Everyone else is doing it, so I am too! Here were my most read posts from 2010. Crazy thing? I wrote a bunch of them in 2009!

1. Instructional design books I’ve read for my IS degree
2. Twitter Cheat Sheet version 1.1 is up
3. What is informal learning?
4. If the Gervais Principle is not working what is the ideal management structure?
5. Let’s get real about analysis – starting with the last LS2010 keynote
6. EMC FAST: how do IT folks keep up to speed?
7. What I learned at e2Conf Boston
8. Biggest lesson from my graduate studies: communities ignite learning
9. I’m no longer developing technical training for EMC
10. The web has been around for 20 years, and I’ve been around for 20 of them

I also found my most accessed pages to be pretty interesting:

1. About page (oh man I have to get better pix on that page!!)
2. Twitter tools
3. EME5603 Final Project

2010 was jam-packed full of life-altering events for me:

• I left my safety zone of technology and education, and started doing social media full time
• I graduated with my MS in Instructional Systems from FSU
• I got married

What can I possibly do in 2011 to match this year?

The topic of blogging independence is rearing its head again in the storage blog-o-sphere again, this time because some of the “independent” bloggers have been hired by EMC. I wanted to weigh in – reminding everyone up front that I work for EMC.

I think this whole idea of independent bloggers needs to be defined. Is there such a thing as an independent blogger? We all operate in small worlds. I’ve written about that before, but I thought I’d create a mind map to show you the small worlds that affect and impact how I communicate out to the rest of the world (Click the map to make it bigger or click here to go to map):

There is a different set of norms, a different language, a different set of expectations for each group. There are things we do to protect our insider status of our various small worlds. For example:

• I live in New England, but I will always consider NW Florida home. When I go home, I say yes ma’am and no sir, I would never do that in Massachusetts.
• If I’m talking to someone about deep technology, the last thing I would ever do is fake that I knew something. Fatal error – its a signal that you are not really a geek. Since I’m a woman many times I’ve been seen as an impostor to that circle, and have had to prove my competency (although this has been getting better with time).
• Since I’m in education at EMC, I know road maps of products. I knew what UIM was and where it was going before it even had a name. I needed that information to forecast equipment for training, make sure I was up-to-speed on technology, start making the connections I’d need later with the right engineers. I couldn’t talk about that product to people in my own group – let alone blog about it! I protected my membership in that small world because the ability to perform my job depended on it.

To keep our membership in these small worlds, we are required to conform to the group’s “signature”. That signature dictates how to deal with events, what topics are discussed (or are not discussed), how to interact, how to assign meaning to events, and how to deal with outsiders. Social pressure is applied to ensure that this signature does not change.

I think the problem we’re running into here is that we have established a new small world in this storage blog-o-sphere, where many of us are coming together from different and often opposing small worlds. The community is growing and thriving because we all share membership in other small worlds.

Where it gets sticky is when someone leaves one of the small groups that feeds our community and joins another. We all know inherently that this person will have to change. In order to be accepted in their new small world, this person will have to adapt their behavior to match the new group’s signature.

Is that a bad thing? I don’t think so. I don’t think that the person fundamentally changes who he or she is. They just apply new filters in order to match the news group’s signature. The question really becomes – how will we in the storage blog-o-sphere construct our collective group signature when it comes to dealing with someone who changes small groups? I think figuring out this signature is behind angst that pops up every so often about this topic.

Here’s my suggestion – lets remember we are a very small but incredibly important industry. IDC says the digital universe will grow by a factor of 44 over the next 10 years, but the people in our industry will only grow by a factor of 1.5.

Guys – we are the people responsible for managing, storing, providing access to the world’s information. And there are not enough of us! I believe we need to acknowledge that even though membership in an intersecting small world will will bring a filtering requirement, we need everyone working together as a community to make the storage industry stronger. We need to find a signature that acknowledges we are slicing across other small worlds to bring us all together.

I was cleaning out spam, and accidentally deleted a bunch of comments (about 10). I’m so sorry, mostly because there was a great conversation going on in the ROI post I made. I need a do-over button!!

