The growth of mobile devices continues; it is now estimated there are more than 3 billion mobile subscribers and this number is estimated to rise to over 4 billion by 2010. In particular, the size and growth of the Smartphone market is expanding rapidly and will exceed the laptop market for the next five years, according to a report by market research company In-Stat. What will be the impact of this on corporate learning? Are you ready to leave your laptop home? The recent survey of 125 heads of Human Resource and Corporate Learning conducted by New Learning Playbook blog and Human Capital Institute revealed several relevant findings: While 33% of organizations have a mobile learning pilot currently underway, 70% of organizations surveyed are investigating the use of mobile learning in the next 12-18 months. Typical areas of usage include product training, sales training and compliance training, but the overwhelming use is for on-going performance support. There are some issues that need to be addressed, these include diversity of hardware and software, screen size, security and a host of instructional design issues. However, the bottom line, as profiled in this survey respondent’s view of potential of mobile learning: "The real power of mobile learning is around the interactivity and the ability to create learning campaigns rather than learning events. And of course it is fun as well." -Head of Learning, Finland So what are your views on mobile learning? Share your thoughts with me and stay tuned for the date and time of a webcast on this topic.

On May 6, 2009 Amazon will unveil plans for a new version of its Kindle e-book reader. As reported in the Wall Street Journal, the new improved Kindle will sport a larger screen and other features designed to appeal to academic textbook publishers as the Kindle begins to target the college textbook market, a $5.5 Billion market in the U.S. alone. Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland will be one of the first universities to have textbooks for chemistry, computer science and a freshman seminar already installed on the Kindle. Case Western then plans to compare student reactions to reading textbooks on Kindle with a control group who will use traditional textbooks. Five other universities—Pace, Princeton, Reed, the Darden School at the University of Virginia, and Arizona State University—are also involved in this pilot. The world of higher education is being changed right before our eyes. And the reaction to the Kindle is impessive. While Amazon does not officially divulge sales number for Kindle (many suspect because of a desire to avoid direct comparisons to Apple’s iPod ) Michael Arrington of TechCrunch suspects that Amazon will sell at least 800,000 of the devices in 2009 alone, which would put sales for Kindle ahead of the iPod’s numbers when each device was in its second generation. What’s more, since Amazon owns the audio book company Audible, Kindle owners may be able to read a few chapters at home and then when they are in their car pick up where they left off, only this time via an audio version of the book. While you may not want to do this for your chemistry book, it can be a big plus for a best seller. So, what can we expect in terms of penetration of the Kindle for the corporate training market? Imagine being able to access performance support, real time feedback on the job, updates to training programs a plethora of corporate documents from a Kindle at work? Share your thoughts on opportunities and barriers to using Kindle as delivery device for corporate learning & development. Technorati Tags: Kindle, corporate learning, iPod, Case Western Reserve, Pace, Princeton, Reed, Darden School of University of Virginia, Arizona State University

