Not Without Purpose
No one has time. Life on earth is faster, faster, faster. We are inundated with information, showered with technological innovation, and pestered by multiple media 24/7. Business is a blur. Life is...
View ArticleInformal learning and performance technology
Is informal learning just another flavour of the month that tries to be all things for all learners? Tony Karrer states that: I’m becoming convinced that folks in the informal learning realm are quite...
View ArticleMaking the Business Case for Informal Learning
This question came up in an online seminar this morning. “How can I demonstrate the value of Informal Learning?” First of all, understand that you’re not buying informal learning. It’s already going on...
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Social Networking: Bridging Formal and Informal Learning
The recognition that learning is 80% informal suggests that we need to support natural connections between people who can help one another. And we can distribute that support between employees,...
View ArticleInformal Learning in a Nutshell
Workers learn more in the coffee room than in the classroom. They discover how to do their jobs through informal learning: talking, observing others, trial-and-error, and simply working with people in...
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Optimizing Learning
We’re in a new age. Organizations can no longer be dependent on training to meet their learning needs. When things changed slowly, we could train people and trust that they could perform or be coached...
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Informal Learning Poster
Jay Cross and Xplane desined a great infographics poster for informal learning. Click the image to view a zoomable version. Thanks to the European Commission for translating the poster. When I arrived...
View ArticleThe future is people, not technology
More Human Than Human CLO magazine, June 2009 Column on Effectiveness, by Jay Cross The future is people, not technology My last column in CLO called for the abolition of corporate training...
View ArticleInformal Learning 2.0
In the world of business, the era of networks is crowding out the Industrial Age. Network connections are replacing rigidity with flexibility, penetrating internal boundaries and silos and obliterating...
View ArticleSeminal Documents
These are fundamental, inspirational, prescient, important documents and presentations. All free on the web. Amazing! Seminal Video is at the bottom of this page. Please suggest what else should appear...
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Go straight to the finish line
Two of my colleagues at the Internet Time Alliance, Jane Hart and Charles Jennings just returned from speaking at the Learning Technologies conference in London. The conference program would lead you...
View Article2.0 is a philosophy, not a technology
Internet Time Alliance spent a couple of days last week putting the 2.0 into a tedious proposal for a large, forward-facing multinational corporation. Among our recommendations were: Informal Live...
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Agility and Autonomy
for social learning to be successfully implemented in an organisation it is not just about adding in the new tools or platforms but also about acquiring a new mindset and new skillset for both learning...
View ArticleManager Input: Vital for Learning Success
For training to be effective, managers need to be actively involved in the process. Some years ago, Mary Broad and her colleagues found that of all the actions and activities taking place before,...
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Network Learning: Working Smarter
“In the period ahead of us, more important than advances in computer design will be the advances we can make in our understanding of human information processing – of thinking, problem solving, and...
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Social Media Metrics
I continue to get asked about social learning metrics. Until we get around to a whitepaper or something on metrics, here’re some thoughts: Frankly, the problem with Kirkpatrick (sort of like with LMS’...
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Working Smarter
Higher ground I don’t talk much about training or learning these days. Just because you train people doesn’t mean they learn. Learning is higher ground than training, but learning is not enough to make...
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The Power of Conversations
“we tell ourselves stories in order to live” ~ Haruki Murakami Jerome Bruner (1915- ) is one of the greatest educational psychologists the world has ever produced. He has spent his long lifetime...
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Mind map, contents, and more from the Working Smarter Fieldbook
Working smarter is the key to sustainability and continuous improvement. Knowledge work and learning to work smarter are becoming indistinguishable. The accelerating rate of change in business forces...
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When Learning is the Work: Approaches for supporting learning in the workplace
Two weeks ago I ran a webinar under this title for Citrix. At the start I posed the question “when you think about one great learning experience you’ve had, can you remember where it occurred? Was it...
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It’s all about working smarter
My work helping clients work smarter generally involves informal learning, collaboration, knowledge-sharing, organization development, and nurturing learning ecosystems. I rely on concepts from design,...
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Working Smarter in the Enterprise
On April 27, 2011, Clark Quinn and I kicked off a meeting of the Chief Learning Officer Executive Network at Symantec in Mountain View. The Executive Networks people took notes; here are the main...
View ArticleWorking Smarter: New Ways of Learning (PDF)
More recently at the Internet Time Alliance, we’ve been focusing not on training and learning but on ideas around “working smarter.” Jay Cross, one of my colleagues in the Internet Time Alliance, is...
