Informal Learning

Informal learning

It’s about work, not learning

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Is social media added to a learning platform the answer to promoting informal and social learning in the enterprise?

To address these trends and take advantage of the new capabilities that social computing and social networks can bring to learning, SkillSoft’s Books24×7 division introduced inGenius. It enables social learning by extending the value of expert information and infusing it with the knowledge and expertise of an organization’s own employees. Unlike many stand-alone social networking applications, inGenius is built on SkillSoft’s Books24×7 on demand content collections containing more than 25,000 titles — digital books from leading publishers, analyst research reports, and white papers — as well as 1,300 videos of thought leaders and practitioners.

SkillSoft says they realize that learning has become more social and the interest in peer learning has increased. This is the right decision, within the constraints of SkillSoft’s technology platform and current business model. We can’t expect incumbents to just cast away their cash cows. The question is whether it is enough to give a significant organizational performance advantage. The model of having conversations around social objects, such as books, can work well in an organization that values and encourages reading and discussions. This model worked in the past with Company Command.

In A Framework for Social Learning in Enterprise I wrote:

Our workplaces are becoming interconnected because technology has enabled communication networks on a worldwide scale. This means that systemic changes are sensed almost immediately. Reaction times and feedback loops have to get faster and more effective. We need to know who to ask for advice right now but that requires a level of trust and trusted relationships take time to nurture. Our default action is to turn to our friends and trusted colleagues; those people with whom we’ve shared experiences. Therefore, we need to share more of our work experiences in order to grow those trusted networks. This is social learning and it is critical for networked organizational effectiveness.

While social media additions to legacy systems are an advancement, I think they are not enough. Learning and working must be embedded in the work flow. The SkillSoft example, one of the bettter ones in the industry that I have seen, encourages conversations, but these conversations are still divorced from the necessary daily work of collaboration. Knowledge has to be applied, so we have to stop this industrial separation of learning and working. We need systems that help get the work done. As our work environments become more complex, we need to:

  • make sense of constantly changing and growing information flows;
  • share tacit knowledge and use it to …
  • develop emergent practices together (especially barely repeatable processes).

PKM: Working Smarter

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In PKM in a Nutshell, I linked my various posts on personal knowledge management to make the framework more coherent. My ITA colleague, Jane Hart has just released an extensive resource that correlates nicely with the PKM framework. It is called A WORKING SMARTER RESOURCE: A Practical Guide to using Social Media in Your Job and includes seven sections (my annotations on how they connect to PKM):

1. Finding things out on the Web (SEEK)
2. Keeping up to date with new Web content (SEEK)
3. Building a trusted network of colleagues (SEEK & SHARE)
4. Communicating with your colleagues (SHARE)
5. Sharing resources, ideas and experiences with your colleagues (SHARE)
6. Collaborating with your colleagues (SHARE & USE)
7. Improving your personal productivity (SENSE & USE)

Here’s the a description and rationale for adopting PKM, individually and within organizations:

  • PKM is a way to deal with ever-increasing amounts of digital information.
  • It requires an open attitude toward learning and finding new things (I Seek).
  • PKM methods can help to develop processes of filing, classifying and annotating for later retrieval.
  • PKM leverages  open web-based systems that facilitate sharing.
  • A PKM mindset aids in observing, thinking and using information & knowledge better (I Sense).
  • Transparent PKM helps to share ideas with others (We Share).
  • After a while, you begin to realize you’re in a community of practice when your practice changes (We Use).
  • PKM prepares the mind to be open to new ideas (enhanced serendipity, or chance favours the prepared mind).

Managing in Complexity

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Formal training just won’t cut it any more as the primary means by which we prepare and adapt in order to get work done. Training isn’t dead, it’s just not enough, and cannot be the only tool in the box.

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As Jay Cross stated in a recent interview:

Formal learning can be somewhat effective when things don’t change much and the world is predictable …

Today’s world is the opposite in every way imaginable …

Things are changing amazingly fast …

There’s so much to learn …

Today’s work is all about dealing with novel situations …

This image, from Cynthia Kurtz’s post, Confluence, clearly shows the challenge we face in our networked organizations competing and collaborating in complex adaptive systems.

