I've recently read the post by Frédéric Domon at the Socialearning blog site. He describes in a very precise manner the origin and the consequences of the 70-20-10 approach to the design of learning strategies and budget allocation.

The concept is not new to me, but something caught my attention in this particular post. As Frédéric puts it:

"Rather than think of these three forms of antagonistic professionalism, rather than leave the informal to other aspects of the company, the model should be thought of as the cornerstone of organizational development. As the Princeton group advises, imagine a holistic approach integrating both formal and informal. An approach that enables strong development of that 70% of experience learning, that takes advantage of the relational 20% and that designs using the yardstick of the 90% informal and 10% formal training."

The word holistic here is not a metaphor. It means that learning professionals must consider the full experience and the learning environment to design and adjust their strategies. As a consequence, it is necessary to consider not only the 70-20-10 paradigm, but also the culture of the organization, the past experiences with learning resources, the available technologies, established KPIs for learning, the predominant leadership style, and so forth.

I´ll give an example to illustrate my point. Recently, we visited a big construction company who is facing a major problem on workforce education. Their need is not to build knowledge management nor to introduce some sophisticated new tool, their problem is plain and simple: they need to recruit around 4000 new professionals, such as masons and foremen in 6 months and there is simply no availability of those professionals in the region they are building their new operation.

Plus, in Brazil there have been some serious problems in big infrastructure constructions, including riots, because of work conditions and lack of systemic coordination of such constructions. Learning is only one of the challenges being faced by such companies.

Going back to my client, we´ve made a proposal that included utilization of the good professionals they have internally to start a learning program that had a very important informal component (since there is no time to format and deliver formal programs). The reaction was surprising. The HR person seemed not to understand what we were talking about and we had to present the proposal two more times. We had presented a totally unusual approach to learning! The culture and the environment in that company could not fully understand what we were talking about, and so our proposal was refused.

Sometime later, me and my fellow consultant sat down to chat about it. We had read on the paper about the problems the company was facing which were, in part, caused by their poor response to this kind of problem. But hey! We had also lacked a good holistic understanding of their learning environment! Mea culpa. We too had come with a readymade pill! We can´t just go and introduce the 70-20-10 model into the construction business of an old Brazilian company!

So that is my point: the great challenge of this model is not only to build learning strategies around this idea, with which I totally agree by the way, but having the sensibility to understand the conditions under which a certain system can absorb this idea.

When I read Frederic´s post it immediately brought me back to my clients table, and the face we had when we presented our sophisticated thoughts. We are hoping to find open minded organizations and have good conversations to solve the problems we have in this country around educations and learning. The model might be something we keep under the table.

The latest feedback shows that the contribution remains the question mark as to the implementation and success of an enterprise social network!

Today, a rate of 20-25% of active contributors is considered a success and it is probably unrealistic to expect a "natural" growth rapid participation.

The enterprise social network is heavily loaded in writing and we are not many willing to take the time to express ourselves publicly on these platforms.

How to reach a threshold and quality of contribution that attests to the success of this type of initiative?

Should we institutionalize the chatter?

The corporate social network or "chatting at the cafeteria", this may be the subject of debate and our daily business is quite often made of these informal discussions.

These chats (which we feast all) are important because they contribute to social life in the company.

Yet there are often sterile because the opinion leaders at the "cafeteria" are not necessarily those that contribute most in official plans, but by their attitude, they  “nip in the bud" the expression of different and interesting opinions.

The social network company must develop the chat (not gossip) simply by putting subjects and themes available without sacralization of trade.

The exchange in a social network business is not comparable with official conference presentation: the emotional and personal development have no place there.

By denying that the "cafeteria" is the only forum for exchanges between employees and by enhancing the debate and chat in social spaces built on social software, the company values ​​the capital and intelligence of its human resources.
But the chatter and uninhibited contribution (with respect to good manners and etiquette) can not be truly "productive" if the company is loyal towards employees, whose loyalty it will also receive back!

The Return of the learning model

It is likely that cultural differences between Latin and Anglo-Saxon influence on behavior in social networking business. It seems that the Anglo-Saxon focuses more creativity, sharing that knowledge.

Delphine Manceau returned quickly to the subject and I suggest you read more about this in the note posted on TheHyperTetxtual (in French only) .

It is a training model that goes beyond the transmission of knowledge: learning.

It is true that this model is often considered patronized by the "intellectuals", especially in France and in contrast to Switzerland or Germany.

It is in learning much more than technique, it is primarily in trade, human relations, humility, successes, difficulties, but never, nor loneliness, nor the withdrawal.

