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.

Collection of 8 Sketchnotes from CIPD Festival of Work - exhibition, conference & fringe - 2019

Rachel Burnham writes: Last week I visited the first CIPD Festival of Work held at Olympia, London on 12 & 13 June 2019.   The event combines the old L&D Show and HR Software shows and adds a new element covering the Future of Work.  

I had a day of visiting the exhibition and include Sketchnotes from a couple of the free sessions I attended.  On the second day of the conference, I attended a number of formal sessions on a diverse range of topics from reducing digital stress, to how investing in technology can aid productivity, to a series of fast and furious Ignite sessions all on the theme of curation for learning.   I also participated in a fringe event on the first evening of the event, a recording of the GoodPractice Podcast with a panel focusing on the Past, Present and Future of Learning. 

Here are all my Sketchnotes from the event: 

 

Delivering 'wow' now: digital transformation without capital expenditure by Datagraphic - exhibition 

 

AI and Learning: the truth behind the trend by Learning Pool - exhibition 

GoodPractice Podcast recording 'The Past, Present and Future of Learning' - fringe 

E2 Wellbeing and Mental Health in a Digital Workplace - conference

F1 Can the new era of technology solve the UK's output puzzle? - conference

G6 The Neuroscience of Learning - designing effective learning for knowledge retention & transfer - conference

H4 From Creation to Curation - Insights from Four Ignites - conference

Closing Keynote with Neil Harbisson the World's First Cyborg Artist - conference

Rachel Burnham

16 June 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 help people use visuals, to think, work and learn.  I help people to manage for themselves the information they need to stay up-to-date in their professional work.  

FieldTrip Reflections

Rachel Burnham writes: On Tuesday 4^th June, it was my pleasure and privilege to be one of the organisers for the first L&D Connect #LnDFieldTrip.   A group of 28 L&Ders, from a mix of organisations, spent the afternoon exploring The Design Museum in London and discussing & reflecting on what it said to us about design for L&D and OD.   It was great to work alongside Niki Hobson, David Hayden and Kevin Avis to make this happen and also to have the support of the wider L&D Connect community for this venture.

Here are some of my reflections on the exhibits that caught my attention – they are a bit random and I think I am still pondering on my observations and the many conversations over the course of the afternoon with other participants.

1. Purpose

One of the first exhibits that caught my eye told the well-known story of the creation of the London Tube Map and equivalent maps for metros in other cities.  

This reminded me that the London Underground map that is so familiar to many of us, is not actually an accurate geographical representation of the tube system in London – however, simplifying the map in this way made it easy to find your way around using the tube system. 

This made me think again of the importance of clarity of purpose when designing.   What we design for one purpose, may not work for another purpose. In simplifying, we may gain in some ways and lose in others. 

2.  Adding on

Sticking with signage, I loved this picture of the old style road sign, that had been added to and adapted with lots of different styles of sign.  It illustrated a display about the introduction of a national standard approach to road signage. 

This picture reminded me of how sometimes we design a programme, project, even an organisational structure and then keep adding to it and adapting it.  ‘Wouldn’t be good to include…’ ‘We could just slip this in here…’ ‘I am sure people would find this useful…’ and before you know it, it is rather a hash of confused messages and contradictory approaches.  Sometimes we need to take stock and simplify. 

3.  A nice idea!

As well as display material, there were lots of examples of different products and items.  I admired a rather stylish chair and loved the story told about it.  

It had been designed by an architect, who also designed furniture.  It was based on the idea that you could sit on it in many different ways – this appealed to me – I am always curling up on chairs and sofas with my feet under me or hanging out over the edge.  The chair was designed to be mass manufactured, but in fact that had not happened in the lifetime of the designer – it didn’t explain why and originally only handmade ones had been produced. 

I am intrigued by this story and I have been imagining all the many different ways why the chair was not mass-produced as envisaged – expense, lack of demand – perhaps it didn’t meet a real need from customers, technical challenges, a crisis of confidence in the product by the manufacturer, resistance to a radical design and so on.   I think you can see the parallels that drew me in.

4.  Rethinking the value of standardisation

One of the displays was a mock-up of a fitted kitchen that you could walk through.  Alongside, were some pictures of kitchens prior to the introduction of the fitted kitchen concept, which drew attention to how often these had surfaces at different levels, sinks that didn’t have places to stack or dry crockery and cupboards that made poor use of space.   It sounds just like the kitchen of my childhood in Chorlton which was tiny and very awkward to cook in.

