Sun Microsystems, Mentoring, and Communities of Learning

It isn’t often that a report emanating from a global corporation offers small libraries and nonprofit organizations some much needed guidance and inspiration, but Sun Microsystems has accomplished exactly that with its “Sun Mentoring: 1996-2009,” by Katy Dickinson, Tanya Jankot, and Helen Gracon.

“Sun Mentoring” is both a report and a user’s handbook for anyone interested in designing and implementing a mentoring program, and it doesn’t much matter that the project is enormous, having matched more than 7,000 mentors and protégés worldwide between 1996 and 2009. Smaller organizations looking to create a program with much smaller numbers of participants will benefit from the details contained within the report. It covers topics including formal vs. informal mentoring, mentor selection systems, matching mentors and protégés, best practices for mentors, and mentoring in good times as well as bad times.

What is striking here for anyone who reads between the lines is that what works in that enormous global program can just as easily be replicated in settings with fewer resources since the principles remain constant regardless of the size of the organization being served. And the principles are equally adaptable. At Sun, for example, “people usually join a mentoring program because they are curious and want to learn, or are ambitious and motivated to improve their career, or are stuck personally or professionally and want to find a new way to proceed,” the writers note on the first page of the introduction to the report. That summary doesn’t sound much different from what we see among our library and nonprofit colleagues. The Sun program, furthermore, benefits tremendously from careful matching of mentors and protégés, from having well defined goals and objectives, and from engaging people who genuinely want to learn from each other; none of these elements are beyond the capabilities of even the smallest organizations.

When we look at all the components which coalesce to create successful mentoring programs, we begin to realize that they parallel the components of a successful workplace learning and performance program. They start with individuals, grow to meet increasing needs, and contribute to the development of a community of learners with far-reaching impacts for individuals, organizations, and the customers they serve. And for those who want to know that the effort produces results, the Sun authors conclude (in section 11 of the report) that mentoring “returns good value for the time and money it takes. ROI (return on investment) on mentoring can be 1,000% or better and grows as the program matures.” Who could ask for more?

Those interested in learning more about how to organize a successful mentoring program within a library or nonprofit organization will find plenty of guidance in “Mentors and Protégés: Creating Successful Workplace Programs,” the new online, self-paced course I’ve written for the LE@D (Lifelong Education @ Desktop) project through the University of North Texas.

Working With and For Each Other

Reading Huntsville-Madison County Public Library Staff Training and Development Coordinator Marianne Lenox’s wonderfully concise summary of learning theory and resources in a single posting on the American Library Association (ALA) Learning Round Table blog reminded me once again how close our cherished resources are these days.

Participating in web conferencing sessions through Maurice Coleman’s T Is For Training biweekly sessions, engaging in online chats and conducting interviews via Google Chat, and reading and responding to postings on individual and group blogs or LinkedIn discussion groups for trainer-teacher-learners means that we’re never far from Lenox and others who can help us in our training-teaching-learning endeavors.

What starts online can lead to treasures previously unimagined. Join the T Is For Training participants as they discuss challenges they are facing and resolving and you soon find yourself using and contributing to the links to training materials they are continuing to create on Delicious. Explore the links to individual and group blogs listed on the left-hand side of the T Is For Training page and soon you find yourself relishing Library Garden articles such as Peter Bromberg’s piece on “How to Ignite Your Passion” or John LeMasney’s “5 Great Tools and Techniques for Developing Presentations,” or discovering Jill Hurst-Wahl’s  “Assessing User Needs” article and following links to other resources. Respond to a posting by Lori Reed or Sarah Houghton-Jan and you are quickly on your way to being part of a community of learners that leaves you feeling less isolated than you otherwise might be.

The key remains engagement. Participating even at a rudimentary level in the various online activities available through these resources, the American Society for Training & Development (ASTD), and other groups and organizations supportive of face-to-face and online learning soon leads to contacts which are only an e-mail, a Skype exchange, or a phone call away. And that’s the real pleasure and benefit of the brief moments we give to these exchanges: they remind us of how much we gain while working with and for each other.

