Social Media for Working & Learning

If you think you can ...

This evening, I got into a Twitter conversation about how to make change happen.

There's been a lot of talk about change recently in education and in workplace learning; I've called for it myself.

But what makes the difference between someone who just calls for change, and doesn't really achieve much and someone who makes it happen.  I've worked with both types of people.

The first  say they want change and then think of all the reasons why it won't happen, so all they do is "tinker with the same old", as I call.it.  My colleague, Clark Quinn, reminded me of this diagram by Kathy Sierra, which shows the big wall between "tinkering" and real change..

But I have now come to realise that that "big frickin' wall" that's stopping many people is often in their head. 

I've been very lucky to work with a number of very focussed people who have made significant changes in their organisation. What has made them successful? Thinking they CAN.

This reminds me of the poem, The Victor, by C W Longenecker - which has haunted me for many years

If you think you are beaten, you are.
If you think you dare not,  you don’t
If you like to win but think you can’t,
It’s almost a cinch you won’t.

If you think you’ll lose, you’re lost.
For out in the world we find
Success begins with a fellow’s will.
It’s all in the state of mind.

If you think you are outclassed, you are.
You’ve got to think high to rise.
You’ve got to be sure of yourself before
You can ever win the prize.

Life’s battles don’t always go
To the stronger or faster man.
But sooner or later, the man who wins
Is the man who thinks he can.

In other words: "If you think you can, you might, if you think you can't, you won't".

I'd love to work with more people who think they can.

Is banning social media in the workplace the right approach?

This morning whilst I was out in the car (not driving BTW) I read a tweet from JudithELS that said:

"Naughty employees - well rules are there to break, aren't they? http://tinyurl.com/28r8mvg"

The link took me to a Mashable post, entitled Employees Ignore Social Media Policies, Play “FarmVille” on Company Time [STUDY] that reported a Cisco study that showed  ...

"that workers in the enterprise are accessing their favorite social networking sites on company-issued equipment even when corporate policies prohibit them from doing so."

I groaned .. not yet another study on the evils of the distractions of social media for employees. I decided not to tweet an immediate reply but to wait till I got back to base to provide a more considered response.  However, in the meantime, Jane Bozarth responded:

"If (invoke sarcastic tone) "social media" would go away, then employees could get back to being productive 100% of the day."

Of course, Jane is absolulelty right.  Haven't we heard all this before, when email and Instant messaging arrived - how distracting all that was?

Unfortunately, this is often the feedback I receive when I talk about the use of social media in the workplace - that it's all just a distracting waste of time for employees! 

But my response is that banning social media is pretty useless anyway - as many studies show, individuals are accessing it on their own mobile devices   And reprimanding users for accessing sites is also not an appropriate response; it is much more important to consider employee performance; if this suffers (due to excessive use or for any other reason) then that should be the reason for a reprimand.

Although the Cisco report, mentioned above, does point to more serious security issues, access to the Social Web is becoming an important feature of modern business life.  It would be far better to provide help to those who need it about how to use social media sites effectively and responsibly rather than shutting it down to stop a few people playing Facebook games - this will surely do more harm than good for an organisation.

The beginnings of a Social Employee Manifesto

I have just read a posting on the FastForward blog, What Social Employees Should Expect from the Business, and Vice Versa: a ‘Social Employee Manifesto, which referred to this article on the SmartData Collective blog: The Social Employee Manifesto.

Although I tweeted the link, I have decided to write a short posting about it, because I wanted to make sure it was properly recorded as it concurs with our thinking in the Internet Time Alliance. Michael Lascette, the author, starts by saying:

Traditional relationships, roles and leadership models are being challenged every day in our post industrial, social web enabled, information driven, people centric business world. Old approaches to managing employees, with their roots in the industrial society are not adequate for hyper-connected, socially aware employees. We need a new paradigm for getting things done and for empowering a new breed of employee that does not function well in a hierarchal, top down, highly controlled environment.

He then asks, so what does the social employee need to be successful? and then goes onto list  some things he thinks need to be considered in building a new and more productive work model:  They are all very important but I have just highlighted a few below

• Social employees look for coaches and mentors not "bosses"
• Empowerment to take on business problems without micromanaging but within established guidelines.
• Freedom to choose hardware like mobile devices, laptops, etc. that fits their individual work style.
• Continuous access to the social web.
• The freedom and ability to form ad hoc workgroups as needed to address business issues and problems.
• People centric enterprise systems that are individually configurable
• Manage to successful outcomes not methods
• Shared control
• Clear business objectives supported by a flexible strategy

Michael then lists what the social employee brings to the business, finally saying

"This new social business model can, I believe, create a work environment that values the individual and increases employee productivity significantly with the correct balance of individual to corporate control."

I've added this link into my State of Learning in the Workplace Today  article, but I think there's going to be a lot more written about the new social business model in the near future.

