Review of 'Curation: The Power of Selection in a World of Excess'

Rachel Burnham writes: I recently read ‘Curation: The Power of Selection in a World of Excess’ by Michael Bhaskar.  Published in 2016, this is an exploration of the very wide way in which ‘curation’ as an approach is being used.  In L&D, many people will be familiar with the concept of curation being applied to how we select, manage and share resources for learning.  You may also have come across the term curation in relation to content marketing, in the context where a marketing strategy makes use of content created by others which is selected and used to promote a particular business – you may even use this yourselves.  And of course, curation, has its origins in the world of museums and art galleries.

Bhaskar looks at curation in many different fields, as a business strategy, in retail, music and many other fields, in governmental regeneration and planning policies and in how we present ourselves as individuals.   He looks at how curation is being used to create value in fields, such as food retail, through specialist food retailers who bring together small niche providers of particular high-quality foods all under a single roof or fascinatingly in the way that a new city is being planned in Abu Dhabi, by curating a cultural district with top museums, art galleries, theatres and music venues. The book is full of examples of curation permeating all sorts of aspects of life – I think he sees curation everywhere – I wasn’t always convinced, though he does a great job of presenting examples to illustrate.

And I found the opening chapters with their emphasis on the abundance of everything for everybody, rather sickening and infuriating – you don’t need to look further than our city centres to see people living without a roof over their head, or open a paper to see the growing demands on foodbanks and that is within the wealthy UK.   But the book did make me think wider about what curation is and how it can be used. 

He describes curation as ‘using acts of selection and arrangement (but also refining, reducing, displaying, simplifying, presenting and explaining) to add value.  I found very helpful some simple diagrams he shares which describe different ways that curating can add value.

Diagram from Pg. 166

He identifies a number of benefits that curation can bring through the way it adds value including:

·         saving time

·         freeing cognitive resources 

·         sparing us anxiety

·         cutting down complexity

·         finding quality 

·         overcoming information overload

·         creating contrast

·         redefining creativity

·         channelling attention

·         providing context

·         beating overproduction. 

One of the most interesting aspects of the book is that looks at both curation through the use of algorithms and also human curation and so it provides insight into our very current concern about how can humans and technology work together. This is sometimes described as ‘thick and thin’ curation.   Where ‘thin’ curation is the network of cataloguing and filtration mechanisms, recommendations and discovery algorithms found throughout the Internet and 'thick' curation is done by humans 'based on detailed personal choices, often for smaller audiences; it discuses its choices and comments on them, adding extra spin to its decisions' (Pg. 233)  Algorithmic curation can keep costs down and make curation scalable, but it is human curation that makes it personalised and personable. I like this quote from Luciano Floridi, Professor of Philosophy and Ethics of Information at Oxford University 

'Curators are experts - you have to have a say to be a curator.  There is a practical side to curation that means algorithmic curation should be joined by a sense almost of ownership or custodianship.  The ability to intervene, to follow on, to ensure your curation has an impact is key.  It is a pragmatic relationship. ' (Pg 229)

What shines through is that effective curation is a highly skilled process.   Bhaskar says in the context of content curation in marketing 'But the term is often used weirdly.  Websites advise people to 'curate in the morning' or curate their way to success. Curation is seen as a shortcut, a defined thing, not a process.  … Good curation is more difficult and subtle than that.' He sees expert selection as at the start of good curation and quotes from Maria Popova, curator of the highly thought of ‘Brain Pickings’:

'The art of curation isn't about the individual pieces of content, but about how these pieces fit together, what story they tell by being placed next to each other, and what statement the context they create makes about culture and the world at large.  This is, she argues, a process of 'pattern recognition'.  Seeing how things fit together, understanding connections (which multiply in a networked environment), but then also, crucially, creating new ones by recombining them, is a massive part of curation.' (Pg 125) 

I love the sense of patchwork which her words evoke, making something new and fresh from scraps of the old or the familiar.  Another word for this would be ‘bricolage’ which Andrew Jacobs has written about.

Bhaskar argues that there are no shortcuts to becoming trusted as a curator – it is about ‘Authenticity, consistency, excellent selections - it is very hard to fake.' (Pg. 210)

I think curation is a useful skill for us to develop both as individuals to aid us in managing the huge amount of information we now need to navigate daily as professionals and also as a skill for us in L&D to share with others and use in our professional practice.   Bhaskar puts it like this:

'The more we understand how curation coheres with a network of new skills, strategies and capabilities, the better prepared we will be for thriving in the age of excess that is changing forever how we live and work.' (Pg. 165)

Rachel Burnham

7 July 2019

I help individuals and organisations to work and learn more effectively, particularly though using the tools of Sketchnoting and the curation of resources.  I make use of Sketchnoting to introduce people to using visuals to aid thinking, working and learning.  I help people to manage for themselves the information they need to stay up-to-date in their professional work.

Reflections on using Curation for Designing Learning Programmes

Rachel Burnham writes:  This week the topic of using curation for design has been much on my mind.  Partly because I have been doing an update and refresh of a programme I work on that makes use of curated resources.  Partly because I have been thinking through how to further improve another programme I work on to make most effective use of the resources within it.   Partly because of conversations I have been having around this topic, through #LDInsight and particularly with Michelle Ockers (@MichelleOckers) and also with my regular collaborator, Mike Shaw (@MikeShawLD) as he puts the finishing touches to a presentation on this same topic for the World of Learning Conference in Birmingham.  

So the topic has been circling around my head and I have been reflecting on my own experience of curating resources when designing programmes.   Looking back I can see that I have been doing this for some time, though it is only in the last few years that I have consciously thought of it as curation.  It is now just a part of how I do things. 

