Showing posts with label Libraries. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Libraries. Show all posts

Apr 17, 2011

70-20-10 Learning - an Aussie ASQ Global Influential Voice for Quality Shares on Making a Difference

Lifelong Learning & 70:20:10 rule of learning = Informal on the Job:Coaching:Formal Classroom Llessons  ? Making a Difference Globally ?

I am a great fan of Harold Jarche & John Tropea with their strong focus on informal learning including the 70-20-10 rule of learning. Likewise I am a strong proponent of Quality in our daily lives, and so was intrigued by ASQ's head Paul Borawski's recent post "Quality Tools and Education : Making a Difference on a Global Scale."

Of course, learning & knowledge management are key components of continual improvement in Resource Management in Quality - as reflected in even the previous edition of ISO 9004. In our world Education is not just what you do at school, college or university - we have to keep re-learning in such a rapidly changing world. And we need confidence in the quality of the resources we use, as we continually learn & re-learn.

Nearly 10 years ago I encountered the Learning Cities & Communities movement - centred around Lifelong Learning - a key to resilience of communities in change and adversity. The initiative was largely appropriated by the Community College movement aka Adult Education Associations in Australia. Yet I always believed that it couldn't be monopolised by this sector alone - not everyone is in a position to attend formal face to face classroom lessons.

In Sydney, Australia we had an insightful article by Louise Williams in this weekend's edition of our local Sydney Morning Herald "The Slow Collapse of the Ivory Tower". Ms Williams wrote of how learning is changing from face to face classrooms in an internet world and how this threatens the traditional university or college monopoly on higher learning. She also spoke of how increasing numbers of students are not attending lectures, choosing to source their required information in alternative ways. Curious as I had observed lecturers at my local uni lamenting the same when I attended a prize giving event last November.

And yet it's not new - when I served for 12 years on the Governing Council of the University of Wollongong (located south of Sydney), I found that UOW was already moving into on-line blended E-learning years ago. However there are advantages of face to face learning - the serendipity & synergy of bouncing ideas off each other.

Likewise there are emerging challenges to the traditional "peer reviewed paper" in an academic journal on which academics' ranking is based - enabling them to compete for research funding & attract students. I recall attending a conference across the other side of Australia about 5 years ago, where attendees were denied timely access to copies of the conference papers because the organisers wanted to publish them to increase the rankings of academics who had presented at the conference. It was "all driven by the rankings cycle" as I subsequently found out - and I finally received the conference papers 9 months after the conference! The freshness and impact of the presenters' work in my mind was lost - I'd wanted to share new insights with my professional colleagues - but all I had were my scribbled handwritten notes.

No wonder that with this time delay paradigm, the proliferation and the increasing cost of academic journals, that the peer reviewed paper model is now being seriously challenged by the immediacy of online collaboration. And yet we need to ensure that there is confidence in the quality of online E-learning & web posts. It is also important that "Digital Native" students can discriminate between accurate & erroneous information in a web based & increasingly social media dominated world.

Not to mention the tipping point as we see the rapidly disappearing print book market and the exploding E-book market - with its flow-on impact on Public & Academic Librarians. Librarians are recognising that they must participate in the debate around these changes rather than take the high moral ground and shun it. At a Library Conference in Brisbane Australia last year, one presenter spoke of the advantages of E-Readers for students in the Pacific Islands where high humidity can destroy the traditional printed book based library collections.

Unfortunately some Baby Boomer Managers are still dismissive of Web 2.0 and Social Media tools in Technology & Quality worlds. Yet ISO, the OECD & WTO, for instance, have embraced social media approaches (eg Youtube, Facebook & Twitter)  in trying to reach a wider global audience. Admittedly, it can seem haphazard sometimes especially with social media tools like Paper.li Dailies (eg mine-KerrieAnne paper.li).

However as a Baby Boomer techo manager, I've had to reinvent myself several times over the last 5 years - 1st as a Quality Manager and then during the GFC with a zero training budget, to become an International Trade backroom boffin -  specialising in how standards & conformity apply in Technical (Non Tariff) Barriers to Trade (TBT's). I've used tools like Sharepoint's Wiki to capture my evolving WTO TBT knowledge, sharing it both locally and globally across my organization - to avoid re-inventing the wheel.

So it is great to see how organizations like ASQ are embracing online E-learning & social media tools to address the 70:20:10 approaches to learning. ASQ is bringing a quality approach to these new technologies - setting a standard on how they can be applied for younger and older "students" alike - regardless of whether they are formally enrolled in courses or learning informally. As an Australian based member of ASQ, and one of its International Global Influential Voices for Quality, I am sharing & learning from my fellow Global Influential Voices - a fantastic initiative.