Someone asked me that very question a few weeks ago. Sincefrom time to time I do blog about the education programs at EMC, is there any way to tell if my words here impact the bottom line of my organization?

My first thought well of course I can see ROI. I’ve increased my PLE. My blog is a place to reflect about the intersection between my graduate studies and the ISD work I do for EMC. So there is ROI – to me.

Yesterday I blogged about the impact that EMC’s FAST release will have on our student audiences. I linked to one of my organization’s programs that is designed to help people with a proven level of technical knowledge keep up to speed. I can tell you how many people looked at the post, and how many people went to the community, and how many people registered (although I can’t tie the last two together). But doesn’t really impact our bottom line either, we provide the intervention as a benefit to folks who have earned a Proven Professional certification.

So, I’m not sure! AM I providing ROI to anyone but myself? I like to think that improving myself makes me more productive, which directly impacts ROI. I think that is a stretch though.

So I’m asking you all for some input. How do you prove ROI of blogging?

Classes started for the Spring semester. One of the classes I am taking is Inquiry and Measurement. Its about the research methods & resources used to conduct good scientific investigations, and how to measure those findings (broadly paraphrasing the syllabus).

One of the books for the project is Researching Real-World Problems: A Guide to Methods of Inquiry by ZIna O’Leary. The first chapter had an interesting diagram of hierarchy of change that made me think of my ongoing thread about using blogging for reflective learning.

Here’s the diagram:

O’Leary says

the process of conducting research is in itself a learning journey that should have an impact on the researcher; conducting research is professional development.

As you go up the hierarchy, research impacts practice, then programmes, and finally policy. All of the steps are encompassed by culture. So as research affects each of these steps, it also has an impact on the organization’s culture.

Is it possible that blogging is one way to research for professional development? As you get better at finding and reflecting on the information you find researching blog posts, you can then start affecting change up this hierarchy of change. O’Leary says conducting research at the professional development stage provides the following benefits to the individual:

• An opportunity to engage in problem based learning
• An opportunity to engage in action learning
• Enhance communication skills
• Develop Research Skills
• Produce new knowledge

Wouldn’t you say that blogging also provides all of those opportunities to people? So can blogging also work its way up that hierarchy of change, including to the point that it changes an organization’s culture?

I promised to write a summary of the responses I received to this post on blogging as reflective practice, so here it is (better late than never!).

Not only did I write about blogging as a mechanism for learning on this blog, I wrote about it on EMC’s internal social media site (EMC|ONE) as well. Here is a summary of the responses from both places:

• Blogging is used to interact with communities of special interests if none exist in your current network. Sometimes people were pleasantly surprised that blogging introduced them to peers they didn’t even know about until these people commented on their blog posts.
• Some people seemed to appreciate the benefits of the reflection they had to do to write a post more than the amount of comments a post received.
• Blogging helps show how online networks evolve and react to information.
• Blogging helps open up new ways to think about a topic.
• Blogging is much more than a “training tool”, it is a “career tool”. I think this is important – I framed the question in a strict instructional technology sense. But I was quickly called on that, and reminded that blogging really is a career tool – it’s probably one of those “knowledge worker skills” that people working with information should really become proficient.
• Many people (including myself) can’t blog about their day-to-day activities, but blogging has helped them learn more about the industry in which they work.
• Blogging helps open up new avenues for development. By reflecting and writing on different topics, as well as expanding your professional network, new ways to use your current skills start opening up.
• A couple of people reminded me of how things used to be done. People used to take the time to write journals, letters, and other written forms of correspondence. Sitting down to physically write these documents required people to slow down and really think about the ideas they were trying to convey in written format. Maybe blogs are a throw-back to those times.

So, I think we can definitely say that blogging can be used to learn. Blogging makes people slow down, think about their topics, and reflect on what they know (or what they think they know). Blogging helps to expand a personal or professional network.

I would think blogging can also be used as an instructional technology for an individual educational event such as a class, or even better a boot camp.

