Thursday 19 February 2015

Two for one on learning

Northwestern University "N" script logo

Firstly, for those with an interest in how to effectively communicate explicit knowledge in organisations, this free MOOC (Massively Open Online Course) on 'Content Strategy for Professionals' from Northwestern University will be useful. It's a 6 week course, involving 2-4 hours work per week. I've done 2 other MOOCs and both were excellent, so I'm looking forward to this one. 

I've blogged about MOOCs in the past; they are a wonderful resource in democratising learning and knowledge.

The other item that caught my eye was a brilliant blog posting by Harold Jarche.  The title 'Adapting to perpetual beta' does not do justice to the concepts about the networked organisation that Harold discusses. His insights about the difference between Complexity and Complication and their relationship to Collaboration and Cooperation are really interesting. For example,

Collaboration & Cooperation
"Complex problems require cooperation while complicated projects need collaboration. Collaboration is working together on a common problem, while cooperation is freely sharing without any objective. Cooperation is not team work. It is helping the entire organization, as one would support a natural commons, and this requires people who are not just doing their job, but involved in the whole system. This is a major change in how business functions have been managed. Knowing what is complicated, and what is complex, can help the organization develop the appropriate work practices. Less structure and more flexibility is required for complex problems".

No comments: