Audrey asks…

I would be interested in reading about the positive and negative outcomes of blogging in your own career…how have the decisions regarding transparency impacted you directly with people you work with f2f? Perhaps you’ve already written about this…

I’m going to try and respond to this…just writing a 1st draft of a response shows me I’m not being as precise as I’d like. For the purposes of this post, I’m dividing this into multiple areas for ease of use.

1. Personal Self: I am transparent in my blogging and why I blog, what interests I have (or don’t have), and how those are changing.
2. Professional Self: I am transparent in my work with others. Simply, other people know my intentions, motivations for taking action and that others know what actions I take to enact those.
3. Organizational Actions: I try to make the work that serves the organization–regardless of who does it–as transparent and accessible as possible, so that anyone such as the public could see and understand what is happening.

PERSONAL SELF
Blogging has been incredibly positive for me. It has enabled me to reach audiences with my writing that I would never have been able to by just publishing in local, regional, national magazines. After all, I can honestly say I have an international readership, which is proven to me by how many visitors from Australia, New Zealand, Panama, Europe and many other places I can’t even pronounce appear in the ABOUT YOU sidebar. Having an international readership does have an impact on my local readership…let’s just say that having people who read you validates your work and sends a powerful message to the locals, reminding them that you are not just a local crackpot, but rather, an international one (grin).

Seriously, my personal learning network is always teaching me. There are limits to what one can learn on one’s own. This makes me ask, What is learning? Learning involves encountering something new, and reflecting on it. But it’s not solitary reflection, but coming to a better undersanding in collaboration with others.

I am constantly irritated–yes, irritated–by blog entries I read from others who are thrilled by what they are learning. I get frustrated because I can’t learn it myself (for example, Bill Fitzgerald irritates me every time he posts about Drupal because I can’t seem to get the hang of complex content management systems like Drupal and Joomla myself, even though blog solutions are a cinch). Yet, all of this is exactly why blogging is so beneficial to me, as an individual and professionally–it pushes me out of my comfort zone.

PROFESSIONAL
One of the challenges of working with any organization is this idea that you only know what you have done or advocated for. Simply, when I attend a meeting, I take notes and those notes become a record of my reflections on what occurred at the meeting. By also trying to record what decisions have been made, what the next steps are and who is responsible for making it happen, you start to get at the objectiveness of what happened…but it’s not real until everyone knows what was written. One of the challenges of reading meeting notes that another has written is that often, those minutes leave out critical aspects of the conversation, or worse, represent those aspects through the filter of the individual taking the notes.

In an opaque environment, whomever writes the meeting notes up gains power because it is their version of reality that endures in organizational memory. If no one takes notes, then it falls upon whomever can remember the conversation best; if you have a subsequent meeting, don’t invite the person whose viewpoint you disagreed with. I have learned this through experience and observation…so I resolved early on to take notes myself. But because I’m aware of this problem, I find myself wanting to be as transparent about the note-taking process as possible.

So, now I make the effort to post all meeting notes in a wiki or in a place where everyone can get to them and modify them to reflect the reality of the conversation. . .their reality. My goal is not take ownership of the reality recorded but to facilitate recording of that reality. Transparency and web 2.0 tools make that much easier…but it is my commitment to transparency and distributed power that makes it happen.

In a variety of work situations (including professional organizations I’m a member of), I seldom find anyone else who wants to take on this responsibility. When I do, I’m gratified because it saves me the work…you see, I compelled to learn but would gladly drop what I’m doing to pick up something new. Yet, when other don’t step up, that leads me to the possible conclusion that 1) I am still perceived as the owner because I not only took notes but I completely control the venue for where the notes reside (e.g. wiki, GoogleDocs); or 2) I’m the only one who gives a darn, making me the sole advocate of organizational transparency who knows how to use technology.

Has this been negative or positive? It has been both. For the organization, it has been positive since it has provided a historical memory of what has transpired. Many times, conflicts between staff members have arisen and I’ve been able to point to the recorded transcript–which all had the opportunity to edit but did not–from as far back as 5 months to a year and that has settled the argument. No more need be said…someone said they would do something but they didn’t and now everyone remembers once they read the notes.

