Acknowledgement: Thanks to a friend, T. U., who asked a question reminding me that I hadn’t written about transparency and transformation recently.

Some experiences shared by colleagues in conversations at a Texas-wide conference (TxDLA) have gotten stuck in my head, so I decided that this might be an opportunity to start blogging again rather than just writing another Moodle Tip (that and I left my notes on the Moodle tip at work in another briefcase!).

In the first scenario, a colleague walked up to me and asked, “Are you writing any more exciting stuff in your blog?” It was an indication that my blog was being read by others in my work setting…and the connotation felt negative. “You keep a blog,” her attitude seemed to say, “and you write about REAL stuff not just positive happy techie stuff.”

Truth is, that is exactly the kind of writing I’ve been doing lately. Perhaps I read too much into it, but a slip remark later from another colleague, was fresh in my mind. “Employees blogging on their own are a ticking time bomb.” It was a casual remark, a hint that what is written online could blow things wide open for a school district. . .and as a result, employee blogs should be muzzled, if they only knew how. Yet, business and gurus are pushing for branding yourself (I love the tweet in response to this term…in Texas, “brand yourself” is an OUCH!)

“As personal information available online grows, first impressions are being formed long before the interview process begins.”

– Dave Opton, CEO of ExecuNet via Brand-Yourself.com

Finally, a confession from a highly placed administrator in a school district after attending a Twitter workshop at TxDLA: “I’m going to delete my Twitter account. It’s too scary to have one. My bosses have twitter accounts and they want to follow me and I don’t want to know them that closely; the local news reporters have Twitter accounts and I DO NOT want them following me.” The result of the Twitter workshop? Not increased use of Twitter but rather “I’m going to protect my updates.” I’ve chosen to “protect my updates” twice but found that the cat is out of the bag. I write too much to ever hope that my learning and opinions about that learning could ever be “protected.”

In fact, it’s the other way around, isn’t it? People now hope that what I write doesn’t need to be protected against. I do have social media folk in my local area (San Antonio, Tx) following my tweets, as well as local news reporters. Should I be worried that I should clasp my hands over my naked transparency, or is there a silent audience waiting for the mis-step, the one act that can be used to prosecute?

It’s a paranoia that’s easy to cultivate in our education environments. . .it’s just not worth the effort. In education, the call is for vanilla, not character.

“It is as old as the hills,” says Mowbray, by means of putting this all into English. “Like her or loathe her, Paris Hilton has an incredibly strong personal brand. She was recently offered a million dollars to talk about how she made that brand. It is not about creating something perfect, and it is not about masking who you are. Nobody buys vanilla; we like character.”
Source: Rebranding Yourself – Times Online

Protect those updates. You might as well say to each of these administrators in leadership positions, “Cover your behind!” And, is that any different from what educators have been doing all along?

Dean Shareski writes the following:

I realize it’s tough to demand people to share but when we toss our phrases like “life long learner”, “professional responsibility”, “modeling” and “learning communities” these quickly become catch phrases that have little or no substance. Even with our small school division of 40 schools, there are almost 80 school administrators that could be highly connected and learning from each other every day. Instead they gather a few times a year, spend most of the time catching up, complain a little and then address the more important issues, with a select few only to have time run out. That’s fixable. Easily. These are smart, caring, innovative people who should be learning with and from each other every day. That goes for teachers, students and central office people. It’s been rewarding to work with pre-service teachers and lead them to this idea. Some may say I’ve forced them to share. But others have come to embrace it.

Yes, I want people to blog and tweet about what they are learning, but I expect them to do so with a full measure of authenticity and transparency…and leave the fear at the door.

Learning in public, transparency fails to happen in some closed cultures that are also called schools. The combination of statements, combined with exhortations to greater transparency below and in society around us (e.g. Obama administration has made “transparency” the byword for large organization who may have NO intention of being transparent, IMHO, but are just seeking to re-position themselves in the eyes of the public) make me ask a few questions.

