Managing with Aloha Coaching

Tuesday Essay #3: Say Ka lā hiki ola to make it yours

We have a Managing with Aloha Coaching first today! Adding voice to our value of the month study with a web-based software program called VoiceThread.

Think of this as a twofer: Two lessons for your one click to visit with me today!

I have long thought about doing some kind of podcast to offer our current studies of Managing with Aloha on audio. At minimum, I wanted to share the pronunciation of the Hawaiian values and words I present to you. What I love about VoiceThread is the added dimension of visuals, especially since photography is a new hobby of mine.

But there’s much more to it than that; VoiceThread offers the capacity to have you join me with comments shared in your voices too, versus me producing a one-sided broadcast. I think the blend of our voices will be much more interesting, and it will also give you a much better feeling for how our Ho‘ohana Community is evolving.

The second part of the twofer, is that VoiceThread is yet another way to continue Brex, the short acronymn I have been using for our 2008 ‘Ike loa initiative, Brave Experiments in Digital Learning (Full Brex Index.) —‘Ike loa is the Hawaiian value of learning.

So I truly hope you will be brave, and join me.

Think of this as a pilot for us: If it works well I shall continue to offer at least one voice option per month in our new Tuesday publishing schedule here.

The first screen of the VoiceThread duplicates the written part of this posting up to here, (done so you can read and preview it first if you prefer). So when you begin to play it, you can skip to the second screen if you wish to.

If this is the first time you have seen or heard of VoiceThread, click on the links in this written article. I am sending you directly to VoiceThread for the tutorials versus writing too much here, for this IS about digital learning too, and an encouragement for you to get more practice with learning from the web-based source instead of relying on my edited version of the process.

It’s free, and you will find it is very easy to register and get started. For now, the best thing to do is to start with a preview: Just click that play button and listen through it once first; easy as playing a video clip. You can click the images to move them as it plays, without stopping the voice portion.

With Screen 2 I jump right into Ka lā hiki ola, our value for the month of June. What I ask you to do this week is this:

• Number 1. Learn to use VoiceThread as your primary lesson, with a deeper understanding of Ka lā hiki ola as your secondary lesson.

• Number 2. Leave at least one comment for me, and as many as you like! Let’s try this:

• On the VoiceThread itself, comment for us about Ka lā hiki ola, and as my post title hints at, say Ka lā hiki ola at least once to pronounce it, and make the value yours through the embrace of your voice.

• In the written comments of this posting, tell me what you think about VoiceThread as a tool for us in our Tuesday coaching here on MWAC. Tell me a little about your own learning process with it. Share your thoughts if you think VoiceThread has possibilities for you as a tool used elsewhere: We can all learn from you!

Now, to the VoiceThread, and to begin our week 3 with Ka lā hiki ola.

If you are reading this via a RSS feed reader or your email alert, you will probably have to click directly into MWAC to see and listen to the VoiceThread: Here is the link.

I share an invitation for your comments on each screen. Here is a review if you’d like to go back to a specific one: The minutes noted are just for my portion of each section.

Screen 1: Introduction - 3 minutes

Screen 2: 2 minutes
(Correlates to our Ka lā hiki ola Day One Essay: Ka lā hiki ola and the New Us.)

Here is your first invitation to join me within this thread: Let’s focus on the English translation first. What does “the dawning of a new day” mean, or imply to you?

Screen 3: 3 minutes
(Correlates to our Ka lā hiki ola 1st Tuesday Essay: Ka lā hiki ola and Ho‘ohiki.)

Invitation number two: When you think of Ka lā hiki ola as YOUR can-do possibility, what is something you know you can do, and will always be able to draw on as one of your strengths? If that is too personal for you, share an example about the place you work at, and the vision or mission there; what do you deeply believe is possible to be achieved there, and is connected to the work you are employed for?

Screen 4: 5 minutes includes wrap-up
(Correlates to our Ka lā hiki ola 2nd Tuesday Essay: Ka lā hiki ola and Kēia Manawa.)

Mahalo. Thank you for joining me today. Do feel free to leave any last thoughts for us on the VoiceThread.

