Nic's Discoveries

DOING THE SAME THINGS - BUT NOT SURE LEARNERS SEE IT THAT WAY

2012-01-25T13:16:00.000-08:00

If I amconfused, so must they be! What am I talking about? The many ways that ineducation and in the workplace we really do our best to mess people around. Andit's in every aspect of their experience- teaching methods, assessment methodologies, technology, and perhaps most ofall, in the learning culture we expect the learner to subscribe to. Is it anywonder that many young people shut themselves off from the "system"at the first opportunity. And it is an even greater wonder that we manage toget some of them back into the system enticed with sexy terminology like sociallearning, self-directedness in learning, competence through use of simulations- and most of all that wonderful thing, the smart device!

Over thelast year I have seen examples of technology enabled learning that make my eyeswater with envy, and at the same time with despair because the world in which Isaw it is so far away from the reality of my world in industry and commerce -and that was in a primary school. I have been told by a distinguisheduniversity that there is no place for industry in the design of curriculum,provision of practical experience, and even a rejection of funding in returnfor creating a partnership to ensure that the graduates they produce areemployable.

Educationis full of disconnects between primary, secondary, college and university. Itused to be just getting used to campus life for a young person entering highereducation. Now it is also a complete change in methodology, access toinformation, platforms, and all the other things that go with living in themodern world. Often it is the disempowering realisation that what was possibleis no longer so. Yes, there will be ways around it, but the way our connectedlife is lived will have a whole new set of tools, protocols, constraints - anda very different culture as well.

I heard alecturer from a leading university presenting a paper about the problems andways she had helped students overcome them in shifting their perceptions ofFacebook, LinkedIn and Twitter from being purely social tools to essentialstudy instruments. They had huge difficulty in coming to terms with their pasthistory of disclosure now following them around because it is in the publicarena and will influence employment prospects. I thought to myself - wait for the next challenge,, when they have tocome to terms with the ethics, policies and protocols heaped on them by zealousIT and IP guardians in the workplace.

I havelistened to learned papers identifying that 1st year students are computerilliterate - not rocket science, theyhave grown up attached to their mobile devices. In Africa, a computer is adream for most, a mobile is a life necessity. Yet in the workplace"seniority" is frequently still required to be eligible for a laptop.And in the meantime the learner has in their hand the most sophisticated mobileimaginable, is skilled with it and has great expertise in going round the backof any institutional constraints placed in their way. We need to get real!

Why is itnecessary to use different platforms for learning (where technology is used -and of course that is probably still a minority) in schools, universities andplaces of employment? Schools do not have the funding that has traditionallybeen present in business so their focus has been on the cheap and open source.Business has a history of vast in-house IT human resource acting as everythingto do with technology - sourcing, acquiring, installing, managing, regulating,policing and all the other stuff that shows that they have forgotten that theyserve the business, not run it. But the outcome is prescribed, purchasedsolutions, often acquired for huge sums of money as "best in class" (because management didn't know what other questions to ask in sanctioning thepurchase), frequently having to be compatible with unwieldy enterprisemanagement systems, and ultimately with built in redundancy because they cannotafford tone updated. Perish the thought ofusing the cloud and letting someone else worry about the latest upgrade!

And whendid the workplace and its feeder education system ever get together to workout how best to help the student findtheir way through the transitions that are inevitable as we grow up and ourfocus on learning changes, together with our ability to take on for ourselvesthe responsibility for defining our needs, and finding ways of meeting them?

In the UKthe IT curriculum in schools is at last to be updated from archaic lessons onhow to use Microsoft products to a slant that is more concerned with computing.Would it not be better to try to help students understand the communication andtechnology revolution with its inexorable headlong rush to such informationoverload our brains will actually have to change to prosper in it? Curationskills, going way beyond "Google mentality", learning the forgottenskills of applying judgement to information, creating one's own frameworks toguide learning, are these not more important than learning to use a programmeor an app - something which is second nature to young people armed with theirmultitude of devices.

Then,dare I say it, the workplace has in many places not even begun to adjust to theway of life of those entering it. But has tertiary education either?

There ismuch to do to smooth that path and to enable a new generation inspired tocontinue their learning, confident in the tools at their disposal, and knowinghow to apply them responsibly and with an innovative freedom to solvingbusiness issues in their own ways in a globally connected society.

Oh - andof course there is the mass of the older generation for whom everything aboveis just too much.......

Did Ieven mention pedagogies or the hopeless mess that I observe the educationsystem getting into with validation of PLN's (Personal Learning Networks) etc?In the workplace if it works and people can perform because of it that's goodenough. The only validation is performance results.

We needto take a long hard look throughout the lifelong learning process at what weare about and how we help individuals, institutions and organisations optimisein a very fast changing world.

