Feb 1-3 I will be presenting at the Training 2010 conference with Dave Wilkins (@dwilkinsnh). In preparation, we came up with a bunch of things that one would need to know when creating a social learning strategy.  Each one could take a deep dive, but we wanted to make the list available.

We hope this will help to spark some imagination and help you see, as you plan and implement, some areas you may have missed. (Here is the list in document form.  This work is under the Creative Commons Share Alike license.)

Please feel free to add to the list in the comments below.

Checklist of Social Learning Strategies

Cultural Issues Related to Social Learning
What do you want it to be?  What is it today?

• Openness vs. planning?  Where is your balance point?
• Autonomy and self-direction vs. top-down mandates?  Where is your balance point?
• What do executives, key stakeholders and “rank-and-file” think about social media and sharing?
• What are your organizational attitudes about transparency?
• To what extent do learners take personal responsibility and accountability for their learning?

Social Learning Approaches and Methods
What “kind” of  Social Learning models are you pursuing?  How do they integrate?

• Codified?
• Collaborative?
• Emergent?
• What kinds of social learning interventions do you need?
• Do you need focused Communities of Practice or decentralized social learning that is part of all learning experiences?  Or both?
• Will you pursue a federated model and use best-of-breed from multiple provides with a single or multiple aggregation points?
• Will you use a unified suite that offers core social media applications, such as SharePoint or Jive?
• How will your social media elements interact with your Learning Management System?
• If “social learning” happens outside the LMS, what will happen where?
• If “social learning” happens outside the LMS, how will you see a unified view of learner activity?
• Where will you keep the “profile” of record to avoid having multiple learner profiles across multiple systems?
• If you use a federated approach or multiple systems in any way, how will ensure that learners can discover people through content, content through people, content through content, and people through people across your systems?
• If you use a federated approach or multiple systems, how will you search?
• If you use a federated approach or multiple systems, how will develop recommendation, reward, and recognition strategies?
• If you use a suite approach, how will you address gaps – missing wiki, missing microblog etc…?

Social Learning Planning
Who owns what?  How will get from point A to point B?  How will you mitigate risk?

• What kinds of social media are already being used in the organization?
• For what purpose?
• Who owns them?
• What kinds of learning communities do you want to help along through hands-on nurturing?
• What kinds of learning communities do you want to more proactively manage and plan?
• What are the problems you are trying to solve?
• Who is your target member for your community?
• What are the problems your community members are trying to solve?
• If the problems are solved, what does success look like?
• If the problems are solved, what is the impact of success?
• What is your Social Learning Policy?
• What is your plan when these policies are breached?
• What is in your Miss Manners Guide to Social Learning?
• Who is on your Social Learning Governance Board – IT, Legal, CLO etc…?
• How will social learning activities factor into key performance indicators and performance reviews?
• What does IT own?  Some suggestions:  security issues, archiving, technical issues, deployment, options, aggregation, report consolidation, integration fulfillment, report fulfillment.
• What does Learning own?  Some suggestions:  strategy, cultural readiness, “tools” training, moderation, member management, community management, programming, integration requirements, reporting fulfillment with built-in reporting tools.
• What does Legal and Compliance own?  Some suggestions:  archival strategy, social media storage requirements, approval strategies for sensitive content (which might be all content), member management and “flagging” policies, reporting requirements for all of the above.
• Who will support your organization’s use of social media?  Technical support?  IT?  Learning?
• What is your start point in terms of participants and technologies?
• What is the long-term rollout plan?  What social media tools will be turned on when?  When you do turn on new functionality, what is the trigger – time, membership, activity?
• Will you organize content topically, hierarchically by division, unit etc…, or by functional area?
• What is your launch strategy to drive participation? (more below)
• What is your moderation strategy?
• What is your reporting strategy?
• Who will own your programming schedule?
• How will you identify champions and key influencers prior to roll-out and on an on-going basis?
• Who will be responsible for defining content categories and the overall ontology of your social learning content?
• What is end of life or end game for your learning community?  Does the community evolve into something else?  Is it archived?  Is there a planned obsolescence because it’s a one-off in response to external factors what will change?

