Jay Cross helps people work and live smarter. Jay is the Johnny Appleseed of informal learning. He wrote the book on it. He was the first person to use the term eLearning on the web. He has challenged conventional wisdom about how adults learn since designing the first business degree program offered by the University of Phoenix.
The ‘Learning Knights’ of Bell Telephone in the Op/Ed section of today’s New York Time is a case study of Push learning vs Pull learning.
In 1955, Bell Telephone was concerned about leadership development:
“A well-trained man knows how to answer questions, they reasoned; an educated man knows what questions are worth asking.” Bell, then one of the largest industrial concerns in the country, needed more employees capable of guiding the company rather than simply following instructions or responding to obvious crises.
Bell set up a program called the Institute of Humanistic Studies for Executives. More than simply training its young executives to do a particular job, the institute would give them, in a 10-month immersion program on the Penn campus, what amounted to a complete liberal arts education.
Drawing by Dave Gray
The Institute was deemed a success overall but Bell was disappointed its graduates tipped the scale of work/life balance more to the “life” side:
One man [said] that before the program he had been “like a straw floating with the current down the stream” and added: “The stream was the Bell Telephone Company. I don’t think I will ever be that straw again.”
Over the following five years, Bell phased out the Institute of Humanistic Studies. Old ways die hard and once again, control preempted autonomy.
Today’s companies are grappling with the same issues Bell faced a half century ago. Are we confident our organization is preparing leaders who will be able to deal effectively with the challenges of the future?
I fear the training community is on the wrong side of these questions. The world is open-ended; it’s not assembled from black and white answers. Real life is painted in shades of gray.
You can’t measure discovery learning with an LMS but that doesn’t mean it’s unimportant. This does it mean you shouldn’t use an LMS to monitor compliance and formal learning either. In a healthy learning ecosystem, “Pull learning” and “Push learning” are symbiotic; you need a bit of both.
We need fewer drifting straws on the stream of American business, and more discontented thinkers who listen thoughtfully to both sides of our national debates.
One of the things I like best about Twitter is the collegial, friendly fire-ish banter among L & D professionals. One of the most active of these professionals is the prolific Jay Cross. Jay, with his colleagues in the Internet Time Alliance, has recently produced the 2010 version of his “unbook,” Working Smarter: Informal Learning in the Cloud.
Among the topics often up for grabs lately are ideas around informal learning and the networked learning landscape of the 21st century. Those in the quantitative data/metrics/benchmarking camp argue against the legitimacy of the notion of “informal” learning. As often as not, they claim workplace learning is too important to be left up to happenstance, and requires planning and careful, thorough, design. Cross is clear, though, that he is drawing the “kill the courses, shut down the training department” line with a dramatically heavy hand, admitting that he uses it as much for shock value as anything else, while trying to put forth the idea of workplace learning as different from the traditional view of training course. He also asserts that “informal” does not, as it so often seems to be interpreted, mean “haphazard” or “random.”. Cross acknowledges the time and place of traditional training approaches, particularly for novices (although he questions the decision to put so many resources there rather than with supporting better producers). But seasoned workers, he rightly notes, will not flock to workshops and traditional classes, as they have work to do. Making it easier for them to get to information, to find one another, to learn through collaboration and by accessing meaningful self-service performance support, will strengthen the organization and “help sharp people become sharper.”
As I said on Twitter one night, “I am 93.2% suspicious of statistics about concepts of abstractions like ‘learning’.” While the data we have all seen – along the lines of “80% of workplace learning occurs outside the classroom” – may be appealing, and so quotable, we know we can’t actually measure anything like “learning” in these terms. But we do know that people learn at work all the time, every day, more from one another (even if that “other” is a person who has uploaded a video tutorial, or updated a Wikipedia page) than from anything that happens in a classroom. We know that peer groups and communities exist to share knowledge and support performance, even if they’re bootlegged and kept under management’s radar. We’ve all experienced a need-to-know moment, made better or worse by how quickly we could put our hands on the right information or find the right person to ask. Doubt me? For the rest of the week, as you go about enacting your work, ask how much of what you are doing came from anything resembling a traditional classroom or e-Learning course. Cross leads the reader on a tour of informal, networked learning and performance support, and helps move the conversation from 50,000 feet to 50. This “unbook” is a compilation of his own ideas as well as interjections from his colleagues in the Internet Time Alliance (Harold Jarche, Jane Hart, Charles Jennings, Clark Quinn, and Jon Husband), with chime-ins from many others. There are checklists, tools, and images, charts and provocative questions. And there are honest remarks about the state of learners, many of whom need to stop waiting for directions and start becoming self-directed. For me, the most value in the text comes not from the parsing out of the finer points of informal and formal approaches, but the articulation of the difference between training and learning. Food for thought, from Cross: “If you were to create the organization’s learning and development function from scratch, what would it look like? Are you still doing huge, expensive training-based software rollouts, or shifting the effort into on-point performance support? Have you taken charge of your organization’s learning function, or just training?”
A word about the book itself – it claims it is not one. It’s an unbook, updated every year or so, and published by “Jay Cross and friends,” his colleagues in the Internet Time Alliance Group. Updates appear on Jay’s Internet Time blog http://www.internettime.com so, if they strike your fancy, purchase a bound or e-copy update from Jay’s site, from Lulu, or from Amazon. Where traditional books exist as editions updated every few years, often out of date before they even make it to bookshelves, this unbook is always in Beta. Be aware: While Working Smarter is organized into chapters, it is not the formal, tightly edited, unified work that some readers will expect from a traditional book. I found the organization refreshing, and the get-to-the-point-already style very effective. You can also find Jay on Twitter @jaycross, where he’s a frequent participant in the weekly Thursday night #lrnchat sessions that I help moderate. Join us! 8:30 to 10 PM ET. Jay Cross and Friends. (2010) Working Smarter: Informal Learning in the Cloud. Internet Time Alliance: LULU. $20 paper; $16 e-version, available from Lulu http://www.lulu.com/content/paperback-book/working-smarter-|-january-2010/8259651 or from Internet Time at http://internettime.pbworks.com/FrontPage.
