#dLRN: The Cynefin of Conferences

So I’m flying home to Australia after a challenging week here in the US. Challenging is good, but damn, it’s hard work!

I got some time to myself, to be with my thoughts and be away from the situation at home, which was a bit of a relief. I was also away from those dearest too me for too long and there was a definite sense of isolation there. I’m beginning to really understand how close knit we are as a family, and any extended time away from each other is hard for everyone. Can’t wait to see them soon!But the conference … How do you describe #dLRN15? It’s complex.

This was not your usual conference. While some of the structure was familiar, some was new. The conversation was different. The themes were different. The people were familiar but new. The discussion was broad and inclusive. There was respect and balance and care evident by everyone who spoke.

There were a lot of first for me:

• first time seeing a lot of this community in the flesh, I only new them as an avatar and a @ handle before;

• first time interacting with many of these people outside the digital, so ditching the blogs and tweets and actually having a dialogue;

• first time discussing topics outside of text, pushing language and the limits of oral thought processes;

• first time discussing actual issues that are having a real impact on people;

• and first time in Palo Alto, Silicon Valley and an elite institution like Stanford.

That’s a pretty heady mix and a brew shared by many of the attendees and why I think it’ll require sometime before we’re able to really process the conference and what we might do next.

So to be honest I don’t think I’m ready to unpack the themes yet, but I do want to make an observation.
This is the first conference I’ve ever been to that dealt with education in the complex and chaotic domains.

I’m referring here to the Cynefin Framework and  I’ve found it to be an incredibly useful way of trying to in which to frame what’s going on in the world and the solutions and approaches required. As Wikipedia describes

The framework provides a typology of contexts that guides what sort of explanations or solutions might apply.

If you’re new to Cynefin if suggest you check this video best describe I’ve found. 

If I was to think about the conferences I’ve been to historically I’d suggest that they fit the various domains:

Simple = Vendor/Commercial Conference

Well to be honest the relationship between cause and effect is obvious – it’s the vendors product – and the content is usually about applying best practice

Complicated – Society or Professional Conference.

While taking it up a notch these conferences focus on analysis of the relationship between cause and effect. Content focussed on investigation and the application of expert knowledge. Through this we get a sense of what good practice is.

Complex – dLRN15

This conference really did focus on discussing the relationship between cause and effect in retrospect. There was a lot of presentations that referenced the past – success and failures – and attempted to place what was happening in a historic context. We discussed a lot of what had happened but there were not a lot of predictions of what will happen. There was an acceptance that the environment is a complex mix of social, political, cross cultural and economic issues that are locked in step. There was acceptance of complexity for the first time ever – in particular that there is no single solution. As such the presentations and discussion for the most part was very much focussed on  the emergent practices of digital learning. It also attempted to place them in a much broader and connected context.

Chaos – Bits of dLRN

To complement the complex there was definitely elements of the chaotic too. These were more like fleeting moments where the  relationship between cause and effect was left out of the equation and instead a focus on

novel practice. Mike’s discussion of the federated wiki and garden metaphor, while

grounded in the history of information, was very much a novel approach and alternative to the current model. 

Disorder 

It’s important to point to the final state of Cynefin – disorder. Which is very much the state of higher education and edtech. 

The fifth domain is Disorder, which is the state of not knowing what type of causality exists, in which state people will revert to their own comfort zone in making a decision. 

That to me sounds very much to the system (and the battle) that everyone at dLRN is involved in. 

The California Effect

There was something so refreshing about this conference and its ability to move into that complex and chaotic space. Maybe it was the location, the weather or the people, but it felt like something significant happened on the Stanford campus. Maybe it’s the Californian Ideology at play – but judging from the blog posts so far (from @acroom & @googleguacamole) whatever it is it’s left a mark on many of us who were there. 

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