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

1. Claim your name everywhere to build credibility with customers and search engines. Not only do you need Facebook and Twitter accounts, but you’ll need to stake your claim on Google+ and LinkedIn with company pages as well.

2. Have clear month-by-month goals and make sure to get trained in social media tools early in the year. Make plans to meet your goals month-to-month and be sure to assign the proper resources to it.

3. Use free tools like Klout, Google Analytics, and Hootsuite to measure your social media progress. Crunch the numbers: track numbers of visitors and evaluate your social media usage.

4.Think about hiring an expert in social media development or take a course in social media literacy. A growing number of companies are creating social media literacy programs, ranging from Dell, Intel, Unisys and Telstra. We expect more companies to make social media training mandatory for all employees and new hires.

5. Add direct links of  your social media pages on all your printed materials. Once you’ve got your social media profiles set up, make sure that you’re letting people know about them by adding links to your Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+ pages to all your business cards, brochures, fliers, and any other printed materials, as well as presentation files and infographics.

Of course if you want to gain some hands-on experience in making these strategies work for your organization and at Future Workplace we have created Social Learning Boot Camp this March 19-20th hosted by IESE Business School in New York City. This Boot Camp also includes a complimentary iPad2 for the first 50 attendees. Hope to see you in New York City in March!

In the meantime, share here with us what your organization is doing to build social media literacy among all employees.

The results from the 2011 Cisco Connected World Technology Report are in – and they may surprise you.

Cisco interviewed 2,853 respondents including 1,441 college students (18 to 24 years old) and 1,412 new college graduates (21 to 29 years old) across 14 countries.

These five top-line findings are worth a discussion with your team:

1. One-third of respondents would accept a lower-paying job that had more flexibility with regard to device choice, social media access and mobility than a higher-paying job with less flexibility.
2. Two of five students have NOT bought a physical book (except text book) in two years.
3. Two-thirds of respondents will ask about a company’s social media policies during the job interview and 56 percent will not accept a job from a company that bans social media access from work or will circumvent this policy.
4. 41 percent of employees say their company marketed a flexible device and social media policy to recruit them to work at the organization.
5. Three out of 10 respondents feel that once they begin working, it will be their right, more than a privilege, to be able to work remotely with a flexible schedule.

The Cisco Connected World Technology Report is rich with a lot of data on what millennials want, need and expect from an employer. After reading the report, ask yourself: What are you going to recommend your organization start doing and stop doing to better address the needs of millennial employees?

The Cisco Connected World Technology Report is rich with a lot of data on what millennials want, need and expect from an employer. After reading the report, ask yourself: What are you going to recommend your organization start doing and stop doing to better address the needs of millennial employees? Here is our short list:

START …

• Researching your own employee needs, just as you research your customer needs. For every effort your company makes in researching your customers, expend an equal effort in probing the needs, desires and demands of your current and prospective employees. Almost any technology that is used to research customers, such as data mining and social networks, can be flipped to be used for researching employee needs. Companies that best understand and anticipate the needs of its employees will attract, and most likely retain, the best talent.
• Exploring flexibility about the use of mobile devices. The days of distributing a locked down, standard laptop and mobile phone are long gone. Millennials expect to BYOT (Bring Your Own Technology) to work and will insist on this as a way to increase their productivity.

STOP …

• Believing you can “control” social media use. Millennials will find a way to circumvent whatever closed social media policy gets in their way of being open, collaborative and social in the workplace.
• Being afraid of having your employees work remotely. In other words, start trusting your employees to work, learn and collaborate where, when and how they can be most productive. This will require new policies for alternative work arrangements. Managers will need to learn how to manage virtual teams. The 2020 workplace is here today.

Share with us your reaction to this report, questions it raises and what you and your organization will start doing and stop doing.

“If we are going to go anywhere, we’ve got to have talent.
And I am going to put my money in talent.”
– RAY KROC, FOUNDER OF MCDONALD’S

Following the tour of Hamburger University and a sharing of some of McDonald’s learning programs, participants generated their ideas about what “learning in the future” might look like. The following Wordle captures some of the concepts shared in that conversation:

What words do you use to describe learning in the future?

A recent participant in the Social Learning Boot Camp told us, “I have been so stuck in the mindset that social media for training wouldn’t work because of compliance.” Another participant realized that obstacles to implementing social learning are shared by most organizations: “All companies – regulated or not – are struggling with social ‘anything’.”

Yet people such as Andrew Wolff, educational methods leader at PricewaterhouseCoopers, and Robert Campbell, chief learning officer at Cerner Corporation (see more), helped boot camp participants understand that you CAN implement successful social learning initiatives despite many constraints.

In her recent Mashable piece, Zoe Fox explores “5 Best Practices for Financial Institutions on Facebook”:

1. Don’t Just Talk About Banking
2. Host Contests
3. Offer Career Advice
4. Be Cool
5. Show Off Your Good Work

How are you overcoming blocks and obstacles to implement social media and social learning in regulated and compliance-filled workplaces?