Last week I presented interesting new findings on the Kindle’s expanding market, and asked you all to weigh in on whether it would continue to expand into the corporate training market. The preliminary consensus appears to be "no". The list of preliminary concerns raised in the comments section includes aesthetic concerns, such as bulk, and the lack of a color screen, as well as potentially more substantial barriers. These barriers include: Lack of Institutional Support Many people simply do not see a large scale implementation of the Kindle in their companies. As Martin wrote: Corporations will want to leverage their existing mobile investment - be it a Blackberry, Windows Mobile, Nokia, iPhone etc. Lack of Two Way Capabilities Nick raised an excellent point about the inherent limits of the Kindle feature set when he wondered, Is it possible to collect statistics, do quizzes? Does the platform support animated (Flash or other) content or is it static only? Lack of one or both of these capabilities could severely limit its usefulness. Passive Screen Similarly, Steven explained that the hardware itself may not be sufficient because, The Kindle is not a good medium for social interaction. It is a private experience. As we learned at the recent Learning Innovation Network meeting in Cambridge, MA last week, social interactions are a key part of learning. The tactile dimension is not there. Once one is used to an iTouch or iPhone, it is hard to go back to a passive screen, even one with the wonderful resolution of Kindle. Touch and gesture are an important part of memory (and therefore learning.) So, although I expect to do a great deal of reading on Kindle-like devices, I expect my learning to be social, personal and tactile. Yet Another Device To Carry Around Finally, the largest and possibly most significant concern raised involved a logistical obstacle: people simply do not want to be carrying around another electronic device in their daily lives. As Nick explained, We have laptops, cell phones (now usually a BB or iPhone), now a Kindle. In the work environment maybe the oft touted tablet PC (or tablet Mac, fingers crossed) would be a better fit than a laptop and a Kindle. Neil concurred, and offered this alternative, The Kindle or the Sony product is just another device to add to the list of things that you are forced to carry around for this reason I think that people should be looking towards mobile phones. Martin strongly agreed with this solution, saying, Our employees will ideally want to access training via their existing device, not a Kindle. I couldn’t think of anything more frustrating than having to switch between several devices in my pocket, instead of just using my own mobile phone that allows me to wear training and take training, anytime, anywhere. So, based on your comments (and more coming in) Kindle has significant hurdles to overcome before it is a corporate learning delivery device. However, mobile phones and in particular, the iPhone or BlackBerry, may be a more long-term solution as a mobile learning device since they offer institutional support, two way capabilities, and an all in a package that allows users to access one’s cell phone, datebook, contact list, notepad, mp3 player, internet access device, etc). Whatever device emerges as the winner, our blog community sees new features and new capabilities for mobile learning appearing at an accelerated pace. Technorati Tags: Kindle, iPhone, Corporate Learning, Mobile Learning, mLearning

A recent poll on LinkedIn asked users a simple question: "What is the most important new platform for brands to master? Twitter, Facebook, the iPhone, Digg, or LinkedIn?" The results may not be what you’d expect. Even though the poll was performed on LinkedIn, with more than 3,600 respondents so far, Twitter was deemed the most important new platform for brands to master. Specifically, the results of this poll revealed that LinkedIn users view Twitter as of primary importance (30%), followed closely by Facebook (26%). LinkedIn came in third (22%), followed closely by the iPhone (18%). Digg was far behind the pack: it garnered a paltry 1% of the votes. Twitter’s popularity make sense given the rapid growth it has been experiencing. The National Business Review reports that Twitter is currently gaining 10 million users per month. However, ReadWriteWeb breaks down the results further to show that: Most appreciative of Twitter: Business owners, C-Level or VPs. People at large- or medium-sized companies. People doing business development, marketing or creative work. Least appreciative of Twitter: Non-managers. People at very large or small businesses. Consultants, Salespeople and Engineers. Most appreciative of LinkedIn: C-level and non-managers. At small- or medium-sized businesses. Doing consulting or sales. Least appreciative of LinkedIn: Owners and managers. At large or enterprise companies. In creative or marketing departments. This poll has clear implications For HR/Learning professionals. Ask yourself three questions: Are you experimenting how to use Twitter as a personal learning tool-to enhance your creativity and keep up with current happenings/thoughts in your industry? Are you exploring how to create a "Twitter-Like" application behind your firewall? If Twitter has become so addictive, why not leverage this "inside your company?" One to consider is Yammer Are you sharing the power of suing social media for learning with your teams? Share how using social media can improve your personal learning and your HR/learning department. To continue the dialog, come follow me on Twitter! Technorati Tags: Social Media, Social Networking, Media Shift, Web 2.0

I have been using Twitter and just like you fascinated at how Twitter has been a leading forum in reporting the situation in Iran. The US State Department themselves requested Twitter delay scheduled maintenance to avoid disrupting communications among and reporting from Iranian citizens as they gathered in protest. Twitter has become an unexpectedly powerful tool. As "the technology writer Clive Thompson calls part of what Twitter provides ‘ambient awareness’: by following quick, abbreviated status reports from members of your extended social network, you get a strangely satisfying glimpse of their daily routines…The social warmth of all those stray details shouldn’t be taken lightly." So, I asked myself how are companies using Twitter for recruiting purposes? Are they using it to it’s fullest potential? What advantages will these give employers? What advantages do employers have if they take an active and early role using Twitter to have a dialogue with employees? First, thanks to Job Hunt for doing the research here to compile the below list. Some comments on the list: It’s interesting to see which companies in a particular industry are on the list and which are not- Burger King, but not McDonalds. PepsiCo, but not Coca-Cola. Microsoft but not Oracle, Sybase, or Adobe. IBM but not Dell or HP. MTV and WArner Brothers are there, but Disney and Pixar, are not. Intel and EMC are the only manufacturers that made the list. U.S. Department of State is the only branch of the U.S. Federal Government or ANY American government entity, that is recruiting on Twitter. This reminds me of another list I complied—CEO’s of companies that are bloggers. That number has gone up, but still only 12% of Fortune 500 companies are blogging. Food for Thought For HR & Learning Executives How are you using Twitter for your own personal use and to explore how to use this to drive more collaboration inside the company? How are you using Twitter as a personal learning tool? Check out my earlier post on the subject for more ideas on how to do so. Now think forward five years—how will your Human Resources and Corporate Learning department change with the explosion of these new technologies? My overall take here: Just registering for Twitter account and using this for recruiting is not enough. Companies must be authentic, include real voices of their employees, and engage Millennials in conversations they are already having online. Share your comments with me and if you find an employer’s Twitter recruiting account that is not included, please let me know. List of Companies Using Twitter for recruiting in alphabetical order: Employer / Twitter Account Accenture @Accenture_Jobs ACULIS, Inc. @aculis ADP @ADPCareers Allstate Insurance @AllstateCareers Assurant Solutions @AssurantCareers AT&T @ATTjobs Burger King @BKCareers comScore @comScoreJobs Davita, Inc. @DaVitaJobs Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu @JoinDeloitteUS Ecolab @Ecolab_Jobs EMC @EMCCareers EMC @EMCCollege Ernst & Young @Ernst_and_Young Follett Software Co. @FSCCareers Forrester Research, Inc. @forresterjobs Fullhouse Interactive @fullhousecareer Hershey Company @HersheyCompany Hewitt @HewittCareers Hyatt Hotels & Resorts @Hyattcareers Hyatt San Antonio @HyattSanAntonio Intel @JobsatIntel J.B. Hunt @WeHaveFreight Kaplan Test Prep Services @KTPA_Careers Keller Williams Realty @KWCareers Kissito Post-Acute Care @kissitocareers KPMG @KPMG KPMG @KPMGUSCareers Wipro, LTD @WiproCareers Kroger @KrogerWorks LexisNexis @LN_Recruiting Mattel @MattelRecruiter Mattel @mattelmba McCormick & Schmick @Careers_At_MSSR Microsoft @JobsBlog MTV Networks @MTVnetworksjobs MTV Games @MTVGamesJobs Raytheon @Raytheon_Jobs Razorfish @RazorfishJobs Sodexo @SodexoCareers Spotsylvania Medical Center @CareersAtSRMC Thomson Reuters @TRCareers Twitter (of course!) @jobs United Parcel Service @UPSjobs UPMC @UPMCCareers US Dept. of State @DOScareers Verizon @VerizonCareers Warner Brothers @WBCareers Wipro, LTD @WiproCareers What are your experiences using Twitter for recruiting? Let me know in the comments, or send me a note on Twitter at http://twitter.com/jcmeister.