Aloha from me, until next time, or as you have often seen me write it, a hui hou.
~ Rosa

Get Started on Twitter the Value-Based Way: 5 Tips

Preface:
This is part two of two postings on Twitter for the three-day weekend. Part one can be read as the previous posting, Learning Twitter with Hawaiian Values.

Why Twitter?
It has become our newest challenge within our Brex initiative for 2008: Brave Experiments with Digital Learning.

Have I convinced you to give Twitter a go?

If you have already been tweeting, are you clear on what your own value parameters are?

As a practical matter, most of us do jump in and experiment with new learning for a while before we make our final decisions on keeping and integrating the subject of our learning into our lives; we get our hands nice and dirty with it! Identifying our key value drivers, and deciding our “for the sake of what” mentioned in part one can come later, within the analysis of our results thus far, and as will organically reveal itself within our into-our-life blending.

So let’s say you are willing to give Twitter a try as a pilot project for part of your own 2008 Brex agenda (you can always opt out again later). Here are some start-up tips, and they do end with the value piece so you aren’t waiting too long to get there!

Ekahi (One). When you sign up, keep your ‘handle’ short. I lucked out on this by default… including a space at the end, @rosasay for me only takes up 9 of those 140-characters others are limited to in a tweet they send me, and I don’t get too many misspellings that I won’t catch (interesting ones for me have been rosassy and rosary!) Two of the co-founders of Twitter are @biz and @ev …they had an advantage with anticipation that should have clued us all in!

If not your name, remember that obvious (or easy to type) for you may not be that way for the others tweeting you directly, especially if your native language is one where a lot of vowels or consonants run together well locally, but look like Greek to others globally.

When I want to send tweets to someone with a long Twitter name, I rely on those good old keyboard shortcuts for copy (ctrl-c) and paste (ctrl-v), especially when we are conversing and I want them at the ready in my clipboard for the same-person tweeting repetition to follow.

Elua (Two). When you start, go “all in.” I think the best way to learn most digital apps is one at a time and completely going for it, resisting other new-learning distractions until you have nailed a good habit you’d like to keep. That’s right – forget that Twitter has been called a distraction, and think of it as the main deal to which other things are distractions!

Another reason for this is that once you get in your groove with Twitter you can multi-task while webbing it, with Twitter open in a desktop client or another browser tab. However there is a difference between multi-tasking and multi-learning, and what I am recommending here by saying go “all in” is that you resist the urge to multi-learn different digital agendas at first. You will also find that there are a ton of APIs (application programming interfaces) connected to Twitter, and you will end up multi-learning to some degree as it is, though you intended to concentrate on just the one learning.

An example: A recent one I found that I think is great for tracking your @replies when they are not at the beginning of a tweet (and thus, will not show up on your replies tab) is summize.com: You type your user name into the search box there, and this comes up. That is how I found this tweet from Wendee when I otherwise would never have seen it so I could reply. Also a good app to keep in mind when Twitter disables the replies tab in their maintenance fixes.

Ekolu (Three). I would recommend you start with a community you already know personally (you can find a lot of people already there) and it may surprise and delight you to discover who in your existing network are early adopters! Not only that, jumping into Twitter with some friends to learn with is fun, and it will encourage you.

Allow your follow-network to grow organically, versus taking the approach of following a lot of people right off the bat, and finding you cannot keep up with your conversations; why give them a poor (and unfortunately inaccurate) first impression of the star you really are!

Then, throw in a few follows for “thought leaders,” people you may not yet know personally, but want to learn from, and introduce yourself to.

If you still find you’d like to be more ambitious with your follows as you get started, take a look at the follow icons we have @JJLhui, the twitter feed we have set up for Joyful Jubilant Learning, for those are the thought leaders on our JJL Advisory Board.

Eha (Four). Don’t game it. Be authentic and willing to be vulnerable. While it is true that people can get a picture of you having no life at first (especially if you take my “all in” advice), to worry too much about appearances isn’t going to serve you as well as investing in the one-time/first-time learning strategy. The other thing to keep in mind is that if they are following you through-out your learning, you are also easing them into a rhythm of knowing when it is best for them to interact with you too: You’ll both win!