NODDLEPOD - MAKING SENSE OF LEARNING

2011-10-05T04:39:00.000-07:00

Collaborative working in our networked world is seen as one of themost important ways forward in Smart Working – the key survival tool for individuals andenterprises in the period ahead.

How that collaboration is achieved and how it is enabled togrow and thrive are key questions. Theability to learn and to learn through sharing are essentials of our new world.These are challenges faced by Executives and in turn by professionals in theL&D space.

Performance support consultants, L&D professionals,academics and many others in addition to line managers are all striving forways to help people learn to the best of their ability, finding their waythrough an often bewildering sea of methodologies, platforms and overwhelminginformation.

Noddlepod is a new presence that may well become a leader asa space for organising and collaborating in learning. Today Noddlepod takes a further step in inviting us to experience it.

I have been aware of its development for a while now andhave become increasingly excited by its potential. Noddlepod has applicability in two key areasof learning. It puts an easy to use toolin the hands of the individual to get areal and systematic grip on all of their learning, capturing, planning andreflecting. Potentially more important,it creates a space for individuals learning and working in the same areas topool their experience, organised through a common framework.

Noddlepod has potential for use in learning communities(academic or at work) and in communities of practice in the workplace. A key areawhere I see huge potential for its application is inleadership development where it has the potential to become the glue to holdtogether long-term action development initiatives – across disciplines,companies and even globally.

But enough from me! Why not spend a few seconds viewing thisamusing little animation and then visiting Noddlepod, take the tour, visit theblog and try it for yourself?

By the way – I don’t have any commercial connection withNoddlesoft – I am writing this simply because I am impressed by the potentialof the product and the depth of thinking that has conceived it. Well done to Ollie and Steve Gardener!

You might also like to look at http://bit.ly/qFDiIg for some of Ollie's insights

MY 10 BEST TOOLS FOR LEARNING

2011-10-03T09:13:00.000-07:00

Jane Hart (www.c4lpt.co.uk) asked me to identify my best tools for learning. It’s time for those of us who care aboutthese things to make sure that Jane’s 5 year research project on the tools weare finding most useful (http://bit.ly/qPI6QB) remains as accurate as possible for 2011.

Do I have 10 tools? My first reaction is “no” – but oncloser inspection, maybe…..

I am not a line learning practitioner, more of a person whohas seen learning from the ground upwards – starting as a part-time trainingco-ordinator in a small department of scientists and ending up as a senior training manager (that’s what we called a CLOin those days) in a major division of a global corporate, before becomingOrganisation Behaviour Director of a consultancy practice. So nowadays, I observe, analyse and research– often by immersing myself in the tools I am evaluating for my clients.

My “tools” – I don’t like the word because it implies toomuch structure in a world which needs to discover the informal power of sociallearning – are those which enable me to learn and which I believe are mostlikely to help others on their learning journeys.

As I think about it, they are almost exclusively in the areaof platforms that enable me to talk to other people, the more interactive thebetter, the faster the response capability the better. Why? Because my learning comes so dominantly from “talking” to other people. It may be oral, it is frequently written(instant or asynchronous). It is alwayscollaborative.

Therefore my best tools

· Twitter (my micro-blogging tool) – puts me intouch with people thinking about how to take forward learning in the new era.It provides me with the fastest research mechanism at my disposal. Asking for information and assistance onTwitter will normally bring quick responses not only about “what” but also “how”and “who” to take me forward. Chatarenas like #lrnchat #realwplearning are an extension of that capability madeeasily workable by Tweetchat. Tweetdeck which filters my tweets so that I caneasily keep up up with hundreds of messages every day is important – especiallygiving me virtual access to gatherings I am not able to participate in by usingthe #tag back channel facility.

· Skype – where the ability to talk almost forfree “face to face” but globally and at the same time to be able to make awritten record of “conversations” again makes connections easy and fast.Recorded conversation and written records enable fast development of documentsafterwards

· Blogs – my own and those of others who I track. I use Blogger for my own blog because I am anovice in the field and it is a simple space in which to work. Why blogs? They enable me to set down and share my thinking and to get feedbackfrom others. I try to do the same with the blogs I read – provide comment andglean ideas.

· Webinars remain an important part of my work,particularly those in which there is the ability for participants tointeract. Those that don’t I find to be frustratingin the same way that I cannot now sit through talk and chalk sessions. Non-interactive webinars are only anelectronic version of talk and chalk.

· For filtering I use Google Chrome because it iseasy to have a number of tabs running and updating simultaneously. I also benefit from curating tools such asSummify that provide valuable pointers to material I need to become aware of.

