learning re-imagined

A Chance to Take a Long Hard Look

As they say every cloud has a silver lining....  Here in the UK it is becoming increasingly clear that whichever party comes to power in our general election (which must take place before the beginning of June 2010), there will need to be huge cuts in public spending in order to balance the books.

At the moment politicians are engaging in a kind of phoney war; both sides competing to show how they will bring spending under control.  But there’s little doubt that, in the public sector, training will once again be in the front line.  This is despite of skills shortages in several areas key to the economy – and the need for good leadership to steer us out of this situation.

Therefore, it was heartening to discover that one local authority, Nottingham County Council, has taken the situation into its own hands and substantially increased its investment in e-learning.  The council has purchased up to 30 courses from SkillSoft with the potential for up to 1,000 users to access each one. 

The learning and development manager told us that old-style teaching on such an extensive scale would, “not be an option given the current economic climate”.  Yet he believes that providing these courses will more than maintain the quality of training while extending its reach across the organisation.

Of course everybody would prefer there not to be cuts.  But if the situation forces organisations in general to take a step back and seriously consider the way they do things, investigate what is available to help and adopt a positive attitude about new ideas such as e-learning, then in the long-term we might be grateful.

By: Kevin Young

Are you a cross-pollinating sequential learner?

“Alan Greenspan, former chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, recognized the role of conceptual output as early as 1997 in a speech at the University of Connecticut when he said “The growth of the conceptual component of output has brought with it accelerating demands for workers who are equipped not simply with technical know-how, but with the ability to create, analyze, and transform information and to interact effectively with others.” By 2004, he had developed his views on the topic, referring to reductions in manufacturing in the United States, outsourcing to India and China, excess of supply and the global marketplace, all leading to the increasing conceptualization of economic output.”

Taking a page straight from Dan Pink and Gary Hamel, knowledge and even expertise are common, expected, cheap (sometimes free) to source, and no longer represent lasting competitive advantage. We have moved from the knowledge age to the conceptual age where creative, symphonic thinking - the ability to harness sometimes seemingly disparate pieces of information and ideas and mash them into wholly new iterations that can be applied effectively to solutions and results - are in fact the individual and organization’s competitive advantage.

Whatever field you work in, your expertise is expected, but your initiative and creativity to bring unique and signature solutions to solve unexpected problems is your brand, and increasingly also your company’s brand and identity. If this is true (and you better believe it), the future of learning is to provide more conceptual and powerful learning opportunities in which the expected learning outcomes are by nature, unexpected. Sometimes called chaotic or unstable by design, this construct suggests building learning opportunities which offer insight, ideas and parables intended for inference and application by the learner.

This calls for balancing the spoon-fed, outcome-anticipated, specific-competence results-oriented learning environments with more conceptual learning environments which treat learners as ready and able to distill ideas presented into their own signature integrated solutions applicable for their line of work and customers, whether they be internal or external.

Tom Kelley, CEO of IDEO, a premier product and services innovation company, has been a long advocate of this approach. In his book, The Ten Faces of Innovation, he describes a particular persona called the “Cross-Pollinator.” Cross-Pollinators are those types who are inquisitive beyond their particular domain expertise and explore ideas from industries outside their immediate purview, come to understand the technology, device or methods employed elsewhere and figure out how to incorporate these ideas into their own work.

How might this look like in learning environments?  To compete with the wild web, these learning environments will provide media and socially rich environments which aid learners to deduct applications from disparate sources.  The conceptual age learning environment will offer a deep portfolio of ideas and solutions garnered from varieties of domains. For example, a sales learning environment will not only offer presentation tips and niche industry knowledge but perhaps also ways in which organizations well outside their own have leveraged technology to gain their customer attention. For example, Sugarloaf Ski resort has been admired for their ability to use social media to update the faithful.

Foremost, emerging learning environments will understand that people have their own intrinsic motivators, often contrary to what their company or manager thinks is their primary motivator (drop the carrots and sticks paradigm).  When really what motivates the learner is passion, purpose and curiosity.  Learning opportunities will only resonate when they intersect with someone’s current passion, fulfills their sense of purpose and giving, and peaks their curiosity.

Learning opportunities are plentiful and the expectations are rising, and to be compelling whatever you are offering must be beautiful, unique and meaningful.

By: Shawn Hunter

Social Media Impact during a crisis and beyond.

As news of the devastating earthquake continues to come out I find myself pondering the role of Social Media in so much of our lives.  Not so long ago, our only source of what had happened would have come from traditional print media – the daily paper or perhaps the weekly news magazine.  Even sources like CNN might have only had some basic information while they got the right people in place to let us know what was going on.  But last week the earthquake happened and almost instantly the world was finding out about it.

The information was coming directly from people  there.  Immediate.  Instantaneous. It is the power of the social media that I find amazing.  Survivors tweet “I’m alive.”  Families search for loved ones through Facebook.  A donation to a charity can be texted from a phone.  It not only makes us aware, it makes it personal. 

We can talk about social media in learning, but really isn’t it almost all about learning something?  Immediate.  Instantaneous.  Relevant.  Learning about events far away and their impacts at home.  Learning about how you can make a difference.  And perhaps that is the power that we are only starting to explore. 

By: Stephanie Pyle

What Matters Now

I suspect (hope) by the time you read this, you have already checked out What Matters Now - assembled by the editorial talents of Seth Godin, a compendium of thought-leadership from all reaches weighing in on, well... What Matters Now.

Dan Roam, author of Back of the Napkin, urges that there is no such thing as boring information - the sublime can be found everywhere - but only boring presentations and boring attempts at transferring knowledge.

On ignoring the skeptics, Aimee Johnson, VP of Strategy for Starbucks, echoes Paul Hawken who recently said, " Don't be put off by off by people who know what is not possible. Do what needs to be done, and check to see if it was impossible only after you are finished."

Even Tom Peters! makes a guest appearance offering the 19 Es! of Excellence! and although his emphatic punctuation is an easy target to poke at, he is right after all.  If not excellence, then what?  Reminds me of a great quote from an interview we did with Gareth Jones, "When it's your turn to clean the grill, do it with excellence."  Because on the road to significance, everyone has a turn to dig ditches.

Dan Pink also drops by with notes on his emerging ideas about what drives us to give that discretionary 20% effort to our work, and it's not about better 'management.'  It's about encouraging autonomy around what we do, with what tools and ideas, and with whom we collaborate.  And it's certainly not driven by an edict from Management.

But dear friends, it's Elizabeth Gilbert (page 11) yet again who had me laughing out loud.  Gilbert entreats us all to give ourselves to ease.  To pause, exhale, and just for one lonely moment in this always-on go-go twitterific maelstrom, to check out and gaze at a blue sky.  Or admire your children play, or even take a nap.

If you irresistibly respond to your email alerts - those insistent lower right apparitions right? - it might be time to exhale.  'Tis the season after all for reflection, sharing, connecting, and rejoicing.  The world will still need saving tomorrow and if you take an interval for renewal, you might be all the wiser for it.  And if you haven't seen her TED Talk yet on what it means to be called a genius, you must check it out.

By: Shawn Hunter

The Learning Professional’s Guide to Social Media, 101

This past year was the defining year for social media.  With 350-million members of its online community, ‘Facebook Nation’ surpassed the population of the USA and if it were a country would sit behind only India and China.  Twitter exploded from relative obscurity to become a favorite sounding board for everyone from Iranian reformers to Ashton Kutcher.  And Linked-in quietly leveraged its vast database of online profiles into one of the most effective recruiting engines of all time.

Yet despite the publicity and the increasing number of prime-time TV references to social media, it is surprising how many people are still confused by, intimidated by, or just in plain old denial about these networks.

So I offer you this mini guide to the Big Three social media sites along with why it is important from a learning professional’s POV (point of view).

Linked-in:  This is the career web 2.0 site. You create a profile, and the magic of the site starts connecting you to just about every colleague you once worked with. Even those whose names you’ve long forgotten.

Why Important?  There are dynamic discussion groups on almost every topic, including excellent groups on every conceivable learning topic. Get free advice, share best practices, find good people to hire. Your HR department is likely paying Linked-in to get access to resume data for recruiting purposes.

Facebook:  The big daddy of social media. This is your friends and family site. You create a profile and start ‘friending’ people you know. This allows you to share pictures, musings, and links with them.  Your kids will be embarrassed that you finally joined, but your friends will chide you with ‘what took you so long’ messages.

Why important?  Facebook blurs the line between professional and personal relationships. Facebook can help you sustain distant relationships with colleagues spread all over the planet who you might see just once or twice per year.  Most people don’t talk shop, and that’s ok. This is a digital replacement for the water cooler.  And since I’ve heard the term ‘water cooler learning’ more than once, why would you not want to imbibe?

Twitter:  New kid on the block. Simple concept.  You can send and receive messages (i.e. ‘tweets’) that can never exceed 140 characters, including spaces.  Roughly the amount of text up to that last period. You can follow whomever you wish. You don’t share personal information.  You share ideas and links.  

Why important? Twitter gave us the ‘activity stream’ concept which is a powerful model for collaboration. The stream is a dynamic list of all comments from those you follow. The user guardrails the content by adding or deleting followers based on what they tweet about. Twitter is also a way to eavesdrop on the world’s conversation.  Want to know what 40-million+ people are saying about your company’s brand, type it in the search box and read the stream.

These short descriptions purposefully underplay the functionality of these sites. But this is only a 101 course. Now that you’ve passed, continue on to 201, which requires that you delve into these sites on your own.  Only by experiencing these sites first hand will you be able to begin visioning how the concepts behind social media might be leveraged for learning in 2010 and beyond. 

By: John Ambrose