Laurence MAYER's List: Social networking

• “But the real problem with the information being provided to us in our businesses is that, for all the facts and ideas, we still have no idea what we’re talking about. We don’t understand what’s going on in our business, our market, and our world.

   

  In fact, it’d be right to say that we already *know* way too much. KM isn’t about helping us to know more. It’s about helping us to understand. Knowledge without understanding is like, well, information.”

   

  So, how do we understand things? From the first accidental wiener roast on a prehistoric savannah, we’ve understood things by telling stories. It’s through stories that we understand how the world works.”
• Why Social Networking? To tell stories.  To make sense of the information we share.  To put it in context.  THAT is the value of Social Networking.  So many people dismiss the need to network in this way, yet again we see how critical it really is!

• Social learning requires a step change
• moving from elearning to 'We-Learning'.

• Critical challenges and success factors

   

  Making social learning thrive within the fabric of your organisation involves many challenges. Here are four ways to make sure you get the critical success factors right for your organisation:
• Integrate innovative technology with existing systems
• A complete change of systems can be attractive for organisations that are already unhappy with their LMS or haven't made a substantial investment to-date, but for many this is too big a commitment and source of disruption, especially in budget-conscious times.
• Alternatively, you could partner with a specialist social software vendor whose social learning solution works with your existing LMS.
• Think about the user experience, not just the tools
• Apple's success during the past decade can be attributed in large measure to the cachet of the brand, its willingness to innovate, and a visceral understanding of the importance of the user experience.
• Apply this thinking to social learning and you'll instantly understand the missing ingredient when someone from the IT department rattles off the list of social tools already available within the company but decries the lack of user adoption. It's all about the user experience. If the tools aren't combined in ways that make it simple, easy and quick for users, those users will find alternatives for sure.
• Embrace rich media
• If social learning is about making learning dramatically more dynamic, stimulating, enjoyable, and effective, then the type of content has a huge bearing on achieving these objectives.
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  Similarly, unlocking informal learning potential within your organisation means making it quick and easy for colleagues to share their experiences.
• Align a more social approach with your culture
• • Similar to pilots culture before enlarging to the rest of the company
• it's almost impossible to dictate from the top that colleagues will adopt social technologies and behave in a social way.
• For social learning to succeed, identify groups of users or areas of the business that are well disposed or even eager for a more social approach, then seed and nurture these to build successful adoption before spreading out – rather than attempting to deploy across the enterprise simultaneously.

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