· Diigo is providing me with an excellent way ofcapturing, indexing and retrieval for a personal library

· Yammer has become a very important part of mylife. My example is the Social learning Community (www.yammer.com/sociallearningcommunity), created in March 2011, now with about 1000 members all concerned with aspectsof exploring and applying social learning in the workplace and inacademia. It has become an immenseresource bank of content and contacts – and is itself both a tool for researchand as an information warehouse.

· YouTube has a place in my learning tools armoury– I search and watch but at this point am neither skilled enough nor braveenough to capture and upload.

There are of course other programmes, suites and platformsthat I use or of which I am a member in one place or another but the ones aboveare those that I am finding particularly useful.

I have a list that I need to get to – either to learn how touse because I can conceptually see their value but have not yet experienced(Google Docs, SlideShare etc). There areyet others that are too new for me with my range of interests to want toexplore until they are more defined in their utility and benefits (Google+).

Finally there are some I will not use because I amunconvinced about something in their ethics, governance etc. These will remain un-named!

So what are your tools – please find the time to go to Jane’sresearch site (http://bit.ly/qPI6QB ) andgive your information. Surveys like thisare incredibly valuable in keeping us all up to date with both trends and newdevelopments – and scanning the list may provide a few ideas too…..

And by the way - please comment but don't attack my selection - these are my best tools at the moment - and I am entitled to my choice!

PS Just the act of listing my best tools has been useful incausing me to reflect on the kinds of tools I find useful. I hope it will do the same for you!

Response to the Epic e-Learning Debate

2011-07-24T00:33:00.000-07:00

I support the motion in the 2011 Epic e-Learning debate http://www.epic.co.uk/elearningdebate/

This house believes that as social learning grows, so the requirement for traditional training departments shrinks

First, social learning is not a fad, it is not something new and it is not something that since the evolution of humankind has ever had a date on it. It is a fundamental part of our humanity. As humans we learn by interaction – that is social learning – nothing more nothing less.

Secondly, the motion is not about the end, death-knell, diminution of an L&D function. In supporting the motion I strongly back Jane Hart’s explanation http://bit.ly/oSKySs . The motion is not about Training departments per se diminishing as a result of social learning. Rather it is about the fact that the traditional training department has run its course – with the opportunity now to powerfully transform itself, if it will, into a true business added value function by leveraging new technologies to become a key business partner.

It is self-evident that Financial Directors, who are not for the most part fools, respond to strategic business decisions to cut costs by looking for savings from areas that line managers do not believe add value to their businesses. I have been personally involved from both sides in enough Overhead Value Added studies over 20 years to know that training gets cuts when managers cannot relate any benefit to the expended effort and expenditure. That is why “Training” budgets get cut.

It is only when added value is seen that budgets are maintained or even increased as the business challenges mount. The fact that the traditional Training function has chosen to stick stubbornly to outdated teaching methods (often hiding behind dressing them up in fancy clothes and calling them e-learning of the worst kind) is the cause of its dramatic decline. Their cost benefit is not seen – and in many cases there is no perceived benefit at all – a total mismatch between what the Training function believes it is doing and what management sees is being delivered

Recognising that traditional training, whether face to face or enhanced by the wonderful range of new tools, is only a constituent part of the learning spectrum – albeit one that enhances what can be done purely by social interaction for certain aspects – provides a way back for L&D to where it should be – at the centre of business strategy and performance improvement. If L&D cannot recognise that, then in the end it deserves what will surely happen to it – oblivion. It will be replaced by something else – which will be a ubiquitous, community driven culture of sharing and self-driven learning which is now developing strongly throughout society and in which “training ” will have to find a new place to stand. What is that called? Social learning expressed in the business environment!

Right now, there is the opportunity to take a lead and help the transformation – but not with blinkered and denial ridden attitudes.

If you believe that L&D has a future as an important function in organisations then you only have one choice – support the motion!”

Online Journeys in Learning

2011-07-21T06:34:00.000-07:00

With permission, I re-post here Steve Batchelder's honest and simple story of becoming engaged in the social media and social learning world. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did - thanks Steve!

CONFESSIONS OF A SEMI-RETIRED LURKER

Okay I confess - I used to be a lurker - there that's it, I've admitted it to the world.

I used to read blogs etc and take a lot of information, knowledge and learning from many of the people I followed but I never participated, made a comment or added my own thoughts to the stream in any way other than beyond sharing what I had learnt through my work - verbally recommending sites and articles to others.

Then I decided to take part in Share and Learn and that for me was a breakthrough experience. I joined in I shared and I learned. I became active on Twitter, signed up for FB, started a blog, began tentatively commenting on a few other blogs, followed and joined a backchannel or two and more recently joined Google+ where I am again beginning to join in some of the conversations. I've conversed with people I don't know and will probably never meet and whom I would never have imagined myself actually communicating with and have found the whole experience to be beneficial, positive and empowering.

