Major Issue: Training Churn due to reduced shelf life and amount of new items requiring formal training.

The challenge we’re facing as individual professionals extends to Training Departments: There’s so much new information with a limited viability that we’re having a hard time keeping up.

In looking at the application of social tools, it’s helpful to break the classic learning process down into Before / During / After.

Training Development (the Before)

The development phase includes the huge undertakings of needs analysis, and curricula development.  The opportunities for social tools in this phase are primarily centered on gaining the insights of constituents and crowdsourcing development:

Surveying: Using tools such as Survey Monkey, Google Forms, and other online survey sites to gain insight on needs, content sources, and curricula. Although these tools enable acquisition of exceptional insight for quantified data, they do have a shortcoming in that they’re not very “social” because the responses are privately relayed directly back to the surveyor. To gain a social edge, tools like discussion boards and wikis provide constituents with an opportunity to openly collaborate in a purely qualitative manner. This can provide Subject Matter Experts (SME’s) great structure, but care should be considered where strong SME personalities may dominate the conversation. Good facilitation skills should always be considered an ingredient of crowdsourcing.   A few respected tools in wiki / discussion board space are: WetPaint, PB Wiki. Please read more about a Wiki for Your Team. You can also establish private discussions in LinkedIn, and Facebook groups. Another idea is to use the realtime podcast / talkshow format enabled by BlogTalkRadio where participants can “call in” via phone to participate or merely listen-in via web stream.  This option also records the conversation for later .mp3 download.

Bookmarking: Crowdsource your organization’s favorite professional sites via social bookmarking with tools such as Delicious, StumbleUpon.  Additionally, consider using a private enterprise collaboration tool such as SocialCast.

Blogging: Leveraging blogs  for training development provides an individual constant platform for constituents and SME’s.  Where a bulldozing SME may rule out the possibility of a successful discussion board, blogs can provide normally tempered individuals a platform to share without being plowed over.  Traditional blog specific platforms such as WordPress / BuddyPress and Posterous are great, but private social networks such as Ning, KickApps, and SocialGo contain blog features may also be suitable.

File Sharing: The private social networks also provide the ability to share files. A popular file sharing site specifically for presentations is SlideShare.

Training Administration/Delivery (the During)

Realtime Feedback: The major opportunity for social tools during training lie in the backchannel for feedback and episodic community development (camaraderie). Although there are audience response systems, by taping into socially driven backchannel, the same or even better feedback can be garnered in realtime situations. Popular examples include Twitter, MeeboChat, and PollEverywhere.

Online Training Feedback: Google has an interesting product called Sidewiki that can enable learners to directly on the training piece via a special sidebar. While this may be uncomfortable from a control standpoint, it provides learners to comment immediately instead of afterwards.

Post Episodic (the After)

Following training, there exists a group of learners with a common experience. There is a camaraderie, or as referred to in more academic circles, an “episodic community”.  The opportunity for social tools here is a loop-closing mechanism for feedback, participation, and (assuming feedback is employed back into future training episodes) ownership.  The specific tools are those mentioned above for Training Development.  In fact, the line between Post Episodic and Development blurs here as the use of social tools for continuous improvement and development becomes apparent.  Additionally, retention of the material is much greater as learners participate in discussions afterwards regarding the subject matter itself or via providing  improvement/updating suggestions. These online conversations may require monitoring for facilitation purposes as well as adherence to the organization’s compliance policy (should someone convey something incorrectly).

Concluding

Traditional training processes can not sustain the demand imposed by contemporary organizations. Waiting for the sphere of social media options to plateau is not an option since a plateau is not fathomable. As such, learning professionals are driven to adopt new tools and leverage the knowledge of their constituents with social tools not only to accelerate the classic training process, but also to evolve the training mechanism itself into the social sphere of the constituents.   In this, the role of learning professionals will continue to evolve more into that of connector and facilitator versus the classic course developer/administrator.

Sites Consulted:

• http://beth.typepad.com/beths_blog/2010/01/free-webinar-trainers-social-media-bag-of-tricks.html
• http://www.xyleme.com/podcasts/
• http://www.clomedia.com/features/2009/December/2812/index.php?pt=a&aid=2812&start=0&page=1
• http://www.upsidelearning.com/blog/index.php/2009/12/22/blending-learning-with-social-technology-components/
• http://c4lpt.co.uk/ReadingLists/sociallearning.html
• http://www.sharingatwork.com/

The speed of the tweets is a rush all it’s own.  Many perspectives. All interesting.

Being a full service web design agency here in Memphis, we do a fair amount of Search Engine Optimization work and Google’s news took our wheels into high gear earlier this week.  Not in a totally positive light either.

