Using social proof as a guide to participation, design and facilitation in communities of practice and elearning.

1. Working with Social Proof as a
Guide to Practice
John David Smith
Learning Alliances

2. Some terms to frame this session
• “Working with”
– Our work is collaborative, creative and evolving
• “A Guide”
– Our use of today’s discussion involves
interpretation, re-expression, & appropriation
• “Practice”
– We participate in, design or facilitate learning in
communities, classes or other events
• We are evidence and detectives at once

3. Defining Social Proof
• A means we use to determine what is correct
is to find out what other think is correct.
– The principle applies especially to the way we
decide what constitutes correct behavior.
– We view a behavior as more correct to a given
situation to the degree that we see others
performing it.
—Cialdini (1984, 2007) p. 116
In this conversation we should focus both on what
people “know” and on their “learning behaviors.”

4. Influence as every-day learning
• Influence of celebrity role models
• Reducing phobias in children
• “Pluralistic ignorance” – bystander inaction
• Strongest when those we observe are most
“like us”
• Group-think in communities, teams, society
– Beneficial or negative (Lave & Wenger, etc.)
– Unconscious learning about learning (Lave, 2011)

5. Increasing Social Proof on The ‘Net
• Increased connectivity
– People are “always on, always available”
• New modes of engagement
– Easy publication and re-appropriation
• Changing geographies of community & identity
– Customization, boundaries evolve & dissolve
• A socially active medium
– “We shape our buildings, and afterwards, our
buildings shape us.”
Wenger, White & Smith 2009, p 174

6. Social Proof as a learning strategy
• In general: Who to follow, shadow, copy?
• Strategy choices
– Ethnographers: observing meaning-making
– Entrepreneurs: seeking to meet people’s needs
– For learning, we oscillate between strategies
• Jerry Michalski (http://www.sociate.com)
– Follows people he’s identified as “curmudgeons”
– Jerry proves that his strategy is effective

7. Identify, Follow the Contrarians
(to find new views, experience, & networks)
http://bit.ly/15bu2CV
Where do contrarians fit in our communities?

8. Social proof & communities of practice
When social proof is dense and is
magnified by ongoing
interactions, shaping the beliefs
and behavior of a group of
people, we have a community of
practice.

9. Enabling social proof in community
• A recent client’s goals were very lofty:
– Establishing an international community of
practice to help rebalance the relationship
between field-staff relationship & HQ
staff, improve use of technology, and become “a
learning organization”
• Community leader doing all the right things:
– Tools: email lists, websites, docs, recordings
– Engagement: Face-to-face
events, webinars, discussions, back-channel
exchanges
– Enlistment: personal network, staff support, etc.

10. Coaching story, continued
• Normal obstacles: time, resources, continuity
• BUT: very slow growth & limited uptake
– Not getting much help from others
– Stuck in “HQ knows all—does all for us” paradigm
• Social proof as a blind spot?
– Obstacle to change…. ?
– Isolation: of activities and of tools from each other
– Coaching conversations focused on connecting
dots (activities & tools)

11. Social proof & community structure
“Core” suggests “proof“ has happened.
Where / how do “core interactions” happen?
Is the core visible? Does it benefit the edge?
“Edge” suggests “proof” is happening.
Is the periphery visible to the core?
Are newcomer views & actions visible?
What access to the core do they have?
There are many more questions to be asked…

12. Social proof & social learning activity
Looking over someone’s shoulder.
Conversation.
Share notes to extend participation.
Naming a shared experience.
Recording and note-taking.
Routinizing sharing practice.
Note: Cycle vs. dimension perspectives

13. Tools for access to thought & behavior
Google Docs Twitter
Skype Adobe Connect
Remember: Cycle vs. dimension perspectives

14. We can’t escape social proof
Design
Facilitation

15. When is “proof” really proof?
(A: As we make sense of people’s actions)
• Where do we find sociability & negotiability?
• Both participation & reification
– As dimensions
– As a cycle
• Coherence between kinds of proof:
– Individual (learning)
– Community (innovation)
• Weaving a much larger (global?) fabric

16. Persistent questions for us all
• When or what are “we” or “they” learning?
• Social proof:
– Which actions of which people are good models?
– What knowledge of which people is helpful?
• Ourselves as actors:
– Linking or separating conversations or communities
– Linking or separating channels (technologies)
– Are we making sense or making noise?

17. Thank you!
http://LearningAlliances.net
John.Smith@learningalliances.net
+1 (503) 963-8229
Twitter & Skype: smithjd

18. Working examples?
• Foundations of Communities of Practice
workshop:
http://learningalliances.net/services/learning_events/cpw-story/some-
conclusions/