Mark Sylvester CEO, introNetworks Social Networking as a Strategic Part of Your Learning Strategy

Learning 2.0 Participation Usability Convergence Informal Learning Standardization User Generated Content Design The Long Tail Wikis Joy of Use Simplicity AJAX OpenAPIs Blended Learning Folksonomy DataDriven Social Software Recommendation Distance Learning SOAP XML Collaboration Perpetual Beta User Centered Blogs Forums

How a Learning Community can be a strategic component of any training and development agenda Why build one at all?

A Learning Community can dramatically improve…

A well implemented Learning Community optimizes organizational effectiveness by intelligently matching people to the people and resources they need to accelerate informal learning.

Specific problems a learning community solves that are currently unsolved using traditional methods “ Three Example Communities”

How building an online community to support an e-Learning agenda is easier to accomplish you think… “ Key Things to Think About”

Design Goals: The User Experience

Make it easy for users to use the Community

Make it easy for users to use the Community

Key Community Design Issues Who will use the system? Employees Managers Partners Content Matching Do you want to help your users find relevant content as well?

Who will use the system?

Employees

Managers

Partners

Content Matching

Do you want to help your users find relevant content as well?

Key Community Design Issues Tags for Matching Blend skills, interests, competencies, goals, strengths, experiences and challenges Specific Categories Think about chunking the tags into relevant categories that will aid the users in learning more about each other Think about how the tags will be used for matching, reporting and searching

Tags for Matching

Blend skills, interests, competencies, goals, strengths, experiences and challenges

Specific Categories

Think about chunking the tags into relevant categories that will aid the users in learning more about each other

Think about how the tags will be used for matching, reporting and searching

Key Community Design Issues What questions to ask? Probing, open ended that encourage participation Two sections to consider About Me Conversation Starters Think about the last time you tried to talk to someone new… Keep it interesting!

What questions to ask?

Probing, open ended that encourage participation

Two sections to consider

About Me

Conversation Starters

Think about the last time you tried to talk to someone new…

Typical Production Steps A Community can be launched in under 30 days Unless you try to do it by committee

A well designed Learning Community optimizes organizational effectiveness by intelligently matching people to the people and resources they need and accelerates overall learning .

Invaluable insights are instantly available as a result of access to the detailed profiles within a Learning Community “ Just a few to consider”

Wouldn’t it be amazing if you knew that … … and you know who they are!

… and you know who they are!

Learning Community Insights

“ For learning organizations looking to bring social networking tools to the enterprise, the best course of action is to start slowly but start now.” ‘ The writing is on the wall’ CLO Magazine Oct 2008 Josh Bersin