Harold. I’ve been referring to this post and the excellent resources you provide in it for the past week now and thought I would finally comment on it.

Obviously, you know I agree with you and your colleagues’ position on social learning. One thing that is of particular interest to me is how social learning supports formal learning. This is critical as organizations make their transition to a more networked learning environment. As you say yourself in the comments, we are looking optimally at a 50-50 split between formal and informal in the near-term.

I’ve read over Jane’s examples on the use of SM for formal structured learning and the thing I noticed is that SM tools are positioned as both additional channels to deliver formal courses (all or parts) and as a way for learners to collaborate on those courses. Social media is bi-directional, so why is it that we don’t explore how user-generated content can significantly improve formal content development processes? I mean this in terms of UGC providing valuable and timely information to instructional designers for more compelling course development. I mean this in terms of how SM can create massive efficiencies in subject matter expert contribution and knowledge capture using networks. And, I mean this in terms of leveraging the community for content review processes. If you look outside the learning organization, these are big topics of discussion, why not in training development?