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.
