Updated Look - It’s About Time!
Jan 28, 2008 Implementation, RSS, Wiki, blogging, collaboration
I did surgery this weekend on this blog. Extreme Makeover. Although it is not totally complete, it is close. It needed one badly!
Speaking of updating looks, I am trying to customize the front page of our Social Learning solution internally. It has the default page which shows an aggregate of most recent content for all wikis, discussions and blog posts. (Trying to customize it has been difficult. A great great solution overall, but as with everything there are pros and cons.) The problem with that is that each of those three have different lives: 1) They are each created in different intervals; 2) they all have different relevancy lengths and 3) they have different audience contexts. Imagine three related but different people living under one roof (maybe you don’t need to imagine too hard…)
WIKI: The wiki, at least internally and in our stage of development, has a rapid creation cycle. We have many which are created each day. Thus, they dominate the ‘Most Recent Activity’ aggregate shown on the first page. Plus, so many are created with varying topics, that the list becomes irrelevant. Unlike RSS where you can pick and choose what you information you want to show, this page is like the newspaper. Rarely do you care about every story. You want information that relates to you, not EVERYTHING. The wiki’s active life is short. For the most part, it is created and not many are changed or added to immediately.
DISCUSSIONS (forums): These have a shorter creation cycle. Currently, one is created only every few days. I expect that to pick up in the future. Their active life is usually short, but immediate. Ask a question, get an answer - a number of answers. The problem is that they are being burried by the wikis and unless you go specifically to the discussions, you would never know a new question has been asked.
BLOGS: The life of blogs can very depending on the person(s) writing them. For us, no one (almost) is using blogs because, again, they are getting buried unless the user specifically goes to check out the latest blog postings. Their active life is relatively short. When a post happens, usually comments follow pretty quickly. Then they taper off.
Putting all three together as a “Recent Activity” will usually not produce the results you want. And the results are usage. You want people in there using everything to share information. If information is shared and it is time sensitive (as usually forums and blogs are) you will want to make sure it has appropriate real estate for its life.
1st SIG Webinar - Intro to Social Learning
Jan 25, 2008 Social Learning SIG
We had our first webinar today and BOY did I learn a lot!
Thankfully I happened to read Michele Martin’s post on her first webinar. There are some useful tips in there that helped. Overall, I think it went well, minus the audio problems we had. Having to keep on keep’n on while there is distracting noises and other things made it quite challenging. But thankfully having Rob and Loren in the background to take care of the technical stuff helped a bunch.
Although not perfect (it was our first live one), it come off pretty well. Here is a link to the recording of the webinar.
One question that came up was about how to get management to buy in to Social Learning when they will naturally be against it. In the answer I mentioned the project management tool Backpack. Well, I was off on the name. It is Basecamp. Hey, it is all camping related!
When I first introduced this to our management team they hated the idea and it was worse than a flop. But, picking up my ego off the floor, I gathered my composure and tried again. This time, much smaller. I was putting together a conference and started using Basecamp. It has a lot of Social Learning tools in there. It is cheap, it is easy and it caught on. We started with that one project. In a matter of a couple months, we had to upgrade our account to allow us to use more projects. As employees started using it, they loved it. They started coming asking for more projects, to get our customers on it, etc…
The best part about it? Well, really two things. 1) IT had NOTHING to do with this. 2) The employees created the demand. So when it was time, I went back to our management group and said (in so many words), “We are using it already. They love it and want more. How about unifying this in to something we can make our own.” They were still skeptical, but went for it.
Now that it is up - I went from being the devil himself to being a hero. Department goals for this year were set. No small number involved their use of the environment. They are realizing that we can all learn from each other and share the information. No longer is it kept between two people or in one person’s head. It is time to share!
We have the next three month’s worth of webinars identified, but not all the dates. When I get those dates I will pass them on. The presenters are fabulous. You will really enjoy them and learn a ton from them.
And, hey, those audio issues - I am sure they will be a thing of the past…
SL - What’s the Big Deal?
Jan 5, 2008 Implementation, Social Learning SIG
Happy New Year to all! I took off from the 21st on through the end of the year. What a difference it has made! Rejuvinated, clearer perspective… Gotta love it.
A funny little thing happened on the way to my time off… (I swore I wrote about this, but I guess not!) We launched our SL platform with great success! It there were a few bugs in it but at the last minute (litterally) all of the bugs worked out, it all came together and viola! We launched on time and it has been great watching people use it.
Leading up to it I did a number of training sessions for the employees. A new employee (in her early 20s) joined one session. She was quiet during the whole thing and didn’t ask any questions. I assumed it was because she was new and didn’t know what she didn’t know.
The next day, I was talking to the person who’s position she was taking. He asked how everyone was initially reacting to the new SL platform. I told them that it ranged from neutral (because, honestly, some still didn’t get it - that was expected) to enthusiastic. No one seemed antagonistic toward it. Then the new employee piped up. She asked, very kindly, “I am sorry. Maybe you could help me understand. But I don’t see what is so great about it.” Then suddenly it dawned on me: She uses this all day every day! This isn’t a new, great, exciting thing for her. It is actually pretty basic. She is used to using this type of technology to learn and to share. I mentioned this to her, and the fact that to most of the people in the company, this is a big step! She seemed relieved that we were not talk’n crazy talk.
This has so many lessons we can learn from it. A few…
- Everyone will accept SL in different ways.
- The generation coming into the workforce expect this.
- They know how to use it already - better than we do!
We need to realize that this and use it to our advantage. For example, are you looking for some advocates? Go grab someone in that age group. They will know how to help!
