Amid all the economic news of recent weeks there was an interesting release from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) telling us what we already know: Now is not the time to retire. According to the BLS, more older workers are staying in their jobs longer or returning after retiring. And as a result, among workers who are 65 and older, 56 percent work full time compared to 44% 13 years ago. So much for the "brain drain" we all feared only a few years ago. See the chart above for more details on this. With the current economic turmoil, and the vaporization of retirement savings, people will be in the workplace longer and we will have all four generations working together side by side. What does that do to the workplace? What does that do to the demands placed on the learning organization and the talent management organization? These developments are particularly timely as New Learning Playbook is conducting a groundbreaking survey that examines the workplace of the future and the demands the four generations—Seniors, Baby Boomers, Generation X and the Millennial Generation-will place on employers. You are invited to participate in a global survey of workers from around the world. This survey only takes 10 minutes and you can have a voice into what this means as companies grapple with how to deal with four generations @ work. I am also conducting personal interviews on this topic and will share all results with our readers. Please click here to participate in the survey. I will be examining these results in terms of what they mean for recruiting, developing and motivating four generations of employees, as well as how to create a working environment conducive to all generations. In the meantime, if you have a personal story you want to share about how your organization is dealing with this issue, I would really like to hear from you. Send me an email. Technorati Tags: four generations, brain drain, millennials, baby boomers, seniors, generation x

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? Technorati Tags: JetBlue, Awareness, Chief Learning Officer, Blogs

Our second meeting of the Learning Innovation Network was held at Merrill Lynch from October 21-22, 2008. The photo below shows our group getting ready for a series of break-out exercises describing learning in their organizations over the next 5,000 days—or in the year 2020. We wanted to start with a visionary exercise to explore just how different the world of learning in both corporations and universities may be in the days and years to come. Three forward looking trends discussed by the group include the following: 1.) Learning will continue to be ubiquitous and mobile technologies will become a dominant delivery mode. In the UK, there are now more mobile phones than people. For every 100 Britons there are 116.6 mobile phones. According to the GSM—Global System For Mobile Communications Association we will reach 4 billion mobile phone subscriptions by the end of 2008 and close to 20 billion by 2020. Think about this: how many of your colleagues do you see carrying two devices—one for work and one for fun. At our meeting, the Merrill Lynch team shared their successful implementation of MoBull: Go Learn, their mobile learning targeted to bankers on-the-go. 2.) Learning will be embedded into our everyday lives and will be boundaryless. Knowledge management will give way to developing a social media strategy for sharing information and tacit knowledge. Venkatesh Rao on Enterprise 2.0 blog writes a great article on this subject. The bottom line of Rao’s thesis is one to consider as we think about re-imagining our learning departments. Rao believes that Knowledge Management is a dated concept conceived by Boomers (those born 1946 - 1962) just as they were moving into leadership positions. Social Media, on the other hand, is a Millenial/Gen Y (born after 1981) movement and because of the efficiencies inherent to it, will dominate how we share knowledge and best practices as we move into the future. 3.) Learning professionals—from chief learning officers to heads of talent management must focus first on being strategy driven, rather than customer driven. We had a lively discussion at the Learning Innovation Network focused on how we are moving from being customer focused to being strategy focused. This is becoming an important distinction as learning professionals move toward delivering learning closely aligned to the strategies and business priorities of the organization and beyond "responding to individual customer needs. " The goal in this is to transform learning into a strategic function which contributes significant business impact through the acquisition, development and retention of top talent. Interested in learning more about the Learning Innovation Network? Send me an email at Jeanne@newlearningplaybook.com Technorati Tags: Chief Learning Officer, Talent Management, Enterprise 2.0, Mobile Learning, Knowledge Management

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: 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? 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. 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 Technorati Tags: Apple, Yale, Chief Learning Officer, Infosys, Carnegie Mellon University

These days, hardly a week goes by without hearing about another company cutting jobs. The chart below shows just how pervasive the job losses have been just since September 15th 2008. It puts the transformation of human resources & learning into perspective: I showed this chart to several colleagues who are Chief Learning Officers for professional service and financial service firms to gauge the impact on their functions in light of the current economic situation. We discussed how the learning function will evolve in the months ahead: Three areas surfaced as keys to grappling with the current economic situation: Targeting the top three initiatives HRD leaders can accomplish in 2009 assuming fewer human resources and corporate learning staff and budget decreases of up to 40%. This translates into having a razor sharp focus on a critical few initiatives that will deliver the highest impact to senior executives. Some include: more emphasis on creating "formal" on the job experiences to nurture informal learning, having an enterprise wide coaching and mentoring strategy in place to supplement whatever formal learning can be offered and preparing managers to "have difficult conversations with employees". Providing a range of "real time" online performance support tools to managers. Previously these tools have been created for jobs in such functions as customer call and operations. But now that formal learning may be reduced, more managers and newly appointed leaders will be looking for performance support tools as a way to assist in creating on-the-job improvements. Examining how to leverage current content vendors to provide greater pre and post learning experiences—in other words exploring how to deepen some vendor relationships to provide learning interventions rather than just creating access to online content. How are you adjusting your learning department to the new realities of driving greater effectiveness and efficiency into the learning function? Share your thoughts with me. Technorati Tags: Chief Learning Officer, Performance Support Tools, Pre and Post Learning

