Informal Learning

Informal learning

The marginalized training function

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Tony Karrer clarifies his comments about traditional training becoming “marginalized”, which is worth a full read but I’d like to pick up on this comment:

If you look at what makes a good situation for formal learning:

  • Large Audience
  • Similar Level / Needs
  • Known/Stable Content
  • Few Out of Bounds cases

How many organizations have these conditions and are they increasing or decreasing? Are there many “large audiences” of “similar needs and levels of experience” in your organization? How about content that is known and stable? Even compliance training changes as new regulations try to counter every unique case.

I have little doubt that most knowledge work is becoming more complex if for no other reason than the fact that we have squeezed out most redundancy in our systems and have automated any tasks we can. The only good-quality, high-paying work that is left requires contextual knowledge, problem-solving and creativity for those “out of bounds cases”. Training, other than in basic processes, does not address these skills.

cynefin and training

Knowledge workers need to learn from the emergent processes they  continuously create to deal with a complex environment. That means making things up (creativity) based on best guesses and collaboration and making parts of these processes tangible enough to pass on for their ever-shortening half-lives.

I would agree that training is getting marginalized but someone (or some department) in the organization will be taking responsibility for getting work done. For instance, at  Intuit, training is part of marketing and involves the customer directly. Your own organizational experience in the next few years may differ, but dealing with complexity will definitely be part of it.

Defining the Big Shift

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John Hagel has developed a number of “from-to” contrasts to illustrate the Big Shift. It’s great to get confirmation from someone like John Hagel that what I’ve been saying here for the past five years appears to be on track. Hagel cites several shifts in his post.

Knowledge stocks to flows – my take on learning stocks and flows (2005):

If learning is conversation, then online conversations are the essential component of online learning. Online communication can be divided into two parts (Lee Lefever):

 

Flows = Timely & Engaging (e.g. radio, speeches, e-mail, blogs)
Stocks = Archived, Organized for Reference (e.g. web site, database, book, voice mail)

 

One reason that blogs are so engaging is because they allow flow. On the other hand, stock on the Net is everywhere. In the case of digital learning content, fewer people are willing to pay for plain old stock, such as self-paced online courses. Learning content is now a commodity and over time the price of commodities tends to zero.

Some more comments on Flow.

Explicit knowledge to tacit knowledge (or knowledge that is in the early stages of emergence). This is the core of my always-in-development PKM process and also behind the idea that online content is not as important as the context in which it is used.

From push programs to pull platforms, which is how I felt in don’t push my learning (2006).

From stable environments to dynamic environments or what I called life in perpetual Beta (2006).

Take the time to read all of Hagel’s post and follow the link to the Big Shift as well.

Future of Learning as a Business #4

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For Session 4 of today’s LearnTrends event Dave Wilkins, Learn.com, led off on the subject of social learning and the challenge of the concept as opposed to the technologies. Concepts such as wirearchy, the long tail or wisdom of crowds need to be understood and put into our work context before we can really become social learners at work. This means that you might wish to stay away from Web 2.0 terminology when selling it to clients or inside the organization. He also mentioned that there exist several ways of measuring ROI for social media, you just have to look for it. Dave discussed what Learn.com is doing so that anyone can build a course, share a document, publish, spin their own web space and collaborate with whom they want.

Amit Garg, Upside Learning, discussed his innovation and new projects team current focus on simulations & games, social learning and integrated accountability – areas that are on the near horizon for our industry.

Holly St John Peck, Peck Training Group, and  Monika Ebert, DifferentLens, discussed an informal learning solution with formal application using this model they developed (click for an interactive version):

Picture 2

There was some interesting discussion on whether this above approach keeps learning separate from daily working and performance.

Future of Learning as a Business #3

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Session 3 (C Level perspective) of the LearnTrends event started with Ann Herrman-Nehdi from the Instructional Systems Association talking about a change in the mindset of learning services with the “app” & “plug-n-play” construct of the Web. The notions of on-demand and small pieces are here to stay, as are social networks and the communication and cooperation that happens around them. Real personalization of learning is an opportunity for vendors.

Jeff Sugerman of Inscape Publishing discussed their product design concept, which is aimed at HR consultancies, so it has to be customized by each client. Open & customizable are important and they have even given up control over digital media management (e.g. DRM). He noted that the market’s desire for innovation and cool design is coupled with a reluctance to pay for it, and asks his company, “What would Picasso do?”

Pete Weaver at DDI led by saying how important it is to understand the client’s business intent. He said what is hard from a selling position is that many learning products and services are becoming commoditized. This is difficult when your value proposition is culture change and means that you have to discuss outcomes, not inputs (like the latest web technologies), with your clients.

Ben Snyder at Systemation talked about how stressed many of their clients are, due to staff reductions and the poor economy. This means that a consultative sales approach doesn’t work well. Clients also think that content, as well as time, should be free. Clients ARE willing to pay for experience. Another big trend is the move to gaming for learning [agree, but we have a way to go yet]. Finally, good customer service is important, so treat your clients well or they will go elsewhere.

Future of Learning as a Business #2

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Session 2 of the LearnTrends event looked at internal training organization. Gary Wise of Cincinnati Children’s Hospital discussed the PD&R continuum of Prepare – Deploy – Reinforce. The last part is essential in integrating learning into the work context, using performance support tools, coaching, mentoring and contacting experts. Harvesting feedback, like checking to see if job aids are effective, is also important but may be harder to implement. Most interestingly, Gary showed the training organization with a visual metaphor of a fortress surrounded by a moat. Gary recommends getting out of the fortress and thinking more like a sales person and getting out with “clients”. He is also a proponent of performance consulting skills for anyone in a training role.

Rob Robertson at Citi discussed the important role of training departments making connections with internal and external networks. I think learning as a network is essential in business today.

Allessandria Polizzi at Intuit said that clients who get training actually become better customers. Intuit went from low and “training” and then moved to higher quality training in more modes but at no costs. Interestingly, much of this training was not ADDIE developed stuff, but everything from user-generated content ( blogs, podcasts, videos) as well as connections on social networks. Customers were even paid to develop content. An important note: At Intuit, the Training department is a sub-set of the Marketing department. In the comments, Jennifer noted, “The e-Learning has kept my CPA husband loyal to intuit versus Peachtree, etc.”

Another observation during the discussion was that demand for formal training is dropping in organizations as collaborative and informal networks meet more and more individual performance needs.

Future of Learning as a Business #1

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Finally made it into the Elluminate session for today’s LearnTrends event thanks to D’Arcy Norman’s help with the Mac OS. I made it to the end of Panel 1 on industry perspectives. Tony Karrer asked if there are some new models for selling learning-related products & services online. LiveMocha was given as an example of giving online (language) learning away for free. Accelerated courses are available at a cost but there is a lot of free stuff. The Internet has created the expectation of getting content for free. However, Lisa Fagan said there can be a backlash if you give away for free as a bait & switch sales generation tactic.

Unfortunately I only made the last 10 minutes of the session but I’ll update this with links as they become available.

Other PKM processes

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It seems that Stephen Downes isn’t enamoured with my PKM process:

My first thought was, do I do it this way? And, of course, I don’t – my process is much too haphazard to be dignified with the term ‘method’. But then I thought, what does the concept of a ‘method’ here imply? That there is a ‘best’ way to manage knowledge an information? Isn’t that what we’ve learned there isn’t? It’s a pick-and-choose sort of thing: the way we manage information has a lot to do with the information, and a lot to do with who we are and what we want the information for. “categorizing’, for example, is something I do only if my head is in a vise and I have no alternative – and even then, I use scripts to do it for me.

To be clear, my intention is to show what works for me and perhaps some part of this may work for others. All of my articles on PKM are descriptive, not prescriptive. Take what you need, as there are no “best practices” for complex and personal learning processes.

For example, here is a graphical representation of Lilia Efimova’s process:

knowledge-work-framework-efimova

This is Urs Frei’s representation of PKM:

Frei_PKM_20

And here is a model of social networking technologies and PKM skills from a group of researchers at the University of Florence:

networking_pkm

These representations offer different perspectives on the PKM theme, with a few similarities, and perhaps are of some use for others.

Here is one more by Sumeet Moghe (posted Jan 2010):

PKM_cpor-process_sumeet_meghe

Creating your PKM processes

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In Sense-making with PKM I described some personal knowledge management processes using various web tools. The overall process consists of four internal actions (Sort, Categorize, Retrieve, Make Explicit) and three externally focused ones (Connect, Contribute, Exchange). Personal knowledge management is one way of addressing the issue of TMI (too  much information).

pkm-flow

A sense-making routine can be regularly reading certain blogs and news feeds, capturing important ideas with social bookmarks and then putting ideas out in the open on a blog. The power of this process is realized after many iterations when you have created a personally contextualized knowledge base. PKM takes the notion of a personal journal and extends it significantly.

In Web Tools for Critical Thinking I expanded on Dave Pollard’s critical thinking process, showing how web tools can be used to develop critical thinking skills. Critical thinking is an important aspect of PKM but I had not put the two together explicitly. I created the following table to integrate my PKM process with Dave’s critical thinking process. You may have noticed that I’ve changed the order of  Retrieve & Make Explicit, but this is an iterative and non-linear process, so it doesn’t really matter.

My own PKM process has changed lately with my increasing use of Twitter and this is noted in the tools and strategies column.

PKM Critical Thinking Process Web Tools & Strategies
1 Sort Observe & Study Use an aggregator (feed reader) to keep track of online conversations

Follow interesting people on Twitter
2 Categorize Synthesize & Qualify
 Use Social Bookmarks

Find a Twitter App to suit your needs
3 Retrieve Draw Inferences Now that information is in a DB, use Search, instead of file folders.

Create online (reusable) mind maps,  graphics and text files of your thoughts
4 Make Explicit Form Tentative Opinions Tweet

Write a Blog post
A Connect Identify Missing Information (and people) Connect via Twitter, follow blogs or join Social Networks
B Contribute Develop Supporting Arguments Join in Tweet Chats

Write Blog Comments
C Exchange Analyze & Challenge Arguments Continue and extend conversations from news sources, other tweets or blog posts

Friday’s Finds #8

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It was a very busy week that left me little time to blog but I still found some gems on Twitter:

via valdiskrebs Nice short article by one of the “key players” in social network analysis — knowledge creation & network structure.

via jmcgee – Mike_Wesely #QUOTE: “Where you find quality, you will find a craftsman, not a quality-control expert.” ~ Robert Brault

via fdomon – jobadge : Social:Learn – a place to organise, share and record learning online in a social way

via JaneBozarth – aenclade – skipzilla : Great exchange between preschooler & her dad: He says he teaches art in college. She puzzles, “You mean they forget?

Tom Gram answers LCB big question in depth: it’s still about improving performance

Elizabeth May Advocates Against “Crazy Copyright Laws”

University campuses must be among the most inefficient uses of land and real estate imaginable

Skills for learning professionals

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In a Learning 2.0 world, where learning and performance solutions take on a wider variety of forms and where churn happens at a much more rapid pace, what new skills and knowledge are required for learning professionals?

That’s the LCB big question, and my article on Skills 2.0, written one year ago, addressed this very question. So when this question was posed I had to make sure that I hadn’t changed my perspective in the interim. My basic premise was that working and learning in networks is an important aspect of professionalism:

Today, active involvement in informal learning, particularly through web-based communities, is key to remaining professional and creative in a field. Being a learning professional in a Web 2.0 world is becoming more about your network than your current knowledge.

I said that the main skill needed by learning professionals is attitude, especially being open to continuous learning and opening up your learning to public view in order to collaborate with other professionals. I’ve called this life in Beta.

In the past year, I’ve found that an open attitude is becoming more important. The people who blog or connect on Twitter can get things done quicker, find answers, get advice and can be more effective for their organizations. While working for a client this past week I used my online networks to quickly get advice that was important for the project. But you can’t do this without a network and it takes time to build trust. People usually have to know something about you before they help you out. Without some persistent point of presence (blog, Twitter, podcast), you’re invisible online unless you’re already famous.

Putting yourself out there as a learner first means that you may need to check your attitude before going online. People who pontificate or don’t help others may not be able to build a trusted network. This is even more evident on Twitter with its asymmetry, where people you follow don’t have to follow you back. Having no followers may be a sign that you don’t have much to give back to your network. That could make it more difficult to get information and advice when you need it. Twitter has amplified many aspects of blogging. You can follow more people, send out more (short) messages and get really quick feedback. This amplification will likely continue with future social networking technologies.

Last year, I concluded:

If we limit our conversations to only those in the same office, we’re missing out. People with larger and more diverse networks have an advantage as learning professionals and in dealing with change. This constant flow of sense-making through conversations in our workplace networks makes the idea of learning as a fixed event in a specific place look obsolete.

This year, I would add that it’s not just an advantage to belong to diverse professional networks but that the situation has tipped so that it is now a significant disadvantage to not actively participate in social learning networks.