Teach a man to fish…
PKM: Figuring out what’s important to you, how to find it, how to keep up with it, how to make sense of it, how to recall it when you need it anew, and how to share it with others — this is ground zero for mining the riches of the web. Bookstore shelves overflow with books on blogging, but I’ve yet to see one on PKM.
Harold Jarche has written some great posts about PKM. But for those of you have a tough time seeing the trees for the forest, I decided to clean up my PKM framework and show you what I do rather than talk about it.
My links page is my launch pad. I’ve maintained a page like this for a dozen years. It may be my ADD; I need some semblance of structure. The launch page begins with frequent destinations. The little lobster signals my restaurant page; the plane, my travel numbers and suppliers. (These are screen shots; go to the links page if you want to play with the real thing. You’ll find some pages that are private.)
To the right of the clocks are a Google search of all my sites and an Amazon search box; I use these incessantly.
Mind you, I”m forever tweaking the launch page as my interests (and the web) change. Below the frequent destinations, I keep URLs of online services I tap into. To the right, blogs… although the list is a little flaky. I read a dozen blogs in the mail and many more in Google Reader.
To the right of that section are feeds I like and local organizations & events.
I use the bottom of the page to store frequently used graphics. No more searching all over for a common icon.
That’s the top layer of my Personal Knowledge Management set-up.
If you visit the links page, you’ll see subsidiary pages such as the Research page and my Delicious tags.
I stash the social connections on my home page:
The home page is also the entry into my articles, groups, books, and so on:
One page I recommend visiting is this page of other people’s work. I plan to expand it soon.
How do you organize your PKM?
I set the foundations of my approach before we had tags, billions of choices, and responsive search engines. There’s bound to be an easier way.
This post continues the discussion among the members of the Internet Time Alliance about appropriate terminology for learning in the network era. This is an exploration, not an ultimatum.
The main point is getting the job done. That pays the bills. Everything flows from working smarter.
All learning is social, so that’s not really a useful distinction unless we’re stressing social networked learning.
Learning has replaced training as the term of choice. (For more on that issue, see transcript of tonight’s #lrnchat.)
There’s a continuum from top-down, mandated learning (“formal”) to self-directed, intrinsically-motivated learning (“informal”). Unfortunately, “formal” and “informal” are tainted words that invite misinterpretation. Formal can mean stodgy or accepted. Informal can mean casual or flippant.
I prefer calling the bookends of the spectrum of corporate learning….
Traditional learning is not better than independent learning or vice-versa; context determines utility.
What are your thoughts about this?
Related posts
Understanding learning (Jane Hart)
Social media and self-directed learning (Harold Jarche)
Formalizing informal learning (Clark Quinn)
Interdependent Learning (Harold Jarche)
Informal Snake Oil (moi)
Organizations have woken up to the power of people working together. Collaboration gets things done and is the most powerful learning tool in the CLO’s playbook.
Twenty years ago, colleagues at far-flung enterprises communicated by phone, mail and fax. The world moved at a slower pace. FedEx slashed the time required to receive a document, but we were still stuck with a one-way medium. Expensive conferencing equipment enabled remote meetings if audio was all you needed. Proprietary videoconferencing packages transmitted video back and forth, but most people stopped watching the pictures once the novelty wore off.
Then, along came the Internet. Today’s organizations are learning the power of people working together in real time. The use of instant messaging migrated from high school to corporate life. Cheap, simple conferencing tools let workers meet wherever there’s an online connection. Presence-awareness systems route calls to people wherever they are now, not where they used to be. Expertise locators connect workers to people with answers; social software connects them with friends and colleagues. Online team rooms keep the lights on as projects move around the world, passed from one team to the next. Skype gives people the ability to place free video calls over the Net. Software such as Second Life allows executives — in avatar form — to give presentations to one another in virtual boardrooms.
The social learning revolution has only just begun. Corporations that understand the value of knowledge sharing, teamwork, informal learning and joint problem solving are investing heavily in collaboration technology and are reaping the early rewards.
The problem? Most corporate collaboration infrastructure is a haphazard collection of point solutions rather than what one would put together given the opportunity to start with a blank slate. And what’s wrong with that?
This is not atypical when companies adopt new technologies. As people begin to rely on these solutions, however, they seek out a more solid, coordinated approach. Now’s the time.
Furthermore, far too many CLOs take no responsibility for the social media that makes collaboration work.
In recent surveys, Dr. Clark Quinn and I found that less than 40 percent of CLOs are involved in corporate decisions about communities of practice, social networks, content repositories, wikis and Internet access. Fewer still are involved with learning for customers, partners, distributors and the supply chain.
A quarter of the CLOs admitted that their corporate cultures do not value or encourage collaboration and teamwork. A similar proportion reported that their people did not learn new developments via in-house discussion forums.
At the Fall 2009 Chief Learning Officer Symposium, Rebecca Ray, senior vice president of global talent management and development for MasterCard, shared information from yet another survey. She revealed that 40 percent of CLOs do not tie metrics to business performance; 40 percent or less allocate their budget to support business initiatives; and 70 percent could not provide an example of a great CLO in action, driving performance.
Counterbalancing these tales of woe, Ted Hoff, vice president of the Center for Learning and Development at IBM, described his company’s dedication to work-based collaborative learning. The goal is to create constant teaching moments. Every participant in the career advisor program has at least one mentor. IBM is linking partners and clients into its collaborative infrastructure. Hoff has successfully shifted funding from formal learning to informal collaborative learning.
Still, 77 percent of the CLOs that Quinn and I surveyed said their people are not growing fast enough to keep up with the needs of the business. I fear that the picture for many CLOs is yet another example of corporate dyslexia: the inability to see the writing on the wall.
Guten Tag!
You are invited to attend several virtual sessions of Online Educa Berlin.
Thursday, December 3
Tools of the Trade, Jane Hart
Future of Technical Training
Virtual venue: Adobe ConnectPro http://proj.emea.acrobat.com/simulcast Log in as “Guest.”
Link to descriptions of sessions.
Clark Quinn and I led a discussion on Reinventing Organizational Learning at LearnTrends this morning. The recording will be up before the day is over, but I thought you might enjoy the discussion that went with it. Twitter and chat are ubiquitous at conferences now. The back channel becomes part of the overall message.
Moderator (Jay Cross) to Clark Quinn: You have the baton now.
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tmast: yeah. it looks like the sky in Indy too if you add big gray rain clouds, take away the sunlight, and change the blue to gray
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Mars Chen: ok
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Moderator (Clark Quinn) to Harold Jarche, Jay Cross, Tony Karrer, TONY ODriscoll, eLearnspace, George Siemens, Clark Quinn: that work?
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Moderator (Clark Quinn) to Harold Jarche, Jay Cross, Tony Karrer, TONY ODriscoll, eLearnspace, George Siemens, Clark Quinn: yay!
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Moderator (Clark Quinn) to Harold Jarche, Jay Cross, Tony Karrer, TONY ODriscoll, eLearnspace, George Siemens, Clark Quinn: thanks harold
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Jenna Papakalos: tmast: oh no! Sorry you are having yucky weather.
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Mary Myers: you could sing?
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Mitch Oliver: Just hum
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Moderator (Clark Quinn): no, no, not MUZAK! Ahh...
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Moderator (Clark Quinn): and you do NOT want me to sing
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Moderator (Clark Quinn) to Harold Jarche, Jay Cross, Tony Karrer, TONY ODriscoll, eLearnspace, George Siemens, Clark Quinn: do we want to start on time? it's 9AM
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tmast: Better rain then snow! Although it's coming soon. ; - )
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Moderator (Harold Jarche): http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/14067
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Moderator (Clark Quinn): hello all!
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Jenna Papakalos: Tmast: I don't do snow.
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Thomas Stone: Once attended a conf. session that had the theme from "Peanuts" (aka, Charlie Brown) while folks gathered for the session. Kinda nice actually.
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Mary Myers: you can never go wrong with the Peanuts theme
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Moderator (Clark Quinn) to Harold Jarche, Jay Cross, Tony Karrer, TONY ODriscoll, eLearnspace, George Siemens, Clark Quinn: can I leave mic on?
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Mary Myers: you made a mistake?
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Moderator (Clark Quinn) to Harold Jarche, Jay Cross, Tony Karrer, TONY ODriscoll, eLearnspace, George Siemens, Clark Quinn: lost audio
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Moderator (Clark Quinn) to Harold Jarche, Jay Cross, Tony Karrer, TONY ODriscoll, eLearnspace, George Siemens, Clark Quinn: learnlets.com
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Moderator (Clark Quinn): learnlets.com
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Jenna Papakalos: That's awesome! Love the title.
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Moderator (Harold Jarche): Clark is at http://blog.learnlets.com/
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@AgileBill4d: did someone say Agile?
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Jenna Papakalos: Nope @Agile, said fragile
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Moderator (Harold Jarche): http://internettimealliance.com/
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Christy Tucker: You weren't working independently; you were working in parallel. You all had parallel conversations on your blogs etc.
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Moderator (Harold Jarche): parrallel but not coordinated, Christy
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Christy Tucker: true
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Moderator (Harold Jarche): traditional training & education has driven much of our self-direction and creativity out of us - need to relearn
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Jenna Papakalos: Nice! Love it Jay.
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Moderator (Clark Quinn): we're the people who've retained our love of learning despite our education
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Moderator (Harold Jarche): http://www.internettime.com/
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tabitha: i agree harold
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jadekaz: life long learning
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Moderator (Clark Quinn): slow learning, not event learning
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John McDermott: Antigua is a beautiful place.
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Moderator (Clark Quinn): or http://www.internettimealliance.com/
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Maryanne Burgos: stars
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kelly_smith01: gateway recession
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Moderator (Clark Quinn): world as biosphere, org as performance ecosystem
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Moderator (Clark Quinn): hierarchy: one person thinking for many
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mariancasey: social network
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kelly_smith01: change was yesterday
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Jenna Papakalos: change will continue tomorrow
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Moderator (Clark Quinn): but things are moving too fast, networks where everyone is thinking towards the same goal) is where agility (yes, I said agile ) can flourish
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Lucia: good
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kelly_smith01: OK
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Diane D'Amico: perfect
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Maryanne Burgos: Pace is fine
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Amy Graff: nice speed
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83yalow: perfect
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mariancasey: what do you do with outliers?
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Moderator (Clark Quinn): @marian embrace outliers: diversity breeds better outcomes (if you manage the process right)
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Moderator (Clark Quinn): btw, comments here welcome, questions encouraged
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kelly_smith01: Reminds me a bit of Rummler
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kelly_smith01: more and more partnerships in the future
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tmast: @Tony, could you please jot down the 90-9-1 rule? Missed it in the conference segment
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Amy Graff: I teach students going into business (online). How can we conceptualize this in our classes?
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Chris 2: Agile networks require collaborative learning across companies
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Moderator (Tony Karrer): http://elearningtech.blogspot.com/2008/04/90-9-1-rule-aka-1-rule-in-collaborative.html
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Moderator (Clark Quinn): @amy conceptualize the broader perspective re: learners, learning components?
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Amy Graff: @quinn - for the students I have, probably both aspects
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Moderator (Clark Quinn): @chris, yes, if it's about the network, the network goes beyond org boundaries
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Moderator (Clark Quinn): @amy: contributions to org will come from continual conversations, can't just bucket into formal, nor just within org
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Holly MacDonald: We need to talk about outcomes and business results within our orgs/with clients, not focus on "how" - that is stuff that we talk about with each other
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Moderator (Harold Jarche): though informal can work for new hires too: http://www.jarche.com/2009/03/informal-learning-works-for-new-hires/
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kelly_smith01: I recall Alison Rossett mentioning this in diff context years ago
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Jenna Papakalos: Leverage what is happening in the market. Thank you Apple with the iPhone!
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Moderator (Clark Quinn): @kelly, yes Allison's rightly has been on Perf support for a long time
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Jenna Papakalos: Why is that?
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Cynan: yeah. that's a major problem here.
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Jenna Papakalos: Communities of practice belong to training
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Jenna Papakalos: It is training!
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John McDermott: This is harkening back to Tony's comments re aggregation on his blog
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Moderator (Harold Jarche): no significant difference
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Moderator (Clark Quinn): the question is, leave KM to the propellor heads, or getting learning folks into the model
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Tammy P.: Plug for ASTD - CPLP Certification includes all of these areas of expertise
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Cynan: joint ownership? I think COPs belong to functional leads (eg CFO) but the social artistry of managing them, L&D should be able to advise on
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Moderator (Clark Quinn): CoP is NOT training, but 'training' (learning) folks have a role in making it work
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Moderator (Harold Jarche): @Tammy does certification = expertise?
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Jenna Papakalos: Get to caught up on terms and labels. KM, TM, etc. Lines are blurred, info is info
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Robin Haines: The criticality of learning across the extended enterprise has been an issue for many years. What is distracting CLO's from taking ownership of it?
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Chris 2: Pay it forward with knowledge
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Moderator (Clark Quinn): @Tammy, I haven't seen that HPT-types have put social into their models, is it in CPLP?
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Tammy P.: It is discussed, but there are old ways of thinking
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Merilee: Command and control vs. collaborative?
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Wendy: I think trainers are in the excellent position to make CoP work because we naturally touch more corners of an organization
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Moderator (Harold Jarche): not much social in HPT - reason I moved away from it
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jadekaz: Addie tells us past. What do we do? Where do we start? With future
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Moderator (Harold Jarche): ADDIE cannot help develop emergent practices - they're in th efuture, not the past; no best practices to model
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DGlow: Asked the question yesterday- traditional design has ADDIE and other models. Is there an emerging model for social learning? A structure for folks to have some common language- can help with adoption.
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Asif: well said
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Janet: agreed about collaboration (and CoP's) require communities of Trust - not just fear of mistakes, fear of someone else getting an edge from you, while not sharing their knowledge
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kelly_smith01: wisdom of crowds
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Moderator (Harold Jarche): My first work on a new model: http://www.jarche.com/2009/03/informal-learning-works-for-new-hires/
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Jenna Papakalos: DGlow: Don't know of any emerging models for social learning. Think ADDIE still applies, barebone methodology at least
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DGlow: Thank you Harold. And Jenna- Yes, ADDIE does apply in some context, certainly.
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Jenna Papakalos: DGlow: Or we can just come up with a new model, co auther a book, and be speakers for next year's Learn Trends
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jadekaz: Trust is easier in small spaces. Is that key? Starting small, ie., not company wide blogs
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Asif: trust is best in non-competitive spaces/cultures
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Moderator (Harold Jarche): make ADDIE participatory and add in Agile and you might have basis for new model
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Sandy E: In this context, I think ADDIE simply provides a way to organize and structure the things that we're exploring.
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Holly MacDonald: ADDIE works but many people don't do the A or the E
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dannymacc: Those are the most important parts of ADDIE
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Gillian: Or they think the A gets done after the contract is signed...
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kelly_smith01: They like to Avoid A and E each require justification or and proof
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Sara Jean Ward: amen!
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DGlow: Holly- Amen. Sad, but unfortunately true.
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jadekaz: Exactly re: using new tools. Gotta play to win
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Moderator (Harold Jarche): ADDIE is also very content-centric and content is no longer th eissue - it's context & connections
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Sandy E: @Harold - I LIKE the idea of ADDIES becoming participatory (and avoiding the extended time that ADDIE seems to take)
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Snezana Nanevska: I have to analyze technologies used for learning purposes in organization? Do you have tips how to start the research? What are the technologies that shouldn’t be missed?
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Jeanne Farrington: Let's see... should we ignore the audience (part of the A in ADDIE)?
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Jeanne Farrington: Should we ignore the context? (also part of the A in ADDIE)
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Holly MacDonald: I think A also tells us about all the things on the slide
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Jeanne Farrington: How about design? Should we ignore that?
