. I felt busy, busy, busy, I felt responsible and needed: "It will all fall to pieces if I don't finish this or that on time!" However much I was feeling stressed out, I did feel as if I had a purpose.

Now the storm is over. I'm back in charge and everything is back in order. I'm now feeling the complete opposite of myself 2 weeks ago. I took the advice to heart about protecting my time, focusing on priorities and delegating things that can be delegated. As a result, everything is running smoothly, everybody is confident about what needs to be done and I'm on schedule for all my projects.

Wonderful! Or so it should feel. But it doesn't! I feel useless! A slack! Puzzled by this paradoxical feeling, a time-management concept hit me: the tension between urgency and importance.
In our current work ethic urgency often gets misunderstood as importance. We all know days where time just seems to fly by, but at the end of the day we ask ourselves: "What did I actually do?" Those are Urgent days. Of course some of the things you've done were important, but I can guarantee you that a large portion of your day consisted of unimportant stuff. It felt urgent, but in reality it was just something distracting. Urgency is also something external: something breaks down, people fall ill, budgets get cut, a deadline needs to be moved etc. Urgency triggers a fight or flight reaction so to say: we are triggered into taking action.

Urgency overrules Importance. It's human. Also, when I applied some crude mathematics, it became even more clear. Let's say we give scores to the different categories of the matrix. The higher the score, the better it is to spend time on this category:
See what happens? Spending time on non-urgent matters is 'statistically' not preferable. When we concern ourselves with non-urgent but important matters, there always looms the impression that we are concerning ourselves with non-urgent and unimportant things, the worst category to spend time on. The safer option therefore would be to spend time on urgent matters, be they important or unimportant.

But I refuse to give in! I'm not going for safe. I'll keep trying to keep those urgent matters under control and focus on my important but non-urgent work. Because by doing so, I'm making sure my important, but non urgent work won't creep up on me and suddenly become urgent!

Off-road

noreply@blogger.com (Jago) — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 22:43:00 +0000

From what I have seen these past few weeks, we have an incredibly competent and diverse team of professionals on board at my new job. Still, sometimes things go off-road. The last couple of days I have been really busy with dragging one of these out of the dirt - a very nasty and dirty business.

It reminds me a lot of similar occasions in former jobs. The tricky thing with dragging something out of the dirt is making sure you cause as little friction as possible. Like a car that is stuck, too much spinning and too much friction cause only harm and no good. You dig yourself in deeper and deeper, until only a display of real power will be able to drag you out: a tow truck. Tow trucks however, are expensive and take time to arrive. Time and money you don’t always have.

Making a correct assessment of how deep you are stuck is therefore essential before any intervention. Unfortunately we tend to assess risks lower than they actually are, when we are in the face of an emergency or urgency: “I don’t have the time and money for a tow truck – I have to get out now!” So we set out and try to get out ourselves, with disastrous results. We’re digging ourselves in deeper, more time and more money is seeping away and by the minute it will become clearer and clearer: “We need that truck!”

The thing I’m currently working on has fallen prey to one of those infamous bad assessments. It seemed pretty straight forward, it looked like no big deal, but it is becoming apparent that the devil really is in the details. And with time pressing heavily on us, those details are costing us dearly. We simply don’t have the time to be extremely thorough on the last details. But every time we are in contact with the client it’s all about those details.

And they have every right. We made a bad assessment – now we have to deal with it. This basically means that over the weekend I’ll be sifting through the project again, again and again. Monday. Monday it will all be over – hopefully…

Are you scared?

noreply@blogger.com (Jago) — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 12:53:00 +0000

Change is a force of nature: its impact is hard and unstoppable.

No wonder change is a fearful concept for most people. Changing takes effort, it forces adjustments, and brings uncertainty and insecurity. Who would opt for that - willingly?! Therefore, most changes force themselves on us. Sometimes by our own doing, but just as often, without any of our own interference. Relationships end, family members die, babies are born, cars crash, companies fold, departments reorganize, new competitors enter the market, innovations make current technologies obsolete. Change just happens.

