Organizational learning.

Organizational Learning is No Accident makes an important point: effective learning requires time to reflect...and our "right now" form of communication (email, IM, etc.) doesn't allow reflection time...making it difficult for people and organizations to change (time being an important component to acclimate to changes).

[elearnspace blog]

Excellent material on the challenges of building in the necessary time for reflection to power organizational learning and change. One interesting aspect to this line of thought is that reflection has to become an explicit process for it to work at the operating pace of today's economy.

It's a bit of a paradox. When we had time for reflection to work at its natural pace, we didn't have to depend on learning to keep our organizations aligned with their environment. Now that we need the learning, we can't rely on unaided reflection.

Turning a problem into an opportunity, we need to highlight the importance of reflection to learning, develop skills at active reflection, and make it easier to create the raw materials for reflection (hint: weblogs). I've written about this from time to time with pointers to some resources I've found useful.

See:

• Learning to learn
• Reflection on reflecting
• Categorizing knowledge (particularly about After Action Reviews)

10:43:55 PM •  • comment  

The Shifted Librarian: Tuesday, May 20, 2003.

Steven Vore found the online video for the Ad Council's chilling commercial about the potential consequences of the federal government tracking what you do at your library. "Chilling" because it appears to be quite prescient.

[Privacy Digest]

A little reminder of the fragility of a free society. Worth keeping in mind.

8:14:10 PM •  • comment  

Kevin Kelly's Recomendo. Before Kevin Kelly was the executive editor of Wired, he edited Whole Earth Review. I became hooked when he took over WER, and loved his Whole Earth book, Signal (which was based on an issue of WER that turned me on to Factsheet Five and the zine world). For the past few months, Kevin has been quietly publishing the wonderful Cool Tools email newsletter. It consists of reviews of "cool stuff":

I include any books, tools, software, videos, maps, gadgets, hardware, websites, or gear that are extraordinarily handy or useful for individual and small groups. The best items are those that open up new possibilities. I depend on friends and readers to suggest things. Generally I try something out first if I can. I only recommend things I like and I ignore the rest. Tell me what you love. Suggestions for tools better than what I recommend always welcomed.

I bought a first aid kit for my trip to the islands based on Kevin's review in Cool Tools. You can see all the past picks from Cool Tools on Kevin's Recomendo site. Also, if you email him, he'll put you on the Cool Tools list. Link Discuss [Boing Boing Blog]

Kevin Kelly's Whole Earth Review was one of my favorite reads. The tools perspective was (and still is ) a powerful one, especially because it demands a level of mutual respect between tool and tool user. Tools are multi-purpose and what you create with them depends on the skill and discipline of the user as well as on the quality of the tool. That's a lesson that gets forgotten in the marketing speak that makes empty promises of pushbutton ease of use and productivity for nothing.

Turns out that the Recomendo site also has an RSS feed, although it is titles only.

4:47:23 PM •  • comment  

Creative Computing 1976 archive online. Stefan sez, "From the primordial depths of personal computing history: A collection of scanned pages from the pioneering educational/entertainment zine, Creative Computing. I read a lot of these pieces in the original magazines, circa 1976. It has a BASIC listing for one of the very first computer games I ever played, DEEPSPACE. Volume 1 is also available on the site. Look for the advertisement by Roger Crumb!" Link Discuss (Thanks, Stefan!) [Boing Boing Blog]

Lots of great stuff here. For example, look for Terry Winograd's Reactive Engine paper. Still worth reading and thinking about.

4:39:25 PM •  • comment