Some Comments About TechKnowledge 2012

How would a Firebrand Scalebane apply to training? How could it not?

If you followed me on Twitter last week, you may have noticed bursts of tweets from ASTD TechKnowledge in Las Vegas. And if, from there, you followed prompts to check out #astdtk12, you would have uncovered a plethora of conference snippets: reminders of things we already know about training design but forget in the heat of the project, discoveries about what exactly can be accomplished with technology while training, and pointers on how to use our systems a little bit more with the learner (rather than the system) in mind.

Caving in to popular demand (by that, I mean two people), I shared some of my insights from last week’s conference in the ASTD Orange County Community Blog. As I attempt to apply some of the things I thought were pretty darned cool, I’ll share those results here later.

A Misdiagnosis In Communication

My local Chapter of the American Society of Training and Development was conducting a membership drive. They conduct several a year, each drive targeting a different demographic. Our membership drives are staffed by Chapter members who graciously volunteer their time. This isn’t a big project, nor is it glamourous. Its appeal, and why most people choose to volunteer for this activity rather than projects that provide a bit more exposure, is that it takes up little of their time, and is over quickly. One of the volunteers for our most recent drive is a co-worker of mine, and a dear friend, who I had recruited for this project. Naturally, I was curious to see how things had gone.

 

“Fine, great!” she told me. “I was a bit uncomfortable at first, even with the script you’d given me, but after I got through the first half of my call list, I didn’t need the script anymore, and just became myself. Only…”

Only what?

She was embarrassed to admit that she hadn’t been prepared to answer some of the questions she was asked.

I asked her what questions she had trouble with. It was a short list that could easily go onto any frequently asked question sheet for membership drives. What you get out of membership. How they could join online. Top of the list? How much membership cost.

Our volunteer had been sent forth to recruit members – armed with a script, but not sufficient knowledge about the organization to answer the most basic questions.

Do you REALLY want me to communicate more?

This could readily be classified as a communication problem within the organization – and was, in some conversations I had with peers about my friend’s challenge. The project manager hadn’t shared what the volunteer needed to know. If only the project manager had communicated better, the volunteer would have been better prepared. 

It’s a classification that I would challenge. Frequently, I find that when the diagnosis is poor communication, people just start talking more but accomplishing the same amount of confusion.

In this case, our volunteer did receive plenty of communication – she got a goal: recruit new members. She received a list of numbers to dial with names attached. She got a script to follow. She received what was necessary to complete her goal. What else could have been communicated?

Stuff about the organization, one might answer. Perhaps a FAQ sheet that included answers to all those common questions (that’s still not communication, by the way. It is a valuable resource). Yet, if this volunteer had been a member of the organization for a while, what does it mean that she couldn’t answer the questions posed to her by those interested in the same organization of which she is a member? But more important, as a volunteer, what does it mean that she knew less about the organization than our Chapter President? Even for as small a project as hers, our volunteer needed to represent our Chapter with as much confidence as the leaders charged with moving it forward.

That’s more than just communication – that’s building an infrastructure that ensures each team member knows what the others are doing, and how everyone’s actions benefit the organization as a whole.

So here’s my challenge to those who jump to communication as the organizational problem – poor communication is often a symptom obscuring a deeper root cause, so check again. What is it you’re trying to communicate?   When was the appropriate time to have made that communication?  The answers may reveal a different problem. And if you can’t clearly answer both those questions, delve deeper.

Getting At The Purpose Behind the Calculation

Here’s an article addressing the usage of calculators in math class.  The author’s conclusion brings to mind an eLearning course that we were designing at work.

An activity within this course challenged the learner to calculate a ratio that measured a Key Performance Indicator.  To calculate this number, a little math was required:

(X*30)/Y = R

The variables X and Y are found in a report that the learner would generate on a weekly basis. And therein lay the challenge for our training design.  To ensure the learner had the information necessary to complete the calculation, the designer provided all of the numbers necessary for the formula (X=3, Y=28.65, etc.). The designer then asked the learner to calculate the ratio step by step.

