#wolweek

This week is going to be fun. Nov 17th through Nov 24th. People from all over the world coming together via the inter-webs to develop and practice the art of Working Out Loud…to improve their productivity…make connections…spark ideas…and further a movement. What a thrill it is to see the expansion of such a simple concept (When Will We Work Out Loud? Soon!) into the transition to a larger movement. Thanks to the likes of Jonathan Anthony, Austen Hunter and Simon Terry. You know that original post I wrote was posted on Nov 29th, 2010? So this version of #wolweek culminates within days of the four year anniversary of my first post on the topic. I’m moved myself reading some of the previews and set up for #wolweek:

• WOLWeek: The Website
• About Working Out Loud Week
• The First Week of the Rest of Your Life: John Stepper

As a precursor into this week’s activities, I would like to introduce some new classifications of behaviors that you may want to try and spread to others around you to help with the adoption and effectiveness of your own local #wol movement. I’ve taken the behaviors that I have observed in our own Enterprise Social Network (ESN) that drive the greatest success stories, and organized them in to “behaviors” that you can take and apply to your own application of bringing “social” and “sharing” into your work environment.

From Working Out Loud -> The xOL Light Bulb

Working Out Loud = Narrating Your Work + Observable Work

In the early days of trying to grasp the hows and the whys of this “enterprise social” thing, I focused very hard on the coaching behaviors of the individual, encouraging them to shift how they worked to make their knowledge, conclusions, activities and deliverables more open and visible to  others. Change you. Dare to share. Put yourself and your knowledge out there for more people to see, consume and contribute. I can even share from my own experience this past week, as I decided to put a lot of “future considerations” I was working on (but hadn’t prioritized yet) out in the open within my own organization (via blog posts, wiki pages, video demos). Via my own fears or reservations I’d been holding what I was considering close to the vest. And the return I received from sharing was immediate:

• It provided incredible ease of educating multiple people about possibilities because I’d already captured the concepts openly (shared with people that wanted to leverage what I was working on, or people I’d need to get approval from before I could proceed with the work).
• It helped identify new opportunities from corners of the organization I hadn’t considered…triggering their own ideas of how to leverage what I was thinking about, at a time when I didn’t know if any interest would exist at all.
• And people openly responding with new ideas on how to apply that work that I hadn’t yet considered.

And that’s all great. Those behaviors and realization of the benefits has resonated…with some. But after a certain amount of time, I began to realize that there were other key “Out Loud” behaviors emerging by knowledge workers in our network that contributed just as much if not more to the cause than what we’ve described as “Working Out Loud”. Maybe we can call them sub-behaviors of WOL. And some of those behaviors seem to be even more natural for people to pick up as they look to leverage “social” technology to get work done and connect with others. Behaviors that seem to reduce the hurdles of being a contributor to communities & networks…more than just trying to narrate work via a blog, or create observable work by storing it in open locations that generate activity streams to interested communities. Let’s boil these down into the concept of “xOL” behaviors. At least those that I’ve observed and found to be most effective to date in my own experiences.

• Asking Out Loud (AOL) = Reuse Awareness + Expertise Discovery
• Connecting Out Loud (COL) = Bringing Whole Self To Work + Being Human at Work + Culture of Understanding
• Shifting Out Loud (SOL) = Open Leadership* + Open Innovation**
• Learning Out Loud (LOL)*** = Discovery Skills(Search, Browse, Filter) x (WOL + AOL + COL + SOL + ?OL + ?OL….)

Are these acronyms going to get me into trouble? Hmmmm… In the interest of keeping everyone engaged the entire week, and not starting off with a 3,000 word manifesto, my plan during #wolweek will be to share a new post each day that further defines and explores each of the xOL concepts above with examples and descriptions of how they may help you personally and your organization. And maybe Friday we’ll save for a new xOL I haven’t identified yet that emerges from the sharing and conversation that takes place during the week. And we’ll see if, for fun, I can throw in a few related Spaceballs references as well just to keep the theme alive :). Stay tuned! I’m looking forward to being inspired while learning from all those that will be sharing and participating in #wolweek! *Open Leadership – Credit: Charlene Li **Open Innovation – Credit: Henry Chesbrough ***Learning Out Loud – Credit: Harold Jarche