Last week I wrote about content management and content access for on-demand learning, as described by Mark Vickers of Bersin and Associates. As a subset of this, I’d like to raise the role of content curator in workplace learning.

Who is a content curator?

A good content curator is someone who:

1. Is keeny interested in a niche topic and is willing to share with others the information they gather
2. Has formidable skills in information search, retrieval, synthesis and management

Content curation is often a role taken up voluntarily by an individual for altruistic or other reasons. The curator scours the web, including social media, for breaking news, discoveries and opinions. They gather the information and make it accessible, helping time poor people stay on top of what’s going on in their field of interest or expertise. It’s important the curator remains consistent in the quality and specificity of the content they gather and disseminate.

What tools are needed?

Generally speaking, the content curator requires access to the internet and all social media platforms, including Twitter. They also require a platform to aggregate and distribute the content they gather and even critique. Click here for a comparison table of curation platforms.

In most instances, content curator platforms utilise RSS feeds to aggregate information from reputable sources. Examples of the popular Scoop.it platform include E-Learning and Online Teaching and Instructional Design for eLearning, mLearning and Games. My favourite e-learning curator is Tony Karrer of E-Learning Learning. Tony gathers the posts of tens of e-learning blogs into one easy to search platform that people can subscribe to.

Curators who critique information provide an additional service to simply gathering RSS feeds of reputable websites. Such curators do well with a blog platform to journal their reflections and opinions.

What’s content curation got to do with workplace learning?

Well, have a look at the examples above and you will soon see the relevance. What an advantage it would be to have a curator gathering quality information about specific topics into one platform for staff to access and build their knowledge. How wonderful it would be for an expert to have the opportunity to critique current news for it’s relevance to your organisation.

All your organisation needs to provide a budding curator is a suitable platform,  unrestricted internet access and a culture of reward for sharing and learning.

Further reading:

How to be a formidable content curator

Content curators are the new superheros of the web

Why a content curator is not an editor

Infolust – “Consumers cannot get enough information as long as it’s relevant and useful to them”, so says Henry Mason of Trendwatching.com, as cite by this week’s BRW article Pick The Trend.

We are all consumers, and most of us use the internet without fuss to find the information we need to make decisions, and to keep abreast of our interests and friends. As consumers, we inherently know the power of information to help our problem-solving. So, why do most of us not engage with information in the same way at work? Why is ‘Infolust’ felt so little by our staff?

I’m sure the answer to this question is complex; linked to culture and climate, motivation and so on. But some of the answer lies in the way we ‘do’ information management in organisations.

Last week in my Connect Thinking blog I explored what we can learn from content marketing about information writing and distribution. Below is my attempt at examining the differences between online content at home and at work.

If we start to write and treat online content as if we were internet marketers, it would go a long way to ‘enabling’ staff to use information to make informed decisions, problem solve and develop mastery.

Some organisations do this well; in particular IT-based organisations and R&D organisations who have understood the value or accessible content for a long time. But many are so far behind in content management that it’s a significant impairment to staff capability development. One way to ‘litmus test’ where organisations place the value of accessible content is by taking a look at their intranet.

Seven years ago I developed a synchronising searchable job-aid app for field laptops, long before smartphone apps were invented. As a learning practitioner I was criticised for introducing content management to my role. I think learning practitioners have every reason to be at the forefront of content management. Let’s see if we can build the ‘Infolust’ felt by our staff. Let’s empower our staff with accessible content. This would be a significant contribution to workplace learning.

I have been a fan of Ryan Tracey’s popular blog for a long time, and was delighted when he self-published E-Learning Provocateur Volume 1. Imagine my delight getting my hands on E-Learning Provocateur Volume 2 which has just been released.

Volume 2 also takes us on a journey through Tracey’s reflections on his practice as a learning and development (L&D) professional, and on the things he observes around him; from homicide rates to bank customer service. Tracey has a gift for linking seemingly unrelated concepts and experiences back to his observations of new and emerging technologies. He reminds us that our role in L&D must evolve from content writers to facilitators of practice our employees engage in (pp 73).

Tracey’s gift for looking beyond the obvious allows readers an opportunity to question our assumptions. One such BFO (blinding flash of the obvious) for me was the topic Art vs (information) Science (pp31). Ryan argues the value of using a combination of visual tree structure and search box to enable information retrieval (pp31). Another pragmatic topic which I found equally as useful was 14 reasons why your multiple-choice quiz sucks. Yeah, we all know it – but Tracey makes the issues overt.

Tracey says he writes his blog for himself, and if anyone draws value from his musing, well that’s simply a bonus. I think Tracey’s contribution to the e-learning fraternity is more valuable than what this statement suggests. Spending time reflecting upon Tracey’s musings is a gift for most learning professionals.

And, no doubt I will be citing Tracey’s views on informal learning environments in my thesis.

I highly recommend E-Learning Provocateur Volume 2 to anyone who wants to litmus test their approach to organisational learning and technologies.

Podcast 27 is the second of a series of three tutorials exploring blended learning in organisations. In this video we explore tips for implementing blended learning, and include an example.

Why not download this free training resource from iTunes

Or read the transcript

Or watch the entire free e-learning tutorial series on our YouTube channel  (Podcast 27 is embedded below)