After tonight’s #blogchat, I was prepping a tweet with the other cool, related posts and found that 140 wasn’t cutting it.

So, I’ve read;

Shannon Paul’s “An Open Letter to Companies on Facebook“
On being a Fan of a business on Facebook: “… This does not mean we are friends. It just means that I like your products or services enough to admit it in public.”

Mandy Vavrinacks “Real Time Relevance, the New SEO“
One of her points: ““Buzz” has another dimension now. Real time matters because it gives the whole world (well, the whole Google-ized world, anyway) a snapshot of what’s important to EVERYONE, right now.”

James Ball’s “Real Time Search & Social Media: Time Waits For No Man“
Favorite line: “…We can’t afford not to have a finger on the pulse here. There will be no playing catch-up with real-time search.”

and our post, LunaWeb’s “Google’s real-time search could turn up the noise on social sites“
speaks to how Google enhancement will cause the conversation within social networks to deteriorate.

These are the early days of a very big change that’s going to expand like an explosion happening in slow motion.

Here is Google’s original post “Relevance meets the real-time web“.

Unfortunately, the headlines about Social are centered greatly around marketing and public relations because of the way those realms are affected.  However, the same people that are out there buying have also weaved Social into their jobs, families, healthcare, and on. A more significant business question becomes, “Beyond Marketing/PR, how else does a business organization need to adapt in light of it’s hyper-connected employees, agents, vendors, management, and stakeholders?”

Right now, I’m confident that the answer doesn’t exist and that it’ll be developed, failed, relearned, and take many shapes.  There will be more early adopters experimenters and those that find their organizations reacting.

One group I see making great strides in laying a vision is Dachis Group.  Here’s a SlideShare that’s missing a ton without audio, but that you’ll get a feel for the spirit of Social Business Design.

What comes to mind when you ponder the question,
“How else does a business need to adapt in light of it’s hyper-connected employees, agents, vendors, management, and stakeholders?“

Going out on a (increasingly sturdy) limb, a significant aspect that’s missing from this grand vision is an imminent focus on Social Business within the Enterprise and the Professionals within them. This being the attention we’re going to see on the depths of individual relationships between professionals, and then the depth of the relationships between them within the workplace. Essentially, the core between the “SRM” and “VRM”.

Before the realization of the Forrester’s predictions:

• 2009-2011: The era of social colonization. In the next stage of social evolution, starting later in 2009, technologies like  OpenID and  Facebook Connect will let individuals traverse the Internet with their social connections along for the ride. The boundaries of social networks and traditional sites will blur, making every Web site into a social experience.
• 2010-2012: The era of social context. Next year, as sites begin to recognize people’s personal identities and their social relationships, they will customize visitors’ experiences based on their preferences, their behaviors, and who their friends are. In addition to enabling more intense social applications, in this stage social networks will absorb features of email and become a base of operations for everyone’s online experiences.
• 2011-2013: The era of social commerce. Starting about two years from now, as social networks become the repository for identities and relationships, they will become more powerful than corporate Web sites and  CRM systems. Communities will become the driving force for innovation. As a result, brands will cater to communities, resulting in a power shift toward the connected customer.

Somewhere in these Eras of Social: Colonization, Context, and Commerce, we’ll have an Era of business thought transformation that will redefine the significance of relationships within the enterprise and also the professionals that comprise them. The entire approach of business cannot maintain it’s current form with all the social connectedness going on outside the enterprise.  Regarding a timeframe, I’d estimate the beginnings and headlining in 2010.

http://gizmodo.com/5369493/leaked-courier-video-shows-how-well-actually-use-it

My next step was to ponder causes for increased activity. I find myself looking at: LinkedIn traffic, Craigslist traffic, NASDAQ, and searches for the term “Career”.  Going back to my geeky product engineering roots, I use graphs to quickly spot trends. The below are the graphs with straight trendlines drawn to spot accelerations (or changes in rates).  Although I’m no economist, you’ll clearly see similarities in when a change occurred: positive on LinkedIn traffic, NASDAQ, “careers”, and negative on Craigslist.

I’ve read previously that on the verge of economic rebound (or thereabouts) that there has traditionally been a small reshuffling of the workforce. Maybe we’re seeing that eminent reshuffling, or at least some itches of changing to “a better option” being entertained.

As many (myself included) are saying, this will be no typical recovery. Therefor, some traditional recovery indicators may be misleading. Regardless, some indicators reflect change in the last couple of weeks. The interpretation is beyond my knowledge to estimate.  Anybody care to take a stab at it?

Click to enlarge.