• The first question: What is: X * 30?
• The second question: What is: ##/Y?

The HP12c

This, to me, defeated the purpose of the activity.  Were our learners having difficulty mastering a ten-key?  Had we somehow supplied all our employees with Hewlett Packard 12cs?   Shouldn’t the application focus on finding the numbers necessary for the calculation, rather than the calculation itself?

Robert Talbot concluded in his post: “If a student can ace all the test questions about fractions but can’t do anything with a real-world problem without external prodding and validation from a teacher or other authority (“Is this right?“, “Am I on the right track?“, and so on), that’s when there’s real trouble, and it’s got nothing to do with technology.”

I sometimes find that eLearning courses devolve into a system that accentuates the technology used to achieve an objective, but not the critical thinking necessary to utilize the technology correctly. For example, my challenge with math was never how to crunch the numbers, but how to select the correct numbers to crunch in the first place.

For the course we were designing at work, the group agreed that completing the calculation was not what needed to be practiced. Rather, they needed the learners to generate a report, find the correct numbers in the report, and then enter those numbers into the formula. We changed the activity to reflect that.

1. First, we linked the course to a sample report and instructed the learners to find the numbers they would need for their calculation.
2. Next, we asked the learner: What is “X”? What is “Y”?
3. Finally, we asked the learner to find “R”.

Yes, learners will still need to master their calculating skills. And now those skills are mastered in context with real-world application, constructing experiences from which learners can draw while completing the task after they’ve completed the course.

Word Scramble Activity

A while ago, I got a Balloon Time Newsletter* that shared a few things you can do with balloons, besides blow them up and make them into balloon animals. Their featured activity, “Word Scramble,” may have potential as a team building activity.  I’ll let you decide:

Needed Supplies:

1. 30 or 50 balloons
2. Ribbon
3. Helium
4. Felt-tipped marker

How To Play:

1. Select a word or phrase related to the occasion.
2. If you select a word: inflate one balloon per letter of the word.
   If you select a phrase: inflate one balloon per word of the phrase.
3. Attach a ribbon to each balloon. The balloons will be free-hanging, so be sure to make the ribbon long enough that the participants can reach them.
4. Use a felt-tipped marker to write one letter (or one word) of the selected phrase on each balloon. Scatter them around the room.
5. Have the participants work together to unscramble the word or phrase and put the balloons in the correct order.

Variations:

• The game can also be played with teams by inflating one balloon per letter (or word) multiplied by the number of teams.
• You can play this game outdoors, providing you attach weights to the ribbons tied to the balloons.

 

How can this be used as a team-building activity?

• The phrase (or word) can be a message central to the meeting. A motivational saying, perhaps, or a core value you’re emphasizing.
• You can structure the teams to include organizational roles, or personality types, etc.   How they solve the puzzle may be based upon those roles.

Yes, this activity itself is a variation of many message-assembly activities.  The balloons add an energy to the activity, especially as participants search through a room of moving balloons.

*I’d attribute this activity to balloontimenews.com, but the site appears not to be active any more. You can check out balloontime.com for some additional party activities.

Tapping Into The Voting Audience

Leila Lopes, Miss Universe 2011, voted into the top 16 by the viewing audience.

Audience engagement has become big business in pop culture.  American Idol. America’s Got Talent. Dancing with the Stars. And just recently: Miss Universe.

For the 2011 Miss Universe Pageant, the viewing audience could vote for their favorite contestants to advance them into the semi-finals.  From there, voting was conducted by the judges, but fans could still chime in.

Involving a voting audience has become a mainstay in popular culture, a means of building engagement and boosting ratings.  I wondered how we could harness audience enthusiasm in training.

I’ve produced several meetings in a box for work.  The basic idea of these interventions: use the organization’s leaders to deliver training seminars for their teams.  These meetings generally benefit from leaders learning the meeting content first: a challenge for busy managers and directors who are constantly beset with several levels of priorities, most of which are considered more important than training.

The idea:

1. Create three unique job aids for each meeting in a box. These are job aids that would be delivered to the employee during the meeting.
2. Share the job aids with the leaders who will be delivering the training. Give them a page summary of what the meeting-in-a-box will be about.
3. Ask the leaders to vote on which job aid:

• Best communicates what employees need to know.
• They believe their employees can/will use to do their job.
• Is most visually appealing.

4.  Whichever job aid they approve is used in the official training.

What do you think? Would this positively impact training? Would it engage the leaders facilitating the training, making them more invested in the material?  Can you think of other ways in which audience voting could engage participants?

The 10 Minute Password

Here’s another password tip: don’t create accounts for too many things in the first place.  I speak, of course, of the free download that you want — it only costs your name and email account number.  On the same token, don’t forgo that compelling article about the oncoming alien invasion just because Weekly World News wants your email address.  Instead, give ‘em an address that remains open for just about ten minutes.

I’ve used 10MinuteMail.com for many sites that I don’t intend to visit again, but still want me to give up an email address for the privilege of what’s behind that form.  10minutemail assigns you a random email address, keeps it available just long enough for you to click the email verification link, and then burns the account like a cheap cell phone.  It’s a brilliant, completely free tool, and I recommend it to anyone who spends a moderate amount of time surfing the web, or clicking through half the links in their Twitter feed.

Passwords and Poetry

In a previous post, I shared that I’d created levels of passwords to help protect my information. While this method illustrates how I ensure hackers who get into one account can’t then hack into my email or other accounts, using the information they find in the hacked account, I didn’t delve into how I create strong passwords that a typical dictionary attack cannot bust.

What surprises me is how frequent hackers are succeeding with little more than a plain-text password.

We’re constantly reminded, whenever we sign into a new system, how to create effective passwords.  Six to seven characters, a mix of numbers, small case letters and capital letters.  And yet, we strive so hard to create memorable passwords that we still come up with passwords vulnerable to attack. “ShihTzu456.”

All those rules for creating strong password (add numbers, upper case, and symbols) kind of make things harder for us.

Microsoft offers some tips to creating strong passwords.  One of the key points that surprised me: use complete sentences.  I’m used to using the first letters of each word in a sentence, but the xkcd comic (right) explains why the sentence strategy makes sense.

I’ve used these tips to create my Level 1 and 2 passwords. But, we still have the challenge of creating a unique password for each system; these tips aren’t good if someone gains access to one of your accounts, and you’ve used that same password for a high-security account.

I’d shared that I’ve got four Level 2 and 3 passwords. Actually, after an inventory of all the sites I use that require passwords, it turns out I’ve got a few more than that.  Plus, I’ve got several unique Level 1 passwords.   In my opinion, uniqueness is key to remaining secure.  So, that’s a lot of passwords to remember. How do I keep track of all of them without writing them down or using a Password Manager?

I create a key — out of a poem.

So dust off your Robert Frost, folks, because that poem you had to memorize in high school is about ready to come in handy.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

There’s five separate passwords right there.  There’s four stanzas with five more lines each.  The first stanza could be used for your financial accounts, the second for your email, and so on.

Now, I confess: this is considerable work for a password or four — more work than the average person will do. But you’ve seen the consequences — it’s kind of worth it. And, heck. You’ve already got the passwords memorized. You just didn’t know it yet.

When you’re done creating your password, try it out on Microsoft’s Password checker. Bear in mind: they pooh-pooh any password less than 14 characters, so try not to use haikus as your cipher key.

A Public Service Announcement on Passwords

Here’s a few things you need to know about me first:

1) I listened to IT when they told me not to write down my passwords anywhere. Because you never know who’s going to walk by, find it on your desk, and break into the network.

1a) I apply that same logic to my personal passwords. Because I never know who’s going to come into my home, find that slip of paper, and… you get the idea.

2) I hesistate to use Password Managers. I find it counter-intuitive to create a whole bunch of passwords and document them in one place, protected by… a password. I’ve seen that Star Trek episode.

3) I don’t have the bandwidth to create and memorize a unique password for every system I sign into. Timely recollection of other data, like my wife’s anniversary, will be jeopardized.

It seems that hackers break into our news cycle at least once a week now, and I am amazed at the sort of high-level systems they can get into. Banks. Government. Gaming systems. All by using dictionary attacks to uncover plain-text passwords in the network. Tsk.

When the news that someone had hacked into Sony’s Xbox came out a few monhts ago, the alarms that rose in my head wasn’t that customers’ credit card data was in peril — no, it was that customers’ email accounts were in jeopardy of similarly being hacked. Why? Well, it turns out that a lot of people don’t like memorizing passwords, so they tend to use the same password for multiple accounts. So the password to one’s email account might be the same as the password to one’s Twitter account.

Consider that connection. If a hacker were to break into your Facebook account, they would then have access to your email login AND your email password. It’s a simple step for hackers to test that out, get in, and generally wreak havoc, given what you use your email for.

So I developed a system utilizing Levels of passwords.

Level 1: Highest security.
Bank accounts, email accounts, anything that retains or has access to significant personal data about me. Each of these accounts should have their own password, but I’ll admit to re-using a few passwords over disparate systems. Because of the nature of the systems they protect, they’re quite complicated, nearly random letters and numbers that may have once been uttered by a one-year old child trying to describe the joy of strained peas.

Level 2: Moderate security.
This level is reserved for social networking sites and other systems with info greater than my name and email address. I’ve got three passwords that I rotate through these accounts, none of which resemble a Level 1 password at all. I’ll retire a password when I’ve had it for too long, and add a new one to replace it.

Level 3: Low security.
I use this for those sites that I visit for their content, and don’t retain more than my name and email. I pretty much use the same password throughout. I realize that this is where a savvy hacker would strike, where security’s the weakest, to get access to my Chase Online account, where security should be the strongest(I watch Leverage). I simply make certain that there’s minimal — if any — linking these Level 3 accounts to my Level 1 accounts. I’ll come up with a new Level 3 password now and then(even here not allowing them to be regular words), but often find myself at an impasse when I stop by a site that does not recognize the new password and stolidly insists that I never visit, so it has no clue who I am.

It’s one way of managing our access to all the sites we visit, without putting ourselves at risk or going crazy trying to remember whatever trivial word had popped into our head when we prompted to create yet another unique ID and password.

Circles vs. Lists – A Few Thoughts on Google+

KTLA Channel 5 aired a story today about Google+, asking if the world needs another social network.  A fair question. They also recommended giving Google+ a try, because it allows you to group your friends into circles and share your information specifically with the people in those circles.
Whenever I hear this, I tend to sigh and say: “You can already do that in Facebook!” using lists.  It’s true.  Basically, Google+ centralizes many of Facebook’s features into one location, and puts a pretty bow on it.

If you haven’t already gotten tired of reading one’s opinion about Google+, allow me to explain.

When we first started using Facebook, we needed to know who our friends were, to request to be their friend online, and to wait for that request.  This implies that we know everyone we’re friends with on Facebook and places some restrictions on who sees what, limiting our social interaction to those folks we know, not necessarily those folks we’d like to know.

For example, on Twitter I can follow anyone I want, like @rainnwilson.  He’s a funny guy, but he doesn’t need to be my friend on Twitter in order for me to appreciate his pithy wit.  Which is good for Rainn, because he’s got a job of his own, and co-creator of Soul Pancake, and likely doesn’t have any sort of time for the masses of followers retweeting him like word paparrazzi.

Facebook allows similar one-sided interaction between person and audience using Facebook Pages, without limiting folks to 140 characters. So anyone who “Likes” Rainn’s Page is able to see a different set of content — videos, article links — without having to personally know the guy.