Resisting change is therefore futile, but still quite understandable behaviour. When moving through change, a common change management model is the concept of the unfreeze-freeze. First, the current situation must be unfrozen, then the situation must be altered to fit the new desired situation and as soon as this happens, that situation should be frozen again and voilà! The change has occurred.

Unfortunately, that only happens in fairy tales. Oft-times "unfreezing" isn't a gentle defrosting experience on a low wattage in the microwave, but a solid heatwave blasting through. Leaving us charred and vulnerable. How would you react to that? Like anybody would in times of trauma: with denial and resistance. When you or your company is the one forcing change, you should be well aware of this. You are making the change, you are seeing the direction you are heading, you are ready to mould the new situation as soon as everything is unfrozen. But for everybody else you are an unstoppable trauma that is washing over them.

So be humble. Be honest. Be understanding. Help people to see where this is heading. Don't resist or deny the resistance and denial of change that will occur. Because than the pot is calling the kettle black. Realize, that just like they must come to terms with the change, you should adjust to their resistance. Because if you don't, the only thing this change of yours will become, is a big lump of defrosted goo.

From Good to Good Enough

noreply@blogger.com (Jago) — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 18:52:00 +0000

I’m a child from Generation Y. Born in Orwell’s ominous year 1984, I belong to a generation which, according to the media, has known only prosperity, opportunity and security. We are demanding, independent and have high expectations of what we’ll accomplish in life (up until the current Great Recession of course). Happiness is supposed to be our middle name, with all this wealth, health and boundless opportunity surrounding us.

Nowadays there seems to be a taboo on the darker sides of life. Every day we have to: “Be more!”, ”Be better!”, ”Be great!”, “Be rich!”, “Be good!”, “Be the best!”Everything around us screams in our face to Be some superlative. But I’m not great. I’m not rich and I’m not the best. Can’t I just Be, without the add-ons?
Why do we have to always move from good to great? I would like to sometimes just take a step back and go from good to good-enough. Take a break; take the lesser in things in life as they are. Or maybe be like the carpenter in a sketch by Rembo & Rembo:

A man passes a garage door with a note on it:
“Lookin for work? Knock on the door.”
The man knocks and waits.
An anxious looking carpenter opens the door slightly.
“Yes?”
“Ehh.. I saw this note on your door and well.. I’m looking for work.”
“Ah yes, the note. It’s just that, unfortunately, I’m not here today. Maybe tomorrow. Tomorrow, I might be here.”
And he closes the door, leaving the man completely puzzled in front of his door.

Every once in a while, I think it’s good for everyone to say to the world we’re not here today, but that we’ll be back tomorrow - maybe.

How e-learning helps

noreply@blogger.com (Jago) — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 18:50:00 +0000

E-learning is usually all about results. “How much will performance increase after everybody has done the course?” “What kind of tangible effect can we see after someone has finished?” These are very real questions, with hopefully real results in the end. But there is one other result which you’ll get when you start with e-learning: a thorough examination of what you are trying to ‘teach’ with e-learning.

During almost every course we develop, we see that clients start to struggle with their content. They thought they had it all figured out. It was supposed to be an easy breezy affair, this e-learning course. But most e-learning courses are about mimicking real processes and situations. At the start of an e-learning project clients will say: “Well, there are 14 processes which we would like to present to our learners. We have them all here, in these charts. Look, this is the decision tree we have made in Visio. Just go into this new application we have build, capture the steps and make it into e-learning.” Fair enough.

But then theory has to be become practice. Real processes need a start, middle and end; they need to be fleshed out. Every step will be held to the light: “Is this going to be in the e-learning or not?” “Is this step in the process really carried out this way?” We see this all the time with software application training. Software applications always seem to be in a state of near-completion. Several of our projects have been on hold for a long while, because applications which we need to screen-capture, aren’t ready. And even if the application is ready, we always ask: “Why does someone have to do this?”

We are well aware that making something into a process or ‘structure’ is hard. Thinking up ways how people will do things and how a software application is going to facilitate this, requires a lot of testing and thinking. But it leads away from the most prominent question learners will have during an e-learning course: “Why do I have to do this? Why am I sitting in front of a computer looking at all these processes unfolding on my screen?” We, as e-learning developers, try to be the voice of the learner: “Tell us Why! We understand it must have been hard work to flesh out these work processes, work flows and applications, but why exactly do we need them?”

