And the next surprise, users are not just Millennials born between 1977 and 1997? Actually, we are all using video sharing and this will have a profound impact on corporate training.

Below is a demographic portrait of users:

Who uses video‐sharing sites: % of internet users within each group who watch videos on a video‐sharing site

Who uses video sharing site?

Source: The Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project, April 26 – May 22, 2011

The increase in video-sharing is 5‐percentage point increase from the 66% of online adults who reported being videosharing in 2006 to 71 % in 2011.

Video‐sharing site usage over time: 2006 ‐ 2011: % of internet users in each group who visit video sharing sites (total and on a typical day)

Video‐sharing site usage over time: 2006 ‐ 2011
% of internet users in each group who visit video sharing sites (total and on a typical day)

Source: The Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project, April 26 – May 22, 2011

The rise in use of video‐sharing sites is at least partly being driven by the growth in content on sites like YouTube and by user contributions, which then encourage site visits by contributors’ friends and others who pass around links about popular videos. The latest statistics from YouTube are compelling: 48 hours of content are uploaded every minute to the site and the range of contributions is striking. YouTube lists categories of content ranging from automobiles and gaming, to activism, web 2.0, education and politics to name just a few.

YouTube viewership has grown from 8 million views a day by the end of 2005, to over 3 billion views a day in 2011, according to the data from YouTube.

So if you are a learning, talent of human resource professional, what does this mean for you, your team and your company’s training, development and performance support efforts?
1)    Video sharing is happening across generations, meaning usage ranges from 92% of Millennials,80% of Gen Xer’s and 54% of Boomers.

2)    Our learning & development team members should routinely go to Youtube to search for relevant content to add as pre-work, in class or post work. For example, just doing a search on web 2.0 and education yeilds a wealth of content: An interesting video on web 2.0 and education is just one of many in this YouTube channel. See here. We are all bringing our video consumption expectations to the workplace. We expect to be entertained while learning and all in less than 5 minutes. This is having an impact on off-the-shelf learning programs as well as customized ones.

3) Companies will make new demands of learners and vendors to recognize the growth in video sharing. Ask yourself: how has your company adjusted to the explosion of video sharing? Are you re thinking the design of your learning programs, including user generated video into pre work and post work, demanding new requirements from your LMS vendors and even “training” your learners in how to be contributors of knowledge not just passive consumers of knowledge?

Let’s start a dialogue on this in our comments section to the blog.

James Clay had an excellent Pecha Kucha presentation recently talking about Twenty Web 2.0 Apps for Learning. If you have not already experienced Pecha Kucha, it was developed a few years ago in Tokyo and means “Chit Chat.” Essentially you give 20 slides in 20 seconds–think of it as a high speed journey on a topic. The presentation above uses it for giving a glossary of social media terms you may not be aware of.
I took the liberty of defining all the terms below. Let me know if you are using this in your presentations and what your experience has been.

• Flickr Image and video sharing website.
• Twitter A microblogging service where users communicate in short messages called “tweets” that are limited to 140 characters. As of September, 2009, Twitter raised an additional $50,000 from investors, and is valued at $1 Billion.
• Etherpad A free online live collaboration site that enables simultaneous writing.
• Screenr Instant screencasts for Twitter.
• Posterous Allows for posting video, music, photo galleries, and documents to Twitter.
• Audioboo An audio blogging application that is available free of charge.
• Evernote An application that lets you create notes, snap photos, and record voice memos that can be accessed at any time.
• Shozu A mobile social media platform enabling fast, easy, two-way exchange of photos, videos and other multimedia content.
• Google Apps Access to all of Google’s suite of tools.
• Ustream Live video streaming.
• Prezi Allows for creating zooming presentations offline.
• Slideshare Sharing application for presentations.
• Ning An online service to create, customize, and share a social network.
• Delicious Popular social bookmarking site.
• WordPress A website providing an online service where users create and customize their own blogs, free of charge.
• QikA mobile utility that enables anyone to share live video from their mobile phones.
• Friendfeed Social media feed aggregator. Friendfeed allows users to aggregate services such as Twitter, Flickr, and personal blog posts on one platform. Users subscribe to each other’s feeds and comment on posted content.
• Remember the Milk Online to do list and task management.
• YouTube Video sharing website where users upload, view and share video clips. Content ranges from movie clips, TV clips, and user-generated content.

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]

This is a “Zero billion dollar market today” Director of Product Management Matthew Glotzbach said in a briefing about the product. But we will change this and Google Video For Business will be easy to use.

These videos will basically have the same features and limitations as YouTube, including upload size and file type limits. Videos have access control, even if they are embedded outside of the intranet or Google Apps, and can be tagged and commented on just like YouTube. As the video below states, these videos are quick and easy to create and can be uploaded and shared in a number of ways: for training, to communicate end of quarter results, to showcase famous people who visit Google headquarters like Obama and Bloomberg and finally just for some laughs and fun during a stressful overworked the day.

So, what do you think as head of training or Human Resources at your firm? How will you use this? Will this replace your in-house video production crew? Will you use video more in video sharing sites to describe a new service or for quick updates?

[tags]Google, Human Resources, Video Sharing, HR[/tags]

Let’s break down the three major components of Web 2.0:

• Collaborative: Supports extensions to itself, is not a finished product but always a “work in process.”
• Accessible across multiple platforms: Meaning, Web 2.0 can be accessed by devices of all kinds from PCs to Mobile Phones to You Name It…
• User-generated: Rather than viewing content as static, the well-established boundaries between professionals and amateurs are eroding and content is open and continuously updated.

Listen to Tim O’Reilly, often called the father of Web 2.0, as he describes the concept on YouTube.

Now let’s step back and ask if this user participatory experience, which is at the heart of Web 2.0, can be incorporated inside corporate learning departments. As you consider this question, five issues come to mind:

• What happens to the instructional design process?
• What is the role of subject matter experts versus professional instructional designers?
• How do Learning Management Systems need to be adopted?
• How do learners continually add their experiences, stories and lessons to formal learning programs?
• What new processes and methods need to be created to take into account the “wisdom” of the crowds?

If the cardinal rule of Web 2.0 is that users add value – then how does this fit into the current way you design, develop and deliver corporate learning programs?