TK08 - Tony Karrer and Implementation of Social Learning
Feb 27, 2008 Learning 2.0, Podcast, RSS, Searching, Wiki
I am in Tony Karrer’s session here at TK08 today entitled, eLearning 2.0 – Applications and Implications. It is a very large room and was intended to be more of a discussion, but oh well! This is going to be a 201 session – a follow up from this morning’s session (which I did not attend).
From the outset, it looks like his presentation will be similar to mine tomorrow morning, more along the lines of implementation.
He starts out by asking who is implementing this now. Only about six people raised their hands in about 250 people. I raised my hand and explained my situation very briefly.
Interestingly, he did a survey and the top way people want to use these technologies is “Alongside Formal Learning.” Yet EVERONE that mentioned that they are using it are NOT doing it alongside formal learning. This shows me that those who are using it doing think of it as an extension of training. It further proves to me that as people dive into this they divorce it from training. It is totally separate. Not that it cannot compliment or help, but it is not in the ‘learning plan.”
Things that get in the way?
· Firewalls
· IP
· Privacy
· Security
· Control of information by management
· Strict control over policies – Accuracy
· Liability / Discoverability / Compliance
· Change Management – Ready for it / Culture
· Management take it seriously – away from work
· Is it real work or not?
· Education of management
· Lack of resources – Mobile devices
· Pushback from workforce – adoption
What about the quality of the content? That is ALMOST a non-issue. Think about it – the information is getting out now, but it is over the phone, IM, email. But now it is recorded and easily accessible. But it is not really an issue once implemented.
Usually, at first, the moderation is more strict than a few months later. It relaxes. It just happens. Corporations like to limit authoring as well. WHY? There are some reasons and I can see, but for the reasons that I have heard it is a paranoia that goes away once they get comfortable. And limiting visibility? Again, there are reasons to do it, but at first more is locked down and then t opens up because people realize that it is OK for anyone to see it.
Tony cites the 90-9-1 rule where 90% of the community members are lurkers, 9% contribute a small amount and the 1% contribute the majority of the content.
(Honestly, this is almost frustrating being in the audience because I want to jump up and answer so many of these questions and help people realize that all the ‘issues’ they are bringing up seem like big issues, but they are, for a lot of them, non-issues. Oh well – I continue to listen and soak it all up. He is doing a great job of answering the questions. It is obvious he has good experience in it.)
Next, Tony talks about ways to get wiki adoptions, based off of www.wikipatterns.com. I have written before, but the writer of the Wiki Patterns book is doing some vodcasts. If you have questions about this, you should check these short videos out.
How do you measure the impact? He says the same way you do now, but with one caveat: You can’t correlate individual behaviors with individual results like you would an LMS. But you can in a more general way.
Convincing Management. He said that it is very difficult. It comes down to almost an ethnographic view – sharing stories of how it works integrated with cold hard numbers. Management is used to seeing numbers only. But one way to do it is to just do it yourself. Then get others to do it with you on projects or meetings or… (make sure it is all kosher within the org and that you are not going to get fired or prosecuted for doing it). Then others use it, start demanding it and then management sees that it is in use and see the benefit. But then their question is “OK, we see the need, how do we control it?” Kind of funny.
Great session. A lot of questions answered.
ASTD’s TechKnowledge ‘08, Day 1 (And a Little Royce)
Feb 27, 2008 Social Learning SIG
What I have seen - although very little - of San Antonio I love. The River Walk is just great. I met a guy that just got out of the ‘pen’ after 15 years and was walking home. Good times!
The Conference is a few short blocks from my hotel. Thankfully, I get to walk a bit to get there. Beautiful and sunny. As I came into the building I saw my friend Seniye Groff - a was nice to start off the day in a place I was afraid I would not know anyone.
The sessions were well done. I went to the ones focused on Social Learning. And they validated everything we all have been talking about. Not a lot of new material for me, but it was good to see that we are all on the same track.
My session is on Thursday morning, at 8am in the Hilton. I am very excited for it! There just might be a ‘little’ too much material created, however. Oh well - we will get to what we can. It is difficult to gloss over it. Maybe better said, I wish I didn’t have to gloss over it. Only 90 minutes to cover how to implement a SL environment. I am going broad in scope, rather than deep.
It has been great meeting people and hearing their thoughts about Social Learning, too. Oddly enough (my wife thinks VERY odd) I love being up in front of people, but when it comes to interacting with others in this type of a format, I am just not comfortable. Once I get in a conversation, I am fine, but getting there… Oh boy!
