Next week there is another meeting at the IQA in the series organised by the Deming SIG. Henry Neave will be talking about the beads approach. This should involve quite a lot of activity.

I had meant to update the site at www.learn9.net but will now leave this till after the meeting. The series is intended to cover four aspects of the system of profound knowledge as decscribed in 'The New Economics'. So far there has been psychology - drive out fear- and knowlege, which I tried to work on. Systems may turn up again, the first date slipped by. I think it should be possible to relate the Management Learning approach to this. I hope to have this at least in some sort of form before the Networked Learning conference in April.

The comments made around drupa suggest that there has been a significant change in attitudes about digital technology within the printing industry. After the apparent crash in internet stocks there continued to be some belief that print could continue essentially as it had previously. However, digital technology has continued to have an impact. 'Desk top publishing' from the '80s has taken over many of the functions of pre-press. Photoshop on recent computers can do all that is required for print. InDesign has the typography features that were once missing from DTP. Quark now supports a PDF workflow.

Digital printing now offers quality that compares with litho. There is the possibility of improving consistency in ways that would not be easy to control for litho. The PDF workflows for digital print are now widely used for all forms of print.

Frank Romano has suggested that 20% of print procurement currently involves the web and that this will increase to over 60% during the next three years. (See also more comment on this on another blog on "IPEX2002". This has continued since 2002 and is now mostly about drupa, but the issues relate to IPEX also.

The IPEX2002 blog includes a statement by Christian Gugler, Chairman of PrintCity’s Networking Activity Group. He is aware of changes in the industry and the way that 'networking' links in to other forms of communication. After drupa this will be accepted by most of the people who have visited. This will represent a change on the approach from ten years ago.

The site at learn9.net has been mostly about situations where PDF technology had an impact. This has been difficult for some print companies. Pre-press has had to change since Desktop Publishing to support content originating with the customers for print. These changes might have happened within a formal quality system but are often responses to observing trends with other companies.

In future the site will not be restricted to one approach, around print and formal quality systems. PDF is only one option within the choice of file formats for online content. It has many advantages but cost is often a limiting aspect. So the scope of the site may get wider.

It seems that the impact of technology will now be more disruptive for educational institutions based on print. Universities, schools, and libraries have all developed during the time that print has existed. It may not be obvious how deep the implication is or how much change will be associated with digital technology.

Previous papers have tried to show links between theories about 'learning organisations' and 'quality management systems'. In future there will be more short entries on this blog and updates to the website. For conferences there could be more emphasis on a workshop rather than a paper. One idea would be to look at ideas of a 'community of practice' and then look at how jobs have changed in pre-press / web design , then in libraries and universities.

I am gradually finding more material from EQUEL and other projects looking at quality and e-learning. There is definitely a positive attitude here. The assumption seems to be that it is possible and valid to develop forms of e-learning in higher education.

I still think the work done on 'learning organisations' is relevant. This was during the '90s and seemed to come to an end in the UK. The practical side is difficult but the idea is still worth looking at. I find much work on e-learning has a scope for a particular project without looking at the organisation as a whole.

The 'learning organisation' stream seemed to come to an end during the first 'Management Theory in Practice' conference in Lancaster. 'Critique' was avery strong theme, especially with respect to 'quality'. I'm not sure if this is still widely supported. Some aspects of 'quality' are likley to come up as part of the discussion on e-learning.

Copied from my post at Guardian talk in case you missed it

At BETT I discovered there is quite a lot going on about quality and e-learning. The energy seems to come from the EU. See other topics on new new new universities (Communication? what's that about?) and business (UK quality? just forget about it)

European projects on quality and e-learning
http://elearningeuropa.info

European Quality Observatory
http://www.eqo.info/

QUAL-E-LEARNING
http://www.qual-elearning.net/

SEEL www.seelnet.org/seel/default.htm

SEEQUEL http://www.education-observatories.net/seequel/index

My impression is that "quality" is seen in the UK as an imposition rather than something to work with. However 'world-class' and 'quality' may be linked.

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There is a conference in April where there will be a presentation on EQUEL
http://tecfaseed.unige.ch/equel/equel.php

It will be interesting to see how 'critique' fits into this. Previously some academics have been very negartive about 'quality'.

I have started to get involved in the Guardian talk pages. This started with their PDF beta that seemed to be possible long before they actually announced it. It seems to me that their coverage of the press fails to consider the impact of the web. Roy Greenslade seldom mentions the growth of websites as an explanation for falling broadsheet circulations.

Anyway it seems you can write what you like on the Guardian talk. The 'digital Guardian' site will be public sometime this year with PDF as an option.

I have also posted on 'world-class universities', 'new, new new universities' and 'bluffing your way for a part-time ICT job'. Recently I discovered how to link between topics but it seems to work only sometimes.

Try this
http://educationtalk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?50@world@.685ebe61/44

By the way, Google stand 10264

Not sure where else to put this. Also not sure if I can lift this much text. From Jerry Pournelle on the Byte site. www.byte.com This is Comdex week and the context for most of my study on quality has been the gradual spread of technology through media such as Byte.

