Calling a Crowd of Experts : Community

Community Contributors

JeffHora — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 22:00:00 GMT

In the discussions that I have with other members of my team, the roles that exist and will exist in our Community fall under a greater category of Contributors. “Wait, I thought we were talking about authors?” Yes, we are. But there’s a lot more to do than ’just’ write a course or create some e-learning….

People engage in communities to differing degrees. In the book Groundswell by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff, the authors describe what they call Social Technographics. This classifies people according to how they use social technologies. The categories the authors define are Creators, Critics, Collectors, Joiners, Spectators and Inactives (if you’re really intrigued by this, check the linked presentation, or better yet read the book). Anyway, our Community is made of mostly Creators and Critics.

The Creators write the learning content, whatever its form, but there are a few more functions, too. These include:

Maintainer – these people take it upon themselves to take something and make it better. An analog might be someone who, after buying a used car, begins tweaking the engine, rebuilding the body, installing a new sound system, etc. In our Community, they agree to revise, update, correct and improve an existing course (could be a learning product that Microsoft placed there, or it this could be in agreement with the Community author who, for whatever reason, decides not to maintain their course).
Localizer – I’ve come in contact with a large number of these enthusiastic people in the past few weeks. They see the content on the Microsoft Learning Courseware Library (today mostly in English and some Japanese), know of opportunities in their part of the world for, say, a course in Silverlight 2.0, in their own language, and so agree to localize the content into their language. Most times they also agree to become the maintainers for their localized course….it really makes sense. They become intimately familiar with their translation, so maintaining is a natural.
Virtual Machine (VM) Expert – The expertise around building VMs, diff drives and the granular, ‘niggling bits’ around getting it right, stable, consistent and, for release, compliant (as defined by the Courseware Library release process) is hard won. These experts can offer their services to the Community to those who don’t have that depth of ability, or just don’t have the time.

The Critics are valuable to the Community as they perform the technical reviews of courses, providing the kind of feedback to the authors that allow them to improve and adjust their existing offering. These folks include a large number of the professional Trainers who teach the courses week in and week out. They provide feedback not only via the standard classroom surveys, but can go into the Courseware Library and be more specific and give the course a star rating. Over time, this obviously makes the better courses easier to identify and the ones that aren’t doing so well also show up. Again, this is where the Authors and Maintainers can jump in and start changing the course to better meet the customer needs, as well as just perform sustained engineering.

So, in case you felt that, by NOT being an author there was no way to join this Community, think again. There’s lot of room.

Community, Learning and Windows 7

JeffHora — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 02:06:00 GMT

You MIGHT have heard that Windows 7 was released in its public beta a week ago…

As you might imagine, Microsoft Learning is busy putting together our courseware, book and certification plans, many of which are in development now. While the finalized portfolio is in its final stages of assembly, there are plenty of opportunities for the Crowd of Experts to create valuable learning materials. Our colleagues in Developer and Platform Evangelism have already been hard at work on TechNet Edge and will help us place some very early developer material on the Microsoft Learning Courseware Library within the next few weeks. (Not to mention all of the great Windows 7 material on MSDN).

However, this is not comprehensive. There are plenty of opportunities for MCTs, MVPs, and expert IT Pros and Developers to join the Community and become authors. If you’re interested, you should take a look at the Community Authoring information on the Courseware Library site. If you have any other questions, mail me via this blog or drop a line to clsubmit@microsoft.com.

Community: Who can be an Author?

JeffHora — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 23:27:46 GMT

One of the questions I'm frequently asked of late is, "Who can be an Author?" I like to respond that anyone can be an author, but realistically one should be one of the community of Experts on Microsoft technologies (the "Crowd of Experts".....). The community is a pretty collegial group, but they are very experienced professionals from across the planet. For example, today some members are located in (but not limited to) Norway, Israel, the UK, Australia, Brazil and the USA. The ranks are swelling on a weekly basis.

Many don't realize that there are members of the Community from within Microsoft, too. Numerous Microsoft Product Groups, Services Groups, and members of Microsoft Learning are active in the community. Other Microsoft-related members include Certified Partners, Certified Trainers, Certified Professionals and Most Valuable Professionals (MVP's). The Community is not limited to its relationship with Microsoft, though. There are a considerable number of IT Professionals, Developers, Architects, Consultants and Business professionals who have broad and deep expertise in Microsoft technologies and their real-world experiences are extremely valuable....and they are not Certified nor do they have a formal relationship with Microsoft. They are engaged in training, a lot of the time without even realizing it (when was the last time someone came up to you and asked for help? When you took them through the steps to create that Excel macro or perform the analysis on the server event log, you taught....). Most of the Community has a wealth of training material on various hard drives and SOP documents that constitute learning paths for others.

If this sounds like you, you can be an author. I want to hear from you. The Courseware Library site can be found here for further information (there's a good FAQ there), or you can submit questions through this blog or contact our team at clauthor@microsoft.com.

Community Authoring and Identified Opportunities

JeffHora — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 21:11:51 GMT

Having taken a week off to relax around Thanksgiving and finish up the final project for my class in Research Strategies and Methodologies, I am back and rested and ready for…..more of the holidays!

First up, an update on the MCT Summits: it looks like I will be unable to attend the Summit in Prague (and I had already purchased my Prague street map and a Czech phrasebook, too…..), but will be onboard at the Summit in Redmond (January 21-23). If you haven’t made your plans yet, rush to the site and let us know that you’re coming. It will be a terrific event, plenty of technical sessions, lots of networking and catching up with colleagues, and several sessions on joining the rapidly growing Authoring Community (not to mention Technical Reviewers, Maintainers, and Localizers…more on those roles in a later post). Both Mark Shea and I will be on hand to answer your questions and sign you up.

Some of the questions that have come up are, “How can I find out about upcoming authoring opportunities? Are they posted anywhere?” Yes, they are. On the Microsoft Learning Courseware Library site’s “Submit a Course” page there is a grid entitled “Courseware Submission Opportunities”, what I like to call Identified Opportunities. When our product planners work through the coverage needed for a training portfolio, a number of titles are proposed. Some may be built by Microsoft Learning, but the rest, perhaps more solution-focused, more advanced, more niche (if you will…) are noted as desirable to complete the overall learning portfolio for training. You see, some of the challenges we have around creating training for Microsoft products are (a) there are so many of them, and (b) there will inevitably be gaps in the coverage for products that Microsoft Learning produces. This is where the community really shines.

The members of the community go face-to-face with their customers daily. They know the challenges and the need for training, and most of the community members who train step up and augment existing Official Microsoft Learning Products (OMLP) or, if there are none, create courseware because their customers need it. Anyway, without going into a deeper discussion, the Identified Opportunities are the courses that we at Microsoft Learning recognize as gaps, so we advertise the gaps. The length of the courses listed on the grid are merely suggestions….there is no requirement to create a 2-day course if a community member feels that a 3- or 5-day course would be more appropriate. If you see something up there that you are interested in creating, or have already created, let me know.

The trigger is pulled...

JeffHora — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 03:12:52 GMT

In my last post I mentioned the changes that have taken place within Microsoft Learning and what that means for me and my focus, as well as the topics of this blog. I spent some time thinking about what the new tag-line for it should be, and I recalled a short chat I had with author Jeff Howe several weeks back.

Jeff is a contributing editor for Wired magazine and the author of the book Crowdsourcing. He had come to speak at Microsoft Research about his new book and I mentioned that Microsoft Learning was creating a place for the community of authors for creating learning content, and he said, "Oh, that would be a crowd of experts." So, thanks Jeff!

We have discovered something we knew, but didn't pay close attention to - there is a vibrant, passionate, smart and a little obsessed community of technical and training experts who write, revise, devise, deliver and critique learning content on Microsoft technologies. This community exists all over the world, inside and outside of Microsoft, many of whom make their living training or creating training (of any kind), and many of whom just plain love learning and being/becoming experts and helping others become experts. This is the community of experts. Who you are, what you're doing and how we work together is a lot of what this blog will be about.

I will be posting about challenges and questions I come across as our community grows, changes, has its successes and flops, and we get to know each other better. I'm also going to be traveling a bit more in this role, so I will have more opportunities to meet some of you face-to-face. In fact, with the 2009 MCT Summits on the horizon in January, I plan on meeting a segment of you in Redmond (January 21-23) and, if all goes well, in Prague (January 7-9), too! If you're an MCT and still wondering about whether to go or not, check the site and make your reservation. Aside from the usual great technical and trainer sessions, my Community compatriot, Mark Shea, is going to be presenting several sessions on the Microsoft Learning Courseware Library and how to become an author. We're going to have 'office hours', a booth, etc. so you shouldn't have a hard time finding one or the other of us.

That's all for this week. Post a comment or drop a line.

Time for ANOTHER change

JeffHora — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 03:02:05 GMT

Right up there with Death and Taxes is the certainty of re-organizations with almost frightening regularity. This is one of those moments.

In the process of taking a long hard look at where the Learning business is today and where it is heading, a sizable portion of Microsoft Learning is just finishing up a major re-organization. One of the outcomes of this is that I have moved into a different role, and so this is the last post to this blog under the title "MOC and other things".

While I will no longer be the Lead Product Planner for the Instructor-led business (in fact that role, as such, goes away completely...), my new role as Product Manager for Community Content is pretty exciting to me. I will be working closely with the Microsoft Learning Courseware Library team as the authoring community grows and more and more of the terrific learning content produced by this community makes its way into the global Training Channel.

Over the next several posts I will describe a little more what this initiative has accomplished to date, what we're doing now and what the future might look like. I'll also describe more about what my role in this is and how you might take part. Until then, I will be thinking up a new title for this blog, and gladly open the floor for suggestions.

Thanks for coming along for the EXTREMELY periodic posts to date. I look forward to spending more time here in this new role.

Courseware Quality - the MCT's

JeffHora — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 23:43:02 GMT

First, thanks for the feedback and keep it coming!

Next I’d like to clarify something I said in my last post. I wrote that Training businesses look to Microsoft Learning to provide them with solid value propositions for Official Microsoft Learning Products (OMLP), allowing them to be able to communicate the same to their customers. While the term “value proposition” is certainly part of the marketing lexicon, I am very aware that one of the most solid value propositions we can deliver is that of courseware of high technical accuracy, depth and relevance. No amount of marketing can cover up something that doesn’t work. Thanks for allowing me to explain what I mean.

Next, today I’m starting with another of the stakeholders of OMLP: the Microsoft Certified Trainers (MCT's). These professionals have a highly valuable skill-set. They are both very technical AND they are instructional experts, which not a common combination. They are the only folks certified to train using OMLP. They know Microsoft Learning products better than anyone, since that is what they see every day in the classroom. As a result, their interest in the highest possible quality is easy to understand. Ever since I started with Microsoft Learning, I have been in touch with numerous MCT's to discuss courseware issues, get pro-active feedback on courseware design, in large groups at TechEd, slightly smaller groups at MCT Summits, and I am always energized by their passion around courseware quality and its impact on their students and businesses. As you may imagine, the discussion of which this blog series is part, is only part of a much larger discussion that has been going on for as long as I know around courseware quality. In the MCT newsgroups, participation in threads regarding specific and overall quality is heavy and transparent. One of the objects of opening this out onto my blog is to engage other MCT's, as well as, CPLS's, MCP's, and others in the conversation.

Part of the charter my team has this year is to assist in clearer and more consistent dialogue with the MCT community. One effort I posted in the newsgroup last week was the opportunity to provide proactive feedback on a planned revision of a couple of developer courses (Courses 4994 and 4995). While these courses are both quite popular now, they are based on .NET 2.0 and Visual Studio 2005, and the revision will bring them to .NET 3.5 and Visual Studio 2008. What we want to find out is, from the MCT's to teach these courses all of the time, how can we make them better? So, if you’re an MCT and haven’t been up on the newsgroups lately, please log on and pitch in. We have a cut-off date of August 5^th on the feedback so we can get the design kicked off, and I’ve only heard back from two of you; I know more of you have input and opinions than that!

Lastly, I offer MCT's, CPLS's, MCP's and students who have been trained using OMLP to feel free to comment on your experiences, as well as offer suggestions for related courseware quality discussion points. This may be my blog, but it’s your forum.

Learning and "Community", Part 2

JeffHora — Thu, 22 May 2008 02:52:51 GMT

After a week vacation, part of which was in Las Vegas, I'm moderately well rested and ready to head into the last bit of our fiscal year planning.

I finished "Groundswell" on vacation and have started "Wikinomics" so I can start wrapping my head around some of the other ramifications of peer production and collaboration. I feel that this must impact the way we learn. In my experience with team software development, the collaborative environment was invaluable and where I learned a lot of helpful skills. It's not quite like mentoring, but it can have that kind of tone with some teams.

I have a colleague with whom I discuss a lot of these kinds of topics (he has been part of the University of Washington's Masters program I mentioned in an earlier post. As we discuss and brainstorm about technical training, learning styles, social networking, peer production, community et al. it can feel like mentoring, but it feels a lot more invigorating than that.

Is there a way that learning and technical training can really be invigorating? Is it confined to a kind of experience, a specific instructor, an environment, or what? I know that I enter that timeless place sometimes when I'm learning, but other times when 5 minutes feels more like a week. I try to notice what the particulars about the experience are:

Environment - simple things like too hot or cold, comfort of the chair (but not too comfortable), lighting, and ambience.
Subject - Sometimes I can be completely engrossed by the technology and then, an hour later (same tech) it is totally uninteresting.
Instructor - As I mentioned in an earlier post, this could be a person, a Webcast, a book/article/blog/newsgroup, e-learning or some combination.
Being - That is, am I tired, sick, distracted, eating, etc.

I'll keep paying attention and let you know what else I discover. Let me know if you discover something that helps or hinders you.

Technorati Tags: Learning,Community,Collaboration

Learning and "Community"

JeffHora — Fri, 09 May 2008 02:52:35 GMT

Why the quotations around community? Community means so very many things to different people, and some of them appear downright magical, if only in concept...

I'm currently reading the book "Groundswell" by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff, which is having the effect of blowing the cobwebs out of my thinking about social networking, community, blogs, forums, etc. It is quickly becoming required reading among my colleagues for any number of reasons. For me, I want to better understand what this phenomena is and what it means for learners in general and Microsoft Learning in particular. What kinds of effects on Microsoft Learning products would community ratings and reviews have? What if recognized Subject Matter Experts on Microsoft technologies collaborated in developing, improving and maintaining a body of content with which individuals and organizations could assemble quality, relevant training for themselves, their teams and their organizations? What if.....?

Anyway, I'm about 80 pages from completing the book, then I will let it simmer for a bit as the knowledge looks for places to reside in my thinking and planning.

On another note, I've had one very interesting comment from Mathias about how he learns best which I found enlightening. I still hold out the question for further comments:

How do you learn best and why?

Technorati Tags: Learning styles,Community