For myself, I’ll continue to blog for all of the reasons listed above. I’m learning so much about our industry, and also learning so much about education. My network has really expanded, I am bummed the economy is tanked because I can’t see me being able to travel to a conference to meet any of them in person. We’ll just have to keep building ties until things look up, or a conference rolls into Boston.

I guess I should answer the questions I asked in a previous post:

Do you use blogging as a reflective practice? Do you blog about things that are directly related to your job duties? Has blogging increased your level of understanding about your role, your organization, or your field of practice?

I have used blogging as a reflective practice for at least 7 years. I used to be the one who would send in-depth emails full of links to other info to listservs, so I really have been doing this sort of writing for about 10 years.

Currently I write two work-based blogs. There is this blog, which is focused on the education side of things. I also have an internal “Storage Round Up” blog, where I digest all the week’s blog posts about the information industry.

This blog helps me solidify the ideas I get from my graduate studies. It helps me think about how the theories I am learning can be applied in a real-world situation. When I write a post I have to think about what I am studying, what we are doing at work, how relevant any idea I may have is. I research to see if anyone else has written about the ideas I have. I also love getting comments from experts in this field, they always add another dimension I hadn’t thought about.

My internal blog has helped me understand our industry better. I am very technical, in education terms I am definitely an SME. Our company covers such a vast array of disciplines that it’s very hard to keep up with new things. My internal blog has helped me with that – staying on top of new things in the industry. I have also learned lots about our competition (that isn’t the type of thing the education people are exposed to in an in-depth manner). But understanding how our competitors’ products work actually helps me understand our products better as well.

Blogging is definitely one of the ways I learn. I started blogging to share the information I had found so other folks wouldn’t have to reinvent the wheel to find the information.

I guess education is just in my blood somehow.

As you can probably tell, I decided to change things up a bit on my blog. I changed the theme and added a couple of links to some school projects. I also added a badge for the eLearning Learning community as well as a widget for the community (so be sure to check out all the new eLearning links!)

I’ve been busy at work helping build a new external-facing community (as soon as it is live I’ll talk more about that!). Between that work, my grad school class,  and what my senior director calls my “day job” (actually developing technical instruction)  I have had to neglect my blog.

Who knows, maybe things will change and I’ll have lots of free time soon. If not, I’m just going to have to get better at squeezing out time to post more here.

Today is Blog Action Day, and the topic is fighting poverty. One of my colleagues at EMC has already posted his Blog Action post (go see Steve Todd’s post).

I thought I would just tell my story. I grew up in Northwest Florida. My father got out of the Air Force as a conscientious objector when I was 5 years old, right at the end of the Vietnam Conflict. I have always wondered if his decision was prompted by the fact that my Uncle, who was an MIA, was left in a POW camp when the US pulled out of Vietnam.

My parents had 5 kids that were aged five and under when my father got out of the Air Force. The decision he made pretty much sealed our economic status: I grew up POOR. Poor as in not being able to buy shoes even though the soles were gone. Poor as in not being able to afford to get new glasses.

I always have been very smart. My mom told me a story recently that my kindergarten teacher told her that they had never seen a student like me: I could read before I got to kindergarten but I couldn’t hold a pencil or scissors. Back in the day such poor dexterity would have triggered all sorts of special ed tests, but they didn’t have anything to explain my reading ability (sounds familiar to me now..). I was classified as gifted, and went to the Learning Center (a place for gifted kids) once a week from 3rd – 5th grade.

But I didn’t go to college. I didn’t realize it was an option – I thought it was too expensive. (There were some other social issues, but I don’t want to go into that right now). So I did what lots of poor girls do: I got married. I had kids. I got divorced.

My brother convinced me to go to college. He said the government would pay for it. I was amazed to find out he was right! Why hadn’t anyone told me about that before? The further I got into college and could see how there are institutional barriers that prevent poor people from getting lots of things: education, medical care, simple respect, the angrier I got. My undergrad degree is in Information Studies, and learning how to refine my information seeking skills has continued to open doors for me. It was instrumental in pulling me out of poverty.

