Higher education: on dialogue and real choices

The pressure on higher education is becoming unbearable and requires fundamental change. Higher education is stretched past its limits of what the current budgets and coming budget cuts allow. That is how I read the message of the Dutch secretary of state for education. I am aware that it is a consicously positive way of reading this message. And that there is another way of interpreting it: politics, "The Hague" comes up with everything without listening to the ones involved. Two world colliding: the managers, politics, money and result drivenness versus the world of emotions of teachers who passionately want to teach, of the students, involved in a system they cannot control and of which they are insecure whether it will help them form their future. Whether the leadership they feel is necessary for the future is awakened in them in this system. But can they see a viable alternative future? The clash between the worlds is evident. But necessary. Because neither the solely managerial perspective offers a fruitful path nor does the alternative offered by teachers and students.

And that is the downside of this process, no matter how positive the interpretation of the message. There is no proper dialogue. No dialogue between the personal, emotional, the passion and the experience from practice on the one hand and the managerial, alsmost technological policies that are now voiced. This dialogue is necessary. Because to proceed how we have been doing of the past decades will not help us to create the future we envisage. This dialogical way of thinking and working, of looking at organisations I think is making progress in a number of areas, notably health care. Or at least in thinking about health care with Kunneman as one of the leading thinkers on the subject (sorry, article in Dutch).

Dialogue in this matter requires true leadership. Leadership that recognizes the value of both perspectives but that is also capable of thinking past the existing frameworks. That is capable of dealing with the emotions involved. Emotions that are valuable and hold a truth that is equal to the managerial perspective. Leadership that enables to mould the future of education, that moves education into the future with a clear idea in stead of merely managing on surviving the future. Leadership that is based on listing and dialogical thinking.

My contribution: this week and next week I have a number of conversations planned with new parties and old friends where this will be on the agenda and where we will seek to find out what we can contribute together to organising and enabling this dialogue. In addition I have submitted a proposal along the lines of action learning for Informatie aan Zee regarding this topic, but then of course focussing on the choices that information and documentation organisations see themselves faced with. Not everything is possible anymore (if it ever was:-), but vis-a-vis a multitude of ambitions, possibilities, demands and budget cuts how do you deal with the inevitable dilemma's? And what are ways of dealing with these dilemma's knowing that whichever way you go there will be fundamental and substantial loss, change and gain?

Please contact me if you want to think and work on these questions!

Physical and virtual learning environments

Will we still have a need for libraries in the future? This article on the BBC site gives one of the best summaries of the main arguments in the debate on access to information that I have seen for a while. It does give a clear picture of where libraries need to develop. In the western world that is. Because the eIFL.net experience taught me that in the south and east matters do look dramatically different!

Author of Things and Stuff wins Herman de Coninck debut prize!

Annemarie Estor, with whom I devised and wrote my company fairytale (Things and Stuff), won the Herman de Coninck price for her poetic debut Vuurdoorn me. A personal and professional achievement and I am so incredibly proud of her and happy for her! Above all it is a true compliment for her determination to follow her passion and dream.

For me personally I take it as an inspiration today to work on the books and articles I have started to write. Articles on entertainment and education, on ethics in training of (young) doctors and on using dilemmas in science and technology education. My book on conference management which is still in the very early stages but begging to be taken that step further and on our epically disasterous journey bike2culture. Inspiration for a day of writing thus. With the sole ambiton of getting everything that one step further towards publication. Getting myself through this solitary work singing Dory's song from Finding Nemo: "Just keep swimming". just keep writing, just keep writing....

The same goes for Annemarie: whatever you do, keep writing, keep composing poems. We need your written children for inspiration and enchantment.

Ethics and social media

Recently I have started my quest to enhance the synthesis between my work and my academic training. One of the implications: ethics should become a larger component of my work. How? What? Where? It's all part of my search. In that search I came upon the Dutch Center for Ethics in Healthcare (sorry, Dutch only). Almost against my will I was drawn to the page that asks you to contribute. Do you have any suggestions as to what should be on the ethical agenda? Experiences in healthcare that you would like to share so that the practice can be changed evidence based?

Should I? Should I not? Healthcare, being a patient in that system is a very personal and intimate experience at the best of times and when things go wrong and your experience turns into a nightmare, it becomes even more intimate. Because it almost makes you feel as if you are a loser or somebody who was not worth caring for. Rationally this is of course not true. But it is a nagging feeling. Maybe too intimate to share with an organisation I did not know?

But I kept going back and thought long and hard. Explored my gutfeeling. My conclusion: my knowledge obliges me to contribute.

I have hands on knowledge of good and bad practices, of my own moral dilemma's in those situations, of dialogues with doctors on how the wrongdoing and going affected me and them. If you don't share what you know and what you experience, how can true change come about? So I filled out the form, taking my experiences to a more general abstract level, signalling the moral issues in e.g. training of young doctors, the needs of informal networks surrounding Alzheimer patients, good care for gynaelogical patients and the increasing responsibility that is allocated to patients by the Dutch health care system. I was not sure whether to expect something: the possibility to deliver feedback is all too often offered by organisations without giving thought to or taking the consequences. You have to do something with the feedback you get.

