A conundrum: One of my favorite,and least favorite, things about social tools is that they can evolve soquickly. Back when I wrote Social Media for Trainers, nowslated for an update, tools like Instagram, Pinterest, and Snapchat didn’t evenexist. Keeping up is a fun and sometimes daunting challenge. The good thing: Alongwith the evolution come those folks who see past a tool’s usual use and find aninteresting, different twist to take, often one that can inspire our own learningpursuits. Here are some examples.
Compliance
Check out the TSA’s Instagram account foroften-amusing photo updates of items people try to bring onto planes, withcommentary about whether they’re allowed. (Yes: Hamburgers, knitting needles, raweggs, and unopened cans of grated cheese. No: Spear guns and “Satan’s pizzacutter,” shown in Figure 1.)
Figure 1: “Satan’s pizza cutter”
You can even tweet a photo to@askTSA to see if it’s OK to bring an item on board. Consider something likethis for a yes-you-can, no-you-can’t approach for things like safety,ergonomics, or other regulatory content. Note that TSA’s approach means somematerial is organization-generated and some user-provided, which helps ease thepressure of finding fresh content.
Note, too, the playful,customer-friendly tone behind the account. It’s not just a bunch of dry dos-and-don’tsbut is entertaining to follow. I pay attention when it shows up in my feed.This frequent delivery of small bites helps to reinforce prior learning andkeep ideas nearer the surface of a worker’s awareness long after the memory ofan hour-long tutorial has faded.
Conveying lots of information in different ways
Understanding copyright law,particularly in the age of the Internet, is a challenge. See Brown University instructionaldesigner Naomi Pariseault’s Pinterest board “Copyright or Copywrong?” (Figure 2). She’s used the board to curate information in lotsof different forms from which the learner can choose: slide decks,PDF-formatted text files, flow charts, checklists, and more, all offered in avisually appealing way. You could do this with a list of text links, but thisis much more interesting and more likely to invite some exploration.
Figure 2: Section of Naomi Pariseault’s “Copyright orCopywrong?” Pinterest board
I like to use Pinterest boards toreplace conference handouts. Often, organizers want those a month or more inadvance, when I’m dealing with technologies that sometimes make changesovernight. A Pinterest board lets me have a changeable interface that I canupdate even after the event. I just set up a board and put the link into ahandout, then give out the link to conference attendees to direct people to thePinterest board. Like Naomi, I can offer references and other supportinginformation in a way that encourages more exploration than I could by just givingout a copy of my slide deck. See this handoutfrom my session on positive deviance.
“It’s on the website…”
Ever have people asking questionsabout things they’d know if they only looked at the website, or the productdocumentation, or the company’s Instagram account, or the syllabus? A few yearsback, Peugeot Panama ran a fun puzzle game: They posted photos of new cars with some parts missing. Contestants weretold to set up their own Pinterest boards and assemble complete car images.Some photos were the ones the company provided on Pinterest. But to find therest, people had to search for them on the company website and Facebook page.
Tours
Any photo-based tool can offergreat opportunities for things like workplace and campus tours and site visits.Here’s aPinterest board I made when we were expecting a lot of traffic in my workplace,an approach copied by several hospitals for their visitors and by schools fortheir substitute teachers. Eyewear company Warby Parker hosted anInstagram-based photo walk: Participants, as they went from point A to theparty at point B, posted photos with the designated hashtag. How could you usethat approach with, say, new hires, people who work in remote locations or workout in the field, or people who are making visits to other locations? Whatabout tours with a specific goal? Back to safety, how about something like“Post a photo of all the fire extinguishers and defibrillators in the building,with a note about where they are”? (While we’re on the subject, check out Heineken’s Instagram-based scavenger hunt,“Crack The US Open.” Why Instagram? It’s the platform customers use the most atlive events. Know your audience.)
Dance with who brung you
Jane’s first rule of social toolsis: Do what you can with what you have, and fight to get what you really want.There are lots of options for photo-based tools, including soliciting images, makingyour own collages, and putting them into SharePoint blog posts if you have to. Ifyou work in a hospital, you’ll need rules about the people you can—or can’t—postphotos of. Or you may have to go with some text-only LinkedIn-based approach. Figureit out.
Leading a horse to water
In my experience, the biggerchallenge is not with getting a place to try out ideas but in getting workersto help contribute content. Often it’s that I’m trying to get them to bothcontribute material and use a new tool at the same time. One thing I’ve foundthat works really well is starting in a place that’s non-threatening or notperceived as yet another work task. Instead of starting out with a straight-uptraining topic, look around for a work-related event—employee appreciation day,a workplace wellness activity, a charity kickoff, a holiday staff party, aproject launch—and build an activity around that. Maybe you could do aPinterest board of a worker’s baby, or pet pictures, or video clips of afavorite dance move. I once asked people to submit an image of a favoriteholiday food, decoration, or memory of a gathering along with a comment aboutwhat it meant to them—and they loved it. And the next time I wanted to usePinterest for a work activity, I didn’t have to arm-wrestle about it. Everyonehad seen the tool, and had fun using it, and already had accounts. There was noramp-up or “selling” time. Look for opportunities to get people interested intrying a tool, even if it’s just “post a picture of your workspace” with acustom Snapchat filter.
