Elearning - February/March 2009 - (Page 25)

>>Happier customers as they get better answers, faster from a more knowledgeable group of sales people, call center agents or engineers. Wilkins - A number of customers are already using social media as a form of learning to support particular initiatives. When Ford and Microsoft teamed up to create the SyncMyRide system, Ford faced a significant challenge: how to account for a huge and growing number of devices that support Bluetooth integration. They knew that they couldn’t possibly address compatibility and usage questions across all of the current, let alone future, Bluetooth devices that might synch with their solutions. Ford turned to Mzinga to create an embedded message board that lives on the Ford site. Through this moderated discussion area, users support themselves. Some users post questions, and other users as well as Ford experts provide answers. While this is not an LMS sort of solution, it is certainly a social learning solution and one that has been a resounding success. By integrating social media and networking into our LMS, Mzinga’s goal is to bring these sorts of social learning and sharing experiences into a more formal model, thereby enabling a broader view of learners’ varied experiences and the kinds of content from which learners derive value. Ciampi - Citrix was able to create communities of employees, customers and partners. The key measures of success were the ‘adoption rate of employees to LMS due to the fun factor and community’ and the ‘retention rate of employees onto LMS due to the community effect.’ Citrix was able to achieve both adoption and retention successfully, which was essential for their fast-paced growth since they believed their employees were the most critical asset. The employees were also able to take ownership of their career growth and get the mentorship needed from the pool of respected experts. Willis - One of the U.K.’s leading financial services companies uses communities of practice within Saba to extend the value of its formal learning programs. It has 70 communities that encourage informal contributions from different organizations across the corporation, including a community set up for the learning organiza- turnover stats. If you are trying to improve close rates, maybe you could correlate time spent contributing and sharing expertise with other sales reps with close rates? ‘Many companies will add social media and social networking technology to their LMS, but very few, if any, will have any real experience with community or social media.’ —Dave Wilkins, Mzinga tion itself. By building its implementation from the ground up as a system for both formal and informal learning, it is working to ingrain collaboration into every aspect of how its employees learn. Most of the communities are based on business function or focus groups, such as cost efficiencies. If you are part of a department or business function, you might be required to join a related group. In addition, the communities increase morale and include under-served groups at the organization. What best practices can you share with buyers interested in adding a social networking feature? Wilkins - There are several strategic decisions and activities that buyers need to think through: >>What is the desired state in the longterm? A workplace or learning community that includes LMS-like features or an LMS-like solution that includes community and social media features? >>How will you measure success? Do not accept the notion that it’s impossible to measure the impact of social interactions or sharing. If you are trying to reduce turnover, you could possibly correlate social networking activity and >>Think through moderation strategies. When will you use pre-moderation? When will you use watch words? Who will be responsible for post-moderation? >>Establish ‘rules of the road’ for your social media and social networking. Will you allow personal content and interactions? Or is it purely work-related? What behaviors are not allowed? Will there be rewards for certain behaviors? >>Lastly and most importantly: don’t continue to conduct business as usual with social media tasks layered on top. Participating in social networking and creating social media needs to become part of their job, not a side activity. Ciampi - SumTotal has the following best practices: >>Identify clear business cases that could use social networking and deliver tangible business value. Without clear business case, informal learning will be viewed as a cool technology without applicable use. >>Look at the cases used by best-in-class companies: community of practice, onboarding and training of virtual workforce, corporate engagement, customer support forums and on-the-job learning. These will give you ideas continued on page 43 Elearning! February/March 2009 25

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Elearning - February/March 2009

Elearning - February/March 2009 Contents Editor’s Note News Social Networking Popular Learning Needs Technology On Competency Management IT Employment Drops Trendlines Deals Learning Roles in Talent Management Informal E-Learning and Web 2.0 Cover Story: Learning Your Way to Profits Collaboration Trends, Strategies 12 Wishes for LMSs, LCMSs Tips: Recession-Proofing Your Job Case Study: Military Training Case Study: City of Arlington, Va. New Products Pop Quiz Last Word

Elearning - February/March 2009

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