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I just signed up to participate in a project going on at KM.gov – their aim [informally] is to bring knowledge management to the U.S. government so that collaboration, lessons learned, innovation, etc. can all help with the implementation and long-term success of the major changes our country will be undergoing as a result of the coming stimulus bill.

Here’s their mission as they say it:

Inform and support federal government departments, agencies, organizations, and  their constituencies in the research, development, identification, and implementation of knowledge management (KM) activities, practices, lessons learned, and technologies.

To accomplish this mission, the Federal KMWG will mobilize and leverage thought leaders and KM practitioners from government, quasi-government, academia, non-government, non-profit, and the private sector around the globe.

Anyone can sign-up and contribute – go to the site to request an account and you’ll soon have a voice in helping shape the [hopeful] future of how our government operates in our knowledge society.

I haven’t participated for quite some time but this month’s Big Question on the Learning Circuits blog was too intriguing…

If you peer inside an organization in 10 years time and you look at how workplace learning is being supported by that organization, what will you see?

The Knowledge Economy

I’ll preface the rest of the post by saying that I feel we’re currently well into a knowledge economy and that in ten years this transition will be even more apparent so my response will hinge upon that being true.  I view a knowledge economy as one being populated by workers creating and relying upon quick access to, and acquisition of, information that they need – organizations can range from construction to IT…as long as they depend on the acquisition of relevant info/knowledge in order to perform and improve they are staffed with knowledge workers in my opinion.  I do feel that the knowledge economy will bring with it different learning and development needs for the knowledge workforce.

The Truthful Answer

Quite frankly, I think the honest answer to the Big Question listed above is…not too much different from what we see today.

Just like other societal transformations, I think our move into the knowledge economy will take a long time to cement itself into the philosophies and methodologies of organizations – this includes learning departments.  There are so many factors ranging from mental models of those that have been in the industry for a long time to infrastructures and contracts that are entrenched and cannot be uprooted quickly that will prevent a speedy transition to fully supporting the needs of the workforce in a decade.

I recently wrote about the 2008 Chief Learning Officer [CLO] Magazine report on trends in the industry and the Executive Summary of this report shows no signs of much movement in the field. Do I think this will change substantially over the business landscape in ten years?  No.  I certainly feel that there will be pockets of progressive organizations that will make some great shifts [as indeed there are already several examples of this today] but for the overall learning industry to fundamentally change how it sees the world of L&D I think will take much longer.

The Wishful Answer

I hope I’m being cynical and that the above proves not to be true because I feel that the next 10 years presents an enormous opportunity for L&D to ramp up it’s organizational credibility to a place where we’re not yearning for a seat at the proverbial table…it’ll just be there waiting.

What I’d love to see of L&D departments in 10 years is one that oversees knowledge in the organization.  Departments that acknowledge that the vast majority of learning and development takes place outside of the classroom or computer [although some is better delivered in those places as well] and implement methods that reflect this ratio.

To me this looks like departments that ensures communities of practice and knowledge networks are thriving, active and supported by the right IT tools.  Ones that takes the role of redesigning the workspace [wherever it may be] of employees so that knowledge flows freely, ones that assesses the entire value network of an organization so that learning strategies can be extended to members whose performance affects that of the organization, ones that effectively integrate new-hires into their new network and provides the content they need when needed, ones that develops leaders to lead in a collaborative web and ones that promotes innovation throughput by running off of the energy created by the aforementioned methods.

The End

As I said above, I think that L&D Departments have a golden opportunity at the moment – to make this transition and show their organizations the value they can add by truly supporting the business workforce.  If this transition isn’t made I’m afraid other disciplines such as knowledge management may rush to fill the gap left by L&D.  I really see these fields merging as I think the lines between them will begin to blur – so after all this rambling, maybe that’s what things will look like in 10 years…

CLO [Chief Learning Officer] Magazine released their 2009 Business Intelligence Industry Report today.  In full disclosure I have not read the detailed report [which is being sold for $495] – I just read the free Executive Summary but from the pieces in there I received a good enough overview to be disappointed.

