SOCIAL is not technology.

SOCIAL is not a blog.

SOCIAL is not a profile.

SOCIAL is driven by TRUST.

TRUST is an attitude, a belief, a way of being, acting.

TRUST is the currency of all things social in any form: in person, in a community, online.

Instead of helping others be SOCIAL, teach them to TRUST – the SOCIAL will naturally happen.

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

photo credit: Sarah G…

I have been VERY quiet lately.  Call me superstitious, but I didn’t want to spill beans until it was official (I have been burned before).  Yet, alas, here it is… I will be moving to Alabama and will be heading the internal social media efforts for NASA.  Ya.

I have been consulting and have been having a great time.  Having a family with a few children, stability was nice, so I casually looked for full time work, but hoping that the consulting could continue on.

A couple months ago I saw a tweet come through from @SocialMediaJob for NASA.  I applied and got a phone interview.  Then, two weeks ago, in talking with them, they mentioned that they were having Gartner come out and go through a workshop.  I flew out last week and joined them, had a two day working interview, finalized the job this week and I start next week! (Yet, at the same time, I will still continue on with the clients that I have and even look for more to build up Engaged Learning.)

They have been VERY flexible and great to work with, seeing that I live across the country.  So, for the next two months I will live in Alabama for two weeks, and fly back on those weekends until we have moved the family out there.

The Marshall Space Flight Center part of NASA lives in Huntsville, Alabama and has about 10,000 employees.  They are in the PERFECT spot for internal social media.  I will be working for the office of the CIO.  This is where the interest is coming from – from the top.  The CIO is leading this, but they don’t know where to go or how to tackle it.  That is what I will be leading.  You see, right now when people come to them because they want a wiki or other technologies, they give them it, but there isn’t a game plan.

This is the sweet spot for any company.  They are getting the requests.  They fulfill them, but realize that if they continue they it will become an unwieldy mess.  Then they are stuck because they don’t know what to do.  And this is where this part of NASA is at.  So, my job will be to create a vision and strategy for moving forward, define and implement the overall and individual strategies and grow social media within NASA.

I have helped other companies do this, but they are at different levels of wanting internal social media.  Others have a reluctant executive management.  Some don’t have a nuturing culture.  NASA has the perfect blend of both and could not be in a better situation.

So, ALABAMA, here we come!

Yet, at the same time, we are VERY sad to leave.  Lots of family, good friends, a wonderful local professional group, perfect climate and an incredible outdoors recreational life will all be left behind for….?  We are not sure.  It is a very emotional time for my family.  But know this is right for us, as unknown as it may be.

We hear great things about Alabama, but just don’t know what to expect.  The cost of living is 20% less.  Ya, I can handle that.  The first thing others say is “humidity.”  True, but if others can handle it, so can we.

Overall, we are excited for this new chapter.  As we go along, I will blog about the progress we make at NASA, how we make progress, roadblocks, challenges and triumphs.  Stay tuned and enjoy the ride with me!

Mashable’s post about Twitter yesterday says this…

Although this may sound strange at first, Twitter really is more like Wikipedia than, say, Facebook (). Twitter is not so much about connecting with your friends, it’s about broadcasting information.

What? It is about broadcasting information?  Dave Wilkins must have been referencing this post yesterday when we were recording our latest podcast.  To me, the “What are you doing?” is lame.  Sure, every now and then tweet what you are doing.  Fine.  But if that is all you do, buh-bye.  Give me something useful.

Broadcasting information?  That is not how I use it.  Most of my usage is around conversations.  My tweets….

(Thinking in real time) … Wait a minute.  I guess I do – broadcast links, broadcast useful bits of information and appreciate it when others do the same.  But I connect at the same time.  I have conversations with others and collaborate, not just broadcast info.

Twitter, then, takes characteristics from both.  It is to broadcast info, but then at the same time it is used to connect, have conversations and collaborate (like @slqotd is used).  So, no, it won’t follow the curve of regular social networks.  But if we assume that Twitter is only a broadcast medium (only because it does do that) then we are selling the benefits short.

Thanks for joining me in my journey of thought.

Dave Wilkins did a masterful job in explaining “Why Twitter?” in his post The Truth About Twitter.

I created the Spandex Continuum to explain the stages social media is going through today.

But for a more in depth look at why, this video is a pure MUST watch.  You may not get it until the last two minutes, so watch it to the end.  Basically, personal preference is NOT determined what people like or dislike.  Did you catch that?  OK, maybe not never, but keep going with me here.  Instead, people will make a choice based upon what they can explain, even though they may like something completely different.  An odd paradox.  If they aren’t forced to explain it, they often go with what they like.  But if they have to explain it their answer changes.

My mind is still going through the lessons I have learned and trying to explain them right now.  After the video tell me: What lessons did you learn about social media and how others view and use it?

I don’t know who to credit this to, but I love it. It has been posted so many times that the originator is lost. But, THANK YOU! to whomever it was.  (UPDATE: It is from Nasa.  Thanks, Harold!)

What I love about this is that it is simple & direct. This got me thinking… Why don’t we have more of these? So I decided to create some more. And here they are…

Blog Advantages: Two-way Constant Receive feedback Searchable Archived Interactive Conversational Smaller, faster updates 1: many:many Learning increases

RSS Advantages: Pushed to you Only what has been updated Information > time spent Constant Searchable Archived Personalized content Automatic Learning increases

Social Networking Advantages: Infinitely more resources Easily contact 1000′s of loose connections yet… Very small maintenance time Searchable Learning increases

Seth Godin’s “Can you bully someone into a sale?” post reminded me of being bullied into a favorable evaluation yesterday. I stopped by a local AT&T store to return an iPhone accessory – didn’t need it after all.  Sitting on the counter they have these 1/2 page flyers that said something like, “We Strive for 5!”  They want to be rated a 5 out of 5 in customer service.

Just as I was finished and about to walk away the clerk said to me, “We have random customer service evaluations.  Have you heard about them?

“No.”

“Well, out of five, how was my customer service?  Would you give me a 5?” (add a nervous grin)

“Sure.”

“Great, because my job depends on it.”

“Really? It depends on this evaluation?”

“Ya, it really does.”

Make me laugh!  When asked directly, what was I supposed to say?  “No, your customer service stinks.  I will give you a 2.”  Luckily, she had good customer service so I didn’t mind giving her a five.  But seriously?  There wasn’t any criteria and participation was forced upon me.  This reminds me of when I would ask my mom if a friend could play and the friend is standing right nex to me.  My mom used to HATE that (understandably)!  But I usually got what I want if I did.  And so does AT&T.

On the flip side, there are other evaluation tools that are very removed from this method.  One, I have written about before: the brilliant ratemyprofessors.com.  Students volunteer to come and, well, rate their professors.  No one makes them.  The process is totally detached from any school, so there isn’t a fear of reprecussions.

I have judged many products, and recently iPhone apps, on the comments and ratings given by users.  Some I learned to stay away from, others I jumped on right away.

Opening up a place where people can talk freely without someone watching over them is a powerful learning tool.  Give them a spot to discuss openly how they feel.  Chances are the discussion is already happening – you just don’t know about it.  You can learn a lot from listening in.