My respected former colleague Wilfred Rubens pointed me to an interesting posting on the HBR innovation blog of Scott Anthony. It is about the danger of knowledge blocking innovation. The central issue: people who have deep knowledge about a topic sometimes assume other people have that same knowledge. That in itself can be problematic for innovation, because R&D of companies can have wrong assumptions about level of knowledge of potential customers for their innovations. They assume customers know more then they do, making them blind for opportunities & threats regarding their innovations. Anthony supports this notion with a Gillette example. Although I agree to the expert blindness effect of having a deep body of knowledge in a field, I don’t see it block innovation. Most organisations involve multiple (knowledge) perspectives in their innovation processes, ranging from experts, production, marketing to customers. At least they will have extensive market research and field testing to overcome the issues Anthony is pointing at.

Greater impact of this phenomenon can be perceived  in the field of learning & education and especially in rapid e-learning. When subject matter experts develop (e-)learning programmes the effect Anthony illustrates has direct impact on learners. In my work I come across some quite comprehensive (rapid) e-learning courses that aim too high for novices, are too comprehensive or focus on the exceptions rather that mainstream knowledge. Also for rapid e-learning it is important to counter this effect with professional development approaches. This shown the need for a triangle of involvement of the subject matter expert, instructional design and learners in rapid e-learning development processes

Henry Mintzberg wrote an interesting Business Week column about Leadership versus Management and it’s relationship with the financial crisis. He argues that the separation of Leadership (do the right things) and Management (do the things right) might sound feasible, but has shown to cause trouble. Too many leaders have become detached from the crucial aspect of good management practices in their organizations. We are overled and undermanaged is Mintzberg’s conclusion. So it is back to good management in the first place. This is the fundament that has built most successful organizations anyway. In it’s new form Mintzberg calls this ‘Engaged Leadership’ (both leading + managing). Something he finds Barack Obama a striking example of. Instead of distinguishing leaders from managers, Mintzberg states that we should encourage all managers to be leaders. And, we should define “leadership” as management practiced well. This is an interesting new emphasis for business schools and leadership development programs. Besides charisma and communicating strategic vision, leadership is back to being just hard and decent management work again! It is time for what the Romans called gravitas.

Ever since the work of Peter Senge (1990) the concept of the Learning Organization remains the Holy Grail of management in contemporary business. This is merely due to the ever increasing pressure to keep reinventing products & services, business models and operational processes. Critique of Senge’s work was that it was too abstract to implement in organizations with rather vague dimensions as: systems thinking, personal mastery, mental models, shared vision and team learning. Recent research into characteristics of learning organizations made the concept a bit more transparant for management. After “Is Yours a Learning Organization?” by Garvin, Edmondson & Gino now Erwin Danneels published an interesting research paper on (sort of) this subject. In his “Organizational Antecedents of Second-Order Competences” Danneels looks at competences that enable organizations to develop new competences, something that can be viewed as the source for innovation. In fact two types of learning can be distinguished in this respect: 1) learning that is aimed at improving existing product, services and processes, 2) learning that is aimed at producing new knowledge resulting in new product, services and processes. As the driving force for this learning Danneels points to five factors:

1. Organizational Slack: the room an organization offers its employees for reflection and renewal. Not all worktime employees spend should be absorbed by the day-to-day job. Or as John Cleese put it: “If your want people to be creative, give them time to play!”. Companies as Google and 3M are good examples of embedding this in management practice.
2. Constructive Conflict: openness in the organization to challenge the existing ideas, beliefs and assumptions. Internal discussion (with mutual respect) is stimulated to foster innovation. This is of key importance for the double loop learning Argyris & Schön published about in 1978.
3. Willingness to Cannibalize: active support for innovation projects that potentially take away sales from existing products or services. Don’t neglect technological innovations because they can cannibalize your existing business, but embrace them and embed them into the organizations competences.
4. Environmental Scanning: stimulation of active environmental scanning by employees is crucial. Make them establish networks beyond the borders of the organization via professional associations, networks, conferences, trade shows and researchers. This is crucial for picking up new knowledge and competence in the ’outside’ world. 
5. Tolerance for failure: failure should be seen as a potential source of future success. Mistakes should be seen as opportunities to learn. With this mindset employees sense the room for entrepreneurship that will enable the development of new competences. 

An interesting article that is enhancing the growing body of research into learning organizations from the perspective of strategic innovation and the so-called second-order competences.

Applications of emerging technologies for learning are evolving very rapidly at the moment. Reseach reports and cases on technology-enhanced learning are popping up everywhere in the web. The British BECTA organisation published an interesting report on the “Emerging Technologies for Learning“. In the report six experts describe different emerging technologies and their impact on learning. The trends covered are:

• The netgeneration: a new generation of learners with the computer as the nucleus of their workspace. They go online when they need information, are multitasking and primarily use Instant Messaging, e-mail and cell phones for communication. Conclusion: our assumptions about students and what is best for their education may not be matched by today’s reality.
• Mobile, wireless & connected learning: mobile devices and wireless networks are changing the way we live, work and learn. We are connected to people and information real-time, anywhere and anytime. For learning the concept of the Personal Learning Environment (PLE) applies to this trend. It enables close integration of learning into the day-to-day practice of our private and work lives.
• Location-based, context-aware learning: ‘ubiquitous computing’ principles are about the integration of computing power (microprocessors) in our environment. The computer itself dissapears, but they have their tentacles in the environment to sense. manage, interpret and act on information around us. This already becomes clear in wireless networking, GPS and mobile devices. However applications are few the potential of this technology for the learning environment is great.
• Serious games and virtual worlds: serious games and virtual worlds are about using gaming and virtual reality techniques to explore non-leisure concepts. They enable us to provide support for learning communities, broadening networks of learners and providing creative, self-directed learning and experience design. This matches the shifting need from knowledge transfer to experience and activity design in education. 
• Search technologies: new Internet search technologies emerge with conceptual, contextual and semantic search. This enables us to find the information we are looking for more easily when we turn to the web. Tag clouds and social tagging are examples of new ways of tagging available information to improve searching processes. It supports learning, but is not a substitute for Education 1.0 that for this author hasn’t lost its relevancy.
• Interactive displays: new ways of displaying computer screens open up new ways of using computers in the classroom and beyond. With touch-screen mobile devices and electronic whiteboards new opportunities for learning emerge. Computers and content become more human centered and enable collaboration. This supports new ways of activity-based and workplace learning with computers.

This BECTA report is an interesting read that is rooted in the field of education, but also has relevancy for corporate learning. New models of learning are within reach for learners and learning professionals based on the empowering force of new technology. Let’s reap the benefits!

Last week I read an interesting article by Mirjam van Praag about training as development aid for entrepreneurs in Developing Countries. She describes an approach that combines microfinance for these entrepreneurs with training in business administration. This is not only lifting the success rate of the entrepreneurs, but it also reduces the risks for financials of offering microfinance to these entrepreneurs. And since microfinance have proven to be a succesfull means to fight poverty, adding training to the formula will make the success even bigger and more sustainable. Research by Karlan and Valdivia of Yale University has proven that the entrepreneurs that received training perform better. Striking is the fact that the entrepreneurs that were most sceptic about the training, had most benefit from it. The entrepreneurs received the training in 30-60 minute weekly sessions at their local Bank. They have discussions in entrepreneur communities and receive some homework. “With microfinance the coaching and guidance of entrepreneurs is just as important as the finance itself”, is a well-known phrase that proves to be right. This sounds like a good opportunity for e-learning as well!