Engaged Learning

How to Sell Social Learning to the Powers that Be

Sep 26, 2008 Selling Social Learning, Verbs of Social Learning

Image via Wikipedia

I am often in the position of talking with others who somewhat get what social learning is. They know enough that it would be good for their organizations. They see the benefits. They can inherently feel that this will help their groups. But they would be hard pressed to explain what it is, it’s benefits and why the company should use it.  I used to be as speechless as the Thinker myself —->

The way we know we really know something is by explaining it to someone else. But it isn’t until we can articulate our thoughts and knowledge to others that truly begin to understand it. We must be able to verbalize what it is we are thinking before we can really say that we know a topic.

So, how do YOU articulate social learning and explain it to others? Most importantly, how do you explain it to the executives who are sceptical and have heard rumors of how evil anything that starts with ‘social’ is? How do you explain to the babyboomer who is on the front line what social learning is and why it would benefit them?

I have found that it isn’t until we can do this – and do it well – that we’ll be able to implement social learning. This is the first step to the world outside of yourself.

Over the next several posts I will be going through what it takes to explain social learning to others.  Its not an easy task, but I have found some things that help.

So, a question for all.  When asked to concisely explain what it is and why a company would want to use it, what do you say?

Tags: Selling Social Learning