Yet, what are the repercussions for me of being the knowledge manager? One would hope they would be positive for me but I suspect they may not be…but blogging has helped me realize that my concern is for a job well done. Does the organization one is in value knowledge management and/or transparency in decision-making? I find that the answer is, “It depends.” Consistently, organizations do not (would that there were some research that showed otherwise).

Sometimes, having the definitive word on what occurred in the past is appreciated but often it is not. I have several experiences in mind for both appreciation and lack of (smile).

However, my focus isn’t on the repercussions but on getting the job done. My satisfaction isn’t on manipulating the truth to reflect my reality or that of a particular constituency but ensuring that it is available and open as possible. This grants a freedom that one can cleave to above all else, including negative reactions from others.

It’s all really quite funny and not just because of others’ slowness in adopting new technologies or playing politics (which I’ve decided is just life and endemic to humans, what an idealist!). I’m often laughing at my own reactions, my own seriousness, and the joke is often on me.

Now, I am not perfect. I do not practice openness and transparency as perfectly as I would like to. Often, I am opaque and transparency is difficult to achieve. When I am negative myself, when I am concerned about “my” interests rather than the organization’s, it is when I am at my worst both in thought and deed. However, I have found that the road back to sanity is transparency in my own actions, to confess my own motivations, and fears and share those, then move forward from that point. This gets easier with each act of transparency. I am more transparent now than I was 6 years ago, but I am not 100% transparent. I have to judge success on long term performance rather than short term.

Is transparency negative or positive for me as a professional? I’d like to think that the benefits of transparency far outweigh the negative. Simply, transparency enables me to set aside what I would have desired more (e.g. higher pay, a different job title). I still struggle with this, but I continue to appreciate that I am fundamentally a better person because of how open and transparent I strive to be in my relationships with others…I can’t say the same for job title or higher pay. Blogging helps me accomplish that…I don’t know what is around the corner but I have to try and go around that corner anyways.

I meant to separate out professional self and work perspectives, but I think I’ve ended up–with several interruptions in crafting this blog entry–mixing them up together. I hope this provides some insights.

Do my superiors appreciate my transparency? To be blunt, I do not write about my work except when it is about me learning something, obtaining some insight into my leadership or lack of it. . .work experiences in K-12 are often so uniform across the years that sharing something from early on in my career would certainly be interpreted as being from my present job (in fact, it has in my critique of leadership in K-12…I still remember when an article I’d written while at one school district was brought to my attention by the current employer (not whom I’m working now)…I had to point out that I’d written the article 3 months prior to coming to work for that new employer and that it was not about them.

ORGANIZATIONAL ACTIONS
The funny thing is that education problems are systemic and likely occur from work place to work place. That was my first clue…and I’ve only had experiences to confirm that initial realization since then, one in the last year or so).

Here is a story that may help illuminate the value of transparency and the tough environment in which it must thrive.

Doug B., a literacy coach, found himself in the principal’s office. The meeting wouldn’t have been so threatening, except that Superintendent Jones was also present. . .Doug hadn’t ever seen Superintendent Jones in the Principal McArthur’s office; usually, McArthur went to see Jones, not the other way around. A few minutes later, though, Doug realized that Jones wasn’t there for McArthur–the Superintendent of Schools was there for him.

“Doug,” started the Principal, then he gave a long sigh as he pushed some papers across the table, which Doug realized with butterflies in his stomach included writings from his ‘Daring Education Insights’ Blog. “Dr. Jones has a few concerns about what you wrote in your web log.”

“Mr. B.,” began Dr. Jones, “I had a call from one of our education partners sharing a remark you made in this blog entry about student literacy solutions and how they always seemed to be top-down decisions. Tell me more about what your intent was here.”