The challenge is getting organizations that are used to dealing with the Known & Knowable to be able to manage in Complex environments and even Chaotic ones from time to time. As can be seen in Kurtz’s graphic, that means weaker central control which is, of course, scary for traditional management. This is not a training problem but rather a management issue. How can you be less directive and enable distributed work, and therefore distributed (and undirected) learning? Actually there are historical examples, including guerrilla groups; religious movements; and social organizations. We need to look back as well as into the future. There are lessons and examples that can help us once we cast off some of our industrial management assumptions.

Taylor’s Principles of Scientific Management (1911) inform many of our current practices but there are other models and frameworks available. The first step is seeing that we have a problem and our current models are inadequate. This is a conversation that all business managers and organizational leaders need to have. We should be ready to have many informed conversations about managing in complexity and put forward some plausible options. For further reading:

General framework: Wirearchy

Background & Models: Gary Hamel: Future of Management; Thomas Malone: The Future of Work; Andrew McAfee: Enterprise 2.0

Ideas & Methods: Working Smarter Fieldbook; State of Learning in the Workplace

More conversations: The Smart Work Company; Internet Time Alliance blog;

Working Smarter 2010

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The Working Smarter Fieldbook (June 2010 version) is now out. This is a collaborative effort by all of us at the Internet Time Alliance and was spearheaded by Jay Cross. Our intention is get the conversation focused on what’s important for business, including the training & learning department – working smarter. Learning is just a means and not the end, but this perspective has somehow been lost along the way in many organizations over the past decades.

A toolbox
Years ago, Stewart Brand published The Whole Earth Catalog to provide “access to tools.” It listed all manner of interesting and oddball stuff, from windmill kits to hiking sox to books like Vibration Cooking. The Catalog didn’t tell readers how to live their lives; it merely described things that might help them to do their own thing. Feedback and articles submitted by readers made each edition better than its predecessor.
The Working Smarter Fieldbook follows the tradition of The Whole Earth Catalog. Harold, Jane, Clark, Charles, Jon, and Jay provide access to the tips, tricks, frameworks, and resources that we’ve used to help organizations work smarter. Our goal is to put together an irresistible package of advice.

DIY is here

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Over three years ago I wrote that the future of learning is DIY:

With Google you can find most information that you need. YouTube is a quick and easy way to get “learning objects” to the world. Apple gives the essential tools for knowledge workers, and in a nice package. Wikipedia has shown that the wisdom of crowds is just as good as the wisdom of elites. Starbucks gives free-agents and road warriors a place to meet and work. These top brands provide the equivalent of the interstate highway system for the creative age.

Enabling DIY (do-it-yourself) on the Web appears to be a good business model. Even on the fringes, such as wi-fi from a café. This is the power of informal learning, if organisations decide to enable it. It has to be DIY, user-driven and uncontrolled. People will figure out what’s best for them, as they have for millennia.

Has anything changed?

There seem to be more DIY platforms today and they are being used, though the business models are not yet clear. Facebook has enabled DIY ridiculously easy group forming, but it comes with a price on privacy. Ning was wildly popular as a DIY online community builder, but that business model did not seem to work. Open source Elgg may replace Ning with a non locked-in platform, but its success remains to be seen.

For mass DIY, ease of use is the trump card. Just look at Google Docs, the best and easiest DIY online collaboration suite, in my opinion. I remember using Writely (sold to create Google Docs) and it had a better user interface in my opinion, but was only used by digital savvy folks. Google dumbed-down the interface and functions and that ease of use, plus growing demand, made Google Docs a market leader. Timing is everything.

Now that many people have used DIY tools for their online work and play, I can’t see the trend being reversed any time soon. Enabling DIY should be a prime directive in the development of technologies for collaborative work and networked learning as well. Please pass this on to those folks in e-learning ;)

Social Media and Learning: Implications

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I’m continuing on my theme of capturing what we learned during our Work Literacy online workshop in 2008, before Ning pulls the plug on us. Previous posts have discussed several aspects of what we learned and I’d like to review some of the summative commentary.

What questions still linger? Jason Willensky – “Will we be forced to chase hot tools and social platforms to stay competitive… is this an ever-expanding universe of tech goodies? How can these tools help quiet participants be more interactive during a training class?”

