A while ago I was set a task. To drive to the Gold Coast every Thursday and try my hand at teaching a subject about information. Hey why not? The Gold Coast is an interesting place and the people there are quite nice. The interesting thing is that in five years of teaching this subject elsewhere I have found that people really don’t like it. We have tried everything from standing on our head to juggling in class. Many years ago a friend of mine even dressed up like a witch and handed out minties to increase student engagement. Alas, it didn’t work.

It’s easy to teach something people love… try teaching something people hate

I remember five years ago turning up to a class and introducing the major assessment to the class. After one hour of reading on a big screen a student came up to me and asked… what was that about? No, I am not joking. I am being serious. I asked her what she meant and she told me she wasn’t watching for the past hour and wanted me to explain what I had just said… again. During my time this experience stands out but is far too common in my courses.

People hate this course. It’s about ‘information’, informatics, information systems and so on. Boring? Students in the class range from my friend above, to mavens, critics, trouble makers and the occasional paradigm shifter. Overall this has been however, a part of my life that has brought me a lot of growth but a quadruple measure of frustration as well.

How do you hold your head up when the majority of students don’t want to learn… they just want to earn

95% of the people I have taught in any of my courses almost always don’t give a crap about what I have to say. Now, if you are reading this and you were in my course you may be in the 5%. If that’s you then God bless you. If you are reading this and remember me you may have liked me or the course but can’t remember what I said. That’s probably my fault. But what can you do when you are stuck with subjects like knowledge management? For goodness sake, I don’t even know what that is.

Most of the people I meet are on the their way to the sausage factory. By that, I am of course referring to the giant machine that sucks the living creative spirit out from us and makes hamburger patties with it. That machine. The evil corporate beast that brings you the lottery, things like ‘the systems development life cycle’ and so on. Why am I harping on about this? Well … why not?

So how do you cope with students who just want a ‘pass’. Granted I believe a lot of the time in what I teach that it’s A). useful and B) helpful. But I am stuck with this bullcrap idealist mentality I inherited from someone. Can I tell you that most people don’t want to learn about information… even though I want them to? Why should I bother?

When I started teaching I had a concept of what I thought teaching would be like. Sharing ideas, collaboration you know the sort of thing you see on those Lotus advertisements. But who the hell am I kidding? How do you hold your head up? You either forget about being a teacher or you push hard, make them hate you and move on. Neither option is good… there is probably a third when my head pulls itself out of this daze I will remember it.

Amongst the gloom: there have been shining lights?

Of course. I am by nature an optimist. So there have been many people who I helped who were incredibly nice. Overall my assessment is however, that most of time you are simply repeating information for those who ‘want to get through’. Through to what? Through to corporate sausage maker.

A friend of mine put it this way: we are feeding meat to the corporate sausage factory. I think he is right. I have no power to change the way society chooses to run it’s business. You don’t have to run business that way. Read Maverick (Ricardo Semler) if you don’t believe me. Things can be different. Yet, we stick to the Fordian principles of ’scientific’ management which insist we develop ‘plans’ whilst never questioning the underlying motives of our ’superiors’.

The system is not good for people who care

If you are like me and you have a heart you simply can’t switch off when it comes to these things. I have heard it said that you the author is separate to the page. I am sorry but that simply is a load of rubbish. You can be diced up into little bits and fed into the sausage grinder unless you want to be. If you care about your teaching and want to help people learn … it will cost you. There’s a price you must pay if ‘learning’ is the aim of any course. No matter if it’s basket weaving at your local school or quantum mechanics… you will have to pay the price. If you put effort or time or energy into what you do then be prepared for the sausage people. They are part of life.

An optimistic view

I am the kind of academic who believes in knowledge but I don’t REALLY think the endless streams of meta-information we call ‘journals’ are really going to improve society. After realising during my PhD that most knowledge streams never interact I have become more than a little concerned about problems and society. For example when I was reviewing the problem solving research literature I went to all kinds of disciplines. Education, humanities, science, information systems, information technology and social science to name just a few. Do you know what I found? I found the same argument mentioned at least 30 times. Exactly what was that argument?

