GS1
The Power of Pull
How Small Moves, Smartly
Made, Can Set Big Things
in Motion
John Seely Brown
Visiting Scholar, University of Southern
California
A New Culture of Learning
in a world of constant change
Learning-on-demand: pull, not push
Arc of Life Learning
A Simple Belief
The old
Th
ld iinstitutions
tit ti
aren’t hacking it
very well.
And nor are our schools
1
20th Century Era Captured by Alfred Chandler
Push Economy
20th century infrastructure
roads/cars/trucks/trains/ships/airplanes
Scalable Efficiency became the goal.
S-curve
stable over decades.
(Few real changes in 60 years)
• predictable
• hierarchy
• control
• organizational routines
• minimize variance
20th Century Push-based Education
Scalable Efficiency became the goal.
S-curve
• predictable curriculum
• standards based
• authority focused
2
The 21st C infrastructure is driven by the continual
exponential advances of computation, storage &
bandwidth, with no stability in sight!!
S-curve
S-curve
rapid set of punctuated moves
(potentially never ending)
in a world of increasingly rapid change,
the half life of a given stock/skill is
constantly shrinking
& the predictability of future needs is
increasingly
l less
l certain!
t !
Stocks =====> Flows
protecting
knowledge
dg assets
sharing knowledge
(explicit)
participating
in knowledge
dg flows
creating new knowledge
(strong tacit component)
3
The Big Shift
Push --- > Pull
Stocks ---> Flows
Crisis of Imagination
embracing change, not fearing it.
The big
g shift
rapid set of punctuated moves
(potentially never ending)
4
The 2nd Shift-The Explosion of Data
almost beyond comprehension!
“Every two days we now create as much
information as we did from the dawn of
civilization up until 2003.
Let me repeat that:
h we create as much
h
information in two days now as we did from
the dawn of man through 2003.”
Eric Schmidt, CEO Google
A 21st Century Challenge:
preparing our students/workforce
for this world of constant change!
Perhaps we need to rethink
how we actually learn- especially
the tacit.
what we need to learn &
how
h
w new media ha
has changed
hanged
the game in fundamental ways.
Creating a resilient mindset–
ability to change, adapt, re-conceptualize
and engage in deep listen with humility.
5
A Pull Framework
for 21st century value creation
11 The Power of Pull
Copyright © 2010 Deloitte Development LLC. All rights reserved.
A fortuitous encounter that
helped shape my thinking.
Oh – an example from
your years of running PARC?
No… two extreme cases of amazing
learning both using new media++.
6
The Grommets
A story about how fame & fortune was brought to Maui
The first junior champion ever in Maui
and a new genre – aerial surfing.
And now ALL Five!
7
How was this possible?
>A passion to achieve extreme performance and a
willingness to fail, fail , fail on the way.
>Accessing and analyzing frame by frame the best
surfers
f around
d the
h world
ld via video’s
d
off the
h pros.
>Use of video tools to capture and analyze each of
their own improvisations.
>Pulling the best ideas from adjacencies: wind surfing,
skate boarding, mountain biking, motor cross, …
>Accessing spikes
k off capabilities
bl
around
d the
h world
ld –
leveraging networks of practice in a ecosystem.
>Attracting others to help them around the world.
And always a deep collaborative learning with each other.
8
Mind Set
And a passionate pursuit of
extreme performance
with a deep questing disposition
And a commitment to
Indwelling.
World of Warcraft
A massively multi-player online game : MMOG
on a quest
Why should we care????
9
MMOGs are. . .
• Vi
Virtual
t a spaces
spa es whi
which
h both
b th define and aaree
defined by the players who inhabit them
• Social spaces where issues of community,
meaning, and values are negotiated
• Sites of joint collective agency
To see the value of games
don’t just look at the core of the game
b pay close
but
l
attention to
the ‘social life’ on
the edge of the game.
The edge is often referred to
as a knowledge economy.
10
WoW Mantra
If I’m not learning
then it ain’t fun.
Two kinds of learning spaces..
• In game learning
• knowledge
k
l d economy out-of-game
f
l
learning
In game learning:
a kind of collective indwelling
with constant
experimentation/tinkering/playing around.
getting a feeling what for the ‘system’
11
Dashboards
W d off Wa
World
WarCraft
C aft is way ttoo complicated
mp i ated
to play without complex analysis tools
and dashboards.
