Training professionals rarely need encouragement to see the potential value in Learning 2.0 environments. Given tools that allow for threaded discussion, promoting and linking to relevant resources, or working collaboratively on common goals, training professionals tend to look at social learning and collaboration environments as a Swiss army knife of online learning opportunities. The organizations those professionals support, on the other hand, often need additional reasons to invest in a social learning environment.
The good news is, the reasons are substantial. If you’re looking to generate support for the investment, or need to encourage the use of a platform your organization has purchased recently, here are some additional arguments you can use.
Project management
Most social learning platforms also provide some rudimentary support for project management. Users can create a project, and assign tasks and activities for themselves or other participants in the project. The user can mark that task completed when it’s finished, and any stakeholder with an interest in finding out how the project is progressing could log into the platform and check.
Make no mistake; these tools can’t take the place of MS Project. But they can serve as a dashboard of current projects, showing completed tasks, and identifying those that may fall through the cracks. However, for projects involving only a few steps or a few people, this can be the perfect amount of information and control.
Networking
Social networking within an organization is as important to the organization as it is to the individuals in it. In large organizations, people often work at similar jobs across a wide geographic area, and may never have the opportunity to meet one another in person. Offering them a space to meet virtually, through their common interests, expands their pool of resources when they have questions or problems they can’t resolve in their own location.
Better yet, research has shown that people respond to requests for help or information more quickly when they know the person issuing the request than when they don’t, so offering opportunities for employees to connect to one another creates the potential for a more efficient organization.
Work/life balance
Strong organizations understand that employees with good work/life balance make better employees. And although many people think of work/life balance in terms of flexible schedules and time off, healthy lifestyles and a positive work environment are important pieces of the puzzle as well. Many organizations support employees’ outside interests by offering clubs, picnics, or other outings. Social learning environments offer another way to support work/life balance, virtually.
Consider modeling an internal learning community on one of these examples:
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+3Network – Members of this community earn “kudos” by logging a certain amount of time or miles engaged in the exercise activity of their choice. The site has sponsors who will donate money to charity based on the kudos earned by the members of the community. Whether motivated by a desire to get fit or a desire to contribute to charity, the effect is useful both to the member and to the charity.
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weRead – This community is, essentially, an online book club. Members can get recommendations and ratings on books, discuss books together, and, of course, connect to other members of the community.
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Fotki – This community encourages participants to upload and share their photography with others. There are journals, guest books, forums, and contests, so participants have multiple options on how to get feedback on their work.
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LiveMocha – Interested in learning another language? So are the members of LiveMocha, a community that offers learners the opportunity to take classes by Webinar, to connect with other members, and to practice their target language with native speakers of that language. Members can also offer assistance as tutors in their own native language.
Bonuses
Some of the aforementioned virtual communities have clear dual benefits. In organizations with a global presence, for instance, assistance with language learning can offer employees and the organization a competitive edge. Even when the benefits are less clearly business-related, using the social learning platform to support outside activities can give employees a reason to log in to the platform more frequently, increasing the chances that they’ll see work-related content as well.
What next?
If your organization isn’t ready to take the plunge into purchasing a social learning platform yet, it still may be worth – carefully! – investigating some of the outside resources mentioned earlier. They’re generally free to join, easy to use, and offer interesting concepts, so if your organization is open to the experiment, it may be time to add to the tool kit.
References
Cross, Robert L., and Parker, Andrew. (2004) The hidden power of social networks: understanding how work really gets done in organizations. Boston: Harvard Business School Press