A common lament in the L&D world is how to get a ’seat at the table’ – in other words how can the L&D function be seen as being strategic enough to warrant participation in the C-level strategy interactions that determine the direction and operation of the organization.  Based on what I read in this summary it’s not surprising that the ‘tables’ out there don’t have many name tents with ‘L&D’ on them.

Before I provide specific examples I’d like to offer some context on my viewpoints and philosophy.  I believe that we are currently living/working/playing in a knowledge-based economy, or one in which know-how, experience, networks, tacit knowledge and who you know provide the real competitive advantage to improve efficiency, bring products to market, deliver to clients, etc. – and it doesn’t matter if you’re in consulting or cement.  Assuming this is true, the approaches used by L&D need to transition to support this new world as well and what I read in the CLO report indicates that they haven’t.

There are multiple examples in the summary of ways that L&D departments haven’t adapted to support a knowledge-based organization in an information society – from methodologies to analytics to perceptions of the C-level.  Some examples below…

Learning Delivery Methods

In an age where informal learning/knowledge networks/collaboration is known to be the source of the vast majority of learning and information for workers of all types one would think methodologies to support these would be creeping [if not entrenched] into corporate learning portfolios.  Rather, formal classroom training “clearly remains the most common method used.”  In a close second place, “the combination of live and self-paced e-learning is the second-most common delivery modality used by organizations.”

The nature of learning ‘delivery’ is flawed from the start when a knowledge economy dominates the market.  Organizations that commit most of their L&D resources to prescribing, designing and delivering everything that their workforce needs to know rather than reallocating those resources to help support and facilitate the exchange of the collective intelligence that already exists are missing a key competitive advantage in the information society.  Dispatch those trainers to begin creating learning histories to prevent brain drain, to act as facilitators/knowledge brokers between geographically dispersed teams with similar objectives or to help redesign the office layout so that informal exchanges can happen more effortlessly.

Learning Analytics

This section was the most shocking to me.  Not only do the methods being used by most of these organizations sound outdated, the report acknowledges that the metrics [when they're gathered] are proving that they’re providing little value.  Some notable quotes/stats…

• “Not surprisingly, little progress  has been made during the past year with the correlation of learning to various other business metrics…”
• “Approximately 1/5 of organizations correlate employee productivity to learning.”
• “Less than 1/10 of organizations correlate extended enterprise performance to learning.” [umm - wow!]
• “In reality, most organizations measure little beyond the basics, such as course enrollments, completions and learner satisfaction rates.”

Learning & Development Staffing

The report then talks about staffing – mentioning that “heads of HR and corporate education and chief learning officers represent the largest groups that believe the enterprise does not have enough staff to support the learning initiatives.”  What does the C-level think? – “only 12 percent of CEOs, COOs and presidents believe the organization does not have enough staff.”  Based on this chasm in perceptions the report concludes that this “obviously highlights a lack of communication between learning executives and senior-level business executives.”

Does it really?  If I were an executive at one of these organizations what I would see is our L&D department using methodologies suited for a past era, applying useless analytics to those ineffective methods, complaining because they need more staff and then saying that I’m out of touch with them because I think they’re staffed just fine and that I’ll likely trim their department if we hit a rough patch.  I don’t blame those executives one bit for their views of these L&D departments.  After all, let’s review a stat from the Analytics section above – “Less than 1/10 of organizations correlate extended enterprise performance to learning.”  Any other department that boasted those stats would be lucky to have a seat period – let alone one at the Executive table.

Where to now?

I think this should serve as a wake-up call to the L&D field as a whole – the world we live and work in has changed…we need to change with it.  There is a burgeoning field of knowledge management/learning communities/knowledge networks/social networking/workspace design/collaboration/etc. out there that is primed to take on the L&D role in organizations that are preparing themselves to compete in a knowledge society.  The lines between knowledge management and L&D should be becoming very blurry in my opinion.  If not, when you leap for the L&D seat at the table you may land on the lap of someone setting up their KM table tent.

