Archive for June, 2008

Objection #15 - The Silent Yet Deadly

Jun 20, 2008 Social Learning SIG

Objection #15 is silent. No real words are said. Yet you can never move forward. It is like neither denying or admitting an accusation. Those who ‘have the power’ won’t commit one way or another. Rather, the issue is avoided.

Answer: These people have not been convinced yet. They need to see real value. To do this, start using it yourself. Get others to use it. It will spread. Before you know it, those who make the decisions will see that it is beneficial. They will see the value. That’s all they wanted in the first place.

That concludes the 15 Objections to using Social Learning. Below is a list of them all:

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Objection #14 - Prove it

Jun 19, 2008 Social Learning SIG

One of the greatest stall tactics is the “Prove it before we touch it” technique.  Objection #14 is exactly that, “Before I will even look at that, I want to see others who have successfully done this.”  Basically, I don’t believe it will work so you need to prove it to me.

Answer: First of all we need to realize that this is new.  The number of case studies cannot rival the number of case studies on Webinars or e-Learning, for example.  But they are out there.  Some have hard ROI numbers, some are success stories.  These should give you enough to read.

I really need to write up my case studies as well.  Someday when I get to it I will post it here…

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Objection #13: How Do You Measure ROI?

Jun 18, 2008 Social Learning SIG

Flash back to yesterday’s objection, “How will you measure that it is working” should have been labeled, ‘How do you measure if it is being used and adopted.” This is what I had in mind knowing that ROI would be a separate topic today.

Christine Martell pointed this out in her comment from yesterday when she said,

“Not so sure about this being a new way. Seems like your list is looking at the activity rather than the result. Aren’t we looking for behavior change at the level of contribution to the business? Things like are they doing their jobs more effectively?”

She is so right. We do want to want this to change behavior. But now even the behavior question is in question. What behavior? With traditional learning we expect certain behaviors to result and we try to measure that. With social learning we are looking for different behaviors, but the same end results. Let’s look at both of these.

The first is more cultural. It is adopting and changing more than just what they learn, but also how they learn. They are the ones in charge of their learning and teaching each other. Instead of being forced to go to training (something we can have control over the format and measurement), they are being allowed and encouraged to learn on their own. For many, this is a new concept. Not necessarily a new practice, but in a way it is a new permission that we let them learn from each other. This involves trust. It involves the expectation that they are accountable to their own learning. Here are some more ideas to measure.

The second is more of the traditional ROI. How do you know that it is producing bottom line results? So many people say, “You can’t measure this. There is no traditional ROI model that will work for this.” I agree but disagree. There should be an adaptation, but we can still see bottom-line results. And, honestly, the numbers are not always the best ROI. Because the ROI is then used to make decisions. The results that come out of these environments may not have a hard and fast ROI at first, or may be very difficult to calculate.  The subjective results, however, can be very powerful for those who make the decisions.  From them they may be more than on board - they back it 100%.  All this, but they may never have looked at a formal ROI on it.

This isn’t always the case. But my point is that we can’t overlook the stories, the experiences that are so powerful - and then sharing them - in our quest for an ROI.

Rachel Happe suggested some measurements of ROI. A lot of them are for environments that face the customer, but some are for internal. Among those were:

# Number of new product ideas
# Idea to development initiation cycle time
# Retention/Employee turn over
# Time to hire
# Prospect identification cost
# Prospect to hire conversion rate
# Hiring cost
# Training cost
# Time to acclimation for new employees

Remember, we are looking at the final outcome, not necessarily “did they learn”. Because, honestly, we don’t care if they learn if they don’t use it for the benefit of the company. So the benefit is what we measure.  Other’s measurements might be:

# How large one’s network is
# Number of meetings taking place (or, more intuitively, are NOT taking place)
# Number of travel arrangements made (or, again, NOT made).

This is certainly not an exhaustive list. What others are you thinking of?

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Objection #12: How Will You Measure That It Is Working?

Jun 17, 2008 Social Learning SIG

When anyone throws up Objection #12 you know that they don’t quite ‘get it’ yet.  And that is OK.  Your job is to help them get it.  Some times we hear “Right now we know when people have learned.  We have them take tests.  They fill out evaluations.  We can see in the LMS that they have taken a course.  How will we measure this learning?”

