Social Media for Working & Learning

The SMARTER Approach to Workplace Learning

In January I released the first version of my State of Workplace Learning Today piece, and have tinkered with it over the last few months.  I am giving two big presentations this week about it (one as a keynote speaker at the ILTA, EdTech 2010 conference in Athlone, Ireland which I hope I am going to make as the volcanic cloud is closing British and Irish airspace again today) so I thought I would update it with some of the resources I have been mentioning here on this blog.  You can find the updated version here: The State of Learning in the Workpace Today

It has also become clear in the last few weeks with a flurry of emails and responses to recent postings written by me as well as my Internet Time Alliance colleagues - notably Harold Jarche, Jay Cross and Clark Quinn - that there is a growing interest and mood to moving towards a new approach to learning in the workplace.

I have already been helping a number of organisations re-think their whole approach to "learning" - driven by my analysis of the changing marketplace, and described in my State article above - but I haven't  explained my approach explicitly here before.  So here it is - The SMARTER Approach to Workplace - which is summarised in the following statements.

S - Social and collaborative approaches underpin the SMARTER approach to workplace learning.  This does not simply mean throwing social media tools at a problem to create a social solution, but more importanly means ...
M - shifting your thinking towards a Knowledge Economy mindset that includes encouraging ..
A - autonomous learners/workers to solve their own learning/business problems in their own way, which means and will lead to ..
R - a reduction in the amount of formal training provided - since training is certainly not the answer to every learning or business problem.
T - All of the above will be underpinned by technology  ...
E - BUT by a technology-enabled approach (e.g. using a collaboration platform) rather than a technology-managed approach (e.g. a LMS).
R - This will lead to a more responsive and agile organisation, and one where "learning=working and working=learning".

You can find out more about The SMARTER Approach here at my website - and if you would like help in implementing it in your organisation, then do get in touch with me or one of my Internet Time Alliance colleagues - Jay Cross (US), Jon Husband (CAN), Harold Jarche (CAN), Charles Jennings (UK) and Clark Quinn (US). We work with all sizes of organisations in all geographies.

You can email us individually - my email is jane.hart@c4lpt.co.uk and you will find the others' contact information on their own blogs or websites -  or else fill in the web form on the Internet Time Alliance site. We look forward to hearing from you.

Sharepoint 2010 as a Facebook alternative

Following on today's earlier posting about how TELUS are using Sharepoint as their social learning and collaboration platform, and the stream of recent negative postings about Facebook, here's a posting by Chris Dawson at ZDNet that suggests Sharepoint 2010 is a Facebook alternative - for education.  He summarises

A look at SharePoint’s technologies and available out-of-the-box social functionality certainly suggests some interesting possibilities for schools (and businesses and organizations for that matter).

Sharepoint 2010: There's your Facebook alternative, May 2010

(Note: Sharepoint ranked #50 in our Top 100 Tools for Learning 2009, so clearly a number of people already believe it is an important social learning tool)

TELUS Case Study - Using Sharepoint to embrace social computing and streamline formal learning

I've been collecting examples of Social Learning in the Workplace for some time now here on this page at my website, but have just come across this major case study on how TELUS is using Sharepoint to embrace social computing and streamline formal learning.  Here is the summary of the report.

TELUS, a Canadian telecommunications company, spent considerable resources on third-party learning for its 35,000 team members. The company shifted its investment and adopted Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 to serve as the focal point of a new information and social learning initiative. TELUS, which worked with partner imason, will use the system to support learning through a formal, informal, and social content paradigm, including networking, blogs, wikis, videos, communities, and collaboration sites to foster knowledge sharing among team members. Team members will be able to learn more quickly because knowledge will be readily available from experts within the company, as opposed to solely through scheduled classes. The company also expects to see increased team member engagement, better sharing of institutional knowledge, and 20 percent savings on learning costs in 2010 alone.

The main part of the report is divided into the following sections:

• Situation
• Solution
• Building the pilot solution
• Fostering the cultural shift
• Benefits: Cost savings, Faster speed to collective insight, Heightened team member engagement, enhanced document governance, better sharing of institutional knowledge

Dan Pontefract, Senior Director of Learning at TELUS says

"With its many social, learning, video, and other collaboration facets, this SharePoint Server 2010–based solution will serve as our ‘virtual water cooler.’"

This is a powerful example of corporate social learning - that has started with a "collaboration" system rather than a "learning" system -  and will I think become a model for many other organisations for the future 

Microsoft Case Studies: TELUS - Telecom company enmbraces social computing and streamlines formal learning, 12 May 2010

Are you going to disappear into the fog?

Here is another comment on one of my recent postings that I wanted to bring to the attention of a wider audience.  This is from David Grebow

"Jane:

Several years ago I was presenting to executives around the country, showing them the tip of what I was calling The Digital Uprising. I was working with Global Business Network before it was taken over by The Monitor Group.

The point is that I was highlighting economic paradigms and how, at the beginning of each new one, there's a period of confusion. The people and companies that can sort through the fog and see where the economy is moving become the New Economy Leaders with all that implies.

Part of the presentation included the following side-by-side comparison:

Industrial Economy / Knowledge Economy

Command & Control / Matrix Organization
Hierarchical / Decentralized
Citadel Mentality / Work Anywhere
Rigid Work Hours / Work Anytime
Importance of Titles / Importance of Results
Dress Code / No Dress Code
Learning is Work / Work is Learning
Formal Classes / Informal Sharing
Corporate Silos / Corporate Web

The ones that "got it" are now among the leaders so often cited as Web 2.0 companies. Many of the ones that did not listen are gone.

The same is true for every major economic paradigm shift. The takeaway is that what you are saying is a signpost to the inevitable, part of this new economic model. The smart companies will listen, learn, adopt and adapt.

The others will disappear in the fog ...

When my Internet Time Alliance colleague, Jon Husband tweeted about this, he added "very wirearchical". 

What does that mean?  A working definition of Wirearchy is:

“a dynamic two-way flow of power and authority, based on knowledge, trust, credibility and a focus on results, enabled by interconnected people and technology”.

You will need to read Jon's work at www.wirearchy.com to find out more about Wirearchy - and a good starting place might be What is Wirearchy?

It's important to note that Jon's work underpins what we do and how we think in the Internet Time Alliance

Using Google Analytics as an LMS

In my recent post on What is the future of the LMS? I wrote:

"It is clear that for many L&D professionals, tracking and reporting is a key feature of a LMS, and probably the main reason why they spend a large proportion of their training budget on such a system.  But you don't need a hammer to crack a nut(!), as this recent posting on SANA Easybloggers points out,  Is Google Analytics the next LMS?!  In other words, there are simpler, cost-effective ways of tracking and reporting usage of content."

Yesterday the author of that posting commented as follows.  I am reproducing it here to ensure it gets a wider viewing.

"Jane, thanks for picking up our blogpost on Google Analytics as substitute of a LMS. We have seen it in the amount of visitors. But the variety of reactions on your post triggered me to comment as well... The reason why we wrote this post was that people came to us asking for an LMS, but if we asked why they really needed it, it appeared to be just for overall user statistics. Especially in Germany for example the privacy rules are so tight that companies most of the times prohibit results related to named users.

Therefore we came up with the idea to use Analytics, that is enough for what they want. And I agree to those that see the LMS more and more as a location to learn somewhere in the intranet rather than to a system with ongoing implementation projects, test users etc.

We did get some reactions from readers that want to go for the "Analytics LMS" but still want to know who passed the course. A solution for this is also easily fixed, a description of this can now also be found on our blog http://easybloggers.wordpress.com/2010/05/10/is-google-analytics-the-next-lms-continued/ Hope this answers some questions again."

Many thanks to all those contributing to the LMS Debate.

3 Models of Formal Social Learning

Last week I posted a graphic that illustrated the Stages that I believed Workplace Learning was going through, and in particular how the use of social media was either being used to perpetuate the traditional approach to formal learning in the organisation (Stage 4) or helping to move organisations to a collaborative and integrated approach to working and learning (Stage 5).

But even in Stage 4, the use of social media for formal learning is quite different; and I am seeing three different approaches or models, each of which has its advantages and disadvantages.  I have posted about this before, but I think it is worth a re-post.

1 - Wrap-around model

Here the social aspects of learning are added-on to the content to provide tutor and peer-support for understanding the content.  This model is often used where the content is delivered via LMS or VLE and the social functionality hosted elsewhere; the social aspects are simply wrapped around existing content or courseware,  e.g. to provide a discussion area within a course. 

However, this model needs to be used with care since it doesn't work well if social aspects are simply bolted on without good reason; they will often not be used, which leads many to believe social learning is not working, when in fact it is applying it in the wrong way that is the issue.

2 - Integrated model

Here the social and collaboration aspects are well integrated into the content , i.e. firmly embedded in the course, so that the learner fully participates and is active in the social side of the course. 

Here the focus is still on the content with social aspects supporting the content.

3 - Collaboration model

Here it is the social and collaboration aspects that are the focus for the learning - not the content - the content is co-created by the learners - so that the learner fully participates and is active in the learning. 

This model is used where a problem-based or inquiry-based learning approach is used, and here the tutor is an equal member of the learning group "the guide on the side" rather than the "sage on the stage"

Which approach are you taking to using social media in your formal learning?

5 Stages of Workplace Learning

I interrupt my series of postings on Collaboration Platforms, to talk a little about the stages of Workplace Learnng

As I have read the comments on my recent postings as well as tweets and postings on other blogs,  I've identified what I think are 5 main stages of workplace learning.  I've tried to capture these,  in a very rough and ready way, in the diagram below.  (Click the diagram for a larger version of the diagram)

What Harold Jarche and I have been talking about recently on our blogs is Stage 5.  Although our recent postings have focused on how we believe a collaboration platform will replace the LMS  as the core (learning) system in use in organistions, this is only part of what we, and our Internet Time Alliance colleagues believe is the future of workplace learning.  Fundamentally it is about a change from focusing exclusively on centrally diirecting and managing formal learning (aka training) in a LMS to supporting and enabling a collaborative approach to learning and working across the enterprise.

In my opinion, most organisations are in Stage 3, but as the L&D conversation circles around the concepts of social and informal learning, I'm getting the impression that many are drifting into, what I would consider an interim stage, 4 ; which is simply adding-on social (and even informal)  functionality to the traditional model of learning.  One reason for this, is because this is where a lot of vendors are targeting their new products.

The difference between Stages 1-4 and Stage 5 is actually NOT just about a change in tools but a change in mindset. I've talked a lot about this in my State of Social Learning article and charted this in my recent table.  But some of the key mindset changes that will move organisations into Stage 5 are:

• recognising that working=learning; learning=working
• understanding that informal learning needs to be enabled, supported and encouraged - but not designed or managed
• "letting go", so that there is a move from learner control to learner autonomy
• realising that autonomous, independent and inter-dependent, self-directed learners are essential  in an agile organisation

My colleagues at the Internet Time Alliance, firmly believe that you don't need to go through all the stages to reach Stage 5, even those still stuck at Stage 1, could simply leapfrog to the future.  Some forward thinking organisations are already there, and we, at ITA, believe that in this fast-changing, complex world, this is the place that organisations need to be.

UPDATE:

Jay Cross, my Internet Time Alliance colleague, has re-worked this model to show the 5 stages of Workscape Evolution

Harold Jarche has posted: The networked enterprise and learning support

Collaboration Platform 1: Elgg

Over the last couple of days, Harold Jarche and I have written a series of postings about the future of the LMS, which have proved extremely popular, attracting huge numbers of hits.  Here is a reminder of the postings again, just in case you missed any:

1. JH: What is the future of the LMS?
2. HJ: LMS is no longer the centre of the universe
3. JH: A Transition Path to the Future
4. HJ: Identifying a collaboration platform

I now want to move the discussion on further and take a look at some of the collaboration platforms we have mentioned. I'm going to start with Elgg since that is the one that Harold talked about yesterday in his posting.

Elgg in a nutshell

Elgg is a free, open source social engine that lets you create a social environment / collaboration platform.  Although iIt has social networking principles at its heart, it is much much more than this as it  includes social bookmarking, blogging, wikis, RSS feeds, micro-blogging functionality and more - all in one platform. 

Elgg allows individuals to create, organise and manage their own personal resources and contacts using a variety of social media tools, as well as work with others - co-creating and sharing content and resources - in groups.  

Setting up Elgg

Elgg is totally configurable and customisable with core and 3rd-party plugins so can be set up with the social functionality you want. For instance a basic collaboration platform might include the following functionality:

• Dashboard  - displays the river of activity of the members
• Members List - where users can browse a list of site members
• Profiles - each member can set up their own profile using a set of (draggable) widgets
• Bookmarks - personal and/or group bookmarks can be set up
• Blog - personal and/or group blogs an be created
• Pages - personal and group web and wiki (ie editable web pages) can be created
• Files - personal and/or group files can be uploaded - PDFs, Word documents, spreadsheets, videos, etc
• Private micro-blogging - an internal Twitter-like service
• RSS feed reader - personal feed reader

Examples of Elgg in use

I have set up a instance of Elgg for use with clients and customers at www.c4lpt.net .  Although I call it SoLearn - as its purpose is to support both the formal social learning programmes I run as well  - it is a fully collaborative environment.

If you'd like to see how it works, then send me an email jane.hart@c4lpt.co.uk and I will set you up with an account to explore the platform.  You can download a 2-page Quick User Guide by clicking the Help tab You can also join one of the open groups, e.g. the Transition to the Future group to find out more about the group functionality, and feel free to set up a group of your own to see how easy it is to do this.

Other examples of Elgg

Elgg is being used in both education (universities and schools) and businesses (profit- and non-profit making). Here are two examples:

University of East London

World-wide Fund for Nature

How does it compare with Facebook and Ning?

AS Elgg is intended as an enterprise-wide tool, it is more sophisticated than Facebook or Ning.  But if you are familiar with these two platforms and want to compare it, take a look at my comparison chart.

How to set up an Elgg-powered collaboration platform?

You can download Elgg from www.elgg.org.  It requires a WAMP or LAMP stack, ie Windows/Linux environment, Apache Server, MySQL and PHP.  If you need any help with set up or customisation, find out how we can help you here.

A Transition Path to the Future

Yesterday I wrote a posting about the future of the LMS, and in particular about moving towards a more collaborative approach to learning and working in an organisation- and one which supports the big picture of "learning", rather than the tiny, 20% of learning, that takes place in classrooms or online courses.

Since the posting went live early yesterday morning, there have been thousands of hits on my blog -  which has convinced me that this topic has hit a major nerve!

Unfortunately, I too often hear stories from those who have implemented an LMS, usually at huge cost, and who have not seen the promised ROI; in fact, they have, more often than not, seen diminishing activity on their LMS, and at the same time the burgeoning use of social media by individuals "learning" for themselves.  NickT's comment on my blog post yesterday, summed it up neatly:

"I started using twitter the same week that I joined my company, a year ago. I learn something from twitter every day.  I have logged onto the LMS three times. Each time to click a button to say that I've completed a compliance related training course."

Although many L&D professionals understand the reality of today's workplace and the need to take a more 21st century approach to "learning" than simply creating courses and workshops and using a command and control system to manage learners, what is stopping them is knowing HOW to move forward.

There are, of course, a number of steps on the transition path to a post-LMS future, and one of the first inevitably involves taking a good hard look at how your LMS is performing.  It may be that you want to retain it in some cut-down form, or it may be that it is providing no real value at all, and it is a barrier to "learning" .  I'm not suggesting that in every case, you should junk your LMS completely - in fact that would probably involve throwing the baby out with the bathwater! - but you certainly need to take an honest look at whether it is delivering what you need in the workplace today.

 AND if you are ready to transition away from your LMS , then you will then need to review the contract with your existing provider and extract yourself from it.  A posting on the E-Learning 24/7 blog: Out with the old LMS offers some good advice on how to deal with your provider in this regard. 

A subsequent step in the Transition Path involves identifying a new 21st century collaboration platform that will underpin learning and working in your organisation.   Although I mentioned a few names on my posting yesterday, it's clearly about finding the right one for your organisation, and ensuring that you are not  jumping out of the frying pan into the fire.  My Internet Time Alliance colleague, Harold Jarche, has written a follow up posting with more information about this

And as for further steps in the Transition Path . . well of course there's more - steps for instance which involve supporting and managing the transition process in terms of implementaton of the new system, and the new skills and mindset required.

Some have already taken this Transition Path to the Future, others of you will be happy to do so on your own, but if you want some help, then Harold and I are part of an international alliance of consultants, known as the Internet Time Alliance, who help organisations do exactly that.  We work individually or collectively with organisations as required. So if you'd like some help, just send one or other of us an email to get the ball rolling.  You can contact me at jane.hart@c4lpt.co.uk. 

UPDATE:

Clark Quinn, another Internet Time Alliance consultant, adds his views in his blog posting: A case for the LMS?

What is the future of the LMS?

The Learning Management System has been with us for just 10 years or so, and yet for many it is now seen as the core system required for delivering e-learning in an organisation.  I have already mentioned in an earlier posting how, that the first thing that is often recommended to someone embarking on e-learning is to buy a LMS!

Even though the main topics of conversation in the L&D world are moving from creating content-based e-learning to informal and social learning, the LMS is still seen as the main learning system within an organisation, so it's time to review its usefulness (yet again).  

First of all, taking a look around the web, there are a number of people already critiquing the traditional LMS..

In fact, Jane Bozarth, on 21 March 2010, commenting on a posting, Facebook vs the LMS on Mark Oehlert's eClippings blog, wrote:

"The greatest scam ever pulled off by "vendors" was convincing management that an LMS isn't just a database. The second biggest? That they really needed one. The third? That it is a "Learning" "Management" System."

But the discussion about the value of an LMS goes back further than this.  Dan Pontefract, in April 2009 in a posting, The standalone LMS is dead, on his trainingwreck blog wrote:

"Those organizations (and frankly public learning institutions) that are clinging to their standalone learning management systems as a way in which to serve up formal ILT course schedules and eLearning are absolutely missing the big picture. Sadly, there are too many organizations like this out there."

And in an article on Innovative Learning, The traditional LMS is dead, Richard Culatta believes that:

"The traditional stand-alone learning management system (LMS) is built on an industrial age model. There are two specific problems with this model, first it is monolithic within a learning institution and second it is generic across learning institutions."

So what is the future for the LMS?

It is clear that for many L&D professionals, tracking and reporting is a key feature of a LMS, and probably the main reason why they spend a large proportion of their training budget on such a system.  But you don't need a hammer to crack a nut(!), as this recent posting on SANA Easybloggers points out,  Is Google Analytics the next LMS?!  In other words, there are simpler, cost-effective ways of tracking and reporting usage of content.

But the key point, as mentioned in the earlier Dan Pontefract quote, is  that by focusing on an LMS, organisations are missing the big picture.  This is quite true; just adding social functionality into formal courses might go some way to making them more "engaging" to users, but it isn't addressing the wider "learning" needs of the organisation.

I've shown that when we talk about "learning" we need to think much wider than formal learning, that individuals and groups "learn" in many different ways, and that in many cases they are already using (public) social and collaboration tools to build their own personal and group spaces to support their own "learning" and working.  So what is needed is a organisational system that SUPPORTS and ENABLES this informal approach to learning.  As my colleagues in the Internet Time Alliance have shown on countless occasions (here's an example posting, written by Harold Jarche), you simply can't manage or formalise informal learning; it then just becomes formal, managed learning! 

So Dan Pontefract's advice is therefore spot on:

"Whether you’re in a private or public organization ...  start first with a ‘collaboration’ system rather than a ‘learning’ system, and build out from there."

More and more collaboration systems are appearing in the marketplace - commercial systems like Socialtext and Jive, as well as open source systems like Elgg and Liferay -  there's something for every budget.  Enterprise systems like this will really support the approach, as Harold Jarche puts it, that  "learning=working; working=learning".

But one piece of advice; work with your IT Department or Business Operations on this, don't try and go it alone - you'll need a whole-enterprise approach here, not an L&D initiative! 

Finally and to summarise, I'm going to give Dan Pontefract the last word!

"Blow up your LMS. Find a way to integrate it into your collaboration platform."

UPDATES:

1. My ITA colleague, Harold Jarche, has now followed up this posting with LMS is no longer the center of the universe
2. My own follow up posting appears her: A Transition Path to the Future
3. A further posting from Harold Jarche is Identifying a Collaboration Platform