How Will Social Impact Your 2013 Development (4 of 4)

At the beginning of each year, we look to our development over these next 12 months.  I would encourage you to add intentional use of your social network into your professional development objectives and here’s why/how:

• Network
  • How?: Do a keyword search based on another development objective you have – “process excellence,” “leadership,” “HR systems analysis” – whatever it is, and find someone who has experience where you need development and follow them.  Their blogs, discussion postings, and other activity will show up in your newsfeed.  If you want to develop some of their skills, start shadowing them on your network and eventually you may want to ask them to mentor you.
  • Why?: I personally believe that we’re a short time away from your strength as a candidate for a job including an evaluation of the strength of your network (see 2020 Workplace by K. Willyard).  I know that I was an attractive candidate for Capital One because I have connections across the nation in our field.  I want my associates to be connected in person and in our internal network with others across the enterprise that have similar intrests – use of Jive, use of Salesforce.com, process engineering, HR Technology, internal helpdesk support, mobile development – I encourage my team to connect with others.  I know that the stronger their relationships with others who have more experience, the greater the potential we’ll find answers when we need them

In Summary of This Series

For those who say, “I don’t have time,” my simple reply: time is a matter of priorities.  If professional development of you or your associates is a priority for you, then you make time for it.  As you make it a priority, in addition to formal training, consider the value of your social networks and harnessing the tens of thousands of years of experience available around you: blog, discuss, collaborate. We’ll all be better for it.

How Will Social Impact Your 2013 Development (3 of 4)

At the beginning of each year, we look to our development over these next 12 months.  I would encourage you to add intentional use of your social network into your professional development objectives and here’s why/how:

Managing/Starting a  Group

• How?: Our University already has an internal presence for both supporting learners and for supporting our  learning professionals, so this won’t be one of my associates’ objectives, though I may include in my own objectives the creation of a HR Cross-Functional Technology Group focused on sharing best practices across Development, Recruiting, Associate Relations, Benefits, etc.
• Why?: There’s value in building a “tribe.”  Sometimes all of the resources you need already exist, they just haven’t been pulled together for people to easily navigate.  I’ve watched the Capital One University Group grow and people become more familiar with their peers, the resources available to them, and industry trends as they’re posted from outside sites.  If you’re group/team doesn’t have a community of practice, maybe it’s time for you to build one.  Be smart about it. Don’t go start a group just for fun – it takes work, but I’ll say that I’ve found it well worth it.

How Will Social Impact Your 2013 Development (2 or 4)

At the beginning of each year, we look to our development over these next 12 months.  I would encourage you to add intentional use of your social network into your professional development objectives and here’s why/how:

Discussion Questions

• How?: Each associate on my team will have a development objective for 2013 requiring them to respond to and/or start a discussion each week in our internal network. I don’t care when or where.
• Why?: Customer experience is key.  My team is finding our internal network as a pretty cool opportunity to respond to the needs of our clients more quickly.  Our team is regularly patrolling the network for mention of keywords that we can proactively address before it becomes a ticket.  Recent examples include helping folks get access to a CBT not on their learning plan, gathering feedback on enhancements to our LMS, updating outdated links to courses, updating course listing for a college to be accurate, updating our processes with the UK etc.  It’s added to our daily work, but we see the value of seeing feedback real time about experiences and materials and responding to those proactively in addition to our standard support processes.
• Why?: You don’t know what you don’t know. A new community of practice, a pilot of a new piece of software, and an innovation expo – all events or activities my team has been a part of as a result of a headline we saw on our internal network that we would have otherwise not know about.  In those, we’ve also submitted ideas, enhancements, and identified bugs.  Post questions and answer questions to find out the latest trends, tools, and processes you should use – gain efficiencies through seeing how others are working.

Digital Fluency

Great read this week called Digital Fluency by Briggs and Makice.  A couple of great thoughts from the book I wanted to share:

There are three mutually dependent things that compromise innovation:

1. Critical Reflection – The ability to reframe problems by questioning assumptions about data and situations.
2. Creative Thinking – The ability to generate not-yet-proven ideas to transform the current situation into a future one.
3. Effective Implementation – The ability to turn creative ideas into practical reality in ways that perpetuate the innovation cycle (future ideation)

If you think of technology in the same way you think of a language – illiteracy, literacy, and fluency – the process to move from one extreme to the other moves a person from fear and apprehension to the ability to speak in broken phases and often out of context to get the basics (find the bathroom, food and drink or other necessities) and finally to fluency that allows you to use language when it’s applicable and in a way that brings value to you and others.

I think this table provides the best oversight of the knowledge, skills, and mindset (slight edits included). (p.83):

Stage	Knowledge	Skills	Mindset
Anti-Literate	Assumes that technology, not people, always dictates success. Assumes that increased internet use always decreases face-to-face communication.	Has trouble typing, searching, or using advanced system functionality. Has difficulty troubleshooting computer issues.	Feels that playful things cannot be used for serious purposes. Feels that technology is inherently good or evil.
Pre-Literate	Does not know technical terms. Understands the potential value of using a technology.	Has difficulty using basic tools of digital technology. Is able to imagine one’s self is a future state.	Oversimplifies or underestimates the role of new technology. Believes change is necessity.
Literate	Cites the number of posts, tweets, or followers as a key metric for success. Understands different kinds of value from using digital media.	Uses digital technology in prescribed ways, often missing errors in etiquette. Copies the methods other people use for digital media.	Feels the tools have been mastered, or that there is one “right way” to use digital technologies.
Fluent	Knows examples where digital technology is being used in ways that were not intended. Envisions potential new uses for digital technology.	Adapts to changing norms within a sub-community of users on a digital platform. Jumps from one kind of digital technology to another to advance a goal.	Is comfortable with the fact there is no “best” way to use a technology across all contexts. Embraces change as opportunity.

Inspect What You Expect

Accountability feels like such a dirty word.  There are some areas, especially in the HR world, where we’ve become so soft (read: no use of red pens, always recognizing problems as “possibilities,” or challenges as “opportunities”) that we feel like creating task lists and actually following up on those tasks might be perceived as insulting.  When I was a teenager going through leadership development courses, “Inspect What You Expect” was a phrase that was used frequently.  It’s a pretty simple concept which often means the difference between success/failure in many large initiatives and projects.

Delegations is a basic concept of good leadership, but if you want people to get something done, don’t be a micromanager, don’t over-reach, but simply inspect what you expect.  It means doing random checks on things like productivity, asking questions about the number of hours worked or how many deadlines are met/missed.  Don’t be afraid to put simple metrics in place for yourself and for others – how many sites do you get done in a week, how many meetings do you have, how many sales do you close.  Set goals and put simple processes in place to inspect what you expect.

SME Courseware Development

Stop the madness. Stop, stop, stop the madness.  SMEs have extreme value in the course development lifecycle, and by extreme value, I mean course development shouldn’t happen without them, BUT, what are you folks thinking asking SMEs to develop WBT courses with Articulate…  Here’s the deal, it’s hard to find an instructional designer who can write a dynamic Level 1 WBT that engages learners and that’s what they do for a living – they aare constantly studying how to make training more engaging.  That said, why would you put learners through an SME-developed course using a PowerPoint presentation as WBT?

I get it, you’re doing it for budgetary purposes, especially in an organization with centralized learning with limited budgets, you’re trying to enable the business to develop their own training, but by doing that, we’re enabling TERRIBLE habits.  It’s bad enough that the business comes to us with the solution in mind: “Ummm… Yes, I need 2 30-minute WBTs for a $10,000 budget…” rather than letting us define the best performance solution… but when you put learners through PPT page turner non-engaging WBTs, it only lessens the value of training materials in your organization and the actual increase in performance by learners is in the “near-zilch” range.

So what do I do with my SME knowledge, you ask?  Social Learning!  Create environments where SMEs are posting content regularly, with structure, and then make the available to answer questions and respond to just-in-time support requests from new hires or learners.  Then you ask me, but Matthew, how will I teach them how to use social media.  My response, “friend, if you think they can do good instructional design, you surely have to believe they have the ability to microblog, blog, post wikis, or facilitate discussion boards…”  Create a landing page by topic or business area, staff it with SMEs and use notifications to let them know new content has been posted or questions asked, then communicate out to users how to make it happen.

Rapid Instructional Design and Development

The concept that is a platform of every CLO and the bane of existence for every Instructional Designer.  The organization I work for is on the cutting edge on this topic – Fortune 100 companies outsource development to our organization because we have a well-practiced, well-processed, and well-documented approach to rapid development of training materials… but I hate the whole concept.

Make no mistake, I’m not advocating for analysis paralysis that draws the A/D of ADDIE into a 9 month process for developing a 1 hr WBT or ILT, but if you want a well designed course that addresses the performance behind real business problems, it requires thought, analysis, SME engagement, and creative approaches.

But since I’m a solution guy, not a problem guy… let me tell you what I think the solution is.  No matter how concise you make the development process, you’re still getting a formal training resource 2-4 months past when the business problem is discovered.  So how do I get the answer today, this week, this month?  Wait for it… social media!

I know you’re completely caught off guard that I would suggest this (tongue in cheek), but if you’re looking for a rapid performance solution, find your SMEs and your IDs and put them in a room for 4 hours.  Map the problem, map the solution, and put together a community plan and communication plan that gets the course concepts you would deliver in training pushed from your staff into Wikis, Blogs, Microblogs, and discussions and then let the learners know you see the performance issue, you have solutions, and you want a collaborative environment to address the issue today.

Like any post, I’ll tell you I’m not an extremist – formal design and rapid design will always have their place, but maybe there’s an alternative that will help you get your solutions out their faster without putting crap into a WBT and shoving it out for everyone in the org to take…. Maybe it’s social learning?

70/20/10

Recent publications have established the 70/20/10 model in employee learning and performance. The basic premise is this:

• 70% of learning is informal through learning by doing
• 20% of learning is feedback from mentors and peers
• 10% of learning is formal learning programs

The shift in the industry is for the learning organization to gain a larger stake in the 90% of training that it traditionally hasn’t supported. Social Media is offering dozens of opportunities for this to happen.

Rather than each individual business adopting applications and setting up feedback cycles to support the 90%, as a partner, we have to encourage our clients to adopt applications and advocate for it throughout the organization.

Examples might include Triple Creek for mentoring, supporting home grown content management systems that integrate with Learning Content Management Systems (LCMSs) such as Xyleme and Outstart, and creating collaborative work centers through tools like Jambok, Jive, and SharePoint 2010. Most of all, housing all of this under one roof – the Learning Portal.

In your organization, fight against being order-takers, we’re thought leaders in formal, informal, and social learning.

How are you influencing that 90% – or are you just influencing the 10?

#ASTD2011 Quotables (3 of 3)

In 2014, Gen Y (Millenials) will make up 47% of the workforce. #ASTD2011

Social Learning added 2 CPLP competency model by ASTD They won’t certify you if u can’t leverage emerging technologies4 learning. #astd2011

Buckingham: Strengths are value neutral, sometimes they can come out in inappropriate ways #ASTD2011

If you want someone to innovate, look to see where they are already innovating using their strengths #ASTD2011

Deal with strengths first. You can’t have too much, but you can misdirect. #astd2011 @mwbuckingham

Stats show that in the US, we’re more focused on fixing weaknesses (55%) instead of building strengths (45%). #astd2011

Let’s figure out the algorhythym of ur strengths and build around it. @mwbuckingham #astd2011

Ideas are easy to transfer, innovation isn’t. Innovation is often tied to the practitioner #ASTD2011 #keynote

Facebook asks who you are, then builds around you – thus their success. Same with Netflix, Pandora, and NYT. #astd2011 @mwbuckingham

We’re all here to see who hss discovered the ctrl+c and cntrl+p of our generation. #astd2011 @mwbuckingham

Less need for designers, more need 4 consultants & PMs internal and outsource development. #astd2011

Whereve u r, just get one mobile initiative under your belt – start somewhere! #astd2011

According to recent ASTD research, only 15% of organisations are currently using mobile learning initiatives #ASTD2011 #keynote

mLearning is augmenting the learning experience, not replacing. No need to return to the office, learn where u r. #astd2011

World population of 6.9B, over 5B mobile users out there. Over 200M tablets to be sold in 2014. Learning should match lifestyle. #astd2011

Top performers grew revenue by 52%, average by 4%, poor performers actually shrunk revenue #SU301 # ASTD2011

Great quote from Geary Rummler “When you put good people up against broken systems, the systems win almost every time
Important quote from user from milsapce “…I can ask questions without fear of ridicule…” #astd2011

#ASTD2011 Quotables (2 of 3)

Metrics for social learning inc: time saved thru reduction of questions to experts; engagement, turnover in target audience

New community for learning professionals interested in social learning: http://t.co/rDqzoQh #TU318 #ASTD2011 (invite code=learn)

We don’t have 20 yrs 4 leadership dev like we did w/ Boomers & Xers. The gap left by Boomers will necessitate Millenial leaders.

Generation X will never make up a majority in the workplace – it will go straight from Boomers to Millennials.

Jane Bozarth: “It’s easier to find a high school friend than a document in the office.”

Develop learning that is mobile enabled – not app based. Develop 1x Vs developing 5x #astd2011

Web 3.0 gives u content b4 u know u need it. 17% of learning orgs can find what they’re looking for on 1st search. #astd2011 #inefficient

Allen: We shouldn’t care so much about what people know, we should care about what they do #TU202 #ASTD2011

Web 3.0 is contextually driven – content pushed to u based on ur profile/data, wherever u r – mobile or machine #astd2011

RT @triciaransom: Training manuals are written by those who hate to write for those who hate to read. Recipe for disaster.

1/3 of our ability to innovate comes at birth, 2/3 can be learned. #astd2011

Does your executive team see you as a service provider, consultant, or ally? #astd2011