If what you’re doing isn’t worth sharing, then why are you doing it?
“This Is How I Do That.”
TOPIARIES
While it isn’t exactly “teaching,” per se, showing your work can go a long way toward helping others learn.
Pearl Fryar, one of South Carolina’s treasures, owns a gorgeous topiary garden he makes free to the public. He’s a popular speaker and frequently provides demonstrations of his work to community organizations. Taking up a pair of electric clippers, he goes to work on a plant, just talking through what he’s doing as he goes: “This is how I do that.” Likewise, there are thousands of YouTube videos on everything from “Here’s How I Built That Deck” to “How I Use PowerPoint to Create Custom Art” to “How I play ‘Stairway to Heaven’ on a Guitar.” This can be enormously helpful to the practitioner trying to learn, especially one who’s a bit past the basics and just wants to see someone else’s practice. Want to know more about Pearl Fryar and his work? He’s the subject of the indie film documentary A Man Named Pearl.
DOCTORS IN SURGERY WEARING GOOGLE GLASS
Lucien Engelen of ReShape Glass describes initial experiments in having surgeons wear Google Glass while performing operations. Rather than duplicate existing medical video technologies, he found that Glass (which can be broadcast live as well as be recorded for later viewing) gave observers a better first-person view of the work. Unlike technology that allowed for fixed-camera or over-the-shoulder views, Google Glass allows students to look through the surgeon’s eyes.
DETAILED BRANCHING E-LEARNING SCENARIO
Graphic artist and instructional designer Kevin Thorn’s award-winning online course “Mission: Turfgrass” takes the learner on a journey more sophisticated than the usual read-click-read-click.
As learners complete the “mission” objectives they accumulate items in a rucksack.
Building this requires careful hyperlinking between the slides (learner achieves objective 1, item goes into rucksack, learner begins objective 2... learner skips to objective 4...). To illustrate how this was built, Thorn offers this schematic.
COOKIES BECOME A BUSINESS
Here’s a true story of the payoffs of showing work, adapted from an article that first appeared in Learning Solutions Magazine. Gloria Mercer, a retired elementary school art teacher, needed surgery on her dominant hand in October 2011 and was told she’d have to find a way to rebuild her strength and dexterity. Thinking, “You should mix something fun with something you need to do, right?” she decided to teach herself to create elaborately decorated bakery-style cookies. Gloria started with YouTube videos, many provided by bloggers whose work she then followed. A lot of her learning was through practice and trial-and-error. And along the way she decided to share her project with her Facebook friends, mostly because she investing so much time in it and was learning so much from others who were showing their work. Many of her photos included comments about what she was learning, and how.
As Gloria became familiar with the videos and blogs, she developed a growing awareness of an existing active community of people with similar interests. She began engaging with some of the bloggers, asking questions and sharing her own answers. Gloria’s daughter Marlo and Gloria’s friend Whitney, seeing Gloria’s creations on Facebook, decided they wanted to learn, too. Soon they started sharing what they were learning; all were participating with the explicit mutual goal of getting better at their new craft (per Etienne Wenger, this is the very definition of a community of practice). As they worked they emerged as contributing members of a true community of practice, with production of artifacts (recipes, actual cookies, and pictures of them), a repertoire (libraries of cutters and techniques mastered, like cartoon characters and airbrushing, and a specialized vocabulary with meaning mostly for other cookie bakers). As they went along, their friends watched, encouraged, suggested cookie ideas, and commented. Eventually, Gloria began teaching others.
Now? Gloria continues to work on her technique, but cookies remain for her only a hobby. Marlo started and operates Coastline Cookies in Midlothian, VA, USA. Whitney started and operates Beach House Cookies in Virginia Beach, VA, USA.
January 3, 2012
January 10
January 13
January 18. Gloria says she still can’t make her hand and icing “do what she wants.” Gloria’s daughter Marlo, 125 miles away, joins in, as does Gloria’s friend Whitney. Gloria describes the need to “stop and stand back” when learning to decorate.