We need to find better ways to fix messy problems

They all said the same thing but in different contexts. Yet none of them spoke in the same voice. It’s like being in a room with 30 people from different nationalities while they all speak the same sentence in their own language. How can so many different people have the same conversation with themselves? And anyway could you please tell me how any of that is improving society? People can’t because overall it’s about promotions, journal rankings and impact factors. Is that really improving society? Well you might say, ‘I got into Academy of Management Review but if it isn’t working or improving things who actually cares?

I am not saying that I don’t care. That’s precisely the problem I do care. But why? A theory is only as good as it’s validity or usefulness. But I digress.

I would like to end my rant here on a positive note. I have had many wonderful students. Too many to name actually. These people have enlightened my life with their brilliance, challenges and wit. I have met great teachers, fellow thinkers and carers on the path of knowledge who made my life wonderful… for a while. Most of them wind up in trouble with the sausage machine, sacked or moving on. How sad.

So what’s the positive point? There are people who want to learn and grow. These ones are rare but make the journey worthwhile. Yes, it makes up for all the stupid university politics (hat tip to Peter Checkland), the disciplinary meetings and the endless reams of ‘research’. Why because somebody cares and was bothered enough to look beyond the surface level. These people teach me that sausage maker can’t get to everyone, oh no there are some who for the sake of learning have shunned it’s shiny metal surface. So for these I say it’s all worth it!

Judging by the popularity of this blog you would think people find it acceptable to fail. Our society is so geared up to succeed that it often forgets that failure is a part of life. We fail in all kinds of areas regularly. We fail at work, we fail at home … we even fail in between work and home!

Why is it good to fail?

I think society needs to relax. We are so geed up about getting good success that we forget that failure is often a very big part of success. How do you know what works unless you fail first! I have handed over money more time that I have had hot dinners on ideas that I thought would make me money. Guess what… FAIL!

Failure is a good thing

Failure is not the end but the beginning. A friend of mine puts it this way. If you fail… reflect on why and milk the fail for all it’s worth. Extract the lessons, reflect and say … when the next opportunity comes I will not fail in that area AT LEAST. Take a look at history there are FAILs galore. Lincoln is probably the most failed president in history… he missed out many, many times before he got the job.

You should love the moment of failure… although you probably don’t

If nothing else failure should produce in you a great desire for success. If it doesn’t then you probably didn’t fail hard enough. I have failed hard. Sure, I spent six months in deep depression. And still at times I am plagued with self-doubt. Now however, I have a deep desire for success. I want to win and be a winner because failure has taught me the value of success. I will let you think about that. And if you are in the mood leave a comment on your experiences on failure to talk about and we can compare FAIL stories.

I have had the pleasure this semester to teach a subject called Mobile Workforce Technologies at [tag]Griffith University[/tag] under the expert eye of Dr. [tag]Alison Ruth[/tag]. The subject covers the latest [tag]technology[/tag] and practice in the field of [tag]mobile[/tag] working. One of the most interesting aspects of the course to me, is the use of the [tag]wiki[/tag] environment for assessment. Like a lot of academics I am used to a certain way of working. The wiki way of working involves the active participation and especially collaboration of people within a [tag]community of practice[/tag]. A community who bounce off each other through constructing knowledge for sharing in an even manner. A wiki subverts the dominant work paradigm which focuses on the individual and reinvents it as participatory consciousness. So what can we learn from the wiki way of thinking.

Community and Fellowship

The term ‘fellowship’ generally does not appear outside the bible in modern times. One of the definitions of the word is ‘a community of interest’. I like that way of thinking for me because it summaries the wiki way of doing things. We participate in a [tag]community[/tag] and work together to make things happen. What binds the community together is fellowship around something of interest. Community extends the definition of [tag]fellowship[/tag] because it makes room for perspectives and interests on a broader scale. In particular, the wiki concept allows us to focus on our interest within a sphere of practice we are involved in. When you practice something, by virtue of the practice, you will learn something. That learning can become yours and yours alone or it can be shared and mutated until it becomes accepted by a community. The knowledge can also be used in this manner. There are some drawbacks to this which I will discuss a bit later.