CNET recently reported a story about the forthcoming Apple University.  Apple has recruited Joel Podolny [former dean of Yale's University's School of Management] to be the Vice President and Dean of the new Apple U.

In typical Apple style, not much is known about what this will incorporate although the author of the CNET article linked above speculates on a few different areas.

If you read this blog you know I’m already a big fan of Apple’s current approach to learning.  What I’ve focused on in my writing about them has mainly been the inclusion of their value-chain [namely their customers] into their learning strategy.  With the addition of Podolny at the helm of the newly formed Apple U I suspect the learning experience for those at the hub of the Apple value-chain [the employees] is about to get a whole lot better.

P.S.  On a semantic note I’m wondering why the uber-progressive Apple is using the [IMHO] passe moniker ‘University’?…and calling Podolny the Dean instead of Chief Learning Officer [CLO]?

CLO Magazine just reported on a survey that was done on emerging markets using Web 2.0 tools.  It’s worth taking a look at their write-up as they have some interesting findings in the data.

The most compelling message to me, though, was that people will be constantly “wired” and accustomed to working with these 2.0 tools that many today may feel are foreign.  This will be a critical understanding for the next crop of Chief Learning Officers – if their workforce of the future is comfortable collaborating in communities and with people all over the world in their personal and professional lives you can bet they’ll be looking for jobs that allow them to continue that trend.  To take someone of this mindset and stick them in traditional training classes and prevent them from peer-to-peer learning will be doing a large disservice to the workforce, the organization and customers.  

What opportunities are there in your organization to begin incorporating the Web 2.0 tools slowly before the entire workforce demands it?  Here’s a hint…think less about the tools/technology and look for opportunities to help.  If multiple people on a sales team are passing around many drafts of a proposal consider putting it on a wiki until it’s in final form; if disparate teams are working on common projects/problems/innovations but don’t know each other a social networking app may be helpful.  Web 2.0 is really just an enabler to get us back to the natural way we want to learn and interact but often can’t…

CLO Magazine just published an article in today’s newsletter about new-hire orientation or on-boarding.

This is more fodder that the process constructed for new-hires is another opportunity for competitive advantage as we move further into our knowledge economy.  Organizations that understand this transition and embrace it are developing employee on-boarding programs that target two critical areas: informational and relational.

The informational element addresses the ’stuff’ that new hires need to know.  In the information age this cannot be a data dump though – this information needs to be assessed in terms of when someone needs it (i.e. week one, month two, etc.) and how it can be best delivered (i.e. e-learning, podcast, face-to-face, etc) and accessed in the future.

The relational element acknowledges that no matter how good the information is that is provided, people will eventually come to get most of their questions answered through their network of relationships.  Therefore on-boarding programs that incorporate activities and assignments that help new hires meet other people in the organization and form relationships with them have been proven to allow new hires to be productive faster and also to retain them longer.

‘Knowledge Worker’ is certainly a popular buzzword these days but there is merit there.  How these new additions to the workforce acquire, retain and access the information they need is fundamentally different than is was a few decades ago and most orientation programs haven’t yet adapted to that shift.

Organizations that continue to use the precious few first days of someone’s new role to have them fill out paperwork and watch corporate videos are missing a crucial opportunity to prepare their newest team members to help them succeed in their mission…whatever it may be.

Chief Learning Officer [CLO] Media recently printed an online feature titled “Transform Corporate Learning with a User Network.”  In it the authors begin by talking about how different learning styles affect the absorption rate of different learners and then move into some suggestions on how to address these different styles given the constraints of working in any given organization.

Essentially where they land is telling organizations to put the power of learning into the hands of the users and then they will ensure that any learning created will be customized to the learning style of that person.  I agree with them in principle – in practice I would not like to be the one to roll-out this program.

I feel this way because I’ve tried similar approaches with clients and while people agree that they want to learn more just-in-time and informally from their peers they struggle to find the time to add another task item to their already busy day.  To many people, simply saying the word ‘wiki’ will make them cringe.  The thought of having to learn the new technologies of wikis, blogs, rapid elearning, etc. can put the brakes on the momentum of the best intentions.

As we forge forward into our knowledge-based economy it’s my belief that additional resources will need to be deployed [or current ones redeployed] to work alongside people and capture the knowledge artifacts that are produced throughout a routine day.  It is then this person’s job to take these knowledge artifacts and edit/assemble them into a format that is meaningful to the originator as well as any seeker that may come along in the future.

The collective intelligence of an organizational network is a powerful force and thus it is time to start dedicating resources to this force rather than requesting that the people contributing to the knowledge are also the ones that need to manage it.  By dedicating resources to knowledge workers an organization can begin to harness the collaboration and innovation that is occurring in pockets around the organization – making this part of a learning strategy frees up the knowledge workers to work at their day jobs while still addressing their learning needs as the authors rightly suggest.

Communities of practice [CoPs] certainly are a great step in this direction – and they often have a ‘cybrarian’ to manage the knowledge artifacts that are uncovered.  Having the cybrarian, or an equivalent position, be responsible for turning these artifacts into learning modules is a natural extension of this role and one that is well received by the members that don’t have to interupt their normal workflow to do it.

I was having a conversation with someone yesterday afternoon about how the number of software vendors offering wikis, blogs, discussions boards, rapid elearning, etc. was enormous and that there would certainly come a time when things would begin to consolidate and major players would begin to emerge.  This will prevent organizations from having to cobble together these elements and the pain and inefficiencies associated with cobbling.

An ‘ERP of Learning’ is sure to be on the horizon was the synopsis of our talk – then I saw a press release from OutStart today [note - this is not my prediction that this is the 'Learning ERP'...just an indication that it's a comin'] detailing the merger of OutStart and Eedo.

As Chief Learning Officers become more prevalent and powerful and as the trends in learning continue to incorporate elements of informal learning (i.e. communities of practice) and others suitable for knowledge workers it will be an exciting time to watch as the various software offerings in the learning space make moves to secure their future or their fate – there are certainly demands in the market for this functionality and a sole source vendor to provide it doesn’t exist yet.

CLO Media posted a recent executive briefing where they provide four things that CEOs and Chief Learning Officers [CLOs] should be considering when operating their business.  I agree with the categories listed in the article but they are quite high level (it is a ‘briefing’ for a reason I suppose) and allow the reader to determine how each would be executed.

For a CEO or CLO that is planning to ramp up efforts in these areas it provides an opportunity to do things a bit more progressively in implementation – examples provided as they relate to the four CLO suggestions…

1. Develop strategically with purpose: one of the snippets from this section is “have a clear definition of a desired future” – in today’s rapidly changing world it’s difficult to have a static vision of a future that will be the basis for processes and decisions implemented now; utilizing the process of scenario planning is a way to identify multiple futures (scenarios) and then determine the common denominators threaded throughout.  These common elements can then be used by the CLO to begin looking at high-level competencies that would be valuable regardless of which future the organization ends up living.
2. Focus on core competencies first: I would describe core competencies as those that will not be changing in the foreseeable future.  Competency development initiatives are often centered around the current state of the organization, market, product portfolio, etc.  All of those factors (plus many others) can change quickly and having competencies that will prevail through all conditions are what I would truly consider ‘core.’  Referring back to #1, scenario planning is a great way to plan for the competencies that will be crucial in many different settings.
3. Target opportunities intentionally instead of reacting to problems: reacting to problems often results in Band-Aid solutions that may mask symptoms for a few days, weeks or even years before they come back to haunt the original target or manifest themselves in a new way in a different part of the organization.  [A classic example is a company with lagging sales that launches a large price cut promotion and due to the diminished revenue from the price cut is unable to meet the demand generated by the promotion and now faces quality and customer service issues.]  An effective and progressive way of addressing this is by viewing the organization as a system – an interdependent collection of pieces where action in one area will result in consequences [good or bad] in another.  This approach is known as systems thinking and has yielded impressive results for organizations around the world – utilizing it provides a way to identify opportunities to tweak operations and model potential outcomes that would otherwise be left to chance.
4. Embrace change: harnessing incremental change and having a progressive approach to change management are certainly crucial but often challenging.  People are often creatures of habit and start to like that with which they become familiar.  So changing that can be difficult.  Utilizing a social network analysis is a powerful tool that provides an organizational x-ray showing how information is transferred around the network that comprises an organization.  Information from a network analysis can be used to identify people in the organization that are sought out most often – the influencers.  Utilizing these individuals in change management results in a much more targeted effort to managing change than the traditional shotgun approach.

As I mentioned above, the tenets offered in the original briefing by CLO Media are valid ones and their high-level descriptions leave the interpretation of implementation to the reader.  Each of the topics listed offers an opportunity to do something a little more progressive and effective than the norm, to embrace our transition to a knowledge society teeming with fluid, dynamic learning organizations in which tools and tactics from yesteryear will be rendered obsolete.

I’ve been absent from the monthly Big Questions over at the Learning Circuits blog – mainly due to us getting our own new site up and populated. I almost rang in on February but couldn’t pull it together…even with the extra day for Leap Year! I couldn’t resist March’s Big Question though…

“What is the scope of our responsibility as learning professionals?”

More compelling than the question, though, was some of the fodder and follow-up questions that Tony Karrer shared in the post.

• …a Chief Learning Officer panel discussion where it seemed that supporting informal learning or communities of practice was not something they were considering. 
• Do educational institutions and corporate learning and development departments have responsibility for supporting Long Tail Learning? 
• Do they have responsibility for learning beyond what can be delivered through instruction?

It shocked me to hear about the CLO panel discussion. With the overwhelming research out there confirming that today’s workforce is getting more and more of the information they need to do their job through informal means it’s difficult to understand why CLOs would resist supporting communities of practice or broader informal learning.

I feel that learning professionals should support learning. Period. Whatever form(s) of learning that are most beneficial to the workforce (as well as appropriate members of the value-chain) are the ones that should be pursued. There may be some organizations where communities of practice and/or informal learning don’t make sense as part of the learning portfolio but they should at least be considered.

As we move further away from our industrial society and further into our information society it’s my belief that a big part of learning initiatives will be providing easy access to information rather than supplying more information. The advent of Web 2.0 tools arrived at a great time for the renewed interest in communities of practice and I’m sure there is a symbiotic relationship between the two. It’s not about the technology though…it’s about the possibilities that now exist for what knowledge workers can do with the information they need. Now they can be part of creating and shaping the information they need rather than just recipients of content they are prescribed.

This combined with social network analyses and careful crafting of learning communities results in a sophisticated and dynamic learning strategy that happens to mesh well with the dynamic roles of many people in organizations today. It’s becoming increasingly difficult (if not impossible) to fit everything that someone needs to know into a course of any kind. Execution of strategy is or should be changing rather frequently as markets, customers, etc. fluctuate and the traditional forms of training won’t work as the sole solution for the workforce in these organizations. To ignore this is dangerous.

In an age where formal content is often ‘obsolete upon receipt’ it’s my belief that learning professionals will need to widen their scope in terms of what they will consider using as part of their learning portfolio. As with other investments in complex markets, it often pays to be diversified and to focus on areas where you’ll get the greatest return. Discounting new methods for supporting knowledge workers is akin to keeping all of your savings in CDs, bonds or treasury bills…you’re sure to get a little return but you’re not leveraging all of the opportunities out there; some of which may be better suited to your situation and therefore more likely to get you a better return.