Twitter has made headlines in some amazing news stories; breaking the news of China’s earthquake and helping a student get out of jail when he was arrested in Egypt for nothing more than taking a photo. Both of these incidents speak to the growing popularity of Twitter, but you may have the same questions I do: what is Twitter, who uses it, and can be harnessed as a learning tool? Twitter is a free social networking tool that keeps people connected with one another and with sources of information. Twitter users submit updates, called "tweets", about what they are doing at the moment. Tthese updates cannot exceed 140 characters. Now how many folks are using Twitter? Twitter traffic is currently at 1.2 million users per month. These users are mostly male, young, and profess to be heavy users, saying they go on Twitter at least 6-8 times per month. See the demographic breakdown of users below: Now, can Twitter be used for learning & development and if so how? Here are some ways for you to consider: Provide real time learning nuggets to either current or prospective employees When you look at the demographics of usage you see it is heavily weighted toward the 18-24 and 25-34 age ranges. These are the Millennials and Generation Xer’s that companies are interested in recruiting as next generation leaders. It seems there can be a host of applications for recruiting new hires as well as providing knowledge to follow-up a learning event. Follow-up to asynchronous webcasts Twitter is a great tool for communicating and asking questions on conference calls and other types of static asynchronous conferencing. The added benefit of this is that using Twitter to connect allows you to keep a record of all the questions and comments, in a manner similar to a blog post. Reinforcement or reminder on learning a new process or procedure In a saturated world of content where the shelf life of knowledge keeps growing shorter and shorter, we are always looking for ways to reinforce new content. Twitter can accomplish this because it allows you to see quick snippets of content. However, it is also important to note that while real people write most tweets, some are using the service for blasting marketing messages. In the later case, I believe users quickly see through this and look for authentic content to help them be more successful on their job. So how are you using Twitter? Is it a viable tool for learning and development? Share your thoughts with me. Finally if you are on twitter, be sure to "follow" me at: http://twitter.com/jcmeister Technorati Tags: social media best practices, web 2.0 enterprise 2.0, learning & development

Twitter, a social networking platform used for microblogging, is a free service that lets you send the briefest of messages (with a maximum of 140 characters) to everyone in your network. It marries the mass appeal of blogging with the speed and ease of text messaging. There has been a growing interest in how to use these new forms of social media for learning & development. Driving this interest is the fact that Millennials, or those born after 1981, make up 22 percent of the workforce now and will grow to comprise 46 percent of the workforce by the year 2020. This is the generation that is most likely to be using Twitter. According to comScore, Twitter had almost three million monthly users as of June of 2008, which is triple what it had last November. In addition, those figures probably undershot the mark because they don’t measure mobile activity, which is a large part of the Twittersphere, as can be seen in the graphic above. So given this level of activity, are companies using Twitter to it’s fullest potential for learning & development? The chatter following my last post on the subject does reinforce the view that human resources and learning professionals are experimenting with Twitter as a training tool. This is of interest because of the usage among Millennials in particular, as well as the fact that Twitter is a free service being used by millions of people of all ages. Below are some of the possible uses for Twitter as a training tool from the "wisdom of the crowds": Reminders of upcoming training events and reminders of key learning content Pre-emptive help for learning a new process or procedure Links to new articles of interest Online performance support tools communicated in 140 character limits. Most felt this requirement of 140 characters was a "good thing" in pushing training directors to be succinct about follow-up tools. Seminar/classroom attendee communications sharing a relevant point of view Team communications allowing employees a real time archive to how the team is progressing and issues they are encountering. They can also set up and install the twhirl application at their workstations so they can monitor what is going on. New hire training where new hires are invited to webcasts or conference calls on relevant issues they are dealing with on the job. Twitter has gone mainstream over the last year. At the end of 2008 summer session, a congressman from Texas, John Culberson (R-Texas), was told by House leadership to stop Twittering his constituents from the floor of the chamber. Next, you may be getting a tweet from your CEO asking how you will use Twitter in your department. If you are on twitter, be sure to "follow" me at: http://twitter.com/jcmeister Happy New Year to all! Technorati Tags: Social Media, Twitter, Online Performance Tool, Heads of Human Resources

By all accounts, mobile learning, termed "m-learning", is on fire as a new method of accessing learning. As seen in the chart below, m-learning may be the learning tool of the future: I see three trends fueling this new interest in m-learning: More companies will explore mobile learning as an increasing number of tech-savvy Millennials enter the workforce and insist on the speed and mobility of m-learning. The Millennial generation, or those born after 1981, currently represents 22 percent of all workers. However, by the year 2014 they are expected to represent almost 47 percent of the workforce. . More content will be available via mobile learning. See, for example, the recent news about Intuition: "Intuition, a leading provider of learning services to the financial markets, life sciences and government sector, today announced that it has partnered with edCetra Training to jointly market the ability to distribute learning content through mobile devices. The agreement will increase Intuition’s product awareness and provide it with greater penetration of the training and development industry." As more mobile devices go mainstream, such as Amazon’s Kindle e-book reader, consumers will become accustomed to reading content on a mobile device. Over the last year, sales of Amazon’s Kindle have reached more than a quarter million units. What do you think? Are you exploring Mobile Learning? Technorati Tags: Mobile Learning, M Learning, Heads of Human Resource, E Learning

The results are in for the Pew Internet & American Life Project’s survey of 2,253 adults: validating what we have seen in the workplace, adoption of social media is soaring with one third (35%) of American adult internet users having created a profile on an online social network. This is four times as many as three years ago. The results break out by age in the following manner: 75% of online adults 18-24 have a profile on a social network 57% of online adults 25-34 have a profile on a social network 30% of online adults 35-44 have one 19% of online 45 to 54 year olds have a profile 10% of online 55 to 64 year olds have a profile 7% of online adults 65 and older have a profile Now consider when these social networking tools were introduced and their number of registered users to date: MySpace 2003 250 million registered users Facebook 2004 150 million active users Classmates.com 1995 50 million registered users LinkedIn 2003 30 million registered users Plaxo 2002 20 million registered users It’s about as addictive a method of communicating as I have ever seen. Last week I gave a session on this topic at ASTD and here were some of the questions posed by our audience of soon-to-be adopters of social media in the learning department: How do I build the case for using social media within my company? What about issues of privacy and security? What type of metrics should I focus on? Some thoughts that were addressed during the session: Is your CMO (Chief Marketing Officer) using socials media with customers? If yes what has been your company’s experience? Are your competitors using social media either internally or externally? What has been their experience with this? What types of pilots can the learning/HR department sponsor? Send me your comments! Technorati Tags: Social Media, Social Computing, Millennials, Chief Learning Officer, Chief Marketing Officer, Pew Research

Research is starting to show that students who listen to lectures on podcasts are showing high retention rates. This finding was reported in ReadWriteWeb and was uncovered after conducting research involving a test sample and a control sample of students. According to Dani McKinney, a psychologist at the State University of New York in Fredonia, students are learning more by listening to podcasts of lectures than going to class. To find out how much students can learn from a podcast, McKinney’s team created a podcast from an introductory psychology lecture course. The podcast contained both audio and video of the slides used in class. Here’s how the research was conducted: Half the students (32 of 64) skipped the class and listened to the podcast only. The other half attended the class in person where they also received a printed handout. A week later, the students were tested on the material. The Podcast listeners did better than those who were in the class and those students who did both: listened to podcast and attended the class achieved the highest scores. While this is only introductory research, involving one single lecture and conducted among a sample of volunteer students who received an iTunes gift card of $15 for their participation, it does say a lot about how Millennials want to learn- on their own time, in nuggets with the ability to "play back" a section of a lecture they may not have understood the first time. This notion of listen once and play back multiple times is an important part of learning that is often overlooked. What’s interesting to me is that similar studes are being conducted in corporate learning departments using mobile smart phones to deliver training and performance support. The results are similar: learners who can "control" when, how and where they learn and use a portable/wearable device have higher completion and retention rates. Are you experimenting with new ways to deliver learning and performance support? If so, share your lessons here or send me an email. Technorati Tags: Millennials, podcasts, iTunes, corporate learning

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. Technorati Tags: YouTube, eLearning, Higher Education, Corporate University, Chief Learning Officer, Corporate Learning

According to the Nielsen Online internet marketing and research firm, social network and blogs have become more popular than email: As reported by eMarketer and CNET, after rising steadily in recent years, in this past year, social networks and blogs for the first time ranked ahead of email in the Nielsen Online study. This means that more people are now using interactive and open-user social networking and blog related interfaces than email. See the chart above for the specific numbers. What’s more, time spent on social networks and blogging sites is growing at over three times the rate of overall Internet growth, according to eMarketer. Additionally reported this week in Business Week, growing your social network on Twitter can actually result in new business. Chris Savage, CEO of Wisita.com claims 12 new clients this year because of how he has used his network of followers on Twitter. What does this have to do with corporate learning? A few questions for you to consider: How does this growth in social networking lead to an increasing emphasis on social learning? As more learning happens in communities and with peers, what will be the impact of formal training programs? Will they begin to add "open source wiki’s," as pre or post work? A number of companies are already creating their own "internal" versions of Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. It seems to me this will only grow as more Millennials enter the workroce and demand these tools at work to increase their productivity. Let me know in the comments or by emailing me at jeanne@newlearningplaybook.com. Technorati Tags: Social Networking, Social Media, Corporate Learning, Millennials

