Sad.  No real posts in between video round ups.  I have been very busy (which is a GREAT thing) and have have thought about a number of posts that I want to write, but did not get to them.  Hoping next week will be better.  But, until then, here is the latest edition of the video roundup…

So, a little question.  How does Keith Barry do it in this TED talk?  I don’t have a clue.  But I know we skip over clues that, if paid attention to, would give us more information.  And it almost would seem magical – but it would just be tuning into the right thing.  This video made me think – What am I missing all around me that I should be paying attention to?  What is getting in my way of paying attention to the right clues at the right time?  And how do I dial into them?  Life is fast paced and we miss a lot of what is really there.

And this is just funny.  Unless you really love cats.

“Observability is the degree to which the results of an innovation are visible to tohers.  The easier it is for individuals to see the results of an innovation, the more likely they are to adopt.” (Diffusion of Innovations, p. 16)

This is a no brainer.  Something we all understand.  We see it work for others and we think, “Hmmm.  Maybe I can do that/ use that / try that as well.”  Think about Twitter.  How many times did you hear, “I love it!” before you jumped in?  How many dates did you go on before you married?  How many “I love this machine!” statements did you hear before you bought a Mac?  How many times did you see an expensive piece of clothing before you thought it was cool enough to buy it?

When others see it used or practiced, it creates discussion.  Discussions lead to new thinking and reinforcement.  Evaluation happens and then either rejection or adoption.  If the evaluation is positive, a higher rate of adoption will follow.

Think about RickRoll and other memes (also watch this fabulous TED video on memes). They work because of the observability principle.

When trying to help others adopt social learning, make it visible, make it easy to talk about, easy to share, easy to be observable.  Be a marketer of social learning.

One easy way to do that is to use it yourself.  Instead of emailing a group a question, start a discussion and email them the link to the discussion.  Put all your meeting notes in a wiki.  Give up email (as much as possible).  Use it yourself and make it visible to others.

If you have the responsibility and influence, augment current training & communications with social learning.  Let them see the difference.

Photo from Flickr by Thomas Hawk

WHY #1: Social Learning FOCUSES on People.

What this means could be different for everyone.  But I think that there are many similarities.  (ASIDE:For some reason, whenever I think about this, Barbara Streisand starts singing in my head.)

This is what it means to me.

First, social learning focuses on people rather than focusing on a presenter or instructor.  This may be a little scary to some, and  others see this as threatening to their job.  Instead of being a presenter we need to become a true facilitator of learning no matter what the mode.  It is a slight change of wording, but a large paradigm shift.  It is not a one way street – the instructor to the pupil.  Instead of the main contact being from teacher to student, it is student to student.  Because we focus on people, we want to help them exchange ideas and learn from each other.  We facilitate conversation, share resources, share information.

Second, it is not focused on content because we are not the ones creating it anymore.  It’s the learner who is creating the content.  For example, if you go out on a public drive at your company, you can learn a lot.  But how do you find it all?  And which folder do you look in?  Which version of the document that you found is the correct one.  And who ‘owns’ it?  This lesser approach focuses on the content itself and on the document instead of the person. This is why I am not a fan of Microsoft’s SharePoint – it centers on files and content.  I prefer systems that focus on the people, and there are plenty of them (a shortlist here).

Another thing it does not do is focus on the legal or corporate mandates.  For example, being forced to take sexual harassment training.  In our new of environment we are not focused on what one MUST do, but on what they CAN do according to their individual needs, not according to the needs of the organization.  And that is really the crux of it.  Focusing on what the learners want and need, not on what the organization wants or needs.  (Not that there shouldn’t be mandates from a company on training, but this is not the focus in this context.)

What it DOES do, is it gives the “power to the people” and allows them to take control of their learning. This may seem like craziness at first, but hold on to this thought: They already have control.  As much as we learning professionals like to think we have control, we don’t.  Influence, yes.  Control, no.  For example, how many of you have created (in your estimation) the best training and still had someone give you a bad Level 1 score or they fell asleep?  It has happened to us all.  Yes, they have control.

In my next series post I will give you a fabulous example of this and talk about the ramifications of focusing on people.

Until then…  What does “Focusing on the People” mean (or not mean) to you?

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