Why did I lurk for so long? I don't really know beyond not knowing if what I had to say would be well received and not understanding the massive added benefit of joining in in terms of shaping thoughts and idea's and contributing in some way to the vast flow of ideas.

This post was inspired by @Sahana2802 who has written a great post on lurkers here at Lurking is not a static state the post really made me think and it describes some of my own experiences in moving from lurker to being more active in what I do.

The post also makes it clear that lurking is not some form of nasty disease or a behaviour that should be frowned upon instead it is a legitimate form of participation.

This is a very valuable lesson in that even with the relatively small number of people and the 70+ blogs I follow I could not participate or comment on each post or tweet or other form of communication.

This notion is supported by Nic Laycock's recent post on Communities of choice - dealing with overload & thats why I am a semi retired lurker theres too much going on to join in with everything and so I have to pick and mix what I will respond to based upon my own interests and preferences.

(Steve's post was originally published at http://bit.ly/oS7coj)

2011 Skills for L&D – The time for “Just in Time”

2011-07-20T02:03:00.000-07:00

Thought provoking, Craig! (http://bit.ly/pKyiNS) How does the alcoholic, trauma victim, redundant employee or drug addict begin to get help? The answer always given is "When they get to their point of need" - and that it is pointless trying to force someone to that help before they realise their need for it. But it has to be both available and accessible when that unpredictable moment is reached.

So what's the parallel and how does it apply to us in L&D? Assuming we believe in the "point of need" and "just in time" pillars of the "learning is work and work is learning" collaborative model - our role in L&D is twofold. The first is to help the people we are supporting with the mindset adjustment to a point of saying "It's OK to ask for help". The second is our own adjustment to a position where we are able to provide resources (contacts, information, even courses!) to respond to the need once it is realised.

"It's OK to ask for help" is about an ecology in the workplace where, to quote from Dr Terry Moss, a line manager with an incredible record in empowerment of people, "There is no crime in failing so long as you have asked for help along the way. There is culpability in not seeking assistance". So the message there is that in L&D we need to do everything in our power to foster a culture in which people work confidently and feel able to experiment, knowing that the necessary support is available to them. I posted about this a while ago. ( http://bit.ly/h9VaRk)

If the first requirement is difficult the second challenge is major. The L&D person of the decade is very different from the Trainer or Instructor of the past. He needs a network that can truly be mutually helpful, an understanding of the business he works in that allows him to identify the real need and respond to it, the people skills to get alongside colleagues, a knowledge of the tools, platforms, repositories etc that can provide help. She also needs a sensitivity to be able to take each person with whom they deal along a path into the networked collaborative world which meets their need and speed of learning, and which neither scares them nor overwhelms them with the twin threats of constantly evolving tools and changing communication norms.

The path along which to lead someone to build their confidence as they foray into the wirearchy is a whole topic on its own. I will be writing about that later!

THE “DIFFICULTY” OF SOCIAL LEARNING

2011-06-28T03:18:00.000-07:00

Much is currently being written about the problems of embracing the Social media in the workplace. Yes, of course there are risks, as there are to any major change in the way we do our work (http://bit.ly/lEwYoN ). The fears of loss of Intellectual Property are real and need to be guarded against. Damage to corporate or institutional reputation and image is a myth – that image is already at risk if the company culture is resulting in unhappy employees. They have access to media that the company does not and can never control. The remedy is to pay attention to ensuring that employees are happy, engaged and have some pride in the organisation that pays their salary.

Loss of productivity is often quoted as a feared downside of making the social media available to employees. But do we in our fantasy world imagine that employees are not already, by covert and overt means, failing to deliver optimum productivity? Whether it is by “stealing” company time to use personal mobile devices to pursue personal matters or whether the company’s bandwidth is being harnessed for personal gain, the issues are already there. And how is it that attention is now drawn to productivity issues when in the past these have been tolerated, ignored and even tacitly accepted as part of the culture? Is it just because the digital age means we can now measure these things and the figures that emerge are horrific? Or is it a deeper reason – that leaders have recognised the collective failure to create and sustain environments in which people will willingly give of their best? Here now is an opportunity to “show their teeth”!

I believe there is a different reason and one that, if not addressed, will in the next few years lead to the unravelling of institutions that have for a generation seemed to be impregnable. It seems to me that corporate and other enterprise has not yet grasped that the world has changed. Jay Cross, Harold Jarche, Jane Hart, Charles Jennings, and others have been alerting the world for years that we now live in a networked society, a wierarchy, a world of communities that interlink and overlap in complex ways. The reason for our difficulty is in failing to grasp a change that has happened – not one that is happening, or that will happen. It is one that has happened!