Learning works well only in relationships of trust and desire (to discover and give) and it can transmit "naturally" what Thierry de Baillon called the renegade knowledge ! 

But learning is a bit of chatter and lots of concrete scenarios (actions, methods, strategies, etc..), And it also agreed not to know or get it right the first time and get to know advice and assistance.

When participants of social networking companies will have the humility to contribute, not to flatter their ego, but simply give, exchange, forward, share and receive, as in the learning model, then the social software projects will have reached a stage of maturity justifying their deployment within the organizations.

But does it again, as in learning, giving responsibility for these spaces to those who are most likely (experience, knowledge, talent, desire, etc..) to keep them alive but also giving participants the "tools" most appropriate and truly useful and usable. (Appeal to vendors for a little more innovation!)

Difficult without a team

A corporate social network can be characterized by the interaction and engagement.

The commitment is not an empty concept in the business world, as the confidence without which it is impossible.

It allows, beyond the cross-platform knowledge, recognition, to discover other but also to arouse, to assert themselves to contribute to the success of a team.

Sylvaine Pascual recently published a note and some opinions (in French) about this on her blog highlighting the essential value in team sports including rugby (Aupa Biarritz Olympique, but here I digress!).

The success of an enterprise social network is certainly made of knowledge and experience, the praise of individuals, and above all a real "team spirit" and true leaders !

Our relationship with technology is changing the ways we live and work. We connect digitally with our mobile devices, social networking tools, and various computer devices more than ever before. We are constantly connected, and we must manage our relationship with technology differently than we managed it in the past. This presents some challenges for users and for educators, instructional designers, and others who design, create, and manage online instruction.

Implications for learners

New devices such as the iPhone and iPod have changed expectations of usability. Users expect a very low learning curve to perform their goals with a product. Products that present a steeper learning curve result in ever-greater levels of user frustration and apathy. Furthermore, users expect solutions to their problems to be ever-more convenient and readily available. Blogs, wikis, social media sites and services such as YouTube, Vimeo, Flickr, and others too numerous to list, have sparked user-created learning aids, tips, tricks, and workarounds.

Users have come to expect complex products to become more and more simple, linear, and easy to learn. The emergence of different Web media has made that possible.

Implications for educators

As educators we need to put ourselves in the learners' shoes and figure out ways to address their needs, because their relationship with, and expectations of, technology has changed.

Businesses now recognize both the challenges their products provide to users, as well as the ease with which they may deliver solutions via the Web. Extending beyond their own support systems and sites, many companies are reaching into social media destinations and providing their own measured, structured learning aids in the form of video, cheat sheets, online help and user forums.

These methods serve to provide users with quick and effective solutions to their problems and help them to rapidly become more successful with products, within hours or even within minutes. The “instantaneous” character of social media is undeniable and it is creating users who expect to become experts in a hurry and with no barriers to entry.

Benefits of informalizing learning

Formal learning content is good and relevant, and repurposing it brings many advantages. Informalizing formal learning content brings it closer to the learner and provides for more learning that is “accidental,” or unplanned. Doing this can require changing the learning content in various ways. Putting it in places people visit on a daily basis, such as the sites and services named above, is one big, yet simple step.

Increased appeal to learners
Rich content delivery through social media sites is more appealing to the user in appearance and content. This approach also tends to present complex information in ways that invite students to learn in a casual environment. Users feel that they have more choice in the matter: when to learn, what to learn, and how to learn it. All of these factors are contributing to escalating growth rates of informal learning.

Draw learners into formal instruction
ELearning animated assets, for example quick product demonstrations, are ideal for posting to a site such as YouTube or Vimeo. Not only do these sorts of demonstrations provide concise, targeted training but they can also be teasers to draw people to more formal learning, such as a full training course, of which the demonstration is just a part.

Obtain information about learners
One of the other key benefits of providing these short eLearning assets online is the wealth of information that is collected about the users. This is data that you can access and use.
For instance, YouTube and Facebook offer businesses demographic information about their users, as well as their daily and monthly activity trends. The more effective and relevant your information, the more traffic your Facebook page or YouTube channel receives. In this way, you establish an immediate and symbiotic relationship. Users get the most relevant and up-to-date training materials. The educator receives valuable information about the users, in addition to receiving direct feedback from users about content.

Simplified format
Public social media sites and services provide another benefit that large businesses appreciate – a simplified format. Every Facebook page and YouTube channel offers the same general layout. This has proven to be comforting and predictable to users, who quickly learn how to navigate every channel or page as well as how to expand, collapse, or increase quality of content, such as videos. The user is truly in control. They can build their own custom playlists, tag audio and video favorites, and subscribe to users and channels based on their own needs for information.
When the decision is between searching the multiple layers of a corporate Website, or tuning in to your own customized list of videos, the decision isn’t a difficult one. As users flock to public media sites to reap the benefits, educators are not far behind.

Provide advance organizers and prerequisite knowledge
Users gain valuable and free information from online media and services. At the same time, instructors gain a means to gather users into formal classes where they can truly engage the product and learn in an in-depth manner. Users can go from learning general or typical product objectives online to the classroom where the objectives become more complex and require more interaction between student and instructor. In the classroom, students can ask specific questions about how to implement our products in their businesses to help them achieve their personal business goals.

Establish learner-to-educator-and-topic links
As educators “recruit” users through social media sites, the educators can become closer to their users. Many sites and services offer more than just multimedia; they are a way to capture users’ attention and whet their appetite for information. Users receive links and paths back to more formal training, which often contains a larger sampling of the media which users have seen free online. In this way, educators persuade users to trust their education materials and encourage them to pursue formal training.

Our company is now posting instructional videos that present both general product usage and specific product scenarios on YouTube. These videos and their objectives are included in and elaborated on as part of the formal training.
For example, our in-house course on Enterprise Architecture is a demonstration showing how to set up, configure and navigate the interface. This instructor-led course presents students with a hands-on lab where they can perform what they see in the demonstration, as well as learn how to apply it to their specific business environment after leaving training. After their formal training is complete, the videos can serve as reference material on the job. Our learners, who often request additional videos after completing the formal classroom training, many times confirmed the value of videos as reference tools.

Reposition learning closer to the moment of need
Another easy way to informalize formal learning content is to reposition it closer to a product rather than have it stand alone. It is possible to convert portions of a Web-based eLearning course to “digital cheat sheets” and to incorporate these in product documentation, or embed them into the product itself. These can also serve as teasers to draw people back for additional or advanced formal training.

Why bother?

You may be asking, "What then is the difference between informal and formal learning content?" The main difference is that informalized learning is simple, concise, rich, and easy to find and understand. It starts many users down the path of learning. Once their learning process has begun, users may choose to take advantage of more formal learning media.
We are all learning at a much more rapid rate than before. Learning new concepts and adding new skills, on what sometimes seems like a weekly or monthly basis, is coming to be the norm in an increasingly globalized economic order. The world is full of ever-growing complexity, while at the same time the desire for simplicity drives much behavior. Learning is no exception. Engaging users simply, directly and quickly via informal methods is key to recruiting them into more in-depth and traditional learning formats.

Traduction:

I posted a while back about the way we tend to create knowledge silos in social media, giving the example below of knowledge related to BP during the oil spill.

I looked at the BP corporate site and the Boycott BP site. Two more polarised communities it would be impossible to find, although conversations within the communities on both sites were focused on the same topic. Both sites were full of conversation about the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill, and BP’s role in the spill and the clean-up. While the BP America community were talking about the technical details of the clean-up and the unprecedented resources and skills being deployed by BP, the Boycott BP community (more than 30 times larger than the community on the BP America site) were sharing horror stories about alleged breaches of safety and responsibility  ...... There was no dialogue - just a parallel separate pair of incompatible group monologues; loads of opinionated people agreeing with each other.

I went on to talk about how this development (largely driven by comfort and self-esteem) creates group-think, which is a kind of knowledge bubble. As I pointed out in my blog post on bursting the knowledge bubbles, this is a very dangerous situation. It has been argued that knowledge bubbles may have been behind many disasters, such as the lack of recognition of the imminence of Bin Laden's plans to attack the USA, for example.

Now it seems these bubbles are getting worse. In the UK Sunday Times yesterday, Bryan Appleyard (one of my favourite journalists - very perceptive, very articulate) reviewed The Filter Bubble - what the Internet is hiding from you. This book talks bout how search engines and social network sites increasingly send you results and notifications which are tailored to their view of what interests you. This is driven by your search history and by the groups you already belong to, so increasingly these results are becoming less and less objectives. The author gives this example (to me - strikingly familiar);

"While the BP Oil Spill was in progress last year has asked two friends to type "BP" into Google. One got investment information on the front page; the other news of the spill"

There were other filters mentioned, such as the way Facebook sent him news from his liberal friends (having identified him as a liberal" while filtering out news of conservative friends.  To some extent, it may be useful to be fed information that interests us. The danger comes when it reinforces the knowledge bubble, and we are fed only messages that we are expected to agree with. As Jaron Lanier, author of " You are not a gadget
says: 

"People tend to get into this echo chamber where more and more of what they see conforms to the idea of who some software thinks they are".

