Informal Learning Inseparable From Learning 2.0

That’s what some leading LMS vendors said when interviewed for an article in E-learning magazine earlier this year. Interesting: Those on the panel whose platforms have invested in the integration of 2.0 tools take pains to make this point. The VP of Marketing for Outstart – whose company’s has decidedly NOT made that commitment to integration – takes great pains to make the point that customers are better off if the two platforms are kept separate. Go figure.

Dave Wilkins of Mzinga makes a point that is one of the highlights of the article:
“It’s a broader shift than just integrating social networking. The real transition is from a model where learning content is primarily created and delivered by established company experts to a more open model, where the majority of learning is created by learners sharing their expertise in specific domain areas. Social networking satisfies some of this need, while social media technologies such as blogs, discussions, tagging, ratings, idea sharing and wikis address other aspects.”

The panel goes on to share criteria for successful platform shopping and for successful implementation. It’s a lot of expertise at one click and worth the read.

Come get me, Mother. I'm through.

Social Media on the Ins and Outs

Even without the recent denial of service attacks, it has been a busy few weeks for social media in the news and in particular, who is embracing the technology. The Marines say no more (with exceptions that support the mission). The Army says let ‘er rip. ESPN says no (with exceptions that support the mission). Turner Sports (my current employer – full disclosure) says how can we broadcast any more without these tools?

All of this is pretty much the standard script when emerging technology invades the established structures of the military and the business world. You can look back to how corporate America grappled with, rejected, embraced, fumbled, and eventually found its voice with personal computers, e-mail, and web access to name a few of the biggest revolutions. All initially misunderstood by established IT departments and executive suites, appropriately shunned until understood and included into support for business plans, and then incorporated into those plans. I think that’s all we’re seeing today with social media tools. The revolution has been afoot in the rear view mirror while the established structures of military and business were busy driving ahead. And before they pull over the car (tank) and pick up the rider, they are making sure they understand it and have a plan and a strategy – a working framework on which to hang those tools. (Insert a quarter in your CD drive and I’ll produce a better word picture than the untenable revolution/car/framework thingy – I’m just on my second cup of joe over here) This is the new world and as the military and business structures will adapt and embrace in their time and on their terms. From where I’m sitting, that’s a healthy thing.

Come get me, Mother. I'm through.

Notes From TAG Panel on "The Wild, Wild West of Social Media"

Last week, I had the honor of sitting on a panel discussion on the use of social media (I and others use this interchangeably with “social networking”) in the training space. Thanks to Paul & Sherry for getting me there! The panel was made up of 5 smart people and then, well, me and was put on by 2 “societies” of TAG (Technology Association of Georgia) which were the Workplace Learning Society and the Enterprise 2.0 Society.
There were some great ideas and resources shared. Here is a quick rundown from my notes:

Coca-Cola USA take social networking seriously enough to have developed a SN certification course for employees who will be sponsoring these resources internally. Sheri Simon of CC-USA was on the panel and I would like to find out more about what this course covers.

IBM has published their social media guidelines – http://www.ibm.com/blogs/zz/en/guidelines.html – and many use this as a model.

Some are using Yammer, including some groups at Turner that I was unaware of. The comparison was made:
o Twitter answers “What am I doing?”
o Yammer answers “What am I working on?”
Selah Abrams of Turner was on the panel and was great on this stuff, showing us some screen shots of that the Turner production groups are doing with the technology.

Some were using social networking in the classroom:
o Allows learners to post questions in real time
o (This was pretty significant in the ensuing discussion) It equalizes the voices of introverts and extroverts

Sharepoint is picking up a lot of 3rd party partners who supply social add-ins.

You can’t push this technology out like you would the new accounting system. It is primarily a learning application and as such, the role of the training professional is to create or identify incentives for people to use it.

All agreed that ROI remains an important metric, but is difficult to measure with social media. I suggested a "currency exchange" either to provide cost benefit analysis on the front end or to measure ROI on the rear end (so to speak). The currency of social media is conversations completed and decisions made. Demonstrating how those were facilitated within a social framework compared to how slowly the same decisions would have been derived in the world of phone calls, vis-a-vis, and one to one e-mail can make a good case for this technology.

Hopefully some of that makes sense and resonates.

Come get me, Mother. I'm through.

Update to "All Communities Are Not Created Equal" Post

For some reason, part of this post does not display. Here is what you're missing:

pee ess  I uploaded the white paper from Kaplan & Bartlett's recent online presentation. I think it has a much better graphic to depict the continuum of the groups.

Come get me, Mother. I'm through.

