Category Archives: Human resources

Are You Collaborating yet?

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Tech companies are investing heavily in ’Social’. You have to ask yourself one major question; Why?

You like most of us are already wired into ’Social’. And Tech companies know that the next big thing for corporates is ’Social Collaboration’. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_collaboration

After TQM, Six Sigma, Lean and many other management process improvement practices, they have all tried to achieve one thing; ’Social Collaboration’ and never really succeeded, because they created too many meetings and actually reduced productivity, the very opposite of why these practices were actually invented.

Now that you and I are wired into Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and many more social networks, corporates are delighted that those networks have managed to train you and me in the art of being virtually social. You and I have become comfortable in using these networks, happy to share personal and professional information publicly, plus sharing what we learn in our day to day lives, including recommendations for goods and services.

So now that we have been trained to do this, the natural extension of this is to bring ’Social’ into the organisation. Some have already started with patchy success, but the smarter executives realise that in order to capture the knowledge contained in employees heads and get true collaboration started, they will have to, without fail, invest in a corporate social network. By the way women understand this instinctively and men have to work at it much harder.

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A Corporate Social Network, doesn’t only connect employees with each other across departments, countries and continents, it will save them billions in travel costs, training programs and on-boarding (induction).

Corporates are a bit slow in the execution of this, because all they have been focussed on was things like, ’if we open Facebook and Twitter to employees, then no work will get done’, instead of saying how can we get those type of networks replicated inside of our business?

So major global tech companies, like Microsoft, IBM, Google etc., have all invested in social network start-ups to add to their portfolio of products allowing corporates to implement these networks seamlessly with existing software.

You might be a small business reading this and thinking, that’s great for larger corporates, but what about me as a start-up, a home office or a group of entrepreneurs, how do we do this?

Well the time has come for small business to collaborate with others. In order to compete with the larger corporates it’s absolutely essential that we embrace ’social’ as well.

You are already ’wired-in’ to LinkedIn, so now it’s time for you to maximise your activity there and start collaborating in order to grow your business footprint.

Ask me how and I will be delighted to collaborate on something with you.

Success!

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Have you Embraced ‘Social Learning’?

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The term ‘Social Learning’ in current days, doesn’t mean the same as it did when Bandura
did his experiments in the 60′s. It encompasses a theory that individuals enjoy learning in a social context, when our learning is discussed and debated.

Albert Bandura

After all ‘everyone has an opinion’, and this means that we actually learn more about a topic, news story, event, training intervention, when we can reflect on it and interact with it.

Learning & Development (or training) at school and at work has and will continue to be the holy grail for all education professionals. We’re always looking for better ways to engage students and drive a change in human behaviour.

Trouble is millions of $’s & £’s are spent every year to achieve these objectives. And it’s so painful to see when the results don’t match the spend.

Think about it. The world is at War somewhere in the world and always has been. Consider the economic conditions in most countries currently. If education, training and development works, we would not be in this state of flux. But really think about it. We as humans haven’t evolved as much as we like to think. Our nature is closer to animal instinct then we give ourselves credit for.

Human Development?

If we are truly sophisticated and used more of our frontal lobe, which is the part that separates us from animals, then surely we wouldn’t be carrying out wars, we wouldn’t have an issue with CO2 emissions and global warming, the economies would be running smoothly.

Surely it would? Am I mad? I don’t think so, I believe I am quite a rational kind of person, who can usually see both sides of the argument and yes I do see the best in most humans, because after all they should be educated, rational, intelligent and loving beings. And you also know that this isn’t always true, but we have to start somewhere and I start with everyone’s good until proven otherwise.

Anyway where is this leading us towards?

Oh yes, ‘Social Learning’.

Consider the success of Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube and the latest kid on the block Pinterest.

What do they all have in common? Any idea?

Humans connecting with humans, that’s the common thread through all of it. So why is this so important at this time in the world? It has allowed millions of us to have a voice, to discuss, comment and debate on news stories on major world events and on individual stories and their life events.