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:

President Barack Obama gave a boost to the learning industry when he called on the nation’s students to take greater responsibility for their education. In short order, this led the U.S. Department of Education to launch a national video contest titled "I Am What I Learn." Students from ages 13 and older are being asked to enter a two-minute video to respond to the question and to share their stories about why their education and career training is so important to their future. The initiative is called I Am What I Learn. The contest is open from September 21 to November 2, 2009. Winners get a $1,000. I already encouraged my daughter to enter; maybe you can do the same with your teenagers. The video contest not only encourages creativity and reflection among American students but it is a telling lesson for all of us employed in corporate learning and talent management. I see three takeaways: 1.) Consumer generated contests and crowdsourcing have made their way into the Department of Education. This is an interesting example of Crowdsourcing applied to marketing the importance higher education. Crowdsourcing is a term coined by Jeff Howe and refers to how companies such as Legos, Procter & Gamble, and Boeing use the wisdom of crowds to develop solutions for R&D problems, designs for products, and new ideas for businesses. At the heart of crowdsourcing lies a simple truth: "The most efficient networks are those that link to the broadest range of information, knowledge, and experience." I wonder how Department of Education will use these videos—hopefully we will see them in a series of student generated ads highlighting the growing importance of education and life long learning. 2.) Young people will bring their video habits to the classroom and the workplace. This phenonom has been called Technology populism by Forrester Research and it refers to how YouTube has become such a growing part of all of our lives. Consider the following statistics that can be found on the Did You Know Video: More video has been uploaded to YouTube in last 2 months than all the footage aired by ABC,CBS, NBC since 1948 It would take 412.3 years to view every video on YouTube There are 13,000,000 articles available on Wikipedia in 200 languages There are 3,600,000,000 photos archived on Flickr There are 3,000,000 tweets per day on Twitter Over 1,000,000,000 pieces of content (weblinks, news, blog posts) are shared each week on Facebook 3.) Government is being re-defined by the social web. Increasingly various parts of the government are using social media tools such as YouTube, Wiki’s and Blogs to connect to and collaborate with constituents. Consider the enormous success the social network MyBarackObama had in generating funds for the Obama presidential campaign. So my question to all of us is this: How are you using the social web - or the cluster of Web 2.0 tools, such as blogs wikis, and social networks, that drive community-building and collaboration - to redefine and re-invent your learning and talent management departments? Share with me in the comments section, via email, or send me a note on Twitter. Technorati Tags: Social web, Barack Obama, Department of Education, Crowdsourcing, I AM what I Learn Bookmark To:

The World Business Forum was in New York City last week and one of the most entertaining and thought-provoking speakers included Patrick Lencioni, management consultant and author of Five Dysfunctions Of A Team. As reported in the Wall Street Journal, Lencioni, shared his insights in a presentation pegged to his "Five Dysfunctions of a Team" book. In Lencioni’s view many bosses mistakenly prefer to tell their team something once, and leave it at that. They fear repeating themselves will be a waste of time. Think about this: are you in this camp? According to Lencioni, employees need to hear something at least seven times before they are able to incorporate it. Says Lencioni, "It’s only when people hear things over and over again, that they start to actually believe it." To bring this point home, Lencioni tells the story of a wife who asks her husband why he never tells her he loves her anymore. The husband replies: "I told you when we got married. I’ll let you know if it changes." Now let’s assume you are head of Corporate Learning or Human Resources. Ask yourself: could your employees "impersonate" you if they were to give a presentation on the vision of aligning learning to business priorities? Would they be able to: State the vision for learning; Share how and why it is important to align to business goals; Communicate the 2010 plan and their objectives to meet this plan; Deliver on how to achieve your department’s stretch goals; If not: Instead of simply repeating seven times, try creating a visual story or Learning Map. These are powerful ways to engage your team in both the message as well as its implications. In fact forward-thinking companies are creating a visual story or what is known as a Learning Map. This is a powerful tool to share a vision and its implications for both leaders and team members. After all, seeing a picture is really worth a thousand words and importantly if we want team members to do more than repeat the vision, but actually take action, we have to be as creative as possible in painting the picture for them. Technorati Tags: Patrick Lencioni, five dysfunctions of a team, World Business Forum, Leadership, Visual Map Bookmark To: