Will at Work Learning

Younger Generation NOT Good at Multitasking Either!

Generation Y, millennials, iPod Generation, better at multitasking then their elders. Yadda yadda yadda.

You've heard it all before, but is it true?

No. Probably not.

Read this great article in the Monitor on Psychology by Rebecca A. Clay.

It says:

1. People in general are not good at multitasking.
2. Young people are no better than their elders at multitasking.
3. Multitasking actually takes longer. It is NOT a time saver.
4. Learning done while multitasking is shallower learning, leading not to deep understanding (and flexible mental models) but only to an ability to regurgitate rote information.

Although I recommend the article, I do worry that some of its conclusions are drawn from too small a research base and may encompass a slight bias against the new media revolution. Still, I think we need to read these warnings because too many in our field don't see any downside to the new technologies.

The Coming Collapse of Daily Print Journalism

This is huge.

Copyright Laws, Lawrence Lessig on Terry Gross's Fresh Air

Nice radio show interview of Lawrence Lessig by Terry Gross on Fresh Air. About 37 minutes.

Copyright laws strike me as having a fundamental effect on our democracy and economy, especially in the sense that (1) the free and accurate flow of information is necessary to enabling citizens to make informed decisions, and (2) as copyright laws help provide creators with a base livelihood that enables them to keep creating.

Read the comments too, which provide some counter point to Lessigs' argument that free sharing has provided more benefits than harm.

Also, note that the interview gets into some major forces in society and issues related to the learning field, which may be of interest to those of you in the learning field who like to ponder the intersections between economy, power, discourse, politics, and the citizenry.

Lessig makes the case that copyright laws are primarily intended to provide incentives for creators to create new works. I find this argument intriguing, but too narrow. To me, creators ought to have some control over their work. I admit that nothing is created in a vacuum--that all creators draw upon others for ideas and inspiration--so we are all in this together. Still, even a compiler puts in time and effort. Shouldn't this effort be protected? Since Lessig is a principal behind the Creative Commons Copyright efforts, and since Creative Commons includes many flexible options that creators control, perhaps I am reading too much into the argument Lessig makes in the interview. On the other hand, Lessig's new book seem to promote the idea of remixing, so maybe I am right to worry just a little. For example, maybe remixing a song is fine, but taking concepts or ideas out of context can be ripe for a real mess, of the type a creator may not want to encourage.

Lessig's interview by Terry Gross is worth a listen. Perhaps the new book, Remix, he is hawking is worth a read as well. The Amazon Link is available below:

U.S. Loses 533,000 Jobs in November

U.S. Loses 533,000 Jobs in November, the New York Times reports.

The largest one-month loss in over 30 years. The economy is now guaranteed to be in the longest recession since the Great Depression.

Ouch. Ouch. Ouch.

Prediction: The learning-and-performance industry is about to take a big big big hit. I'm thinking a complete disaster. I'm thinking maybe my MBA will come in handy. Master Burger Administrator. I actually worked full-time as a short-order cook for a year before going to college, so I'm ready. BIG GULP!

Polish up your resumes folks. Cut way back on holiday spending. Put in extra time at the office so they won't think you're quite the dead wood you seem to be. Stop eating the expensive part of meals, like the entrees and desserts. Encourage your family to become anorexic. Burn all your George Bush paraphernalia. Even if you're one of the 19% of people who still think Bush is a good president, don't tell anyone. Tell Corporate that there was a mistake in your job title, it wasn't supposed to be "Instructional Designer" it was supposed to be "Productivity Designer"; it wasn't supposed to be Director of Learning and Emerging Technologies" it was supposed to be "Director of Much Better Performance"; your CLO title didn't mean "Chief Learning Officer," it meant "Cutter of Learning Overhead."

Remember, in times like these, even if you can't have your dream job in being a "Learning Professional," being an earning professional is good.

My hope is that in times like these, the best of us will survive/thrive, perhaps by doing the right stuff.

College Tuition Not Affordable in Future?

The New York Times published an article today saying that college tuition may be out of reach for most Americans. This, of course, is stunning news. If true, it will rip a gaping hole in the very fabric of our society. It will also, make the job of work-learning professionals that much harder.

1. More remedial training.
2. More training that teaches meta-cognitive thinking skills.
3. Dealing more with splinter groups and labor unrest, as we further divide into the haves and have-nots.
4. Dealing more with globalization as professional and managerial jobs are shipped off-shore.
5. Dealing more with workers with different language and cultural backgrounds as professionals are imported to relieve shortages.
6. Making due with fewer and fewer highly-educated workers, as fewer are college educated and more become expatriates escaping the toxicity of a more-divided, more-rancorous, more-economically volatile environment.

On the other hand, perhaps there will be a need for learning professionals who can be really creative in dealing with these issues. Perhaps China is educating them now...

Ethics in Internet Selling and Advertising

Newspapers and magazines have recognized for many years that there must be a clear distinction between content and advertising in the perceptions of readers. These entities not only have clear standards about these distinctions, but they also enforce a clear delineation between their sales departments and their news departments so that their sales efforts cannot influence (bias) their news reporting.

It is similar in the TV news business. Even as recently as last year, news organizations have been chastened with public outrage when Bush Administration video propoganda---created to look like real news broadcasts---was used by several news organizations as if it was an actual independent news clip. See the following article for details, for example (access costs money), THE MESSAGE MACHINE: How the Government Makes News; Under Bush, a New Age of Prepackaged News. By DAVID BARSTOW AND ROBIN STEIN; ANNE E. KORNBLUT CONTRIBUTED REPORTING FOR THIS ARTICLE. NY Times: March 13, 2005

News organizations don't follow these ethical practices only because they believe in their sanctity. They follow these practices because the general public becomes outraged when news is seen as biased by financial interests or the influence of powerful elites.

Unfortunately, on the web---where the general public is being sorted into smaller and smaller subgroups---it is easier for organizations to deceive these micro-publics into believing that commercial messages come from independent unbiased sources.

With this in mind, I offer the following minimum standards of ethics for internet sellers and advertisers:

1. Almost everyone who views your advertising should understand immediately that it is an advertisement.
2. It is more ethical to offer independent content than sponsored content.
3. It is more ethical to offer both independent and sponsored content than it is to offer sponsored content alone.
4. It is more ethical to offer sponsored content and independent content if the financial benefits of the sponsored content are required to enable the production of the independent content.
5. Readers/viewers must be able to immediately recognize which information is sponsored and which information is independent.
6. Almost everyone who views sponsored content (web pages, white papers, articles, awards, best-of lists, etc.) should understand immediately that the information is being presented to sell or persuade the readers or viewers.
7. The development of independent content should not be influenced by sponsoring entities.
8. Authors must clearly acknowledge any relationships that may bias their work.

What else am I missing?

What do I have wrong?

What evidence of this do you see in the Workplace Learning-and-Performance Field?

What else, specifically, do we have to worry about? Any of the following (I'm just brainstorming)?

• product placements in e-learning?
• trade organization behaviors?
• helping our learners distinguish truth from sales pitches?
• conferences that offer sponsorships?
• webinars that are sales pitches masquerading as information?
• gurus that have vendor money in their pockets?
• online communities based on sponsorship money?
• white papers?
• award programs?
• vendor research?