Social Learning Launch Activities
How will you quickly achieve critical mass?  How will you sustain and grow the initiative over time?

• What other corporate initiative(s) is the launch point tied to?
• How will you drive traffic and participation in the “early days”?  Some suggestions:  competitions, rewards, “forcing” through changed process, well-planned programming schedules, middle management expectations, senior level management modeling, social media events – wiki barn raising, live chats, team video jams etc…
• Who will be responsible for enforcing your policy and procedure changes?  For example, if learners are not supposed to answer questions of each other via email, but through the wiki or an FAQ discussion board, who will be responsible for enforcing the change?
• Who will be responsible for “seeding” content before go-live?
• Who will communicate the launch?
• How will you ensure that learners have the necessary skills and tools to participate in the conversation and sharing?  Things to consider:  training on the social media tools, training on social media concepts, lots of early recognition and praise.

Social Learning Technical, Legal, Compliance Issues
How will this effort fit into existing corporate governance strategies?

• What is your security plan to prevent unauthorized viewing of sensitive data?
• What is your data recovery plan in the event of corruption, server failure etc…?
• What is your plan to communicate the security so that users can help safeguard sensitive content while feeling secure enough to freely share within the defined parameters of the site?
• What is your records retention policy?
• What is your content permissions policy?
• Do you need a “contact” permission policy to prevent your SME’s or other experts from being overwhelmed?
• Do you have a “Do not discuss via Social Media” list?  What is it and how will it be communicated?
• What kinds of topics require “pre-approval” before posting live to the site?
• What kinds of topics must include “report violation” options after they go live?
• Do you have a list of keywords that should be redacted or replaced?
• Do you have a keyword list that should trigger notification to SMEs, Legal or Compliance personnel?
• What is your reaction plan to a breach of policy?  Who owns it?  Who enforces it?

Social Learning Communities in the Extended Enterprise
Planning for community members who are “outside” the company walls…

• If you have external audiences, suppliers, partners, clients, etc… in addition to internal audiences, what is your plan for all of the above for your external audiences?
• What is your strategy for leveraging public social media channels?
• Is the Learning group the lead or is Marketing, Customer Support, Product Management, etc…?
• How will your social learning strategies compliment your marketing, customer support, product, etc… strategies?
• How will you leverage content between various constituents?
• Do you need to have “blended” areas where clients, employees, suppliers etc… co-mingle in a shared space with access to shared content?
• What role do your external members play in community management, programming or moderation?

Social Learning Community Management
How will you manage and grow your community over time?

• Who will be in charge of community management?
• What is your moderation strategy?
• Who is responsible for moderation?
• How many months in advance will you publish your programming schedule?
• How will you reward and recognize key contributors in ways that increase internal motivation?
• What sort of member management policies do you need?
• Who enforces member management?
• What role will senior leaders play in contributing to the learning community?
• How will you market your successes and the growing value of the content?
• How will you promote new content, new members, new groups, and new topics?

Social Learning Professional Development, Skills, Competencies
What kinds of skills and competencies do you need to develop as a learning professional?

• Become a Social Media tools maven – wiki, video, podcast, blogging, microblogging, etc…
• Understand key concepts of Social and Cultural Anthropology
• Understand key concepts related to Team Building and Team Dynamics
• Understand key concepts in Social Psychology
• Understand key issues of self-efficacy as it relates to social media: trust, belonging, self-confidence, self-direction, motivation, skills
• Knowledge of moderation strategies and key moderation concepts like seeding, facilitating, autonomy, respect, and flow
• Knowledge of key community management strategies including programming, reward and recognition models, advertising and awareness campaigns, member management
• Ongoing professional development by networking outside the company through social learning

THIS POST asks, “Do you need to be a subject matter expert to run subject-based community?”  If I were to change it slightly, “Do you need to be a trainer or SME to be a Learning Facilitator in the social learning world?”  Then I got thinking, what are the skills of this Learning Facilitator?  How are they different than an instructional designer or a trainer?

