Putting the “network” in social networks

When I started at Research in Practice and Research in Practice for Adults, Chris Bolton (a.k.a. whatsthepont) suggested I have a look at The New Social Learning: A Guide to Transforming Organizations Through Social Media by Tony Bingham and Marcia Conner. This informed how we used social media at the Wales Audit Office’s Good Practice Exchange, and it’s helping me to think about the role of online networks in my new role. This is ironic as this is the first role I’ve had for 8 years where social media hasn’t been part of my job description, but it’s pertinent because Research in Practice for Adults’ Link Officers’ Annual Meeting looks at innovative approaches to learning and development in adult social care. Check out #LOAM17 if you want to follow the tweets from the event.

Learning between courses

The traditional way that we learn is a top down, expert to grateful recipient approach, which has its problems when it comes to taking ownership of that learning. The status quo is really useful at teaching simple, cause and effect processes, but public services work in a complex environment where one size does not fit all.

This tweet and post from Think Purpose really got me thinking….

Events and learning activities aren’t ends in and of themselves, but too often that’s what events are seen as in public services. It doesn’t end there either — we still count what doesn’t matter i.e. how many people attend a course, instead of whether anything has changed as a result. And in all fairness, we do that because it’s the easy thing to measure.

How do we reflect?

This is where I’ve found that social media can add value. Unless you’re talking about LinkedIn. I hate LinkedIn. It’s like a fun vacuum that’s been carefully managed in case you stumble across something interesting. Plus they’re spammy.

Like any useful tool, we have to make sure that social media doesn’t become an end in and of itself. Used well, it can make learning and development a part of your day to day. Used badly, and it’s all about telling other people how clever you are. And often, these tools are just completely marginalised and ignored. Usually because the nature of the environments that we work in mean that it’s easy to do that. Leah Lockhart has written a great post on why public servants ignore digital:

“I’d argue public services nurture these low skills and send people down a spiral of de-skilling with their outdated browsers, outdated operating systems and messy IT infrastructures”

The Think Purpose post talks about excellence as a habit. Social media is sometimes derided as being a negative habit (and I’ve found myself battling to use it in a productive way), but it can also help to make sharing and open collaboration a part of your everyday life. It’s that sharing that means that there are no boundaries between expert and learner, and we’re better able to tackle that hierarchy that both public services and learning and development have been built on.

I find this blurring really fascinating, and it’s something that Bingham and Conner call Mashups in the book. What I like about the Role Mashups in particular is that they encourage the qualities that many of us would like to see in our public services — organisations that work with others, that connect with them and develop the priorities that their communities value:

“Mashups change work’s traditional linear and separate roles into a culture of co-production, co-design, and co-development, mixing responsibilities among everyone involved in a new cyclical process. In the case of the new social learning, it’s not about simply giving people online communities or wikis and getting out of the way. It is about a new iterative and inclusive model where anyone is able to create, use, publish, remix, repurpose, and learn.”

Traditional training usually offers answers to problems that have already been solved. There’s no sense in reinventing the wheel, so I’m not saying that there’s no role for it. It can work well for learning about theory, but it doesn’t offer much of an opportunity to reflect on practice. This is what interests me about working out loud, and it’s fascinating to see how Neil Tamplin and other weeknoters are looking at their own experiences and sharing them with others. Neil spoke about this at the Housing Festival:

“If your purpose has something to do with improving the lives of people who need housing then I would argue you are morally obligated to share anything that advances that cause, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant.”

This all feels new and awkward at the moment as we move away from the conventional thinking that Paul Taylor outlines on his Medium post on The Fear of Working Out Loud. But as my former colleague Ena Lloyd would say, proceed until apprehended.

Social Constructivism

I also learnt about Social Constructivism through the book, which is a theory that describes how people learn together. It basically outlines how people build their understanding of something — you discuss it with other people, see how their narrative works with yours, and consequently you develop a more informed understanding.

Behaviourist ideas meant that people used to be seen as passive recipients of knowledge until Jean Piaget began to change people’s thinking in the 50s. Though if you ask me, much of that mindset still seems to be about the place now. It was Piaget’s work that led to the use of role-play and simulation in learning. So the next time you feel massively uncomfortable in a training course, you know who to blame.

Practical learning through networks

I’ve made a lot of use of my networks over the last few weeks, from searching for Welsh language social care trainers to finding good practice in online learning (big thank you to Noreen Blanluet, Anne Collis and Dave Briggs respectively). I also hope that I’m being truly social and reciprocal and that I help in kind by sharing the good things that people are doing. I love the idea of a world where sharing and reciprocity are king.

And to go back to the Think Purpose post, I’ve got a better chance of making social media work for me if I focus on what I’m looking to achieve as opposed to the tools themselves. This is why I’m falling out of love with Facebook — it’s not actually making me any closer to people like it aims to. Social media is at its best when we “think purpose.”