The display drew attention to the value of standardisation in kitchen design which enabled fitted kitchens to be created, with their much more practical design and their capacity to be personalised.   This is what caught my attention – standardisation not as the opposite of personalisation, which is sometimes how we think of it in L&D, but as the enabler of effectiveness and personalisation. 

We sometimes focus on standardisation as being about sameness, but it is actually about being based on standards or principles or evidence about what works – it is about establishing effective ways of working.   So my kitchen sink lesson was to make me rethink the value of standardisation.

5.  Designing & empowering

Another display that caught my eye was about the design and creation of rough terrain wheelchairs for use in countries where roads and pathways often do not have paved or tarmac surfaces.  

The design focused on meeting these particular needs, but also the need for the wheelchairs to be maintained locally, so itincluded provision for training people to be able to do this. 

It got me thinking about content generation by users and about L&D’s role moving away from providing programmes to empowering users to meet their continuing needs. 

6.  The simplest solution that works

Towards the end of our time at the museum, I got to look at a display right near the start of the exhibit.  All through our time at the museum, members of our party were stood talking about and pointing to various different objects in the display and so I couldn’t get near it until the end of our time. 

The display was an array of well-designed and very familiar objects displayed from floor to ceiling – bikes, jeans, paper bags, marmite, trainers, juicers, phones and many, many more.   Looking at this display brought back so many memories and associations with the various objects.

One of the things that they had in common was a simplicity.  It reminded me that the simplest solution that meets the need is often the best solution.

The paper bag particularly caught my eye.   Paper bags are back in fashion.  At one time a plastic bag might have been considered the latest thing and something that was well-designed to meet the needs of modern shoppers.  But our criteria, for what makes a good design of bag, have changed and now we rate environmental-friendliness as important.   What makes for good design may change, if the context changes.  

7.  Collaboration

The whole exhibition focused on the relationships between three parties: users, makers and designers.  It was quite clear how important each of these was to the creation of effective designs.  Each of these parties have a contribution to make. The best design seem to draw on each. 

It is making me wonder how well designs I am involved with utilise the insights and differing expertise of all the parties and what I might do differently to enable this.

I have taken a lot from this #LnDFieldTrip experience.  It was the combination of the stimulation from the exhibition plus conversations and sharing of varying perspectives and experiences with fellow professionals that made it so effective for me.  

Thank you to everyone who took part and who supported the event.  I think we will see more #LnDFieldTrips in the future.

Rachel Burnham

9 June 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 help people use visuals, to think, work and learn.  I help people to manage for themselves the information they need to stay up-to-date in their professional work.  

Complete Collection of Sketchnotes from CIPD Northern Student Conference 2019

Rachel Burnham writes: On Saturday 30^th March, I was part of the volunteer team contributing to the running of this event.   It was wonderful to be welcoming over 200 participants, mostly students, from across the 10 northern branches in CIPD to Liverpool.   Over the course of the day, a range of presentations and sessions took place focusing on career development and sharing knowledge about the future of our HR and L&D profession.  

I created Sketchnotes live during the event for the 5 sessions that I participated in.  I hope you find them a interesting taster for the event and a helpful reminder if you were there.

Rachel Burnham

1 April 2019

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.  

More than content consumption

Rachel Burnham writes: Learning is more than consuming content; more than consuming information.  In our information rich world, where there is an abundance of information and content wherever we turn, it is easy to focus on consumption. It is easy to give the impression that more is better.  

It is easy to feel that if only I read more books; kept on top of all my social media feeds; read those journal articles and listened to just one more podcast – then I would be up-to-date, then I would be meeting my own development needs, then I would be role-modelling effective CPD for my colleagues. A counsel of perfection!  Sometimes people share their challenging book reading targets for the year (I’ve written about this before – ‘Read and Relish’) or how they pack in listening to podcasts or audible books in every available space in their lives.  I am not going to pretend to be immune to this.  It can feel like being on a information hamster wheel at times.  Perhaps it is the equivalent for informal learning of the content-dumping sometimes found and decried in formal learning?

But learning is more than consuming yet more and more information.  How do we digest this information, critique it, contrast it with other information, put it into our many contexts, integrate with our current understanding and skills, challenge our thinking and behaviours – how do we sense-make? With all our talk about the abundance of information, ease of access and dangers of feeling overwhelmed, I wonder if we are under-valuing and under-practising sense-making?

