Keynote, Stephen Downes (IIL07)

Janet…I like that it’s messy. I’m enjoying all the updates (yes, someone is listening….)

Glad you like the updates. I think many people do not like it messy. Although the conference is just underway it seems to me that a lot of people are looking for answers to the statement, ‘yes, but how do I do that.’ And the answer to that is to get messy by doing it. I think many people in the corporate environment struggle with how to actually do it and how to address organizational culture. For instance, the “un” structure, conference, etc. is unsettling for some. I had a conversation that structure was needed…what are the objectives, etc.

I think messy is good. If you’re not afraid of being messy and random, you can produce and take note of ideas without hesitation (“stream of consciousness” type of thing), and you therefore have a bigger pool of visions, conceptions, etc. to draw from. This would likely lead to increased incidence of innovation, right? Too often I find myself editing my ideas to death before I even get them down on paper (or laptop, rather), and sadly most of these are abandoned before they get a chance to take shape in the physical world. I was inspired by the keynote and will do my best to avoid hesitation in getting my ideas out there. =)

For instance, I only slept for a few hours and am feeling a bit delirious…but I am still leaving a lovely messy post because I don’t want to wait ’til later and overedit it and, more likely than not, forget about it. =)

Well, I’m glad you didn’t wait to post this : ) I agree. I do think less self-editing and less hesitation will increase the incidence of innovation. Definitely. I think editing (and filtering) what we say is often related to fear. We are not always in environments that encourage mistakes and, as a result, we never see our ideas bear fruit. How many great inventions came about after someone else said…that won’t work. Have fun at school. Great to meet you!

Was it recorded?

It was. I’ll let you know when it’s available. We have a videographer here memorializing as much of the conference as possible. Can’t wait to see it all put together. Jay Cross closes out the conference with a keynote this afternoon and I think he is doing some sort of multimedia too. But yes, Stephen’s was recorded. Stay tuned.

I’m of two (or more) minds here. I’m sympathetic to “this is messy,” especially when an outcome is… a mess. It’s often hard in a corporate or institutional setting to make a case for support / adoption when the “product” is (or looks) rough. In a way, you’re facing the what’s-in-it-for-me challenge from internal or external customers.

At the same time, Janet’s right to encourage people to get messy by doing it. Maybe the benefits of learning this way flow first to the individual, and not always quickly — in the way that a workout program slowly benefits you (after, say, six weeks) with clear physical improvements, which then extend less directly to other parts of your life.

A colleague and I have been grappling with how learning/performance-improvement professionals build their own skills. I suspect that for many, that building is an after-effect of their work, so that in a sense they’re learning by doing, but don’t always reflect on that or make it explicit. Some of what Stephen and others discuss is to me an encouragement to that explicitness: pay attention to what you’re doing, where and with whom you connect, and the changes those things bring about.

Karen’s point on editing to death is valid — though some people integrate or even understand best by editing — or “actively reprocessing content.” You can argue, as Garrison Keillor did about shyness, that some people would benefit from a lot more editing than they have.