The truth is, paradoxically, that actually nothing has changed! We have as the human race always lived in communities. What happened over the industrial period was that we kidded ourselves that the world of work was different from life outside the factory and the institution. Social media with its all-pervasive implications have debunked that illusion and, as people concerned with enterprise health, we need to realise and rediscover that, actually, we are all about community.

Community is as axiomatic to us as is our desire and ability to communicate with one another. Whether viewed from the lowest levels of the motivational hierarchy or the highest, communicating, being with, and interacting with our fellow human is fundamental. The hunter gatherer, raiding party, defensive unit, feudal farming co-operative, empire builder, crusader, religious devotee, academic, socialite, politician, industrial magnate, trades unionist, revolutionary, voluntary worker, carer, and the list goes on, we have been and are all involved in community in every aspect of our lives.

So let us now pay attention to re-discovering what community is about, socially, in our working lives and, pervading all, as a powerful means to optimising our potential for our own, our employers and others benefit. We need to pay attention to our abilities to engage, trust, share, listen and act in collaboration with others. Organisation culture will be a huge determinant in corporate survival as the power of community is once again realised. Limiting access to Social Media and a failure to embrace the nature and reality of social learning places our institutions at risk – far more so than the risks associated with inviting employees to be responsible and to participate to their and the organisation’s benefit.

There is a need to rediscover that giving leads to receiving and that knowledge being power is not the route to success. That lies in ways to discover our potential, to fully exploit it, and to manage and apply the knowledge that comes with it. Our security on our journey is knowing that we have the support and help of others in the communities to which we belong. Then there is safety in taking the risks. The potential benefits are incalculable.

THE FIRST IS ALWAYS THE HARDEST – BUT TIPS THE SCALES TO A NEW STANDARD

2011-05-18T03:20:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday, Manchester City won the FA Cup, their first trophy in a quarter of a century. They have huge ambition. Their manager said “the first trophy is the hardest, we will do great things from here” (or words to that effect – he is Italian and his English is not perfect!). The same day Manchester United won their 19^th Premiership title and the 12^th for Sir Alex Ferguson and the ageless Ryan Giggs. Reminiscing, Giggs said of the first of those titles in 1993 “The first was the hardest”.

Last week I wrote about Share and Learn (www.c4lpt.co.uk/shareandlearn )as a tipping point in learning. Jane Hart and her close colleagues and enlightened friends in the Internet Time Alliance and in other places have worked, planned and campaigned very hard for years to achieve the tipping point. Finally it has come and the immediate acclaim for the new collaborative platform has been nothing short of sensational. A week later it has over 200 members.

Last week was a tremendous moment for Jane and all those who have for long recognised the evolving paradigm shift and its inevitable consequence on the way learning is perceived in a collaborative, networked workplace and more broadly in global society. Jay Cross, Harold Jarche, Charles Jennings, Clark Quinn, Jane Bozarth, Marcia Conner, and the many other equally eminent and foresighted people too numerous to mention who have walked the road will breathe a huge sigh of relief that the breakthrough seems to have happened at last. I am sure a few hearts celebrated and a few corks popped.

What breakthrough? I am of course talking about Share and Learn being the first collaborative platform that starts from the basis of social learning while at the same time recognising the on-going place of the formal in the spectrum of learning – and providing within the platform for both courseware and an LMS where this is necessary.

I know from having worked for a global market leader in the corporate environment earlier in my career that being No.1 is very hard – one is very visible and easy to copy. But that is Jane’s greatness – always willing to share her insights and ideas!

Speaking of which………but.as it happens, unconnected……

Last week saw another, lower key, but significant launch….

Noddlepod (www.noddlepod.com) is a space in which learning at an individual level can be explored and personally organised. A paid-for application, it does something different, which is consultations prior to launch has caught the eye of some influential figures from various parts of the learning environment. Noddlepod allows the individual to create their own learning framework – future, current and past, to collect together learning objectives, progress and outcomes under a self-determined set of “pins” designed to highlight key learning.

The application describes itself as

“Simple, informal, collaborative

Noddlepod is a collaboration tool for parallel working. It solves the problem of isolation when working and learning, and creates an environment of mutual support.

This is a collaboration tool focused not on the groups work, but on the individuals work in a group context.”

So, while Noddlepod can be an individual tool, it is also a place where people can come together (directed or by social consent) to plan and share learning which is then pursued in parallel. Learning projects can be structured and monitored by an institution or the application can be used eg in Executive Development to provide a place for participants in a programme to plan experience, share findings and draw conclusions. It is about common process combined with individual learning.