 (Please note I do receive a variety of quality resources as an honorarium in exchange for my commitment to the ASQ Global Influential Voices for Quality program. However the thoughts & opinions that I express here in my blog are my own!).



Jan 22, 2011

ASQ Global Influential Quality Voice from Down Under on Social Responsibility - Safe Foods - Quality Back to Basics - inspired by Paul Borawski

In Down Under Australia, January is usually the post New Year summer holiday season - beaches, long lazy lunches - but this year it's been one of crisis as we find so much of our country under water with the latest La Nina event - perhaps one of the worst in years. Great to see so many now volunteering in the clean-ups as the floods & cyclones (aka Hurricanes) continue. I have been fortunate that my family, friends & our properties have escaped. So I'm a little behind in my ASQ Global Influential Voices blogging (please note I do receive a variety of quality resources as an honorarium in exchange for my commitment. However the thoughts & opinions that I express here in my blog are my own!).

We have this amazing ASQ CEO Paul Borawski who's blogged on CSR - Corporate Social Responsibility, Quality Goals for 2011 and Food Safety. So inspiring to see our leader "being a leader". Especially when I read my daily RSS feeds of ASQ News. At times it's been horrifying to read some of the updates - food safety issues on so many different continents, electronic voting machine fraud. Although I am Engineering/Knowledge Quality Manager, my first job was as a junior casual at a Tourism food outlet, where I learnt about food quality & safety
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And I am really enjoying reading the thoughts of my fellow ASQ Global Influential Voices for Quality as they blog on key quality related topics - eg from the USA, South America & India. Without this ASQ program I might never have encountered all of these fantastic people's ideas ! See my Blogroll (Left Frame) to read their latest thoughts !

As for my goals, some I've made a good start on already ...
  • Back to the basics re-focus on quality - yesterday I pulled together a quick Powerpoint for my Team on what ISO 9001 says about expectations on Product Conformity (quite a lot  actually !) I was inspired by Dr Nigel Croft, Chair of ISO TC 176 SC2, at the Sydney meeting in December 2010 - clearly it's not meant to be about "concrete life jackets & concrete lifeboats" but consistently conforming with customers' product conformity requirements
  • Maintaining & gaining new national & international certifications (ISO 9001, CE Mark, ISO 17025, Singapore BC 1, Malaysia SIRIM, Indonesia SNI & new Australian ATIC) to enable my company to win new markets - means using new technologies like social media to stay on top of what's happening eg the EU's upcoming Construction Products Regulation due to replace the Directive with associated CE Marking requirements
  • Exploring the different "Managements" in a Quality Paradigm - Knowledge, Risk, Records - and sharing these via Sharepoint wiki pages so the knowledge is not just locked up in my brain and my PKM - Personal Knowledge Management system (across Googlereader RSS, ASQ, UK CQI, Elsmar Cove, Quality Magazine, ISO, Hootsuite, Twitter, Diigo, Blogs, C-Drive & Servers, LinkedIn, Hard Copies, Sharepoint, Documentum)
  • eg facilitate cross fertilizing between our Knowledge Management Service Librarians & our Quality Management Systems Auditors on Records Management
  • Working with our Learning & Development & Product Stewardship teams on issues of common concern, like reinvigorating our Knowledge Management program, on Corporate Social Responsibility ISO 26000 issues & capturing it in Sharepoint wiki pages
  • And, post the "worst of the last 2 years of the Global Financial Crisis" to set up Quality Development & Awareness programs, to create Lessons Learned from the experiences of BP and Toyota, as it would be so easy to succumb if we don't take a strong stand on quality and ethics
  • Migrate our site' main controlled document system from an Intranet to a Sharepoint portal connected with anEMC Documentum CMS
  • Upgrade our org's Atlassian Confluence - our critical IP system
  • Foster use of Web 2.0 tools by my colleagues to achieve cost effective DIY ways of staying current in our professional discipline areas
  • Reincarnate our organization's Quality Global Community of Practice
  • Help my external network members to understand the records management compliance requirements in a rapidly changing world of social media, mobile web & Cloud computing technologies. Fortunately my significant other is a governance manager in ICT Project Management so we do lots of cross-fertilization !
  • Participate in ISO TC 176 SC 2 WG23 as a corresponding member under Tania Marcos and in Australia's ISO TC 176 SC2 mirror committee, QR-008 under Darryl Yanniuck - also its sister committee on Auditing QR-006
  • To learn from my fellow Standards Australia committee members, Kevin Foley & Alex Ezrakovich
  • Help to capture the amazing knowledge of one of Australia's governance icons, a silver citizen & Web 2.0 Apprentice, Stan Ambrose, in writing a technical note on the performance of steels, in pressure equipment under emergencies like serious fires / explosions - so much great knowledge - too valuable to lose !
  • To reflect on the various ideas & concepts I'm encountering, rather than just filing - my new A Maven's Magnets weekly blog
  • And to support my Ms 16 year old Teenager as she enters her last year of High School & seeks to gain entry to an Australian University
so much to do ... it's going to be a great ride !


