The Social Learning Question of the Day on Twitter has morphed into the Enterprise 2.0 QOTD.

My work has been focusing more on the Enterprise 2.0 aspect of social technologies rather than the more niche Social Learning.  SL, however, has not been lost in what I do, but it is a part of the bigger picture.

@SLQOTD, back in the day (only a year ago) went really well.  Change in work and other circumstances made it disappear.  It has now been revived focused on E2.0.

One problem with @slqotd is that it was getting spam.  I hated that.  Answers were send directly to all followers, but the spam became overwhelming.  So, this format is a bit different.  It works only off of the hashtag #E20qotd.

Each tweet will be tweeted three times throughout the day, asking a question about E2.0.  To answer it, add the hashtag #E20qotd (yes, that is E-two-zero-q-oh-t-d).  To get the answers, use your favorite Twitter app to follow the hashtag.

Result?  All the great answers an no spam.  The more of us that answer and have discussions about the question, the more we all learn!

Yes, that’s right – Twitter is not all fun and games (although it can be – the subject for tomorrow’s post!).

Can it be used for professional reasons?  Absolutely.  And once you learn this it is hard to turn back because it is so useful.

Remember when I wrote about social networks and the ability to bring geographically disperse, like-minded people together?  Twitter does the same thing.  I follow people (from all over the world).

People I follow on Twitter

Most of the people I follow I am similar to in some way (except for maybe the llama).  Twitter brings us together to allow us to have discussions (albeit short ones).

Here are a few of the most popular professional uses of Twitter.

#CHATS

Example of TweetGrid on the #lrnchat hashtag, but not during a session.

There are Twitter Chats that happen on many different subjects.  Usually one hour is set aside for anyone to join in on a chat and it is assigned (by the moderator) a #hashtag.  Then they use web page like TweetGrid or a downloaded app like Tweetdeck to watch the chat’s #hashtag.  They will automatically update.

Then, at the appointed time, those who want to join do a short intro (every tweet will have the hashtag) and the moderator will ask the first question.  Everyone else will start answering and having discussions about the topic and sharing resources (links to more information).  These are very valuable discussions which help you step out of your comfy box and find out what others are doing or how they have tackled certain problems.

Sound good?  Find a Twitter Chat that interests you.  Here is a short list of twitter chats.  There are chats for the organizational learning profession – #lrnchat (a favorite of mine); accountants – #AcctgChat; knowledge management – #KMers; children’s literature – #kidlitchat; social media – #socialmedia; young moms – #youngmoms; dogs – #WoofWkly, and a ton more.

#CONFERENCES

This is what hooked me on Twitter.  Every conference nowadays will have a specific hashtag.  For exmaple, the Enterprise 2.0 conference uses #e20conf.  Those tweeples at the conference can use the hashtag to discuss or share the content of keynotes, sessions to those who didn’t come, which sessions to come to because they are so good or which ones to avoid, and to hook up with others for dinner after the conference.  There are many more ways to use it – these are only a few.

#TOPICS

Dave Wilkins and I used to moderate a “social learning question of the day “(@slqotd).  We would ask one question and everyone would answer.  We used a little bit of technological magic that made it so when you DM’d @slqotd, everyone who followed received the response, but we got too much spam.  I haven’t done it for a while, but need to get back on track.

Others, however, have done it differently.  For example, #lrn2day – what have you learned today?  Andrew McAfee asks a question a day using #andyasks.  Everyone answers with that hashtag.  Everyone else follows it to see all the answers.

There are lots of ways to do it.

#QUESTIONS

So many times I have thrown out a question on Twitter and received immediate responses from people who knew more than I do.  These are people I would not normally have access to.  What a great resource that is!

ASIDE: In a session where I spoke about Twitter, one person asked why I didn’t just Google a question.  I brought up the point that the answer may not be out on Google (imagine that!).  But someone from that session later emailed me his AH-HA moment which I feel is worth quoting:

“I hadn’t thought much about the power of Twitter, but yesterday’s session brought it into focus for me.  When I do a regular internet search, I’m either added or doomed by my choice of words for the very rule-based machine search that ensues.  In Twitter, I benefit from the interpretive skills of fellow human brains that read and interpret my need and thus are able to better design a relevant response.”