In some ways similar to Share and Learn in its range of functionality, but very different in that Share and Learn is based on an open source CMS (Wordpress), and so offers more of a “make it what you want” approach. Noddlepod fills a space for those who want a more structured, purpose-built platform that begins from the personal and works towards the community.

So now we have, almost simultaneously two offerings – each of which will influence the way forward as learning becomes indistinguishable for work and life.

Just to conclude with a further reference to my football analogy – Manchester United were the first English team to enter the European Cup in the 1950’s. It took them a huge amount of pain and over a decade to win it. Other English clubs entered the competition and England now boasts a distinguished list of past winners. After their tipping point in 1993 Manchester United have gone on to dominate English football for nearly 20 years – many try to emulate, few have shown any sign of enduring success.

Well done to those who are brave and determined enough to stick their necks out and work towards a long term vision. In Learning we are beginning to have the tools to match the environment in which we live – we now need to ride the wave and use those tools as business partners to demonstrate the value of L&D to our organisations.

A TIPPING POINT IN LEARNING – “SHARE AND LEARN” OPENS A NEW ERA!

2011-05-14T00:24:00.000-07:00

“Since it was started in March I have been active in Jane Hart’s highly successful Social Learning Community which now has over 700 members drawn globally from the whole spectrum of learning. It has become the community of choice for many leading thinkers in learning. But a few days ago, Jane Hart asked me to take a look at her new initiative, the Share&Learn collaboration platform, which she launched earlier this week.

Jane’s explanation of the philosophy underpinning Share&Learn was enough for me to explore thoroughly. When I saw the practical application of her thinking I recognised that Share&Learn may well in future be recognised as a tipping point in our understanding of learning, and heralds a new era in the way learning is viewed and supported.

Leading thinkers in learning, including Jane’s colleagues in the Internet Time Alliance have for a long while promoted the realisation that learning is ubiquitous and is an integral and indistinguishable part of our lives as human beings. That insight leads to the conclusion that the differentiation of learning from ordinary life that has become ingrained in every aspect of our society has to change. We have to get back to understanding that “Work is Learning and Learning is Work” (Harold Jarche). As our increasingly networked world merges work and discretionary time, that concept extends to “Life is learning and Learning is Life”. To this point that last concept has been a philosophy rather than a reality. Technology changes that – Share& Learn is the first platform I’ve seen that enables the concept.

For a few years the impact of technology, both the growth of Social Media and the explosion of tools produced to deliver, administer, track, record, and report on learning have massively expanded the opportunities for the Learning and Development community. The range is at the same time breath-taking and baffling – and in many places has led the L&D community further away from the line management and organisational leadership it is there to serve. The complexity is such that the customer just does not understand and so marginalises the undoubted advances. The same is true in different ways throughout the education system where entrenched beliefs about methodologies block new understandings of the way learning happens.

Concurrently with the explosion in tools and techniques there has been a growth in society in measuring almost any activity we undertake – even our skill in making cup-cakes has become the domain of intense competition and precise measurement! That norm, fuelled by the Quality movement (“If you can’t measure it you can’t improve it”), led to the growth of the Learning Management System. Initially designed to assist administration, the LMS quickly became an enterprise tool for the L&D Community, gathering into its arms content management, course curricula, and delivery.

The move to social learning and the realisation of its ubiquitous nature challenges the LMS because of its rooting in formal learning. LMS vendors have tried, unsuccessfully, to bolt various applications on to their offerings that purport to integrate social learning. They fail because the paradigm is incorrect.

It is now well established that the huge majority of learning does not happen in the classroom – or in any of its formal derivatives, virtual or face to face. The 70:20:10 model illustrates the predominance of learning happening through application, experience and interaction with other people.

Jane’s Share&Learn platform is a new concept. It is premised on the paradigm that 90% of learning comes through channels other than the formal. It provides numerous ways of exploring collaborative learning. Recognising that formal learning, and its tracking and recording, (required for compliance purposes) have an on-going place in the structure of L&D and in Education, the platform contains the facility both to run courses and to record them using LMS-type functionality - as required.

The tipping point has finally been reached – we have a practical tool that embodies the new paradigm. In response to a tweet asking Jane if she thought that Share&Learn signalled the end of the LMS, she replied that it was perhaps the “death knell”, a view endorsed by none other than Charles Jennings (Principal in the Internet Time) who thought that at least it was the end of the LMS “as we know it”.

SOCIAL LEARNING COMMUNITY – ANALYSIS OF A SUCCESSFUL START–UP

2011-03-25T02:13:00.000-07:00

In just 3 weeks, Jane Hart’s (www.c4lpt.co.uk) new Yammer based Social Learning Community (http://www.c4lpt.co.uk/community.html) has exploded globally to over 500 members.