Thinking about learning. Catherine Lombardozzi – “One of my favorite quotes is from Kent Seibert: ‘Reject the myth that we learn from experience and accept the reality that we learn by reflecting on experience.’ My experiences in this experiment underscored for me how important it is to reflect “out loud” – if not by engaging online, by taking some of what you’re thinking about and talking about it with others. These kinds of tools make it possible to compose and share your thoughts on what you are learning, to ask questions, to get feedback from others (many of whom you have never met). Tools also make it possible to learn from others… following their bookmarks, for example, or using the tools to make contacts, simplify your own research, and more. They expand our learning support system is fabulous ways.”

Workshop Design:

Virginia Yonkers – “The design of the course itself and even the question of how to measure the learning has posed a number of questions that I did not have coming in to the course (questions are good).

Specifically, what are some design options for courses that might be “open ended” that the social networking tools allow? How should we be reconfiguring course designs to support student learning, learning assessment, student support needs in their learning, and administrative planning requirements? How can we make learning both flexible, yet in line with administrator’s (organizations, schools, universities, etc…) goals and needs for accountability?”

Jeff Cobb – “I think one question a “course” like this raises is “Does it end?” It may taper off, but it seems to me the seeds are here for a continuing discussion, ongoing contribution of case studies, exploration of tools not examined here, etc. That kind of thing can, of course, simply continue out in the blogosphere, but it is helpful to have a more focused community.”

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Immediately after the workshop, I wrote, So what did I learn or what was reinforced?

  • A loose-knit online learning community can scale to many participants and remain effective.
  • Only a small percentage ~10% of members will be active.
  • Wikis need to be extremely focused on real tasks/projects in order to be adopted.
  • If facilitators can seed good questions and provide feedback, then conversations can flourish.
  • Use a very gentle hand in controlling the learners and some will become highly participative.
  • Design for after the course, using tools like social bookmarks, so that artifacts can be used for reference or performance support.
  • Create the role of “synthesizer”. I found it quite helpful when Tony and Michele summarized the previous week’s activities.
  • Keep the structure loose enough so that it can grow or change according to the needs of the community.

Having worked with many other online communities in the past two years, I would say that the role of “synthesizer” remains important, and it is a critical part of being a good online community manager.

Introduction to Social Networking

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Looking for deeper insight on social networks as they relate to work and learning? Here are four guidebooks for the network era: the perpetual beta series – social networking and much more!

Introduction to Social Networking

This was originally posted in 2008, after Michele Martin and I ran what today would be called a MOOC (massively open online course) with over 700 participants. It was called Work Literacy and was hosted on the Ning software platform. As the platform changed its fee structure, I exported a number of the pages and resources to my blog. What follows below the image, is what we suggested in 2008 [updated October 2016].

network-learning-model

Online social networks facilitate connections between people based on shared interests, values, membership in particular groups (i.e., friends, professional colleagues), etc. They make it easier for people to find and communicate with individuals who are in their networks using the Web as the interface.

By some definitions, just about all Web 2.0 tools are a form of social networking, but each platform highlights certain aspects. Ian McCarthy’s honeycomb model is one way to see the differences between consumer social media platforms, as it highlights 7 functions with 7 implications. For example LinkedIn is strong in Identity and also supports Relationships and Reputation. On the other hand, Facebook is strong in Relationships, and also supports Presence, Identity, Conversations, and Reputation. Ning is strong in Groups, and also supports Sharing and Conversations.

honeycomb-social-media

 

There are several different online social networks, but for our purposes, we focused on the three that tend to be used the most by learning professionals in 2008 – Facebook, LinkedIn and Ning. Each of these networks has its own unique style, functionality and patterns of usage. You will also find that different people are active in these different networks.

LinkedIn is primarily a professional network, designed to facilitate linkages between people who are wanting to connect for work-related purposes. It is more “buttoned-down” than Facebook with a more formal culture of relationships and connections. It is also the network of choice for most professionals.

Because LinkedIn is designed for professional networking, there’s a greater emphasis on building a reputation and connecting to employment and business opportunities. LinkedIn Questions and Answers is a way for people to ask questions and receive expert advice. Answers can be rated and people who do this well can improve their LinkedIn reputation. There are also employment listings and an ability to receive recommendations from your connections that then become part of your profile. You can also create and join groups.

Facebook was originally developed for college students to connect, so it has a more informal, social air than you find on LinkedIn. Now open to anyone, you will still find that Facebook is the preferred network for Millennials (2008) who see the encroachment of Boomers and, to a lesser extent, Gen X into the network as cause for some alarm.