Answer: It is true that you will not be able to see who has taken which courses or that they have passed a test or that they really liked a class (Level 1 evals - which is what most organizations do anyway).  We cannot measure something new using the old methods.  We can, however, measure using other methods not native to training or learning.  The methods used are web analytics.

  • When millions of people search on Google, what are they trying to do?  They are trying to learn.  You can measure the number of times employees perform a search.  They want to learn something from every search.
  • Then, look at what they are searching for.  That will give you a great insight.
  • What information are they sharing?
  • What are they commenting on?
  • How many wiki pages were created?
  • What were they created for?
  • How many blog postings were created?
  • When was the last time someone logged in? (if logging in is part of the process)
  • How many forum questions were asked?
  • How many answers were given?
  • What are the most viewed pages?
  • Define ‘active’ and measure how many people are active.
  • How many people have become active in the last _______?
  • You can analyze not only where people are going, but how they get there, how long they stay and what they do when they are there.

This may seem odd for some.  But we also need to remember that much of what they learn we cannot account for.  It happens, but we have no way to measure it.  Although this does not verify the transfer of knowledge or skills, it is a pretty good indication.  It is a new way of measuring learning.

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Objection #11 - Too Much Info

Jun 16, 2008 Social Learning SIG

Objection #11 is more of a idea we all need to realize rather than a difficult objection to overcome. I think people intuitively can get over this one, but emotion gets in the way. “There will just be too much information. It will overwhelm them and they will never find what they are looking for.”

Answer: It is true that information is increasing at an increasing rate. But does that mean that we let go trying to manage it and just let it happen? No, we have to help it. One of the organizational things I have watched is the switch from taxonomy to folksonomy. From a file/folder structure to a combined file/folder and tagging structure.  In the corporate environment it is a difficult switch because it is a cultural switch.

Watch this video. It will explain how we have so much information that it cannot be effectively managed using the old way we manage.

We have to change how we manage information. For this to be effective, we have to do two things. The first is to, obviously, start organizing the massive amounts of our information in a way that will allow us to find it when we need it. The second is to help others use the new method to find the information. It is the switch in our minds that becomes the most difficult.

If we are going to allow everyone to learn from each other, this is a MUST.

Objection #10: Wasting Time

Jun 13, 2008 Social Learning SIG

Objection #10 stems from the “SOCIAL” aspect of social learning.  In fact, in one conference session I gave one attendee said that they would never mention the word ’social’ for fear that those who have an influence on the decision might get the wrong idea.  Understood.  “The employees will spend hours writing a blog and put of actually getting things done.  Their productivity will go down.”

Answer: I believe I have told this story before, but I am going to again.  A friend of mine, Josh Bancroft, (who created the famed Intelpedia for Intel) and I were gabbing one night at a Cub Scout function one evening.  We were talking about success stories in the Web 2.0 space.  One story he told me has stuck with me.

There was a person who needed to accomplish a task.  To do so, that person needed to use a piece of software they had never heard of, let alone knew enough about to functionally use it.  It would take months to learn it and complete the task.

Instead of forging on, they searched the blogs and found someone who mentioned that they did another project using the software.  This second person was contacted and asked to help.  Within a matter of a few weeks the project was done.

Now, tell me, how many blog posts was the efficiency gain worth?  Add up not only the time saved by one individual, but the advantages for a quicker ‘time to market’ for this project.

As I have studied the use of Web 2.0 tools in the workplace, I have found that actually very little of it is what we would normally call ’social’ or having absolutely nothing to do with work.  But, again, do you limit what people say at the watercooler or over the cube walls?  Even that is healthy (assuming it is within reason).

Within my company I am the one who keeps my finger on the ‘cultural pulse’  by leading initiaves, creating plans, and (of course) doing trainings that will help us have a more healthy culture.  Just yesterday I wrote an internal post that covered how the CIA used to sabotage businesses - the shortened version is a quick, must read for everyone.  It is something we can all learn and benefit from.  But the point is we can all learn and then be able to solve business problems better because of it.  It took very little time and is very valuable.  And, overall, it helps the culture become more healthy.

So, wasting time?  No - solving business solutions.

Objection #9: They Aren’t Technical

Jun 12, 2008 Social Learning SIG

Objection #9 I have heard too many times: “No one will use it.  They don’t know how.  This is totally foreign to them.  They aren’t techies.”

Answer: The great thing about Web 2.0 tools it that you don’t have to really ‘get it’ technically.  They are made to be SIMPLE.  That is a key.  It is not the technical piece that holds people back from using it.  It is the cultural.  That is the much more important piece.

I could spend hours talking about how the cultural aspect will get in the way and how to avoid it (in fact, I have as a presenter at a number of conferences and as I have consulted with other companies).  At our company I (we) am (are) creating a public facing Web 2.0 solution that triples as a  Social Learning environment, communication tool and a Customer Support tool.  Within our company the mantra is, “Our customers are not technical.  They don’t know computers.”

That never settled right with me.  Something was wrong every time I heard them say that.  So I decided to do a little digging.  I did some research by interviewing our customers - the ones that would call into our Support.  What I found is that they were correct, they didn’t know computers.  But they did know the internet - overwhelmingly.  They used it often at home and at work.  Most of them had high-speed access at home.  They all searched for information on Google.  Many knew of (and even used) Web 2.0 tools already.

So, objectors are correct.  They may not be technical, but they don’t need to be.  They need to know the internet, not their computer.  And besides that, the technical piece is easy to overcome.  The cultural is not quite the same……

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Objection #8: Out of Date Inforamation

Jun 11, 2008 Social Learning SIG

Objection #8 is very similar to the previous objection of wrong information.  Although the core it the same, it is come at from a different angle.  “What if the information gets out of date.”

Answer: We need to look at the end result.  For this, there needs to be a balance.  For example, if  a  minor situation is  encountered only a couple times a year and the information is wrong, is it worth the  energy expended to proactively  and purposefully  remember to update the information?  It may not be.  But if the information  tips on the other side of the folcrum (wherever you have put it), then yes.  So some information being out of date is better than being updated.

However, there are bits of information (a lot of them in fact) that MUST be updated.  One thing we have done is to tag these bits of information with a ‘x-month review’ tag (where x is the number of months between reviews).  Then, we create a task (for us, in Outlook) to do the review.  At that point all we need to do is hit the ‘x-month review’ tag and all the documents come up.

Some things will have so much visibility that if it goes out of date, it is guaranteed that someone will revise it.  This is the pattern of Wikipedia.  This model, because of the more limited resources and difference in types of data, is not the best comparison for an organizational model, however.  But there are other ways to limit the out-dated-ness of information.

Does anyone have any other methods?

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Objection #7: The Information is Wrong!

Jun 10, 2008 Social Learning SIG, Wiki

Objection #7 is a big concern. “What if people put in information that is wrong? When it went through the training department, we knew it was right. But we can’t trust that when anyone can put in everything.”

Answer: With Social Learning, if it is wrong 1) then everyone will be wrong (it sounds goofy, but there is something to consistency); 2) you know where to fix it (and it is in one place, hidden or in 15 different places); 3) anyone can fix it because the technology is the easy part.

“BUT,” you say, “if anyone can fix it, anyone can mess it up!” That is the great part of this! I can mess up whatever I touch but there are certain controls you can put on it so that when it is changed, anyone can be notified. This is a check and balance.

Again, as in previous objections, the information is already circulating, except you don’t have any visibility into what is said. Now you do.

I had a chat with someone last month who said this: “One additional thing that holds our group back (from adopting this) is that there were some very bad experiences a few years ago… it’s critical in our business to get the information CORRECT - if old info causes data loss it’s a very, very bad thing.”

On critical information you can control it. For example, we lock down HR documents, as I have previously explained. No none can change them except for those in HR. Locking down information should be used judiciously. Also, there are only certain documents and discussions that Management can see. Others don’t even know they are there.

So it is not that you are giving up total control, but that you are expanding the circle of trust.

(image attributed to http://blogs.sun.com/identity)

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Objection #6: Mixing Things Up

Jun 9, 2008 Social Learning SIG

Objection #6 is another one of those silent but deadly objections because, again, not many people come out and verbalize this, but it is prominent.  “This is disruptive!”

Answer: On so many levels you are right.  Within an organization who knows little about this, you (the person who is introducing this) needs to have a tough skin and understand the “WHY”s behind what he/she is doing.  You better have an answer for everything - or at least a path for the person asking the question to find the answer through experiential discovery.

There will be those who become really upset with you.  Others will despise you when they didn’t before (I learned this from personal experience).  Others will be more laissez faire.  Very few others will understand what you are trying to do.  Either way, your immediate popularity will probably go down.  If you are OK with this, continue on.

But the cultural aspect of this is disruptive.  Think about it: With social learning there is a possibility that you will have an effect on not only how the training department runs, but also HR, internal communications, processes, projects, meetings, external communications and marketing - all in form and function.  This is threatening to many people because it takes them out of what they see right now as “working just fine.”

But after they all understand, you will be a genius.

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Objection #5: How Do You Know it’s Accurate?

Jun 6, 2008 Social Learning SIG, Wiki

Objection #5 is one of the most heard objections. Very famous. “If you let everyone post how do you know it is accurate? What if it is not and the receiver acts on it and something bad happens? It is certainly not as accurate as the training department getting information from the SMEs and delivering it to the employees.”

Answer: Uhhhh, says who? First of all, if you let everyone post anything how do you know it is accurate? You don’t. Plain and simple - you don’t know that. So how can you trust it? How can you trust an email you sent to someone is returned with the correct information? How do you know if, when you ask a question of someone over the cube wall, that they are not wrong? You don’t. You have to trust it. Same here.

I guess that is taking the pessimistic view of it, but really, let’s think about it.

Story Time

I recently heard a story about a company who was looking at putting in these type of tools. There was one person who was, for the most part against it and had this concern. She didn’t think that the information on there would be accurate if they let everyone post instead of the SMEs (the experts). Leaving the meeting she walked by some cubes where she overheard one person describing an HR policy to the other person that was completely incorrect. And the second person took it as gospel.

She suddenly realized, 1) How many times does this happen and I don’t know about it? 2) If they asked this question using the tools we were talking about, more people would be able to respond and the right answer would surface; 3) The SMEs would have seen this and could have made sure that the information was correct. Instead of information going from SME -> Trainer -> employee, it goes right from SME -> Employee. No middle man.

That is for Black and White. What if the matter is more of opinion? Many people can chime in and give their opinions and decisions could be made more accurately because of the quality of information they received.

Alright. I know Wikipedia is not the greatest comparison to using a wiki in an organization, but here is one of many studies done on the validity of wikipedia. And the principle still applies in organizations as well.

What have you seen?

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Objection #4: Posting Anything, Including Bonobos

Jun 5, 2008 Social Learning SIG

Objection #4 comes from those who are nervous about what content is posted. “We can just let ANYONE post ANYTHING!”

Answer: Why not? What are you afraid of? This isn’t said in a condescending way, but really - What are you afraid of? That someone will post something in appropriate? Too late. Already happens (happened). The only difference is that you didn’t have any visibility into it.

Story time

When we launched our internal environment there were a few people who started a forum discussion. A couple days into it one person posted something that was inappropriate. You could hear the crickets for the next few hours. As soon as others saw it, I was pulled in seperately by our head of HR and by the president of the company with the same question, “What are we going to do?” My response was, “Nothing. Sit tight and let it play out.” Thankfully they did hold it. And you know what? All was well.

Those involved in the discussion took care of it themselves. Management wasn’t sent an email with yet another employee skirmish we needed to be in the middle of. We didn’t do a thing. They took care of it. Not only did we not do anything but we had the added benefit of watching it happening and having visibility into something that would have taken place in the confined area of email.

Bonobos

We have had conversations about bonobos, about tomatoes being a fruit or a vegetable, about the first day of Spring. But everyone was trying it out. Now discussions are around how internal processes work, how to use different tools, when creating a goal what does S.M.A.R.T. really mean, and how to receive personal faxes through the phone system. We are learning. From each other.

Let the conversations happen. Even if they seem frivolous at first. Let them get to know something foreign using familiar subjects. When they are comfortable with the tools they will really start to use them correctly. And let them police themselves. Not that you shouldn’t keep an eye on what is going on, but don’t be too quick to call someone out. Better from peers than management.

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Objection #3: Control of Information

Jun 4, 2008 Implementation, Learning 2.0

Objection #3 is one that I don’t hear very often directly. It is usually indirectly, because no one wants to admit it. But they do say it through the questions they ask. “If we let everyone learn from each other, we give up control of that information.”

Answer: Yea & Nay. Let’s start with the Nay.

NAY: There are many ways to keep control of the information. You can watch it via RSS or email alerts. All the information is open to you and isn’t hidden. So if anything goes WAY out of line (which RARELY happens) you now see it and can correct it.

Plus there are almost always additional security measures. For example, in our area for HR information, only the HR director can post wikis or change them. There is another area where we let the employees post their HR information (for example a health and wellness and financial information) which is open. But if we opened up the official employee handbook (and yes, the official document is a wiki and not a MS Word Doc or PDF), any one could add vacation days (not that that would be all bad ;-) ).

You can usually set up a moderating function on forums, wikis, comments, etc.

But the security measures must be use judiciously (see ‘The Fence’ below).

YEA: That is right. For the most part, anyone can post anything. Be it right or wrong (which is tomorrow’s objection/post). And, as counterintuitive as this may seem at first, it is not all bad.

Number one, the training department didn’t need to ‘write’ it. Instead the employees taught each other. How great is that? Ya, it is not as pretty as a powerpoint presentation you may have given, nor quite as polished, but it was good information everyone needs to know and now anyone can find it!

Giving up control in this respect is a good thing. It is what you want to do. Feel the release. Breathe in - Breathe out…

The Fence: By implementing a social learning solution you sit on the control fence. Control to much and it won’t be used. But not controlling it at all is unwise. There needs to be a balance - enough structure and processes to give guidance yet enough freedom to allow the users to do what they want.

What do you think?

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Objection #2: What Does This Have To Do With Training?

Jun 3, 2008 Social Learning SIG

Objection #2 comes from many in the training field. In fact I have heard this MANY times. “This doesn’t have anything to do with training.”

Answer: For the most part, you are right - it doesn’t have anything to do with training on the outset. But it does have to do with learning. Training is only a subset of learning and there are many ways to help others learn.

Too often we, in the training field, get stuck on how to ‘train’ rather than on how to help our ‘customers’ learn which in turn drives results, which is the real goal. Our focus should be on LEARNING, not training.


Why? Training can only do so much.

You may have seen the long tail before. It was first used in 2004 to describe the business strategy of Amazon and Netflix. Basically, their model allowed them to not only hold the most asked for items (which in a regular distribution model would be the only items economically feasible) but it also allowed them to hold (much) less asked for items. In fact, those seldom requested items held a large portion of their sales and of the demand from customers.

The same is with social learning. (You will have to forgive my color blindness…) The left most color (yellow-ish?) and the middle color (orange-ish?) are what formal training can deliver. It concentrates on only those things that are economically feasible given the limited resources (sexual harassment, company products, communication skills, etc.).  A lot of people need more information / knowledge / skills (Y axis) to do their jobs, and yet training cannot touch a large part of the knowledge that is needed by only some of the employees (how to fill out the exception report, where to find information on little known refunds, how to deal with random situations). Social learning (green) does not replace training.  It may overlap a little (orange-ish, again) and compliment a lot, but it takes care of the knowledge that training will never get to.

So, in the end, social learning compliments training and covers knowledge formal training was never able to  reach. It is in addition to, without having huge amounts of formal resources needed to deliver.

And, again, our goal in the end is learning.

How would you answer this objection?

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Objection #1: Socialize!

Jun 2, 2008 Learning 2.0

Objection #1: The president of your company objects to using social media tools to facilitate the learning between employees: “All they will do is socialize!”

Answer: If that is what they do, then the wrong people have been hired. If they want to socialize they will do it anyway! In fact, they are doing it now. How? Emails (personal and business). They are the ones who take extra long breaks - the ones who catch someone in the hall and gab an inappropriate amount of time. They use instant messaging (in and out of the firewall). They email jokes.

If you have some that socialize too much then, they are doing it now. Those who work hard will use the tools correctly. Now I must say that some socializing isn’t all bad. In fact it is healthy. But it is agreed that it must be on an appropriate levevl. And most people are good about that.

So that is one answer, but that actually isn’t the answer I would give at first. The primary answer to this one has to do with personal vs. organizational usage. For example, Wikipedia is a great example of how a wiki works in real life, but not the best example of how it is used in the workplace. It IS different. Just as MySpace and Facebook are social tools in personal lives, they are not the best examples of how people interact within an organization assuming they have similar tools (granted, there are some companies that use Facebook internally, but those companies are rare and those companies are not throwing up this objection).

Most organizational tools aren’t as social as the previous examples. For example, you can’t poke another person. There normally is not a status update. There isn’t usually a spot to post your own pictures or videos on your profile page - or completely customize your profile page. Those type of things are either severely limited or non-existent in corporate tools. (Caveat: I must say here that these things are not bad or wrong, but when used correctly they can have a positive impact. But the audience I am addressing, at this point, isn’t ready to hear that.)

What do you think? What would you say?

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