Jenny Luca – Open Thinkering

Ignore everybody.

Posted on April 12, 2009 by Doug Belshaw

There are blog posts I plan in advance and there are those that happen as a result of serendipity and need blogging straight away. This is very much one of the latter. :-p

Earlier this week I was following with interest the tweets of Jenny Luca, an Australian educator, as she sat in the audience during one of Stephen Downes‘ presentations. Before the whole thing even started, she overheard Downes:

In her next tweet she simply wondered how that squared with connectivism, a learning theory of which Downes is an advocate. I thought up several responses, but didn’t have time to get into a debate and so kep them to myself. Jenny’s reflections on the event, if you’re interested, are here. That particular event isn’t the focus of this post. 🙂

Today, during an Easter Sunday afternoon in which I’d run out of things to fill my leisure time, I turned to my feed reader and came across this from Hugh McLeod:

It’s actually a remixed (and, to be honest, improved) version of an original by Patrick Brennan.

These two coming so closely together made me reflect upon my online interactions. Now, before I go any further I need to point out very explicitly and clearly that I greatly value the interactions and conversations I have with individuals. I’m certainly not aiming to devalue that in what I’m about to say.

The power in a network comes from the amplification of individual contributions and connections to make it more than the sum of its parts.

I think this is may be where Downes was coming from in terms of ‘following topics not people’ on Twitter and where McLeod (via Brennan) means r.e. ignore everybody.

Yes, you need to learn the heuristics of the network.
Yes, you need to capture the zeitgeist.
Yes, you have be able to argue for your point of view.

…but when it comes down to it, you need to be your own person, using the network for your own ends. Not in some manipulative, Machiavellian sense, but in a ‘give-and-take’ way that means that the network truly does become more than the sum of its parts. 😀

Good ideas, sheep and wolves.

Posted on September 15, 2008 by Doug Belshaw

Have you ever read an article or blog post that feels like it was written just for you? Hugh McLeod, he of ‘cartoons drawn on the back of business cards’ fame (like the one above) wrote a post just like that a few days ago. Entitled Good Ideas Have Lonely Childhoods, I urge you to go and read it in its entirety.

For obvious reasons, I’m not going to go into detail, but I’ve had to deal with two or three frustrating workplace situations recently. In one I lost my cool a bit as my interlocutor just didn’t seem to get it. Hugh’s post made me a bit more philosophical about it. He makes six very good points in his post, but the two that stand out for me are:

1. Good ideas have lonely childhoods

Given 20:20 hindsight, anyone can wise. There’s a quotation I put up on the walls of the History department at my school that reads, “A historian is a prophet in reverse”. It’s easy being the historian; what takes talent and effort is being the prophet.

Ideas have gestation periods. There’s a time and a place for them to be ‘born’, a time for them to be ‘nurtured’ and a time for them to reach maturity. Think of the green movement, for example. 20 years ago they were considered part of the lunatic fringe. Now, such ideas are mainstream and seen to be ‘the future’.

So we should expect some banging of heads against walls from time-to-time in frustration. Especially in schools – those most conservative of institutions.

2. Good ideas alter the power balance in relationships, that is why good ideas are always initially resisted

I’ve seen this on a cartoon by Hugh McLeod before, and it makes me smile. For someone to take on and accept other people’s ideas they must themselves be confident and secure in their own position. It’s obvious when this is not the case. Things become increasingly centralised and bureaucratic. It’s interesting that Google, for example, one of the world’s largest and most successful companies, has 20% time. This is, as you would imagine, one-fifth of an employee’s time which can be spent on projects they are especially interested and motivated to see succeed. The key is that these people are being trusted to have, organise and carry through ideas. That’s how successful innovation occurs. 😀

So, as Jenny Luca stated towards the end of her response to Hugh’s post, I’m going to keep plugging away. In fact, I liked her metaphor so much I’m going to finish with it:

I feel like I’m in the playground, sitting in the sandpit pretty much alone right now in terms of my thinking. Friends will come, they always do, they’re just hanging around the fringes of the sandpit. I need to draw a few more lines in the sand to attract a crowd. I’ll keep at it.

Thanks Hugh and Jenny!

(also love this discussion about whether that means that, conversely, lonely children have good ideas…)