So not only do people create silos and knowledge bubbles on social media, the personalisation capability of software may reinforce those bubbles. 

As knowledge managers in business, we need to recognise the risk of knowledge bubbles and echo chambers, specifically of making wrong decisions because we don't have a balanced view (see Deadly Decisions - how false knowledge sunk the titanic ... for scary examples). I reiterate what I said below in the group think post

"We cannot afford plural communities covering the same topic. There needs to be one community covering knowledge management, not 100. There needs to be one community covering oil-spill recovery, not two highly polarised ones. Then within each topic, disagreement needs to be sought and explored, in service of finding the truth. This is part of the role of the community facilitator - the role of allowing a diversity of opinion, and promoting and facilitating the dialogue that allows this diversity to be explored and resolved".

And to this I would add 

"We need to be very careful of personalised search results which verge towards subjectivity. Wherever possible, a person should receive all search results relevant to a topic, whether they support the current viewpoint of the searcher, or are diametrically opposed".

It is only by seeing all sides of a question, that we can hope to come to knowledge of the truth.

Dr. Nick Milton is a director and co-founder of Knoco Ltd - a Knowledge Management consultancy comprised of seasoned knowledge management practitioners, mentors, and coaches. Knoco Ltd have been in business since 1999, probably Britain's longest established Knowledge Management consultancy. Prior to starting Knoco, Nick spent two years at the centre of the team that made BP the leading KM company in the world, acting as the team Knowledge Manager. Working with Knoco Ltd, Nick has been instrumental in developing and delivering KM strategies, implementation plans and services in a wide range of different organizations. He is the author of "The lessons learned handbook" and "Knowledge Management for Teams and Projects". He has published many articles and Masterclasses in the KM press.

At some point in time I am sure we’ve all found ourselves with an answer staring us in the face, but we just haven’t managed to see it yet.

Spending money, time and effort providing face-to-face training or eLearning courses for workers in an attempt to equip them to use new processes and systems as they’re rolled out across our organisations is one of these cases.

Most of us know there are better solutions, but few Training and L&D people utilise them.

The Systems and Processes Training Dilemma

Many of us have faced the challenge of ensuring that employees can navigate and use new processes and systems as they're deployed across our organisations. All of us in corporate or organisational L&D roles are tasked with ensuring new hires come to terms with their ERP and CRM environments and with other specific processes and products quickly and efficiently.

Almost without exception this challenge is met with some form of training solution. Equally, there’s usually a call for more training when systems and processes change or when the initial training hasn’t ‘stuck’ first time around.

However there are far more effective and efficient approaches than training that address this challenge of improving ‘speed-to-competence’. It’s just that they seem to be out of the range of vision of many L&D practitioners.

The Power of Performance Support - Integrating Learning into Work 

One of the most powerful alternatives to the ‘train-and-train-again’ approach is some form of Performance Support. Performance support has been part of the toolkit for building human performance and productivity for centuries. In fact the master-apprentice model is based on the concept of performance support and it’s been around almost since the dawn of mankind. A worker with a higher level of mastery ensures on-the-job support is always at hand as the apprentice develops their own mastery.

Over the years a wide range of job aids, whether delivered with the help of technology or not, have been used as simple forms of performance support. However the implementation of performance support tools and solutions as a more effective alternative to training is still on the periphery rather than at the core of how workforce development is done.

ePSS 

Most of us know quite a lot about ePSS - Electronic Performance Support Systems. They are job aids’ younger brothers.

ePSS has been around in reasonably developed form for at least the past 20 years. Gloria Gery’s excellent 1991 book ‘Electronic Performance Support Systems: How and why to remake the workplace through the strategic application of technology’ which emerged from earlier ideas at AT&T was an important waypoint for the concept and practice and should be on every L&D professional’s bookshelf.

Although ePSS as a mindset has grown up considerably since Gery wrote her book, it hasn’t been adopted by the L&D community.

Gloria Gery – a prophet ahead of her time 
Think about the following extracts – taken from a 1994 interview by Training & Development Journal with Gery:

“At the heart of an EPSS attitude is a belief that most organizations today face a performance crisis that training alone cannot solve…. Conventional training events are inefficient learning tools compared to an EPSS that makes learning just a point-and-click away…. An EPSS provides task structuring and puts learning tools and data at a performer's fingertips--something conventional training can't do.”