N.B.: For more on working with and for each other, please read the companion piece on the ALA Learning blog.

Training, Planning, and Collaborating to Build the Future

Emerging from an intense period of preparing for presentations at the American Library Association (ALA) 2009 Conference in Chicago this summer and the American Society for Training & Development Chapter Leader Conference to be held in Arlington at the end of this month (along with many other projects),  I’ve just rejoined my colleagues writing for the ALA Learning Round Table blog.

What has drawn me back to blogging is a desire to document the magnificent results coming from trainers’ collaborations. A key to our continuing successes in providing first-rate training opportunities through workshops, conferences, and other endeavors is that workplace learning and performance professionals seem to thrive on a fine combination of defining roles and remaining willing to step in as needed whenever time allows.

To see this process in action, you can read the entire piece at the ALA Learning blog, then continue on the same site to see what other trainers are producing.

The Spirit of Volunteerism (3rd of 3): David Moebs

 

Having spent time recently writing about Sarah Houghton-Jan and Lori Reed, two trainer-teacher-learners who embody the true spirit of volunteerism in all they do, I’m turning toward another friend whose volunteer efforts in the world of nonprofit organizations provide a timeless example of how those facing tremendous challenges sometimes keep the rest of us inspired.

David Moebs has touched and changed a lot of lives through his commitment to the arts. A professional clarinetist and teacher working with children through the San Francisco Conservatory of Music Preparatory Department, he attracted significant numbers of undergraduate- and graduate-level students to the school while also employed in its admissions office, and his efforts on behalf of his fellow musicians in the Sacramento Symphony until the organization folded in 1996 gave him a level of credibility others might not have achieved.

Like Sarah and Lori, he accomplished much of this after learning that he was facing severe physical challenges: he was diagnosed as being HIV-positive in 1985.  During the initial years after he received that diagnosis, this wonderful educator volunteered for clinical tests designed to find ways to lessen or eradicate the effects of AIDS. He maintained his position as a Conservatory employee, a Prep Department instructor, and member of the Sacramento Symphony. And he continued, with whatever free time he had, to work on behalf of those he cared about by volunteering to serve on the Symphony musician union’s negotiating team during extremely stressful discussions even though he understood that the effects of that stress might have devastating effects on his health.

Remembering some of the difficulties he had as a young gay man in a less than accepting environment, he looked for ways to help others in a similar situation better cope with the challenges they faced. Wanting to use his knowledge of and passion for the arts in those endeavors, he enrolled in a creative writing course and considered adding coursework to his already busy schedule so he could earn a counseling degree which would qualify him to work with gay teens who needed all the support they could find.

When David’s health took a drastic and potentially fatal turn for the worse with a diagnosis of Progressive Multifocal Leukoencephalopathy—PML—most of us assumed he was finally out of time. As PML rapidly progressed over a two-month period by consuming significant levels of the myelin sheath around his nerves, his ability to play clarinet rapidly disappeared. Along with his ability to move and talk and maintain his independence. But his sense of humor during that awful period of time never failed; as a few of us were watching television together one evening and sat through a commercial citing the symptoms of diabetes—all of which matched parts of what he was experiencing—he looked at us, smiled, and struggled to say, “Oh, thank God; I thought I had PML.”

The rapid decline appeared to reverse itself on Thanksgiving morning that year; without warning or explanation, he was able to get out of his bed, walk around a little, and eventually join us for a Thanksgiving meal. Over the next few months, he began feeling well enough to attempt to play the clarinet again. He took steps to register for those counseling courses he had been hoping to complete. And he even began driving short distances again.