This extraordinary growth has not happened by accident. Many such communities (Learning Communities, Communities of Practice etc) launch and, far from achieving spectacular expansion, wither, and many die for lack of participation. This blog is an attempt to “capture” the moment as experienced by members of the community themselves (thanks to all who have contributed) and to draw out some lessons and principles that will enable the successful launch to be replicated elsewhere.

So what are the driving principles?

Ø The opportunity has been provided by someone well known and trusted as an expert who is welcoming and helpful to people at all levels of SoMe experience

Ø Initial respondents to the invitation were people who

o Face common challenges, speak a common language and many of whom had plenty of practice sharing and communicating in this way.”

o Are eager to learn from one another and share what they have done

o Saw the community as a natural extension to their existing work and experience

o Had a shared sense of purpose

o Experienced skilled moderation

§ Personal welcome to every member on joining

§ Encouragement to share

§ Providing hints and tips to overcome technical issues

§ Huge energy to make people feel at home

§ Few rules to enable the community to self-moderate

§ Encouragement through message and example to share and give as well as take

Ø Rapid achievement of a critical mass of members to enable the community to be self-sustaining

Ø Use of a platform that is beyond the cryptic and provides some organisation (threads) for the information. It provides a space for in-depth discussion

Ø Excitement of members shown, among other ways, by inviting a wider network to join.

Additionally there is much comment in the feedback that this initiative hit the spot – an idea whose time had come – whether the topic, the platform or the perception that is rapidly spreading about the fundamental change that SoMe is making to all our lives, not just Social Learning

So what are the contrasts from my other experiences of being asked to join communities in the last few months? All the others have omitted one or more of the principles outlined above – lack of proactive and energetic moderation being the common theme.

While the Social space is very open my own conclusion is that for a community to succeed it needs both an energetic locus and enough of a framework to entice people in, make them feel welcome, help them to find their way around and to apply the gentlest of steers to the direction of the conversation to keep it aligned to the community’s purpose.

I’ve learned a lot from gathering this data. I hope my analysis helps others to initiate successful communities. I would love to hear of your experiences in doing so.

In the meantime I will be collecting data to see how the Social Learning Community embeds and grows as a part of our working lives. In particular I will be interested to see if the “lurking” membership becomes more involved in the community life.

Finally my thanks to Jane Hart for her support in getting me started on Yammer, and for allowing me access to the community’s metrics to make this analysis possible

SOCIAL LEARNING IS NOT NEW - A TRUE STORY

2011-02-11T09:35:00.000-08:00

(With acknowledgement to Charles Jennings of the Internet Time Alliance for helping me recall this superb example……)

Once upon a time (all good stories start like this!) there was a really brilliant team who succeeded beyond their wildest imaginations. They did so because they simply set out “to be the best they could be” and believed that they could get there.

They were a group of people who believed in their own skills as individuals and who trusted one another to achieve their goals and to provide support when needed.

Their leader, a tough minded man with huge ambition and high standards, but who was in the end compassionate, supportive and passionate about improving performance through personal learning, believed in challenging people to achieve beyond where they believed possible.

Daunting tasks were set, with seemingly impossible outputs required and against impossible deadlines. Time and again the team and the individuals achieved – so much so that they won global awards. The leader rewarded them richly. He said he would go to war with them if necessary. They achieved even more. Rare failure was regrettable, rigorously analysed to find the learning, but only seen to be culpable if it had happened without assistance being sought.

The leader moved one. With his successor the team continues to succeed. Some things have changed, much stays the same. The pride in achievement is embedded. Being the best they can be continues to take on new meaning. Awards continue to be won.

Sounds like a fairy story?

It isn’t! It’s true!

My journey into new learning this year has led me to seek examples of success with social learning in the networked society in which we all now live. It was only when I suddenly realised what social learning is actually all about that I saw that it is nothing new – the current welter of activity to accommodate to technology enabled learning is simply an invitation to put some established ideas into a new and wonderfully enhanced environment. What a prospect for learning in 2011 and beyond!

So what were the ingredients?

· A leader who lives helping people learn

· An environment which enables initiative, and exploration

· Superbly mapped processes with all the supporting tools

· A learning emphasis built in to the process improvement cycle

· A clear Community of Practice with well identified Subject Matter Experts

· An effective communications network

· Culture of mutual support and individual accountability

· Continuous striving for something more – pride in achievement

· Recognition and reward for success

And when did it happen? Over the 10 years spanning the millennium!

There is nothing revolutionary. The story shows social learning in action with some simple principles that transcend technology.

The trick now for those of us concerned with Working Smarter is to harness the tools we now have to reach for new horizons – places we have not yet dreamed about.

