Learning 101 in Web 2.0 and Globalization 3.0

Innovation-speak gone nutso… I’m confused too.

What does it all mean, and do we really have to learn it?

In taking the Learning 101 link offered by Fast Company to their archives today, I misread a quote there and ended up liking my own mis-reading… it strikes me that the Ho‘ohana Community helps me come to grips with the interpretation of these things in such hugely satisfying ways.

Marc Rosenberg, Principal at Diamond Technology Partners Inc. of New Jersey “points to the big breakthrough in learning today: knowledge management” calling it,

“-- the delivery of exactly the right information to exactly the people who need it, when they need it. A salesman on the road wants to know about changes in his company's product line and about what his competitors are doing. He doesn't want a 10-hour course. He wants to go to a Web site where someone has posted the information that he needs.

That's knowledge management. With that model, the Web begins to look more like a library than like a classroom.”

I misread it to say the web was more like a classroom than a library, and in the six years since this October 2000 article was written, I do think our virtual communities have made it that way. For learning to occur, we need the integration of people collaborating over the web-based programs which have captured the raw presentation of knowledge. Our virtual communities have made this happen in such extraordinary ways, don’t you think?

Very interesting to read that six-year old article and contemplate how learning (or the perception of our learning) has changed, and yet in other ways remained the same.

Somewhat related to this, Trevor Gay has started a people over programs discussion over at the blog Synergy: Focus on People, not Programmes. [Click through the subsequent conversation there offered by Steve and Troy too.]

Join into a virtual community here, there, or somewhere else online, and get hold of the collaborative learning waiting for you.

Can you really afford to be a lurker and silent spectator very much longer?

For your reference:
Learning 101 at Fast Company
Wikipedia Entry for Web 2.0 is almost right
Transcript of 'Globalization 3.0 Has Shrunk the World to Size Tiny'

Comments

[Steve Sherlock]

Some lurkers and silent spectators will remain where they are, on the sidelines looking in. Some of them will jump in when they become convinced or interested in what is going on. Some of them will jump in too late.

In the meantime, the best we can do is to make the internet library more like a classroom. You can't talk in a library can you? But in a classroom, constructive dialog is encouraged.

As the world flattens, I think survival will go to the fittest in building, working and living in relationships. We need to live respectfully in a community of our choice. The Ho'ohana community here is one great place to start. If the internet was not here, how could this group have come together?

Thank you Rosa, for continuing to share the aloha and prod us on!

[Greg Balanko-Dickson]

I love the question "Can you really afford to be a lurker and silent spectator very much longer?" as it implies that you cannot afford wait. You could wait but why would you want to wait when so much helpful, practical, and meaningful content lies out there awaiting your discovery?

Beyond the opportunity to improve, grow, and learn because of the Generous Web - another opportunity to connect with other people and even do business with them because you helped them with information, tools, and training online is the underlying economic engine that can fuel your business.

[Rosa]

Greg, I love your concept of the Generous Web, thank you for introducing it to me. We are very much on the same track here: I believe there is such incredible richness to be found online, both as a library, and in the form of dynamic classroom communities - richness ripe for the picking, but needing that "discovery" you mention for it to come to vibrant life.

I read a story in one of our local papers recently, about how parents appreciate yet fear the internet at the same time, and while their fears for their children are certainly justified (largely about online predators), what saddened me was that the parents are still so "unplugged in" themselves; they fear what they don't know, and thus they can't and don't experience a greater appreciation for the Generous Web WITH their children either.

When we decided to buy computers for our two children for the first time, one of their teachers gave me the best advice. She said: "Don't allow them to be hooked up in their rooms; keep them in the family room for everyone to enjoy together. And don't let them make you feel guilty for not trusting them- your responsibility as a parent trumps that concern." Taking her advice, I didn't worry; I let them explore because I did watch them. My kids were so much more savvy and such quicker studies than I, and they taught me so much while we discovered some online wonders together.

Steve, you nail all of this for me when you say, "As the world flattens, I think survival will go to the fittest in building, working and living in relationships. We need to live respectfully in a community of our choice."

At the end of the day, we are social creatures who need our relationships with each other as much as we need food, water, and air. Learning 101, Web 2.0, Globalization 3.0... all extras. Fun and exciting, but extra.