Microblogging is catching on like wildfire. The most popular microblogging site..twitter.com, has grown from almost zero users three years ago to 79.5 million users as of October 2009…..
You’ve mostly heard of twitter being used by celebrities and athletes to give their fans insight into what they are doing. Twitter has also got a lot of celebrities in trouble, most recently Gilbert Arenas tweeting about his gun possession issues.
Microblogging can also be a valuable way to capture and share knowledge and information from experts within or outside of your organization. Microblogging can provide ready access to insights and perspectives that are not normally shared with traditional corporate communication tools.
For example, if I am an expert in SAP Business warehouse, I’m not going to sit down and write a formal e mail on what problem I am working on for today, I’ve got no time for that…and that knowledge will remain locked up inside me.
However, posting a quick tweet from my cell phone on a problem I solved, including a link to my case notes, is easy to do and only takes a few seconds. Now, if someone else in the organization is trying to solve the same problem, they can search the microblog and read about the problem I solved and read the online notes that I posted as a link.
Sounds great right……there is one small problem. This is all very valuable and also very proprietary corporate information. Posting it on a public site like twitter will share it with the world, including all of your competitors.
Last week, I attended the Gilbane Groups conference on Content Management and Social Software. I went through all of the exhibitors. Almost every one said their product had or will be incorporating social software as part of their existing or next solution release. In reality, only one company made it over the bar.
“Social software encompasses a range of software systems that allow users to interact and share data.”
We have been aware of the many kinds of personal social software…our kids have been using them for years…instant messaging, test chat, discussion forums, My Space, Facebook, You Tube, Flickr
Here’s an interesting fact…Facebook just recorded it’s 350 millionth user…that almost the entire population of the US…
The burning question is…can these social software tools be applied to the enterprise and how?
Right now companies are struggling with this question and with good reason. Why all of this confusion? Well a lot of it has to do with the way software and technology trends develop and how companies respond…
For almost every technology trend, the following sequence of events seem to happen:
1. Murmurs – Someone coins a term and it starts to make its way around the web.
2. Buzz- One of the analyst firms picks up on it and starts to promote and drive it as the next greatest thing. The buzz grows.
3. Reaction – Initial startups will be organized. They print t shirts, (which are always printed before a single line of code is developed) develop a product and release a beta.
4. Innovators- Bloggers, consultants and experts get a hold of it and spread its gospel.
5. Opportunity – One of the companies pays an analyst firm to releases a paper with an analysis showing the incredible opportunity in the space.
6. Noise - A rash of startups, buoyed by market validation, launch their companies in the space. They start to preach their own version as better faster and easy to use.
7. Confusion – The established companies, seeing potential competition, add some of the feature set to their existing product and start marketing that they are also part of the trend.
8. Chaos – All of these companies start to sell and market, rushing solutions to market, creating chaos in the marketplace.
Social software for the enterprise is clearly in the chaos phase. There are so many companies out there that say they have a social software product, but so many don’t even come close.
What makes for great Social Software for the enterprise? Stay tuned….
I recently attended Learning 2009 in Orlando Florida. Learning 2009 is a gathering of 1,300 learning professionals from hundreds of enterprise companies from all over the world.
I thought I would share my Top 10 Lists from the Conference:
10.) The Disney Experience – I am still amazed at the Disney culture and how well they treat all of their customers. From the chambermaid to the GM of the hotel, everyone wants to make you feel like you are the most important person there.
9.) Our Hosts - Eliot Masie @emasie and his team pulled together an impressive list of presenters, sessions and attendees and delivered the conference without a hitch.
8.) Sully Sullenburger is a true inspiration - Sully, the pilot of the US Air flight that landed in the Hudson, unlike the athletes that so many “look up” to, who celebrate every play like they have saved the world, did save his corner of the world that day. When asked, he always credits his crew and co pilot. Refreshing.
7.) The Rise of Video – Several companies were using Flip video phones to collaborate and share expertise. The Flip has transformed video from something very expensive and complicated to point, shoot and share.
6.) Where are the Gen Y’s? - One attendee, who was in his 20’s, remarked, ” I can’t believe how few people from my generation are represented here.” While 43% of the workforce will be millenials (1980 +) and generation Z (1990+) in the next 10 years, 85% of those who are responsible for training them are baby boomers ( born after 1950). Hmmmm….
5.) Wikis are not social learning – While they are designed to be, most companies, fearing misinformation, develop them and lock them down. I don’t understand where the ” social” aspect comes in…
4.) It’s the Culture Stupid – The greatest barrier driving organizational change using social technologies is the information silo culture of many large organizations.
3.) Twitter – I was initially very skeptical about Twitter’s ability to drive organizational change. It’s exploding popularity and a medium to exchange information as well as the growing list of applications that enhance its functionality changed my mind. The US Army War College allows its employees to tweet outside the firewall. It will be interesting to see what happens over the next few months.
2.) Beyond the Firewall – Organizations are still struggling with social software that exists outside the firewall. ( twitter , facebook) Best argument I heard, from Laura Fitton, @pistachio ..didnt they say the same thing about e mail when it was first introduced?
1.) Expertise is Everything - Before content was king. Now expertise is the greatest commodity in organizations. How do we unlock and easily share all of this experience? That’s the million dollar question.
We have had a lot of discussions in our podcasts about how we need to change our approach to training the emerging generation of new business leaders…using podcasts, instant messaging, social networking, blended learning, blogs, wikis, video. Well today, I saw an eye opening commercial on ESPN Sportscenter….
In this commercial, for Verizon Wireless’ ESPN MVP, they interview someone who was named the “MVP” of the off site training session because he was” having trouble staying awake” at a corporate training session. There are rows and rows of people in a dark room, with the Powerpoint slide show droning on
 The “MVP” is using the light from his phone to check game scores and his Fantasy Football team….
Over the past few weeks, I have had the opportunity to speak with some clients in the financial services industry. As many of you know, their industry is incredibly complex, highly regulated, constantly changing and most importantly, touches almost every person in the world.
 They all face a common challenge….. How do you keep your employees, who are spreadout all over the world and constantly in a whirlwind,  up to date, in compliance, and armed with the right information to share with customers?
For many years, this industry relied almost exclusively on traditional classroom training…and lots of it. Given the time pressures that are endemic to this industry, how can employees do their jobs and be available for all of this training? I read an interesting article from ASTD  the other day that spoke to how one firm, Capital One, addressed these challenges.
Capital One first  decided to undertake a series of  surveys and focus groups to find out how their employees likes to learn. What did they find?
According to Michael Walker, Manager of Learning Services, “it was a consensus that our associates are so busy that they just didn’t have time during the average workday to get to the classroom.”
So…what did Capital One do? ( The didn’t say NO!)
They bought ipods for their learners and created a suite of podcasts for learners across their entire company.Â
For example, their finance group, offers a classroom training program on Earning Calls, with a collaborative twist. As part of this program, Capital One created several podcasts with sample earnings calls that attendees had to listen to before the training session as part of their preparation. During the classroom session, they were expected to discuss and analyze the information they learned from their podcasts. This allowed trainees to arrive at the session better prepared. Also, they found that retention increased as the podcasts allowed each learner to absorb the information at their own pace.Â
Podcasts can also be quickly created and deployed to accommodate the changing regulations and fast paced environment in the financial services industry. You don’t have to wait for the next training course to take place to get updated. Plug in your ipod, synchronize and away you go.
Matt Schuyler, executive Vice President of Human Resources, had this to say about those who participated in Capital One’s podcast program:
“Their productivity is up, so literally, we’re making more revenue and income with fewer employees. Their learning is increasing as measured by their ability to take on stretch assignments, new roles, broader responsibilities, and so forth. And, I guess people vote with their feet. We have waiting lists for this program. We can’t distribute the courses and tools fast enough.”
If you’re in the financial services industry, maybe you should consider adopting some of these collaborative learning strategies to enhance and improve your traditional training offerings.
September 25, 2009 at 11:52 pm · Filed under Best Practices
Recently, we came across an interesting presentation at the American Society of Training and Development’s Annual Conference, In this presentation were some great examples of what companies like IBM and EMC are doing with innovative social technologies.
 At IBM, they have completely embraced using new social media, with:
5,000 podcasts
3,400 blogs
70,000 people using wikis
2,000,000 podcast downloads
They estimate their annual savings to be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
To see an example of this blog pages, click here.Â
For an example of some of IBM Podcasts, click here.
EMC has adopted podcasting as the way to train their global sales force and customers. At EMC, they produce 5 – 10 new audio / video podcasts every week. Many are extremely entertaining. To see more , click here.
 James Hunsiker, Manager of Sales at EMC says ” I’ve never seen the field organization so enthusiastic about learning.”
If you’re interested in seeing if some of these best practices in innovative and collaborative learning can benefit your organization, please feel to contact us by:
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September 4, 2009 at 9:41 pm · Filed under Podcasts
Training the Emerging Generation
In this podcast, we welcome Mary Cornetta-Brown, President of Cornetta-Brown Associates. Our topic today will be Mary’s presentation at the ASTD Annual Conference : “Are you Ready to Train the Emerging Generation.” In this interview, Mary will discuss:
 1.) The 4 generations of learners in the workplace today
 2.) Who are the generation of emerging learners
 3.) The Top 5 Training Needs of the Emerging Generation
 4.) The Importance of Collaborative Learning in developing this next generation of business leaders.
Mary is President of Cornetta-Brown Associates. She has over 19 years of experience as an organizational development specialist, leadership transition coach and consultant. Her clients include Fortune 500 companies, universities, non-profits and venture capitalists. Prior to her consulting work, Mary was the Vice President of Human Resources at International Data Group, a leading global provider of information services on information technology. Mary holds a degree in psychology from Boston College and received a Certificate in Human Resource Management from Bentley College.
In this podcast, we welcome Mary Cornetta-Brown, President of Cornetta-Brown Associates. Our topic today will be Mary’s presentation at the ASTD Annual Conference : “Are you Ready to Train the Emerging Generation.” In this interview, Mary will discuss:
