Change management and blogs.
Sebastian Fiedler and Pam Pritchard are discussing why blogs are not implemented yet in every classroom. The discussion goes around the need to change learning and teaching cultures, resistance of teachers to "leave their comfort zone" and luck of funding for the new technology.
At the same time Sebastian Fiedler and me are discussing about selection of blogging tools for Quaerere group (choosing blogging software, blog pilot, and e-mail).
I believe that both are change management problems (known as diffusion of innovations in educational domain): we have a new idea, we believe that it will improve our work and we are trying to get others joining us. We are not the first there :)))
I want to have your attention for two pieces. The first one (source) refers to Rogers' Diffusion of innovations book that describes the characteristics of innovations that are more likely to be adopted:
Relative advantage - potential adopters need to see an advantage for adopting the innovation
Compatibility - innovations need to fit in with potential adopters' current practices and values
Complexity - innovations' ease of use will lead to more rapid adoption
Trialability - potential adopters want the availability of "testing" before adopting
Observability - potential adopters want to see observable results of an innovation
The second one is by Diane Dormant (1997, p.144). She writes about different stages of acceptance of innovation and suggests that strategies for each of them:
| If the person is in the stage of… |
Then the strategy to use is to… |
Awareness
Passive regarding the change
Little/no information about change
Little/no opinion about change |
Advertise
Be an ad agent
Be credible and positive
Appeal to his or her needs and wants |
Curiosity
More active regarding change
Expresses personal job concerns
Asks questions about own work and change |
Inform
Identify specific concerns
Provide clear info about concerns
Emphasize pluses, acknowledge minuses |
Envisioning
Active regarding change
Expresses work-related job concerns
Asks questions about how change works |
Demonstrate
Give success images
Provide demonstrations
Connect with peer users |
Tryout
Active regarding change
Has opinions about change
Interested in learning how-to |
Train
Provide effective training
Provide job aids, check lists
Promise technical follow-up |
Use
Active regarding change
Uses change on the job
Asks detailed questions about use |
Support
Provide necessary technical help
Provide reinforcement
Provide recognition |
My experience from previous "practitioner" life is: if people are at awareness stage it's useless to push them using new things. I'm trying to follow these ideas with Quaerere blog pilot. I want to start small and simple, so people can try it out and see if there is something for them. And only after we could talk about hosting, costs and other things.
It seems that I'm getting the topic to write about for BlogTalk :) Anyone to join?
I have a copy of this chapter from somewhere and I assume that the full reference is:
Dormant, D. (1997) Planning change: past, present, future. In R. Kaufman, S. Thiagarajan, and P. MacGillis (eds.), The guidebook for performance improvement: woring with individuals and organizations. San Francisco: Pfeiffer.
I'm not 100% sure if I can reproduce it here, so please let me know if I can't.
[Mathemagenic][via Sebastien]
lundi 6 janvier 2003
