Ready to create your Digital Learning List, tribe style?

Preface:

This is the fourth article in a 4-part Series for our Sunday Mālama in February, in which we kick off our Braver Experiments [with] Digital Learning initiative for Managing with Aloha Coaching (MWAC) in 2008.

If you missed them, this was part 1: Who is the Digital Learning Coach in your company?
This was part 2: What is Required of ME as a Digital Learner in 2008?
And this was part 3: What are the changes Digital Learning requires of your organizational culture?

I hope you have gotten as much out of this series as I have just in writing it. Writing is part of teaching myself to think (as I recently shared here), and I don't tell you thank you enough for reading, allowing me to have an audience for what I do write, forcing me to edit, and in my edits, think more clearly. So before I keep going here, mahalo nui loa, thank you.

Let's start with the good news, offered to us by the best social media coach I presently know, Chris Brogan. Chris writes,

I don't know if inspiration exists, but if it comes, it'll find me working...Pablo Picasso. [photo credit]

You probably don’t give yourself credit for all you DO know about social media:

• You know about YouTube, that it’s more than dogs on skateboards.
• You know about Facebook, that it’s not just for kids any more.
• You know about blogs, and at least two places you can blog for free.
• You know the difference in mainstream news and social news.
• You know where to find tech advice, marketing advice, sales advice, what matters to you advice.
• You know what a wiki is, what a Flickr is, what a twitter is.

You know lots, and have helped others around you understand even more.

Who are you teaching? Where are you laying down your knowledge?

Chris got 14 comments back so far, which I encourage you to read through as well.

So yeah, you know stuff! More than you realized.

Chris was specifically referring to social media, however I chose his quote for chances are that you are aware of what is on his list too, and not some of the more basic stuff we have talked about thus far. Sit back for a moment and wallow in the confidence that gives you, for what it means is this: You can still learn more, the "more" meaning whatever else you set your sights on.

For today's Sunday Mālama, let's consider that part about whatever else you set your sights on.

Remember the part in the video clip we've starred in this series, and Brex's definition of www as whatever, whenever, and wherever communication? Something I have come to realize as a Boomer, is that I really, really have to learn to dream bigger and better. We Boomers have been big idealists, but that's not the same as Kuleana, our value for this month, and taking personal responsibility for turning those ideal wish lists we have into dreams we will personally own up for manifesting in the future.

When is bigger the same as better?

Not too long ago, another coach asked me, "Rosa, why haven't you put some plans in motion to make Managing with Aloha part of all K-12 education in Hawai'i?" I asked her, "What do you mean?" and she replied, "Not the management part necessarily, but the central belief you have throughout it about trusting in our personal values, and the permission you give people to live inside of them. What a gift it would be if you could coach every teacher to give that permission to the kids in their classrooms, same as you teach managers to give it to their staff at work."

I must tell you, she really gave me pause. I wasn't dreaming that "bigger and better." I even demonstrated it to you in part two of this series, where I wrote, "Second, much as the video pulls at you to help in some way with our youth, this K-12 arena isn't one presently in my circle of influence, and my focus immediately shifted to the workplace and the adult learner. What about us?"

For this weekend's Sunday Mālama, I want you to see how big you can dream about what you want to achieve as a Brex-like digital learner.

As for the question of whether or not it is better for you, I want you to trust in your own instincts. If it helps, think back to last month, and what we had learned about Pono, the Why of Right, and also about your own Ma‘alahi and ‘persuasion for calm’ (which will help you resist overwhelm). Think about what you would like, simply because you feel you need it.

For now, create this picture in your mind of the person you want to be 5 or 10 years from now. Worry think about the how you will get there, and what you'll have to learn later; shut those dampers off for now. And another thing: Don't dream within the "Well, after I have..." or "When I can afford to..." qualifiers; assume you're already in the moment - who do you want to be in that moment?

It might help to think about the tribe.

Digital Natives, Brex, and Tribal Management

Photo credit: posing for a picture by BionicHedgehog

Brex is like the cast of the YouTube video, which the producer thanked as "16 Digital Natives." Brex, Sam, Aurora, you and me, we're all in the tribe too.

