Is Content Curation in Your Skill Set? It Should Be.

Curation is a term that is rapidly growing in popularity and isdirectly impacting the world of workplace learning and performance. In a worldwhere the amount of information available to workers doubles every 18 to 24months, it is impossible to keep up with the seemingly endless supply of it.

In his book Curation Nation, Steven Rosenbaumdescribes it this way: “Curation replacesnoise with clarity. And it’s the clarity of your choosing; it’s the things thatpeople you trust help you find.” 

Curating the information available within anorganization is a growing need, and one that learning and performanceprofessionals need to be able to address. We need to be the people that organizationstrust to help replace the endless noise with clarity.

The word curation has become a bit of a buzzword, and thatalways concerns me. The use of buzzwords tends to spread much faster than theirassociated definitions. This results in a large number of people using a wordto describe something, with most of them defining it in separate, verydifferent ways.

So let’s start with a common foundation for discussion.

What is curation?

When most people think about curators, they usually identifythem with museums. Museum curators do not create content in the way traditionalinstructional designers do. A museum curator keeps abreast of trends, listensto what guests are discussing, and finds resources that resonate well withthose areas. He or she scours the globe for artifacts related to the topic, andorganizes the artifacts in such a way as to take guests on a journey as theyexperience the exhibit. 

Curation is essential—for everyone

In recent years, the definition of curation has expanded, asmore information shifts to a digital format. The sheer volume of digitalinformation that is available makes it increasingly challenging to find theinformation you are interested in. Curation in a digital world isn’t a luxury;it’s a necessity.

But it’s not only the shift to digital information that hasexpanded the definition of curation. Social media sharing has enabled anyone toshare anything with the world. You don’t need a master’s degree in museumstudies to be a curator today; in many respects, all you need to be a curatoris the ability to click the “Like” button on Facebook.

Facebook may not be the first place that comes to mind when youthink of curation, but consider this example: there are times when I just needa break from work, and I might just feel like reading something that makes mesmile and or laugh. I could go out and search the internet for sources, but Idon’t. Usually, I check out a specific friend’s Facebook wall. Why? Because hespends a LOT of time online reading funny things, the best of which he posts onhis wall. In short, he curates the Internet for things I (and others) mightfind funny.

What changed the game?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to say that my friend who posts funny things onhis Facebook wall is a curator by the same definition as a curator for theAmerican Museum of National History. I am, however, saying they both curate.

Curation today is very much like photography. Years ago, if youwanted a quality photo, you hired a photographer. They had the equipment andthe expertise to take photos that just were not possible with the camerasavailable to the average consumer 20 or 30 years ago.

Much like curation, the shift to digital technology changed thephotography game. Today cameras (and camera phones) can take pictures ofincredible quality, in some cases rivaling what a professional photographermight be able to produce.

Does that mean that there’s no need for a “professional”photographer or curator? Of course not. Their expertise and training has value,especially in specific high-value situations. But the reality is, just as toolsexist today that enable the average individual to take a quality photo, toolsexist today that enable an individual to curate information.

Technology has enabled anyone with an Internet connection tobecome a curator.

Curation in workplace learning and performance

In our world, we usually create the content for workers, and inmost cases, this content takes a formal shape such as a workshop or an eLearningcourse. Research is increasingly demonstrating that only a small portion of organizational learning comes from these formal events. Thevast majority of organizational learning happens as part of the work, fromasking questions, and from actually sharing information between workersperforming the work.

Learning and performance professionals need to discover whereinformation is being shared in their organizations and tap into it. Thatnetworking resource is a gold mine for curation. The sharing taking place couldbe identifying new performance support needs, or it could be sharing newsolutions.

If that sounds overwhelming, keep in mind it’s not aboutlistening to every conversation. What you’re trying to do is identify the mostcommon and valuable things that people share. Curation is less about thequantity of resources than the quality of resources.

Of course, this is only one scenario in which you can use curationin workplace learning and performance. There are countless others. In order tounderstand why curation is important to learning and performance professionals,you need to look at the different types of curation and see how they fit intothe work we do every day.

Different types of curation

Curation has many layers, from the simple to the complex, all ofwhich are applicable to workplace learning and performance. Here are fivelayers, adapted from Rohit Barghava’s The 5 Models of Content Curation:

• Aggregation: The gathering and sharing of relevant content. It releases the individual worker from needing to seek out the content.
• Filtering: Instead of simply aggregating content, filtering shares only those resources that are most relevant and valuable.
• Elevation: Recognizing a larger trend in the sea of seemingly less-important content.
• Mashups: Merging two or more unrelated pieces of content to form a new message.
• Timelines: Organizing random pieces of content in chronological order to show the evolution of an idea.

Curation as a competency

Curation is a growing need in organizations, and as such, agrowing competency for those focused on worker performance. At the same time,the vision of what this competency looks like in practice is cloudy. How willwhat we do look different when we add curation to our skill sets? Here are afew examples:

• A world where anyone can create and share dramatically reduces our need to create content. Learning and performance professionals will increasingly function as content curators—to support performance by connecting workers with existing resources, both internally and externally. 
• We will redefine the concept of a “course.” Currently, course content is constrained and controlled, usually behind an LMS login. Courses are becoming increasingly open, allowing learners and workers to find and reference their own resources. In this open format, learning professionals can help curate the shared resources, highlighting those that resonate best with organizational goals.
• Social media usage continues to rise as organizations begin to appreciate the benefits of a networked workforce. Learning and performance professionals need to be aware of communities that emerge, possibly even taking on roles as facilitators to support interactions. You can use technology to spot trends within the discussions, with learning and performance professionals elevating themes and trends across the entire organization.

Curation is an important skill to develop, especially in an environment in which moreand more organizations shift towards self-directed learning for their workers. Nowis the time for learning and performance professionals to develop this newskill set.

Asit happens, we are fortunate, because there are seemingly countless tools that can curate digital content. These toolsvary in many ways, including what data sources they can pull from, where theycan share, and who has access to them, to name a few. However, most fall into afew key categories:

Dedicated curation tools

Thereare a growing number of online tools used almost exclusively for the purpose ofcuration. Individuals and organizations that want to share some level ofexpertise use these tools.

Examples:Scoop.it, Storify, Pearltrees.

Crowdsourcing

Crowdsourcedcuration is, at a very basic level, a popularity contest. It tracks theinterests of large groups, via interactions such as “Likes,” “+1s,” or re-tweets,and brings those items forward to a large audience. People often refer to this as“trending.”

Examples:Google, Zite, Delicious.

Personalized recommendations

Whenyou perform a Google search, check in somewhere on Facebook, or like a page on Facebook,some computer is tracking and cataloging that activity. Your tracked activitytells a great story about what your interests are, and companies are working ontechnology that can predict things that you would be interested in and presentthem to you. Chances are you’ve already seen this take place; have you evernoticed that the ads in Facebook or on Google seem to match what you’d beinterested in? These are recommendations based on your activity.

Examples:Facebook, Google, Amazon.

Personal networks

Peoplenaturally learn from each other, and social media has removed the requirementof face-to-face meetings to connect with others. These expanded relationshipshave enabled the building of personal learning networks—selected groups ofrelationships that an individual counts on in the pursuit of ongoing learning. Peopleoften use these networks as a source of curation, in some cases even more thanany other resource. As an example, I will often pose a question to my personallearning network before I search any other resource. I do this because I knowand trust the recommendations these individuals make for me. Many tools canmake leveraging these types of groups easier.

Examples:Twitter, Facebook, HootSuite.

Applying curationto your world

Asyou can see, there really isn’t a single comprehensive definition for what is(or is not) curation. However, a few truths about curation do apply toeveryone.

1. The amount of digital information that is available is staggering, and finding what you need online is increasingly challenging.
2. Those that are able to find information and bring it to the audience that values it are creating tremendous value.
3. The amount of data available, and the need to find someone to curate it, increases every day.

Forlearning and performance professionals, curation is a skill that fits into thegrowing shift towards bringing learning into the flow of the work people aredoing. It reduces our need to develop every performance-support tool ourselves,which in turn reduces the turnaround time for delivering support to those that needit.

Inshort, curation should be a competency that all learning and performanceprofessionals add to their tool belts.

Inupcoming articles for Learning Solutions,I will look at some of the tools that provide the services and how you can usethem. In addition, I’ll be discussing these topics during two sessions at theupcoming DevLearn conference:

Curation: Moving Beyond the Buzzword

Curation Tools and Applications for Learning