Facebook combines the personal and the professional. Members can play games, join groups, share photos, and send each other virtual “gifts.” This is the network where you’re most likely to see both pictures of someone’s weekend activities, as well as a link to their online portfolio or professional website. Many companies are using Facebook as a recruitment tool for Gen Y, while college and university professors are exploring it’s use for their classes.

Ning is what’s referred to as a ‘white label’ network–anyone can use the Ning platform to create their own social network related to a particular topic or area of interest. We operated the MOOC on the Ning platform.

As a learning professional, you can think of Ning in two ways. First, there are a number of Ning networks related to various topics of interest to learning professionals that you could join. In addition, because Ning allows you to create your own network from scratch, you can also use it to facilitate learning events or activities. Therefore Ning offers opportunities for you to be both a joiner/collector and a creator.

One great advantage of Ning for learning is that it allows you set up your own private space that can only be accessed by members. It also offers great functionality, including allowing members to write blogs and engage in forum discussions.

A short note on owning your data

Open source gives you something extra though, and that is the ability to take the whole application, source code and all, and move it or even modify it. For instance, this website is on WordPress, an open source blogging platform. If I am not satisfied with my host, I can take the whole application and set it up somewhere else. I cannot do that with Gmail or Skype or Ning. Therefore, I own my data and the application that makes my data available to my readers. With almost 2,850 posts on this blog, these data are becoming quite important to me as my knowledge base. The decision to use an open source system as well as an OS database gives me a certain amount of flexibility, evidenced by my switch from Drupal to WordPress in 2006. My only costs were labour. I could not have taken my data out of a proprietary system (like Ning) as easily.

More information on owning your data.

Common Features of Social Networks

The ability to create a Profile page–this is your main “home” on the network. Different networks offer varying abilities to personalize your page in terms of look and feel. They may also differ in terms of the types of information you would include, such as name, location, education, etc. Facebook, for example, asks for your relationship status (because it’s more “social”), while on LinkedIn, which is primarily for professional use, does not.

A way to find and link to “friends” or connections–The purpose of a network is connections, so facilitating a members’ ability to find and connect to other people is important. Each network offers different types of search capabilities and once you’ve located a potential friend, you must send an “invitation” to invite them into your personal network.

Privacy Controls–In most networks, your ability to access more detailed information about a person is based on their status as one of your connections; “friends” can see much more information than those who are not your “friends.” You can control who is actually in your personal network by effectively managing who you invite into your network and whose invitations you accept.

The ability to send public and private messages–In Ning and Facebook, you can communicate with your connections either by sending a private message or “writing on their wall.” On LinkedIn, you communicate via person-to-person messages. Ning also provides Forums where members can interact with one another on specific topics (you’re reading this in one of the Ning forums).

Ability to share various digital objects and information–Both Ning and Facebook allow members to share various online items, including photos, videos and RSS feeds. LinkedIn offers some ability to share links, although it’s multimedia capacities are nothing like what you find on Facebook or Ning.

As in real life, the value of an online social network lies in the people. While you can have some fun playing around with some of a network’s online functionality, if you don’t have the right people in your network, it will be a waste. Here are some good resources on building a social network:

To learn more about the basics of social networking, check out Common Craft explanatory videos. You may also want to read this article (2008) on myths and risks.

Further Reading

PKM: social media for professional development

Blogs: Social Media’s Home Base

Social Media for Senior Managers

Social Business & Democracy

Social Networks Require Ownership

Social Media for Onboarding

Leading through turbulent times with PKM

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In what BP’s oil spill says about management today [dead link] the author talks about the need to deal with increasing complexity, concluding:

Navigating a business successfully through turbulent times requires the ability to deal with ambiguity, be resilient in the face of adversity, be authentic and have the innovative capacity to anticipate and respond to the unpredictable environment. Consequently, leading through permanent whitewater requires an ability to sense, make sense, decide and act quickly. It requires a sharp mind, humility and an openness to new experiences.

It’s what I call life in perpetual Beta and one way to deal with it is by developing a personal knowledge management process. Seek, Sense & Share in order to handle the complexity of the networked age. This isn’t a “nice-to-have”, optional approach to organizational learning. It’s a necessity. BP sure could use PKM at all levels.

