Talent Anarchy, Closing Keynote #DevLearn

This are my liveblogged notes from the closing keynote session on Friday, October 25 at the eLearning Guild DevLearn Conference, happening this week in Las Vegas. Forgive any incoherence or typos. I am in Vegas, after all...

Jason Lauritsen and Joe Gertstandt, @talentanarchy http://talentanarchy.com

Their breakthrough: the need to make work more human.

Innovation...this needs to be something that all employees contribute to all levels with in the org.

"Innovation is significant positive change." ~ Scott Berkun

The pyramid -- a reflection of how innovation actually happens. More often than not, innovation is an iterative thing that takes time. We tweak things and add on to what's there. After so long, we're sitting on top of a pyramid. Small improvements and experiments lead to innovation.

Hacking = innovation.

Today, people think hacking is a criminal activity. But hacking wasn't about stealing or breaking, it's about understanding how something works and trying to extend it's capabilities. There was a positive ethos around the hacking sub-culture. About sharing, openness, decentralization, free access to tools, world improvement.

Hacking is about building things, not breaking them.

Requirements: curiosity, experimentation, courage (to be a hacker)

Ask: Is it awesome? 

If the answer is Yes, then leave it alone.

If the answer is No, then ask "how could it be better?" Pull it apart, then hack. Then ask: is it awesome.

Ask: what does not-sucking look like?

When we take big, complex approaches to change that take 18 months...no one can survive failure. There's too much invested in it. So if this thing fails, we can't admit it.

Instead, we need to play with change on a smaller scale. And failure instead becomes FEEDBACK.

The System = what you want to change
Aspiration - the way you want the system to improve
Components = the individual pieces of that system
Hack = taking an individual component and making a change - then we can see, did that hack move us closer to our aspiration

And now we're going to do a collaborative HackLab as part of the session...

Hacking is about finding small changes that you can take action on.  You have to stay inside the box. A hack is something you can take action on. You don't need to get additional resources, or ask permission, authority, ability.  Hack inside your box. What's the smallest thing that makes the biggest difference?

If it works, you keep it.

Example: Hacking staff meetings: aspiration to keep them under 30 minutes.  List out all the components...Hack: arrive five minutes early or don't come. Hack: remove the chairs in your room.  If it works, keep it.

Everyone is involved in driving innovation in your organization. This approach put change in the hands of the people who do the work, who have the real knowledge about their work.  Instead of a team of three trying to make things better, this gives everyone in your org a way to feed deviation from the norm. Make sure your organization is benefiting from small improvements every day.