But at the end of what appeared to be an entire year of recovery, the effects of PML became apparent once again, and within a few months he was no longer able to remain at home even with the around-the-clock care friends and professional nursing staff were struggling to provide. So in May 1998, he moved into Coming Home Hospice, in San Francisco’s Castro District. As he drifted in and out of consciousness, his friends would sometimes see him reach into the air and flutter his fingers.

“Was he a musician?” one of the hospice attendants asked. “It looks like he’s trying to play an instrument.”

We gladly volunteered to hold his hands and rub his back long after he stopped giving any sign that he knew we were there. His eyes stared blankly up toward one of the corners of the ceiling.

“We call it ‘watching the angels,” a hospice worker told us. “It’s very common when the end is near.”

I read him passages from his favorite books even though there were no visible responses, and I didn’t care whether he was trying to communicate with me or was simply displaying reflex actions when I felt his hand squeeze mine a couple of times.

And when he passed away, exactly eleven years ago, I knew I’d lost an irreplaceable friend. Who continues to inspire me to watch for the angels in my life. And to volunteer in every way I can to carry on the spirit they embody.

–In memory of David, January 27, 1959 – June 6, 1998

The Spirit of Volunteerism (2nd of 3): Lori Reed

 

In writing about Librarian in Black Sarah Houghton-Jan and her decision to volunteer personal information about herself in the hope that it would make a positive difference for others, I was struck by the spirit of volunteerism which seems almost genetically imbedded into the trainer-teacher-learners I know.

There’s a willingness among them take risks; reveal personal details which contribute something meaningful to other learners; and ungrudgingly volunteer time and effort to support an incredibly large and significant number of projects, endeavors, and causes which make their—our—onsite and online communities better places than they otherwise would be.

Reading Sarah’s revelations about the health challenges she and others with Ehlers-Danlos-Syndrome face and knowing that she will do whatever she can to help others, I immediately thought of another friend-colleague-associate who is an equally committed trainer-teacher-learner with an incredible penchant for volunteerism: Lori Reed, the Employee Learning & Development Coordinator for the Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County, a blogger whose work is highly admired and frequently read, and a volunteer who is active in the American Library Association’s training group (CLENE—soon to become LEARNING) and the American Society for Training & Development.

And, like Sarah, she faces challenges—in Lori’s case, a diagnosis of “a form of muscular dystrophy called charcot-marie-tooth disease,” which she disclosed in a blog posting in October 2008.

Neither Sarah nor Lori have spent much time talking about their conditions; each chose to make those revelations in one-time postings to help others learn something important. And then they have moved on.  Because they are far too busy volunteering and being paid to make significant contributions to libraries and those who use them. To training-teaching-learning. And many other causes to which they give themselves heart and mind and soul.

Lori, for example, currently serves as Co-VP of Membership on the board of directors for the ASTD Charlotte Chapter. She also frequently volunteers to speak at more conferences than most of us will attend in a lifetime; is a frequent presenter on webcasts and webinars; writes for publication; and maintains her Library Trainer blog and LibraryLearning Google group which provide our community of learners with additional virtual meeting places to exchange ideas and become better at what we do.

If you’re at all interested or active in training, teaching, and learning—particularly in libraries—you’re going to find Lori and Sarah at the center of the world where workplace learning and performance professionals meet. And, in the spirit of volunteerism which each so clearly and effectively displays, Lori and Sarah won’t be there as self-aggrandizing rock stars, but as passionate movers and shakers, as Library Journal acknowledged this year. Through words and deeds, they help keep the rest of us alive. Awake. And inspired.

Next: The Spirit of Volunteerism—The One Who Got Away

The Spirit of Volunteerism (1st of 3): Sarah Houghton-Jan

 

Sarah Houghton-Jan, our wonderful Librarian in Black, has volunteered a teaching-training-learning moment so breathtakingly profound that it begs to be acknowledged before the largest possible audience.

Some of our colleagues continue to try teaching and training by the old fire-hose method: shoot a stream of lessons so strong, so relentlessly forceful, that they leave learners soaked, nearly drowning in information—an educational version of waterboarding that leaves no one unscathed. 

