The Learning Age

"This isn't the Information Age, it's the Learning Age; and the quicker people get their heads around that, the better

 

Professeur Stephen Heppell

Heppel's remarks appear in this short video on the future of learning which asks the key question "What do we want to do" (with all of this networked information technology).

With the development of social networks, the integration of learning and work is not some ideal; it is a necessity in a complex world.

There is little doubt that we need systemic change to prepare for the Learning Age, the signals are everywhere and the conversations are getting louder. Here's an example - I recently met with some people in a large organization who are working on some new learning network initiatives. I mentioned that I was connected on Twitter to a person working on similar things and that I could introduce them. On checking the name, we discovered that all of these people worked in the same organization but didn't know what the others were doing. One limiting factor was the iron fist of the IT department, which doesn't allow access to a wide variety of web sites and platforms. In this organisation people could not easily connect and therefore they could not learn from each other. The silence between the silos was deafening.

Many of us are ill-prepared for the learning age. Most schools don't focus on individualized learning. With 2GB of information being added to the Web every second, no one can "master content" any more. Jobs and roles are fragmenting so quickly (what's a social media expert?) that a standardized, multi-year curriculum is laughable.

Business models and work practices are becoming networked and global, speeding the rate of time to implementation. The lines between work and leisure are blurring, as with work and learning. Today, about 16% of us can be described as hyperconnected but that is expected to grow to 40%, and I would say those people will be the main drivers of our economies and societies. In the learning age, creativity will become more valuable than knowledge, as access to knowledge will be ubiquitous but your value to any organisation will be how you use that knowledge.

In networked workplaces, economies and societies the transmission of ideas can be instantaneous. There is no time to pause, go into the back room and develop something to address our challenges. The problem will have changed by then.

Not just rapid change, but continual change, requires practices that evolve as they’re developed. In programming, this has meant a move from waterfall to agile methods. Beta releases are the norm for Web applications and as we do more on the Web, other practices are sure to follow.

From complexity theory we understand that there are no established solutions, or best practices, for complex problems. Instead, we need to engage these problems and continuously learn by doing. This requires a completely different mindset from training for defined problems and measurable outcomes. The integration of learning and work is not some ideal; it is a necessity in a complex world.

Every person in an organization can, and should, begin a journey to be active in the Learning Age:

- Accept life in Beta and give up some control by trusting people to do their work.

- Pay attention to what is happening around you.

- Help people by enabling connections (outsourcing the IT department would be a good start) and assisting with methods like Personal Knowledge Management.

- Examine better ways to organize and structure but start the change at the individual and personal level.

- Work at becoming better teachers, because when we teach, we learn best.

Anyone who uses social media, such as blogs or a social networking system, learns that results are long-term. It takes time to develop relationships one conversation at a time. That means that organisations need to look at the long term and stop obsessing about next quarter financial results. In a learning economy, based on networks and relationships, we may find that private and smaller companies have more flexibility than larger and publicly traded ones.

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