Here are some initial thoughts.  A learning facilitator will:

• Connect people together
• Encourage discussion and conversation, while at the same time monitor to make sure that the conversations are appropriate
• Listen to what the community of learners is saying in discussions
• Listen to their suggestions and then adjust accordingly
• Monitor discussions and flag the bad apples to keep it appropriate
• Measure and report out on activity
• Be an internal champion
• Be an advocate for the learner as well as a consult to management
• Have a strong understanding of the language and be able to express him/herself very will in written form – an experienced communicator
• Understand and have a good grasp on the technology used
• Be forward thinking and strategic to recognize other ways to increase the conversation and learning – technically and the good old fashioned way
• Be a fresh perspective from their unique position of ‘listening’ to many different conversations
• Be trusted and continue to build that trust
• Help shape and create ground rules by using the learners
• Be able to create goals and have a clear understanding of what they are and why
• Be a Simplicity Maker – too often things like this can get too technical too fast.  This person will have to keep their mind on the end user and keep things simple
• Engage and personalize
• Have a personality and use it
• Help everyone learn how to use the new technology, why they might (and in some cases should) use it
• Not give up
• Face opposition, take a smack in the face, and keep trucking (later they will come back and kiss you)
• Understand motivation and how people work and why they make decisions
• Know the world of the company or customer, how they work and how to best suite the environment and opportunities to allow for maximum ease of use and adoption

Just some stuff off the top of my head, from experience and gleaning information from other sources (here, here, here).  These part ways with the traditional training role, yet many are very similar.

Can you add to this list?  Which are more important than others, do you think?

UPDATE: This does not need to be just one person.  After thinking about it I think I made this out to be more of one job – which it could be.  This could certainly be many people, however, focused part time on this for a specific learning context.

Yesterday I wrote about being a Learning Facilitator – not getting in the way, but connection people to other people to learn – On or offline.  Then I stumbled upon TEACHSTREET.com.  They help anyone find courses on anything.  Photography in Portland, OR?  Done.  There were a number of courses for all levels.

This is about connecting those who want knowledge with those who have it.

Gather, control, teach and require has turned into aggregate, open, facilitate and house.

What can this teach us about what we might do in our organizations?

It has been WAY too long since I have written here.  There are three main excuses:

1. A week on the Oregon coast – It doesn’t get much better than that!
2. A week camping with the Boy Scouts: Canoeing, white water rafting, hiking into and from a lake (3400′ increase in elevation in 10.5 miles one way – ohhhh my blistered feet!), mountain biking and rock climbing.  Phew!
3. Launching our company’s external social network.

It is this last one that has kept me in the office way later than I would have liked for far too many nights, but it was worth it!

After a year and a half after conception, we have launched a social network to our customers.  Last December we launched one internally and it has been a huge success.  Going externally was the next step.  It has been an uphill battle but one that has been a lot of fun – and the fun is not even close to being over.

Not all social networks can fall under the Social Learning banner, but some can.  In fact, most company’s social networks are failing.  For the large majority, it is because their focus and goals are in the wrong place.  Most of the failing ones are not focused on learning and sharing.  They are focused around a product or a brand.  These types are very difficult to maintain in a social networking world.  Not impossible, but more difficult.  As that blog post puts it:

Looking at all this, the answer seems pretty obvious: many of the companies in the study did not provide a compelling incentive for customers to get involved with their communities. Many of these communities are set up with the idea that people want to come hang out in a community just to chat about a brand.

For me, when I am involved I am learning.  It doesn’t matter what I am doing – even if I am teaching.  We all want to learn.  Get others engaged and personalize it for them and you will have a group who is learning and sharing – a Social Learning Network.

