2010:  The Year Social Learning Goes Mainstream?

by J Hruby, Director of Marketing

One of the most talked-about trends in corporate learning over the past few years has been social learning—using social media technologies like blogs, discussion forums, and wikis to enhance learning.

Of course, talking about something and actually doing it are always two different things. Many corporate learning groups have found resistance both on the acceptance and implementation sides of the social learning equation.

First let’s consider the acceptance of social media. Some companies have been very slow in allowing or encouraging the use of social media tools because some have branded them as “time wasters” and “only of interest to tech-addicted Gen Y’ers.”

I can’t help but feel déjà vu all over again when I hear statements like this.

Didn’t we hear these same types of arguments against granting everyone web access and email accounts back in the early 1990s? And then again as we fought to get sound cards and the Adobe Flash player installed in order to enable more effective eLearning in the early 2000s?

As one member of the Fredrickson Roundtable for Learning Leaders said at a recent meeting where we discussed social learning and the resistance to it, “It’s just communication. No one questions the value of meetings or teleconferences, but who hasn’t been in a meeting that was a complete time waster? Yet no one questions whether or not we need to restrict the use of meetings.”

It was the general sense of agreement in the room and the following discussion about the progress being made that started me thinking that we could be on the verge of a breakout year for social learning in 2010. The level of acceptance seems to finally be reaching critical mass.

She went on to make another excellent point: times change.

“What are we supposed to tell potential recruits—of any age—when they ask what it’s like to work here? Imagine how ridiculous it would be to say, ‘Come work with us. We don’t allow individual phones, email accounts, or web access, but it’s a great place to work.’ Saying we don’t have or allow any use of social media tools has the same effect.”

There’s another benefit to the realization that social media is just another form of communication. One of the problems that can thwart any implementation of social media or learning is the idea that first the organization will need to develop vast new policies to deal with what might happen once people are allowed to communicate with each other.

I know, put that way it sounds absurd, because most organizations already have communications policies. So if the sticking point with social media is the fear that some have about what might happen, just extending these policies to include social media can be a far quicker way to clear this hurdle and move forward.

I think that the fading resistance to social learning can also be attributed to the fact that tens of millions of people now use social media sites and tools in their personal lives. Of course, this means that they understand how useful social media can be—it’s fast, powerful, efficient, effective, and just plain fun and interesting. Why wouldn’t we want to take advantage of them in the workplace?

Even if institutional resistance is waning, there’s still the question of implementation. Even the process of choosing a social media addition for a given learning need isn’t always easy. Then if you add the challenge of gaining IT support for bringing a new tool in-house or expanding the use of existing tools, it seems like an almost impossible task.

It isn’t all bad news. First, look around your organization and find out who’s already using social media. Even in companies where there’s not a sanctioned company-wide use of social medial, there are usually some groups who have pressed ahead because they see the business value. Use the momentum that these groups have generated and learn from them.

But if you build it, will they find it and will they use it?

My Fredcomm colleague and all-around techno-futurist John Wooden has repeatedly reminded me that the best way to get more people to embrace and use new things online is to put these things where people are already gathering. It may not be readily apparent where this online gathering place is, but with some exploring it will emerge.

If you want to make 2010 the year social learning really gets off the ground in your organization, but you don’t know where to start, get in touch. There is tremendous untapped potential in social learning and we can help you go from ideas to reality.