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Themes not goals

Just today I happened across a post by Petra Martin about goal-free living and using a compass, not a map. As I reflect on the past year, think about the year ahead, and remember what I love doing — the idea of using a compass and not a map, and having a theme for the next year instead of a set of goals is deliciously appealing.

It’s ironic because I advocate setting goals all the time; but when I do it for myself, I almost never reach them. Goals do leave me dissatisfied with my present (as Stephen Shapiro notes in his book Goal Free Living.) The idea of having  a theme, an idea that guides your decisions for the upcoming year, that acts as your compass is simple and achievable.

  • What was my theme for last year? It would be stability: in my finances, where I live, building a community, in my new job, and in my health. It’s been a tough year.
  • What would be my theme for next year? I’m thinking the word that feels right is flexibility. I want more flexibility in my work, how I work, in my travel schedule, social schedule, in my blogging and in my relationship (okay, that doesn’t quite mean what you might be thinking — I do not envision becoming a swinger.) I’ve been so rigid this past year, so focused in getting it right, and making my personal relationships suffer, now I need to flex. Let’s see where it takes me. I’ll check in again in a few months.
If I take the notion of flexibility into learning design what does that look like? Is it learning bits and bytes, is it “snackables” or mobile learning? What does flexible learning design look like?
So if you were to find a theme for the next year, what would it be?

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By Rani H. Gill – December 11, 2011

Personal brand: two interviews

Recently Saqib Ali reminded me of a couple interviews I did back in 2010 for a class on social media and branding, and he so kindly reposted them. I watched with great trepidation, preparing myself to cringe but was pleasantly surprised at my coherence.

In 2009 I had participated in a class in social media and branding at Stanford, and was invited to speak at the new class the following year. I was struggling to define myself in the post-crash world and in a new world called California (oh so different than New York or Durham, North Carolina). The thinking and exercises I did on social media and brand as a part of that class were incredibly helpful.

It was helpful to remind myself of what I said then as it is still relevant and possibly even more important today: think about your value-add, what you bring to the marketplace, understand your “feature-set”, as well as think about an aspirational future and what you bring to that future — do you have the skillsets to support that future?

Watch and enjoy — would love to hear your comments on is it still relevant? What makes sense or doesn’t?

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By Rani H. Gill – December 4, 2011

Transmedia learning

Recently I’ve been reading about Transmedia storytelling as popularized by Henry Jenkins (MIT) and coined by Marsha Kinder (see Wikipedia article). Since storytelling is so integral to the work that I do both in learning and organizational change, the recent resurgence of this concept intrigues me, especially in light of social media and interactive storytelling.

First, a few definitions of transmedia storytelling:

  • “Telling a story that extends across multiple media platforms” (Lisa Hsia of Bravo Digital Media writing for Mashable)
  • Where “elements of a story are dispersed systematically across multiple media platforms, each making their own unique contribution to the whole.” (Henry Jenkins debunking transmedia myths in Fast Company)

Lisa Hsia’s point is that interactive social TV is changing the way audiences engage with television. Henry Jenkins takes it further and adds that shows such as Glee “model new transmedia strategies to attract and sustain audience engagement.” You watch the show, you engage with the characters on Facebook, you read the Twitter stream, and maybe even add to the story.

Henry Jenkins makes a key point (you really should read his article) “Transmedia storytelling is still about the stories and if the stories do not capture the imagination, no amount of transmedia extension can repair the damage.”

And now to learning….

So why the heck does this excite me? Well, can you just imagine the possibilities for learning/organizational change?

  • Say you’re trying to get a group of people to behave differently or think differently about a particular topic. Well, write an engaging storyline for them. Start with a set of characters that personify their lives.
  • The audience watches the stories of the characters’ attempts to learn on a particular topic, then in the classroom the audience/participants engage in deconstructing the story and saying how they would have done it differently, what resources they should have used, what they should do next.
  • At the close, they then pitch that idea to the “producers”, who then decide on the next story segment. And so it goes on for each class.
  • The learning experience starts with each new cohort (defined as a group coming into the organization in a similar time frame.)
  • Add in a fan page, a twitter stream, a game element, t-shirts, etc., all of which tell one aspect of the story or allow the audience to engage.

Back to Henry Jenkins: “Transmedia represents a strategy for telling stories where there is a particularly diverse set of characters, where the world is richly realized, and where there is a strong back-story or mythology that can extend beyond the specific episodes being depicted in the film or television series.”

I just have to keep reminding myself, start small, grow it over time. Time to make the ideas I’ve been exploring on creating the eLearning graphic novel into a franchise. Next episode coming soon….

 

 

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By Rani H. Gill – November 19, 2011