What followed to me is a prime example of good practice. Within 4 hours I received a personally written (in contrast to automatically generated) e-mail thanking me for my contribution and offering the possibility to discuss my contribution by telephone. Which we did the next day. What resulted was a true meeting of minds on ethics in practice, dilemma's in health care and how to get moral considerations out of the taboo sphere into the open, into informal communities onto the layman. Ethics and ethicists do not tend to be overly communicative. It is all too often taken into an abstract, academic domain. Which I strongly feel is at par with the heart of ethics. Aristotle already noted that ethical theory is distinctly different from theoretical sciences as the methodology must match its subject matter which is the nature of good action. And so it must inevitably recognize that many generalizations will hold only for the most part and that it is essentially practice based. Ethics is studied in order to improve our lives, to enhance ourselves, thoughts and actions. This essential relation between practice and ethical theory in my opinion deserves center stage. So I happily consented in thinking along on  how to realise this and equally happily consented to writing an article on ethical and moral issues in the training of doctors. If you want to think along with me, let me know or go to the comments page of the CEG.

Conference 3.0

Conferences are about telling a story, together with speakers, public and facilitators. Conferences are about strategic, tactical and operational excellence. At least: at surface level. At a deeper level they are abut connecting spirits, minds, souls, about transformation of practice, transformation of people. Nothing esoteric: its simply about making it happen through connecting the powers of kindred and inspiring spirits. Of knowmads.

Almost in with this much of the conference thinking is still firmly stuck in what I call the conference 1.0 and 2.0 thinking.

Conference 1.0: put an inspiring speaker (or a series of inspiring speakers) on stage who inform, educate and entertain the public with their thoughts. There is limited time for interaction with the speaker(s) - if there is time at all. The goal of these conferences: to inspire and educate. To show a new horizon, new ways forward.

Conference 2.0: combine inspiring speakers with workshoplike formats, thus allowing for interaction between members of the audience and speakers.

The conference 3.0 format that I can see arising, is the type of conference where the audience learns from the audience. Where the audience is it's own teachers, facilitated by professionals who know how to connect people and how to connect knowledge. Action learning in groups and teams. Unconferencing. Away from the top down method. Onto a method where you put value to the audience and their knowledge. People will hardly come to your conference to hear something new. The new is out there, in the social media. And the other new - original thinking - is out there in conferences like TED. Which are great, but not every conference can be a TED experience. And not every conference should aim to be. Conferences are about your public and about your goal. It is a working form, a means to reach and end. Not an end in itself. 

People come to conferences, to share their experiences and learn from others. They come to transform their organisations and their own functioning. 

If you want a conference, note these trends, give some thought to whether a conference is the right means for your end and if so: give these new forms some thought if you want a conference. Dare think about this and dare to do it, before you start organising on the automatic pilot on the 1.0 and 2.0 format. 

A lost generation?

Over much of the last years I have been involved in educating professionals in the field of cultural entrepreneurship, educational leadership and other topics. Sometimes we started off on a specific topic but through dialogue, action learning etc whole new fields were discovered. Education as it is supposed to be: interaction, the human dialogue in the center if and where needed supported by ICT, activiation of tacit and hidden knowledge of participants, making full use of the creativity of all involved.

Yes, there is heaps of creativity in people who are 30+. Why the somewhat irritated yes? Because the main focus these days seems to be on the seeminly boundless creativity in kids. That focus sometimes makes me feel like I am part of a lost cause, a lost generation. Away from the personal an a generational level I think that in focussing so much on the next generation we are forgetting our own strength, ability and responsibility in developing this society.

I am part of a generation that was brought up on regimented schools, learning facts, being taught on the borders of old fashioned school thinking and new instruments and didactical thoughts and possibilities brought on by ICT. A generation that does a lot of DYI when it comes to e.g. ICT and self development. A generation that is currently looking for anchors and sustainable development and that has the incredible challange in doing so while being both the catalysts, designers and subjects of change. We are in and of the changes that we experience, initiate, create and are subject to.

How can we enhance this generation of 30, 40 and 50 year olds in their quest to develop themselves and so develop society? Not only in instrumental relation to their work but also in more general terms? We cannot only live by putting all hopes on the next generation and putting our time in developing the best curriculum and educational strategies and products for them. In doing so we are cutting corners: it puts way too much pressure on the coming generation to "save the world" whilst simultaneously underestimating the qualities so abundantly available in the current working generation. A generation that I feel we can support by bringing the human interaction back to the center stage of the educational process. By taking advantage of technical solutions but also, and probably mainly by exploring innovative ways of combining ideals, passion, knowledge and emotions into a conscious learning processes.

the flu

I managed to escape the virus for a while but now I have succumbed: I am in bed feeling definitly beaten and I am trying hard not to cough my lungs out. The hardest thing though is the fact that a headache makes me unable to think clearly. While there is so much to think about... Hope to be up and running soon again.