And it’s here, that you can find the difference between good and bad e-learning. Good e-learning focuses first on the Why and second on the How. The How is the blood, the Why is the heart that pumps it around. That is why e-learning helps: we make you think about your Why’s again.

How I stopped worrying and learned to isolate issues

noreply@blogger.com (Jago) — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 12:25:00 +0000

I think of myself as a chaotic kind of guy. I’m quick to grasp things, to switch between ideas, to generate loads of ideas and concepts - quite handy really. Unfortunately, it also scatters my thinking and not only the thoughts themselves, but also my worries. I jump from worry to worry. Take an e-learning project for instance. In our projects we have to deal with graphic design, instructional design, scriptwriting, technology, subject matter experts, project managers and what not.

It’s easy to fret over any of these elements. And with a scattered mind like mine, it’s even easier to jump from issue to issue and fret about the whole lot simultaneously. Fretting however doesn’t solve anything - nobody needs to be told that. But while we all know fretting doesn’t help, many of us can’t seem to find something that does help, so fretting is our basic response.

Luckily I’m beginning to see a way which does help: isolation. The problem with worries and issues always seems to be that everything is connected to everything. This interconnectedness of everything is the daunting thing about most issues, the paralysing factor. It makes you feel powerless to act. You stop acting and start fretting.

Isolation is the key to turning this behaviour around. Yes, everything is interconnected, but just act like it isn’t. Define areas which can be addressed individually. Appoint people who are concerned with particular areas and keep them there. Specify responsibilities. Be strict. If you don’t, it won’t be long before people start crossing their responsibilities. Of course they probably think they are helping out with the best of intentions, but what happens is that everything is becoming connected again. People will start to jump from area to area, from worry to worry and paralysis will again be everybody’s part.

So don’t think yourself patronizing, belittling or inflexible when you introduce the concept of isolation, by using boundaries and restrictions. You’re really doing everybody a favour.

Looking out is the only way to truly look in.

noreply@blogger.com (Jago) — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 14:19:00 +0000

Are you busy? Are you passionate about the things you do? Are you caught up thinking about what you could improve, how you can tweak your performance, your product, your processes? As a professional you should. But mostly we are only doing so by looking in, by absorbing ourselves completely. Of course there is a lot to find and do in the crevices of your mind, but try to look out for a change.

Try to step away from yourself every now and then. Imagine yourself hovering just above your body and observe. Don't judge, just observe. Don't ask Why yet, but How, What and When. How are you impacting the things around you? How are you reacting to impulses? How do you talk when you are relaxed? How do you use your hands when you talk? How do you walk? What happens when you are asked to do something for someone else? What changes when you become stressed? What makes you angry? What makes you laugh? When are you happy? When are you anxious? When do you become tired? You'll be amazed by the patterns and behaviours you can find by observing yourself this way.

Patterns and behaviours which are the data you need, to ask yourself Why questions: Why do I become stressed? Why do I feel like I can't contribute to a conversation? Why do I feel happy when doing certain things? Why am I good at certain tasks, but not so good at others? Why am I always feeling tired? Your body and behaviours never lie to you, listen to their answers. But never forget: don't judge! Accept.

And be accepting of others.

From Reaction to Action

noreply@blogger.com (Jago) — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 13:08:00 +0000

Halfway week 4 - the end of my first month is dawning.

After an exhausting first week of getting to know everybody, settling in and coming to terms with the whole getting-up-early-routine, this job is suiting me like a glove. Mostly because I’m feeling and acting very different from how I did in my first job. The last couple of days I have been pondering the question: “But in which way am I different than?” Early this morning it hit me: it’s all about action versus reaction. I am not reacting any more, I am acting.

