This chapter follows this model. For each dimension, we provide examples of questions participants can ask themselves to guide their thinking. We also give examples of activities we have used in our practice. All of these activities can be adapted online with video-conference breakout rooms and simple tools, such as online whiteboards, polling, or digital walls and corkboards. Online these activities take some imagination to make best use of the tools available to the group and significantly more time to set up. Often one activity can serve more than one purpose, depending on how it is presented and organized. There are countless other activities that can be invented or adapted.

Framing and reframing can happen informally in the course of a social learning space. Sometimes, they can be the subject of a specific event. In Chapters 12 and 13 we described activities specific to various aspects of framing, but we have not yet discussed the overall organization of a framing event, whether at the outset of a social learning space or as a renewal exercise. This is what we turn to in this chapter. Of course, one can use the ideas and perspectives we have introduced so far even where there is no need for a dedicated framing event, but if such an event is warranted, we share a few things we have learned from working with groups on framing in various settings. Again, what we describe can always be pared down and simplified. The framing events we have been involved in have ranged from a few hours to three days. The approach needs to be very flexible. It is the spirit of the approach that matters.

We have argued that practical knowing often entails functioning productively under conditions of uncertainty, that is, making informed decisions when complexity precludes certainty. Striving to make a difference in practice usually entails engaging uncertainty in a situation and working through it by paying attention to feedback.1

The first step in consolidating the dataset is to gather and organize the data in one place. We recommend doing this from the very beginning, at least as soon as the first value-creation story comes in. We use a matrix format for this purpose, typically, a spreadsheet, as shown in the example of Figure 17.1. We use the columns to represent the value-creation cycles. The first row is for monitored indicators under the relevant cycles. The rest of the rows are for stories, with each step of the story captured in the column under the relevant value cycle.

Our winding exploration of the perspective of value creation in Chapter 4 ended on a reflection about agency in the face of historical forces. We characterized agency in terms of the dimensions of a social learning space. This yielded a subtle definition of agency in social learning as a crevice between the past and the future that creates an opening to exist as a person who cares to make a difference.

There is an art to making the value of a social learning space visible. Being a value detective who collects and assembles the kinds of data we have described is a practice that can have different levels of formality – ranging from participants in the space simply paying attention during meetings all the way to a specialized and resourced evaluation team.

As we mentioned earlier, in practice, it is rarely necessary or even advisable to consider all the cycles in an initial framing. The application of the framework can be very flexible, from a light version focusing on one or two cycles to the entire framework.

In the same way that social learning spaces can coexist with communities of practice, they can coexist with other types of structures often associated with learning in a social context. You find them in communities of practice, but also at conferences, in teams, or in encounters on a train or in a café. To help clarify these relationships with examples, it is useful to consider what different social structures or events look like when they do or do not involve social learning spaces.

The concept of value creation plays a central role in our theory. We now take a journey into this concept. The purpose is both to explain the choice of the concept as a perspective on learning to make a difference and to provide a richer sense of the theoretical work that this perspective does for us.

A social learning space also creates value when it becomes a more effective container for creating value. This increases the chance that it will contribute to making a difference. In this chapter, we look at two complementary value-creation cycles for raising the effectiveness of social learning: learning how to enable learning, enabling value; and negotiating learning imperatives, strategic value. In practice the two are closely linked, with one often leading to the other.

A social learning space always takes place in the context of a broader social landscape. Including consideration of this landscape broadens the view and brings in a new element of uncertainty and possible surprise. What else is happening that we do not know? Who else is doing something potentially relevant? What could be some broader effects or unintended consequences of the difference we are trying to make?