Chief Learning Officer - October 2008 - (Page 48)

the C-suite must demonstrate to employees that sharing ideas and working together is not only acceptable, but it is encouraged. Once an appropriate company culture is in place and management is on-board, organizations then must provide tools to facilitate informal learning among employees. Lambert categorized these knowledge-sharing tools into three distinct areas: The ﬁrst set of tools refers to “those tools that organize the informal learning process,” he said. In other words, the internal communities of practice and online discussion forums “give [employees] the ability to ﬁlter and understand some of the informal learning opportunities that are available to them.” Tools such as blogs and wikis are free, can bring fragmented information together in one place and often facilitate faster, more up-to-date learning. The second set refers to such Web 2.0 tools as blogs, wikis and Web conferencing, which can be incredibly useful in keeping content up-to-date, especially in today’s fast-paced world, Lambert said. The third group “would be those tools that allow people to build communities, ﬁnd experts and create experts” — this includes social networking, he said. “This can be the idea of allowing people to selfdesignate as experts in a particular topic and, importantly, allowing other people to rate them. [And a user] can create a network of [his] go-to people, [his] personal network.” However, Talanca cautioned that organizations must strive to keep all these tools as simple as possible. “The best informal learning tools [are] all these Web 2.0 types of tools: the ones that are freely available on the Internet,” he said. “Unfortunately, when these tools come in-house and become part of a bigger software system, they tend to get restrictive. And I think that’s the real challenge for companies. It needs to be — at the end of the day — very, very easy for the employees.” Making it easy for employees does not mean taking 48 Chief Learning Ofﬁcer • October 2008 • www.clomedia.com a hands-on approach to moderating the content. Different organizations have different policies when it comes to monitoring informal learning, but most agree a light touch is best. For example, while Talanca believes that usergenerated content should be moderated, he said it should be done only at a high level and only when formal intervention is necessary. “We’d rather have the learning drive what the moderator does with that learning,” he said. “I know that there are many people in this organization and other organizations who don’t agree with that, but we ﬁnd that you really need to see how that learning and that discussion evolves and then play from there.” Meanwhile, Howe said HDS does not have an overarching moderation policy in place and believes simply facilitating collaboration and networking is enough. “I think managing informal learning is a little bit of an oxymoron,” he said. “You don’t necessarily want everybody talking to everybody, but what you do need is the guy who needs to know talking to the guy who’s got the answer. So I think there’s absolutely a role [for the learning organization] to facilitate that.” While different companies have different opinions when it comes to monitoring informal learning, most agree an organization must have a policy in place to leverage it effectively. “Informal learning happens whether organizations manage it or don’t manage it,” Lambert said. “There are beneﬁts to managing it in terms of reducing the time people spend seeking information and improving the accuracy of what they get.” Risks and Challenges The moderation question goes hand in hand with the issue of control. Many learning professionals are struck with the same thought: If we let employees write blogs or wiki entries freely, how can we ensure they’re not spreading inappropriate or inaccurate information? “I think the ability for multiple people to contribute and hone in on a right answer far outweighs any downside,” Howe said. “Given the prevalence of e-mail and instant messaging, there are plenty of ways for people to disseminate inaccurate information. “Do things like wikis make it easier for more people to see it? Maybe, yes, but I would view that as a good thing because the chances of someone who knows the right answer seeing it also go up. Whereas if that one person wasn’t on an e-mail that went out to 200 people, 200 people have got bad information and they don’t think they’ve got bad information.” Another potential roadblock is that people might waste valuable time and energy ﬁguring out how to use the new technologies before integrating them effectively. http://www.clomedia.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Chief Learning Officer - October 2008

Chief Learning Officer - October 2008 Editor’s Letter Connections Business Impact Best Practices Effectiveness Guest Editorial How Fast Is Your ‘B’ Team? Hampton Hotels CLO Profile Save the World, Make a Buck: Seven Ideas From the Nonprofit Sector Developing Leaders at Amnesty International Learning Measurements: It’s Time to Align Aligning Measurement to Business Success Training Employees With Special Needs How to Reach Disabled Learners Hands Off: Facilitating Informal Learning Who Owns Informal Learning? Case Study Business Intelligence Advertisers’ Index Editorial Resources In Conclusion

Chief Learning Officer - October 2008

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