It’s no surprise that corporations have a love/hate relationship with the use of social media inside the company. As Business Week reminds us in recent article, there is reason for the tension inside companies on how they should handle usage of social media. On the one hand, Millennials have social networking in their DNA, and are saying,"I need these tools to be productive." But the legal folks, and yes, some HR folks, are saying, "This could implode, remember the dark side of using social media and be aware of the experience of Domino’s Pizza". For those unaware of the Domino’s Pizza fiasco, two former Domino’s Pizza employees used YouTube to create a fictional video account of unsanitary conditions in a Dominos pizza kitchen in Conover, N.C. The story became front-page news on the NY Times. One solution: Create social media guidelines and be sure all employees understand how to follow them. IBM’s social computing guidelines are very informative and they have since grown to cover social media usage on sites like Twitter and Facebook as well as inside the company network. Essentially these guidelines urge employees to be open and transparent, to remember they are personally responsible for what they publish, and perhaps most importantly, to take a deep breath and think about what they are doing before hitting the send button. See the complete IBM Social Computing Guidelines here. Once you have developed a strategy and a set of guidelines, your next question: How Can Social Networking Be Used for HR and Corporate Learning? In the July issue of T&D magazine, in an article entitled Social Networking: A Force For Development, a number of concrete uses for social media were outlined: Link learners before and after a formal training event Engage Millennials—Perhaps as reverse mentors to senior executives Provide new content prior to a face to face class Provide links and resources to new content Determine future training needs by searching tags and reading conversations Reinforce and sustain learning try using twitter for this Additionally, you can read a detailed post I wrote about ways to specifically use Twitter for learning & development here. What are you doing about developing a social media strategy? Technorati Tags: Social media, corporate social networks, corporate learning, Human Resources, IBM, Business Week

Currently there is a stream of interest and activity about social learning—with much of the focus on the power of social learning to drive innovation in the enterprise by accessing a host of new technologies, tools and social software. But the engine behind using social media for corporate learning requires the participation of people to fuel it. So social learning starts with building and nurturing a community of engaged users, and of course part of the launch process is to identify the right social technologies to support this. Think here of Twitter. The success of Twitter rests largely with folks like you and me who keep Twitter humming along with new content, ideas and applications. This phenomenon has been referred to as "open innovation," where end users provide new knowledge and content. As companies plan to expand the focus of learning to be "social," in addition to examining the range of social tools and social technologies, ask yourself: what has to change inside the learning department? Here are three questions to consider: What new roles need to be developed inside the learning & human resources department? What is the focus of these roles? Will there be someone assigned to "feed" new content to kick off the initiative? What new guidelines and policies need to be put into place so everyone is clear about how to participate and the general rules for engaging in social media in the workplace? What needs to be addressed in these guidelines? What new metrics are put into place for encouraging participation? How will performance management be impacted? Will employees be clear about their responsibility to be contributors not just consumers of new knowledge? These are just a few of the questions I see among companies that are seriously considering re-thinking their learning department. Share additional questions and your insights with me either in the comments here, via email, or by following me on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/jcmeister. I will recap your thoughts in a future post!

I came across an interesting research report I want to share with all of you. According to Pew Research, just over half of all working adults ages 50 to 64 say they may delay their retirement - but here is the surprise: another 16% say they never expect to stop working. See box below: Pew calls these folks the Threshold Generation, meaning those who are perpetually on the threshold of exiting the workforce. Even those Thresholders who do plan to retire some day say they will keep working, on average, until they are age 66 — four years older than the age at which current retirees report that they stopped working. This is certainly contributing to the shifts in workforce demographics as the participation rate of those ages 65 and older has increased from 12.9% in 2000 to 16.8% in 2008. What’s driving this commitment to continue working? The Pew Research survey finds it may not be how much you earn but how much you lost in the investment market meltdown that determines whether you are re-thinking your retirement plans, with those that have lost 40% or more of their portfolio being firmly in the Threshold Generation. If you are the head of HR or Corporate Learning and members of the Threshold Generation are employed at your firm, here are some questions for you: Is your organization prepared to have an increasingly aging workforce? Do these Threshold Generation members have the skills their employers need to win in the marketplace? If not, are they committed to building new skills in areas such as social media literacy? How are these organizations preparing for managing a multiple generation workplace? Share your thoughts here, in the comments section, via email, or send me a note on Twitter. Technorati Tags: Threshold Generation, Multiple Generations At Work, Pew Research