Well said!

#THROUGHtheDAY

All day I have Twitter up on my screen.  When I have a free moment, I look at it.  I always find something valuable to my profession.  A link to a study. A reference to a new technology I had not heard about.  A new perspective that helps me broaden my own. A person in need that I can help by responding to.

BTW – there is so much coming in that I miss most of it.  And remember – it is OK to let go of what you missed.  Taking in more than you are able would overwhelm you.  Don’t even try.

Do you have any more professional uses of Twitter that you can share with us?  Use the comments below!

Tomorrow: The fun side of Twitter and great Twitter apps.

If you have been following @SLQOTD on Twitter, you know that for the last month or so we have been slacking off and not posting questions every day.  With everything we have right now, we cannot keep up.  Which, overall, is a good thing, but we want to keep SLQOTD going because it has been a great learning tool.

FORMAT CHANGE

There are almost 1000 followers of @SLQOTD.  We all have questions about how to best implement and manage Social Learning in our organizations.  Instead of pushing these questions out every day from one source, let’s let YOU, the followers, do the asking.  You have almost 1000 people who are interested in Social Learning with different experiences and skill sets and levels.  Ask the question any time you want.  Let us all answer.

Dave and I will continue to post questions as they come up – just not every day.  But feel free to ask as often as you want and at any time.  Do this by sending a DM to @SLQOTD by starting your tweet with ‘dslqotd’ (sans quotes).  Everyone will get the question and anyone can answer.

SLQOTD lives on!

Here is my SLQOTD Blog Project response: SL happens all around us at all times – like breathing. How do we take adv. of it?

This question first came up when Dave Wilkins and I were doing our last podcast.  We were talking about how we learn all the time, but those in the learning profession ignore that piece and focus on creating elearning, for example.  So the original question was: SL happens all the time – now what?

FIRST, we have to recognize that it happens.  Too often we ignore that it exists.  Or maybe, even worse, that we feel that we can’t do anything about it, so it isn’t even on our radar.

It is time.  Our job is to enable learning, enable performance improvement.  Yet if we ignore the most fundemental, basic ways that we learn, we are doing a disservice to those very people we claim to support.

During #lrnchat on Twitter last night, there was some discussion on learning and training: @marciamarcia: We still seem to be neglecting any mention of helping people learn how to learn or liberate their self-direction. #lrnchat.  Are we helping others to learn what they need/want to learn, or are we forcing learning that they don’t want?  Sure, they may need some of the latter, but what about all that they REALLY want to know?

But, truely, it happens ALL THE TIME.  Learning is ALL AROUND US.  How do we help others with that?  It isn’t by creating a course on it.

I think of homeschooling my own kids.  There are things they NEED to learn. But what about those things they are really interested in?  We point them to the resources.  We make learning available.  We hook them up with the books, sites, people and other resources.  We don’t try to give it to them in nice, neat little packages.  That is like saying, “Oh, you are running and need to breathe heavily?  Here let me give you this breath.  And this one.  And this one.”  Instead it is, “Here is all the oxygen you need.  Oh, and here is some more I found.  Breath away.”

(Another favorite tweeet of mine was from @ hjarche: if I had to develop a lot of learning “stuff” last people I would hire would ID’s (sorry) – artists, writers would come 1st #lrnchat.)

As I said in my latest tweet: “I LOVE doing the podcast (http://tr.im/gMIi) with @dwilkinsnh & the discussions we have before and after.  A hilite of my week.”  So true.  We not only have a great time doing them, but get to discuss, challenge each other and really hash out a lot of what people are thinking and struggling with.  Good times!

Thanks to Dave we now get our podcasts transcripted.  Today we recorded episode #17 so that will be coming out next week.  I didn’t want to go ALL the way back to the beginning of the year (excesssive) but I will start with Episode #14, the one right after the webinar on Overcoming Objections.

