Comments on: The Great eLearning Research Panel

By: Learning Pulse | Xyleme Learning Blog

Learning Pulse | Xyleme Learning Blog — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 10:20:08 +0000

[...] Learning: A report from the DevLearn panel on eLearning research and its web 2.0 [...]

By: Josh Bersin

Josh Bersin — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 15:20:37 +0000

Jay, thanks for doing this. I’d add a few comments. Even though “informal learning” goes on all over companies, most training professionals do not know what to do yet, only about 18% of the people we surveyed (and these are more advanced companies) feel they have “mastered” collaborative learning, and more than 56% havent really started.

Its a real problem of change in the role of L&D. Instead of being a “teacher” we have to think of ourselves as “facilitators” and “information architects.” New disciplines and new role in organizations.

On Leadership Development, I’d add that every single successful leadership development program we’ve looked at (and we focus in this area) has many highly collaborative components. Part of being a “leader” is having a network of other leaders to work with.

Thanks again for doing this.

By: Chris Howard

Chris Howard — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 05:45:48 +0000

Hi Jay,

While I agree that senior manament approval is not necessary for organizations to begin using some aspects of “Learning 2.0″ as we are calling it (just like it’s not necessary to get senior managment approval to ask your co-worker how a process works), there are cultural shifts that need to happen in many organizations to make it widely adopted.

Technology companies (to cite your example) are always ahead of the curve in adopting new ways of learning. There are thousands of other organizations, however, that don’t have the culture needed to encourage workers to share what they know.

By: Kevin Oakes

Kevin Oakes — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 16:36:12 +0000

Thanks Jay. I don’t think we diverge at all; we’ve done a great deal of research on coaching and mentoring which I will send to you (Marshall Goldsmith is our Chairman Emeritus so coaching is fairly intertwined in our thinking). As I stated on the panel, I think many people would rather learn informally from internal experts – I used a sales example – than in a formal setting. The problem for many in the learning group though is how to organize / automate / develop a program for informal learning – just saying “you already do it and it’s like breathing” is fine (and I don’t know how you’d ever stop it – it happens constantly whether you like it or not) but what that audience was looking for were ways in which they could embrace it more, and foster it. Hopefully some pick up a copy of your book in order to get ideas.

By: Jay Cross

Jay Cross — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 06:34:33 +0000

Kevin, as has usually been the case over the dozen or more years we’ve talked about this stuff, we agree on the big picture entirely. However, we diverge on what constitutes informality. In my book, informal doesn’t mean haphazard; it might include, for example, mentoring, coaching, selective job rotation, and so forth. These can be planned in advance and monitored. For learning to qualify as formal, however, it would probably include a set curriculum, a predetermined timeframe, and some sort of measure of accomplishment. Leadership development requires elements from both the formal and informal sides.

In my experience, which admittedly amounts to a mere sliver of the broad range of companies you talk with, informal learning is sort of like breathing. You only become aware that you’ve been doing it when you stop.

By: Kevin Oakes

Kevin Oakes — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 02:35:03 +0000

Jay, I love it when you parse words from a panel! First, thanks for attending and blogging – it was good to see you. However, let me defend the “not for things like leadership” comment you said “Argh” to. The question (I think) was where is informal learning best and what isn’t it great for. OF COURSE a lot of great leadership learning happens around the water cooler, at the bar, in any informal situation…but the reason they have Crotonville at GE is to start their high potential leaders off with formal learning taught by senior executives. You wouldn’t say to anyone looking for leadership skills “oh, just pick it up informally here and there” – I was trying to point out that for anyone looking to begin formalizing informal learning – according to our research – the first place to look is areas helping employees navigate the company. The majority of companies we’ve surveyed say they use informal learning to cut across political lines, figure out how the “real” work gets done, who to go to, etc.; stuff you would never learn in a class. You can get a lot of leadership learning done informally, but it probably wouldn’t be the first place I would counsel someone new to this (which is what I viewed the person who asked the question) to start and try to get funding for it. Is that clearer?