While this is a marketing opportunity–often, a failed opportunity for schools who still want to be closed but look like they are making a difference–our school leaders bungle the opportunity. Instead of responding to the questions below:

• What am I learning? (uh, this question works for “learning organizations”)
• What obstacles–political, technical, personal–did I encounter while trying to apply that learning to my own work?
• How are my students learning?
• How can I share this in various media (text, video, audio)?

…they are answering the following questions with a single answer:

• How can I protect the positive image of my organization using Web 2.0 tools?
• How can I get the benefits of Web 2.0 tools without changing what I do (e.g. closed, lack of transparency, authenticity, not learning)?
• How can I use tools without making mistakes that will garner negative attention from my boss?

The answer to the questions? Silence begot by Fear, a single tyrannical parent. At the risk of your livelihood, you don’t go for it…you don’t learn or what you learn never impacts your daily work.

As I was working through my Google Reader feeds, I had the same sense of lassitude that whispers in your ear, “It’s OK. You don’t need to write anything…just relax, read, keep your mouth shut.” But then I stumbled upon this reference to “I Hate Sharing” by Dean Shareski in his entry Advocating for More Transparency and read this:

Why did we have to learn in private? When should learning ever be private? And how can we put a grade on learning? I have never learned so much in my entire life until taking this class, and it was through sharing. Just like teaching, learning needs to be wide open and full of networking. Instead of handing in that assignment to one teacher, I am handing it in to the world and saying, “Take a look at me and what I think”. It is incredibly empowering when you think about it.

I really did use to hate sharing. I hated sharing my markers in Kindergarten, I hated sharing my books with friends (heaven forbid they bend the spine or one of the pages), and I especially hated sharing my work with classmates. But suddenly, none of these things matter to me anymore. In fact, somewhere between my weirdness as a child, and my awkward teen years, I learned to love sharing. And because of this course, I have learned to love sharing my work and my ideas. In truth, if it wasn’t for my classmates sharing their ideas, I would not have managed to get through all those tech tasks!

There continues to be a push to NOT share what’s going on. It’s as if the less is shared, the better perception of the Organization there will be. Those of us that have embraced Web 2.0 tools for our own use, and encourage their use in K-12 education, realize that this is no longer true. There is no way to manage employees, those tweeting, ticking time bombs who are learning, who are pushing the boundaries, who are challenging if what they are doing is transformative enough to meet the needs of young learners.

Yet, I have a healthy respect for the fear that employees who are seeking to be transparent must experience. Freedom, transparency must come with an understanding that the consequence of being ostracized, “fired” or “forced to resign” are a real part of the equation. I wonder if new bloggers who share their learning and how it impacts what they do for a living–their livelihood–appreciate that.

I know I am not going to be perfect, and I know I am going to make a lot of mistakes– but that is the beauty of it, and the beauty of learning! You just keep going, and never give up on the possibilities you can achieve.
Source: Make It Happen – I Used to Hate Sharing

Maybe I’ve read too many thrillers that take place in jungles, like Amazonia, but it seems that the words “beauty” and “deadly” are often a matched pair. Why should it be any different that bloggers who experience the beauty of learning, shouldn’t also experience the possibility of fear?

As my Twittering colleague at TxDLA put it, “People now know where you live based on your IP address…they can track your movements.”

It’s safe to say that organizations want to protect their public self-image and will take action against employees who, in their eagerness to learn and apply that learning, “share more than they should.” But what person in their right mind broadcasts what they’re doing with their host of Web 2.0 tools and expect it to only be beautiful?

Some might argue that isn’t the intent at all. For others, the perspective might be, “I’m now in charge of my own marketing. I control my image online and the sooner I start using these tools, the better. Since my image is more enduring than my workplace since you never know when your employer may change–and I have more experience in marketing than public relations newbie social media experts–I need to be in control of it, not my work organization.”

What’s your brand look like?

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Everything posted on Miguel Guhlin’s blogs/wikis are his personal opinion and do not necessarily represent the views of his employer(s) or its clients. Read Full Disclosure