Before, I had many reservations towards taking action. I’m a very social kind of guy. I empathize with people a lot. Sounds nice, but as a result I have a tendency to become a reactive person. Someone who’s constantly busy with thoughts like: “Oh dear, what would someone think if I do this or that?”, “Will somebody feel bad if I decide something?”, “Should I wait for them to do something, I don’t want to be pushy”, “If I don’t hear something, it’s probably all right”. All very considerate of course, but you know what they say: “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”

From day 1 (ok.. maybe day 3) at TinQwise I have almost stopped doing this. I’ve become active. And my initial fear: “When I stop being reactive, won’t I lose my empathy and considerateness?” has proven to be completely false! My new attitude is tremendously helping the things I’m doing. Instead of thinking: “What would they think about this or that” I just ask immediately. Instead of “Should I wait for them to do something” I start and inform everybody to jump on board – and they do! Willingly! No more “If I don’t hear something, it’s probably all right.” I’m on the phone with everybody as soon as something is changing.

And lo and behold, we are making tremendous progress, everybody knows where we are, everybody is happy and more over: everybody is working their butts off. All because I initiate and take action. What a liberation!

Impressions of a First Day

noreply@blogger.com (Jago) — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 14:54:00 +0000

I'm here!

My first day at my new job at TinQwise. And it's weird! It's familiar and strange, exhausting and tiring, exciting and scary all at once. Nothing different is to be expected of course - you have to be realistic about these things. I'm sitting here behind a different desk, on a not so comfortable chair (I miss my Herman Miller!), in a new building with a different view, strange smells, different temperature and not to forget: different people!

Over the last couple of months I have come to meet many of them during my infrequent visits. But now they're my colleagues. Now I will see them 5 days a week, now I am going to work with them - now everything is for real.

It's strange to experience how small things make such a huge difference. A small office with one other guy now, instead of a wide open space. Music on in people's offices. A constant stream of chatter and laughter drifting down the hall. Everbody lunching together! They are all small things, but all together they make it so clear: I'm here now.

Starting anew.

Bring it on!

The Reversed Psychology of Presenting

noreply@blogger.com (Jago) — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 18:22:00 +0000

So now you know you have an ego, but ego-istic as you are, did you stop at the notion that everybody else has an ego too?

Thought so.

You see, keeping your own ego in check is a great step towards self-development, self-fulfilment, and overall goodness. But that doesn't mean you should refrain from using the ego of others for your goals (in moderation of course...). While you are now well on your way to circumvent your own egoistic pitfalls, others will more than readily still fall in them. Reverse the process and imagine the needy ego of your audience: "I need to know more, I need to be better, I need to succeed, I need to get the advantage."

What do you have that you can feed to their egos?

The ego is a very primal construct and basically cares about three things: attaining security (am I safe?), avoiding loss (what if I can't live without?) and constructing a stable identity (am I still me?). These three deep emotions provide ample opportunity to be exploited by you. What can you tell your audience to make them feel safe? Can you point out the things they are currently lacking and you can provide? Are you able to appeal to a sense of identity they associate themselves with? Need some examples of using these techniques of appealing to the ego? Look no further than your Inbox.

Do yourself a favour and only this once, open a few of those spam mails you receive by the bucket every day. They are all about insecurity, loss and identity. "Don't feel man enough? Try [drug]!", is the perfect example of a blow below the belt for any man's security and identity. "You will miss out on this amazing offer if you don't react today!" and "Get the most for your money here!" appeal to our fear of loss.

Of course spammers cross the line and often have a malicious intent, but that doesn't mean appealing to someone else's ego is altogether evil. Think of examples like these:

"Are you scared by the financial crisis? Come to us and we will tell you what you need to know to come out unscathed!"
"Feeling like your employees are taking advantage of you? Follow this training and you'll be the manager who's in control again."
"Ever wondered how you can get more out of your online marketing?"
"Why they are winning and you are falling behind."

If they concern you, it's hard to resist appeals like this. It makes people sit up and pay attention. The ego which is so concerned with keeping itself safe and secure can't ignore these threats to itself. It needs to know what it can do to feel at ease again - and you will be the one who is going to do just that. Coax the ego out of its comfort zone and when it is exposed and vulnerable, you will give it what it so desperately wants: security, gain and identity. If you play this out well, you will have anybody eating out of your hand.