At the beginning stages of this project I held a kickoff meeting to explain what we were going to do.  It turned into the most venemous, toxic meeting I have ever been in.  The backlash was astonishing.  I thought this might happen, so before hand I met with each member, gave them an overview and elicited their support – of which I received from each of them.  It didn’t help.

A day after the meeting, the director of IT (who was in the meeting and went over the top), brought to me a fotune cookie.  It reads: “In great attempts it is glorious to fail.”  Basically he was saying that it was a worthy goal, but ‘good try.’  This had the opposite effect on me as I believe he would have liked at the time.  Instead, it made me work harder for this. I became more focused.

Fast forward to the day before the launch of our external site.  I pulled in essentially the same people – those who were the heavy players in creating it.  I wasn’t expecting the same because we had all come so far, but I was expecting some push back: “That page doesn’t work for me,” or “This process won’t work,” or “I don’t like the layout, ” or “We don’t have enough content,” or something.  Instead, there was talk about how we could help other companies do the same thing we had created.  I fully expected (and almost wanted) some discord.  But it wasn’t there.  Everyone understood the value and was 100% behind it!  What a contrast from a year and a half ago!

I have been asked many times, “Are you excited that you are launching?”  Yes and no.  ‘YES’ because we have come this far and this is a great milestone.  ‘NO’ because it is only a milestone.  The goal is much further down the road.  And we have a lot more to do to make this successful.

Because the company wanted to keep costs down, we did everything in-house.  They didn’t give me any official resources, but I was able to pull some cycles from a number of different departments.  What they couldn’t provide I had to do myself.  I created the layout, structure, stole the colors (since I am color blind – thankfully colors can be translated to numbers!), used other’s icons (legally), set up backend processes, changed an internal culture (most importantly), educated the employees on social networks, and adjusted as necessary.  Having done all that, I wish I was a better web designer.  There are a number of things I would like to do differently with that, but I am not sure I can put my finger on it.  Oh well…

We still have to implement a number of features that will engage the customer even more.  For example, we have strucutred it so that we will have at least 1500 self-registered members by the beginning of September, guaranteed.  But for a start I am very happy with the result.  This has been the most rewarding ‘work’ project I have lead.  I put ‘work’ in quotes because although it is for pay, it has felt like play – it has been a lot of fun as well.

And still, I have the fortune cookie as a reminder…

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?

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?

The simple genius of the Common Craft team has done it again. And if we put a learning twist to it, it comes out just as beautifully. Watch this new “In Plain English” video on the topic of Social Media.

When you watch it:

• Replace “Ice Cream” with knowledge/skills/information;
• Replace “Big Ice Cream Company” with your training and/or communication department
• Replace “Flavors” with training programs
• Replace “Ice Cream Maker” and “Board” with new tools

And pay attention to the value statements. Also, notice that the “Big Ice Cream Company” was still around and demand even grew. It is the same with learning. Social Learning does not replace but adds to it.

I love how they talk all about Social Media and barely mention it and the tools. Great presentation example showing that you can explain something without really even talking about it.

What objections have you heard when trying to implement Social Learning?  What have executives freaked out about?  What are your Director and Managers worried about?  What are other trainers’ reservations?  Why is it that you are timid in asking to do it?

As I have spoken at sessions I have found that many people are scared to talk with others in the organization.  They are not sure how to explain it, a lot of times.  But the other part is that they know they will hit objections they cannot answer.

Comment below and add the objections you have heard.  Then in June I will go through them one by one, one day at a time and give my answer – then you can comment back with your answer and we can all learn from each other!

So use the comments below and add in the objections you have heard.

In the tradition of “Meet Charlie” I have created “Meet the Trainers.”

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I am at the Oregon Training Summit in Salem, Oregon today. Not sure what to expect. So far, I am impressed with the number of people who have turned out. It will be really interesting to see if this is full of those employed by the state or if there is a good mix of public and private sector interests.

The keynote speaker is Jason Ryan Dorsey, the self proclaimed “Gen Y Guy.”

OK – is it academia or just the state that people think they can get on stage and talk in a monitone voice and expect that anyone is listening? I know – BIG generalization, but my goodness! By the way, on this subject, I saw the most hillariously true video yesterday about PowerPoint CHICKENS. You really need to stop and watch it.

And now, JASON…

Lots of energy, that is for sure!

What is the best advice you would have for a GEN Yer of 24 years old on her first day of work (assuming she shows up to work on time)?

• Be careful who you tread upon on the latter of success, they are the same people you will meet on the way back down.
• If you get bored it is your fault.
• Sit down and shut up.
• Embrace Ambiguity.
• Try new things when the opportunity arises.
• Keep your big mouth shut.
• Do what you are told.
• Learn who’s who.

(NOTE: You have got to be kidding! OK – I think that answered my earlier question: I am surrounded by state employees.)

Best advice he has heard: PULL UP YOUR PANTS!

A generation is geographically based. The most important generational factor is parental traditions – raising their kids the same. He points out that this is the first time (in the US) that four generations have worked side-by-side which is causing a rift. Also, the “Matures” created the work structure, the Boomers perfected it, Gen X reluctantly inherited it and Gen Y feels no obligation to it. Show them an org chart and they think it is a video game.

Because he didn’t know he couldn’t do it, he wrote a book in three weeks and got it published – then he turned 19. Not bad!

Who is GEN Y? 80 million of them born from 1977 to 1995. In 2010, the entire group will be 18 to 34 years old. They had Baby Boomer parent. The first defining moment for them was when the Challenger exploded. The last defining moment is 9/11. They have to remember both of these moments.

They DO NOT expect lifetime employement. Never. They don’t care about getting a watch, or a plaque. They can’t read a watch face and they can’t put the plaque on MySpace. The average time at a job? 13 months. For the US as a whole? 3 years. The wealth of the 25 to 35 demographic has decreased. They spend more than they make. They will very likely live to 90 on an average. So they will be working for 60 years – so why rush it?

They feel entitled because they have been saved by their parents. Baby Boomers have the mentality that they want their children to have it easier than they did themselves. So they save their children and create dependence. Over 50% of college grads GO BACK HOME. Until you cut them off they will keep coming back. But it is NOT seen as bad to go live with their parents.

Adult-olecence – all the freedoms of being an adult without the responsibilities.

NEXT: Advice from parents: “Do what makes you happy.” They also hunger for instant gratification.  They don’t want to wait in line.  They are outcome oriented.  They see the title and think, “I want to be there.”  They don’t care that there are steps to get there  – they think they are on a slide instead of the steps.  They want to get to the end.  They think efficiency.  Just get to the point.

They are not Tech Savvy.  They are tech dependent.   Gen X is tech savvy.  Gen Y also lacks social skills (really!)  They value lifestyle and relationships over career.  Baby Boomers defined themselves from what they do between 8 – 5.  GenY?  After work.  Check out Couch Surfing.  All that even before their family sometimes.

For Training, the beginning of the training will decide the rest of the training.  GenX + GenY>50% of the workforce.

People say that they can multitask.  No they can’t.  They are just great at tuning information out they don’t care about.  They want information in short bursts.  They hate PowerPoint.  Keep them simple.  They want continuous feedback because they are insecure.  Let them know that they exist and where they are.  If you are not in their business something is wrong and they start looking for another job.  They don’t want a manager, they want a coach.

Break training into challenges.  They want to prove that they have some value.  When they succeed, give them TIME, not a shop gift cards.   Give them tangible rewards.   Explain how the training we are giving will help them reach their PERSONAL goals.

Make their first day unforgettable.  When they show up have a box for them.  In it is their business card.  Then they give the card to their mom and they are excited!  Ask people to wear name tags to help them feel more comfortable.

The reality of what Jason has covered is very true (although I may not agree with EVERYTHING he said).  Scary as well.

I am posting this without reviewing it. I hope there are not too many mistakes!  (Very Gen X like…)