BTW – still the Slideshare of this webinar has blown me away.  As it stands right now, it has been watched 1835 TIMES in only one month!  Unbelievable.

Anyway – back to business.  Here is the transcript and the link to the Podcast on the web and to iTunes.

Social Learning Strategies and Trends Podcast #14 – Objections Webinar Followup & Twitter Troubles

Kevin Jones:  Welcome to Social Learning Strategies & Trends Podcasts. This is Kevin Jones.

Dave Wilkins:  And Dave Wilkins.

Kevin:  And Dave you are. Oh, you’ve been a busy boy Dave; you’ve been a busy boy. How many webinars did you do this week?

Dave:  I think the grant total was 6, and two or three executive briefings. So yes I am mentally drained at this point. [laughs]

Kevin:  I understand. I bet it’s a fun thing to have you in the house. You come home at night. Dave are you there? Dave I know that you’re here physically but mentally Dave?

Dave:  Right. Kids, be quiet! I don’t want to hear about your day wife. I’m going to bed.

Kevin:  [laughs]

Dave:  Yeah, a little bit. But you had a busy week too though. Right? I mean you were at least in one of those webinars with me.

Kevin:  Yeah, yeah that webinar was awesome; I mean not just, that because we’re awesome. But there was so much chatter on Twitter and so much in the chat room there.

Dave:  Oh yeah.

Kevin:  And we collected, I don’t know…oh shoot that reminded me, it is 8:42 right now. We haven’t been able to finalize the question of the day today.

Dave:  Oops.

Kevin:  Oh I got to get that out. But OK. Anyways, but we had a ton of people give us their real life questions.

Dave:  I couldn’t keep up.

Kevin:  Yeah it was huge.

Dave:  I don’t know about you but I was watching the questions coming out and I was I’m never going to be able to answer all those questions.

Kevin:  [laughs]

Dave:  We need to do another webinar just to answer the questions we got in the first webinar.

Kevin:  No kidding. I had a ton of people say Kevin I couldn’t be there for this one. Is there…you know, do you have the archives? For which we do, actually on our blogs.

Dave:  Right.

Kevin:  …and the email is going out. But seriously, maybe we should do that again with a couple of other ones. Because that was really, really well received. Because a lot people weren’t able to come that wanted to come.

Dave:  Right, right. Well it didn’t help that we were up against an event by Jay Gross that was global learning event.

[laughter]

Kevin:  Thanks a lot Jay.

Dave:  We have to better coordinate better with him. But…

Kevin:  You know what. Ours was first.

Dave:  Yeah. Dear Jay we had our schedule way before yours. Please don’t overlap next time.

Kevin:  You must cancel yours. Sorry.

[laughs]

Dave:  No, it’s true though, it was a lot of questions.

Kevin:  Yeah. It really was. And it was a lot of good, really good ones. The ones that we do are broader I think. They’re more, so for example one of the ones we did was: everyone was going to a play and be more social and waste time. That’s a very broad overview question. But a lot of people were saying this is the specific question that I had, this is the specific objection that I got.

And in fact I got a couple of emails this week, after that from two people saying here are basically the emails from my company.

Dave:  Wow.

Kevin:  And here are the exact questions or exact issues that they’re having, the exact objections. What do I do now?

And it has been awesome. The first one, the first one… Oh, I’m not going to name, because it was quiet.

Dave:  Yeah. You probably shouldn’t name either of them. [laughs] I’m pretty sure the companies wouldn’t be thrilled to find out that their folks are sending emails that are internal only. [laughs]

Kevin:  You know they’ re going to get used to that idea though. Really, going to have to. But, so…oh shoot, I thought I had it.

Dave:  Which by the way it doesn’t itself tell you everything you need to know about whether or not it’s OK to be accessing stuff outside work and a social network. And the very fact that someone sent you an email, right.

Kevin:  Oh I know.

Dave:  [laughs]

Kevin:  Yes.

Dave:  Like it’s so funny because people are like, you can’t get on Twitter, you can’t get on Facebook. We don’t want you accessing these other external sites. Don’t go to My Space, don’t go to Google stuff. Then someone sends you their email.

