Hey Harold. Thanks for picking up on the post. We may just have to agree to agree then! My main point is that the learning needed to build expertise in an increasingly skilled workplace requires deep and effortfull practice embedded in the work we do. I'd also argue that rich feedback is the main vehicle by which that happens (wherever it may come from). Our organizations are atrocious at providing the kind of feedback needed to truly develop expertise and this is the environment most people work in. Thus everyday experience is not enough.

Expert performers seek out the feedback they need to improve using whatever tools they have at their disposal to do so. (which i think is your argument above) Of course that includes social tools and networks. But perhaps where we differ a bit is that I don't think the those tools themselves provide the environment that can replace the rich feedback people need to learn. I'm also concerned that sometimes informal learning gets equated to simply letting people gain "experience" (70%!) whatever form it takes. People learn their mistakes in the same way they learn from their mistakes. Models of excellent performance and great feedback is the difference between the two.

If I'm reading you right, your issue is that learning units or institutions are not or should not be relevant in an individuals learning process because superior guidance, feedback and collaboration are available through their own network. This can certainly be true for those 30% of the workforce that are knowledge workers. But the majority of over worked employees will welcome (are in fact desperate) for any effective assistance to helping them do their work better, and it's also in the best interests of the organization to do provide it. God knows it could be done better.

A while ago many of us thought self-regulating teams, was a shift away from authority based organizations to more engaged organizations. Team structure which is now prevalent, have increased engagement but did not replace authority. I recognize social media is a tangibly different vehicle, but we attribute the same hopes for it. I think we'll see again that organizational structures won't overturned by it, but that social media will find its way to be useful to organizations, like teams and communities. Maybe it's main result will be that we start to see organizational structure not as unmoving monolith, but can something that evolves, change and adapts to innovations like social learning and use it in very effective ways to engage people in their own learning and performance.

BTW, i thought the The John Seely Brown and Peter Isackson examples you provide are great examples that it's the rich feedback so desperately needed for real learning. So important that people create for themselves.
Tom