Nuts and Bolts: We Need New Words

We need new words.

1. A word for group try-out-and-learn activity?

Over the years I have done a lot of work with InSyncTraining, good folks who specialize in teaching good practice in designing anddelivering for the virtual classroom (WebEx, Adobe Connect, etc.) For years,troubleshooting these products with users came down to little more than “Areyou on a PC or a Mac?”  But the gamechanged when the vendors started rolling out mobile apps.

Recognizing that our learner base was going to need helpwith this, and that we couldn’t possibly do all the experimenting by ourselves,InSync owner Jennifer Hofmann and I set up an hour-long app-testing-session.The plan: We’d try WebEx for the first half hour and Adobe Connect for the nexthalf hour, with anyone who cared to join us. 

We would give links to people so they could join eachsession; prior to joining the session they could download the product’s app (ifthey didn’t already have it) to whatever device they wanted to use.  We posted the following invitation via ourcommunity Facebook group:

“Hello everyone. As so many folks now have iPads,smartphones, and other devices, several of us wanted to try out the mobile appsfor a couple of popular virtual classroom tools. We’re just getting together totry them out and see how they work—there’s no presentation or instruction,and we can offer no troubleshooting or advice.  We’relearning, too.”

It turned out that there’s no word for this. We really don’t haveanything that means: “Let’s all get together and learn something.” So to emphasizethe uncertainty and lack of structure we called it a “web conferencing rodeo.”

It also turned out that many people can’t conceptualize the idea oflearning something if it isn’t presented in a traditional form. Peoplecontacted us to say they “were sorry they would miss the class” and “I amlooking forward to the training,” even though we were very clear that there wasno instruction or formality other than the time and the tool.

We learned a lot, by the way, the way most learning happens: assomething a bit messy and chaotic. While all the apps were (to our surprise)very stable, we learned how the products displayed differently on different devices.People took screenshots and uploaded them to the Facebook group with “This ishow it looks on my Droid,” “Here’s what I see on my iPad.” So apart from “Areyou on a PC or a Mac?” we realized going forward that those of us in the bizalso needed to ask: “Which device are you on, and which version of the app didyou download?” And really: How much more could be learned if more leaders werewilling to say, “We’re learning, too”?

So: We need a new word. Maybe one of the reasons social learning isgenerally so opaque in organizations is that we don’t quite know what to callit. I’m thinking management won’t go for “rodeo.”

2. A name for activities that improve performance when peoplealready know how to do the necessary thing

Last month in Nuts & Bolts I wrote about the importance of the instructional designer who’s charged with creating a course todesign the assessment before moving on to develop content. My buddy Jane Hart sent a note: “And remember you may not need a course at all.” 

She’s right, of course. While the focus of my column took “develop a course” as a given in that situation, I see plenty of instanceswhere the stated performance outcome does not require any sort of instructionat all. People often just need to be able to find something: a job aid, adocument that outlines the details, or the person in the building who did itbefore. Or they need practice at assembling the widget or creating theanimation or drawing the cow. Or they don’t need anything at all: Someonesomewhere decided people need “training” when they’re already performing justfine. (I know … I know…)

So we have instructional designers whose job is defined ascreating “courses,” which is of course exactly what they will do. Can’t blamethem.

We need a new word for what we do in these situations. Ormaybe, like this very publication, we need to start using the word “solution”instead of words like “training” or “module” or “course” or even “experience.”Because once we use those words, the fence is already up around the answer.

3. A name for “just sharing, not teaching”

Since grad school I’ve been interested in better ways ofsharing tacit knowledge, and ever since I published “Narrating Our Work” here last August I’ve been increasingly curious about using newtechnologies for it. I’ve always been a writer, but I thought I’d try my hand at some other approaches.

After finishing a recent work project, I figured I’d justput on a headset and make a YouTube video of myself talking through some slidesabout the challenge and what I did with it. The video runs long, I missed mentioninga big point about the final product, and I keep thinking I need to redo it, butthat flies in the face of my insistence that narrating work is “fast and easy”to do. (If you’re interested, the video is at https://youtu.be/48Al6OR9U00). I sent itaround to a few friends first and asked what they thought. One in particularhad a very hard time understanding that it was not “instruction”—“What’s yourobjective? What do you mean for the learner to take away? What performance areyou after?” Well … I’m not. I didn’t have any “learners” in mind, but hopeviewers find something useful about working with SMEs or dealing with drycontent, or see an introduction to behaviorist and constructivist models ofdesigning instruction. But I’m just sharing, not explicitly teaching.

So: Maybe we need a new word for that, too. “Narrating work”and “working out loud” are clear enough to me, but maybe not to others.

Any suggestions? Any other new words needed?

We need new words. And not buzzy ones! We have plenty ofthose already.