Engaged Learning

The Content Creation Burden

Jul 20, 2007 Implementation, Learning 2.0, Wiki, collaboration

I was talking with a company who wants to implementing a L2.0 solution to allow them to more fully communicate with their customers, among other goals.  Not fully understanding the whole setup/reason/purpose or how this all worked, they were very concerned about two things:

1. “Who will create the content?  We can’t afford to have someone spend all their time on the content.”
2. “What if our customers (or even employees, for heaven’s sake) add something on there that isn’t right.  (Again…) We can’t have a full time person reviewing the information to make sure it is correct.”

Good concerns, but they are asking from a point of view which is set in a traditional thought that one person (or a defined group) will create the material.  Those are the people you can trust.  Others may not get it right, may be misinformed, may not adhere to corporate culture or may done got their English wrong.  This is a point of view not even challenged because it has been standard for so long.

But this is the beauty of collaborative learning.

First of all, everyone will create the content.  In the past, in effect, that meant that no one would actually do it if it was not specifically assigned to a person.  I have seen companies say that everyone will add to it.  But behaviors do not change and the system is wasted.  But for this to work, the process of sharing information needs to be a part of what you do every day.  It can be inherent in your work and, at least for the beginning, almost seamless with current, normal activities.

An example might help.  Let’s say a customer or another employee emails you a question.  You know the answer so you respond.  Issue taken care of.  If we add one small step in there it becomes information shared which will expand beyond the two main parties.  When responding back the person can add an extra email address.  This email is then automatically published to a wiki which is then searchable for everyone to view when they have the same question.  Not only is the problem solved, but so is the same problem that you know will rear its ugly head again in the (often not so distant) future.

Previous to this, if someone else had the same question, they might email the same person again.  Then, the email might go out to everyone informing them of the solution.  So when it comes back in the third time, hopefully the person will remember where that email was – “or was it in a document – or…  where did I see that?”

That is only one way to easily allow information to flow from the people who know to the people who want to know.

That begs the second question – what if they are wrong?  The person who reads it can either comment that it is not correct (the whole or part) or they can change it to the correct information.  Either way, no one is really hurt because of it.  “But then it becomes junk information.”  Not really.  Someone will find it and correct it.

Well, who is that someone?  Anyone!  Let’s say, for example, I find information which I know is incorrect.  I can flag it as such, alerting others to take it for what it is worth, or I can change it to the correct version.  Do we need to do this for EVERY entry?  Heavens no.  It will happen naturally.

This is one of the difficult parts – giving up control.  Let things happen naturally.  Let others participate and help and guide each other.  It will happen.  People naturally and instinctively take on roles which will refine the information.

So these two questions are then no longer issues.  I LIE.  They are issues that still need to be looked at and dealt with, but they are not nearly the show stoppers they were.  They are now resolved in a totally different way that was not possible before.  The questions actually morph into new questions.

Any time you introduce a new tool, philosophy, paradigm, it breeds new questions and new answers to old questions.  The game effectively changes.