Back in November I first wrote about the emerging potential of iTunes University as a vehicle for learning, when Yale University Dean Joel Podolny joined the Apple team to serve as Dean of their own learning system. This past February I wrote about iTunes U once more, as new research was released which confirmed the power learning via this method as university students who listened to podcast lectures received consistently better test scores than those who didn’t.

One University in Australia, however, is taking this a step further, and is now offering college credit to high school students who watch video footage of lectures on YouTube. Professor Richard Buckland of the University of NSW in Sydney, Australia, wanted a way to allow high school students who lived too far away but were capable of handling college level programs, to actually attend Buckland’s classes by watching videos of his lectures on YouTube. Though students go through a rigorous selection procedure, if accepted, they must not only watch videos on YouTube but also hand in other work assignments in order to receive the transferable college credit which is of no cost to them. And, of course, only those accepted to the program receive the credit, but once the lectures are up on YouTube, they are freely available to be streamed by anyone.

This is another example of Open Learning–how will this impact corporate universities? Right now many companies are creating a Youtube version behind the firewall to share “how to lessons,” will taking an entire course on YouTube be next? Share your thoughts here.

[tags]YouTube, eLearning, Higher Education, Corporate University, Chief Learning Officer, Corporate Learning[/tags]

My stepdaughter Deborah is a graduate of Yale’s School of Divinity and she called me yesterday in utter amazement. She could not believe what she was reading in Yale’s Alumni Magazine—that Dean Joel Podolny, the current Dean of Yale University’s School of Management, had been hired away to serve as the Dean for Apple’s own university program.

It turns out the allure of working at a company with an unmatched reputation for innovation and excellence was a strong enough draw to pull Dean Podolny from the halls of academia to re-invent learning for Apple. The scope of Apple University extends from Apple’s internal learning programs which are targeted to Apple employees, to a wider series of educational programs targeted to end users on the subjects of such basics as how to use Logic Pro and Final Cut Studio, to newer initiatives such as Apple Computer Camp for primary and high school students which is now offered at Apple’s retail locations.

While Apple University was launched in a more traditional fashion over ten years ago—I still remember visiting and interviewing them for one of my books on corporate universities—the vision now is much bigger and bolder than ever: to launch what Apple has called an “internal MBA program” as well to merge Apple University with Apple’s existing iTunes University, which serves up educational content to the public.

In conducting research for my new book, I am starting to see how many companies, regardless of their industry, are entering the “learning business” as a way to develop deeper bonds with their end users while taking a more proactive role in shaping the types of skills and competencies that are needed for success.

You might ask why these companies are continuing to enter the education business? Here are some thoughts:

1. What it means to be successful at work is changing and much of the new wave is focused on tapping tacit knowledge. Research conducted by Dr. Robert Kelley of Carnegie Mellon University queried workers with the question: “what percentage of the knowledge you need to do your job is stored in your mind? The answers have varied significantly over the last 20 plus years. In 1986, it was 75%, then in 1997 (the year the Internet began to take off in the business world) the answer was 15-20%. Now in 2008, it is 8-10%. Imagine how a Millennial manager will answer this question in 2012?
2. I just returned from two weeks in India and in that country, companies like Infosys are taking proactive roles to ensure leaders are teachers and the “business of Infosys is the curriculum.” Infosys wants to access tacit knowledge in topics such as techniques for achieving operational excellence and driving innovation—concepts that are career specific and need to be reapplied to new problems by emerging leaders. Hence, the focus and vision to create a robust cadre of “Leaders As Teachers” has taken hold at the company.
3. Lines are blurring between content developed for learning programs and those that are developed for marketing and communications targeting end users. Savvy Chief Learning Officers are starting to recognize this and are building alliances with CMOs to work on understanding what can be re-used and re-configured for a wide variety of new audiences starting with internal employees, but extending to customers, suppliers, dealers, end users and even primary and high school students considering careers in specific industries.

So good luck Dean Podolny! I am sure you will have great success re-imagining learning for millions of Apple fans like myself.

Interested in learning more about the research being undertaken for a new book. Send me an email at Jeanne@newlearningplaybook.com

[tags]Apple, Yale, Chief Learning Officer, Infosys, Carnegie Mellon University[/tags]

Murry Christensen, Director of Learning Technologies and Mike Barger, Chief Learning Officer, both at JetBlue University (JBU), the training arm for JetBlue, had a vision in 2007: to create a way for JetBlue’s dispersed faculty of 200 to come together online, share best practices, and contribute to the collective pool of knowledge at JetBlue. Christensen turned to blog-based collaboration software from Awareness Networks to achieve this.

A new report about Enterprise adoption of Web 2.0 technologies, by Awareness, Inc., shows that employers are increasingly allowing staff to use social media applications in working hours. Awareness puts the figure at 69 percent of businesses in 2008, up from 37 percent last year.

It’s the latest in a string of reports this year – from Awareness, Forrester and others – which provide data about the growth of web 2.0 in the enterprise. It’ll be a $4.6 Billion industry by 2013, according to Forrester.

