Yesterday I wrote that introducing asynchronous social media for formal organisation learning is difficult – see 4 Considerations for Implementing Social Media for Formal Learning. I suggested we need to become creative in design, and look at social media to help embed learning into the workplace. Below is a description of one such creative solution.

In 2006 I was working for a Pharma company and was completing my MA (E-Learning) at UTS. I knew about work from Thiagi, in particular learning games using email. For one of my Uni subjects, I designed a learning interface that essentially simplified and aggregated a email learning activity. The company’s web designer developed the solution using an old technology that is rarely used these days – but it worked! We called the platform LearnShare.

The platform had an administration ‘back end’ that enabled our Learning and Development (L&D) team to create scenarios. We could enter text and upload supporting pictures/video. For example, a sales scenario:

“You are about to see Dr X. You have heard she prefers using Y product to your product but you need to confirm this. What are two open questions you can use to uncover Dr X’s preferred treatment option?”

Below the question is a free text box. Learners were pre-warned that what they enter in the text box will be viewed by the learning community, so take you post seriously.

On the following page the question is repeated, and the responses are listed, beginning with a response from the subject expert. This process of question > text response > community view is repeated to represent the progression of conversation in the sales call.

We could build this scenario in about 30 minutes in response to a field issue, new clinical paper or competitor activity. We would send it to the sales team on a Monday and close it on Friday. The administration functionality provided reporting. It also enabled me to download the question and free-text responses as a PDF and send it to the team, thereby enabling learners who participated early to see the input of the late respondents.

What this enabled was an automated way of gathering meta-perspectives of the team to a problem, issue or opportunity. The PDF could be printed and taken into the field.

The benefits of LearnShare:

• Low administration (compared with aggregating emails)
• Simple to build, enabling L&D to be highly responsive to business needs
• Learner access was simply a URL sent by email
• Peer pressure was used to ensure contribution – you looked pretty silly if you tried to bypass the text box by simply writing ‘xxx’, as it was captured under you name for all to see.
• It was practical for learners – they know why they were doing it – there would be something for them at the end of the week that they could use the following week to help solve real sales issues.

Although the learning exercise was formal (i.e. created by L&D), the purpose of the activity was practical and work-based. This is an example of the kind of blended learning I was referring to last post. LearnShare was an example of the L&D role transition from the classroom to ‘enabling’ work-based sharing.

Why do e-learning providers hate this kind of technology? Because it’s L&D generated, and the results can’t sit in a LMS. I am yet to see this learning technology made available commercially.

Although it meant I had learner reports in 2 databases (the LMS for courseware, and LearnShare), consider the higher order assessment of learner skill I was able to achieve with LearnShare compared with LMS trackable multiple choice.

Most of all, LearnShare enabled L&D to play a pivotal role in workplace sharing. LearnShare enabled creative thinking and problem-solving happen quickly in response to changes in in field conditions.

I’d love to read your comments about the LearnShare learning design. Please feel free to comment.

A question from an organisational learning partner:

What are some tips for implementing social media into the workplace?

Here are my questions & tips – in no particular order:

Analysis questions:

1. Who’s idea is it? Is it yours or the end users? If it’s your’s, then you need to check that the intended end users also think it’s a good idea, or you may be wasting your time. Ask the real end users. Ask lots of them. And get to know their workflow and pain points. What kind of social media space would help them to do their job better?

2. Is our organisation ready for social media? This question is about organisational culture and climate. Is the organisation autocratic, hierarchical, democratic or collaborative by nature? Are there high levels of trust? Do staff inherently understand cooroporate behaviour and responsibilities? Get some early HR and OD advice.

3. What’s the imperative to join? Intended users will not sign up or join unless they are compelled to do so.

4. What’s its purpose? Once the end user is in the space, they must be able to quickly assess it’s purpose to them, or they will leave and never come back. Make sure a new space is already filled with useful stuff when it’s launched.

5. What are you asking users to do? Be clear about the agreed expectations of the community, including contribution and behaviour. If the expectations are onerous, this won’t be appreciated by busy users. We are all time poor – even contributors to social media.

Tips:

1. Make sure the platform is easy to use and interacts with workflow. Conduct UAT early, before full implementation. Sit next to the testers and watch them sign in and orientate themselves to the space. Then ask them direct questions about their decision-making in the space.

2. Make sure the platform functionality interacts with user workflow. Ensure posts come to users rather than users having to revisit the space. Think LinkedIn. The weekly digest functionality with embedded hyperlinks makes going back to the online discussion really easy.

3. Be realistic about uptake. It takes time to create a critical mass that will self-feed and propel conversation. Be prepared to ‘force feed’ the space for a while. Remember, not only are contributors learning – so are the ‘lurkers.’ Don’t simply measure contributions. Measure site visits as well.

4. Use a competition to promote the space and it’s purpose. There’s nothing like a bit of fun to create interest and conversation about an initiative. Make sure the competition isn’t too arduous – you are looking for users to experience simple success.

5. Make sure you have executive engagement. This is important, not only to ensure you don’t run into issues with policy, but also to ensure executives understand the social learning benefits of social media. Get them to lead by example. Get them to contribute to the space and to publicly reward the behaviour of contributors by responding to them.

6. Implement a rolling change strategy. Think 1. Communication, 2. Education and 3. Modelling behaviour. Communicate early success. Educate by providing “how do I” videos or tips in the space itself. Model behaviour yourself. This means visit the space every day, and contribute regularly.

7. Wear the shoes of an end-user. Notice how difficult it is to write your first posts – not only functionally, but just getting the words out. Don’t expect 600 word posts. A simple couple of sentences can be a very useful contribution.

8. Get design advice. If you’re designing the space from scratch, you need to consider the principles of human-computer interaction. A website designer can give you some practical advice.

9. Keep it tidy and up to date. New users will make mistakes where to post. Discussions and resources will become out of date. New resources that users expect in the space may be missing. A dedicated someone is needed to fuel the conversation, tidy mistakes and keep resources fresh.

10. Plan for redundancy. The space will not live in it’s current form forever. New technology will make the space seem old. New functionality will be missing from this space. Platforms will need upgrading for tech security and tech support reasons. Discussions will need archiving. Don’t be surprised if the implemented social media platform has only a 3 year shelf life.

I hope this post has been useful. For more posts and video tutorials on social media, click “Social media” in the categories list.

If you have a tip you would like to share, or a question, feel free to comment or use the Contact Us form.

Next post I will address social media for formal organisational learning.

Episode 15 e-learning tutorial asks why many Australian organisations are failing to invetigate new technologies to support strategic capability development. Alison suggests seven possible reasons.

Why not download this free e-learning training from iTunes

Or read the Transcript

Or watch the entire free e-learning tutorial series on our YouTube channel (Episode 15 is embedded below).

The E-Learning Network of Australasia (ElNet) has been around for over 6 yrs. The 2011 ElNet Congress was held last Friday in Sydney. A reasonable turn out of people, and some interesting conversations that were testimony to the experience of the people in the room. Australia is certainly maturing in the learning technology space.

The focus of the congress was rapid e-learning and workplace learning. Some of the key points were kindly tweeted by Ryan Tracey and Michael Gwyther of Yum Productions.

My presentation was a very small component of my EdD dissertation. I overlaid my presentation with what I think are three trends in technology and learning:

1. Enablement – Workplace learning strategy should be about enabling staff to do what they have to do in their role. We should always be asking ourselves:

• “Is our learning strategy enabling staff to do their job more efficiently and/or effectively?”
• “What do we need to provide managers to help them to coach staff in the workplace?”
• “What skills to we need to teach to staff to help them to learn in the workplace?” e.g. search and retrieval skills, networking skills, information management skills.

2. Agile content – Information is changing fast. Additionally, staff need to access current and emerging information quickly. We should ask ourselves “If I build this content in this technology platform:

• how easy will people be able to access it in the workplace?”
• how easy will it be to edit and update by me, my team, the staff themselves?”
• what tools and techniques can I use to ensure the information is easy for staff to digest and retain or refer back to?”

3. Employees as producers – With emerging information comes the realisation that L&D is not the fountain of all knowledge. Staff and their peers are the real source of contextual, relevant and up-to-date information. Staff are using text and media technologies at home to produce artifacts that are important to them. We should ask ourselves:

• “Are there ways we can enable staff to be producers of content, respondents to organisational questions?”
• “How will we reward this sharing behaviour?”

I suspect there hundreds of new platforms being built and refined to help organisations to truly enable staff to easily pose questions, share experience and judgement. Three that I know of are:

a) www.yackstar.com - harnessing the ‘social energy’ of teams
b) www.bloomfire.com - spreading knowledge though questioning and sharing
c) www.alphastudy.com - knowledge portals being used in some Australian hospitals

If you are interested, why not download a demo from one of these sites.