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.
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.
Tags: bonobos, objections, posting
July 11th, 2008 at 11:47 am
Hi, I am into Learning & Development. I believe a way of solving this might well be posting blogs from within the environment by people who are SMEs of a particular function or process and having employees respond to this on the company intranet. This facilitates healthy discussion – i.e. learning and also takes care of the fact that the information can be corrected if it is not appropriate.
In the larger world this is another matter altogether with people using their discretion and experience to sift through the plethora of information and deciphering for themselves what authentic information would be.
Your thoughts have merit, but I am not sure it might be effective in a situation where the average employee age is around 19 – 24 and in an environment where social networking is primarily for the very purpose rather than dissipation of useful information.
July 11th, 2008 at 3:13 pm
I believe that is the difference between the outside world’s use of social networking and an organization’s. Within an organization, social networking is used to communicate and learn and share within that context. And the huge majority of the time it is not abused – even by 19-24 year olds. I have seen this work very well with this type of audience.
Can you say more about why you don’t thing the younger group will use it correctly?
July 14th, 2008 at 5:08 am
Hi Kevin,
Thanks for responding. Being in the learning & development field in India, I am afraid we are still following what Tony would describe as eLearning1.0 and blended learning primarily means a mix of ILTs and WBTs which are top-down rather than bottom up.
Orkut, LinkedIn, Facebook are still used by the younger age group still for catching up with friends and socializing. I am not sure that the age-group is mature enough to understand and fully appreciate the power of Web2.0 and use this medium to learn. Moreover, as there really isn’t a composite method of tracking the learning, I am unsure of the extent to which this method would be successful.
I am here trying to change the way learning happens and move the user base away from conventional top-down learning but am unsure as to how well it would work.
Do not think that I am closed to the methods, on the contrary I am all for it. It’s just that I am trying to figure out a way to take the first step.
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