Sarah, on the other hand, draws us in and serves as an open and engaging partner in a teaching-training-learning process where all of us are partners, members of a community of learning. Hearing her, reading what she writes, and talking with her always brings us unexpected pleasure. When Sarah, for example, wrote a wonderfully detailed article on “Being Wired or Being Tired: 10 Ways to Cope with Information Overload” (published online in the July 2008 issue of Ariadne), she inspired many of us to carve out time we didn’t have to read the piece. And think. And breathe. The only reader who may not have benefitted from the writer’s wisdom was Sarah herself, as I noted in an article originally posted on Infoblog and reposted here on Building Creative Bridges for those who missed the original; the result of her posting was an increased number of requests from people wanting her to speak on the topic she had just covered in writing. Requests which she accepted, of course. 

Those of us who follow her work see her as an engaging and prolific writer-trainer-consultant who appears inexhaustible and completely dedicated to improving everything she touches. That would be one of the many reasons why she was honored this year by Library Journal as a mover and shaker. 

But perhaps nothing will move and shake her readers more than the article she recently posted to make everyone aware of Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome and what it means to her and others who have it. Don’t go looking for a single word of self-pity here; that’s not what Sarah offers us, nor is it something to which she willingly succumbs. What she has voluntarily offered is free entry into the challenging world she and others among us inhabit. 

And it works.

A topic which would hold little interest for most of us suddenly becomes compelling. Understandable. And real. Because of Sarah’s writing skills. Her personality—all that makes her the person she has become. Her humanity. And her decision to share personal and painful information in the least painful of ways

In case it isn’t absolutely clear from all I’ve written here, let me be blunt: I love volunteers and the spirit of volunteerism. I work with volunteers and am an active volunteer myself. So when I see the sort of volunteerism that Sarah displays through the posting of her article, I stand in awe of all she does and all she represents. And hope that by taking the time to call additional attention to what she is teaching us, you will too.

Next: The Spirit of Volunteerism–Lori Reed

Best Practices: Sarah Houghton-Jan on “Being Wired or Being Tired”

 

Infopeople instructor and Librarian in Black Sarah Houghton-Jan has hit another home run, and it would take someone like Sarah to pull this off.

In “Being Wired or Being Tired: 10 Ways to Cope with Information Overload” (published online in the July 2008 issue of Ariadne), she produces a journal-length article of more than 6,000 words for those of us who don’t have enough time to do everything we want to do. The piece ends with 16 references for those wanting more information. And she manages to entice us into making the time to read the entire piece.

“I am still here, I am still alive, and my brain has yet to explode, so somehow I must be finding a way to make it work,” she writes at the beginning of the article, and we’re with her all the way from her brief history of information overload, through the techniques for managing overload, to her conclusion that “as information professionals, we are best equipped to recognize information overload and deal with its effects.”

There is lots of common sense here: filtering the information we receive; controlling rather than being controlled by incoming email; not feeling compelled to answer every phone call or instant message as it comes in; and having no hesitation about turning off a cell phone when interruptions will interfere with our ability to complete important tasks or be attentive during meetings.

We also find some uncommon yet easy-to-implement suggestions here for those of us congenitally afraid of cutting ourselves off from any information source: “Cancel subscriptions to periodicals you rarely read. If you do not get to read the Sunday paper until the following Saturday, that is a clear sign that you need less information,” she counsels in a section on print media overload techniques.

Nearing the end of the article, she takes us to the heart of the matter in a paragraph on balancing life and work: “If you find yourself tapping at a keyboard next to your partner on the sofa while you are watching a movie, instead of sidling up next to him or her, you may have a work/life balance problem…”

“Being Wired” is obviously resonating with readers: Sarah is receiving quite a few queries from those interested in having her speak to their groups on the topic. Which, we can only assume, is adding to her own overload while she is helping us reduce our own.