[laughter]

Kevin:  Yes, think of the traditional way.

Dave:  Yes, like really. You guys really locked things down there, nice job. All of your people can send email. Good job.

Kevin:  [laughs] Well done and you know honestly that was in both responses to them, that was one of the comments read was, they’re already doing it and you don’t know.

Dave:  Right, right.

Kevin:  Or you’ve got your head in the sand and you think that it’s not happening but it really, really is.

Dave:  Right.

Kevin:  The first one, ha, ha, ha so the first one, oh yes. I put it on my blog post; I put a blog post up, “How to Snub Twitter and Lose”. Basically what they’re saying was there are four of them.

First one, training information. What happens is this person sent a request to open up Twitter. They wrote back with this request I’m going to talk about. Then I actually got a follow up email after that that said that he went today, what do you call it? What do you call it Dave, when someone goes back and says, a rebuttal, no. You know what I mean.

Dave:  No. No rebuttal, no.

Kevin:  No it’s not rebuttal but it’s something like that.

Dave:  Slap in the face, no. Not slap in the face?

Kevin:  A rebuttal and they didn’t know what to do with that. They said, “You mean somebody’s challenging our authority? Oh no, what do we do now”?

[laughs]

Dave:  Oh that’s awesome.

Kevin:  Do we really need, I guess we really need to think about this. The first thing that he said was, the training information you need, or the rejection he got back was the training information you need can be received from other sources. Twitter may be easier but approved web sites give the same information.

Dave:  OK. In other words, we don’t give a crap whether you’re efficient or not.

Kevin:  [laughs]

Dave:  Hey you know what else works? Chiseling. Chiseling stone tablets also works. Maybe we should keep doing that.

Kevin:  [laughs] I love it.

Dave:  That’s awesome.

Kevin:  Then to oppose that, the fourth one. The last one, it says, “We will lose productivity if we open Twitter up allowing everyone to use it for non business purposes. This risk is high”.

Dave:  I see.

Kevin:  Doesn’t that directly contradict point number one?

Dave:  Yes. Yes, you’re going to be… it will be easier for you to use and you will be more efficient and productive except you won’t be.

Kevin:  Exactly. [laughter] Make up your mind.

Dave:  Wow yes.

Kevin:  No kidding.

Dave:  Yes well that’s suggests a lot of things to me. The most fundamental thing it suggests is people just don’t quite get Twitter.

Kevin:  Exactly.

Dave:  We’re a social media company here right? I had a conversation last night with someone I won’t name but on our executive team and they said, “I think maybe some of the people who may have used to have worked here maybe spent too much time on Twitter”.

I said, “Well define too much time because I have 700 professional colleagues on Twitter who I tap for news and expertise on what’s going on the industry. I’ve gotten leads through Twitter. I’ve established business relationships through Twitter. I’ve deepened my relationship with analysts through Twitter. I’m sort of not quite following you”.

[laughter]

Kevin:  Define, yes exactly. That is it. Define too much time.

Dave:  Right.

Kevin:  Define it. The other one, the other person that emailed me, it’s kind of the same response there. They don’t quite understand it. Also they’re coming back with a, well this is the reason we’re giving but there’s more beneath that.

I mean I don’t know how many companies I’ve seen giving the excuse of this is why we’re not doing it because of HR policy or it’s because of some other lame excuse. Really the real reason is they don’t know what to do.

Dave:  Right.

Kevin:  They are stuck; they are confronted with this reality and they are totally burying their heads in the sand.

Dave:  Yes.

Kevin:  With this one, it’s all about unions. It’s that if we open this up, unions may get to our people because we have to give them a say as well. Well…

Dave:  And they can’t get to your people via email today?

Kevin:  They can’t do it and that…

Dave:  Or instant messaging?

Kevin:  …was exactly my point. That’s exactly my point. That in my response, if I come on board and that’s exactly how I started up and what I say is I can get just about anyone’s email, all I need to know is that, you know, do they start their email with, for example, Kevin J or K Jones.

Dave:  Right.

Kevin:  And then if I am someone in the union, I have got someone on the inside and I can get the company list and I have got everybody’s email address whether they give it to me or not, done deal.

Dave:  Right.

Kevin:  Just like that. And then this person also said on his blog post that he was able to quickly go out to Facebook and to Twitter, I think it was, and find 380 people from his company immediately.

Dave:  Yes.

Kevin:  So, really the companies are just totally burying their head in the sand and giving other excuses when the real excuse is I don’t…we don’t know what to do and we haven’t thought about it, we haven’t thought about it enough.

Dave:  Yes.

Kevin:  So how do you overcome that? How would you overcome that?

Dave:  Well, I mean I think, you know, that research that person did already is sort of I think a step in the right direction, right, I mean the first thing we have to acknowledge is what you and I have already been saying so far on this call which is, you know, it’s a myth that we’re any less secure or any less inclined to share or socialize or goof off or whatever the reasons are and excuses are through Twitter or through say Facebook than we are through email or through the phone or frankly by surfing the web. Right?

And so, you know, it’s just a very disingenuous argument I think, right.

Kevin:  OK.

Dave:  So I would… I mean I think those things are good. On the Twitter front specifically though, I mean the other part to me that I am not sure people get entirely is it’s a much more transparent conversation unless you go to DMs, right, but…

Kevin:  Right.

Dave:  …initially, the initial contact that someone’s really afraid that the union’s going to start unionizing through Twitter. Well, you know, that’s going to be a hell of a lot easier to discover than them tracking down people’s personal emails and connecting with them there or connecting with them on Facebook, right.

On Twitter, I can just create an alert, you know, and create a search through TweetDeck for the company name or for the name and the word union. I mean I can do all kinds of interesting things and I could know the moment I knew the activity was happening, right.

Kevin:  Yes.

Dave:  And further like I am not sure legally, you can like…I mean so what if someone did contact somebody through Twitter, like for unionization, I mean you can’t stop behavior, right?

Kevin:  Right.

Dave:  Right, anymore than you can stop it happening from email or from a phone call and that would be union busting sort of activities, right.

Kevin:  Hmm.

Dave:  So you know, the reality is people are going to share and communicate in whatever the hell means they want to and frankly if they have cell phone coverage in their business and someone has an iPhone or a Blackberry, then they have access to Twitter anyway.

And that’s another fabulous point because that’s something that I thought of so many times is they have already have access to it and you try to get rid of that access, you try to shut it down, they still have access through their iPhone…

Kevin:  Right.

Dave:  …or their Blackberry, they still have that. What do you do? And honestly they will take a little bit more time because they will be on their iPhone which takes just a little bit slower…

Kevin:  Right.

Dave:  …and it takes a little bit longer to go through, so they are going to waste more time.

Kevin:  Right.

Dave:  So you had just created that dream. Well done. Good job.

Kevin:  Yes, and further they can access it from home.

Dave:  Yes.

Kevin:  Right? So I mean like, you know, do we think that union organizers or people who are, you know, trying to get to our people and find stuff out are only going to do it from nine to five when they are at work. Really, I mean is that really what we think? Right?

Dave:  So, and again I think it’s just people have not thought about it enough and have not realized because if you’re, if someone is not into  doesn’t understand social media, they  I mean honestly, it’s almost another world. And it’s a new  I don’t want to say it’s a new way of thinking about things, it’s a new  because I don’t want to  as Dave Ferguson the other day, we were going back forth. He said, “This is not the sun and the moon and the stars.” And I agree, it’s not. But it is

Kevin:  It’s just the stars.

Dave:  What was that?

Kevin:  It’s just the stars.

Dave:  It’s just the stars.

[laughter]

Dave:  But it is a different way of thinking overall. Because  I know when people  when people get into social media, they start to think of it differently about how to do things, about the way they interact, the way they communicate, and what they say and how they say it and who they say it to.

Kevin:  Yeah.

Dave:  And what they can say. And it takes your mind into something totally different. And people who aren’t there yet don’t quite understand that.

Kevin:  Right. Right.

Dave:  So they don’t even have a background of reference to that. And I think that’s one of our jobs, is to help people understand that. And one thing I said to  the second person that emailed me with the whole union thing  and I wrote this on my blog post  basically was, OK, the first thing, he’s going to go meet with the VP next week.

And so I said the first thing I would do is I would say, alright, here’s the scenario, and if we left it alone, this is what will happen, and be very, very personal about it. If they wanted to, they could do this, they could do this and that would have this repercussions

Kevin:  Right.

Dave:  …in our company, and we wouldn’t have a clue that it’s going on.

Kevin:  Yes.

Dave:  However, if we were to do this and this and this and this, we would not only be able to take some of the conversation and make sure it’s all internal, but then also have a view like you were saying, view into what’s going on the outside as well.

Kevin:  Right.

Dave:  But we really need to take advantage of that and not let it control us, but us control it.

Kevin:  Right. Right.

Yeah, to me that’s part of the larger argument that you and I have been making and that folks like Jay Cross and a lot of folks now have been making, which is this idea that you know, we’re not in school anymore, right? I mean when you work for a company, a lot of times now you work with a company as much you work for a company, right?

Dave:  Right.

Kevin:  And you know I’m not  I don’t view myself as the subordinate in the relationship that I have with Mzinga. You know, I bring my own weight and gravitas to my role as a professional, and I act accordingly. I act as an adult and I act as a professional for what’s in the best interest of the company and what’s in my own personal best interest, which 99% of the time aligns with what’s in the best interest of the company, right?

Dave:  Right.

Kevin:  And I think, you know, we still sometimes have this industrial mentality.

Dave:  Yes.

Kevin:  You know, that like, we have to coddle all our employees and we have to teach them everything they need to know, because they can’t think on their own, you know? I mean it’s this idea like that we’re still like  you know, we go through school sitting in a classroom waiting for the instructor in the front to tell us what we need to know, and we sit there like passive little recipients waiting for our heads to get filled with knowledge.

And then we leave and we go to the workforce and the workforce still largely treats people that way. And all of this social stuff, all this social media, is flipping all that mentality on its head. Right? Because now, I, as a consumer, I as a worker, I as a learner, I’m completely empowered. I can write blogs, I can create video, I can launch stuff, I can find stuff, I can create, I can make, I can network, independently of these institutions that used to be the source of control.

Dave:  Right.

Kevin:  And I think fundamentally, to me, that’s the issue, right, and it goes to what you were just saying. That people are  don’t know what to do yet, because they haven’t realized that the game is flipped. And so they’re still struggling to say, “Well wait, we still control, we still control.”

Well you know, you never did control, right? You thought you might. You know, maybe you had the illusion of it, but the workers were always the one that made things happen. So you know, I think we’re going to see a lot of battles like these emerge, and not just over Twitter and Facebook, but over the very construct of: what does it mean to be a worker, what does it mean to be an employer? What’s the power dynamic there and how is that changing, you know?

Dave:  Yes. Yes. I’ve seen the exact same thing. It’s the whole control issue. You would think that companies would be saying like, “Wow! You can create content and get it out to a whole bunch of people? Hah, look at that, what a great idea! Let’s enables. Let’s do as much of that as we can.” But, instead, it’s totally the opposite, “Whoa, wait a minute, you mean, you’re not allowing me to shove it down your throat?”

Kevin:  Something’s wrong here, we have to control this. And even, and I’ve said this before, but when I’ve talked to training professionals or learning professionals overall sometimes, they’re scared of it because they are not even in control. It’s not just, I mean, when we say a company, we’re talking about people, because that’s really what it comes down to, is people.

And sometimes, the people are us who don’t like to give up that control. We still want to have we still want to be in charge of the trainings and in charge of the content, in charge of the documentation, in charge of blah, di, blah, di, blah, instead of letting it go out.

Dave:  Right, yeah, and I mean, you know, maybe the right way to think of it is in terms of control structures within the company, like, learning and development for all of our claims to want to empower the workforce is, in fact, a control structure. We’re the bottleneck between the subject matter expert and the masses.

Kevin:  Yes.

Dave:  And, in some cases, that’s great, right? I mean at some places, that’s entirely necessary. I mean, you and I have both met enough people in our life to know some of them shouldn’t be talking to the public. Right? [laughter] So, let’s just be clear.

But, on the other hand, a lot of times, that’s a bit of an artificial barrier. Right? And, you know, finances is another control mechanism. IT’s another control mechanism. All of these things are simultaneously empowering mechanisms and controlling mechanisms and it’s that controlling part that I think most people are freaking out a bit, as you said.

Dave:  Yup. So, I guess, overall for these two guys who wrote, asking, “What on earth do I do? I think we really need to realize where a company is coming from. Number one, they don’t know what to do because they haven’t given it enough thought.

Kevin:  Right.

Dave:  All they have heard and seen is these people are going to waste time, or the meetings may get to us or whatever it may be and so they ixnayed it.

Number two, they’re thinking of control, the command and control structure issues you talk about. And, so we need to kind of step in their shoes and say, alright, if they’re worried about control, let’s show them how little control they actually have and how they’re losing control right now.

Dave:  Yeah.

Kevin:  And once they understand that, then let’s help them take control.

Dave:  Yup. Or at least influence, at least have visibility. And I would add a third item to that list, if you were done, were you done? Was there another one on there?

Kevin:  Yeah, I can only go up to two.

Dave:  OK, OK, good. I can only go to two as well, but I’ll build on yours and we’ll get the three that way.

Dave:  Good.

Kevin:  You know I would also point out companies that have already gone in this direction, so that this is my number three. You know, look at Cisco, look at Best Buy, look at Intel, right? These are companies who’ve jumped in with both feet. Look at the companies on Twitter and Facebook right now, right?

The Air Force empowers every, single airman in the entire Air Force to blog, respond to blogs, to Twitter, to be on Facebook. And what they did is they developed a guide, an Air Force guide on good behavior and what the expectations were. These are guys who are 18, 20, 22 years old that are empowered to speak on behalf of the Air Force when people are critical of the Air Force in their blog.

And yet, a company is afraid to let a worker be on Twitter? I mean, so, I think we have to give examples of, look, these other big companies like you and, in some cases, big government organizations have jumped in with both feet and nothing bad has happened. It’s going to be OK.

Dave:  Right.

Kevin:  You pat them on the head a little bit, “Don’t worry, we’ll be there if you jump into a deep end, we’ll catch you. It’s OK.

And then, the fourth thing I would say is, we also need to recognize that being on Twitter, being on Facebook, it’s great, it’s fun, it’s also not necessarily part of everybody’s job role. Right?

Dave:  Right.

Kevin:  I think we’ve got to be clear about that too. You and I are in a privileged position a little bit in that we are fullon knowledge workers, this is what we do, connecting with other experts in the industry is what we do. Talking to industry pundits is what we do. Knowing what’s going on is what we do.

But, if I’m the guy on the assembly line making widgets, maybe not so much. So, I do think that there is some, I think, proper reticence to open this to everybody in the company.

Dave:  That’s true.

Kevin:  But for those of us who are in the positions like we are and the folks who emailed you, of course that’s part of their job. And anyone who doesn’t think that, they just need to get their head examined a little bit.

Dave:  Even though there are some people who are clearly knowledge workers and some people who are clearly not, at least what we would think, what we would consider as knowledge workers. So, there’s the example of British Airways who put up a discussion board, for example, and allowed their attendants…

Kevin:  Their flight attendants and the flight crews, yeah.

Dave:  …to get on there and start talking. You know, that’s not really their job, their job is to go on a plane and to serve and to help and to assist and, you know, I don’t to minimize it by any means, but their job isn’t really to get on and to be knowledge workers as far as I understand.

But when you put up a discussion board, when British Airways did it, all of a sudden they have people talking, the attendants talking about cups and how the cups are breaking.

Kevin:  Right, right.

Dave:  And it’s been a problem forever and then, all of a sudden the person in charge of cups sees that and says, “Oh, look we need to make a change.” And they make a change and, bam, instantly it’s done and it’s taken care of and people are, “Oh, thank you so much.” But that wouldn’t be there. So, the people that we see as knowledge workers and those that aren’t, I think it’s starting to blend a little bit more and those who may not think of themselves as knowledge workers, if they’ve got some knowledge to share, they really are.

Kevin:  Right. Yeah, so I agree with that wholeheartedly.

Dave:  But, I agree with you on the other end as well, that there are some people that really won’t need it, for the most part.

Kevin:  Right. Yeah, and I think that’s interesting and maybe that’s a subject for a future podcast, but, you know, what is a knowledge worker nowadays? It’s an interesting question. And you know, I can think, you know, that’s a great example and I love that British Airways story.

There’s some stuff I’ve read about what FedEx and UPS are doing to capture expertise and information from their frontline delivery guys, none of whom you would think as knowledge workers, but guess who knows the most about the customer? Right?

So, when you think about, maybe, again, and maybe this is a future podcast, but maybe what we think about, you know, what kind of knowledge? Right? Because if it’s about the customer, your stewardesses and flight crews know more about them and the folks at the flight desk that book people and check you in and all those things, they probably know more than anybody else in the company about the customer.

Dave:  Exactly.

Kevin:  Right? So, it’s what knowledge, I guess is the question, right? That’s a great point, that’s a really good point.

Dave:  So maybe that’s next week.

Kevin:  Yeah, I think so.

Dave:  So, you know, we started this whole podcast thing, I’m thinking, OK, 20 minutes. And each time it gets, 20, 21, 22, 23  we’re at 27 now.

Kevin:  Yeah.

Dave:  It just keeps getting longer and longer and so I hope people don’t shoot us.

Kevin:  Let’s hope their commutes are long enough, which is a horrible thing to wish for people. May your commute be long. [laughter] Because I’m so egocentric, that I want you to hear me. [laughter] Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Dave:  Yes.

Kevin:  And, with that, let us be done. Let us be done. Good talking with you, Dave.

Dave:  Yeah, you too man, ’til next week, take care.

[music]

Dave:  Thank you for joining us today on Social Learning Strategies and Trends, with Dave from Mzinga.

Kevin:  And Kevin from Engaged Learning.

Dave:  You can join the discussion or ask us a question by emailing us at Dave@Mzinga.com.

Kevin:  Or Kevin at EngagedLearing.net.

Dave:  Thanks for listening. We look forward to your questions and comments. Until next time…

Transcription by CastingWords

http://tr.im/kQjQ

That is the link to April’s archive of the @SLQOTD.

Oh, and by the way, the 100th SLQOTD on Twitter was asked today.  Articulate sponsored it and is giving away a free Engage license to one person who answers today’s question.  So jump on board and answer!

OK – so it is more of an e-pamphlet.  I took all of the questions and repsonses from December’s @slqotd and put them into an e-book.

One downer of Twitter is that it is difficult to go back and see or archive the tweets.  This will help us to have a reference.  I hope you find it useful!

If you have not joined us on the SLQOTD, please follow, we will follow you back and then join the discussion.  See you there!

LINK TO SLQOTD’s E-BOOK for DECEMBER

Tomorrow @slqotd will start with its first question.

The Social Learning Question of the Day will simply do just that – throw out a question about social learning to the twitterverse and allow anyone to answer. Since we all have differing experience it would be good to come together and learn from each other.

So, jump on board:

• Make sure you are signed up on Twitter.
• Follow @slqotd
• It will automatically follow you back (it may take an hour, however).
• Each (business day) morning a new question will be asked about social learning.
• To respond to this questions or others’ responses, direct message (DM) back to slqotd by adding this (without the quotes) to the beginning of your tweet: “d slqotd”
• This will go to everyone who is following @slqotd.

Both Dave Wilkins (@dwilkinsnh) and I will be monitoring it.  But we expect that everyone will add their thoughts and insights, ask more questions about the question, share resources, links, etc.

We hope you enjoy it!