Of course, if you are alreadyy looking to ease into the new social business world., then the ITA's the Working Smarter Fieldbook will help set you on the right path,

A Practical Guide to using Social Media in your Job

I have been at a lot of events recently talking about social media and social learning, and there is usually a very wide range of experiences with social media amongst the participants - from those who know absolutely nothing to those who have been using a wide range of tools quite extensively for sometime.  Trying to pitch a presentation or run a practical session at the right level to suit all needs is therefore something of a fine art. 

What concerns me however, is that I often get the impression that those who have very little experience expect to find out all they need to know about social media and how to implement social learning from an hour or so's presentation. 

As I tell them, social media is not something you talk or read about and then impose on others, it's something they need to do and experience themselves.  In fact if they need to explain to others the value of social media for working and learning, then it's essential that they can demonstrate the benefits it brings to their own professional practice.  Of course, the next question is then how and where do should they start. 

As readers of my blogs know, for sometime now I've been producing resources about social learning, but I've now produced one specifically for those new to social media called A Practical Guide to using Social Media in your Job to help them get started with using the tools in their own work. 

This resource is relevant not just for learning professionals, but for anyone who wants to find out how to use social media to support their own as well as their team's productivity, and is divided into 7 sections:

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

Version 1 is currently available online - A practical guide to using social media in your job - but I'm also preparing a PDF version, which will be available for personal or bulk purchase.

Workplace Learning: Beyond Training ... Continued

Following my previous posting,  which mentioned a couple of articles that reinforced my own as well as my Internet Time Alliance colleagues' thinking about the need for change within  L&D,  I have now written this all up in a more coherent form in my State of Learning in the Workplace piece.

For those who are familiar with this document, which I first released on 1 January this year and have been updating on a regular basis since that time, Part 2 is where the significant updates lie this time.  In the latest update I've identified and discussed a number key factors that are impacting and squeezing L&D from both the top and the bottom, as shown in this diagram.

These significant factors, both individually and collectively, are a powerful force fo change.  So how can L&D do this? In the article I suggest 5 key steps - which are inevitably, inextricably linked

1. Reduce training/e-learning solutions and foster non-formal approaches
2. Re-think the process of identifying and developing "solutions"
3. Develop a new role of learning professional: the performance specialist
4. Re-think learning tools and systems
5. Re-brand the L&D department

Please note: this posting just provides a brief summary of the points made in the article; you can read it in full here: State of Learning int he Workplace.

Workplace Learning: Beyond Training

Regular readers of this blog know that I have been posting recently about the need for change within  L&D - to move from a focus on training to supporting the wider "learning" and performance needs of employees.  (My recent summary posting is here and my State of Learning in the Workplace article looks at the bigger picture) 

My colleagues in the Internet Time Alliance (Jay Cross, Jon Husband, Harold Jarche, Charles Jennings, Clark Quinn) have, of course, also been saying the same thing now for some time in many of their postings on their own blogs. 

Although I know that many others do have the same views on this, when talking at conferences or other events I sometimes think the message is falling on deaf ears.   However, recently, I have come across a number of other blog postings and articles that also reiterate and reinforce the need for change.

I am going to write a fuller magazine article about this, but thought in this brief posting I would link to some of the recent articles and postings of note.

Laura Overton, from Towards Maturity,wrote in a posting about the need for change due to cuts in the public sector.Cuts, Change & Collaboration. She summarises by saying:

"So 2010 has to be a year of ‘immediate and decisive action’ for those serving the public sector. In response to government directives for  cuts cuts cuts & cuts, L&D need to take  decisive action that  leads to change, collaboration, community and communication!"

Donald Taylor has written a piece entitled Training needs to change and risk irrelevance, where he says

"The opportunity is clear: at last training should be able to take the initiative and prove its value to the organisation. It should be able to embed learning in the fabric of daily life  ... The threat is simple: if we don’t this, others will."

In fact, others are already doing!  It's not IT, but employees themselves.  A recent report about the consumerisation of IT analysed in the posting, Do you know where your employee's smarthone is, shows some interesting stats, e.g.

IWorkers report using an average of four consumer devices and multiple third-party applications, such as social networking sites, in the course of their day.

IWorkers in the survey reported that they are using smartphones, laptops and mobile phones in the workplace at nearly twice the rate reported by employers.

IWorkers are routinely using consumer technologies and applications for business, but give their employers poor grades for the internal IT support they provide for these technologies.

Today, Mark Berthelemy, posts about Capita's Learning to Change report, based on the opinions of senior decision makers among the UK’s largest 500 firms, and provides some more alarming statistics, e.g.

More than half (52%) describe their L&D function as slow to respond to the changing requirements of their business during economic turbulence.

As strategic objectives have evolved, close to half (46%) of senior managers report no significant change in the training delivery to their workforce.

And the big one for me

Half (50%) believe that their L&D function is stuck in a ‘business as usual’ mindset.

As Mark summarises:

"Is there still a place, in today's complex and rapidly changing market, for a learning and development function that just sees itself as a provider of training?"

I think not; it clearly is now time for change .. but one which opens up huge opportunities for L&D to really make a difference in their organisations.