Seek to add value for others from the get-go, and any vulnerability you may initially feel will quickly segue into a sharing of the good stuff! Learn to use www.tinyurl.com or www.snurl.com (less characters, but more downtime than tinyurl) and then tweet urls for your best blog posts, not all of them, and for the great stuff you find online. Be generous, and re-tweet what others have shared. Help people celebrate their special days.

Elima (Five). Compose your own set of value parameters sooner versus later. You can build a habit very quickly on Twitter, true to that 21 to 28 days productivity peeps tell you it takes (yep, I’ve hawked the habbit riddle with you too:-). And remember: Those 21 days build not-so-good habits too, another reason to go “all in” (#2 above) and be authentic (#4)! So much easier to keep up with the truth than with a façade!

Twitter for me is extending my conversations; others want to lurk and listen, same as they silently read blogs. Define what your “for the sake of what” is all about, and then pick your personal values which will help you in your own decision-making process along the way. When and if that day comes that you want to converse, your followers will be the right ones already, eager to follow you back because you have so much in common: You will recognize each other by the values you share.

Now, as promised, Bonus Learning Links you can cruise through if you are so inclined:

Learning Twitter with Hawaiian Values

A short preface

You may recall that I declared 2008 our year for the Brex Initiative.

Our online expressions of the MWA Ho‘ohana Community have always been centered on ‘Ike loa, the Hawaiian value of learning since our beginnings in 2004. Two years later, Joyful Jubilant Learning (JJL) was born as a community “home base” for explorations in learning that would embrace more than Managing with Aloha (and thus, more than we might be able to fit in here, on MWAC).

We have monthly learning themes on JJL just as we do on this site for our value study. Here on MWAC I have chosen one biggie for learning which we will revisit all year long: Brex, short for our Brave Experiments with Digital Learning. That last link will take you to the index of what we have done so far.

This is the first of a two-part posting, an update to my newest Brex project: Twitter.

Back in February, I wrote,

I've just joined a new social network on Ning in the past week. Have been on LinkedIn for a while now, have a Tumblr lifestream, but I'm not a Twitterer and have said no to Facebook on purpose (Yeah, you can say no. What's hard is to stop second-guessing yourself about it.)

...from our Brex Kick-off: Who is the Digital Learning Coach in your company?

Well, that was then, and I am a Twitterer now! Love it, and you can follow me there if you are too :)
If you aren’t on Twitter yet, perhaps you’ll think about it?

Why should you? For Brex, and your own digital learning!

Today: Learning Twitter with Hawaiian Values

Tomorrow: Getting Started in the Value-Based Way with 5 Tips
Also: Bonus Learning Links

Tweet Surprises

As of this writing, I’ve been on Twitter for eight weeks and two days. For you seasoned tweeters who may be reading and can relate to these numbers, I’m following 149, being followed by 193 (I am behind in my follow-backs), and have tweeted just over 1460 updates because my learning curve has been a highly conversational one. Talking story is right up my alley!

And that was but the first of the surprises in store for me: Twitter is not just about their own prompting of  “What are you doing?” I have found it is also about “What has your attention right now?” and “What do you think about it?” It has been fascinating.

Thus far, and I still consider myself somewhat of a newbie there compared to many, my introduction to Twitter has proved to be jam-packed with digital learning on 21st century social communications... very Brexy!

According to my strengths profile done via the Gallup Organization, being a Learner is one of my signature strengths. Essentially that means that I am drawn to the process of learning, even more than the subject matter itself.

SIDEBAR: Gallup really nails me on this as one of my strengths... I share it here in case it sounds familiar to the Learner in you!

"Whatever the subject, you will always be drawn to the process of learning. The process, more than the content or the result, is especially exciting for you. You are energized by the steady and deliberate journey from ignorance to competence. The thrill of the first few facts, the early efforts to recite or practice what you have learned, the growing confidence of a skill mastered - this is the process that excites you."

From JJL: I have posted a simple highlighter exercise on this there (with a longer version).