My theory and its only my theory and it makes perfect sense to me is as follows.

Remember the war? Which one you will say, because there have been so many.

Well let’s just talk about World War II.

The War brought people closer, they looked out for each other and they knew more about each other’s lives compared to any time in history. Well it’s nearly 70 years since the ending of that major war and ever since then we as humans have drifted apart and have become more unconnected.

Social Networking is not an accident or a happy coincidence, it isn’t either the creation of a Harvard University graduate or silicon valley’s entrepreneurs. Their invention would never have worked if there wasn’t the appetite for it.

The old saying ’people buy people first’ applies in social networks too, not just in business. We like to connect to like minded individuals or people that interest us and maybe we can learn something from them!

And yes we do like to learn, we are always learning, the brain collects millions of impressions every day, without us even realising it. If we don’t learn we will die. As humans we have an inherent need to grow. But when we think about learning we think about, classrooms, teachers, exams, pressure, stress and recall many unpleasant memories.

We don’t perceive consciously that reading tweets, Facebook posts, articles, blogs, watching YouTube videos as learning and of course it is, you are learning all the time.

The learning methodology of 70-20-10, is showing us that actually we learn 70% on the job or in our daily lives, 20% from our colleagues or family members or friends and 10% formally, so that’s when we sit in a classroom, either at school or in the workplace.

The development of social networks, will and is changing the world of learning forever. Millions of teachers and trainers are having to adopt these new technologies as part of their delivery methods.

This requires the teacher / trainer to become proficient in these new tools and get their own knowledge of these networks up to scratch. After all their students are using these to learn, so now we better embrace these too and make use of it.

Those that do, will succeed in helping to change the landscape of learning for themselves and students alike. A more engaged student will mean a more connected world and a more connected world will mean a world with more compassion and understanding for our fellow human.

Success!

 

Has your 17-year old got ‘Working Knowledge’?

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Working Knowledge is a brilliant Social Enterprise, who invited me to join their ‘Splash’ event in Bromsgrove on the 15th March 2012.

My role?  An Expert!

I have never been an ’Expert’ before, so it was a real treat.

I was an Expert from the business community together with other business experts, who were all there to support 17 / 18 year olds from Northeast Worcestershire College, to become enlightened about business through the vehicle of a one-day experiential event, allowing them to innovate, create and visualise their own entrepreneurial spirit.

I had never done anything like it before and so did not know what to expect.

What was it like?  In one word…OUTSTANDING!

Basically the event is a cross between Dragons Den and the Apprentice and as a local business I played the role of ‘expert’ advising students from the local College on their new business ideas.  Working Knowledge is a Social Enterprise and Nationally Award Winning educational training company founded by Dr James Lott.

The events Working Knowledge run have been shown to have a profound impact on the students and tutors in colleges throughout UK, bridging the gap between education and the workplace.  As a business expert volunteer I played an integral role in the success of the event and thereby raise the aspirations of young people in my region.

Here’s my testimonial MindMap and Video, which was the best way for me to articulate what I thought of the whole day.

And why does Working Knowledge exist?

They believe that for the UK economy to grow and for communities to thrive, young people need to be inspired by, and better prepared for, the world of work. We need young people that are more confident, purposeful and responsible and can therefore provide a sustained flow of talent and energy into the local economy. Their vision cannot be achieved by educators alone, the business community HAS to be involved in the education process.

What a great vision!

There is a website http://www.workingknowledge.org.uk/business-experts/overview/ where you can find out more about the expert role.  If you are interested in becoming involved then please register here http://events.workingknowledge.org.uk/profile/new?type=expert and Working Knowledge will contact you when a suitable event comes up in
your area.

If you have any questions then contact Ollie Collard on 0117 304 8000 or email
ollie.collard@workingknowledge.org.uk

I hope you do take up the opportunity.  It really is one worth doing.

Success!

Do you really make assumptions all the time?

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I read a fascinating article in Wired magazine by Jonathan Lehrer, where he discusses the phenomena of our brains making assumptions on how things work, based on a set of data that we have collected.  In fact we collect data in our brains all the time.  And when we analyse data we start making all sorts of assumptions and conclusions based on that data.

And of course we can never have enough data to make our decisions on and at some stage we have to decide that we have enough of it to base our decisions on.

And this happens all the time in the most dangerous industry in the world, pharmaceuticals.  This article highlights some lessons for us all on how we make assumptions all the time in our private, business and social lives.

I have extracted what I believe to be the important constituents from his article:

On November 30, 2006 executives at Pfizer – the largest pharmaceutical company in the world held a meeting with investors at the firm’s research centre in Groton, Connecticut.  Jeff Kindler, the then CEO began the presentation with an upbeat assessment of the company’s efforts to bring new drugs to market.   He cited “exciting approaches” to the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease, fibromyalgia and arthritis.  But Kindler was most excited about a new drug called torcetrapib, which had recently entered Phase III clinical trials, the last step before filing for approval.  He confidently declared that it would be “one of the most important compounds of our generation”.  Kindler told investors that, by the second half of 2008, Pfizer would begin applying for approval from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).  The success of the drug seemed a sure thing.  And then, just two days later, on December 2, 2006, Pfizer issued a stunning announcement: the torcetrapib Phase III clinical trial was being terminated.  Although the compound was supposed to prevent heart disease, it was actually triggering higher rates of chest pain and heart failure and a 60% increase in overall mortality.  The drug appeared to be killing people.  That week, Pfizer’s value plummeted by $21 billion (£14 billion).

The story of torcetrapib is one of mistaken causation.  Pfizer was operating on the assumption that raising levels of HDL cholesterol and lowering LDL would lead to predictable outcome: improved cardiovascular health.  Less arterial plaque.  Cleaner pipes.  But that didn’t happen. (According to a recent analysis, more that 40% of drugs fail Phase III clinical trials).

The problem was, it’s this assumption that causes a strange kind of knowledge.  This was first pointed out by David Hume, a Scottish 18th-century philosopher.  

He realised that, although people talk about causes as if they are real facts – tangible things that can be discovered – they’re actually not at all factual.  Instead, Hume said, every cause is just a slippery story, a catchy conjecture, a “lively conception produced by habit”.  When an apple falls from a tree, the cause is obvious: gravity.  Hume’s sceptical insight was that we don’t see gravity – we see only an object tugged towards earth.  We look at X and then at Y, and invent a story about what happened in between.  We can measure facts, but a cause is not a fact – it’s fiction that helps us make sense of facts.

The truth is, our stories about causation are shadowed by all sorts of mental short cuts.  Most of the time, these work well enough.  They allow us to discover the law of gravity, and design wondrous technologies.  However when it comes to reasoning about highly complex systems – say the human body – these short cuts go from being slickly efficient to outright misleading.

Consider a set of classic experiments designed by Belgian psychologist Albert Michotte, first conducted in the 40′s.

His research featured a series of short films about a blue ball and a red ball.  In the first  film, the red ball races across the screen, touches the blue ball and then stops.  The blue ball, meanwhile, begins moving in the shame basic direction as the red ball.  When Michotte asked people to describe the film, they automatically lapsed in the language of causation.  The red ball hit the blue ball, which caused it to move.  This is known as the launching effect, and it’s a universal property of visual perception.  Although there was nothing in the two-second film – it was just a montage of animated images – people couldn’t help but tell a story about what had happened.  They had translated their perceptions into causal beliefs.  Michotte would go on to conduct more than 100 of these studies manipulating the films.

There are two lessons learned from these experiments.  The first is that our theories about a particular cause and effect are inherently perceptual, infected by all the sensory cheats of vision.  Hume was right that causes are never seen, only inferred, but the truth is we can’t tell the difference.  And so we look at moving balls and see causes, melodrama of taps and collisions, chasing and fleeing.  The second lesson is that causal explanations are oversimplifications.  This is what makes them useful – they help us grasp the world at a glance.  

The article is far too long for me to include everything in it and I have not been able to find it online either.  However I think I have got the main message from it.

And the question I pose to you, is:  What assumptions are you making today, that are based on incorrect date or not enough data or just that you have perceived the information  in a certain way?  Is the red ball chasing the blue ball instead of them just moving independently of each other?

And then there is the other old saying: “Perception is Reality”

Success!

Ready for an ethical planet?

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You may have noticed recently that autocratic and dishonest behaviour is being rewarded by resentment and demands for justice. And everyone on the planet is involved. The human drama continues to unfold in front of our eyes on a daily basis. And what has grabbed the news headlines for over 12 months are the battles, whether physical in terms of fighting or verbal against the regimes, journalists, police, banks, senior individuals in charge and many more institutions and individuals that have been allowed to get away with thinking of just themselves and their own personal interest.

Actually we are selfish race, we don’t really like other fellow human beings unless they are our own off-spring and then even we struggle to get on with them.

We are all aware of the family feuds that happen between siblings and not to speak of the arguments during family gatherings.

So why can’t we be more unselfish and decide to support others? Why can’t we put the importance of our own happiness and satisfaction on hold for a bit and instead think of others?

‘But we do!’ I hear you say, we support charities, we give money to them every time there is an appeal and true the UK are one of the most charitable nations in the world. But we do this out of guilt, because we feel we may not have done enough during the past 12 months, so giving some money to ‘children in need’ or comic relief’ or one of the other ‘telethons’ makes us feel better, like we have given something and that means we have done our ‘bit’.

Genuinely do you feel better or does your conscious actually know that you only did something because you have a condition, which I like to call ‘spontaneous guilt’?

So how do we change our behaviour to become more ethical, more community focussed, more charitable, display more integrity, be less greedy, supporting of our fellow human beings, inspired to volunteer?

I don’t intend to answer this question for you, it’s for you to answer this for yourself.

I challenge you to look into your soul and decide whether you are doing enough for your fellow human.

Oh and I nearly forgot happy Valentine’s day!

Success!

Steve Dineen | ‘The Future is Social’ | 11.11.11

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Steve Dineen, Executive Chairman of Fusion Universal, talks at the ‘The Future is Social” event at Mahiki London on 11.11.11. Explains why workplace learning has to adopt a new way of learning and demonstrates how ‘Fuse’ has been developed to facilitate this.  It’s 25 minutes long, but well worth listening to.  Steve has an amazing vision.  He talks about and introduces some videos, and as it is just an audio recording, they have obviously been left out.  Enjoy!

Steve Dineen | ‘The Future is Social’ | 11.11.11 by Stayingaliveuk on Mixcloud

Leadership in Troubled Times?

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Are you a leader? In case you need some help with the answer…yes you are! We are all leaders in some way, whether it is at work, in the home, at your sports club, in your charity or community. We all have a leadership role to play in our lives.

But…

We don’t all recognise the leader inside of us, do you?

And…

We do recognise who the leaders are in our governments and in the corporate world. And we do love to judge, blame and call them from time to time a silly name. Well someone needs to be the leader, the one who leads the way, the person that sets her/himself up to be shouted at. Actually I pity them, because they have a thankless task and often we do not really appreciate them.

So why do they decide to become a leader and seeing as you ARE a leader in your life, what makes you decide to be one too? Have a think about it and when you can answer this question for yourself, you will have a better idea why the leaders in our world have chosen to become one. Exclude the dictators, but even so, we all have a small dictator inside of us!

