CORPORATE E-LEARNING GOES HIGH-TECH WITH WEB-BASED
SOCIAL NETWORKING PLATFORMS.
BY JERRY ROCHE
In today’s geographically
fragmented corporate world, it often isn’t possible for
employees to conduct informal knowledge-
sharing chats while standing toe to toe. Thankfully,
technology is preserving the all-important “social
networking” component of e-learning.
“Getting employees to be more effective through learning
is an integral and important part of doing business
today. The challenge is enormous,” says Yogesh Gupta,
president and CEO of Fatwire Software. “We’re seeing
technology filling in the gaps to bring people and their
knowledge together. Back when offices were centralized,
people did this in conference rooms or in someone’s
office or at the water cooler. Today, those discussions
are taking place electronically.”
The convergence of search, streaming and downloadable
video, granular content access, Web 2.0 technologies and
online community interaction “is placing tremendous
pressure on the enterprise to respond,” says Tom Kelly,
former vice president of Internet Learning Solutions at
Cisco Systems.
IT’S NOT SURPRISING
Jeff Brainard, director of marketing for SocialText
Inc., says that we shouldn’t be surprised by the newest
technology. “We’ve always been pioneers,” he notes.
“We’ve been working together since the dawn of
civilization, and it’s not that different today. The
tools change, but each tool provides additional
benefits, like more struc-ture or more speed.”
Some cost-conscious CEOs might question the actual
impact of social networking on the company’s bottom
line. But an important component of its definition is
“designed to build organizational value,” which places
at least as much value on corporate interests as
employee interests.
“A lot of people are looking for hard, fast numbers on
savings or benefits with these tools,” Brainard
continues. “The reality is that we’re seeing business
benefits, but some are very subtle. Look at how email
reshaped the boundaries between the home office and the
work office. Nobody predicted that. What about the
social dynamics that are hard to quantify, but are
significant game-changers? These technologies promise to
change how we do things over the long term.”
Companies that offer a wide variety of social networking
tools also stand a pretty good chance to recruit the
best employees in the marketplace, according to Bruce
Schechter, committee chair of the Intel Alumni Network,
which uses a platform called Big Tent to keep in touch
with other former co-workers.
“We’ve talked to several longstanding corporate alumni
groups,” says Schechter, “and they have strong
relationships with the corporations from which they all
come, and conversations tend to be oriented around
recruiting topics. It makes a lot of sense. There’s
something uniquely interesting about what we’re doing. I
really generate useful business information out of what
I’m getting from the Intel Alumni Network. It’s a whole
new realm.”
WHAT ARE THEY?
Corporate social networks are collections of online
groups of employees and other corporate constituents who
interact through their individual profiles. These
portable profiles collect and blend information from
among all associated corporate networks. The networks
are secure and private, open only to members identified
by the enterprise. The connections create knowledge
capital that becomes attached to members’ profiles and
are visible to other network members.
Actually, the term “social networking” refers to the
technology itself — a technology with an infrastructure
that supports and gives life to online communications
and collaboration. Corporate social network members
share knowledge in realtime, in effect creating a living
corporate knowledge map.
“With the resource challenges brought on by economic
tough times, training professionals are discovering that
social networking tools have become the most
costeffective means of enabling their organizations to
continue providing the training and knowledge transfer
that team members require to perform their jobs at the
highest levels,” observes Altus Learning Systems CEO Ted
Cocheu.
According to Brandon Hall Research, social networking
applies to five types of technologies:
>>
Communication
(instant messaging, e-mail, SMS [short message
service], etc.)
>>
Experience-sharing
(blogs, photo albums, shared-link libraries such as
del.icio.us, etc.)
>>
Discovery
of old and new contacts (Classmates.com, online
personals such as Match.com, social networking sites
such as Facebook, etc.)
>>
Relationship management
(Orkut, Friendster, etc.)
>>
Gaming
(online versions of traditional games such as chess
and checkers, team-based or free-for-all games,
etc.)
Notes Social Text’s Brainard: “The software — we call it
‘social software’ — includes a number of technologies:
blogs, wikis, RSS feeds and even traditional tools like
e-mail and instant messaging that allow people to come
together, to form groups and collaborate on projects,
and to share knowledge.
“All these tools provide great opportunities for
companies to save huge amounts of time and energy.
Companies can reduce e-mail by 70 percent with wikis,
for instance, and accelerate project times by 30 to 40
percent.”
WHAT CAN THEY DO?
“There’s a big educational component to learning from
each other,” observes Fatwire’s Gupta. “We’re seeing
tremendous interest from enterprises for using tools
like wikis to share knowledge across a team. There may
be a lead person who is conducting training or providing
guidance, but then the team members themselves start
sharing their experiences and knowledge using wikis. The
moderator/ instructor can correct misconceptions but, in
general, allow the group to learn from itself.
Harnessing collective intelligence through the knowledge
base and expertise of people is where I see the whole
evolution of e-learning.”
Some companies envision social networking as a way to
bring down support costs. Others see it as a way to
obtain feedback on products. Still others see it as a
way to hasten the development of a web of support and
sense of belonging among their customers, which they can
translate into loyalty.
Here, then, are some specific benefits:
>>
Build customer relationships.
Many manufacturers of consumer goods are getting on the
wiki bandwagon by building public knowledge bases on the
Internet that their customers can contribute to, thus
promoting a type of “selfservice support.”
>>
Facilitate recruiting and retention.
Social networking is a creative way to keep a workforce
well connected and capture and share critical knowledge
to foster innovation and avoid potential “brain drain.”
When individuals know who to ask and who can help them
get their jobs done, productivity, innovation and
speed-to-market increase. In the case of an integrated
talent management system, corporate social networking
will facilitate cross-functional stakeholder buy-in.
>>
Increase business opportunities.
One service provider lets business people “link up” with
others. If a salesperson, for instance, wanted to
contact a prospective customer’s CIO, rather than make a
cold call, the salesperson could seek a colleague or
business associate who has a personal connection to the
CIO. This type of networking has been used among sales
colleagues since time immemorial, but it hasn’t been
available through the Internet until recently.
>>
Build community.
Research has shown that when it comes to finding
opportunities, an individual’s own attributes are less
important than his or her relationships and ties with
other people. It’s been proven that interaction with
others produces about twice as much in the way of
education as formal instruction. So the line between
learning and interaction is starting to blur a little.
What’s the difference between education and
communication? Where does collaboration stop and
learning begin?
ARE THERE DRAWBACKS?
Social networks can be time intensive, starting from the
design stage, through implementation, all the way to
administration.
“Most of the groups coming to us are looking for more
infrastructure support in a Web platform,” says Donna
Novitsky, CEO of Big Tent Design Inc. “They need
discussion forums, calendars, the ability to RSVP for an
event, rosters, photo-sharing, polls and facilitation of
subgroups. For a large group, support could become quite
an administrative burden, considering all the workflow.
A lot of the groups have 20 to 40 people on leadership
teams doing all kinds of different jobs.”
Social networks also might be abused.
“There’s concern that these technologies could be
misused — the same fears that companies had with early
Internet use,” notes Social Text’s Brainard. “It’s all
about how you provide guidance and best practices to
help employees use the tools appropriately. It’s managed
through corporate policies, but mostly through basic
training and guidance.”
Adds Novitsky: “It’s the same temptation you have with
e-mail or the Internet. The temptation is always there,
but at least it’s a corporate network, so you’re talking
to co-workers and facilitating your work camaraderie.”
FACILITATING LEARNING
Yet advantages far outweigh drawbacks.
“The whole thrust of social networking is being able to
maintain ties with people who have similar interests,”
concludes Novitsky. “It’s not only hugely valuable to
people, but it’s fun. People are always looking for
productivity and useful information.”
Adds Fatwire’s Gupta: “Most people want to learn. If you
can somehow make the learning experience not boring but
fun, not tedious but easy, not complicated but simple —
that creates joy in learning. Having tools that make it
fun can tremendously motivate employees.”
FOR MORE…
Some Websites oriented to corporate social networking,
in alphabetical order:
>>
www.altuslearning.com
>>
www.bigtent.com
>>
www.facebook.com
>>
www.fatwire.com
>>
www.linkedin.com
>>
www.selectminds.com
>>
www.socialcast.com
>>
www.socialtext.com
>>
www.thepoint.com
>>
www.visiblepath.com
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