Just don't let your own ego take the upper hand, because then the dividing line between harmless and harmful manipulation will start to blur.

The Psychoanalysis of Presenting

noreply@blogger.com (Jago) — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 20:35:00 +0000

Newsflash: You have an ego.

And this ego acts like my namesake from Othello: Jago. The one who appears to be your closest friend, but is in fact your biggest enemy. Your ego is fueling you with thoughts like these:
"I need to succeed!"
"I need to be better!"
"No let's rephrase: I need to be the best!"
"I need to beat the competition!"
"I need to be loved!"

In short, your ego is needy, relentlessly needy - it never stops. The positive disguise for the word "ego" is "ambition", but don't be fooled. The ego is only in it for the sake of the ego - it's completely narcistic. Because truly, who do you need to best? And why do you need to be loved? Turn those things around: you don't need to best the other and don't have to be needy of someone else to love you! Don't fret about what others are doing to you, but what you can do for them!

Open up.

It's the same with presenting. We always start from our ego: "Let me think.. What am I going to say?". Wrong! "What does my audience need to hear?" should be your starting point. You are merely presenting to facilitate your audience, not for soothing your ego. When it comes to presenting your ego will always want to take the spotlight, will want to show them how good you are at what you do, will want to rub under the nose of every member in the audience: "I know more than you!". Yes, you probably do know a lot. Yes, you probably are good at what you do and yes, that is why you were asked to stand on that stage - but that is all irrelevant. The only purpose for you standing there is to tell what your audience needs to hear.

So stop thinking with your ego and start focusing on your audience - you and them will benefit greatly from it.

Axes of Visual Thinking

noreply@blogger.com (Jago) — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 09:44:00 +0000

Ok, so we chose water as our metaphor for illustrating "What is Visual Thinking" but other groups did have some interesting insights as well of course.

One was of particular interest, and entailed two axes:
Text vs. Visual and Support vs. Guide. The gliding scale between text and visual got everybody nodding. We were all agreed that text itself wasn't the great Evil we needed to battle. In essence text is visual and abstract thinking to the max: arbitrarily chosen symbols which represent sounds and images! Some situations ask for text, visual thinking isn't the Holy Grail - it has its uses, but also its limits.

More interesting however was the juxtaposition of Support versus Guide. It resonated with the discussion we had in our group: when you give somebody an image, the image because 'real' in that person's mind. This can work for you and against you. Take for instance the water metaphor our group used. It was very powerful, so powerful indeed that it was very difficult to shake it off. Everything kept coming back to water! We saw water everywhere: oceans, drops, cubes, vases, pools, thirst, drowning, swimming, sailing, rain. The image of water and its mental schemas were completely guiding our thinking. Instead of being a spring board or a support to more associations and ideas, the image became the focal point. That can be the power of visuals. But you need to ask yourself the question: do I need the visual to be a support or a guide?

Or: do I want to tantalize and trigger or focus and steer? You need to think carefully on this every time you start to use visuals and metaphors.

So, go ahead and place your mark on the spot where you need to be for your next visual thinking bout:

VizThink NL and lots of water

noreply@blogger.com (Jago) — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 07:21:00 +0000

"Cool!"

Is what first comes to mind when I think back on last night, the first gathering of VizThink Netherlands. Some 30+ professionals from all fields in media came together at JAM visueel denken to muse on visual thinking, get to know each other and rant on about our different passions and work.

Part of the deal for such a night is of course a break out session. Flip charts, markers and post-its were provided - now get down to it! "What is visual thinking" was the obvious central question. Thing is though, that for me, a question like this begs for an answer - but is that what we wanted? An answer? Because visual thinking "is" a lot: a practice, a state of mind, a business, a tool etc. This became very clear within our little group: everybody had a different background and came with different uses and views on visual thinking - diversity all around. Of course there were themes that resonated with everybody, but getting to the very fabric of visual thinking was, well.. bull shit to us :D

So we conjured up the metaphor of water.

