The Sleeping Giant & the Social GPS

On social media for learning and development programs within the enterprise:

The giant, in this case, is the “power of social media” within the workplace. And the “opportunity” is sleeping. Here is a little analogy to describe what I mean. If you have ever been driving around San Francisco (or any major city for that matter) during the height of the tourist season and noticed those little noisy GoCars zipping up and down the streets while blasting GPS directions to the occupants… you might have an idea or understand what I'm about to describe.

Introducing social media for learning and development programs within the enterprise environment is like telling someone how and where to drive their own car. 1) They already know how to drive their car and 2) they usually know how they want to get where they are going. Well, those GoCars tell the drivers not only where to drive but where to stop, where to look and even when to look (out for special landmarks) to make sure the operator gets the full value of their tour. Furthermore, they might even make you (the GoCar operator) look like a complete child as you obviously don’t fit in…you’re smaller, need to wear a helmet as if you are going to get into a crash at any minute, and on top of that your parent (the GPS audio tour) is yelling at you half the time about what you should and should not do because your engine is too noisy to be able to hear properly.

Bringing it home, this image conjures similar resemblance to launching learning programs utilizing collaborative learning technologies for employees who 1) already know how to use their computer and can fill in a simple web form in order to contribute to an online discussion for example, 2) are going to be told by a facilitator when to post and how often in order to get credit for attending the program, and 3) are not in control of where the end of the program is for them. In other words, participants enrolled cannot (currently) drop out and still get “credit” for attending– as if that really matters for the attendee. (Today this matters more for the hosting L&D group that may incurs cost to put on such learning program.)

The fact is, a learning “program”, by definition being formal, has a starting point and a stopping point right? But learning itself..not so much. In comes “informal” support and design. Granted without some structure, how would anyone ever really benefit from a shared discussion that only lasted one week tops for instance –-some amount of moderation is always recommended to help reveal those precious “learning nuggets” at the end of a discussion. But what I am pulling at here is a recognition that controlling the use of a tool that was designed to be self-initiating by design (such as creating a discussion or adding to an online shared document (a.k.a. wiki), is like fixing something that ‘aint broke – or formalizing a natural tendency to express and share freely (e.g., via Yammer, Flickr, Screencast/Jing, Facebook etc).

Some credit is due however. Not everyone is a good driver on the roads and a little guidance (like an onboard GPS system) can come in handy. Likewise, the online savvy crowd is growing and amongst all the fluff, a little “Social GPS” might also come in handy. Perhaps the learning technician can help out here. Time to wake up sleepy giant -- better get up and get organized, else your breakfast of tasty digital natives (a.k.a.“opportunity”) is going to get cold.