Ebbinghaus or the Curves on why we just keep forgetting

Recently I came across the Ebbinghaus Curve aka the Forgetting Curve - interesting because my boss oftens laments  about how people can be trained in an improved SOP or new process, and then after a year or so they seem to have forgotten, and there is a risk of quality issues.

And to be honest, if someone catalogs a complex list of instructions on how to drive to a distant location, I find it often just doesn't gel with me. I much prefer simple written instructions, with the added visual component of a street directory. So far I haven't done much with GPS systems either to be honest.

So I've been intrigued by Nick Milton of Knoco Stories, who for years has been running a training program called the Bird Island Exercise, which is all about remembering & forgetting. Recently I re-discovered one of Nick's posts on his Bird Island Exercise from a year ago - where he shared the following insights :

"This result reinforces recognition of the frailty of human memory as a long term knowledge store, and therefore the need to support that memory through some sort of capturing and recording. Even 6 months is too long to leave knowledge in memory alone. We need to be capturing it as we go, even as an aide memoire, otherwise we lose it.


And when we come to use it again, we find we retain just enough to be dangerous."

Nick Milton also shared more on the Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve in his The Gorilla Illusions post - by the way have you ever heard of the Invisible Gorilla Experiment ?

I also liked Nick's post on The Self Aware Organisation - it seems to resonate with many of the concepts in Professor James Reason's High Performance Organizations.

And around the same time of Nick's Remembering & Forgetting post, Harold Jarche also shared his thoughts on Ebbinghaus & the Forgetting Curve - Learning & Forgetting - on how much we remember after training & memorisation - and how quickly we can lose it.

Professor James Reason has also had some interesting thoughts on Human Errors - which seem to accord with the Forgetting Curve as shared in my organization's OHS awareness sessions. 

Some of these ideas are also echoed in a preso by ACTKM's David Williams "How do you get people to read and understand stuff?" - it's on Slideshare - which holds some very interesting preso's on Knowledge Management which are freely  available for download. David's thoughts are salient when one considers the increasing volume, length & complexity of SOP's - Standards Operating Procedures - as they try to cover every possible scenario. 


Then Benedict Carey (NYT) reviewed ideas that turn traditional thought on studying, learning & retention on its head.


I have to review my organization's procedure for writing standard procedures - so there could be some good inspiration in there, for what is arguably quite a dry subject, but nonetheless very crucial. 


I've always liked the Gunning Fog approach to understandability of one's writing - some find it too geeky with its equation for simplicity/complexity of writing.

I find it interesting because of the strong focus on Corporate "Storytelling" in Knowledge Management circles in Australia in recent years as opposed to CMS - Content Management Systems.  In fact CMS can really support SME's (Subject Matter Experts) to effectively manage their  PKM (Personal Knowledge Management) systems - for more effective recall & Knowledge Sharing, and so to share via tools such as Corporate "Storytelling". My organization's SSO's (Significant Safety Occurrence shared stories & learnings) are in fact a good example of embedded Corporate Storytelling in my opinion.

See my Diigo Shared Bookmarks & Google Reader RSS feed items for more Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve links.

Posted via email from kerrieannesfridgemagnets's posterous

Death by Powerpoint

I confess to being one of those hated by Ralph Souleon - using lots of powerpoint slides in conference presentations - comes with the territory in an engineering field. Content. Content. Content.

Several years ago I was asked to email in my presentation for an engineering conference - so I pdf'd it to get the size down for emailing.

The conference was held at Sydney's Royal Randwick Racecourse - at the time when the Equine Influenza epidemic had shut down horse racing in Sydney - only a lone horse seen out on the track. And that was how I felt at the podium, when my pdf'd powerpoint developed compatibility issues with the venue's hardware.

Innumerable black rectangles where my witty & informative text box captions were supposed to be. Slides and slides of them. At least the photo's & images looked good. The session moderator couldn't help. Gulp.

Time for a deep breath and "wing it".

At least the subject was a field which I was confident and passionate about. I had to use the images as my prompts as I told their stories.