The downside to being a Learner defined in this way? I can eagerly jump down rabbit holes with complete abandon. Knowing this about myself, I’ve used the Key Concept of value alignment in MWA to give myself some parameters. Today I will share the ones I have come to develop for my learning Twitter.

Sunday Mālama: Internet Privacy and a release in Talking Story

MY MANA‘O ~ ~ ~ If you are new to MWAC, Sunday Mālama is when we mix it up here. I may offer an extreme tangent to our current value of the month (for April: Mellow Maintenance Mālama), or write about something completely different. My very first Sunday Mālama was this one: A Beginning and this click gives you the full index to page through. I call Sunday Mālama my mana‘o meaning that it shares a deeper view of my thoughts, beliefs, and convictions with you, my Ho‘ohana Community. Thus, Sunday Mālama is also an invitation to share your mana‘o if you wish to.

Anyone who has ever watched a reality show on television has surely had the same thought at some point:

“How can these people expose themselves like this to millions of strangers?
What are they thinking?”

Then, that same any-man, or any-woman, fires up their lap top, and hits the publish button with the story of how they just messed up big time at work. Or, they click over to a social media site like Twitter and post a tweet on what they just had for breakfast, with whom, and exactly where.

Photo as on JJL: WHAT IF all your learning inputs were digital?
[Flickr Photo Credit: "Working late" by Delgoff.]

Internet Privacy: An evolution

When I started blogging back in August of 2004 I’d been reading blogs and thinking about it for almost a year before taking the plunge. I had a “static” website, but it was a safe one, and I was very aware of the differences. With a blog there would be less ‘firewalls’ and people I did not know would easily be able to reach out to me. I liked the thought that there were those who would invite me into their lives for my aloha conversation; the thought that others would lurk in my life for unknown reasons terrified me.

What made me take the plunge was not that I came to terms with that; it was publishing my book, and realizing that my contact information would be now public domain anyway… maybe the internet would at least give me a bread crumb trail to knowing who both followers and lurkers were.

Then, decision finally made, it took me all of 6 seconds to know what I would name my new blog: Talking Story was born— online. Why not do what I naturally did offline, when online?

Here I am, still blogging nearly four years later, and at this moment in time I’m sensing another evolution of sorts. I previously tumbled about it in regard to our Brex initiative for 2008: Brex is short for Brave Experiments in Digital Learning:

1. Traditional website (needed to hire a webmaster)
2. Blog platform (could actually do it myself!)
3. Blogging (guess there is more that comes with this… Oh! a community ecosystem!)
4. Group Blogging (Joyful Jubilant Learning is born! Eleven Things, circa October 2006)
5. Tumbling (put the lifestreaming stuff here, and edit your blogs better!)
6. Twitter (what say we change this up a bit and see where else social media takes us, hmm? Care to follow along?)

What is most interesting to me, is the privacy evolution we’ve gone through too. And my word choice is deliberate: Once you blog, “I” becomes “we” and you’ve become the spider drawing others into your world wide web. I think of Kuleana, and the responsibility I accept with that pretty often.

Yet I’ve gotten braver than I ever imagined I would have, and no regrets.

This weekend my Mellow Mālama Maintenance has involved sharing my learning with Twitter, and beyond that, eagerly and joyfully inviting people to follow along. (Equally fascinating to me is how our contextual language changes: What does friending and following mean to you right now?)

Sunday Mālama: Brex takes the Imagine it! Challenge

Okay, last Sunday's post was great (umm, unobjectively speaking) but kinda wordy and cerebral. So this week, what say we go more fun and creative (and Digital-Learning Brex-y)?

Can you give me the next 15 or 20 minutes of your day? Creative thinking is as easy as doing something different.

Okay, here we go.

1. Get up from your computer-reading chair (just leave this on the screen) and collect all the post-it note pads you might have around. How long have you been sitting and surfing? S-t-r-e-t-ch --- it's good for you!

While you're at it, grab some colored pens or pencils too.

2. Got 'em? Great. Next, be sure you have some space next to your keyboard where you can spread out some of those post-its in a kind of storyboard - you'll need the space to write on them.

