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Internet Time Alliance took the stage to reflect on the overall event and to field questions. We had a rollicking good time — and I think the audience was with us.

The six of us began by recounting why we came together to form Internet Time Alliance. I preach collaboration — but found myself working in isolation. I was already turning to others for help: Jane Hart for social learning and tools, Jon Husband for KM and competencies, Harold Jarche for open source and design, Charles Jennings for the major CLO’s view, and Clark Quinn for learning theory, m-learning, and serious games. We started Internet Time Alliance in order to learn from one another.

Audience questions guided what we talked about today. We had the requisite PowerPoints at the ready but we ended up showing them in random order as questions arose.

Next we brought our customers into the loop. Six heads are better than one; seven or eight are better than that. Our engagements often begin with an organization presenting a question. Could we point out pitfalls in a new plan? Which supplier would we trust? How would we roll out knowledge in their organization? We help refine the question and then hash out solutions and observations as a group. We come back with recommendations and models. This is our loss-leader proposition. For as little as $1000, we return with consensus advice from six of the leading thinkers in organizational learning. Here’s what we’ve been pondering lately.

My conclusion from this event is that not only is learning the work, it’s also the most important work.

Once again, I’m learning from my colleagues, as yesterday I realized how important self-direction is in enabling social learning. Now I’m picking up on Jay’s post on Social Learning Gets Real and see how it connects to Jane’s observations. Jay has described several aspects of the future of social learning (below) and they map to the matrix (farther down) I created based on Jane’s five types of social learning.

As Jay says:

In the past, we’ve focused on individuals but work is performed by groups. Hence, I expect us to start helping groups learn to perform instead of individuals.

Why is this important? We have structures and systems in place that promote and validate individual training but we leave almost all of the social learning to chance.

For example:

Would it be better to 1) take a generic classroom workshop on information management or 2) spend a few hours serendipitously learning on Twitter.

Is it more effective to a) read prepared case studies or to b) co-create your group’s case study that can be shared with the entire organization?

Jane Hart’s social  learning definitions:

1. IOL – Intra-Organisational Learning – how social media tools can be used to keep employees up to date and up to speed on strategic and other internal initiatives
2. FSL – Formal Structured Learning - how educators (teachers, trainers, learning designers) as well as students can use social media within education and training – for courses, classes, workshops etc
3. GDL – Group Directed Learning – how groups of individuals - teams, projects, study groups etc – can use social media to work and learn together (a “group” could just be two people, so coaching and mentoring falls into this category)
4. PDL – Personal Directed Learning – how individuals can use social media for their own (self-directed) personal or professional learning
5. ASL – Accidental & Serendipitous Learning – how individuals, by using social media, can learn without consciously realising it (aka incidental or random learning)

Filed under: Informal Learning, InternetTime

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I always do my best work while asleep and now that I’ve slept two nights since DevLearn, here’s what I’m thinking.

The last item begs explanation. In the past, we’ve focused on individuals but work is performed by groups. Hence, I expect us to start helping groups learn to perform instead of individuals.

Promoting social media

social, strategy — -->Clark @ 2:59 pm

The Big Question of the Month is “How do I communicate the value of social media as a learning tool to my organization?”.  Now, this is late, but it’s because I’ve been getting ready for and then attending DevLearn (as always, was a great event), but Jay Cross and I spent a day talking about this issue in the larger picture of social learning in the media.

Then, in last night’s #lrnchat, the question was asked again as part of the usual 3 question format.  So, I decided to pull out my tweeted contributions and elaborate on them a bit as my response.  These are the unique answers, not including my responses to others, re-tweets of poignant statements, and snarky comments.

Full-size map of presentation on MindMeister

Looking to the Past for Enterprise 2.0 Adoption Principles

by Jon Husband

November 14, 2009 at 12:24 pm · Filed under 2.0 Design Thinking, Collaboration, Connected Enterprise, Enterprise 2.0, Enterprise Social Computing, Management Theory

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These days there are incessant debates about the adoption of Enterprise 2.0 platforms, tools and practices.

We’ve been here before … we just did not have the infrastructure or the tools, nor the awareness or skill levels of large numbers of people.

As information technology first began its relentless march into the daily lives of people in the areas of work (mainframes, early integrated systems, desktops computers in the workplace) and general information-seeking (early days of websites and the Web), thinkers and organizational development conultants began paying attention to the intersection of technology and sociology.  Many of the grandfathers and grandmothers of the field of organizational development will find the material on socio-technical systems familiar, and perhaps refreshing in the context of networked workplaces.

The material outlined below comes from a comprehensive Wikipedia entry on Socio-technical Systems, and I have edited it for the purposes of this blog post.

Internet Time Alliance is really cookin' today. Thanks, Jon, for a great post.

Social media and self-directed learning

Posted on November 14th, 2009 by Harold Jarche

I found Jane Hart’s post on social media FOR learning most thought-provoking:

I have decided to categorise the use of social media in the following 5 different ways:

1. IOL – Intra-Organisational Learning – how social media tools can be used to  keep the organisation up to date and up to speed on strategic and other internal initiatives
2. FSL – Formal Structured Learning - how educators (teachers, trainers, learning designers) as well as students can use social media within education and training – for courses, classes, workshops etc
3. GDL – Group Directed Learning – how groups of individuals - teams, projects, study groups etc – can use social media to work and learn together (a “group” could just be two people, so coaching and mentoring falls into this category)
4. PDL – Personal Directed Learning – how individuals can use social media for their own (self-directed) personal or professional learning
5. ASL – Accidental & Serendipitous Learning – how individuals, by using social media, can learn without consciously realising it (aka incidental or random learning)

This had me thinking about how best to explain these categories to clients and folks not immersed in social media and learning. I started by looking at it as a 2×2 mtrix, but of course there are five categories, so that wouldn’t work. However, the axes of the amount of direction versus group size made sense to me, so I created the diagram below. What jumped out at me after the fact, and I’ve highlighted in red, is that social media for learning requires a lot of self-directed learning, either individually or as a participant in a group/organization. Externally directed learning (FSL) is only one of five possibilities. Good food for thought on the future role of the “training” department, isn’t it?

This really helps one understand the multiple rewards of social learning. Bravo!

Social Media FOR learning - Part 2

Following on from my previous post where I discussed the need for spelling out the use of social media for learning, I have now started to pull together a new resource, which looks at how social media can be used for different types of learning.

Rather than use the broad categories of formal and informal learning - terms which I think are  pretty difficult to grasp, and which are being confused and abused if phrases I have read like "managing informal learning information" are anything to go by! - I have decided to categorise the use of social media in the following 5 different ways:

1. IOL - Intra-Organisational Learning - how social media tools can be used to keep employees up to date and up to speed on strategic and other internal initiatives
2. FSL - Formal Structured Learning - how educators (teachers, trainers, learning designers) as well as students can use social media within education and training - for courses, classes, workshops etc
3. GDL - Group Directed Learning - how groups of individuals - teams, projects, study groups etc - can use social media to work and learn together (a "group" could just be two people, so coaching and mentoring falls into this category)
4. PDL - Personal Directed Learning - how individuals can use social media for their own (self-directed) personal or professional learning
5. ASL - Accidental & Serendipitous Learning - how individuals, by using social media, can learn without consciously realising it (aka incidental or random learning)

It may well be that these categories will need tweaking or even overhauling completely, but here is my first attempt at how social media can be used in these 5 categories, which will be a work in progress.

Using social media for different types of learning

Way to go, Jane! jay

Harold Jarche, Charles Jennings, Clark Quinn & Jay Cross on Challenges and Misconceptions of Collaborative and Social Learning in the Workplace (Part I)

Filed Under Industry Experts | Leave a Comment 

The Internet Time Alliance is a newly branded international think tank formed by six training industry luminaries: Harold Jarche, Jay Cross, Clark Quinn, Charles Jennings, Jane Hart, and Jon Husband. In this podcast, we talk to four of the principals about this unique initiative and their perspectives on collaborative and social learning in the workplace.

This dream team aims high and isn’t afraid to turn conventional thinking on its head in order to help training organizations innovate. As far as the Internet Time Alliance is concerned, we are seeing the end of the training department as we knew it only a few years ago. As work becomes more complex, training is now less about developing content and more about developing networks.

The team discusses that while CLOs recognize that they have to embrace networks, informal learning, and social technologies, there are still a number of misconceptions and obstacles that prevent collaborative learning from being an organic part of the enterprise training infrastructure. Once these social initiatives are embraced however, CLOs and their training organizations are poised to have equal or even greater footing than other executives in the C-suite.

This podcast is broken up into 5 parts. Each part comprises a panel discussion around a specific topic. This post is part I. Listen to the discussion below or jump next to part II.

- Can you each tell us a little bit about the Internet Time Alliance initiative and how you manage collaboration and knowledge sharing within the group?

 Podcast #12.1 [9:46m]: Hide Player | Play in Popup | Download
 Podcast #12.1 [9:46m]: Download

Five brief podcasts on collaborative and social learning from the Internet Time Alliance. http://www.xyleme.com/podcasts/#