Wouldn’t it be great if people used social media to talkabout—and solve—problems they encounter at work, like figuring out how to use anew tool or defuse a tense caller on a hotline or explain a new feature oftheir company’s product to a potential buyer? What if people chatted about thisstuff with their colleagues and shared tips and strategy?
Wait: They do.
People develop and use informal learning networks all thetime to learn and share ideas and information. Isn’t that what eLearning issupposed to do, though—teach people the skills and knowledge they need toperform better in their jobs?
Of course it is. But learning networks don’t work inopposition to eLearning; in fact, they can actively support eLearning.Together, they can boost performance and employee morale while cementing team collaboration.Sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it? Of course, there’s a catch: Theemployer can’t make learning networks happen. Informal and social learning,even within the company, has to be organic.
Developing a personal learning network (PLN) is as old as joininga parents’ group, a book club, or a user group. A PLN is a fancy name for thebasic human impulse to connect with other humans. It’s essentially a group ofpeople with shared interests who socialize and learn from one another. Peoplemust make the choice to join and engage in a personal learning network; a PLNis an intentional way to find people with overlapping interests, knowledge, andquestions and learn from and with them.
In the digital age, personal learning networks might be alittle less personal, in that social media platforms make it easy to developlarge informal or “professional” learning networks that know no geographicalboundaries and can include colleagues and collaborators who may never meet one anotherin person. But the idea is the same: A learning network can arise around use ofthe same software tool, discussion of learning strategy or eLearning design anddevelopment models, or exploration of content on the same topic.
A learning network can be inside of a company or work group,or it can span the web—and the globe. A professional learning network might bemore collegial than personal, but the goals are similar. Learning, sharing,collaborating—and maybe even having fun doing so.
Let networks emerge organically
Corporate eLearning managers can put this idea towork—ironically, by doing very little. There are not a lot of rules: Members mightcommunicate in person, via email or chat, or via networking tools like Yammeror Twitter or Facebook. Networks can be open or closed, large or small,narrowly or broadly focused. It doesn’t matter. What does matter is that theyspring up under the volition of and remain under the control of their members.
“It’s not about ‘doing social,’” LearningSolutions columnist and eLearning leader Jane Bozarth writes. “Communitiesemerge. People self-manage.”
When the boss gets too involved, mandates participation, orassigns tasks, the networking morphs into something else: work. Bozarth pointsout that the creators of Pokémon Go,the blockbuster augmented-reality game that is played on smartphones (millionsof smartphones) all over the world, did not provide social tools or try todirect or control interactions among players. The social aspects developednaturally—and enormously.
In a post on the SHIFT eLearning blog, Karla Gutierrez describes these networks as “relationshipbuilding through technology.” She writes, “Even though we talk about technologywith PLNs, they are much more about the connections and relationships wemake.”
That’s why companies can’t “do social.” What they can do, asBozarth writes, is support employees’ natural and positive inclinations todevelop a work-related social network. Companies and managers can do so by:
- Providingaccess to tools. Rather than assuming that all the time employees spend onsocial media is wasted time, provide access to tools and online spaces forwork-related and eLearning-related discussions.
- Curatingcontent. Create a site for posting and sharing topical content, and allowemployees to contribute content and comment on it.
- MakingeLearning a shared experience. Let members of a work group watch anddiscuss a webinar or engage in friendly competition with eLearning games andcontests.