3. Okay, now get comfortable. I'm going to send you to another site, where you can watch a couple of videos. If you have the space, push your keyboard/computer/laptop back away from you a bit so you have space to write in front of you too: You just click once on the link I will be giving you, and the film loop that is there will keep going on its own.

I love Eliza, the hostess of these videos, and I think you will too. Her energy is contagious.

Get ready to catch it!

"Post-its. Internet. I think we've got something here."

4. Here are your instructions: (not that you will really need them... feel free to nalu it and go with the flow...)

• Watch the videos. Go for as short or as long as you like, but I'd say no shorter than the first two, which would be about 8 minutes total.
• As you watch, capture your thoughts or ideas on the post-its: Write just one per post-it note.
• Spread 'em out and write, doodle, draw... whatever moves you.
• When you have a good amount of post-its (you define what "good" is to you)
  
  ...or you run out of space (what the heck...let that be the constraint),
  
  stop the videos (just close the window) and then play with your post-its.
  
  Add to 'em.
  
  Color 'em.
  
  Story-board 'em.
  
  Adore the ones you think are way-cool, and crumple up the one's that you look at and go, "Huh?"

If they give you some aloha-writing inspiration, grab your journal and go for it.

Come back here when you are done and share what happened with us!

5. Okay, ready? Here is the link, and have fun!

Click here --->>> Imagine it!

Photo Credits: (click on each photo to go to that page)
Stacked by itselea, Yellow Post Its by libraryman, Pencils by jurek d., Tuesday 12:30 pm 2/19/08 Storyboard by ario_j, Day Two by chexee, yellow post-it drawings by giveawayboy, and iMobio by podcom.

Sense of Place on the Internet: A Brand New Community Ecosystem

Are you in?

If you feel you belong to an internet community, or have been feeding off the Mea Ho‘okipa there, I think it is time to re-think your old thoughts about lurking and protecting your privacy:

Say thank you by granting some trust,
stepping into the community sandbox,
and acting like you belong there.
Let people know you are reading,
and may be ready to contribute in some way.

Collaboration and social synergy just doesn’t happen all that well with shadows in the dark. A true community ecosystem needs you to be “all in” and not just hanging around in the parking lot.

“There really aren’t many secrets to how things work in social media. There are skills to learn, and then there are human traits to re-learn. And yet, when people jump into this space and try to get results for their efforts, they’re sometimes surprised and frustrated. Sometimes, when we’re rushed, we forget the “nice” parts of things, and yet, in a community ecosystem, that’s what will drive your results.”
—Chris Brogan: The Community Ecosystem

I love what Chris has written.

“There are skills to learn, and then there are human traits to re-learn.”
Niceties that come with being a good guest, and welcomed visitor.

It got me thinking about Sense of Place, and how our cyber community spaces constantly challenge us:

• Can we get as ‘grounded’ and place-connected ONline as we do OFFline?
• Just how close can our emotional connections with people globally, get us to those physical sensory connections we have with the places we actually feel under our feet?

Now we could get all idealistic about this, however an overly-generous inclusivity and profession of love for our fellow man would be kind of a cop-out to the discussion. Lets dig in and really think about this.

Google Doc News for our 2008 Brex Initiatives in Digital Learning

Preface for anyone just joining us:

Brex is my nickname for our 2008 initiative with Digital Learning.
Get your intro by reading all about it here:

Who is the Digital Learning Coach in your company?  We kick off our Braver Experiments [with] Digital Learning initiative for Managing with Aloha Coaching (MWAC) in 2008.

I am becoming such a huge fan of all things Google.

Last wrote about my Saasy, Googly immersion on Joyful Jubilant Learning:

In 2008 I'm losing it... Be nice... no, not my sanity, or my sense of all reason. My stuff.

Something I'll be keeping packed in my bags for [my learning in 2008] is my steady migration to a 'trusted system' (in GTD-speak) of completely web-based tools and archiving. To some people it may sound like a contradiction - a trusted system that I place in the web's hands and not my own hard drive or some good old fashioned filing cabinets? Exactly.

