Monday, March 16, 2009

It's about the social


"It’s not about the media, but the social. We crave to be social." Dean Shareski.

The Edmonton Knowledge Management Network is getting going again on Thursday, April 2, noon, Boardroom 5L, 5th floor of the Commerce Building. The reason I am talking about an event that those outside the Edmonton area (Alberta, Canada) can't get to will make sense if you persist in reading.

Mack D. Male (his blog is MasterMaq) is talking to the Edmonton KM Network about "Social Media: What to pay attention to?"

Mack is a high end user, advocate for Twitter. And the reaction to Twitter has been the same as we experienced 14 years ago with the Internet: "A time-wasting play toy and worse an information channel we can't control". Welcome to the 21st Century.

I can't make the case for Twitter and other social media tools for enabling conversations. Mack Male will do that two weeks from now. So look for some posts after his presentation. In the meantime, I will direct you to Dean Shareski's blog for some insights.

Dean Shareski is a digital learning specialist in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. His website ideasandthoughts.org is a treasure trove for those trying to navigate their way through organizational learning and technology. Framed with an uniquely prairie perspective, his observations bemuse and incite me (hopefully you as well).

"In Praise of the Pop-In" is Dean's commentary on the need for the social in our life and how it has eroded as we have gotten more organized and busier. His comment is that Twitter has become the ultimate "pop-in". And the Internet enables connectivity so that we can "pop-in" with folks that perhaps we never or rarely see face-to-face. He then goes on to describe how he sees schools using these tools for learning. You can generalize those to organizational learning as well.

Dean finishes talking about serendipity. My version is that it is the opportunities created in having conversations that creates serendipity.

Serendipity does not happen by chance.


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Thanks Neil. One of the things I find most energizing is the way the education and learning is not being isolated as a school event. The concepts of learning that I advocate have as much to do with adults and business as it does with schools. As institution talk about life long learning, your blog would be a great example.
Thanks.