Once more, across that chasm

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Geoffrey Moore’s analogy of “crossing the chasm” is that any new technology is quickly adopted by innovators and early adopters, but there is a chasm to cross in order to get the more pragmatic majority to adopt the new technology. For marketing, this is the real challenge – can the new product get widespread acceptance? In many cases the development costs can only be recovered if the majority purchase the goods or services.

I have referred to this model before and even tied it to Gladwell’s “tipping point” theory. My consulting work is mostly bridging the chasm:

  1. I am an early adopter myself, and use this experience to work with the early pragmatic majority. I also use a broader definition of technology; being the application of organized and scientific knowledge to solve practical problems. I spend much of my time watching the innovators, and
  2. I then determine which of their ideas and new technologies would make sense for my clients. To do this, I have to keep trying out new tools and processes in my own work.
  3. It’s a balancing act, being on the leading edge but not the bleeding edge.

In 2005 I wrote that these technologies were ready to cross the chasm:

  • Blogs (with some difficulties) & RSS
  • Workflow Learning (including wider acceptance of performance support instead of training)
  • Open Source

… and that these probably wouldn’t get across, yet:

A year later the use of blogs had exploded, while workflow learning had stalled and I noted that an understanding of the value of informal learning was catching on. Wikis were becoming more popular, especially those that replicated word processesors, like Writely, which was later purchased to become Google Docs, used ubiquitously today. There appeared to be a growing interest in natural enterprises and something to replace corporatism as a guiding model, and this continues, though too slowly for me.

In 2010 we’ve seen Twitter and micro-sharing cross the chasm, while virtual worlds, like Second Life seem to be floundering. Informal learning is being discussed throughout the profession, but in many cases it’s just lipstick on a pig. Mobile tools are poised for a major breakthrough, though more as performance support and knowledge management than courses online. In the next few years, the use of collaborative work technologies, such as Google Docs or Sharepoint, will grow, while stand-alone learning applications will see a decline.

I think the next big shift in training/elearning will be the integration of learning into work. As staff costs continue to increase and the economy sputters for several more years, companies will look for reductions that also improve effectiveness. Once companies pass on the word that their staff are learning without a training department the shift will happen quickly. Learning professionals won’t even be involved in these conversations. Come back in five years and see if I’m right.

The networked enterprise and learning support

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Would you rather go to a doctor who is in the band-aid business or the healing business? Prescribing training for all organizational learning is like handing out band-aids without a diagnosis. Training is often a solution in search of a problem.

This becomes evident when ~80% of learning on the job is informal and less than 10% of the knowledge needed for work is in our heads. But how much organizational effort is put into training, above all else? If it’s more than 20% of the learning support budget then it’s probably being misspent. For instance, Peter Senge’s comprehensive research showed that the average life expectancy of large companies is about 30 years, but some are over 200 years old. What is the reason for this? Organizational learning. Basically, individual learning in organizations is irrelevant. Work is almost never done by one person alone. Almost all value is created by teams and networks of people.

Enterprise training and its ADDIE framework are designed to develop individual skills, where the objective is always, “the learner will be able to …” not, “the organization will be able to …”. The basic premise is that any trained human cog will be able to fit into the organizational machine. But knowledge-intensive and creative enterprises don’t work that way. Every node in the networked enterprise is unique but the network itself is even more important. Social learning is how we get things done in networks. This is how nature and complex adaptive systems work – social learning is the best strategy.

We need to understand, encourage and support social learning in the enterprise.

Recently, Jane Hart & Jay Cross created this graphic that shows the five stages of workplace learning.

One limitation of this representation is that the first four stages look bigger than the fifth stage and could be perceived as being more important. Here’s a different perspective on the same theme.

My recent post on the value of the LMS stems from the perspective that the networked enterprise is a new organizational form that needs different support mechanisms.  Siloed support functions are becoming redundant, as are siloed technologies. Unless a platform like an LMS is actually used to get work done, it will become redundant as well. When learning is the work then it has to be integrated with working. That means stand-alone L&D departments (and the stand-alone LMS) are peripheral to 90% of the learning that is happening. The new focus of the training department in the networked enterprise must be on communicating, connecting and collaborating, and that means integrating with the work being done, not using parallel processes and technologies.