...A biggie for me in this leap of faith has been learning that I can lose Microsoft Outlook for a romp in the jungle with Gorilla King Google and their entire tribe of monkeys in a barrel. Monkey GMail, monkey GCalendar, monkey GDocs, monkey GGroups, and the newest monkey I've had loads of fun with, Picasa.

It may sound risky to many, but the degree of riskiness is a subjective thing, and personally I have become very, very comfortable with what others may perceive to be a high degree of risk, both in regard to server crashing (two words: back up!), and with the protection of my intellectual property... in short, there is no way for anyone to get into the working of my brain in the same manner I use it --- in the spirit of what we are learning this month, think of this as part of my Ho‘ohanohano confidence!

My primary reasons for loving Google as much as I do are these:

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.

What are the changes Digital Learning requires of your organizational culture?

Preface:

This is the third 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?

What are the changes Digital Learning requires of your organizational culture?

I talk to people all the time about our changing workplace demographics, and this site is about reinventing our work value by value for better alignment with what is real to people now versus what is old news and old-style ineffective.

Last Sunday we seemed to conclude that while we'd all love to have a digital learning coach, we presently get most of our digital learning informally and on our own.

One thing which is still glaringly real, is that businesses are terrific at downsizing positions, and horrible at creating better ones [and downsizing increases in a recession, which most Americans now say they are feeling despite anything the economists say to pretty it up to the contrary]. We give slick new titles to people without a second thought, but many times those new titles are like a coat of paint thrown over an old canvas to recycle it: Scratch off that new coat and you find the old brick wall of "the old way still works okay" is still there.

Until they are planned for in our business plans and models, those jobs which "don't exist today" will probably not get designed (and approved in your budgets) as soon as you need them, which most likely is right now.

What else might you be accepting?

If anything within this process of the way things now happen is inside your circle of influence, acting upon it is the first thing that is required of you as a Digital Learner: Work to enable the possibility of employing Digital Learning Coaches, and don't take "no" or "can't" for an answer. Dig deeper to find out if the person saying "we can't" to your inquiry really means "I won't" and why they feel that way.

In the time since I worked with Tony, and had to type in those maddening passwords, I have come to appreciate the fact that I at least had that option. For here we are, nearly five years later, and there are still those workplaces which do not give everyone on staff internet access as much as they should, much less introduce them to other new digital tools --- even simple ones like direction finding with MapQuest. That's like having a library that never opens its doors, or a bank where no one has the combination for the vault.

It's also pretty naive. People don't need internet access to go web surfing anymore: They can do it (and worse, do mindless gaming) on their cell phones.

Well, not everyone can do it.

The MapQuest example comes first to mind for me because of this true story:

What is Required of ME as a Digital Learner in 2008?

Preface:

This is the second 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 it, this was part 1: Who is the Digital Learning Coach in your company?
In part 1 we met Brex.

You ask, “What is required of me as the Digital Learner in 2008?”

Well, in the spirit of Kuleana, the value of responsibility we are studying this month, we'd likely agree that the digital learner has to primarily take personal responsibility for the way they communicate with everyone else in the world — and take a heightened interest in doing so. That goes for both sides of communication;

1. The GIVING side, how we initiate our messages for others, and how we give those messages shape, clarity, and warmth. We want to invite and engage others, not just broadcast to them, creating unwelcome noise.

2. The RECEIVING side, how we welcome messages from others, taking some responsibility with establishing and maintaining a good way for them to get through to us. Sure, we want our privacy respected. On the other hand, a hermit wouldn't be the person you choose as a communications coach.

With those assumptions as our givens, we can make this easier, taking care of a couple of things at once: Let's re-phrase the question in my title slightly, and be more specific.

What if our requirements as adult learners were the same as the ones Brex has?

Wouldn't that help us understand each other better, and help us work together (and learn together) toward filling the same need?

In part one of this series, I gave you a link to this video clip. Even if you watched it before, it's been a week, so indulge me okay? Take the next 4 minutes to watch it again. When it's over, write down what you are thinking, or say it out loud. What sticks with you?