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Social & Workplace Learning through the 70:20:10 Lens
There have been millions of words written and spoken about ‘informal’ and social learning over the past few years. In fact, if a Martian had just arrived on Earth and strayed into a meeting of Learning...
View ArticleThe 70:20:10 Framework
There is a more comprehensive discussion of the 70:10:10 framework on my blog. You can find that here http://bit.ly/nEzWjW
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21st Century L&D Skills
I was recently involved in a discussion about 21st Century learning skills in one of the LinkedIn Groups. It got me thinking about a piece I’d written for TrainingZone a few months ago titled ‘What...
View ArticleWork That Stretches: The Best Teacher You’ll Find
Think back to one great personal learning experience you’ve had. It may have been in childhood when you realized you could ride your bicycle without training wheels or a parent’s guiding hand. Or it...
View Article8 Reasons to Focus on Informal & Social Learning
Slides from a webinar for the eLearning Network of Australasia – July 2010
View ArticleSocial Learning doesn’t mean what you think it does!
A few days ago my Internet Time Alliance colleague, Harold Jarche, shared this article, written by Deb Lavoy, with me: Social Business Doesn’t Mean What You Think It Does, Neither Does Enterprise 2.0....
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Social Learning doesn’t mean what you think it does: PART TWO
Yesterday, in my first posting on this topic, I showed how “social learning” is not just about a new training trend or about adding social media into the “blend” or acquiring the latest Social Learning...
View ArticleThe Long View
Jay Cross is a champion of informal learning, working smarter, and systems thinking. His calling is to help business people improve their performance on the job and satisfaction in life. Known as the...
View ArticleSocial Learning is NOT a new training trend
I’ve written a few postings recently (notably Social Learning doesn’t mean what you think it does) where I have tried to show how the fundamental changes in how businesses are operating, require a...
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Social Media + Learning = much more than Social Learning
This article was written for the E-Learning Council, and first appeared on 10 October 2011 Although we learn every day, in everything we do, whether it is in what we read, watch or listen to, or in the...
View ArticleDo you really need separate social learning tools and platforms: part 1
We are hearing a lot about new social learning tools and platforms that are becoming available – but do you really need them in the workplace? As business is becoming more social and we are using new...
View ArticleThe Non-Training Approach to Workplace Learning
The Training Department (aka the L&D dept) has traditionally focused on designing, developing, delivering and managing instruction – in the form of courses, workshops, e-learning and other training...
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Reactions to the non-training approach to workplace learning
Following my recent post on the case for a non-training approach (NTA) to workplace learning and the launch of my NTA website, I’ve received quite a bit feedback and read a number of blog posts and...
View ArticleFailing to Learn
My colleague Harold Jarche pointed me to a post by Dave Snowden about deliberative practice, which I found interesting for a facet not part of the key article (which makes worthwhile points). Among a...
View ArticlePerformance Architecture
I’ve been using the tag ‘learning experience design strategy’ as a way to think about not taking the same old approaches of events über ales. The fact of the matter is that we’ve quite a lot of models...
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The Agile Learning Train is Leaving the Station
I’d planned to begin posting my thoughts about how this Unmanagement/Stoos business impacts the administration and operation of corporate training. My friend Dawn Paulos at Xyleme beat me to the punch....
View ArticleInternet Time Alliance Insights
We can learn a lot from open conversations with trusted colleagues who want to improve their professional expertise. My colleagues have these conversations regularly and I have learned a lot over the...
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When learning is the work
What if your organization got rid of the Learning & Development function? What would the average manager or department head do? What would workers do? I’ve been thinking about this for a while....
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Net Work Skills
Imagine if we limited our conversations to only those in the same office. We would miss out on so many learning opportunities. Well it seems some people are still missing out. Today, people with larger...
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Reconciling Formal and Informal
Recently, there’s been a lot of talk about informal learning, which ends up sounding like formal learning, and this can be confusing. So I’ve been trying to reconcile these two viewpoints, and this is...
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Piecing together collaboration and cooperation
In an insightful piece, Harold Jarche puts together how collaboration and cooperation are needed to make organizations work ‘smarter’, integrating workgroups with the broader social network by using...
View ArticleOld -> New
My ITA Colleague Jay Cross had a hangout over the weekend and the conversation rolled around to the role of L&D in the new era (related to yesterday’s post). I’ve previously addressed how we can...
View ArticleHire the ‘loud’?
In thinking about how organizations can ‘learn’, it strikes me that everyone needs to be simultaneously learning and teaching. How does that happen? I think it can be scaffolded, but it may also be...
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