Château de Divonne

Divonne

Thinking aloud

Demure, soft-spoken, personable, affable, no-nonsense. All those things, in that peculiarly North American way. Those words don’t do justice to B., the uniquely compelling individual I met for the second time last night in Divonne-les-Bains. To describe him as a living legend in the world of learning and development is accurate, but far from complete. The first time we met, our lunch turned into a nine-hour knee-to-knee exploratory journey of the linkages between corporate learning and the wicked problems of humanitarian education. Reflecting on his insights kept me awake at night. When I finally found sleep, it was only to find myself wrapped in vivid dreams in which the ideas became colors and shapes, many moving parts dancing in complex patterns.

B. shared three lessons from a time when he set out on his own, leaving the comfort of an established organization.

Lesson : Autonomy. Learn that being independent means doing it yourself. Your legitimacy and credibility are based on your self-reliance, not by the power of the brand you are affiliated with.

Lesson : Focus. Boundless possibilities. Limitless conversation. Consider applying the 80/20 rule that sales people use (focus on the twenty percent of prospects that can turn into a sale) even if you do not have anything to sell.

Lesson : Structure, but only when the time is right. The liquid concrete used to pour the foundations is in the quality of the relationships, not their volume.

Photo: Château de Divonne (Patrick Nouhailler/Flickr)

Pipeline

Pipeline

Learning

“In a knowledge economy, the flow of knowledge is the equivalent of the oil pipe in an industrial economy. Creating, preserving, and utilizing knowledge flow should be a key organizational activity.” – George Siemens, Knowing Knowledge (2006)

Photo: Oil Pipeline Pumping Station in rural Nebraska (Shannon Ramos/Flickr)

Complexity & Networks

Know-where

Thinking aloud

Six months after starting to develop LSi.io, I have 64 ongoing conversations with 150 interlocutors, connecting humanitarian and development learning leaders, Chief Learning Officers and academic researchers.

Being independent has given me a unique vantage point from which to examine the humanitarian and development sector’s learning, education and training strategies. I believe that such perspective is indispensable if we are to give more than lip service to “cross-sector” approaches, in an extremely competitive industry faced with shrinking resources (think ECHO budget cuts) and growing needs (think climate change). And I’ve found learning leaders from our world to be a smart, thoughtful and active bunch, finely attuned to the sector’s changing landscape.

I’ve also enjoyed profound and promising  discussions with CLOs from the corporate sector. One of the most humble I’ve met manages two large brick-and-mortar campuses, one in Asia and the other in Old Europe, running hundreds of courses and dozens of educational programs on twenty-first leadership, fueled by a vision of sustainability in a volatile world that goes beyond trite, wooden and hollow corporate social responsibility.

Making learning strategic in development and humanitarian organizations

Events, Learning strategy, Presentations

This is the third in a three-part presentation about learning strategy for development and humanitarian organizations. It was first presented to the People In Aid Learning & Development Network in London on 27 February 2014.

Much scaffolding, King's Cross Station, London

Back to London on Thursday to talk learning strategy for humanitarian and development organizations

Writing

I’m looking forward to being back in London on Thursday 13 March for People In Aid’s Learning & Development network meeting.

This group meets four times a year to discuss issues in which there is a shared interest across organizations. Previous topics have covered how to “measure” learning or the design of competency frameworks, for example. Recent projects presented at the meetings include Save The Children’s Humanitarian and Leadership Academy (a major project to scale up professionalization of the sector) or RedR’s competency framework for humanitarian training. Each meeting’s report is a short but often insightful summary around a project or theme, and can be found here.

As for me, I’ll be sharing key insights from the European MOOC Stakeholders’ Summit as we try to figure out what these massive, open online courses might mean for the humanitarian and development sector. I’ll also share a couple of case studies documenting how online learning can be used to learn 21st century knowledge skills. The whole point is to think about how learning can go from being incidental to strategic.

You can find out more about this event on LSi.io’s events page or from the People In Aid web site.

Photo: Much scaffolding, King’s Cross Station, London (orangeaurochs/flickr.com).

www.lsi.io

Scaling up humanitarian education: my presentation at the European MOOC Summit

Events, Presentations

I’ve just published my presentation (25 minutes with slides) about the urgency of scaling up humanitarian education on LSi.io. This is a recording with both slides and my narrative, that looks at a number of issues:

  • Training like it’s 1899 – and why we need to think about learning beyond training
  • The need for scale – some indicative figures
  • What is broken about humanitarian education
  • VUCA – What has changed about the nature of knowledge and why it matters
  • IGO/INGO MOOC models – things to consider

LSi.io is the new web site for Learning Strategies International, a talent network for people who yearn to help solve the ‘wicked’ learning problems of the humanitarian sector. Right now, the network is by invitation only. Just send me a message if you’d like access to the presentation.

Link to European MOOC Summit presentation (for LSi.io members)

Meet Barbara Moser-Mercer, the lady who did MOOCs in a refugee camp

Interviews, Video, Writing

I first heard her described as the “lady who did MOOCs in a refugee camp”. It was completely ambiguous what that meant, but certainly sparked my curiosity. Barbara Moser-Mercer is a professor at the University of Geneva and a  cognitive psychologist who has practiced and researched education in emergencies.

I finally caught up with her at the Second European MOOC Summit.

 

VUCA

MOOCs for international and nongovernmental organizations

Events

International organizations already deliver training at a massive scale, but they do it mostly the old-fashioned way – one workshop at a time. The urgency of scaling up learning, education and training (LET) is real: with 320 million people affected by climate change-related disasters in 2015, 30 million deaths from non-communicable diseases (NCDs), and many more such grim numbers, it is clear that the challenges need to be met at scale.

This morning’s session (9h–10h30, C101) at the European MOOC Summit on MOOCs for international and nongovernmental organizations will look at workplace learning in IGOs, INGOs and NGOs. Here is the line-up:

  • MOOC now, not later: Sheila Jagganathan is  Senior Learning Specialist and Program Manager of the World Bank’s e-Institute. On January 27th, the Bank launched its first MOOC on the Coursera platform with 10,000 participants. Based on a global report published in 2012 that asserted “a 4°C warmer world must be avoided”, it aims to discuss the “main policy choices needed to prevent warming above 2°C”. Given the content source (a report), format (4 weeks, rather than a university-style semester) and informal title (“Turn down the heat”), could this be a new breed of MOOCs? Why and how did the World Bank Institute, which already manages a successful distance learning program using the Moodle platform, engage in this new space?
  • Road MOOC: How does an organization decide to engage in developing a MOOC?  Patrick Philipps heads the International Road Union’s Academy, the only global body dedicated to road transport training. Patrick will share the process through which he became interested in MOOCs, the criteria considered in choosing a partner, and the ongoing analysis and decision-making steps that may or may not lead IRU to produce an accredited MOOC with a university.
  • MOOCs for development? UNCTAD’s TrainForTrade team are long-time believers in e-learning, using educational technology to support capacity-building efforts.  Distance learning officer Dominique Chantrel will describe the e-learning efforts of his organization, and examine whether MOOCs offer solutions for training in developing countries.

 

IGO NGO session map