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July 2009

Social Learning Tools that Improve Performance

By Karen Buchamer
© Copyright

Web 2.0 has given us an architecture of participation, social engagement and the means to be digitally engaged in each other’s personal and business lives.

Flickr, FaceBook, and YouTube have mainstreamed digital communication on a personal level but businesses are more cautious to utilize 2.0 tools. Smart businesses however are adopting the social aspects of 2.0 to harness collective intelligence, manage knowledge and locate expertise within organizations.

What are Social Learning Tools?
Web 2.0 technologies have increased focus on user generated content, sharing and collaborative efforts. Gone are the days of simply publishing information to an intranet or webpage where employees are unable to participate in the content.

Blogs and Wikis are two of the more popular social learning tools. Blogs are the present day office “water coolers”, a virtual space where chat and the latest news are informally exchanged among the workforce. Blogs offer this exchange in real time through an online, chronological collection of commentary. Combined with syndication technologies (RSS feeds) Blogs become a powerful tool by which information can be pushed out to employees anytime there is a new post.

Blogs are used to exchange ideas, problem-solve issues and contact expert knowledge within an organization. All readers benefit from the ongoing dialogue and important content is not lost if people are not present for the “conversation”. Blogs eliminate the need for email threads, c.c.s and close the loophole of not including someone on your email.

Wikis offer a searchable resource for collective intelligence. They are collaborative tools that allow any authorized user to create or edit pages. Wikis can serve as a gathering point to post and author documents, share links, project plans, meeting agendas and the like.

What We Know
Currently the spend of training $$ is 80% formal and 20% informal learning. This is a model that may change dramatically in the next few years. Studies show that most learning occurs informally and in the past this informal learning was found in classroom settings. With the advent of self paced eLearning this informal group learning aspect was lost. Social learning tools represent a way to integrate informal learning into eLearning to maintain the best of both worlds in a cost effective and engaging format.
Social Learning Tools accelerate the pace of knowledge exchange by utilizing the web (and smart devices) as a platform for generating and consuming content.

We also know that employees are in information overload and that the economy and competitive demands require employees to multi-task, as well as learn and produce results faster. Social learning tools support these goals.

Start Improving Now
Blogs and instant messaging can promote informal interactions, discussions and problem-solving that can be put into practice immediately on the job – integrating learning and work. This model promotes the best transfer of knowledge into performance results.

Blogs benefit all types of workgroups because of the need to access information. Sales forces can share winning techniques, warehouses can locate inventory, real estate professionals can target hot leads and scientists can collaborate on medical solutions.

Encourage teams to collaborate in Wikis to build knowledge bases and FAQs. Filter multiple information streams into one pipeline – a single source of information. This tactic is very useful when integrated into enterprise management systems such as MS SharePoint.

Use webinars to reduce virtual distance between groups of coworkers. Webcams and conferencing software to make people feel closer, allow discussions to flow easily and lessen the perception of physical separation.

Build eLearning simulations or Podcasts (max 15 min. long) that insert learners into real situations.

If your business already uses instant messenger you’ll want to watch for the launch of Google Wave, a personal communication and collaboration tool. “It is web-based communications protocol designed to merge e-mail, instant messaging, wiki, and social networking. It has a strong collaborative and real-time focus supported by robust spelling/grammar checking, automated translation between 40 languages and numerous other extensions.” (Google, May 27/09)
A demo of Google Wave can be viewed at http://wave.google.com/ (Its creators are the same people that brought us Google Maps).

Karen Buchamer is an award-winning eLearning specialist and digital communicator. She is the past President of the Knowledge Management Community of Practice and is the owner of imagebender media, a Vancouver-based Digital & Web Communications Company. www.imagebender.ca