In striving we will have fun, discover ourselves and find fulfillment

Trends in learning the experts are seeing

2010-09-06T12:57:00.000-07:00

During the past week I've listened to Gary Woodill (Brandon Hall Research) and Jim Lundy (SABA) talking about latest advances and trends in technology enabled learning and the social networking revolution. They seem to have strikingly similar and complementary views about what has, is, and will happen.

The rise and rise of Twitter (and Yammer in enterprise environments), especially their versions of crowdsourcing in the form of group chat, the continuing divide between the e-mail generations and the social networkers and instant messengers, the impact of the iPad and the progressive move towards ultra high speed broadband sharacterise the landscape.

Within it, LMS and LCMS vendors continue to align their products to the shift towards infromal and social learning, emphasising the need to track for compliance, possibly way over-emphasised in relation to true customer needs, but nevertheless aggressively and well marketed.

Content developers are revelling in the plethora of new apps available to take advantage of immersive simulation, augmented reality and the various forms of webinar and video conferencing.

Learning is an exciting place to be right now, but only if one is working in anenvironment where its value to the enterprise is recognised and championed with the accompanying investment and culture adaptation. Where traditional organisational structure blocks, those raised artificailly by the IT fraternity in defence of old empires, and the resistance of the L&D practitioner to change dominate, there is frustration from those with insight as they see the leading edge of learning advancing to horizons they cannot reach.

For now, the agenda for those of us who recognise the revolution and try to follow its twists and turns, the immediate future is about establishing a realisation and a new vision for learning. Soon to come will be grappling with realistic policy to guide a socially newtorked workplace as it moves to collaborative and emplyee energised working and learning. The security of enterprise IP will remain a concern, giving the OD community, business leadership and line management the challenge of enabling an open culture while at the same time standing back and allowing it to establish a new normality.

My own view is that the culture change aspects of the revolution will become the most challenging - is this an old lesson re-learned or something new in organisation behaviour?

I would love to hear the debate!

Lloyd's of London giving employees access to social media

2010-09-01T05:32:00.000-07:00

This is one of the first examples I have seen of an organisation (yes, even the perceived conservative insurer!) implementing a systematic strategy to open the social media to its employees - accompanied by appropriate policy guidelines, sensitisation and training http://www.zdnet.com/blog/forrester/lloyds-of-london-takes-facebook-to-the-board/511?tag=nl.e539

One has to feel that if they can do it - so can most others!

Learning functions in a networked enterprise

2010-08-27T08:10:00.001-07:00

Many L&D consultants are concerned with the enabling and facilitation of learning in the networked and collaborative working age. We are busy working out how to re-frame L&D to add value to the enterprise in the new environment. Charles Jennings presents some useful ideas in this recent blog http://charles-jennings.blogspot.com/2010/08/21st-century-l-skills.html What is clear is that there will need to be a completely fresh look at the business processes and activity streams of L&D functions, together with new profiles, skill sets and organisational arrangements for the L&D professional.

How to use social media in your job - free course

2010-08-27T05:18:00.001-07:00

Jane Hart has turned her incredibly useful guide on using social media at work into a 30 day free course which will start on 1st of each month. All you have to do is sign up and then wait for the e-mail guidance, instruction and assignments each day. If you can't do September - there is always October, November .......
I've been coached by Jane - there is no one better!
http://c4lpt/workingsmarter/index.html

An interesting take on managing culture from Ed Schein

2010-08-26T09:25:00.001-07:00

Ed Schein is one of the great gurus of change management. In this article he suggests that it is a fruitless exercise striving for a unified corporate culture. Rather we should be concentrating on optimising the culture in the "islands" of the business - and getting the islands to work together towards common corporate goals. This is a very different approach from the perceived wisdom of OD over the lest 30 years where the emphasis has been on change programmes aimed at aligning the whole organisation to a single culture. Many of us who have worked with Execs to try to facilitate this kind of proces know just how difficult and slow it is. Maybe it is much better to treat change in the way Tom Peters talked about authority - clear boundaries, but total internal freedom. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/transcript-ed-schein-talks-to-karl-moore/article1683655/?cmpid=tgc

First posting - up and running!

2010-08-24T07:32:00.000-07:00

This is one of many places where you might find insight into 21st century ways of workplace collaboration.

I am researching and making sense of thought leaders inputs to provide practical ways of encouraging personal discovery and maximising human potential.

I will be posting links, comments and my own insights as I find them and move my thinking forward. Please use them and share your own discoveries with me.

I am excited by the exponential growth in learning modalities and the ways in which they enable the Kolb Learning Cycle

I am looking at ways in which organisations are embracing the change to social collaboration, and their change processe in achieving it