There is a lot of water. It flows in rivers, in oceans, in creeks. You can find it frozen in glaciers, ice rinks and the cubes in your freezer. It steams from your tea and the Turkish bath. Water is everywhere. And so it is with our knowledge, ideas, thoughts, associations, concepts, basically: our content. It's all over the place, we are filled to the brim with it!
And that is why it is important to remember that like water, content faces you with the danger of drowning: if you can't swim, you drown. Oftentimes we have so much to tell, so much content to spill, that we make ourselves (but more often our audience/customers/clients/friends) drown. Like a waterfall your content flows on and on with no restrictions or boundaries.

With visual thinking you canalize your content, you provide containers for your content, you visualize where you want your audience to go to. It makes you stop and look at your own content. Visual thinking can provide the glass, the vase, the shore that contains your content and enables you to take a clear look at it.

And by doing so, visual thinking also asks of you to think about the audience you want to communicate to. "How much of my content do I need to pour in to this audience? How much can they contain or swim in? Are they even able to swim or do I need to teach them?"

Do they need:
Visual thinking helps you to swim through your content, to pour it out of you in containers which hold the thoughts, ideas, concepts you want to communicate. Do you need it in cube-size? Small, manageable chunks. Or in pool-size, so you can jump right in the middle of everything and traverse the lengths and widths of your content? It's up to you!

By making your content visual, you also invite others to join your swim, take them on the journey, test the water, try things out, offer them the pool and see who jumps in first. Or visual thinking can offer some hard needed solace from a quenching information thirst, or for that matter: relief from those hard to stomach, completely dried out text biscuits we are offered all day long!

So in short, I am not sure what visual thinking is exactly, but I do know it is quite a lot!

Eye-opener: Why we DO need management

noreply@blogger.com (Jago) — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 11:12:00 +0000

The last two weeks we have been working long and hard on producing a big proposal for a European procurement. With 5 people on the team, 4 from our company and 1 from another, work had to be allocated, managed and then merged back together to form one consistent document.

Sounds simple enough - unfortunately it wasn't. It proved to be really hard to get everybody clear on what had to be done, get overview on who was doing what, when and how, come up with clear outlines on when things would be done and people kept over-communicating with each other. Needless to say, we all had very late nights as a result.

During the whole process I asked myself: "How is this possible? How can we keep finding ourselves confused and disorganized? We have 5 capable and knowledgeable people on this team, everybody is working their butts off, but still chaos ensues!" Two days ago I found my answer.

And I read it in the first chapter of Here Comes Everybody by Clay Shirky.

The eye-opener however was that it made me realize that my question was a micro-version of: why is there a need for management?

Take a look at this graphic:
It's easy to imagine the two figures here are two people working on the same project which needs to get done. They do their things and occasionally come together to check with each other: "Are we ok? Are we still on the right track?" Only one agreement needs to be made between two people in this case. You will get excellent results this way: two people are putting in their effort and with the occasional checks, "two see more than one" holds true.

Now let's take a look at this graphic:

What worked well for two people working together, is becoming detrimental when more people enter the stage. Where two people only had to come to one agreement, 3 people need 3, 4 people need 6 and 5 people need to come to 10 agreements before there is complete consensus, a complete: "Are we still ok?". And it is for this reason that management is needed. Management is there to eliminate many of these agreements, or better put: the costly transactions (in time/money/resources) of coming to complete consensus, by making the process hierarchical:
With management installed, the structure inverts itself. Instead of having everybody asking "Are we ok?" to everybody, a manager instead asks: "Are you ok?" to everybody. Agreements are made through management, eliminating the need of the exponential transaction costs of coming to a complete agreement within a group.

With our proposal we clearly stayed in the ever going cycle of coming to agreements without management. I am coming to believe that having 5 really good people on the team, probably made it worse, because there was something valuable in everything that everybody had to say about everything!

With this in mind, you can also avoid the trap of thinking that more people on a project will get it done faster. Every member in a team demands an extra agreement, even with management ("Are you ok?") With no solid management in place, every new member in a team adds exponential transaction costs, making the process in most cases even slower and more cumbersome than it already was.

Group-dynamics: what a wonderful world.

Veni, SQVIDi, vici

noreply@blogger.com (Jago) — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 11:51:00 +0000

SQVIDing is fun, but man, it grinds your brain (which is good)!