And now comes the ‘trillion dollar’ question. Do you believe our leaders will lead us out of these troubled times? And if you don’t believe they can, why don’t you think they can? Answers on a postcard please!

Well if you do decide to answer this question, feel free to make your comments on this blog post or head over to http://www.facebook.com/stayingaliveuk and post your comments there.

The current unprecedented economic downturn has never been experienced by our leaders, so they don’t have all the answers. I remember from my days in corporate management, being a board director, that many employees complained about the directors, but were never willing to offer any alternative opinions or solutions.

So here’s my advice to you. Time to be a leader, whether it’s in your private life or work life, start if you have not already done so by offering alternative opinions and solutions. You have a voice and make sure it’s heard, make sure it’s constructive and share it with others to get a consensus view before submitting your ideas.

Leaders need other leaders to step forward and assist them with new ideas. They haven’t got all the answers and if handled properly and providing they are a good leader, they will take your ideas on board and develop them further.

Go on do it today, be brave, be bold, be a LEADER!

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Scott Watson on Female Unemployment

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Being creative to catch people's attention!

Shock statistics have painted a grim picture of retail unemployment particularly among female workers.  A recent study undertaken by analysts Ssentif has shown that unemployment among female retail workers has risen by an astonishing 27% in the last 12 months.

With high street retail giants such as Habitat and Jane Norman entering into administration, 126,000 former retail workers are now claiming job seekers allowance up from 94,000 one year ago.

Human Resources expert Scott Watson says that companies should be legally obliged have a duty to their redundant staff to up skill their job hunting skills in a proactive effort to help them exit unemployment more quickly.

‘Of course companies needing to make job cuts or entering administration need to rein in costs.  This does though need to be balanced with corporate social responsibility for those staff who are affected.  He continues, ‘This will not only help the economy to regenerate but also help skills transference in to other more buoyant sectors’.

‘During the 1980′s the mass closure of coal mines throughout the North resulted in the emergence of new service centre economies such as the call centre industry. Even with the current economic climate, this skills transference can be replicated in today’s challenging job’s market, ‘ Watson added.

Scott and his team have started a ground breaking online service for job hunters, called MyOnlineJobCoach, which provides expert advice on how to prepare and secure your next career move.  Fascinating concept and at a fraction of the cost (Normally £87 but via here Just £47 for 12 months) of what outplacement companies charge you for that advice.

A must for corporates who are making redundancies or putting people in the “at risk” category.

Although corporates may not be able to do anything about the economic issues, they could provide their redundant employees with a ‘feel-good factor’, by providing access to a site where they have over 40 videos with practical and sound advice.

Looking for Job Advice?

Scott Watson is an international human resources expert who advises organisations including DHL, GE, AXA amongst many others.  He is author of the book ‘Win Every Time – Essential Lessons For Existing and Emerging Leaders’.  Scott has personally trained over 10,000 individuals across the globe to enhance their effectiveness.

Great tips to get that first job!

UK Unemployed?

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It could be the worst crisis the world has ever seen.  Millions of unemployed people in the Western World.  It’s all being blamed on the bankers and their greed, but actually were they merely responding to our demands?  Our demand to have more and maybe even feeding our empty feelings and our need to satisfy our competitive nature.

So why is it that the Western World is still attempting to get back to business as usual. Do we not realise that business will never get back to where it use to be?  Big business, governments and us need to look at living a different life, doing more with less and looking at giving more rather then taking more.

As I started writing this blog post I heard news reports of threatened strikes all over the UK and suggestions that it will be the worst since 1929?  (The Great Depression in the United Kingdom, also known as the Great Slump, was a period of national economic downturn in the 1930s, which had its origins in the global Great Depression. It was the largest and most profound economic depression of the 20th century for the United Kingdom).  You may be fooled for believing that it’s over pension reforms, but underneath it all it’s because people are dissatisfied, in fear and just generally annoyed with the speed of the suggested cuts across the UK, the depth of which we have probably never seen in our lifetimes.

To fully understand why this has happened, you have to look closer to home.  You have to take a serious look at your own spending habits.  By the way I am not blaming you, I am blaming companies who have brainwashed us for years through advertising and the media in believing that we need things, that actually we can do without.

As early as 1896, experimental psychologists began studying the mental processes involved in advertising.  The first psychological theory of advertising maintained, in effect, that the consumer was a non-rational, suggestible creature under the hypnotic influence of the advertising copywriter.  Walter Dill Scott was the major proponent of this theory, and it was largely through his writings that advertising men learned about the psychology of suggestion.  Scott’s theory was consistent with a growing trend in the advertising profession toward viewing consumer behaviour as irrational.

So what will happen to all of these unemployed people, how will they survive and will they ever get another job?

These are all worrying questions for anyone who finds themselves without a job from one day to the next.  How is it possible that we can survive with less people in employment, when those people at one time were needed?  Anyone who has ever been made redundant, will feel demotivated, a failure and will find it hard to get going again.

Most of us need some way to get motivated again and get some support.  Visiting the job centre won’t do that for anyone, that will just get you more demotivated.

Companies won’t always support your exit from the company, only those with deep pockets.  But after all they have to pay redundancy costs and usually there won’t be much left after that.  So you are on your own, you need to do it yourself, so how do you get started?

There are a few recruitment organisation out there, who promise a tailored service from end to end, getting you to part with huge amounts of money, with a promise to help you to re-draft your CV, practice interviews with you and find you some jobs to go for.  There is no guarantee, there never is and with most job vacancies heavily oversubscribed, your chances are slim.

What you do need is to stand out from the crowd, some way of being noticed, becoming excellent at presenting yourself and knowing that you only have one chance to get it right.

Step in MyJobCoachOnline, probably the first of it’s kind in the UK.  At last someone has had the insight to provide something very affordable and still get all the great tips and techniques that is needed to land the dream job.  A training company based in Yorkshire that I have used and highly recommend, has developed a very comprehensive online learning portal, where job seekers can develop themselves and learn about the do’s and don’ts in getting themselves ready and applying for jobs.

It’s even more impressive that this is done through the medium of video and therefore easy for everyone to get to grips with.  It also means you can play it over and over again.

I wish I had thought of it, but more importantly they have provided a great public service to people worried about how to prepare for getting the next job.

And because its so affordable (11 pence per day), it also means that organisations can provide this service to their leavers, by way of a thank you and goodbye.  A gift for them to allow them to feel appreciated even when they are leaving the organisation.  A great idea!

I can wax lyrical and talk about all the benefits etc., but if you want to learn more and find out how you can get hold of this, just go and visit www.MyOnlineJobCoach/stayingaliveuk

I had a chat with Scott and Dirk and they very kindly gave me a preferred offer (46% discount) for my friends, business contacts and in fact my entire social network, including anyone that subscribes to my blog.

I applaud Scott and Dirk for what they have created and can see how this will grow over the next few years to being a very successful project.

Wishing you success with your job search and do let me know what you think of it.

Yammer Social Learning

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I copied this thread from Jane Hart’s Social Learning Community http://c4lpt.co.uk/community and I felt it made such interesting reading and illustrates the debate that is taking place in organisations today about Social Media, Social Learning and how to embrace and engage these technologies.

Elliot R

My organization is just entering the informal learning and social media discussion. My position is that both topics should be addressed in the same conversation. This statement says it for me: “Social learning/media is simply informal learning facilitated by technology.” Does anyone have data to support this? I have lots of excellent articles, and Jane’s reference to this

http://www.danpontefract.com/?p=847 really helped. I am familiar with the 70/30/10 model as well. Anything else?

Charles J: Elliot, not to be pedantic, but social media, social learning and informal learning do describe different things. Unfortunately it’s not black-and-white.

Social media is just that. Media that supports social interaction. In it’s raw state in our market-driven world social media is usually as much focused on advertising as on learning.

Social learning is what I’d term ‘learning through others’. Where interaction with others (colleagues, like-minded folk, our boss, people we meet on the street or in virtual environments like this) leads to new ideas and new behaviours. There is a school of thought that ALL learning is social. My view is that quite a lot is, and it’s increasing with the proliferation of technologies, but there is some learning that is deeply personal and self-directed.

The ‘informal’ term is rather a catch-all. It’s also slightly misleading as it can be taken as ‘haphazard’ and serendipitous. Some informal learning may be that, but a lot isn’t. Informal learning is all learning that is not directed in a structured way. It can be social or it can be isolated learning (where you learn through practice, for instance). It may be accidental, but it’s more likely to be highly directed.

Harold Jarche separates learning into a set of categories: directed/self-directed/undirected with learners (or workers) being dependent learners, independent learners or interdependent learners depending upon particular context. Jane has pulled this into a structure here http://bit.ly/eOQwyX that you may find useful. It’s not something to show business managers, but it may help clarify for people who have some experience and expertise with how people learn.

The 70:20:10 model is another framework for categorising learning – with the ’70′ describing learning through experience and practice, the ’20′ describing learning through others, and the ’10′ describing formal, directed learning. Again, unfortunately, some specific learning experiences are likely to ‘bleed’ across categories…. nothing is black-and-white.

Charles J: I should have said that informal learning is ‘more likely to be highly directed BY THE LEARNER’ ….

Charles J: Good catch, Nic! I shouldn’t have used ‘unfortunately’, or should at least have qualified it with “unfortunately for people who want to put things in nice neat rows”….. I can’t count the number of times I’ve been challenged on the 70:20:10 split by people saying that ‘it won’t work that way in my organisation, we need to do ‘x’ amount of formal development… etc’.

The point is that all of these frameworks and categories are intended to act as useful tools, not recipes.

Nic L: Charles. Thanks for a very helpful differentiation of the terms. There is currently lots of confusion and overlap of use of them even amongst those who truly “get” the learning revolution.

I would take issue with a single word in your post! “Unfortunately” in your description of the 70:20:10 model suggests that we ought to be able to categorise every element of learning and behaviour. You then go on to say nothing is black and white! I think we have to understand that as scientists and analysts and conceptualisers of one type or another there are no hard line differentiations in human behaviour – it is a continuum.

One of the difficulties we face as the L&D fraternity is to explain clearly to those with whom we seek to collaborate what we are all about. Using hard definitions and differentiations provides some insight but also again confuses the reality. There is a huge diversity to the way we learn and that the way forward is to recognise the centrality of the “learner” and to meet his/her needs by fostering whatever media, mechanisms and structures that will make the process effective. Drawing lines on the continuum invites the taking up of standpoints that mask the incredible breadth of the field in which we work. In doing so this risks the promotion of inappropriate or sub-optimal ways forward for the learner.

Jane H: Exactly! As Harold has articulated clearly here, there are no cookie-cutter solutions http://internettime.posterous.com/

David S: Charles, your explanation of the differences in definitions is very helpful, thank you.

Is there is a distinction to be made between the private and public sectors in terms of both mindset and investment?

I work a lot in the public sector and many in L&D are still coming to terms with facilitating learning rather than instructing, never mind the use of technology. E-learning is in there but with its detractors. Initiating and integrating online CoPs are rare in my experience as most rely on intranets which are not the same thing.

Charles J: I don’t see any difference between the needs and outputs in terms of mindset and investment for public and private sectors, David.

When it’s boiled down everyone is focused on helping people do their best and work to their potential using the most effective and most efficient approaches available. I think it’s irrelevant whether there’s a profit motive behind the organisation’s raison d’etre or not. For-profit and NFP organisations all want to get the best outcomes from their people.

However some of the levers that L&D and others in organisations can pull may be very different. For instance, for-profit organisations will respond to levers that are couched in terms of productivity and profitability. NFP and Govt. organisations will want the semantics to be presented differently – in terms of best value for the end user/customer/client/taxpayer and efficiencies.

So the routes to the end goal may be different, but the goal – helping to maximise workforce capability in the best way possible – will be the same.

Social and informal learning have a very important role to play in getting to the goal in every organisation whether it’s a multinational for-profit, a small or medium-sized enterprise, a government department or a charitable trust.

David S: I absolutely agree that the goal is the same and on the importance of social and informal learning. I sense sometimes in public sector environments that there is a mystique about the methods and ‘that’s what others do’. It’s a cultural resignation attitude.

Elliot R in reply to Charles J: Agreed. My recommendation to my team would be to use the term “social learning” v “social media” as the latter implies more of a marketing strategy via social technology.

However, I don’t believe you can have social learning without technology. But, IMHO, you can have informal learning without technology. Would you agree that the potential use of technology is one factor that distinguishes social learning from informal learning?

Nic L: Elliot – I have to disagree with you! Social learning happens all the time – whenever people meet together to discuss and share. it is totally ubiquitous and at the root of our humanity. If we try to limit it to any kind of structured context we deny its power.

Elliot R: I think we are talking past each other as you are correct. I am referring to technology only as a potential enabler. My organization is trying to force informal learning into a formal learning category and measure it via social learning which I do not believe is a good use of time.

Gary B in reply to Nic L: Just curious, then is the learning different from the delivery method or are we in need of a different term that incorporates a larger more encompassing term – process -method?

Jane B: Hi Elliot (and how are you, by the way?) . I think your last comment here sums it up well. The idea that L&D can own, direct, and manage informal and social learning (and get credit for it) is causing lots of problems. They didn’t own, direct, or manage that before, after all. We’re just finally at a time when others are recognizing social learning as legitimate learning, and learners have tools and capabilities at their disposal to help them better get what they need, not just the content that is pushed to them. Agreed: Trying to force it into old paradigms is not a good use of anyone’s time.

Nic L in reply to Gary B: Gary – for me the learning is the outcome which becomes visible in changed or improved performance at individual or organisation level. There are countless delivery methods – which are ways people address their needs and arrive at their learning.

Gary B in reply to Nic L: Nic, I agree with you that the “learning” is really the outcome that manifests in a variety of ways, but I’ll extend your phrasing a bit further and suggest that the delivery is separate from the processing of the information that was delivered and maybe the whole “social media” “social learning” etc could multiple steps — such as we use social media as the tool that results in social learning (I have no idea if we should name whatever intermediate processing takes place – probably not).

Elliot R: Gary, your comments echo my thoughts…social media as a POTENTIAL enabler towards social learning.

Nic L: Elliot and Gary – I agree with you both that the social media are potential enablers of learning – amongst many others. Social means when people talk to one another – so there are almost countless ways in which that happens. The social media present the L&D community with a fantastic new way to foster social interaction with a global reach which is focussed on learning. But the SoMe are not something we own in L&D – we just harness the vehicle to help people collaborate and learn. In situations where SoMe are not familiar it is an inappropriate way of pursuing our aims – and getting to a point where learning communities and CoP’s will get involved via the SoMe requires sensitivity and a lot of energy to create an ambience that is confortable for learners.

Michael de Groot in reply to Nic L: Wow what a great discussion here. All really great stuff. The conversation here would make an excellent blog post. I will just add one small thing if I may. The days that organisations are carving up SoMe are numbered. See for me Social means it’s owned by everyone and not just one department or one individual. I know it will take time for the penny to drop and we all like boundaries, which is the old military way of doing things. Over the next 12 -24 months (hopefully) it will be a battle for organisations to become more social, holistic and transparent. Those who get it will flourish. Others who don’t will have frustrated employees. Am I making sense?