It may be that Comdex 2003 has not much happening in real time and space. Who knows? It has got an agenda and much stuff will relate. Adobe have a link on their events site but no stand as it appears and no speakers. Global Graphics have a stand but they have to try harder. Not much chance of Adobe spending money at Seybold Amsterdam if they think their website covers Comdex.

Maybe this post is part of the learning log as the theory is getting stable enough to cope with some current issues.

Adobe PDF was Byte best in show about 10 years ago, maybe 11. Expect more time warp shifts. Jerry Pournelle may write some new stuff later this week in which case expect a link.

"The last year that BYTE gave the "Best of COMDEX" awards, we gave the Best of Show award to the Linux Pavilion, and several Linux products won technical excellence awards (we presented them with the help of an actress in a penguin suit). The Linux Pavilion was one of the most exciting places at COMDEX that year. This year you could hardly find a Linux company. Linux was there, but well hidden. Ernest Lilley says that's the story of Linux in a nutshell: Its greatest successes are buried in servers that no one sees, and because of their reliability, no one thinks about…

Even better hidden was a conference on Apache held at the Alexis Park Hotel, and publicized so badly that I didn't learn of it until it was over. Perhaps that's where the Linux companies were: You sure couldn't find any of them at COMDEX. "

Starting to use this as a prompt / record of what to do next with the site at www.learn9.net

After the day on the theory of knowledge at the IQA Deming SIG meeting, the site needs an update with the previous material. This could be in a date sequence.

Two things made a strong impression.

There is much more of a base for quality as a subject in UK universities than I realised. I still think there could be more of a connection with peeople studying learning in organisations. Also the people at the meeting think that German universities have a history with engineering that compares with MIT as a source for positive attitudes to quality theory.

Deming stated that change comes from outside a system. I missed this bit really, although it comes at the beginning of the chapter. I was reminded of this, although I can't see how it fits with the idea that the system of profound knowledge can help management make decisions. This stuff is not prescriptive, whatever some comment may suggest.

Maybe the book is called 'The New Economics' as a study in what happens to companies whether they are learning or not. In the printing industry many organisations have ceased trading. Moving along with computers and the web is not easy.

Just a test to see if this is still working

Some new stuff at www.learn9.net

I have tried a new direction in presenting ideas about 'management learning' to quality professionals at the IQA Deming SIG. This seems to be working ok. I have not given up on interesting academics in quality theory but the alternative approach seems to get more response at the moment.

There will be another 'Management Theory in Action' conference in April.

Currently working on a new paper for this. Details will follow

Well, I have looked at Enetation and it definitely works on their news items for example. For it to work on your site or blog you need to coopy some code. I'm not sure how to get into the header bit of Blogger. I just use a template. However I have set up a test page as suggested. GoLive did not like the code by the way but it works after a fashion. The current problem I think is that I have the same name for both comments. Still maybe they are related issues so it seems you would get both streams of comment on either statement. Or send me an email, especially if you understand how to set this enetation stuff up within Blogger.

The test is at http://www.learn9.net/test1.html

Currently Enetation is free and maybe it will stay that way. Hosting by Studio 51 who seem worth checking out. The effect is that a web browser is definitely affordable. Acrobat online collaboration may be more secure, better designed, better recorded etc. but as a way to generate a document with communication between many people "enetation" has a lot going for it. Issues about how critique links to learning remain for both.

Both the Guardian and Blogger have featured 'Enetation' , apparently a way to open up weblogs for comment. I have been thinking about what is involved in the 'online collaboration' features of Acrobat. What happens when someone adds to or comments on another person's text? There may be some ideas about critique and learning that help to explain this. So far attempts to encourage people to use PDF for comments have failed. They usually prefer to add text to emails rather than open up a PDF. Maybe this is just familiarity. Maybe PDF is only suitable when a clear record is needed. The signatures are dated. Also it may suit when graphics are involved. The current UK press advertising includes a review process for a design proof. I'm going to try out some enetation now.

Since the last entry I have done quite a lot of text for IPEX and begun to get the hang of this. Maybe I did not see it before but there is now an option for adding a link so I don't have to try to remember how to put in html code.

There is another conference linked to the Management Learning Department at Lancaster. This summer it is at Cambridge 'Linking Learning and Critique'. My current critique could develop along the lines that UK academics seem not to be very interested in applied subject areas such as IT or quality.The UK trend in studies of management learning seems to be to understand fashions of 'rhetoric' rather than look for results. HoweverI should get a better understanding of how 'critical' ideas explain how learning happens. A conference next year will look at making the discussion around critical ideas more inclusive.

This is a test as I'm not sure how 'current' and 'future' work.

I am also working on a log for IPEX and it seems easy to edit a current post but the future never happens.

Now trying a few links

http://www.learn9.net

http://www.lancs.ac.uk

http://www.guardian.co.uk

Well that works better now that the html code is added by Blogger Pro.

This is a start on a sort of learning log to be linked with 'Learning with ISO 9000' , a site I have been working on.
Over the Xmas break i read that Blogger is one of the 7 wonders of the web- Guardian so it must be worth a try.
Following a 'theory in practice' conference at Lancaster I would like to try again actually using a quality system so this may develop into a structure for corrective actions. The dates of writing can't be altered apparently but no deadlines are claimed as yet.