These dashboards are nearly
y always
y
handcrafted by each player and
are key to masterful play.
12
After Action Reviews
13
Blending the tacit & the cognitive
Collective Indwelling + Reflection:
marinating together in a problem space
with jjoint action
Speed chess & hard core hacking
The making of grand masters i d lli complements/transcends
indwelling
l
t /t
d cognition
iti
And the same for hard core hacking
14
Two kinds of learning spaces..
• In game learning
• knowledge
k
l d economy out-of-game
f
l
learning
Out of game learning (aboutness) :
Social Life &Knowledge Economy/Ecology
on the Edge
WoW’s knowledge economy/ecology –
help players gain & create knowledge faster
Other Forums
(~countless)
(www w d fwa net/f um
(www.worldofwar.net/forum
s, www.wowforums.com)
Blizzard Forums
(~300)
(forums.worldofwarcraft.com,
forums.wow-europe.com)
Over a million
WoW
Interactions on
the EDGE
Databases
(www.thottbot.com,
www.wowdb.com,
www.wowguru.com)
Videos
(www.warcraftmovies.com)
26,000 videos from
over 5k guilds
Wikis
Blogs
(www.wowwiki.com)
(www.worldofwarcraftblo
gger.com,
www.wowinsider.com,
www.resto4life.com)
15
Capturing play in WoW through machinima
Tempest Keep
Managing Knowledge via Guilds
> Structure of filtering
g and feedback loops
p
– Problem: Knowledge is constantly changing
– Problem: Too much information to reliably
manage. (around 12k new ideas just last night.)
> Guild structures allow for small groups (20
(20-200)
200)
to seek out, test, filter & disseminate information.
16
Fusing the two kinds learning spaces
thru concerted (peer-based) cultivation
Exponential Learning
Hours to Gain Experience Points (XP) in WoW
12,000,000
,
,
Level 70
Experience Points (XP)
10,000,000
8,000,000
6,000,000
Level 60
4,000,000
Level 50
2,000,000
Level 40
Level 30
0
0
50
100
150
200
250
Accumulated Hours to Gain XP
300
Source: Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) PlayOn http://blogs.parc.com/playon/; Deloitte Analysis
A Pull Framework
for a 21st century economy
34 The Power of Pull
Copyright © 2010 Deloitte Development LLC. All rights reserved.
17
Access
on-demand access to resources
Access involves
A
i
l
the
th ability
bilit to
t find,
fi d learn
l
about, and connect with people, products,
and knowledge to address unanticipated
needs.
• Individuals:
I di id l Social
S i l Networks
N t
k that
th t can scale
l
35 The Power of Pull
Copyright © 2010 Deloitte Development LLC. All rights reserved.
Attract
18
Harnessing the power of serendipity
In a world that is rapidly changing – we don’t really
know what q
questions to ask or whom to look for..
The real challenge is how to attract people in
unexpected ways to help ask, frame and answer
these questions.
Ah, where Google can’t help.
37 The Power of Pull
Copyright © 2010 Deloitte Development LLC. All rights reserved.
Shaping Serendipity
Can be more than just luck!!!
Choose
Ch
D l
Develop
Serendipity
Serendipity
Environments
Practices
Enhance
Serendipity
Preparedness
All encounters: deep listening with reciprocity
Transactional --> Relational
19
Exposing ‘surfaces’
People become too
dependent on one
facet of their lives.
Jack Hidary
Folks tend to isolate themselves from the flows of
new knowledge and the people creating them.
“How often do you get out of your comfort zone?”
Achieve
pulling out of
each of us &
our institutions
our full potential
by
harnessing network effects.
20
The Bigger Picture
Breaking free of the Red Queen effect
Experience curves
Collaboration curves
harnessing
h
i network
t
k effects
ff t where
h
the more people that participate the
greater the potential returns
42 The Power of Pull
Copyright © 2010 Deloitte Development LLC. All rights reserved.
21
The purpose of the 20th century firm:
to minimize transaction costs &
achieve scalable efficiency
The purpose of the 21st century firm:
to achieve scalable capability building
(building talent)
Learning from others as they learn from you:
accelerate bootstrapping in an ecosystem
Pull Framework
Interleaving
individual-institutional-arena
into a virtuous
PULL spiral
around
Access/Attract/Achieve
44 The Power of Pull
Copyright © 2010 Deloitte Development LLC. All rights reserved.
22
Jan
an 2011
Thank You
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