Gery goes on to say: 

“When you strip away the collusion about what is working and what isn't, you have to face the fact that training methodologies are based on a set of fallacious assumptions from public education in the 19th century... Until the 1960s the only model for transfer of knowledge was the Socratic dialogue and the apprenticeship. And that only changed because the number of people needing training grew too large for one-on-one methods. That's what gave us group training... Group training may have worked in simpler times but now work complexity and instability of knowledge lessen its effect."

“Training events remove novices from real life and from the experts who really know the work. People are trained and outfitted with manuals and job aids, but they still don't have the competence of experts. Back on the job, most can't perform at the experts' level on tasks they were trained to do. And for tasks not covered in training at all, they are left to their own devices.”

All the above still makes great sense. Remember, Gery was making these statements almost 17 years ago.

What have we learnt in the intervening time? Have approaches employed by the majority of Training and L&D professionals when faced with the roll-out of a new system or process altered, adapted and improved?

Not much, I would suggest.

Most organisations are still spending large amounts of time and money developing and deploying structured training programmes to accompany new system and process initiatives. Yet we know the impact of training usually isn’t great. Workers still tend to turn to their colleagues (or floor walkers or help desks if they exist) for support the first time they need to work in the new environment because they haven't actually learned much from the training.

Training for these purposes just doesn't work.

Yet every ERP and CRM deployment plan I've ever seen has had a ‘training budget’ line in it. Programme and project managers seem to feel that if for no other reason than there is money allocated, structured training is an essential part of any roll-out.

Thinking about alternative and better ways of ensuring workers can use new platforms and processes is often considered just too hard.

The Range of Performance Support Approaches 

Over the past 20 years the Web has provided a platform for the development of some sophisticated integrated performance support tools and environments. Some of these are being used by more enlightened organisations that are focusing on ‘working smarter’ and can see the benefits of integrating workforce development with work.

As a result there are some excellent performance support tools and approaches available for today’s learning professional. Some are very simple (a paper-based quick reference guide often works for simple systems) and others more complex, ‘smarter’ and more closely integrated into workflow. Either way, they are available and generally far cheaper than the cost of training.

Business Process Guidance 

Recently a new label has appeared for advanced performance support - ‘Business Process Guidance’.

Business Process Guidance can be seen as ‘performance support on steroids’ and is specifically focused on ensuring policies and procedures are followed by providing context-sensitive on-screen assistance at any time within a rich support environment. These systems take context-sensitivity to a highly granular level (often down to a specific field in an input screen) and provide what Wayne Hodgins described to me almost 10 years ago as:

“Getting just the right content to…
Just the right person at…
Just the right time on…
Just the right device in…
Just the right context and…
Just the right way…….”

A few organisations offer solutions in this area. Panviva andLearningGuide are two companies at the top of the pile, both with excellent ePSS/BPG suites of tools.

Work=Learning. The Challenge for L&D Practitioners 

The core principle of ePSS and associated solutions is that learning and work should be integrated and that workers need easy and ready access to the right information to help them with their jobs at the time they have a problem to solve, not some time beforehand and out of context.

In other words ‘just-in-time’ not 'just-in-case’.

The challenge for L&D practitioners who focus on training solutions alone is that training principles are based on preparing workers for the possibility of challenges they may face sometime in the future in a context that hasn’t occurred yet.

In other words, a great deal of training design is based on high-level assumptions at best, and on guesswork at worst.

Integrating Learning with the Work 

In the next few years I believe we will see ePSS/BPG replace most of the systems, process and product training that is carried out today. The rising interest in workplace learning, integrating learning with work and ‘working smarter’ will help drive this change.

I have no doubt that the sooner performance support practices find a firm place in training and development portfolios the sooner we will stop wasting time, effort and money on using a sub-optimal train-and-train-again models.

Charles Jennings is managing director of Duntroon Associates. He is considered a thought-leader in the world of corporate learning and performance. He works with companies across the globe helping improve workforce performance. In a career spanning more than 30 years in learning technology he has worked in Higher Education (where he was a professor and head of the UK national centre network-based learning) and, for the past 18 years, in the Corporate world (where his most recent role was Chief Learning Officer at Reuters and Thomson Reuters, the world's largest information company)."When working is learning, then learning is working" Charles is also a Principal of The Internet Time Alliance, a think-tank of leading learning and business performance practitioners helping organisations exploit emerging practice to "work smarter".