What is curation for designing learning programmes?

What I mean by curating resources when designing programmes, is using existing resources, typically publicly available, as a substantial part of the triggering material for a learning programme.   It involves seeking out relevant materials, selecting carefully which to use, explaining the reasons for your choices so that they are put in context for the intended user, possibly sequencing and combining materials and then making them accessible to the intended user.  I make use of Harold Jarche’s Seek, Sense, Share model to support this.  This repurposing doesn’t stop there, as it also needs to include some tasks or activities that challenge the user to make sense of the material and identify what and how they can apply this to their own work.  It is this latter part that turns this from a collection of resources into a learning programme.

I know that the issue of whether simply using resources could lead to learning, was something that was bothering some of the participants in the recent #LDInsight chat that took place on 5/10/18.  For me, it is the addition of reflection, practical tasks and social and collaborative elements that transmutes these resources into rich and rewarding learning experiences.

Whilst conversations about using curation for designing learning programmes, often focus on the use of existing external resources, these are not the only elements that can be made use of.  Ben Betts in a chapter of ‘Ready, Set, Curate’ describes on pg 58  ‘thinking in thirds’:

• ·       Making use of existing material within the organisation – this could be learning material, performance support material or other useful stuff.  This allows you to make best use of what you already have and also to include material that is highly specific and particular to your organisation and its way of doing things. 
• ·       Secondly, is the external, already existing material.  This is great for subject areas that are in common across many organisations or where you want to bring in particular expertise from outside of your organisation.
• ·       The final element is newly created resources.   There may be somethings that you simply can’t find ready-made or where you want to tailor some content to be particularly specific to the needs of your intended users. 

Why use a curated approach?

For me, there are three main reasons for using a curated approach when designing learning programmes:

• ·       Abundance - there are already a lot of existing resources, either in-house or externally, around the topic and it therefore makes sense to build with these existing building blocks.   So this is about using resources wisely – time, effort, energy and of course finances.
• ·       Agility – this links to the first, but places more emphasis on the ability to meet learning needs in a timely fashion, creating a minimum, viable product or solution and possibly building on this in subsequent iterations.
• ·       Access to different voices, perspectives and expertise – I think this one is often the most compelling reason. Using curation allows you to give access to material from different sources that can lead to a wider and richer learning experience.   Michael Bhaskar in his book ‘Curation: The power of selection in a world of excess’  makes the point that we can search to find things that we know exist, but what curation adds value by giving us access to things we don’t know about.  So curation can enable us to introduce users to a topic and directly to experts in that field, enabling them to more quickly build foundation knowledge and understanding.  It also enables us to help users to stretch by encountering different perspectives and emergent expertise, because curation can allow you to easily update and refresh a programme.   Actually, if the programme stimulates and supports social and collaborative learning, it may well be the participants in the programme, who identify and share that emergent thinking either through their own work or by sharing other resources that they uncover.  

Three reflections from my experience

A.  Using a curation approach when designing a learning programme alters how you design.   When designing traditionally, broadly speaking, you identify needs, specify aim & objectives and gradually get more and more specific about what is required in the design.  And you can be as specific as you like. 

When designing using curation, again you identify needs, specify aims & objectives, but you then need to search and see what is available already both in-house and externally.   And you need to be rather more open-minded about what you are looking for, because if you are over-specific you may not find it or spend so long looking that this is a poor use of time.   Once you have identified what is available, then you can fill in gaps with material that you create.

So, the traditional design approach is a bit like commissioning a tailor-made outfit in a particular colour combination to your specific measurements.  Whereas a curated approach is more like looking through your wardrobe, reviewing what you have, then going shopping to see what is available that combines with what you have, and recognising that you may not be able to find exactly what you picture in your mind’s eye in the shade you want.

It is a change in mindset.

B.  The importance of building in regular maintenance and refreshing.

As with any learning programme, it is important to keep a curated programme up-to-date and current.  What can be different is that links to particularly external resources can stop working and resources can be withdrawn or move behind a firewall and so no longer be available.  This means that there is a need to build in regular maintenance of the programme and it may be necessary to replace links to materials with alternatives.  As ‘like for like’ replacements may not be available (see point A), this requires a flexible approach.

It is tempting to think that the answer to this issue, is to ensure that you include full copies of the material you have curated within your programme, but that of course will bring problems of copyright.   Stick to links, but be alert to the need to update.   You may find this helpful guidance from Ben Betts at HT2 Labs of assistance in relation to these issues around copyright. 

My conversation with Michelle Ockers reminded me that this maintenance review, is also an opportunity to refresh a programme and that ideas for this may well come from recent participants and what they have shared within the social and collaborative elements of the programme. 

C. My third reflection comes from working as an external contributor to curated programmes and realising that pricing work for curated programmes is an interesting challenge.   Often we have experience to base the pricing of creating content and this is well understood by clients.  Pricing the curation of content can be a bit more tricky - the product of a link to a resource seems like the work of a moment, but like many other roles involving professional expertise, it is the underlying expertise, skills and judgement that have led to you finding and selecting that particular link, that is being paid for.  

I would be very interested in hearing your experience of curating resources for learning programmes and in your response to the points I have shared.

Rachel Burnham

14/10/18

Burnham L & D works with individuals and organisations to help them learn and work more effectively.  As part of this I help L&D professionals to be even more effective through updating their skills and know-how.  I have a particular interest in curation and the use of digital technologies in learning.  I frequently Sketchnote at events and offer workshops in Sketchnoting.