This entire time we were still so poor. I supported the kids with sporadic child support on about $10K a year. I do not know how I did it. Lots of Hunt’s tomato sauce. I hate that stuff! We hardly ate meat until my town got a Super Walmart, even then I only bought it when it was  marked down. I would go on dates to eat and order pasta so I could bring it home to the kids so we could have something different. I worked two jobs until I came to work for EMC. And just made it work.

I’m lucky. I got a degree, and was able to get insurance for my kids. I can afford to give them anything they need, and most things they want. We never go hungry (I think we actually all have issues with food since we went without for so long). I am also lucky I had friends who would not allow me to feel sorry for myself, who constantly reminded me to put the kids first. They would chastise me if I got down and did stupid things to numb the pain that poverty brings. I would never have made it without them loving me enough to yell at me.

Here are my action items for those of you who are fortunate enough to have never lived in poverty:

• Most people do not choose to be poor. If they do, you may be surprised at their reasons
• Food Stamps and Welfare are a joke. If you are willing to give up 2 days of your time a month and all of your private information to get that help, then you are in dire straights. The CEOs who caused the banking  mess get the good welfare, the poor folks get screwed on this one!
• Don’t give stuff you wouldn’t eat to the food drives. People only go get handouts if they are in dire straights and it takes a toll on your soul. No one wants Spam (unless they are in Hawaii maybe)
• Sponsor one of the Christmas tree kids, and spoil that kid as much as you can. They won’t expect it, their name was probably put in by a social worker. It may be the first time they ever get a brand new toy in a box!!! (yes speaking from experience on that one)
• Be nice to people, even if they have turned to drugs or alcohol to numb their pain. It is painful to be poor, to work your butt off, and to still just stay poor. Don’t make it worse!
• Don’t assume people are poor because they do drugs or drink too much. I couldn’t afford either one!

A weird thing happened to me a week ago. Someone at work wanted me to tell them how to blog. I blog internally at work, it actually just seems to be a natural extension of what I do in Education.

I have decided to document how much work I have done in my online social career. I have been doing this for several years. I was able to discover that my daughter’s middle school had to test her if asked them too by participating in an non-verbal learning disorders community back when she was in 8th grade (she is graduating from college this year, so that’s 8 years ago!). I used the web to keep researching what I could do for my daughter after they tested her and denied her services, even though she had a 20+ point split between her verbal and non-verbal IQ score. I will never forget, maybe never forgive, the principal at RAA middle school in Tallahassee Florida, although she pissed me off enough to send me into full-fledged research mode. For those of you who don’t know, my daughter was diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome. That principal was just wrong and should be taken to task for delaying services my daughter needed.

I helped rebuild the Native American Student Association at Florida State University, and then turn it into a Union, using a Yahoo Group. I was so good at rallying the troops that the VP of student affairs told me sternly that I didn’t need to turn everything into an email event (although that seemed to get the right people’s attention….).

When I graduated,  I was recruited to New England to work for a big high tech company, who laid me off after 11 months. I couldn’t understand it – they said there were no jobs, but there were tons of young asian (mostly) men reading books I had read in college. Why didn’t they let me have one of those spots? Then I heard Senator Kennedy say that he hadn’t heard how engineers had been affected adversely by outsourcing. I knew many, many people who were out of work because of the practice. So I started DisplacedTechies, and rounded up people to go to talk to Senator Kennedy. I am proud of what we did – focused peoples’ attention on the fact that techies on both sides of the outsourcing issue were being affected negatively. But this issue was (and continues to be) way bigger than I can even comprehend.  So I stopped keeping up with it, although the site remains up.

When the opportunity came up at work to blog, I grabbed it. Using social media to gather or share information is something I have done for 8 years. I have worked with some pretty hairy political issues, and learned lessons from that. So, when people ask me at work how to blog successfully, I think one thing I need to start saying is practice, practice, practice.