February 2012: Marlo and her husband Mike begin taking orders for cookies. Marlo obtains a business license and Coastline Cookies is born.
April 2012
May 2012: Spinoff learning: Marlo learns web design so she can launch and manage the Coastline Cookies site.
August 2012: Spinoff learning: Gloria moves on to learning about heat guns, quilting, and cookie photography.
There are so many lessons to be gleaned from this case: the social aspect of publishing your learning, getting feedback and encouragement from friends, and helping other friends as they learn; the fact that enthusiasm can be contagious; the willingness to share and not keep everything to yourself; the real ways that knowledge is “owned” and shared; the organic ways that networks grow.
And more to be learned here: that learning often spawns the desire for additional learning (like web design and photography); the futility of believing we can “capture” knowledge as discrete pieces of data in a spreadsheet; that “generations” has nothing to do with anything; the ways in which social technologies can accelerate learning and give it geographic reach; and the value of a community truly committed to improving practice.
This is social learning. This is informal learning. This is narrating our work.
“THIS IS WHAT I DO ALL DAY”: MÉDICINS SANS FRONTIÉRS/DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS
We make assumptions that we know what others do all day: “he’s just a pencil pusher,” “teachers spend all their time in front of a classroom,” “the Project Managers are always in meetings.” Finding out what colleagues actually do all day can go a long way toward breaking down silos, finding common ground, understanding another’s situation and context—thereby building better ideas for communicating and working together—and locating expertise across the organization or across disciplines.
Here’s an example of a “day in the life” from Médicins Sans Frontiérs (MSF)/Doctors Without Borders: “Follow us today as Canadian Doctor Anne Marie Pegg updates a day in the life of a humanitarian aid worker on International Women’s Day.” The organization posted on both their Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/msf.english and via Twitter. Here are some Tweets from that day, captured in Storify http://storify.com/MSF_Canada/a-day-in-the-life-of-anne-marie-pegg-msf-doctor-in
Médicins Sans Frontiéres/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) is an international, independent, medical humanitarian organization that delivers emergency aid to people affected by armed conflict, epidemics, exclusion from healthcare, and natural disasters in more than seventy countries. To learn more visit www.msf.org.
“THIS IS HOW I SPENT THIS DAY”: DESIGNING A MOBILE APP
Designer Kevin Thorn was offering a workshop on building a simple performance support reference tool to use on a mobile device. He took photos throughout the day and posted them to a Facebook group of designer friends to show us both the steps in building the actual product and how he taught it. Participants moved from brainstorming ideas, to using index cards to lay out a storyboard of their idea, to wireframing (sketching out how it will look/work to the user), building a prototype, and publishing it online to be accessed on a device. As Kevin was posting photos in real-time, those watching could offer suggestions and ask questions as well.
“THIS IS WHAT I DO”: THE CONSULTANT
Consultant Steve Woodruff (Clarity Therapist: http://www.stevewoodruff.com/) shares notes from a breakfast meeting at which he helps a client find focus for a job search based on her past roles.
“THIS IS HOW I DECIDED”: VISUAL DESIGN CHOICES
Kathy Sierra (aka Seriouspony) reminds us that interviewing experts is often pointless as they really don’t know how they made a decision. Finding the few who can, and watching how through reflection and articulation they can share that, might help.
37 Signals designer Mig Reyes talks about the importance of choosing the right font to support your message.
“THIS IS WHAT I DID TODAY”: ATTENDING A CONFERENCE
Craig Taylor traveled from England to attend the DevLearn conference in Las Vegas. At the end of each day he offered recaps of the sessions he’d attended, along with key takeaways, to share with colleagues back at home. At the time this screenshot was taken, more than seventy people had viewed it.
“THIS IS WHAT I LEARNED TODAY”: ATTENDING A WEBINAR
Heidi Matthews tweeted her takeaway from a webinar session, sharing her notes with the public and with the facilitator.
“THIS IS HOW I LEARNED THAT”: HOW I TAUGHT MYSELF...
Startup ZenCap’s founder David Sinsky regularly blogs about what he’s working on. The following blog post gives an overview of a self-directed learning project and ends with a short recruitment pitch.
Author’s Note: It goes without saying that there’s a huge difference between the relatively cursory amount of knowledge needed to build a simple prototype (the focus of this post) and the depth of knowledge and experience needed to be a truly qualified software engineer. If you want to learn all that it takes to build modern web applications at scale, getting professional web development experience at a fast-growing startup like Yipit is a great next step. If you’re smart, hard-working, and passionate about creating amazing consumer web experiences drop us a line at [email protected]—we’re always looking for great people to join our team.
“THIS IS WHY I LEARNED THAT”: NEW EMPLOYEE ONBOARDING
New Hires at Aspen Dental are required to post to the class blog, explaining not just what they are doing but what they are learning and how that learning fits into the bigger organizational picture. This can be enormously helpful to the new hire who doesn’t always understand why a process or practice exists, or the importance of following it.
Used with permission from Aspen Dental Management, Inc.
“THIS IS HOW I LEARNED THAT”: USING NEW WEB TOOLS
Terry Brock learned to publish to blog from iPad by creating a video talking about how he ... published to blog from iPad. From http://terrybrock.com.
“THIS IS HOW A GOVERNMENT AGENCY SHOWS ITS WORK”: THE UK MINISTRY OF JUSTICE DIGITAL SERVICES BLOG
In an age when government seeks to be more transparent to its taxpaying public, the UK Ministry of Justice’s Digital Services offers a refreshing, frequently updated blog featuring real people enacting real work, free of bureaucratese and the usual obfuscation. The blog includes the services’ live Twitter feed offering shorter, more frequent updates. It is very explicit: “This is what this government agency does. This is who does it. This is what it involves. This is what is accomplishes. This is where your money is going.”
While work in progress is often interesting, sometimes it makes sense to show work after the fact. Many people already do this by publishing completed presentations to sites like SlideShare or storing them on shared internal spaces.
As part of the annual DevLearn Conference, the eLearning Guild hosts “Demofest,” at which learning experience designers are invited to showcase their best work. While there is a competition/award ceremony/prize component, the dozens of entrants value the recognition for their work (which often trickles back to the company) and enjoy discussing it with their peers. Attendees rave about the value of seeing what others have done, with a chance to talk with them about how they did it.
DevLearn DemoFest photo courtesy eLearning Guild.
“THIS IS WHAT I DID”: HOW I SOLVED A PROBLEM
Steve Hopkins blogged about how he solved a problem by taking it to a Yammer community.
“THIS IS WHAT I DID, AND WHY”: BRUNO WINCK AND UX DESIGN
Bruno Winck is working to create a better experience for users accessing his company’s site from their smart phones.
“THIS IS HOW THE COLLABORATIVE PROJECT LOOKS”: A LARGE ALUMINUM MANUFACTURER ENGAGES IN NARRATING WORK. BRIAN TULLIS AND JOE CRUMPLER OFFER AN EXAMPLE IN ONE OF THEIR PRESENTATIONS.
Where once upon a time online portfolios were the purview of those with web design skills—or the money to pay for that—new tools make it much easier to create and make public a record of one’s skills and accomplishments. Here is an online portfolio from Marianne Abreu, currently a product designer for Samsung.
Amy Potts went with a different approach to résumé preparation that offers a snapshot of her interests and her work—and her personality.
“HERE’S SOMETHING FROM MY WORK I THINK MIGHT BE USEFUL TO OTHERS”: DAVID BYRNE
In his 2012 book How Music Works musician David Byrne, famous for his work with Talking Heads and more, offers extensive down-to-the-penny detail about his Grown Back Wards album, from the risks to the advance to royalties to costs of production, distribution and advertising, down to the amount he pocketed from his work (shockingly little, as it turns out). Why did he offer such an unusual level of self-disclosure? He says:
“I also thought that by being transparent and using my own experience as an example, I could let other musicians see what their options are—and how their decisions might pan out.”
∼David Byrne
“WHAT ARE YOU WORKING ON RIGHT THIS SECOND?”: SNAPSHOTS OF WORKING DAYS
Capturing a snapshot from someone’s day—a moment in the trenches—can be illuminating in understanding what people do, who they interact with, and can open the door to opportunity to help or get help.
Employees of Yammer use their own product to “work out loud” as an everyday activity. Yammer’s manager of Learning & Development for Yammer Education Services at Microsoft, Allison Michels, regularly asks her team via Yammer, “What are you working on right this second?” Everyone gets a quick snapshot of work in progress, skills being used, problems encountered, and issues at hand. This helps to capture real work in the real moment, not just highlights mentioned at meetings or, as with many workplaces, as lists of activities buried in reports few will see. It also provides a good time to ask for help, which in turn supports a culture of collaboration and sharing. Every now and again the question changes to: “What are three things that have gone really well lately? What are three things that haven’t?” This, again, surfaces information often of use to others about how work gets done, not just what is done (“I had the same problem with that vendor”; “I learned that if you call Linda by noon on Thursdays she can usually get a purchase order done the same day. She’s slammed on Fridays with her accounting stuff, though”). This builds trust, and openness, and ultimately supports productivity and morale.
“SHOWING WORKFLOW”: 2 APPROACHES TO ORGANIZING A CONFERENCE
Many professionals work with event planning meetings and events, some with more success and less panic than others. It’s easy to drop a ball when juggling so many. The eLearning Guild and Training Magazine both offer several live events a year, with thousands of attendees. Planners must juggle event sites, hotel reservations, complex multiday schedules with dozens of speakers in dozens of slots and dozens of rooms, complicated by presentation equipment needs of each presenter. And snacks. And lunch. And a trade show expo floor. And handouts. And much more. Planning for these events begins literally years ahead with venue and hotel reservations and picks up momentum about a year before the actual event. Seeing how people handle this can be helpful to those facing a large task like this.
Training Magazine’s Julie Groshens uses conference-planning software.
Meanwhile, David Kelly of the eLearning Guild works from a detailed calendar built from sheets of chart paper and Post-it Notes:
Like David, it turns out many people, even heavy users of technology, still often turn to paper and Post-its for planning tasks, a somewhat surprising finding in researching this book.
“SHOWING WORKFLOW”: STORYBOARDING MY THESIS
Linda Kirkman, after reading about an author who storyboarded her thesis by laying out visual representations of chapters and ideas on paper, decided to try the same approach with her graduate thesis. She found outlining it with Post-its a useful approach and said talking it aloud to her cat helped her articulate her thoughts. The piece that inspired Kirkman was in turn a reflection on reading about an author who storyboarded novels.
“SHOWING WORKFLOW”: SKETCHNOTING TO SHOW ... SKETCHNOTING
An example we’ve seen earlier is sketchnoter Sacha Chua.
It seems only fitting to close the examples of “This Is How I Do That” by sharing the ways in which two authors approach planning a book.
“SHOWING WORKFLOW”: TWO APPROACHES TO PLANNING A BOOK
Nancy Duarte, author of the highly visual books Resonate and Slide: Ology, builds the first draft of her books in PowerPoint.
“SHOWING WORKFLOW”: BOOK LAYOUT
Author Jane Bozarth, meantime, gathers ideas first in Evernote, then prints off bits and pictures and big ideas, organizing them on the wall with notes on color-coded Post-its. This helps her see how the items will fall into big buckets of ideas, while being able to move items around lets her try different ways of organizing the content.
The point of all the rapid-fire examples here is not just to show what people share. Or how. Or when. It’s that it can be done in so, so many different ways, using so many different tools. Formal. Informal. Professionally reviewed. Freehand. Every item here is of value to someone else. Finding ways to make showing our work part of our daily workflow is a challenge worth meeting.