Postscripts from my Google Reader RSS & Twitter feeds :

The happy people are those who are producing something; the bored people are those who are consuming much and producing nothing.”

William Ralph Inge (1860 – 1954)

English author, Anglican priest, Professor of Divinity at the University of Cambridge, and Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral

"Open your arms to change, but do not let go of your values"~ Dalai Lama

Dec 15, 2010

Speaking up for Baldrige from a DownUnder Aussie ASQ Global Influential Voice for Quality

Baldridge funding to be axed ? What ? Why should someone from DownUnder Australia even care ?
It seemed only hours after the latest award winners were announced, that the Baldridge itself was under threat. Today in Sydney Australia at ISO TC 176 SC2, I shared with Lorrie Hunt & Denise Robitaille how important my ASQ membership has been for me. Likewise for me the Baldridge has been an inspiration, like the Olympics of Quality.
To be honest I found Denis Arter’s views very provocative but definitely worth a read : sort of like ... that winners of awards like Baldridge are too often what we in Australia call “oncers”. They put in a big effort to get the award, only to slowly undergo “quality fade”. But my thoughts were more in tune with Paul Borawski’s and I too am part of the ASQ Influential Voices program. (Note - While I receive a variety of quality resources as honorarium from ASQ in exchange for my commitment, the thoughts and opinions expressed on my blog are my own.)
I have been associated with three organizations who won the Australian Quality Awards, before the awards disappeared. After a while, they were eventually replaced by the Business Excellence Awards run by SAI Global.
1.0 My employer, a manufacturing organization, won the award 20 years ago, after initiating a TQC program. We’ve maintained our ISO 9001 certification since 1991. There’s a photograph of the trophy on the shelf in my office. I often glance at it and ponder on the cultural transformation involved in winning the award. Which was the greater achievement I wondered ? That award ? Or the organizational transformation ? And quite simply put : if the organization hadn’t maintained its certification, it would lose huge market share – many customers simply demand at least ISO 9001.
Now in our organization’s quality management team, we use Web 2.0/Enterprise 2.0 IT tools to stay current with emerging trends in quality and certifications. That includes ISO & ASQ’s RSS feeds& Twitter streams, Sharepoint wiki’s etc. I shared some of these experiences at a Knowledge Management conference, ACTKM10 in Canberra Australia last October. Back In the office, we’ve had robust debates on future directions to keep improving. We cannot afford to stand still – currently we’re looking to a maturity matrix tool as part of our internal quality audit program.
2.0 The Library Manager of the University where I served on the governing Council was totally committed to the quality paradigm. The Library won the Australian Quality Award and later the University Administration department was certified to ISO 9001. No doubt exposure to the Library’s National Quality Award raised the quality paradigm within the university campus.
3.0 Sadly the third organization, a local City Council did not maintain the commitment – it had been regarded as a leader in the field in Australia not only in winning the Australian Quality Award but in other innovative operational ways as well. As an elected Local Government Councillor I was very proud that the City won the Australian Quality Award. Unfortunately the quality vision was lost with the departure of the Lord Mayor to State Government. So winning the award ended up being only a project – it needs to be a process without a sunset.
No, we shouldn’t immediately dismiss the value of quality awards like Baldridge, nor tag all award winners as “oncers”. We have awards in so many fields of endeavour such as sport –so why not quality? Over the last year or so we’ve seen the effect of large organizations dropping the quality ball. Unimaginable human consequences and more, rippling through economies and the environment. We need organizations to aspire to quality performance and recognition helps. We need Quality role models to be the “light on the hill” for others.
Of course awards such as Baldridge may need to evolve, just as we found with the Australian Quality Awards becoming the Business Excellence Awards.
Over the last week I have been very privileged to work with experts from the international quality family. They have travelled from across the globe to Sydney Australia to participate in ISO TC 176 SC2’s activities. We’ve been led by Nigel Croft, assisted by Charles Corrie & Jose Dominguez in imagining possibilities for a future ISO 9001. My team from India, Indonesia, Colombia, UK, Denmark, USA, South Africa, UK & Australia, has been led by a Spaniard. It has been inspiring to meet people like Lorrie Hunt & Denise Robitaille, women of quality who had until now been names on articles in quality magazines to me. Our times see ethics and corporate social responsibility (ISO 26000) emerging, not to mention exploding social media/mobile web IT in quality. So lots of ideas considered this week - some may actually turn into reality and others may not. But it is important to reflect & consider if there is to be innovation.
So let’s not let Baldridge go – maybe change - but not extinction !