“I had the shot.
I saw no danger, so I took it“,

Lt. Pete Mitchell in TopGun

This is what comes to mind tonight when I see PostSecret’s random drawings for a Nano.

I believe SquareSpace pioneered this this practice for an iPhone. Their competition, MoonFruit followed suit. There have been others and now tonight I see #postsecret.  They need some “danger”, some recourse.

Maybe the people that indulge can’t help themselves. After all, they have nothing to risk. Their behavior, however, reinforces the gaming of the hashtag.  What if they did have something to risk. Are they risking their reputation?

I say there is a small reputation hit for participants. Do people look at the people empowering the marketers to continue with these methods with a small flash of disappointment? I do.  The marketers have crowdsourced their spam for a chance at an iPod nano. It was a brilliant move when SquareSpace did it. I see the repeat rounds as an insult to consumers, that they’d be played this way by the marketers. It’s an insightful blow to PostSecret’s reputation. I thought differently of PostSecret and their understanding of the human condition. Now they’re taking that understanding, and manipulating consumers with it. It’s shameful and needs consequence.

“They have the shot.
They need some danger,
so maybe they’ll quit taking the shot.”

Do you agree with this practice?
Chime in, please.

There’s an increasing amount of conversation about stepping back, reevaluating, etc…  The very first stop should be going back to using these Social technologies with our existing relationships (families, neighbors, employees, colleagues, clients, customers, and constituents) to truly “listen”, understand, experience, and improve. After all, our relationships have the greatest insight to their experienced reality (the one that actually matters), and the greatest influence.

We’ll see people turn away from Social unsatisfied because their expectations of a “return” are not realized. This will be the result of misguided goals and intentions, and also misapplying tools with quick-fix, tips & tricks mentalities. They were bitchin’ their Social. Being the creatures we are, we long for easy recipes especially in confusing, mysterious times. Not only did the carpetbaggers deliver, but en masse, instinct, and hype delivered us past the common sense of utilizing these beautiful technologies with our own existing relationships.

What’s most wonderful is that there is a sense of course correction afoot. If it were easy, it wouldn’t feel nearly as good when we make advances.

There’s no Express Service on the Social. All tickets are for the Long Haul. And as much as we’re inclined to mastery, Social won’t be on the List of the Conquered. Social won’t be bitched.

Where are your thoughts on this? Are you feeling a correction afoot?

Go on the fundamentals that are becoming nearly cliche “Online social networking is like Word of Mouth on steroids” and that people trust others like themselves instead of traditional institutions.  Additionally, we’re all aware that the transactional cost of getting new projects from existing clients is less than new ones.  Believing these will drive you to focus social efforts on your customers and not on prospects. It is this, that draws me to review customer service. At LunaWeb, 80% of our business comes from existing clients.

The book was published in April of 2001.  In reading this book today, you can’t help but make direct correlations to contemporary social tactics and strategies.  The book uses the characters from television show “Cheers” to help us understand the concepts.

In Chapter 1, “Everyone Knows His Name”

“Think about what everone knows about Norm. It goes way beyond his name. They know how much beer he drinks… they know his friends… They know what he wants before he asks for it. In short, they know everything there is to know about him.

More importantly, they act on it.  …customize the delivery… the way he wants it, without asking for it.”

We are reminded of the theme song lyrics.

The Cheers Theme (Where Everyone Knows Your Name)*
Sometimes you want to go
Where everybody knows your name,
And they’re always glad you came;
You wanna be where you can see,
Our troubles are all the same;
You wanna be where everyone knows your name.
You wanna go where people know,
People are all the same;
You wanna go where everybody knows your name

*The Cheers Theme (Where Everybody Knows Your Name), by Gary Portnoy and Judy Hart Angelo

The chapter reflects the benefits of social networking.  In Chapter 2 It Goes Way Beyond the Beer “…they all get the same product, they each receive it in a truly special way.”  has a nice air of customization (of the presentation).

The book relays some specific real life examples and segues into “The one-size-fits-all mentality is slowly dying…”  and in Chapter 4, The Basics of CRM and the Cheers Model.

The four principals of the Cheers Model are presented as:

1. Build your share of customer
2. Focus on strategic value
3. Acknowledge that every customer has different tastes and preferences
4. Treat different customers differently

Additionally, there are some quantification tools, real life examples and more.

The biggest point that the book makes is the common sense of finding a significant return on paying extra attention to your existing client base. Now more than ever, they are your most influential proponents.

It may be gone soon. Wonder what you see based on my privacy settings. Interesting. Sometimes you’ll see posts when you click on the “Friends” tab. However, sometimes I get an error message. THIS is what makes me think they are working on it -right now-.

This is a SCREEN SHOT from what I see: