Chief Learning Officer - December 2008 - (Page 28)

Learning Opportunities Embedded in Social Networking BY MARK SYLVESTER In the past ﬁve years, social media in the enterprise has transitioned from simple e-mail and discussion boards to customizable, full-featured, in-house social networks. In turn, organizations are beginning to realize the learning beneﬁts of such networks. W hile the learning strategy of an organization will typically vary widely, at its heart, it must answer the question of how to involve learners in the process. A primary beneﬁt of a social network is the inherent interactivity in each system. To beneﬁt from the network, one ultimately has to interact, which takes the form of creating a proﬁle, joining groups, posting and reading threads on forums, adding content and generally being a part of a conversation. This interactivity is vital to the success of a vibrant social network and is not arrived at by chance. Creating a compelling environment with clearly articulated goals takes thought and its own strategy. And this strategy must support the overall learning strategy of the organization. There are many ways to add social media tools to support a learning strategy. Companies can add groups on public-facing sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn, and many are seeing tremendous participation here, much to the chagrin of management. Because these sites are onesize-ﬁts-all and not speciﬁcally designed for the organization, they provide an avenue for employees to meet and communicate with one another outside the workplace but don’t necessarily support the overarching goal of involving them in the learning process. Yes, it is a positive outcome that they are meeting one another. But it seems to be more for the social part of networking, instead of ﬁnding others with similar skills or study partners to improve their knowledge about the job at hand. These sites are excellent at raising the awareness of social networking. Yet, they fail to help learning professionals meet their strategic goals. The need to tailor networks has led professionals to seek out social networking platforms that are customized to support their learning needs. Now there is a growing market of “white-label social networks” that are meeting this need. Major research organizations — such as Aberdeen, Bersin and Forrester — are starting to cover this growing group of companies, and recent surveys prove most organizations are looking to add social media tools to their arsenals. Where to Start Social networking has the ability to make important connections between employees. Consider what you want employees to learn about each other and what you want to learn about them when crafting the proﬁle portion of your network, the most important component when designing your own site. Also, what would they want to know about each other in a professional context? It might be previous experience, usually known only by HR and covered in their ﬁled away resume. It might be hard and soft skills or certiﬁcations, competencies, values or even professional interests 28 Chief Learning Ofﬁcer • December 2008 • www.clomedia.com http://www.clomedia.com

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Chief Learning Officer - December 2008 Editor’s Letter Contents Connections Business Impact Best Practices Effectiveness Guest Editorial The Future of Learning CLO Profile Learning Opportunities Embedded in Social Networking ManTech Leverages Knowledge Management Approaches for Social Networking Agility Training for the Learning Organization Creating an Agile Organization With Learning 2.0 2008 Learning In Practice Awards Corporate Social Responsibility: How Can Learning Contribute? Union Fenosa Corporate University: How CSR Education Impacted the Bottom Line Training in the 21st Century: Everything Old Is New Again Zions Bancorp.: Connecting the Dots Case Study Business Intelligence Advertisers’ Index Editorial Resources In Conclusion

Chief Learning Officer - December 2008

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