My Learning Blog

At work, I like to take time to think, reflect, and then respond to an issue. In urgent situations, my focus just gets sharper but I still manage to carve time for reflection. I have always believed quick hasty responses impact efficiency as they  lead to communication overheads either now or later. However, these days I have been wondering if this strategy is dated.  I find that while I am trying to articulate different aspects of an impending project issue, another colleague will sometimes race ahead with a quick (often half-baked) response (mostly including a senior to the communication). Sometimes, reporting managers expect one-minute responses. In my current project, I often receive comments, feedback, and suggestions from the Wikipedia volunteers. I find 60 minutes too long a response time for these interactions. By that time, the discussion sometimes gets more complex because of incorrect assumptions and misinformation shared by others on a public forum. ...

Content collection, draft, stakeholder review Contact the sources/SME who will help you define the key talking points Create the structure aligned to similar deliverables already created Create your first draft Validate the talking points and the draft with the key stakeholder for text content Clean up the content with the new data from volunteers and the stakeholder review Send the wikipage to the copyeditor for the first review  Note: Although, I prefer the industry standard of one copyediting cycle per product,  for the Bookshelf project I added two copyediting reviews because I had concerns around quality of the final product. Here are the reasons for that concern: 1.In the Wikipedia/Wikimedia world, everyone is encouraged to access the page and edit content to help improve the article. 2. The project team, including the writers and copyeditor are geographically distributed or working in a remote setting. 3. English is a second language for a couple of writers a...

In my current role as the Project Manager, Bookshelf (Wikimedia Foundation), we use wikis (obviously!) for project management, content development, and testing. As we charged ahead with the first deliverable , I found myself struggling to define a project process that included the Wikipedia community (particularly in content development) and manage risks associated with everyone editing the same content with the need to control the overall product quality and minimize communication overheads between teams.  Here is the summary of the overall project process that I created and currently use (think funnel): Step 1: Content collection, where everyone is welcome to edit, contribute, and help us define the content elements for that deliverable. The project team needs your perspective and knowledge (and access to information sources) Step 2: Structure and initial drafts, where the page is edited by the copyeditor, writer, and the key stakeholders. Everyone is welcome to...

Check out how Wikimedia Foundation used gaming techniques for fund raising . This technique can so easily be extended to make learning fun and encourage students to complete their learning path for a particular competency.

I created the job aid as part of my job application with one of the Fortune 10 companies. Check it out here .  This was one of the steps in the selection process. I moved to the next level. I must say, I am quite proud of this job aid because I think it creatively blends various management and leadership theories to create a useful tool for the managers. This is four days of stimulating work. I loved it! I even worked through my birthday for this document.  I did not get the job though. I lost my nerve during my interview with the hiring manager's manager. The sixth and the final round of selection. I guess I tried too hard and balanced too many things that day for a 15 minute call. I honestly believe the decision was unfair, but then who's listening?

Last month, I read with deep interest Time cover story on How Twitter Will Change the Way We Live. In an example, the writer described how twitter's platform lent itself successfully for an open conversation during a conference. This got me thinking how twitter can be used for learning. Here are some raw ideas at a tactical level: Reminders to complete preassessments. The tweet should have link to the preassessment/prework. It does not matter if the link is behind the firewall. Only authorized users in your organization/clients will be able to access the link. Reminders to complete evaluation questionnaire. Again, the tweet has the survey url. Tip/tool/shortcut of the day. At a strategic level, twitter can be used to create web2.0 learning, in real terms Attendees define the course content L&D* creates twitter space for a particular learning program with access restricted to learners Instructor sends a welcome tweet with a wiki** link to a draft course content T...