I spent some time last year interviewing a number of  professionals, primarily from the fields of L&D and HR, about how they manage the information they need to stay up-to-date in their work.  One of the areas we discussed was this area of sense-making.  Here are some of the approaches they used, plus some of my thinking based on my reading and doing in this area:

A) Bricolage & Curation

Bricolage is a very evocative term that refers to the practice constructing or creating something from a diverse range of other things.  When applied to sense-making, it emphasises linking information from different sources together and looking at the relationships between these different pieces to identify trends, patterns or create new insights and approaches. It is something that Andrew Jacobs has written about on many occasions.  

When curating information or resources, we can use a range of different strategies to do this, such as:

·     Selecting the very best or most relevant pieces and by doing this reducing the noise and adding value for ourselves and others;
·       Grouping information or resources to show the broader picture or pattern;
·       Contrasting information – often there is more than one view on a topic, acknowledging this can deepen our understanding and enable us to be more nuanced in our thinking;
·       Identifying sequences in information eg use of timelines of thought or sequences of activities.

Each of these can help us with sense-making.

B) Mapping & drawing

Many people, even those with very effective digital skills, find it helpful to map out ideas using pen, pencil and paper.  I, of course, very often use Sketchnoting to do this. 

A number of the people I interviewed talked about using paper and pen to draw out ideas and the relationships between them when thinking things through.   Often it can be quicker to rough something out on paper and it can be easy to play with different ways of visualising, testing out approaches, adjusting, rubbing out and trying again. Diagrams can be simple – lots of arrows and basic shapes or more complex.

Whilst the use of pen and paper, doesn’t require drawing skills and pictures, these can allow for the use of metaphors, which can bring in another dimension and stimulate further thinking.  

C) Blogging & writing

Amongst my group of interviewees, probably the key tool in sense-making that they identified was writing.  One commented that ‘To know what I think, I need to write. ’ Writing can take many forms: from handwritten notes, created to capture key information and aid recall; through to writing for reflection, still for personal use; through to writing for sharing either as a blog or for publication in an article or book. 

Once you start writing to share publically, this forces you to clarify your thinking and tests your commitment to what you think.  Clive Thompson in his book ‘Smarter Than You Think’ writes:

‘Audiences clarify the mind even more. Bloggers frequently tell me that they will get an idea for a blog post and sit down at the keyboard in a state of excitement, ready to pour their words forth.  But pretty soon they think about the fact that someone is going to read this as soon as it’s posted.  And suddenly all the weak points in their argument, their clichés and lazy, auto-fill thinking, become painfully obvious.’ (Pg 52)

This is known the ‘audience effect’ and it means that when you are setting out to communicate with someone else, you are forced to think more precisely and with greater clarity.  So this has the advantage of encouraging more effective sense-making.

 

D) Conversation

Another effective aid to sense-making is conversation, whether that is in person or on-line.   It could be as simple as talking through your ideas one to one over a cup of tea, which can help you to clarify what it is you think, but also expose you to other perspectives.

Online conversations can also help with this.  One of the challenges though is that light and shade can be harder to hold onto in an online conversation – trust and listening are just as important as in a face to face conversation, but are often harder to achieve. Some of these online conversations happen in real time such as a Twitter Chat, but they can also take place asynchronously, which can allow for a more reflective approach.  

It is also possible to share online, particularly with Twitter, snippets of insight and practice, which can test out your thinking and gather feedback from others.  This is often referred to as the practice of ‘Working Out Loud’. 

A variant on writing and conversation is to sharing your thinking via a short video, which is also known as ‘vlogging’.  It would be interesting to know whether the ‘audience effect’ also impacts on the quality of thinking when using a video format.  

E) Testing out & Playing

For practical skills, you can’t beat actually having a go at using those skills.   Playing with, testing out, experimenting and then reflecting on this, are all vital aspects of sense-making.  Documenting your experiments is such a valuable contribution to the collective understanding and effectiveness of our profession, but like writing publicly, it can feel like a scary and exposing thing to do.  

Each of these 5 approaches involves reflection.  And underpinning all of that, time and space is essential for sense-making.  

When planning this blog, I searched for a simile or metaphor to capture the importance of this time and space for sense-making.  At first I was drawn to the idea of pools of time for reflection.  But I have settled on the idea of woodland glades. In a forest, with many, many trees close packed together, the dense canopy of leaves can mean that little sunlight reaches the ground and under the trees is a rather sterile environment.  But if a space is cleared and a woodland glade created, where the sunlight can reach through, then all sorts of seeds will germinate and plants grow up and flourish.  A much more diverse and richer environment is created.  This is what sense-making needs.

Let’s make some woodland glades and let the learning flourish. 

Rachel Burnham

10 February 2019

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.