By the way, I try not to get too much person ’stuff’ in here, but I just can’t help it.
Royce Miller Jones - Born less than a week ago. A healthy baby boy! Easy going and all his brothers and sisters can’t get enough holding time in!
Webinar #2 - Using Wikis in Social Learning
Feb 19, 2008 Social Learning SIG, Wiki
For our second SL Webinar we will hear from my friend Cindy Rockwell. She is the CEO of Customer Vision, a company that provides enterprise wiki solutions. Cindy has helped many companies, large and small, to implement wikis for Social Learning.
Cindy will show us the reasons for establishing a wiki and the process for making it a reality in our organizations. She will also give us some case studies and show us the how a wiki can and will help us make our daily learning activities better, as well as demonstrate the bottom-line results (read:ROI) we make to our organization’s overall business goals.
Come prepared to learn, ask questions and enjoy the hands-on knowledge Cindy will be able to share with us.
What You Will Learn:
- What an enterprise wiki might look like .
- How to evaluate the need for a Social Learning Strategy
- How others are utilizing a wiki for knowledge management and just-in-time information sharing.
How To Register:
Event: Social Learning SIG Event 2
Title: Social Learning as a Driver for Corporate Knowledge Management
Friday 14 March 2008, 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Time Zone: (GMT-08:00) Pacific Time (US and Canada); Tijuana
To register for this event, please go the following link:
http://trainingobjectives.mmalliance.acrobat.com/astdsl2/event/registration.html
Once there you can either listen to the webinar through your computer or have the webinar call your phone and conference you in.
The Differences between Social Learning and Knowledge Management
Feb 8, 2008 Social Learning SIG
I knew this question would come up, but I was not ready. Maybe I faked it well enough? You tell me.
I just joined in on my first podcast: The Cascadia Chapter of ASTD’s PodCascadia, posted today (Episode 50). In there I was asked, “What is the difference between traditional knowledge management and Social Learning?” I had thought about it before and, to tell you the truth, decided to put the research of that question off. But I knew I should do that soon or someone was going to ask me. Well, it happened and I wasn’t ready. But I have thought about it more and want to expand on my answer in the podcast.
- The answer I gave is that Social Learning is much more dynamic, free flowing. With traditional knowledge management (TKM, just because I am lazy) there were tools and everyone had to buy into the tool, learn how to use it and then fit it into the organization - or, for the organization to fit around it. It was a great idea that became a dirty phrase because it was difficult to implement and do correctly. Social Learning works how we want to work. There are very few rigid processes that need to be followed. The tools are simple and intuitive.
- The fact that there are ‘tools’ plural is an added benefit. I may like to share information one way. Frank Ferter may like to share it another way. Whatever is comfortable and works into my way of working. That creates adoption.
- Again, because of the limited nature of TKM, it was difficult to be creative. I can now, if I want, post text, pictures, videos, podcasts, vodcasts, link to other bits of knowledge, easily search it, tag it, share it through social bookmarking, see who the other contributors are, rate it, comment on it, edit it… I mold it into what works for me and the rest of the group.
- TKM was implemented top down - a mandate. SL is from the bottom up. We want it. We are already using it. We are asking that other organizations use it. We are comfortable with it (or are becoming more so).
That is a high level gloss of an extended answer. I haven’t done any research on it (obviously) but I thought this might give a little more clarification. There are a lot of differences.
Do you have any more?
Adopting Wikis in the Workplace - a Must See
Feb 7, 2008 Social Learning SIG, Wiki
There is not much that I would say, “You NEED to check this out.” But, really, you need to. One of the most oft asked questions I receive is, “How do you get adoption? There are so many hurdles - political, technologically, financially, culturally…”
If you haven’t seen Wikipatterns, go check it out. Actually, Wikipatterns has been around for a while. I have used it in getting adoption in my own organization and it has been helpful. But today I found another resource by the same author…
Stewart Mader it putting together “21 Days of Wiki Adoption,” a vodcast. Today is day 3.
Day 1: Don’t force adoption! Let it happen naturally.
Day 2: How and why to use wikis instead of email.
Day 3 has not been published yet
Make sure you are watching these. So far the first two are short, sweet and to the point. Exactly what we needed. If the rest are like the first two, this should certainly help us to get the adoption of Social Learning environments in our organizations.