Collaboration

The hallmark of a wiki is collaboration or involvement with people around a topic of interest. The way it works as a theory is that we are all involved in communities of interest so we can participate in a way in which we can shape and extend each others [tag]knowledge[/tag]. The spirit of collaboration is that we work together to build something that others can likewise build and share. The typical business way of doing things is to succumb to competitiveness (although that goes on in wiki environments I can assure you). Of all the things the wiki is here is where most people struggle. Our students have a difficult time coming to grips with the concept of ‘collaboration’ when it comes to assessment. Perhaps this is our fault because are saying something paradoxical. Maybe we are saying, ‘rightio… collaborate with each other to make some interesting work and by the way you will be assessed!’ The two in the modern education environment I think are mutally exclusive. Competition is no good when [tag]collaboration[/tag] is required if the individual members of the team are competing for attention. The wiki makes it so you can show off but really the attention is on the whole which is silly. So the wiki way of thinking is contrary to what business leaders might aspire to when they marvel about the competitive nature of the business world.
[tag]Participatory Consciousness[/tag]

The other thing that strikes me thats different about the wiki way of thinking is the role ‘participating’ plays in the consciousness of those involved. By this term I mean those that participate and work together. We did an experiment we were asked six students to write down what they thought a blog was. Each one of the six students surveyed spoke about the subject in a completely different way. Yet when you put the streams of thought together you had a solid multi-dimensional definition. If you hold to the linear view of the world then this will be a problem for you because a wiki relies on the interchange of perspectives around something of interest. The community decides relevant and acceptable knowledge and forms it within the sphere of interest. This can be an issue as I will discuss later.

Knowledge Sharing

The hallmark, of course, of the wiki platform is the ability of others to share knowledge. All kinds of the knowledge that we can think of can be shared effectively within a community sphere over a wiki. The best element of it is that many perspectives can be drawn out and discussed chosen and discussed over the wiki. Underpinning such a philosophy is the idea of free knowledge and free culture which can be found in fundamentals of the open source movement. Knowledge that is not shared tends to be for sale or worse available to the elite will little chance of sharing. The wiki way of thinking is built around the concept of sharing and I think it cannot be divorced from it. At least not successfully.

The problem of collective consciousness
There are those that like VR pioneer Jaron Lanier who take exception with the wiki way of thinking citing ‘collective consciousness’ as being a limiting factor. The argument goes that collectively created knowledge will be determined by groupthink and not by a consideration of the alternatives. To some extent I think this is true but I also disagree on one main point. The ‘consensus’ view of a topic is usually dominant because it’s acceptable by the masses not because people are working together. It’s a well known truth in the problem solving research literatures that messy problems are created through intermingled perceptions from multiple viewpoints. A wiki has the potential to shape and argue against itself and present perspectives more so than one individual can. The idea that all wiki environments are some form of collective society gatekeeping knowledge is not true if the community is open to learning. If they are interested in maintainance of the status quo then I would suggest that we have a much bigger problem that this blog post can handle. There is the tendancy towards this is knowledge communities but with good practice it can be avoided. It does however remain a valid point.

The problem of the pioneer

Another problem is the issue of the pioneer. Groups can and do come up with new ways of knowledge. However, it’s been my experience that there are people who are exceptionally good at coming up with creative ideas. There are those that are gifted managers, doctors, lawyers as well. Some people have natural leanings towards creativity that is always going to place them out of step with the status quo. Leaders, visionaries or entrepreneurs… whatever you label them… these people are a problem for the wiki way of thinking. Why? Mainly because the innovative ones are always thinking about new ways of doing things and a wiki is less likely to support their activities if there is no community ‘fellowshipping’ around the invention or creative output of the day. The idea could be out of step with the status quo and not really open to a community that shares ’static’ knowledge. I am not sure why this is but most of the greatest people that I admire, will work collaboratively, participate, share and so on but get inspiration of ideas much easier than others. Now this is not an argument from support saying that these people are special. No. I am saying there are those that come up with new ideas by virtue of the fact that they are creative. A wiki gives them space for discussion but envelopes their ideas whole or ignores them in some cases. What are we to do with creative types in a wiki way of thinking? I am troubled by this.

We can learn a lot about wiki thinking and collaboration from it’s positives and it’s negatives. I have learned that people can and do collaborate, share ideas and knowledge and grow with the wiki they are making. I have also learned that people can be hidden away in such things at the expense of their right to be recognised. However, I would argue that the wiki way of thinking has enriched us because it’s taught us how we can create a community of interest and share this knowledge with the world. What can be so bad about that?