In this space i try to take a broader and deeper look at aspects of the Social Age, sharing my writing from the week, and identifying themes our insights.
I notice that a lot of my thinking and writing this year so far has been at a systems level: it’s like i’m looking down on what i have been exploring, and looking for patterns.
This ability, to stop, to pause, to look out and look down, to calibrate our understanding of context, and hence our strategy and action, is an important consideration.
Organisational systems tend to act as shadows of our legacy context. We are superbly adapted to a world gone by. But not to today.
Increasingly, disruption is asymmetric, not our legacy competitors, but emergent startups, or new ideas, both of which are often held in a paradigmatically different view of the world. Not ‘what is possible within our current understanding’, but rather ‘we have a new understanding’, of context.
New ideas in new spaces.
Yesterday i was talking to a friend who asked about my view on the Learning Organisation, and i realise that this was how my answer was phrased: about context and pressure on our Organisations today, about the insights we can draw from learning science and broader cognitive sciences, and about the re-authoring or engineering of our legacy industrial models.
Alongside my main research focus this year, and critical reappraisal of my legacy work, it feels as though 2023 is a transitional year: a pause and refresh, a foundation. And i’m quite enjoying it: indeed, i think it’s bringing a calmness to my writing, and a clarity to my thoughts.
Social Currencies and Contexts
Last week i started work on the manuscript for ‘Togetherness - Otherness’, which will ultimately form a sequel to ‘The Humble Leader’.
At this stage, it’s really to create a scratchpad, a space to capture ideas, most of which are more poetic than structural at this stage.
I have some broad thoughts: this will be two book in one - the writing on ‘Togetherness’, which will read from the front, and the writing on ‘Otherness’, which will read from the back. And somewhere in the middle they will collide.
So i intend to use space again, much as i did with the Humble Leader, but in a different way: that last book was about reflective space, and perhaps this new one will be about convergence. Or conflict. It remains to be seen, but i shared some early writing here.
https://julianstodd.wordpress.com/2023/01/24/workingoutloud-on-togetherness-otherness/
Learning Science - Social Metacognition
Work on the Learning Science Handbook is progressing well. In fact, i am feeling quite confident and excited about this work, as over the last couple of weeks we have made good progress exploring both content and structure. We are already planning a writing retreat around June, which will be a chance to formalise structure.
https://julianstodd.wordpress.com/2023/01/25/learning-science-social-metacognition/
It’s still very open as to what exactly this book will be, but that’s not unusual for me at this stage, and i am hoping that having two other voices in the mix will help us resolve this relatively fast - when i write alone the tensions of this confusion can grind me to a halt.
It feels like it will be a fairly ambitious text, and probably a full blown book. Our table of contents alone is long!
Almost certainly it will fall into three sections: context of the Learning Organisation today (in the Social Age), insights from Learning Science, and moving towards the Learning Engineering Organisation.
Early days, but let’s see…
Research Update
As you may have gathered, i am working on a new Doctorate, which will likely run for around 18 months from now. Other this period i will probably share short updates here in the newsletter, as part of my reflective practice, as well as video posts on Learning Fragments.
In the initial work i am taking a retrospective look at three things: my published work, specific events or communicates that have influenced me, and the books that have shaped my ideas. Examples of two of these things below:
https://julianstodd.wordpress.com/2023/01/23/retrospective-vegan-punks-and-social-community/
https://julianstodd.wordpress.com/2023/01/26/fragments-of-thought-the-gun/
I have to say that i’m rather enjoying the process so far (a far cry from my previous efforts for a Doctorate, which felt lonely and mountainous.
It’s interesting to delve back into the archaeology of one’s own thinking, and to see which ideas emerged almost fully formed, and which struggled to find the light. Or which ones were just bad ideas.
Quiet Leadership
I have two new cohorts kicking off for Quiet Leadership in February: anyone is welcome to join these, and you can sign up here.
Also: a paid programme, the Community Builder Certification, which you can find here.
Best wishes
Julian
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