Learning Communities = New Skill Set for Training Professionals

In a recent ASTD article E-Learning 2.009, Tony Karrer – the one of my "E.F. Huttons" of the social networking space – was interviewed around the end of 2008 to prognosticate the direction of Web 2.0's impact on learning for the year ahead. As usual, he had some cogent thoughts to share. In particular:

In some ways [Web 2.0] increases the total workload for the training organization. You may not own the content, but you own the overall solution, you own the coaching, you own the mentoring. And so [a] training organization has to shift to be more of a moderator/aggregator/coach rather than a content creator and publisher. Training, formal learning…will still be used for broad audiences with common needs. E-learning 2.0 is all about more narrow needs where you can’t possibly go into the publish model.

So the question is: Should your learning organization be taking steps this year to re-tool and prepare for this predicted new world order? If so, what would those steps be, specifically?

Come get me, Mother. I'm through.

Traditional Training is Still King

And I'm OK with that, as long as the learning community is a prince and not a joker.

Traditional training – ILT plus synch & asynch online – was crowned king in an article on L&D trends in Elearning! magazine in 12/2008-01/2009 ish. An Aberdeen Group survey asked 500+ pros in learning, HR, & lines of biz what delivery modalities they expected to see the most growth over the next year. Channeling Richard Dawson ... survey SEZ:

1. asynchronous, self-paced online training 
2. synchronous online training
3. ILT
4. informal social networks and Web 2.0 technologies (that's us)

Coming in 4th place behind such tried and true modes (and ones from which I earn my living) ain't such a bad place to be. At least we beat out all other unnamed categories, which one can only assume included the ilk of:

1. 8mm home movies
2. betamax
3. 12" laser discs
4. "Go sit in your cube and read this manual."

 Come get me, Mother. I'm through.

Or as Johnny O. would say, "Mama, COME ON DOWN!"

Review of "The Business of Social Media" Workshop

Last week I attended the pilot of a new workshop entitled "The Business of Social Media" which was a joint endeavor by i3Logic and Concept Hub, brought together by iFive Alliances. The 2 groups brought their strengths to the table – i3Logic with their seasoned discipline of change processes and Concept Hub with their expertise in social media’s role in the workplace – and as usual, the whole exceeded the sum of the parts. While most (to be fair, not all) sessions on 2.0 that I have attended have been infoblurbs on awareness of the technology (is it just me or should we be over the awareness stage by now?), this session conveyed more by offering a cruise up (and down) a unique 2 way street:

• Eastbound lane: Exposure to a change process framework of how to successfully introduce social media into the enterprise.

• Westbound lane: Exposure to social media as an effective intervention to support your change process processes.

I like spending time with smart people and the room was full of them. It was great content and time well spent.

ASTD Study on Web 2.0 Applications in the Learning Space

This might be an interesting thread to follow. Becky Livingston of ASTD is soliciting feedback on the ASTD LinkedIn site. Question is:

Web 2.0 -- How are you using it and then measuring results/impact on the bottom line?
I'm writing a piece for ASTD on Web 2.0 in the learning space and am interested to know what you're using. How you're measuring the impact on the bottom line and the participants engagements/retention (Kirkpatrick's Levels 1-4).

Link if you want to follow it: http://www.linkedin.com/groupAnswers?trk=EML_anet_qa_ttle-0Pt79xs2RVr6JBpnsJt7dBpSBA&gid=48422&viewQuestionAndAnswers=&discussionID=2240374

Come get me, Mother. I'm through.

All Communities Are Not Created Equal

Somehow it doesn't seem right saying that on Presidents' Day, but it's true. I recently read a fantastic research piece by Soren Kaplan and Peter Bartlett entitled "Creating Communities for Collaboration and Learning" and hosted at www.icohere.com. The main thought here: there are basically 4 types of collaborative groups (applies to both physical and virtual) that are on a continuum that is high on duration on one end and high on intensity & frequency on the other. The chart provided in the post is very illuminating, both in helping you to understand the activity of existing online communities or predict that of ones still on your grease board.

Come get me, Mother. I'm through.

tinyurl.com to the Rescue!

So many great resources on the web, so little time.  Thanks to David Ker of Better Bibles Blog – betterbibles.com/ – for telling me about tinyurl.com/.  I kept seeing it referenced, but did not know what it was. It is a free service to give you a more manageable (read: tiny) url for a website.  F'rinstance, I plugged in www.corespeed.com/community/group.php?gid=513/, requested the suffix "learningcommunity," and out popped tinyurl.com/learningcommunity.

Thanks, David!

Come get me, Mother.  I'm through.