You have to understand, Doug panicked a bit. After all, his wife had just had a baby, their mortgage was at the very edge of their ability to pay, and losing his job would have profound consequences. What should he say? Hostages to fortune, indeed! Then, as he re-read the blog entry they had so kindly placed in front of him, like evidence before a judge, he remembered his indignation at how high-priced vendors would wine and dine district leaders and new programs would be implemented willy-nilly with little regard to their lack of effectiveness (a view supported by research) with certain populations. And, in re-reading the blog entry, he found safe haven.

“School districts,” Doug pointed out, “often make decisions about programs that are well-documented in the research to be ineffective. You’ll notice that there are several vendors listed in this list of objectionables literacy solutions. Each depends on repetitive worksheets to get the job done, and while some argue that this is effective for students in certain situations, the research our District has done on our specific population shows that it is not for them. I was not criticizing the leadership or decisions of this specific district, but rather, that of all school districts in general who select print media and literacy solutions that are not relevant and differentiated for our children’s specific needs.

“As a professional educator,” he continued, his heart in his throat, “it is my desire to engage others in deeper conversation about this problem and see what solutions may arise for heightening awareness and formulating a plan of action. Since it is evident that other districts face these challenges in common, and that vendors are making money off of selling these print resources that sit un-used on teachers’ bookshelves, it is important to rethink our collective plan of approach.”

“What you’re saying then,” responded McArthur helpfully, “is that your intent wasn’t to criticize this school district’s choice of a particular solution but to engage other educators in the professional community online? And that involved criticizing all vendors, even if one of our partners happened to be lumped in out of fairness to all?”

“Yes,” answered Doug, his next words coming slowly, “I didn’t want to single any vendor out, neither one way or another. And, if I left that vendor out, I wouldn’t have been true to the reality.”

“You raise some valid points in your blog entry,” Dr. Jones finally said, “and, I for one, am glad to know that you weren’t critiquing your employer. However, your blog entry has provided me with the opportunity to see how you think. As long as you aren’t doing this at work….” He paused.

“Thank you, Sir,” Doug replied, not sure what would happen next and grateful to be off the hook…if indeed he was.

“I’m going to ask you to join us at the curriculum department meeting to share your perspective on reading initiatives and what literacy solutions we’re selecting. Although we’ve invested in a few, it wouldn’t hurt to have you make your points as part of the Literacy Solution RFP Committee when we meet next week.”

This story says a lot to me, some of it unpleasant, real, and highlights the value of being transparent. It could just as easily be about mathematics solutions or technology or whatever. I wonder if each of us were to write a story based on our experiences in K-12–not just where we are now but one that distilled the essence of all of our work places over the course of our careers–what messages would those stories send to readers?

Obviously, I have a lot to learn about being more transparent. How about you?

Finally, Jeff Jarvis (BuzzMachine) quotes Steven Lukes point that power can take 3 forms:

1. The ability to force you to do what you don’t want to do;
2. The ability to stop you doing something that you want to do; and
3. The ability to shape the way you think.

For a long time, educators have had to endure #1 and #2 without recourse. They have had limited ability to counteract those 2 points and certainly, to accomplish #3 to a particular degree. However, transparency enables us as educators to take away the power of those who seek to force us to do what they want us to do. Often, those acts were done in secret and if you spoke up, you were censured or oppressed into silence.

That is no longer possible if you cultivate a habit of transparency in everything you do. If someone tells you something, they know you will share it with a wide audience. If you have a conversation, yes, it will be shared in the meeting notes because this work is public, for the public. And, that places a limitation on what others do that is oppressive. The other result is that you may be excluded…instead of being included, as Dr. Jones included Doug. Which would you rather prefer?

The power to do these 3 things remains but now, you have a way to maintain your integrity and to share that story with others.

It is incredibly valuable to practice transparency and to blog about those experiences.

To be absolutely certain of the message I hope I’m sending, transparency is always beneficial in face to face encounters, even when it might be perceived as either positive or negative. I’m grateful that the mission of the organization comes above maintaining the status quo and that as a blogger, I CAN explore the gap…even when I am personally opaque and flawed, a natural part of being human.

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