In fact the moderator commented later that because the text boxes were missing - my audience had to engage with me more. He kindly observed that it had enhanced my presentation overall. I hoped he was right.

The conference was one where participants rated all the speakers - not often done - but in fact a good idea. As a speaker you can appreciate the bouquets and learn from the other comments.

So I was relieved to find that some had rated me as best presentation - which was humbling as there were some very good presentations at the conference.

So I try to make my Forensic Engineering Failure Analysis conference presentations more visual - but content can't be avoided altogether in an engineering presentation. And never leave home without a memory stick backup - even if the presentation has been already emailed.

And it all came together for me a year or two later, when David Snowden observed at ACTKM 08 that voluminous stats, facts & numbers don't convince - but stories do.

War and Remembrance Detail

I’d been to Gallipoli a couple of years ago and still wonder at how much horror in such a small peaceful beach & how Ataturk later sought peace with Australia to create a haunting memorial place. Then, recently I found myself reading an eclectic collection of books on World War 1, that I had borrowed for my daughter, sick in bed, with a high school assignment due. As an avowed pacificist, such material was way of character for me, but I saw the War, (eg Fromelles, Gallipoli) & technology, the focus of the assignment, quite differently. (To be honest my efforts to get through other military tomes such as Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War” have monumentally failed to date, as with Niccolo Macchiavelli's "The Prince" - a manual on how to govern effectively.)

Coincidentally, 2 weeks later, I listened at ACTKM 2008 as David Snowden spoke of Web 2.0 used in Middle Eastern conflict frontlines by the US military - to get accurate, current information to the strategists – chillingly real, but nonetheless very dynamic KM. And how the newly elected US President Barack Obama’s campaign team exploited Web 2.0 communications – despite criticism now he’s taking a brief rest after the campaign. Honestly, even in a local council election campaign, & I’ve done 4, the pace is exhausting ... you need chill out time afterwards….

I started with Les Carlyon’s “The Great War”, 800 pages, very long & many footnotes. The failure of the British communications, how this prevented them from modifying flawed strategies, that bore no relation to reality, inevitably leading to devastating results on their battle strategies, leapt off the pages. Along the way, Carlyon inserted small, personal stories of soldiers from both sides, including disastrous Fromelles, (more Australia soldiers perished than in Gallipoli). Citizens saw through the UK War Office’s official spin, as casualties exploded. Interesting to hear Turkish perspectives of Gallipoli (actually Gelibolu), aka the Cannakale War, fighting off UK- led ANZAC invaders. Confusing ?? So the 11th of November 1918, long remembered as the Armistice for a world shell shocked by an agonising 4 year war - also heralded a new world, where countries such as Russia, Germany & Turkey changed forever. And in other countries, like Australia and Vietnam, colonial ties loosened.

Military & political reputations would be made, as officers learnt new ways of campaigning – Haig, Blamey, Patten, Montgomery, Rommel, Hitler. Technology required a constantly adapting orchestration of tanks, wireless radio communications, artillery, planes etc & the Royal Navy, played a lesser role. Supplying the frontline troops was crucial.

Just short of 90 years later, 4th of November 2008 will be unforgettable. The day, when the USA elected its first non White President, as the world reeled with a changed global financial order. Victory at the end of a long campaign, where Victors exploited new technologies – Web 1.0 & Web 2.0 – email, YouTube, MySpace, etc. Adaptability, crucial, but tradition not ignored, as campaign workers gave snacks to those queued up to vote. Attempts to paint people negatively by the Defeated unsuccessful. I was astonished at the failure of the Defeated to effectively use Web 1.0 & Web 2.0. Even in NSW local government elections of 1999, I emailed out campaign strategy, policies & tools, to our team of 15 candidates & supporters. Basic web pages created a campaign presence, when shut out by the mainstream media. It was to be the most successful of all my team’s election campaigns in 20 years.

History ? Change is inevitable. But then the same lessons to be learned again.... Smarter tools really can’t be ignored, or banned by traditional IT management. Web 2.0, in all of its forms is here. People will find ways to use them officially, or otherwise, even outside the organization. To get the benefits – realistic governance is needed to direct, guide, help & enable users.