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kelly_smith01: Ignore E and ignore our faults/strengths
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kelly_smith01: ADDIE is a fixation - good idea
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Moderator (Harold Jarche): ADDIE is for mass instruction and it's as outdated as mass production
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Mike Rodgers: Does anyone currently use social networking as a form of training. We have the 20th century training but I think we need to move forward. Does anyone have examples of what they are doing?
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Sara Jean Ward: systematic approaches obsolete? hmmm
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kelly_smith01: accurate idea
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Jenna Papakalos: Absolutely Jay! ADDIE reminds me of project management, software development, product management...common pieces that have ubiqitious purpose
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Jeanne Farrington: You can do ADDIE on a napkin... is infinitely flexible
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Sara Jean Ward: @jeanne LOL
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Moderator (Clark Quinn): It's a different view on ADDIE: there IS formal in the overall performance ecosystem, but ADDIE only covers some.
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Holly MacDonald: ADDIE is a process, how it is applied can morph
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Jenna Papakalos: Yes @Holly. Well put
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Moderator (Clark Quinn): there'll be a role for design, context is critical
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Moderator (Harold Jarche): Waterfall software development was killed by Agile, and so ADDIE will have to go
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DGlow: Why ADDIE was adopted- the fixation was easy because it was apporachable. If an approachable alternative is created for social learning
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Jeanne Farrington: Yes, @Holly
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Sandy E: @Jeanne - the problem is when ADDIE gets in the hands of a lot of IDs, it becomes monolithic
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kelly_smith01: ADDIE is a measure some use for evaluating job applicants - not a real tool
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jadekaz: Very high level. What is the ID to do?
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Tammy P.: Harold, You said it all.
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Moderator (Harold Jarche): @Tammy (ex-military & was immersed in ADDIE for many years)
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Jeanne Farrington: @Sandy E... then the problem is in the IDs. Doesn't make sense to blame ADDIE.
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kelly_smith01: military also used Merrill - in my experience
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Sandy E: @jeanne - true, but it doesn become an issue when the IDs are inflexible.
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mariancasey: Tie to organizational strategic objectives
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Moderator (Harold Jarche): first we shape our structures & then our structures shape us - need new structures IMO
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DGlow: Perfect Harold- my point. Folks need a structure to start and have successes without painful experimentation
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leslie lannan: RE: ADDIE - to paraphrase an artist friend of mine: "it's good to know the rules before you break them"
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kelly_smith01: Rummler processes instead of ADDIE = Rummler looks at the impact/role of performance to whole organization
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Moderator (Harold Jarche): no more info dissemination but move to "Connecting & Communicating"
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Jeanne Farrington: Cool, @leslie lannan
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Jon Folkestad: business owners usually know the business better than the LO
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Moderator (Clark Quinn): ROI *can* Lead you awry, focus on need to impact business success by facilitating performance
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Chellie: We're slowly changing from learning specialists to business change analysts in my corp.
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jadekaz: So, ID needs to expand to all of Gilbert's BEM
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Christy Confetti Higgins: Could IDs be community advocates? What I hear right now is a lot about information services - becoming information experts in the organization and connecting employees to people and content to enable their work.
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mariancasey: Doesn't it require a team to accomplish this? IT, HR, Communications, legal
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kelly_smith01: Yes @jadekaz RE:Gilbert
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Asif: Kirkpatrick talks about 'ROE -- return on expectations'
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DGlow: Clark- correct.
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Sandy E: @ Christy - agreed - need to change behavior so people are accepting of that help, too!
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Holly MacDonald: focus on performance and outcomes
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mariancasey: How do break down silos unless you have a flat organization?
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Moderator (Harold Jarche): all internal departments are "artificial" boundaries - need to rethink roles in a networked environment
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Jon Folkestad: hasn't alignment been a problem for a long time?
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kfarentino: teachers are changing from instructors to facilitators - creating individualized paths based on student needs, including using a variety of tools from social networks to online lectures, to quick podcasts, to f2f conversations depending on the goal/outcome of the learning experience- business needs to do the same
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Christy Confetti Higgins: We've tried to get at the table to be Information Consultants - maybe in the learning space there needs to be Learning Consultans or Learning Partners that sit at the table of major units or efforts in an organization to help faciliate and see the need for learning
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Frank Budimir: Move to Norway, Marian. We're all about flat organisations
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Bob MacKie: It's not a question of design tools. It is scope of practice. Learning encompasses areas outside the organizatio such as customers and suppliers.
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Sandy E: @kfarentino - University of Denver actaully creates "customized" masters programs based upon thpreferred outcomesof the student!
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Moderator (Harold Jarche): Intuit has outsourced ALL of its learning design & development to its customers
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mariancasey: Frank - Norway -too dark and too cold - thanks for invite though!
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Christy Confetti Higgins: I see parallels to the the struggles of the information/knowledge services space here. A key is partnering and demonstrating your value to the business - then great things can happen - it does take time.
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Moderator (Clark Quinn): And Netflix is telling folks: here is where we're going, we're empowering you to make it so within these cultural imperatives, make it happen
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Gillian: As jobs become less 'for life', surely the indiviudal is assisting in breaking down the 'do unto' mode of course provision and actually fostering self-reliance and curiosity in learning - if only for personal economic survival
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mariancasey: How about building the collaboration or learning into the employees performance review - could that work?
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Maryanne Burgos: @Jenna Can you add me to the GW? maryanne.burgos@googlewave.com TY
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Sandy E: @Christy - I the "time" factor is the time required to build trust and prove that you have something to contribute
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Frank Budimir: @Marian Can't win them all. But you're right and you're welcome
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Bob MacKie: There is also learning using community of practice outside the organization e.g. purchasing agents, chefs etc.
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John McDermott: Wave is public: just join in
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Judy Muller: Intuit..great idea to implement active practice of it's core "customer focus".
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Christy Confetti Higgins: Sandy E - exactly! It's taken us a long time at Sun to develop the trust and relationships in the info space.
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Jenna Papakalos: Jay...we need to connect when you make your way to Orlando! I like you.
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Jenna Papakalos: You tell it like it is. I respect that.
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Jenna Papakalos: @maryanne: doing it now
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Christy Confetti Higgins: I love that! Gosh, the power of the learning professional and the information professional is so obvious to me now in listening to everyone here.
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Holly MacDonald: internal consulting
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Jon Folkestad: why don't we imbed all learning facilitators in the business? is there a need to have a centralized function?
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leslie lannan: @littleasklab trying to extend the nomenclature - from "learner" to "content user" - Who needs to know what, and classifiy content according to function and depth - external partners, customers, internals etc
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Mary Myers: interesting idea Jon..
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Christy Tucker: Jon, maybe "learning facilitator" is part of everyone's job
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Christy Tucker: not a separate role
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Sandy E: @Jon - would be nice to be embedded, with a CoP of learning professional to bounce around ideas
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Renee L Robbins: EXACTLY JAY!!
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jadekaz: One ID against the world is tough place to be re: changing from training to networking solutions
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Mary Myers: yes! @Jon and @sandy E
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Katina: great concept!
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Jenna Papakalos: What would you suggest in place of performance reviews?
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tmast: Agreed JAy!
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stevenasstrom: NexGen learners are demanding immediate realtime feedback, annually is eons to them
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Moderator (Harold Jarche): we're already embedded in a CoP of learning professionals to bounce around ideas
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John McDermott: When I started in learning it was not a separate place in most organizatoins I worked with. Now it is an HR function in many places.
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mariancasey: But how do you enforce it then Jay
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Jenna Papakalos: Yes, but aren't job expectations just a part of it? Follow up gets done how?
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mariancasey: They are trying this at Aon
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Moderator (Jay Cross) to Jenna Papakalos: XOXOXO I'm available
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Christy Confetti Higgins: @Jon - I think aligning learning or information experts to the business is key - it can still be a centralized function for efficiency and other reasons but then you have folks assigned to various efforts / groups / business units - then you are part of them and sitting at the table
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Bob MacKie: A sales representatives job is to teach, set prices, solve customer problems and develop trust relationships with customers. Should sales people be trained as trainers?
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Sandy E: @Jenna - used to have a manager ask me "what have you done for your company today?" Seems to be an appropriate question in this space - what have you done to facilitate learning today? Ends up being a cultural shift, I think.
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kfarentino: learning function needs to be directed by the learner. organizations need to support and foster that and to value it.
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leslie lannan: @littleasklab Linden Labs new HR platform for 3D and whuffie points has some big implications for performance reviews
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lauraoverton: Do you think that the squeeze on resources might open up new collaborations eg with those involved in internal comms or marketing ?
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mariancasey: I think the focus is on the development of collaboration skills and promoting the collaboration by individual employees
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DGlow: Struggling with this heavily at my org currently. Not only performance review, but "peer review"- value of your participating in the network as a contributor- is there something to be done here? Seems heavy-handed.
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Moderator (Clark Quinn): jay's a stirrer
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Christy Confetti Higgins: The Employee Communications group at Sun has this model. They are one central team but the bu funds the communicator for their group and that communicator is part of that bu's efforts - it's been really effective if you can make it happen.
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Jenna Papakalos: Ha! I'll buy you a drink when you get here. Would love to pick your brain!
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Moderator (Clark Quinn): yes, and I've talked (and will be for MassISPI) about 'blow up the training department'
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Moderator (Harold Jarche): Article by Jay & I : http://is.gd/4Y82k
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Sandy E to Harold Jarche, Jay Cross, Tony Karrer, TONY ODriscoll, eLearnspace, George Siemens, Clark Quinn: Is it possible to print out or save the chat file after the session? Really valuable things here!
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Moderator (Clark Quinn): (question, with a bomb, or like a balloon?
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kelly_smith01: @Bob MacKie sales persons could "train" everyone on customer needs (percieved) or the nature of cutomer business - they should know the outside environment
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Moderator (Clark Quinn): @leslie, yes, one of the bennies of a digital environment is tracking behavior and having a record for dialog around performance (tho' requires a 'safe' culture for this)
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Jenna Papakalos: @Sandy That is an outstanding point. You mind if I borrow that?
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Sandy E: @Jenna P - Absolutely, feel free!
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Jon Folkestad: @Christy I think you can matrix all of this and I also believe we should oursource this skill to all of our employees and build this competency. This removes the LO as the bottleneck.
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Moderator (Clark Quinn): @DGlow, 360 makes sense, IF used for employees benefit, e.g. make them more successful)
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HKoenen: if training can not demonstrate measurable results it should not be done
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Jenna Papakalos: @Sandy Sweet! So generous.
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DGlow: The challenge with using some folks (i.e. Sales) for training- is that sometimes a resource that is $100/hr in value could be spending time on a much lower-level resource. In tough times, managers want them on line-of-sight value activities with immediate return.
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Moderator (Clark Quinn): @SandyE: what have you done to facilitate organizational success!
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Jon Folkestad: Why do learning professionals always think that they are they only ones who understand how to analyze a problem and provide a perforamnce solution. This is the meta learning we should be building.
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Chris 2: Sounds like definition of grace
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Christy Confetti Higgins: Good question to ask Sandy - I love that too!
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DGlow: Well said Jon.
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Tammy P.: @DGlow I don't like that way of thinking. Isn't raising everyone to a better level going to add more value to the organization
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Sandy E: @Clark - created a series of webinars (no charge) for professional development. Given that Sun is in flux right now - it's the best thing we can do for our employees.
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Charles Jennings: @hkeonen Agreed, but the measurables need to be business and org. results, not some type of 'learning results' - because most measurement of learning is flawed unless it's focused on business impact.
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DGlow: @Tammy- agree, but that's the pushback faced. Esp. in times like now. ST/Quarterly returns tradeoff for LT.
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kelly_smith01: The Future Arrived Yesterday: The Rise of the Protean Corporation and What It Means for You - Michael Malone
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kfarentino: "the sum of the parts" argument
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mariancasey: Optimize your talent and prepare them for external factors that change rapidly
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DGlow: Completely agree with Quinn's Point.
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Christy Confetti Higgins: I don't know a lot about the process in the learning space but a few years ago, our CLO, commended the library team for offering so many webinars on key information topics and questioned the learning team "why can a team of 5 people pull together these webinars so quickly and it takes us so long" - essentially we need to move faster to address learning needs
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Sandy E: @Christy - this is me applausing!
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Janet: short term is not all bad, as long as you are doing your st work with a view to the lt. if you get some quick wins, you have the credibility to pitch lt soln's
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kfarentino: @christy we also need to value the contributions of the "field" workers in creating these types of learning objects
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leslie lannan: @littleasklab saw some SoMe metrics that said that use of SoMe decreases individual productivity, but the productivity of the group improves - which is where the work happens
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Moderator (Clark Quinn): @Charles, yes, not learning skills, but collaboration skills? If the net result is more ideas per person per time, or more solutions likewise...
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kelly_smith01: Limos
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Jenna Papakalos: @Christy: Think we tend to overcomplicate things. I like to keep it simple. My mind can't handle complex stuff!
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Jeanne Farrington: Sadly, I have to go & get some actual work done. Has been fun listening & connecting.
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Moderator (Clark Quinn): @Christy @jenna, yes, formal courses can't meet all our needs, need to move to 'least assistance principle'
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mariancasey: love Senge!
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Christy Confetti Higgins: @Jenna ok, interesting to know - thanks!
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Christy Confetti Higgins: @kfarentino yes, totally agree to involve the field - it's all about connecting, building that relationship and trust with the organization and individuals
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Moderator (Clark Quinn): ie what's the smallest thing we can do to get them effective
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Moderator (Clark Quinn): how does this team get everyone working together optimally
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John McDermott: @Clark: I think this implies a just-in-time component
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Moderator (Clark Quinn): @john, yes, I reckon
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mariancasey: So what type of measurement is effective in measuring this type of learning?
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DGlow: Clark- AMEN! Also, where you don't have to use a top-level resource (basic activities), don't take them off the floor. But, when folks need that resource, they have the foundation to have a good discussion.
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Judy Muller: Find ways to leverage existing healthy collaborations to benefit whole org learning!
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Tony Karrer WP to Harold Jarche, Jay Cross, eLearnspace, George Siemens, Clark Quinn: Kim are the next slides loaded?
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Moderator (Harold Jarche): value network analysis
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DGlow: @Judy- great idea- start where it is happening well, and wrap it with more "captured" knowledge for all. Brilliant!
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Sandy E: @Clark - smallest thing? Make the light bulb go off - give them something that makes them say WOW. People will pass that on and energize the others with whom they work - collaboration and sharing start. I know it's not that easy, but I've seen it happen before, and it's pretty cool.
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Moderator (Harold Jarche): social network analysis
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Moderator (Jay Cross): Value network analysis: ABSOLUTELY
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mariancasey: Describe value network analysis I've done social network
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Jenna Papakalos: A person wiser than me once said, "start with the end in mind. Everything else falls into place."
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Charles Jennings: socal network VALUE analysis....
I always do my best work while asleep and now that I’ve slept two nights since DevLearn, here’s what I’m thinking.
The last item begs explanation. In the past, we’ve focused on individuals but work is performed by groups. Hence, I expect us to start helping groups learn to perform instead of individuals.
Related posts:
Excerpt from Informal Learning: Rediscovering the Natural Pathways that Inspire Innovation and Performance
My thanks to Mark Oelhert (our counselor at Social Learning Camp) for helping me sharpen my focus.
Customer Learning, CLO magazine, December 2008
Learning is woven into the fabric of every modern business. It’s the way we adapt to change. We’ve got to rid ourselves of the notion that learning is just the chief learning officer’s business. Learning is so much more than that. Learning is the lifeblood of commerce, and it’s every corporate citizen’s job to make it better. It’s time to invite customers to join the party.
Learning and social networks and customer communications and partner relations and marketing and sales aren’t islands. They’re all facets of the same thing: the corporate commons of work and learning. Some astute companies are exploring how a social learning community can remove barriers separating customer and corporation. It’s all about learning conversations.
The Cluetrain Manifesto is one of the most important business books of the late 20th century. Its primary message is that markets are conversations. That conversation must be authentic; you can’t fake it. Its language is “natural, open, direct, funny and often shocking.” Honest conversation builds lasting customer relationships.
Conversations also are the most effective learning technology ever invented. Learning is social. Most of what you learn, you learn from and with other people. You do so in the give-and-take of conversation. While it’s a book about business, not learning, The Cluetrain Manifesto presciently challenges its readers to “imagine a world where everyone was constantly learning, a world where what you wondered was more interesting than what you know, and curiosity counted for more than certain knowledge.”