That’s Google+.  A Facebook Fan Page that incorporates features of a Facebook Personal Page to have a conversation with your “fans” when you want to, and to limit what you say to them when you don’t.

Google+ claims that this is due to its inclusive nature. You INCLUDE your family and friends when you want to. You tailor your posts to what you know they’re interested in.  And you could do that in Facebook, too.

For instance, during those dark times of my life when I was addicted to Farmville, none of my Facebook friends knew because I made sure the innumerable Farmville posts I needed to send out only went to those on my Farmville list.  Those on my Farmville list were also likely in my Acquaintances list, and so were excluded from my normal Facebook posts by default. Which was handy if I was posting a quick thought from a mobile app.

So: going back to KTLA’s story: Does the world need another social network?  I’d say no, but I’m not saying that Google+ shouldn’t have a chance.  I like Facebook for the control it gives me. It’s not pretty, but it’s functional.  I like Twitter for the people who compose their posts like artists, and for the “right-thereness” of the information.  I don’t think that Google+ will replace those networks based upon the fact that it uses circles to group one’s connections.

Rather, I want to explore Hangouts, which appears to be a Google version of the Tweetup, with video capacity. Similary, I think Huddle, the group chat, would be neat.  These opportunities to interface with more than one person within the Google+ network holds more promise to me than the initial hype. I’m hoping that once more of my friends are able to join this network(and as Google’s developers make a few tweaks here and there), Google+ will have more relevance for me. Otherwise, I’ll likely use it as frequently as Google Buzz, which I remember to check once in a blue moon.

It’s 2011 — do you know what your towel is?

May I be the first to wish you a happy Towel Day, and hope that your towel is within arm’s reach.

For those not firmly steeped in the Hitchhiker’s lore, let me explain. First, this day is not akin to Talk Like a Pirate Day, a made-up holiday meant for good, clean, pirate-y fun and corny jokes. Ignore the various excuses for scientists to host a BBQ posted on www.towelday.org: Towel Day is a serious affair, a day of preparedness for anything the universe were to throw at you.

Because I am not as able to explain this as well as Douglas Adams, I shall shamelessly crib his brilliance:

“A towel, [the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy] says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value. You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapors; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy River Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (such a mind-bogglingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can’t see it, it can’t see you); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.

“More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitch hiker) discovers that a hitch hiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitch hiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitch hiker might accidentally have “lost”. What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is, is clearly a man to be reckoned with.

“Hence a phrase that has passed into hitchhiking slang, as in “Hey, you sass that hoopy Ford Prefect? There’s a frood who really knows where his towel is.” (Sass: know, be aware of, meet, have sex with; hoopy: really together guy; frood: really amazingly together guy.)”

During the morning commute, it occurred to me: the towel is a metaphor for any genuinely useful tool that humans use for everything (for those of you saying, “well, duh!” give me a break. I first read Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy in high school, when I was more interested in learning how to fly than in literary analysis). To use another metaphor, it’s the duct tape for our day-to-day life.

I began wondering — what would be the “towel” for our day? What do we find ourselves turning to on a regular basis to ensure we’re able to survive the adventures we undertake?

I’m inclined to propose “smartphone.” Consider the usefulness of the gadgets and apps that are being tied to our cellular phones! Cameras that even the pros use to snap some quick shots! Maps and navigation devices! Calculators! Plus, what kind of phone you have says a lot about you, and we brandish our phones with pride — including the ones that don’t do anything but make phone calls, because even that is representative of what we stand for in this information-soaked world. Were one to leave the house without one’s phone, he or she would be lost, unconnected from the world.

Let’s insert “phone” into Mr. Adams’ quote: “Hey, you sass that hoopy Paul Venderley? There’s a frood who really knows where his phone is.”

Not sure — what do you think? Is your phone your equivalent of Douglas Adams’ towel (or is it the equivalent of Adams’ digital watch?)? Or would something else fit the galactic hitchhiker’s admiring phrase?