Marketing guru Seth Godin recently published a blog posting he called Tribe Management. He wrote it from the stance of explaining why he thinks that, "Brand management is so 1999." However I like reading what he says from another viewpoint, the one that says we're all in this together (Kākou) and despite all the ways that we may be a generation or two away from Brex, there is something we basically have in common:

"Tribe management is a whole different way of looking at the world... what people really want is the ability to connect to each other, not to companies... people who want to hear from the company because it helps them connect, it helps them find each other, it gives them a story to tell and something to talk about... Everything the organization does is to feed and grow and satisfy the tribe... Instead of looking for customers for your products, you seek out products (and services) for the tribe. Jerry Garcia understood this. Do you?... People form tribes with or without us. The challenge is to work for the tribe and make it something even better." ---Seth Godin

I get that. As a business owner and workplace coach, it gets me to think a LOT about what we as individuals who promote digital learning do, how we interact with each other, and about the effect we can have on creating better organizational cultures within "the company."

What do you think about it?

As a start, I know that I will be adding going tribal to my need-to-cultivate list of habits.

Back round to the Beginning - YOURS

We're at the end of our February series on Braver Experiments [with] Digital Learning. With parts one, two, three, today's Sunday Mālama and three full weeks of thinking about this mini study within the month, it is time to bring the original task at hand back in tighter focus. What brave experiment with digital learning will you commit to embarking on next?

My suggestion is that you create a very simple tool: A Digital Learning hit-list. Start by listing the digital learning you want to tackle, and keep working with it like a lump of clay that eventually begins to take better shape for you (perhaps that image of who you want to be?).

I have a Digital Learning List now that I add to, take away from, and shuffle rankings on all the time. When I feel I have learned something enough to use it as a tool I keep it on the list for three reasons:

a) I know there is very likely much more I can do to optimize its usefulness to me. For instance, I have admitted to you that I still don't know how to use my cell phone completely. TypePad, my choice of blogging platform, is a great example of this. I learn more about using the program all the time, for it is rich with stuff I haven't applied yet, and my account is four years old now. On top of that, the good folks at TypePad keep tweaking it and improving it, constantly giving me more to learn. In essence, they keep designing a Digital Learning Curriculum for me, and I can take the course whenever I'm good and ready.

b) I like having my Digital Learning List morph into a chronological timeline of what I have learned, and when I learned it. It gives me a sense of accomplishment -don't discount that simple pleasure of how good it feels when you check something off your To Do List (or banish it). It also draws a kind of picture for me on how my learning happens, and I see some ways in which I am very predictable (or on auto-pilot) with how I learn when I feel strong, and when I am really pushing my limits.

c) My memory kinda stinks, and I log stuff I don't want to forget about. I will find I learn something just because it seems pretty cool and sexy to me at the time, but I have no current application for it, and creating one will be akin to creating a distraction. So I park it in the timeline for when an application for it pops up later. I will also park some web-based tools on my list that I have registered for just because I get kinda nervous about online identity theft like this: When Seth Godin isn’t Seth Godin, not that I'm anywhere near as well known as Seth Godin...

Then again, we're dreaming those bigger dreams, right?

Brex will be so proud of grandma!

Thank you for reading these past four Sundays. I wasn't just babysitting for Sam and Aurora; Brex Digi-Learning is part of the 'Ohana, and 2008 has just begun. Stay tuned.

And meanwhile, use the comments to tell us what you are putting down on YOUR Digital Learning hit-list; your sharing will help me and everyone else in the tribe to explore all our options, and dream those bigger dreams.

~ Rosa

A few more resources as you put together your Digital Learning List: If you have a resource you feel will help the community, send it to me and I'll add it to this list.

1. In part one of this series I included a link for a December article Learning Coach and *HCer Kevin Eikenberry did. If you missed it before: Five Online Tools to Help You Reach Your Goals. I had also written a commentary on it for Joyful Jubilant Learning adding two more recommendations of my own at the time.
2. If Social Media is what most appeals to you (a timely sub-category under the big topic of Digital Learning) you really should be subscribing to *HCer Chris Brogan's blog. This post has a list of suggestions with links to follow: A Sample Social Media Toolkit.
3. During this February series, I started to play around more with Tumblr. I created a MWA HCers tumble log there as a first Brex-experiment we could try, and I really need to catch up on my invites. If you would like to try it out do let me know! Details there --- take the red "About Page" link just under the title heading.

*HCer stands for Ho‘ohana Community member. Join up!

Comments

[Chris Brogan...]

You put so much into your posts. thank you for this. Quite an interesting series, and I'm grateful for the mention. I've learned a lot from knowing you through your work. : )

[Rosa Say]

Chris, we learn from each other! I love the way you challenge us while lifting us up and boosting us with confidence at the very same time.