How might we share responsible tech learning for the greatest impact? — Part 2/3
Hi there — we at Noisy Cricket are back to share progress on our Responsible Tech Collective project: how can we best share our learning to enable collective progress?
The first part of this series, which can be found here, introduces the project and sets up a lot of the context around it. If you haven’t seen this yet, I would recommend having a gander before you continue reading…
As a quick reminder, the Responsible Tech Collective is a community of cross-sector organisations and community representatives based in Greater Manchester who together want to put people first when it comes the the creation and deployment of technology.
Via a process of co-creation, the Responsible Tech Collective members collectively agreed to work on five key infrastructure projects, in order to build and develop the practice of the Collective. They voted to prioritise the first opportunity area:
How might we share individual learning and enable collective progress?
We’ve been running design sprints around this question since January and are now in the ideation stage. We’re running a workshop on Thursday 7th April (do come, link here) to explore the insights gathered so far and develop some ideas together.
In this blog, I’ll share a sneak-peek of the insights captured to date, and would love your reflections, questions and comments in response…
How to share learning
We’ve learned that there are three dimensions of effective shared learning, essential to create wider change:
- Reciprocal ways of working — key to effective collective learning and crucial to aid the constant iteration of knowledge.
- Connectivity — for systemic impact and potential practice change, it’s essential that audiences connect psychologically and emotionally.
- Practical application — making learning practically applicable to different contexts is important to help audiences make use of the learning and aid practice change.
Reciprocal learning
For learning to catalyse truly impactful change, reciprocal ways of working are essential. This could be manifested through creating collectives and networks that share knowledge and learn from each other, and in turn create a sustainable learning environment.
Reciprocity in learning is vital as it ensures power dynamics are equal and people feel equally engaged.
“Balanced reciprocity obligates the recipient to return, within a specific time limit, items understood to be of equal value”, [Barone, July 2020].
“Learning embedded into systems, values and resources of an organisation, promotes and rewards learning at an individual team and organisation level”. [CIPD, 2020, p.6]
Opportunity area — How might the Responsible Tech Collective develop communities of practices to aid more internal sharing of learning e.g. engage with networkers of learners and professionals at all levels?
Connectivity
Connecting to audiences’ emotions and psychological contexts is essential for information to be assimilated into learned concepts:
“Learning results from the dynamic interplay of emotion, motivation and cognition, often exemplified through connectivity, empathy and shown most vividly and effectivity through storytelling.” [Parvin, 2018].
Storytelling is the most effective way to connect to audiences. Storytelling creates change through emotional attachment and empathetic connection, it’s a way of exploring and creating connectivity for individuals to shares, and causes.
“Stories play vital roles throughout history, used to understand the chaotic world, histories, world event. They allow exploration of past, present, and future, as well as paths of change” [Saltmarche, 2020]
Opportunity area — How might the RTC ensure all externally shared learning connects on an emotional level with audiences?
Practical application
Translating learning (sharing) in a way that’s practically applicable for audiences (e.g. by region) is essential to create impact.
Create a consistent collective of learning — where knowledge learnt is used as a guide for groups like ‘knowledge networks’: groups of people with shared knowledge utilising knowledge to aid the application of theory and learned knowledge to specific practical scenarios and regions..
Opportunity area — How might the RTC ensure that all external communication of learning is easy and simple for audiences to apply e.g. ensure practical toolkits and practical guides are easily understood and accessible?
How to create space for learning?
That’s all lovely stuff I sense you thinking…but what does this mean for RTC members and their organisations? What does this mean for me and my organisation?
We found it was all well and good identifying interesting ways to approach learning — reciprocity, connectivity, practicality etc. — but what use is this if we don’t create the space to learn? We need to connect to our internal curiosity and empathy for other people’s perspectives in order to be open to new ways of working, being and doing.
Through our member interviews and workshops, we iterated our ideas around reciprocity, connection and practicality and refined them to four components of effective shared learning….
Meandering exploration — How might we open ourselves up to new potential and ways of working? We need space to have incidental, adhoc conversations that centre our humanity in order for us to truly learn from each other and shift our practices, as opposed to overly structured, ‘robotic’ learning.
“A community — if we are a true collective — needs to have room for off the bat conversations with other members” [RTC member]
“(we need space) where you can chew the fat over problems, hear in an informal manner what other people think”. [RTC member]
Personal connection — How might we embrace emotion and discomfort to be more open to learning? We need to create a safe space where people can be present and human, so that people can mindfully engage with one another and learn.
“Through RTC, (I) want real stories about what it means for people…(it’s) faceless what we do” [RTC member]
Diverse perspectives — How might we use storytelling to level power between communities and organisations? We need to use storytelling to highlight more than just one perspective. e.g. security from a business vs government vs citizen perspective.
“If the narrative is right people get it and it’s adopted so much quicker. Case studies, experiences and stories are probably the most powerful” [RTC member]
Practical application — How might we create time and space for this kind of learning and disseminate it within our organisations? We need to use stories, sessions, networks, projects and collaborations to translate learning in a way that’s relevant to your context.
“ongoing drum of intro and nuggets of stuff being shard, as well as the more polished, shared presentation, or however that is distributed” [RTC member]
Next steps…
We’re now moving into the ideation stage of our project, using the insights shared here to consider the mechanisms and solutions we could design to meet these needs. A lot of this work will be done in our workshop on Thursday 7th April (link here), so do come along to share your thoughts, reflections, questions and be part of the co-creation.
Once we’ve developed some concept ideas, the next stage will be to test and iterate them! So if you can’t join the co-creation workshop, there will be many opportunities to be involved in these future stages, so do get in touch with me if you’re keen, at emma@noisycricket.org.uk.
We’ll be posting regular updates on this blog, so watch this space!