Last week, I came upon an example of an online learning community that brings marketing, social networking and learning under one roof. It’s a marriage of informal, self-service learning and business analytics. In this case, it was the customer-facing site of Dr. Stephen R. Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, the business best-seller.
Six months ago, Covey replaced his traditional Web site with a free online learning community. Thirty-four thousand people from 188 countries have signed on as members. Many of them have enrolled in free courses. Learning is the lure that brings them in and brings them back.
Making a lesson stick takes more than a talking-head video, no matter how compelling the speaker. That’s why this community site challenges participants to specify their goals, set up milestones and receive reminders. There’s a personal learning journal for keeping track of progress, there’s a forum for asking questions and sharing opinions, and there’s a community that enables members to learn with one another. The entire site was designed with learning in mind.
When thousands of people join a community, its conveners need metrics to assess progress and chart their next steps. Web-based analytics are easily baked into online communities such as this, and Google now provides a service that enables a Web site to compare itself to its peers.
Most people who visit a social networking site never go beyond the opening page. Yet, the promise of learning and community motivates six out of seven visitors to the Covey site to continue on to other pages. Visitors to the average community site stay for two minutes, whereas members of the Covey community remain for nearly 15 minutes. Only one in seven visitors to a typical community site are back for a second time, but two out of three Covey visitors are repeats. People hate to be taught, but they love to learn.
Combining learning and marketing is win-win. Here’s why:
1. Informed customers are better customers. They know the goods. They trust the brand. They buy more.
2. Learning relationships are two-way. Customer-learners keep coming back. Familiarity breeds loyalty. Participants bring in their friends.
3. Analytics inform marketing decisions. Administrators monitor changes in customer interests and behavior. They have a channel for direct feedback and suggestions from the marketplace.
You can set up an online social learning community without waiting in line for IT to help. The Covey community runs on a turnkey platform. Cut it on, and you’re good to go. Isn’t it time to include customers in your organization’s learning plans?
For all the talk about networks and knowledge sharing, it appears many organizations aren’t practicing it. How is your enterprise approaching these concepts?
In the middle of 2008, a notice appeared on the Informal Learning blog (informl.com) requesting participation in a survey of informal and Web 2.0 learning practices.
A total of 235 responded. Twenty-five percent had less than 100 employees, and 27 percent had 5,000 or more. Half were corporations; the other half academic institutions, government organizations, nonprofits and sole proprietorships. The corporations represented all sectors: IT, services, finance, manufacturing, communications, healthcare, extraction and several others.
The results of the survey served as a catalyst for asking questions rather than proof of what’s going on. The sample size was too small and the selection process too limited for bulletproof conclusions.
However, a somewhat clear picture emerges from the findings. While the access to the Web and use of social media are way up from when Internet Time Group conducted a similar study a year ago, the overall picture is not rosy. Most of the organizations that responded are sailing stormy seas without a rudder:
• Less than half reported that their professionals and/or teams form communities of practice.
• A third of the respondents disagreed with the statement, “People here understand how their work is linked to the overall goals of the organization.”
• Nearly half reported they do not take time to reflect on what they might learn from a major success or failure.
• Most reported that it’s difficult to set up an in-house blog or wiki.
• A strong majority disagreed with the statement that their “formal training is superb.”
• Two-thirds reported that their organizations are slow to change, even when it would be in their best interest.
A recipe for organizational catastrophe and business meltdown is looming here. The respondents said they are zooming into the future on a track leading nowhere. They are not tending their networks. Yet, rather than tending to what will be important in the future, they focus on the day-to-day.
Looking over the survey results, consultant Harold Jarche observed, “Your graphs tell me that around one-third to one-half of respondents say that things are not good in the workplace.” Specific problems include:
• Lack of cooperation.
• No time for reflection.
• No ability to use DIY tools for work.
• No communities of practice for support.
• Lack of professional development.
• Poor training.
The most damning finding of the survey was that only one in four agreed that, “People are growing and learning fast enough with our current programs to keep up with the needs of our business.”
Read that again. Three out of four admit they aren’t enabling their people to grow and learn well enough to keep up with the future. This is corporate illiteracy: the inability to read the handwriting on the wall.
How would your group rate itself? You ought to find out. It’s not difficult. E-mail a survey to people in your organization. Borrow the questions from this survey if you’re in a hurry. (The Internet Time Group study prepared and administered its survey with a free service called Survey Share.)
Invest half an hour to find out how you stack up. If you’re like most of the people who answered these questions, the responses you receive will re-order your priorities.
Communities of Practice: Hot or Not?
The phrase “communities of practice” gets a lot of play in the learning industry. It has long been touted as an effective and relatively simple and inexpensive way to connect an organization’s employees to the knowledge and development resources they need to perform.
Yet, if the results of the Internet Time Group’s study on informal and Web 2.0 learning are indicative of the learning industry at large, then the companies actually implementing communities of practice are in the minority. About 43 percent of respondents said professionals and teams in their enterprise do not form communities of practice.
Moreover, if just half of the 24 percent of participants who were undecided on this question do not have communities of practice in their organizations, then that would suggest that the majority of companies don’t have them.
These results are somewhat surprising, and lead one to a few possible conclusions:
• Other formal learning programs are filling the niche that communities
of practice provide.
• Company leaders are concerned about surrendering control of learning content.
• Many learning professionals don’t grasp the concept of communities of practice.
All of these — and perhaps other factors — could explain the lack of adoption. However, as organizations look to disseminate knowledge and enhance employee performance, greater numbers will likely turn to communities of practice in the coming years.
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