Yesterday and today I have been SQVIDing (I dig the verb) about two projects. I can't show the results of the case I initially wanted to use here, due to confidential information, so I'll revert to the other one.

The case is about a new way of educating called "natuurlijk leren" (natural learning). It's for both primary and secondary schools. It promotes self-guidance and exploration by the students. Students set their own targets and learning objectives and through a variety of media and coaching by teachers they try to attain these targets. To facilitate this, a platform is needed. According to our client it needs a lot of bells and whistles: uploading and editing multiple media, student profiles, online collaborating on projects, wikis, blogs, chatting, forums and more.

Now I need to make an outline wherein I illustrate what our company can do for this client in terms of facilitating this platform. So I started SQVIDing.

Simple vs. Elaborate. Natural Learning should be accessible, easy to use and relate to the ways today's students want to work. It made me think of growth and plants, a logo sort of start I guess. Elaborately thinking, the platform should stream all sorts of data to its platform and enable students to repurpose, mix 'n match and collate this material into new work which they can add to their portfolio. A portfolio which can be shown to others within the community (parents, teachers) and of course graded.

Quality vs. Quantity. Quality brought up associations of making sense of all the materials that are available all over the internet and turning it into new material. Are there ways in which the platform can help make sense of the data? Maybe offering metadata options, a good search engine, delicious like bookmarking tools. If there is no system to the data, the platform could get clogged with clutter. In terms of Quantity I immediately went to the train of thought: "With no users on the platform, it dies". How do you get the students on the platform and give them value? Do you need to force them, do you need to entice them? Hmm.. not sure yet.

Vision vs. Execution. The vision is that a well designed platform for Natural Learning combined with intrinsic motivation of the student and access, should result in great progress and understanding for the student. Sounds great, but how do we execute the realisation of the platform? (I think I should maybe SQVID again, but specifically about this execution part, it is the biggest issue that I need to address, the rest is fairly clear. We are getting to the core of the problem here!)

Individual vs. Comparison. Big issue (but probably not for us to address as 'builders of the technology'): you can't isolate the platform. It is destined to fail that way. So many platforms already exist, so many demand attention. Like in my previous post: communities need to grow and need constant care, providing the tools isn't enough. It asks a lot of teachers and students alike to adopt this new way of learning. (btw: I know, the bottom figure looks ghastly. He's just overwhelmed by all the input that is coming to him from all directions ;)

Change vs. As is. Relates a lot to the vision. Moving from a traditional way of learning, or better to say: moving from teaching to learning.

I'm real happy with the result, especially that I have been able to define the core of the problem: execution. It probably helps that I'm a 'black pen' kind of person, even though I wouldn't consider myself someone with great drawing skills. That said, after two sessions of SQVID I can already feel a shift inside my head. My drawings become more loose and less detailed, but with more power.
The whole process is demanding though! By willing yourself to explain with pictures, but not always being able to immediately 'get' the right picture to do this, you are forced to conjure up different ways of showing what you want to get across.

Ok, so now that I have my core: the execution of the platform, I'm ready to fire the 6 W's at it: who/what, how many, where, when, how and why.

The Dream of Community

noreply@blogger.com (Jago) — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 15:08:00 +0000

No, I haven't started SQVID'ing yet, but yes this post has everything to do with the 'business case' (and is definitely important for the whole process). What I keep going over is the whole online community thing.

Online communities: are they good or are they bad? Do they work or don't they? Is there a 'golden rule' for a community population to 'keep it going'? I am in the dark. Recent study in the Wall Street Journal is not that positive: most online communities become failures. Main reasons? Too much technology, too little 'humanity' and there is no community management in place. It's the same problem as it always is: we think that by providing the tools, the rest will work itself out - but it never does. Photoshop doesn't make you a graphic designer and a drilling machine doesn't make you a carpenter (ok, maybe a sledgehammer might make you a destruction worker...). Besides that: most online communities are fenced off: another login, another password and a new set of people you have to connect to.