This item was originally posted on September 26,  2008 on Infoblog at http://infoblog.infopeople.org.

Leading and Training by Living: The Goldman Environmental Prize Winners (2009)

 

Library directors and managers, colleagues have been assuring me recently, play a critical role in the success or failure of workplace learning and performance programs in the organizations they oversee. It goes beyond supporting and approving budgets: if they show an advocate’s interest in what is happening through training programs, check with their colleagues and their staff to see what effect those programs are having, and actually participate in learning opportunities offered within their organizations, they are setting a standard which encourages effective learning and the development of communities of learners.

It was no surprise to me, then, that these comments came to mind repeatedly when I was lucky enough to attend the awards ceremony for the 2009 Goldman Environmental Prize recipients here in San Francisco last night. The awards honor people who, by the act of living and acting on their beliefs in spite of significant challenges, time constraints, and, occasionally, threats of incarceration and death, train the rest of us to believe that we, too, can make a difference.

The usual high profile environmental activists were there: Al Gore and Robert Redford provided opening comments which (globally) warmed up the crowd and reminded all of us that we have a role to play. Singer-songwriter Tracy Chapman provided entertainment by singing one of her own songs (“Talkin’ Bout A Revolution”) and doing a cover of Joni Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi”—“Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.”

But the real stars and trainers were those being honored, including Maria Gunnoe. From her home in the heart of Appalachia, in West Virginia, she stood up against the removal of mountaintops to expedite coal mining because the byproducts of that process are creating toxic wastes which are destroying the area where her family has lived for more than a century. Although neighbors were afraid to testify, she did, and a court ruling halted one particularly damaging mountaintop removal project which was affecting her property. The joy all of us in the audience felt as she accepted her award was tempered by the image of the tall cyclone fence which was constructed around her house and the news that she needed  around-the-clock security protection to counter the threats she was receiving while she carried on her fight.

Then there were Wanze Eduards and Hugo Jabini, who successfully organized entire communities in the Saramaka lands in Suriname (within the Amazonian forests) to halt destructive logging. And Yuyun Ismawati, who helped implement community-based safe and sustainable waste management programs in Indonesian communities through her organization, Bali Fokus. And Olga Speranskaya, a Russian scientist whose community-based efforts have become a model worldwide for efforts to encourage the clean-up of toxic waste sites. And Syeda Rizwana Hasan, an environmental attorney in Bangladesh whose efforts successfully stopped toxin-laden ships from being allowed to be brought up on beaches in her country so the wrecks could be broken into scrap—a process called “ship breaking”—to be resold while the waste polluted the beaches. And, finally, Marc Ona Essangui, a wheelchair-using activist whose successful efforts to stop a massive government-approved mining project in Gabon’s Ivindo National Park (in west central Africa) led to his arrest and detention for several days earlier this year.

Each one of them received standing ovations from those of us who were there to hear their acceptance speeches. Hundreds of us joined them at a post-event reception in their honor to shake their hands and thank them for reminding us that significant effects begin with the efforts of individuals. And at least a few of us, in thinking about what we can do in our own lives to make a difference within the communities we serve, were reminded that some of the most effective training comes from those who live the lessons the rest of us still need to learn and follow.

This item was originally posted on April 23, 2009 on CE Buzz at http://cebuzz.wordpress.com/.

Michael Wesch, YouTube, and a Vision of Students Today

 

Less than a year ago, most of us would have asked “Michael who?” if someone mentioned Michael Wesch. That was before the Kansas State University Anthropology professor posted a short video, “The Machine Is Us/ing Us,” on YouTube in January 2007 and became one of 22 winners of the 2007 Wired magazine Rave Award a few months later for his exploration of how Web 2.0 is changing the way we see the world of information and ourselves.

