ScenarioA: An international company rolls out a new product. The trainers arethrilled with it and, despite some technical glitches, eagerly hop on to learnmore about it. There isn’t much user support, so understanding more aboutspecifics of the product proves to be a collaborative proposition. Trainersworking with the product run into each other and talk, sometimes teaming up towork together.
The company hasn’t provided any collaborationtools, so the trainers across locations begin talking in places like Facebookgroups, Google communities, and Reddit. They share tips via text posts as wellas screenshots, audio commentary, and video clips. A few create video tutorialsabout product features or shortcuts.
Something like a community of practice—in whichpeople work together to get better with the product—develops, showing hallmarkslike a common vocabulary, accountability to the effort and each other, and in-jokes.There’s fun and energy around conversations. Master trainers emerge: Somecommenters try to game the system but are mostly shut down by the othertrainers. Some post wrong information, but it’s caught and corrected. Thecompany keeps an eye on the activity and announces it will make adjustments tothe product based on feedback gleaned from the community.
ScenarioB: An international company rolls out a new product. The trainers arethrilled with it and, despite some technical glitches, eagerly hop on to learnmore about it. The company sets up an internal social platform that allows fortext posts and photo attachments.
Trainers are assigned to “communities”—separatediscussion areas—based on their geographic location. The initial post on allforums is a disclaimer from HR advising trainers of guidelines forparticipating in discussions and reminding them of company communicationpolicies. Each forum has a designated manager who facilitates conversation bysupporting, redirecting, and if necessary deleting comments.
Few people participate, and when they do they’reusually just posting a hint or two, complaining about a problem, or asking forhelp. Responses are sporadic, and back-and-forth conversation is minimal. Peoplereport glitches and offer ideas for improving the product, but the developersare not members of the communities, so the feedback never reaches them.
ScenarioB describes most failed initiatives at companies attempting to “do” social.
ScenarioA is … Pokémon Go.*
Figure 1: Pokémon Go players out collecting and collaborating, and a Pokémon(in case you haven’t seen one)
Here’s the thing: People talk about their workall the time. And they’ll find someone to talk to about it. They’ll talk aboutproblems. They’ll talk about solutions. They’ll gripe. Some product expertswill emerge. Some will give up and never learn to use the product. They’ll giveout wrong information. They’ll help each other out. Maybe it won’t be on thescale of Pokémon Go—few things everwill be—but this is what “social learning” is.Conversation happens. Communities emerge. People self-manage. The game company didn’tprovide any social features—you can’t chat or “follow” others, for instance—butpeople found ways to be social nonetheless.
Meanwhile, the organization with the goal of“doing social” will usually end up like the one in Scenario B. It’s not aboutforcing people to participate and trying to control every bit of conversation.It’s about listening, and finding out how they participate, and what they talkabout, and how they prefer to talk about it (screenshots? text comments? audioclips?), and then figuring out how to best support them.
Pokémon Go’screator, Niantic Labs, didn’t provide anything in the way of social features—itwas fine with users gathering face to face and going to Facebook groups andother public tools. (As I submit this to the editor, there’s a rumor that thecompany will enable a feature that allows players to trade Pokémon; I don’tknow what that will look like or how “social” it will be.)
A company that wants to offer something moretightly tied to the organization would do well to find tools that offer theexperience workers need to have, with the features that make sense for theconversations. Maybe a private Facebook group. Maybe Yammer. Maybe somethingelse. The company would hold back on all the vetting and assigning and managingand, instead, let conversation evolve. Help people in different work areas orgeographic locations find each other. Watch for emerging leaders. Hold back abit and see if the community manages a problem like incorrect information. Itprobably will.
So it’s not about “doing social.” It’s about supportingworkers as they work by giving them the time and the right space to talk aboutit. It’s about listening. And it’s about using social tools to supportconversations and performance already in progress.
Want more?
Lots of people have been writing about Pokémon Go the last few weeks. There’s alwaysdanger in singling people out, but for great ideas for using augmented reality(AR) in learning endeavors, see recent blog posts from Donald Clark and Koreen Olbrish Pagano.
Think the idea of a robust, engaged communityaround a real work product is fantasy? Check out Articulate’s eLearning Heroes, where members bring lots of energyand commitment—and often work created on their own time—to developing expertisewith the Articulate products, adding to the knowledge pool, and helping eachother out.
* Pokémon Go? It’s the newest piece in thePokémon franchise, an augmentedreality game played on mobile devices. As you move about the world, Pokémon(“pocket monsters”) appear on the screen. The goal is to walk around in neighborhoodsand other environments to capture and collect them, then use magic items togive them more power and thereby train them to fight in virtual gyms. Hence,players are called “trainers.”
To offer some familiar terms, it’s a bit likebaseball trading cards meets rock-paper-scissors. As so many began playing thegame at once, when it was released a few weeks ago, most were all in the earlystages of collecting. There’s really no competition there, and generous soulscan even share “lures” that attract Pokémon for others nearby to collect. It’seasy to spot other players, who often stop to chat or even team up as they gohunting Pokémon.
While the game of course spawned the usual arrayof distracted people wandering out into streets and bumping into fire hydrants,many immediately saw value-add opportunities. For instance, animal shelters inthe US offer dogs for players to borrow while they walk; players are using appsto donate their steps to charity; and others are committed to picking up a fewpieces of trash each time they walk.