Online communities need to meet some sort of need for communication: sharing best practices, exchanging experiences, collaborating on projects, rating products, voicing your opinions, keep in touch with people - there are lots of reasons for online communities to be. You could build a community around any of these needs (which happens all the time) but the thing is:

We have (most of) our needs already covered.

We don't want more seperate communities, we want to integrate them! I want my status updates on Twitter to show up on Facebook, I want my blog posts to instantly be visible on all my community pages and I want all my friends under the same roof and not spaced out over different communities. With the ever increasing pervesasiveness of online communities, who is waiting for more closed communities? What we want is more services and applications to integrate with what we already have, like the apps in Facebook or the App Store for the iPhone (hell, the App Store has already cost me around 25 euros and I still go out and buy more! I'm addicted - a fantastic business model).

The success of an online community lies in the fact that they open up communication and integrate with what is already there instead of only providing a loose bunch of tools and isolating its members.

Let's see if SQVID'ing about it, will make things clearer for coming up with a great idea for my 'business case'.

Visual Thinking Week

noreply@blogger.com (Jago) — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 10:18:00 +0000

After dragging Dan Roam's The Back of the Napkin in my bag for the last couple of weeks and reading and re-reading parts of it, I am finally seeing a chance to actually bring it into practice.

Roam's frameworks for visual thinking sound wonderful on paper and the case studies show their potential, but now I need to put to them to test of my everyday work. So that is why I'm going to push one of our new projects through the whole visual thinking routine described by Roam.

During this week I will describe my experiences using the SQVID (the 5 dichotomies you can use to imagine ways of seeing your situation/problem/object/business case/whatever) and the <6><6> Rule (the 6 ways to pictorally represent the 6 "W" Questions") which are combined in the Visual Thinking Codex.

Oh and the business case I will be visually thinking about: a community for sales reps of an international company.

Inside

noreply@blogger.com (Jago) — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 11:50:00 +0000

The only thing that burns in hell,
is the part of you that won't let go of your life.
Your memories, your attachments,
they burn them all away.
"But we're not punishing you" they say
"we are freeing your soul - relax"

Inside - UNKLE

change is abound, accepting it is all one can do.

Bring it on!

The Horror Called Feedback

noreply@blogger.com (Jago) — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 09:02:00 +0000

Q:
Why do clients only seem to be interested in the text that needs to be written for their elearning courses?
A:
Because it's the only thing they know how to shoot on.

For two courses I have been developing in the past few months, almost all of the production time has been spent on getting the textual content done and in the elearning module. So much so, it left me almost no time to think and develop the visuals, an interface and interactions. Where did this go wrong, what made the balance tip so much towards the text instead of what actually makes e-learning a powerful tool: the visuals, interface and interactions? Because we are so used to text.

When it comes to text, we all seem to have this urge to leave our imprint on it: to review and alter it. We all have something to say about it and if you don't make clear rules about how to review text and provide feedback, it becomes quite a dreadful affair. Unfortunately, two of these dreadful affairs already took place before I realised the full extent of this problem.

For most clients e-learning is very new, they don't really grasp the possibilities and new ways to work with interaction and multimedia. So they fall back on what they do know: text. Almost never do I get extensive criticism on the interfaces, visuals and interactions we make, they are all welcomed with approval. But the text basically gets rewritten when I send it off for reviewing.
Problem for me was that I made the mistake of placing the text ín the course and sending the whole thing up for reviewing, thinking I was doing us all a great service. I couldn't be more wrong. I got piles of feedback in return, had to look it all up in the course, change it by hand and hope I got it all and didn't fix the wrong things (because what do you make of feedback like this: "Screen 3: fix the double spaces". *sigh* "Where's Wally" is easier!). Then of course they wanted to check if I had done all the feedback. But instead of getting back some small things that I missed, I got another pile of new feedback, with completely new content and screenshots.

And this went on for quite a while. The main reason being that I hadn't provided a solid reviewing framework at the beginning of the project. This gave the client the freedom to drag me into this loop of endless review sessions.

So now I know: take care of the text first, instead of writing it along the way in your course, because it drags everything down.

And for the horror called feedback: does anybody have a good approach to deal with it efficiently?