The software selected provided a vehicle for JetBlue faculty to talk to one another, not just about process improvements in learning & development, but also to share photos from family vacations, weddings and birthdays. The thinking behind this choice was that as the faculty got to know one another better as individuals, they would more easily share lessons and best practices as professionals.

Discussion on the blog, which operates more like an online forum, has, in Christensen’s mind, done an excellent job of uniting the JBU faculty as a more cohesive team while also allowing for an easy exchange of knowledge.

Christensen blogs each week and usually tackles a provocative topic such as the one above entitled: Who Owns My Learning History? His goal in this is to engage the faculty in timely topics and have them suggest improvements. In this particular blog post, he suggests a solution: a smartcard to hold one’s learning transcript. In the past six months since inception, almost 50% of the JetBlue faculty members have been posting and commenting on the forum.

The goal I see in all of this is to create a community of practice first among learning & development professionals—to challenge them to be the Web 2.0 pioneers for the firm. As the JetBlue example illustrates, the process of getting to know one another better through the use of these technologies can smoothly segue into suggesting ways to use these tools to increase innovation and collaboration across enterprises.
Is your firm doing this? What lessons have you uncovered?

[tags]JetBlue, Awareness, Chief Learning Officer, Blogs[/tags]

This is the case with Jet Blue University (JBU), the corporate university of Jet Blue Airlines. Jet Blue University has 200 faculty spread across three locations, in Orlando, Florida (where they train flight crews), in Queens, NY (where they train operations and technical crews) and in Salt Lake City ( the training arm for reservations and customer services representatives).

Early in 2008, Jet Blue University powered its training faculty with a Web 2.0 toolkit of blogs and wiki’s as a way for them to share best practices and be the pioneers for social media tools. Murry Christensen, Director of Learning Technologies at Jet Blue University, says that the main driver to experimenting with these new technologies is to capture process improvements and “next” practices that are working among faculty across the country.

It really makes a lot of sense for companies to use their “learning organization” to test out new ways to collaborate and share best practices. First, for employees in the learning department of an organization, part of their job is to share best practices around the enterprise. However, often they have been frustrated with their company’s attempts at knowledge management systems. So now they can become blogger champions and learn first-hand the power of social media while using the tools to do their job—share lessons learned across their community of peers..

Secondly, while the training faculty may have good intentions about sharing best practices, they often lack an easy tool that allows them to collaborate with their peers. So, I can see how empowering the training faculty to be a community of blogger and wiki champions can create excitement and even be a vehicle to re-invent and re-brand an entire learning organization. Some topic areas to think about having your faculty share best practices using blogs and wikis’ include, new-hire employee on-boarding, leadership development of high potentials and even company-wide blogging guidelines, assuming the company then decides to expand this initiative enterprise-wide.

Finally, professionals in a company’s learning organization want to “role model” what is expected across the organization. What better way to be a role model business unit than to be the first to use these new social media tools.

The Jet Blue University’s social platform, which went live early this year, was provided by Awareness, a company that focuses on delivering enterprise-wide blogs and wiki’s to both internal and external communities.

In fact, the folks at Jet Blue University are so enamored with their “experiment” that they went ahead and made a series of videos describing why they did this. Tune in to hear what they say below:

So, is your learning department taking the lead to “test out” new social media tools for the enterprise? What has been your experience to date?

As they say, “timing is everything.” What we are experiencing now is a global talent shortage. This is finally fueling the demand for companies and universities to re-think how they do business with each other.

The importance of retaining talent is highlighted in the following headlines taken from across the globe:

United States
• Every 10 minutes someone in the Baby Boomer Generation (born between 1946 and 1964) turns 60 years old.

Europe
• 38% of UK employers are struggling to fill positions due to a lack of staff with the right skills

India
• By 2010 India will experience a shortfall of nearly half a million qualified IT workers.

Companies spend millions of dollars on tuition reimbursement and now they are demanding to become true “customers” of the higher education system by creating flexible and innovative programs for their employees. And the results as profiled in the News & Observer article are worthy to take note:

• 25% of Blue University “graduates” (i.e Blue University is the corporate university of Blue Cross Blue Shield and is the entity that partners with universities) have experienced lateral or upward mobility in their careers within a year of graduating from one of the on-site university programs
• Company turnover was 16% in 2007, but was just 9% among Blue University graduates

So why has it taken so long to create these on-site and, often times, customized corporate/college programs?

These programs require a new mindset among both heads of human resources and learning as well as deans of universities. Corporations must realize that the days of passively funding tuition assistance programs are ending. Instead, in its place, companies must manage a global network of universities that meet specific criteria just as they manage a network of healthcare providers.

And for universities, there exists a new set of challenges—new ways of delivering curriculum, new mandates to “customize” curriculum that is aligned to strategic business priorities and importantly, new ways to communicate the business outcomes associated with investing in talent.

So, as companies look to “retain” and grow talent internally, they will focus on re-writing the playbook in working with universities. Perhaps the day has finally come for Customized Corporate-College Partnerships.

What do you think?