Value Proposition/Influencing Leaders

Work in progress, expect frequent changes. Help and feedback is welcome. See discussion page.

Influencing Leaders / Leadership Behaviour

This thread arises out of a conversation with peer in my MA, Organization Management and Development program at Fielding Graduate University. Prema asks:

"How do we help people in leadership positions accept and internalise this way of (open) learning. Do you have any thoughts on how this can be influenced?"

• Faculty
• Instructional/Learning Designers
• Management

Think about why they get involved in the first place - what's motivating them.... (how can you support that motivationto enable content development)

1. Recognize that Leaders want to mitigate professional and personal risk - then save time, money and/or aggravation.
2. Dialogue and positive experiences are powerful attractors.
3. Here are some ideas, and please post your comments below
   1. (if you're not a WikiEducator user, you'll have to create an account, verify your email address (look for an email from Erik Moeller), and then log-in. Please see the directions)

• Join WikiEducator - there's power in numbers
• Join a WikiEducator country cluster - WikiEducator India for example - http://www.wikieducator.org/India
• Leverage WikiEducator's success - top 100,000 website, India Cluster, strength of global Community Council
• Learn about Open Education, the Free Software Movement & Free Cultural Works
• Engage in dialogue with people in the community
• Build community around your project (community of practice)
  • remember the Magic Number of 5 - 5 Wiki Educators make for a great success
• Contribute content - set an example, model the way
• Talk about structure in your projects
• Share ideas about how to go about a project (n-Ach)
  • Have a talk with WikiEducators - I /we will share our successes, so that you can be successful
• Point to opinion leaders, reference cases
• Write/Blog about your thoughts and ideas
• Read this article by Don Tapscott of Wikinomics - Colleges should learn from newspapers' plight, and develop a dialogue around it - how you're going to deal / respond to the challenge

• Show the value proposition in terms of numbers
• Attend an open education conference
• Develop metrics for success that make sense for the organization
• Translate successes into communications pieces, so they can build support within / external to the organization, and encourage (potential) champions
• Learn wiki skills - http://www.wikieducator.org/Learning4Content
• Consider a pilot project on WikiEducator - http://www.wikieducator.org/Pilot_Projects

Add Your Comments / Feedback Below

• Call up a couple of people in management positions and ASK THEM how they feel they, as leaders in management, could influence this open way of learning.....There must be a few people in business who are familiar with WikiEducator who could knock this question out of the park. Someone at the Hewlett-Packard Foundation comes to mind. They've already contributed to your cause, and while their focus is now philanthropy, they can certainly see the big picture and how management in organizations could be influencers. I agree, you need these big influencers on board. You've got them in fields such as education. It seems the challenge is to grow the business side of it. -- Jane Sedlacek