The number of people who have watched the video has increased exponentially. It has now been viewed 3,610,519 times, so Wesch’s posting of two new pieces within the last week—including one on how students view the learning process, “A Vision of Students Today”—has already attracted over 140,000 viewers. More importantly, Wesch and his students in his Digital Ethnography project, are making us sit up and pay attention not only to what is happening in contemporary classrooms, but how students are discussing it: with an enchanting and poignant burst of creativity.

His work is a great example of everything that is right about Web 2.0: the use of shareware to quickly produce thought-provoking pieces which challenge us to reconsider much of what we know; the open sharing of what he and his students are producing; and an invitation to join them as they build a new community through the Digital Ethnography Working Group and its blog.

An interview with blogger John Battelle offers insight into how Wesch works and reveals that, for “The Machine is Us/ing Us,” it took “about 3 days to put the video together, but of course it took months of thinking and research.” The Digital Ethnography site at Kansas State University includes items such as his posting on October 18, 2007—a discussion of the immediate reaction to “A Vision of Students Today” and an accompanying piece on how we obtain and process information, “Information R/evolution.”

Then there is the work itself. It’s edgy. Emotional. Controversial. Captivating. And it inspires reactions, as evidenced by the more than 200 responses on the YouTube site and the growing number of posts on Digital Ethnography. Wesch, on that site, claims it “is currently the most blogged about video in the blogosphere,” and it’s not hard to see why. The students featured in the video tell us what—and how much—they read (books vs. websites), write (term papers vs. emails), and listen to; how much time they study every day; and how many hours they need per day to accomplish all they set out to do.

“Vision” is about far more than one group’s experiences in school: it makes all of us who are involved in training think about what we accomplish, how we accomplish it, and what we might be doing differently in a world where the time it takes for lessons learned to become obsolete diminishes year by year. (One student suggests that by the time she graduates, she will be accepting a job which doesn’t even exist at the time she is earning her degree.)

The good news for trainers and other educators is that there isn’t going to be a lack of work for us anytime soon. The even better news for those of who like to learn is that there’s no end in sight for that part of the process, either—particularly when we have people like Michael Wesch and his students around to teach us.

This item was originally posted on October 22, 2007 on Infoblog at http://infoblog.infopeople.org.

Training, the Intersection, Fear, and Success (4th of 4)

 

“I’m afraid” has to be one of the most common and dangerous phrases a teacher-trainer or student-learner can utter or hear. Fear leads to stress, stress shuts down the functioning of the neocortex, and learning becomes severely constrained or completely impossible.

Fear also severely limits creativity, as Frans Johansson writes in The Medici Effect: Breakthrough Insights at the Intersection of Ideas, Concepts, & Culture, and we all know what happens in a classroom or workshop setting when creativity is not present: the only thing keeping us awake is the sound of our colleagues snoring.

Johansson spends considerable time in The Medici Effect explaining that the best ideas and experiences to emerge from the Intersection, that meeting of people from different fields of study or walks of life, come from taking risks and overcoming fear of failure. He cites studies and examples which confirm what many of us already suspect: that success requires multiple attempts and the willingness to actually fail so that lessons can be learned from failures.
One payoff to decreasing the fear of failure, he suggests, is that as the sense of danger decreases—physical danger or the much less serious danger of looking bad because of failure—people take more risks and therefore increase their chances of achieving even more innovation and success. Which sounds to me like a perfect breeding ground for first-rate learning which helps us and our students contribute more in our workplace and the larger community in which we live.

If we try a risky lesson plan or technique which takes us into the Intersection with those whom we are teaching or training, we become more effective. We have and share that magnificent jolt which actually makes us crave even more Intersectional experiences. And, if we are lucky, we have planted important seeds. We, and those we teach or train, become engaged. Excited. Collaborative. Associative. We are inspired and, in turn, inspirational. Which leaves us with a final question: is there any reason to let fear deprive us and our students of these potential training successes? Having read and thought about The Medici Effect, I fear not.

This item was originally posted on November 29, 2007 on Infoblog at http://infoblog.infopeople.org.