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Great article by Adam Lent, Ashoka, on how social media networks unleash the power of people to act as meaningful change makers themselves. June 8, 2015 Suggests that company leaders need to provide the platform to "allow others to flourish and create. Cites Frederic Laloux's book on organizational theory.

In this blog post, John Hagel "lifts" from a much larger report, what platforms are, the three types (aggregation that is mainly short-term, transaction based; social for building long-term relationships and meshing of relationship networks to foster diversity of connections, and mobilization--those that move people to act together to accomplish something, ex. supply network, Linux in open source, and social movements such as Arab Spring), and how a fourth one--the "learning platform" is the aspiration of business ecosystems everywhere. Platforms do not mean apps. Platforms offer governance protocols and structure for determine who belongs and who doesn't. They also facilitate coordination, collaboration, and connection.

interesting discussion of trim tab and rudders by Lawrence Wilson, an MD. He quotes Richard Buckminster Fuller who said that for one person to change the entire world, they need "to act like the rudder and trim tab of a ship."

From the Atlantic July/August 2013 edition by Stephen Marche "Men's absence from the conversation about work and life is strange, because decisions about who works and who takes care of the children, and who makes the money and how the money is spent, are not decided by women alone or by some vague and impersonal force called society. Decisions in heterosexual relationships are made by women and men together. When men aren't part of the discussion about balancing work and life, outdated assumptions about fatherhood are allowed to go unchallenged and, far more important, key realities about the relationship between work and family are elided. The central conflict of domestic life right now is not men versus women, mothers versus fathers. It is family versus money. Domestic life today is like one of those behind-the-scenes TV series about show business. The main narrative tension is: "How the hell are we going to make this happen?" There are tears and laughs and little intrigues, but in the end, it's just a miracle that the show goes on, that everyone is fed and clothed and out the door each day." He goes on to criticize Sheryl Sandberg for perpetuating an outdated model of women acting like men to get ahead. Marche advocates for a new paradigm of family friendly policies that reflect the reality of today - couples making decisions based on economic and social factors, not whether they will get to the C suite.

Offers three tips for managing work life--Unplug, Take real vacations and dive into hobbies away from work, use your energy wisely, by Katie Bascuas, May 14, 2015

Adam Rogers, Science, Wired, 8.6.15, writes about how the Google tanking algorithm of positive and negative stories on the candidates could affect major elections 25% of the timer. This is the tyranny of the algorithm. They tested the impact in mock voter labs before elections in Australia and India where the impact of feeding positive stories about a candidate first shaped voters decisions between 24 and 72 percent of the time with certain voter groups. Voters in towns in the US that watch a local a Fox channel vote more conservatively because of recency and placement issues. While the numbers in real live do not add up to the impact achieved in the test research, when elections are decided by 1 or 2 percentage points, it's enough to turn the tide in favor of a candidate.

blog post by Natalia Castaneda, 8/28/14, at Leadership Learning Community. Good reminder of how to take strategic plan and use it as a guide to implement. "1.View planning as an ongoing process It may be that you have to focus on the process first, trying to see what is the best way to implement an agile strategic planning process in your unique context Set 90 day goals, to keep the process dynamic 2.Keep it simple: "Simplicity allows people to act"[2] The plan should have three main components: identity (organizational vision, mission and values), goals (strategies and goals), and implementation (the actual plan) In terms of the implementation, it is helpful to think about not only the team members who will be implementing a given task, but also a 'champion' who is basically a project manager who is responsible for ensuring that the task gets completed 3.Create accountability among the organization's leadership team Organizational leaders should make strategic planning part of their responsibilities and develop accountability systems to ensure that the process is running well"

New report about adult literacy in technology rich environments. Majority (greater than 60%) of those with low numeracy, reading, and problem solving capabilities are high school graduates. Hispanic and black Americans have the lowest skill levels. 2/3 of low literacy adults are employed, but 40% have earnings in the bottom 1/5 of wage spectrum. Talks about solutions - most are collective actions across a wide spectrum of public and private organizations. "...the first and overarching strategy of this national call to action is for stakeholders to act collectively to raise awareness that transforming learning opportunities for youth and adults is a means of reaching shared goals.

blog by George Siemens reflecting on his first week of a dual-layer MOOC, October 28, 2014. "I'm biased toward learners owning their own content and owning the spaces where they learn. My reason is simple: knowledge institutions mirror the architecture of knowledge in the era in which they exist. Today, knowledge is diverse, messy, partial, complex, and rapidly changing. What learners need today is not instructivism but rather a process of personal sensemaking and wayfinding where they learn to identify what is important, what matters, and what can be ignored. Most courses assume that the instructor and designer should sensemake for learners. The instructor chooses the important pieces, sets it in a structured path, and feeds content to learners. Essentially, in this model, we take away the sweet spot of learning. Making sense of topic areas through social and exploratory processes is the heart of learning needs in complex knowledge environments. " Though I am biased toward learner-in-control, I do recognize the value of formal instruction, particularly when the topic area is new to a learner. Even then, I would like to see rapid transitions from content provision to having learners create artifacts that reflect their understanding. These artifacts can be images, audio, video, simulations, blog posts, or any other resource that can be created and shared with other learners. Learning transparently is an act of teaching.

A network of regional leaders committed to serving the common good in Silicon Valley. They have created a Fellows program that brings together demonstrated leaders to explore process of collaborative leadership that can strengthen their capacity to address difficult issues. Graduates of the program are called Senior Fellows and they act as networked servant leaders

From Science Daily on how we may form new habits, 8/8/2014, Society for Personality and Social Psychology

nonprofits are acting like forprofit employers by going outside to other nonprofits to hire away their folks; result--short-term gain because pay does not keep new hires in new organization for very long. They are not developing in-house talent for promotion.

Nice summary by Alex Beall, Associations Now, of Srini Rao's opening remarks at 2017 conference. Take risks, act on crazy ideas, make it yours, not a replication of best practice.

from Networkweaver.com Communicating in networks are not the same as communicating in organizations: in a network people are not in a single organization and are used to communicating on different platforms in different ways; they don't know how to initiate online conversations; network activities are usually only a small part of an individual's work; they don't know the people in the network; groups can be silo'd; they need to know how the network is doing and if it is indeed acting in a "networked" way

interesting article by Cass Sunstein and Reid Hastie, November 4, 2014 on how to help groups make better decisions. Eight suggestions are made: 1. Silence the leader 2. Prime critical thinking 3. Reward group success 5. Assign roles 6. Appoint a devil's advocate 7. Establish contrarian teams 8. Delphi Method

first tip is to find a digital home for projects in a LMS but it can be as simple as Google Sites or Wikispaces instead of Schoology or Edmodo or Google Classroom. 2. make sure everyone has anytime, anywhere access 3. set your support structures 4. turn the work over to the workers 5. track student progress and offer guidance when needed 6. learn from your mistakes

Allyson Kapin writes about nonprofits taking advantage of online social media, December 31, 2015.  Includes new ones such as Medium, Periscope. 

Linkedin/Pulse article by Cristina Chis, training consultant at Krauthammer on why online learning works for introverts. describes her routines for learning that are single-minded, relating to new content/ideas, not people interactions.

article by Ciara Conlon, Lifehack.org, on increasing one's productivity, making change happen in your life

by Gregory Ciotti, good tips and research links on building good habits