After attending and speaking at many conferences this spring, I kept hearing a recurring question: Why can’t learning departments incorporate the same features that make social sites so engaging? This includes features like commenting, rating, tagging, video sharing, personal profiles, reading the activity streams of friends, and enabling users to be a part of relevant online communities that they care about.
When we think about the changes we have experienced in our personal lives, the statistics are daunting:
- By the year 2020, millennials will be at least 50 percent of the workplace and will be bringing their digital expectations with them.
- By 2016, there will be 375 million tablets purchased globally — a 46 percent compound annual growth rate. (Forrester)
- As of today, 29 percent of all U.S. households have either a tablet or an e-reader and looking for ways to use them at work. (Morgan Stanley Research)
- 40 percent of learning and development executives plan to incorporate tablets into their learning and development offerings by 2015 (Future Workplace as profiled in ASTD Magazine)
Added to these trends is the Consumerization of IT and the growing number of companies that are adopting a BYOD policy: “Bring Your Own Device” to work. According to a global survey by Accenture of more than 5,000 millennials (born between 1977 and 2000), one out of two Millennials are requesting to bring their own device to the workplace. For companies this means adjustments in both HR and IT policies.
How will all of this impact corporate learning? When you consider this question, you begin to ask yourself: How can corporate learning adopt a new set of principles so learning becomes more social, collaborative, mobile and embedded in real work?
Future Workplace has created an eight-step model on “Implementing Social Learning,” which can be viewed here.
Where is your organization on the journey to social learning?
What changes are you making in learning in your organization to prepare NOW for the 2020 workplace?
Share challenges and progress with us here in the comments.
And be sure to visit our companion site at Social Learning Boot Camp and consider joining us for the next Social Learning Boot Camp on Oct 1-2, 2012 at the Georgetown University Conference Center in Washington, DC. For more information or to register please visit our website: http://www.sociallearningbootcamp.com