New research proves what my teenage daughter has been saying for the past year: social networking sites have been taken over by what she calls "the older folks,"-those over the age of 25. According to the U.K.’s government communications watchdog, Ofcom, 30% of U.K. adults have a social profile on Facebook (up from 21% in 2007), but the share of 15-24 year-olds with a social profile has dropped from 55% in early 2008 to 50% this year. It’s not a massive fall, but it’s the first time the number has decreased. Over the same period, however, Ofcom’s research showed a corresponding increase from 40% to 46% in social networking for the 25-34 year-old age group. And this decrease goes for Twitter as well as Facebook. Analyzing 250,000 Internet users in the U.S., Nielsen found that 25% of them were under 25. But only 16% of Twitter users were in that age group. The chart below shows the explosive growth of Twitter among 25-54 age category—the working adults in your firms. So, the impetus to use social media inside your company may be coming from the Generation Xer’s (in their 30’s) and even the Boomers (like myself) rather than just the Millennials. And this trend will continue as all of us realize that using social media and joining social networks is important to stay employable as well as connect with old friends. Understanding these demographics are key especially if your firm is using any type of social networking for sourcing, developing and engaging talent. Do these statistics jive with your experiences of what you see and hear around your firms? Share with me in the comments section, via email, or send me a note on Twitter. Technorati Tags: Twitter, Facebook, Mashable, Talent Management

Over 4 billion individuals around the world today carry cell phones with them on daily basis; and many are also incredibly powerful computing devices. In a recent article, Abhijit Kadle of Upside Learning detailed the myriad opportunities for uses of mobile phones: 1. Voice - Phones with voice only technology can be still used to learn languages, literature, public speaking, writing, storytelling, and history amongst a whole range of topics. 2. SMS - SMS text messages can be used to provide performance support, mentoring, coaching, just in time information product information, or quizzes. There are also innovative learning games based around SMS ideal for Millennial employees. 3. Graphic Displays - Most phones today have far more graphic power and are able to display words, pictures and animation. Such screens also allow for meaningful amounts of text to be displayed, supporting rapid serial presentation of context-appropriate information. 4. Downloadable programs - With mobile phones that have memories, and can accept and install downloaded programs an entire new learning space is opened up on the phone. Almost any sort of learning content and interaction technology can be delivered to the phone using this method. 5. Mobile Internet Browsers - Internet browsers are now built into an increasing number of phones, especially those that take advantage of 3G or enhanced data networks such as GPRS. Having a browser on the phone opens up all the learning resources available on the web. Mobile phones may be ideal learning devices because they combine tried and true learning strategies with technology that is portable, customizable, and that allows for two-way communication. However, there are also some challenges as noted by Don Duquette of GP Worldwide: 1. Screen Resolution 2. Browsers 3. LMS 4. Bandwidth 5. Instructional Design In short, to overcome these challenges, mobile learning needs to differ from eLearning in several respects. As Sami M. Leppänen, former Head of Learning Solutions at Nokia writes, mobile learning should positively differ from e-learning. It should be: More personal More fun More interactive Spontaneous Shorter duration More connected Directly to the point Just-on-time learning From reader to producer of content Will most learning be mobile and wearable in the next five years? Does mobile learning sound feasible at your organization? How will learning remain the same, and have to adapt to work on mobile platforms? What new possibilities are out there for this new learning platform as it grows? Share with me in the comments section, via email, or send me a note on Twitter. Technorati Tags: M Learning, Performance Support, Talent Management, Mobile Learning Bookmark To: