Socialearning
Socialearning is a collaborative organization and strategy consulting agency.
Through allowing a new global interaction model, based on informal conversations and hyper-connected knowledge flows, 2.0 (aka ‘social’) technologies enable new models of value creation.
We help organizations to understand involved stakes.
Outside organizations, the internet has become in few years a privileged medium for content creation, communication and real-time (social) interaction between individuals. The Web is rapidly mutating toward a global conversational space.
Inside companies, the very same technologies are abolishing distances and fostering creation of hyper-connected ecosystems, enabling collaboration and information sharing at unheard speed.
We assist them, from the development of collaborative work and learning practices (Enterprise 2.0 and social learning) to the set up of innovative interaction frameworks with customers (social media and social business).
LinguaSpirit
LinguaSpirit is a translation agency with a particular focus on web communication, working to make translation adaptable and accessible. Our team is made up of professional translators from a variety of backgrounds with wide-ranging language and technical skills. We offer our services to NGOs and charities on a voluntary basis via FreeSpirit and provide free translations to blogs of all kinds. Translation is our profession, but breaking down language barriers is our calling.
Follow Ecollab
Last Articles
Is all learning social?
Just about every day I find myself embroiled in discussions about fundamentals of learning, the nature of knowledge and the processes of education. It comes...
70:20:10 - It’s not about the numbers, it’s all about change
Remembering Prof. Allan Tough (died 27 April 2012 aged 76 years) – a great man, a pioneer researcher into self-directed learning, a futurist, and author....
The human-centric future of work
The big move we are in the midst of is towards an economy that is more centred on information products than physical products. Examples of...
Thinking about critical thinking
Critical thinking is a “complex process of deliberation, which involves a wide range of skills and attitudes”. I first became aware of critical thinking as a...
Interactive competence and flash communities
All of us have at some point in our lives experienced performance appraisals where we as individuals were evaluated. This approach to judgment was the...
Why E2.0 and Social Business Initiatives Are Likely to Remain Difficult ?
Horizontal networking often creates dissonance in the vertical enterprise The vertical structure of knowledge did not foresee the coming of horizontal networking tools now...
The Future of Learning – How should your company adapt and encourage constant learning?
Learning Organizations: New ways of managing As companies grapple with the effects and opportunities of the Internet, social media and the smartphone, internal organizations are having...
What is Wirearchy ?
The Internet is connecting customers, employees and communities and empowering them with information in ways never before possible. Taking decisions and managing organized activities are...
What is social learning? Part Three: the future of social
In this series of three articles, we first explored the experience of the individual, looking at how social capital is increasingly important: the ability to survive...
Pieces of an Ecology of Workplace Learning
Lately I’ve been saying that you should cultivate learning in your organization as you might manage an ecological resource, like a forest, or any other...
Leadership and Innovation: The new role of leader in network contexts
This post was written with some questions in mind: What does it mean to lead an innovation team in a network context? How can one...
The Brand University: How to make a sustainable, successful brand
Executive Summary The world of branding has, over a very condensed period of time, undergone a virtual and very real revolution as far as both the...
The stupid company or the myth of collective intelligence ?
Here is my exploration with the eyes of hosting learning spaces to the Blog Carnival proposed by eCollab : In theory, everyone is for the learning organization or the mobilization...
The learning organization: an often described, but seldom observed phenomenon
The last #eCollab's Blog Carnival poses the question of the learning organization and the mobilization of collective intelligence: In theory, everyone is for the learning...
The #eCollab Blog Carnival: The Stupid Company or the Myth of Collective Intelligence ?
In theory, everyone is for the learning organization or the mobilization of collective intelligence. How could you be against it? Would that make you in favour...
Communities of Practice and Social Learning Systems: the Career of a Concept (Introduction)
In this paper, I relate the conceptual framework of communities of practice to systems theory and I review the career of the concept of community...
What is social learning? Part Two: the organisational experience
In this series of three articles, i want to explore social learning from the perspective of the individual and the organisation in today’s workplace and...
Social Learning fills the empty barrels of Enterprise 2.0
Learning is social by nature Without going all the way back to the theories of Vygotsky or Albert Bandura, the simplest way to explain social learning is perhaps to...
Social media and the change form information to formation
The change towards the creative economy has major implications for the nature of what we have called assets. In the industrial age, the assets were...
Learning Formally or Informally...? Why not Both!
"The real genius of organizations is the informal, impromptu, often inspired ways that real people solve real problems in ways that formal processes can’t anticipate....
The End of a Job as We Know It
The concept of a job, as we know it, is starting to go away. Over the last year I've been speaking with many corporate business and...
Future of the training department
I’ve written before about the changes I see coming for organizations (e.g. here), and they’re driven by the changes I am seeing in business and...
Social Business doesn’t mean what you think it does. And neither does E2.0
“Social Business” is not about technology, or about “corporate culture”. It is a sociopolitical historical shift that is bigger, broader and much more fascinating. A new...
What is social learning? Part One: the personal experience
In this series of three articles, i want to explore social learning from the perspective of the individual and the organisation in today’s workplace and...
Barriers to Learning in Organizations
Continuous acquisition and application of knowledge, skills, and beliefs by individuals, teams, and the whole enterprise is an essential aspect of high performance organizations. However, barriers...
Why Organizations Need Social Learning
The world has changed — people now live and work in a world where Google gives the answers, where a mobile phone is the lifeline...
4 reasons why social learning will fail at work
Yes, I know that Facebook has 23 million users. Yes, I see people on Facebook everywhere I look – on the trains, at traffic lights...
Communities of practice and social learning systems: the Career of a concept (part 1)
Previously: Introduction: Communities of Practice and Social Learning Systems: the Career of a Concept. A social systems view on learning: communities of practice as social learning systems A community...
Formalizing the informal
I’m responding to the Ecollab’s question – “can we formalize the informal?”Yes, you can formalize informal learning. Formalizing informal learning doesn’t mean that informal learning...
The Five Failures of Workplace Learning Professionals
To improve, we must know our biggest failings. In the training and development field, our five biggest failures are as follows: We forget to minimize forgetting and...
Why People Don't Engage With Learning
Jonathan Miles post “A group of would be friends”, reports a Twitter discussion last week that hinged around reasons why people do not engage with learning. Jane Hart...
Podular organization: a business within the business
A lot of problems in business could be solved if we could align the interests of employees and managers with owners. Is there a way...
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's remarks appear...
The war for talent is over – talent won
Talent Management 2.0 These days, one ought to be a talent. Once declared as such, there‘s only one way: up – straight up the career ladder....
Performance, strategies, and social learning
Performance in the workplace is shaped by individual capabilities, defined roles, knowledge and skills, feedback, and a motivation loop that includes the confidence that performing...
Social Learning for a Social Workplace
There is little doubt that the emergence of Web 2.0 and social networking tools have radically changed the way organizations do business... so much so...
How can Social Learning scale massively? Lesson from World of Warcraft
Much fuss is made of class-size effects in schools, but I often get blank stares when I talk about the dangers of putting 10,000 people together in...
Blue collar collaboration
People on the front lines, doing nitty-gritty manual work, can teach us plenty about real collaboration. Two men walk into a bar... Even if they both wear...
Social Learning is NOT a new training trend
I've written a few postings recently (notably Social Learning doesn't mean what you think it does) where I have tried to show how the fundamental changes...
3 Practical Considerations for Implementing Social Learning
In Tony’s previous post, “Tearing Down Cubicle Walls – The Rise of Social Learning In Business”, he mentioned some of the business issues driving the...
HR Failing To Lead The Social Revolution At Work
Is this your HR leader? Do companies need social media? Ever notice HR leaders shying away from this question, typically being led by the Marketing or IT...
What Agile Means To Me
I complete exactly 3 months at ThoughtWorks today. While this has been a momentous career shift for me, I may not have written a blog post on...
Tearing Down Cubicle Walls: The Rise of Social Learning In Business
Learning professionals have long recognized that the majority of learning takes place outside the classroom, primarily because effective learning takes place contextually. An employee will...
Learning Content Is Not Your Job Any More: The Effect of Convergence
There are two new rules for professionals with responsibilities in the generation and production of content for knowledge acquisition: Rule One: You are no longer in...
The Non Formality of How Work Gets Done in Organizations
How does work really get accomplished in organizations? Work usually doesn’t get accomplished the way management sees it formally. The problem with formality is the fact...
Holistic Approach to Learning
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...
Enterprise Social Networks: contribution, trust and loyalty
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...
Informalizing Formal Learning
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...
The knowledge-bubble trap worsens
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...
Who needs training again ?
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...
Find Where Social Learning Will Work at Your Company
If you haven't been hiding under a rock on the edge of Antarctica for the past few years, you've probably heard of social learning. If you've...
Learning vs Development
Is there a difference between learning and development? I ruminated over this question for a number of years as a Learning & Development professional, but without...
Social CRM and business transformation
Forget all this talk about “Social Business”, “Social Enterprise”, “Social Organization”, “Social XYZ” – your business already is “Social” because by its very nature it...
Is Collaboration a Crock ?
Let us face it; we, as humans, are selfish, individualists, and undoubtedly clinging to any privileges associated with power. Goodwill and sharing among peers follow Nielsen’s...
Enterprise 2.0 - French Touch (white paper)
When we think of about "Enterprise 2.0" since 2006, the year that Andrew McAfee coined the term, we see that there has been considerable experience...
Moving from the Learning to the Teaching Enterprise
In a recent post published on the Harvard blog, Bill Taylor notices the rise of the Teaching Organization, as an evolutionary step of the Learning...
Formaliser l’apprentissage informel : Consulting et Bene Gesserit
No translation available Pouvons nous formaliser l’apprentissage informel ? Je vais donner mon point de vue en faisant un petit détour par le cycle de Dune...
Collaborative training departments
It's likely that new start-ups in the coming decade will be intensely collaborative, but initially small and without training departments. Established organizations, large enough to...
Social Networking: Bridging Formal and Informal Learning
There’s been much justifiable excitement about social media recently; are you on top of it? The recognition that learning is 80% informal suggests that we...
Joining Is Important to Social Learning
Ever sign up for a gym membership and not really use it that much? I know… I know this probably hasn’t happened to you. But,...
In order to join, you need a social identity, and you need a space
I’m still thinking about the concept of joining since I wrote my post last week Joining is Important to Social Learning. Other people have been thinking...
Le département de la formation survivra-t-il à l’entreprise collaborative ou 2.0 ?
No translation available La formation est importante pour le fonctionnement et le développement d’une entreprise car sa mission est de développer les compétences qui lui sont...
7 objections to social media in learning (and answers)
Social media, I’m a fan. I blog, facebook and tweet daily, and love all of the additional resources and tools. But when an important social...
Where Social Learning Thrives
To benefit from social learning, build a culture that makes learning fun, productive and commonplace, a culture where learning is part of everyday work. Marcia Conner and Steve...
Social media learning principles
At the LAMS European conference I gave a talk in which I explored what we know about learning, and what I've deduced about social media. My conclusion...
Stupendous bronze and the man who didn’t win the National
Collaborative Enterprise’s blog carnival this month looks at formalizing the informal – are there ways to deliberately harness social media to foster learning without losing the...
L'avenir de la formation dans l'Entreprise Collaborative
No translation available Pour ce premier thème sur la formation dans l’entreprise, je vais aborder deux points qui me semblent importants, notamment pour les grandes entreprises...
Knowledge: Cheshire or Schrödinger’s cat ?
Much has been told and written about the capital importance of knowledge in organizations, and the rise of networks-enabled enterprise emphasizes even more the role...
Knowledge, From Productivity Source to Critical Component
Productivity: The amount of output per unit of input (labor, equipment, and capital). Enterprise has for long understood, and applied, that training and education are an important part of its hunt for competitive advantages. ...
Examples of Facilitating Collaborative Work and Learning
The nature of my work has changed significantly over the past few years. Some of the change is due to advances in technology while others...
The Future of the Training Department
In my previous role at BEA Systems/Oracle, I created and managed a Professional Services business unit for training clients on the implementation of Enterprise Portals...
social learning: learning never ends
a video from LAB SSJ
The future of the training department in the Collaborative Enterprise
The latter 20th Century was the golden era of the training department. Before the 20th Century, training per se did not exist outside the special...
LMS is no longer the centre of the universe
OK, so here’s the deal – if learning is work and work is learning, why is organizational learning controlled by a learning management systems (LMS)...
Formalizing the informal
Ecollab will discuss Informal Learning. Can we formalize it? Can we Should we? How much? How? This is our own response, originally written by Harold Jarche and Jane Hart: If informal...
The Evolving Social Organization
Simplicity and the Enterprise Most companies start simple, with a few people gathering together around an idea. For small companies, decision-making, task assignments and direct interaction...
Informal Learning: mission critical
When Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan return from patrol, they spend time relaxing together in small, tightly-knit groups and tell stories about the mission. There is...
The Community Manager: enabling knowledge flows
With digital media becoming embedded in our lives, many of us will be connected to several online communities at any given time. The Web enables...
Formalized informal learning: a blend we don’t need
Telling people that we can “formalize informal learning” is a not so subtle way of saying, “it’s OK, you don’t have to make any fundamental...
Innovation through network learning
Innovation I’ve really appreciated the many posts where Tim Kastelle and I have connected by sharing ideas. Tim says that innovation is the process of idea management, which makes...
Resetting learning and work
A large portion of the workforce face significant barriers to being autonomous learners on the job. From early on we are told to look to...
Social learning: the freedom to act and cooperate with others
“Hyperlinks subvert hierarchy“ - Article #7 of The Cluetrain Manifesto, 1999. The Net, especially working and learning in networks, subverts many of the hierarchies we have developed...
Social Learning is real
Once again, I’m learning from my colleagues, as yesterday I realized how important self-direction is in enabling social learning. Now I’m picking up on Jay’s post on Social...
An interview with Jay Cross, the author of Informal Learning
Jay Cross, Chief Scientist at the Internet Time Group, is the author of Informal Learning: Rediscovering the natural pathways that inspire innovation and performance, which was...
Social Learning and Customer Engagement
One of the approaches to improving Customer Engagement and Experiences I’d like to explore is the potential to include customers, partners and suppliers in the Social...
LearnTrends 2009: The corporate learning trends and innovations conférence
From 17 to 19 November 2009 will take place one of the most important conferences devoted to trends and innovation in corporate learning. The theme of...
White Paper : Social Learning Introduction
This White Paper provides multiple perspectives on social learning, in two languages and from various business cultures. Here, Social Learning can be viewed as the development of...
An Introduction to PKM
We are in the Learning Age. By using social tools, anyone can easily begin an active training course by developing its PKM. A first step in...
How to formalise Informal Learning
In my last post, I asked some questions about formalising informal learning. And answered them. If: you understand that formalising informal learning will have organisation-wide consequences you use...
The Collaboration Cycle
In a previous instalment entitled “The Collaboration Curve”, I discussed the basic premise that over a period of time and as the use of collaboration...
Can we formalise Informal Learning
Ecollab ask the question for their blog carnival: Informal learning - can we formalise it? Should we? How much? How? 1. Can we? Is it practical? Any...
To Really Drive Enterprise 2.0 Forward We Need A Behaviour Change
At the beginning of the year, on January 2 in fact, I wrote about reciprocity. My hopes were that we’d begin using the behavior of reciprocity...
Informal Learning: Can we formalize it ?
Formalizing informal learning is my research topic for writing class. It may very well be the foundation of my dissertation! Recently I posted the mind...
Impact of Informal Learning: Output learning
How do you assess whether your informal learning, social learning, continuous learning and performance support initiatives have the desired impact or if they achieve the...
Apprenance en réseau : Entre formel et informel
No translation available Pour Thierry de Baillon, je cite « il est de plus en plus illusoire de vouloir considérer le savoir comme étant soit informel,...
From the silo enterprise to the networked enterprise
When an innovation emerges, there always are two steps. The first one consists in integrating the innovation in the way we work. The second one...
Creating Value from Social Learning
Social learning — namely, the use of social media in the workplace to foster learning, collaboration, networking, knowledge sharing, and communications — has taken on...
L'avenir de la formation et Mars
No translation available Depuis plusieurs années, Mars a suscité l'intérêt des chercheurs. Des robots sont envoyés sur cette planète pour détecter des signes de vie et...
Social Learning, Social Media: Brothers in Arms
Is it me or does it seem that most vendors in the LMS/LCMS market still believe that with some smoke and mirrors, you won’t realize...
Social Learning: Take Me To Your Experts
Quick Question: How easy is it to find another employee in your organization with a specific expertise? Let me ask the question again another way:...
Social Learning, Collaboration, and Team Identity
Harold Jarche recently offered a framework for social learning in the enterprise to outline how the concept of social learning relates to the large-scale changes facing organizations...
Learning to Learn in the modern Enterprise
The last few days in Hong Kong have been incredible -- I saw some great sights, participated in some interesting activities and backed all of...
The Lean IT applied to the e-learning
The Social Learning is based on the sharing of knowledge between each individual people. Everyone can bring something into the knowledge pool of its colleagues. The fixed...
Gossip, Collaboration, and Performance in Distributed Teams
What do you think the typical manager might say if you told them their employees don't gossip and engage one another enough in social interaction...
What constitutes a Social Learning Culture?
I've often thought of social learning as a very culture dependent phenomenon. A few weeks back I read an interesting article by Thierry de Baillon, his...
At the Corner of Assertiveness & Cooperation: Collaboration
What do we meet at the corner of Assertiveness and Cooperation? The Thomas-Kilmann assessment suggests that it's Collaboration. Their assessment, which is the basis for many others, explores different...
From Competition to Cocreation - and Back Sometimes
How do you approach working with others? What is your resonant mode? Here's my two cents: Competition - "I win if you lose." Cooperation - "I will agree...
Why Best Practices Don't Work for Knowledge Work
I don’t recall having put together a blog post over here on the specific topic of capturing "Best Practices"; so after reading last Friday’s blog...
The Collaborative Curve
Now that I’m on a mission to merge the terms Social Business and Enterprise 2.0 and rephrase asCollaboration, I thought it would be a good...
Formalizing the Informal: Been there, done that
@Ecollab asks, “Can we formalize informal learning ?” My answer, “We've been there, done that.” Except for perhaps compliance learning programs, formal learning processes are...
Learning to formalize informal learning
When we don't already know how to formalize informal learning, there's a lot to learn. We can welcome the challenge if the process of learning...
From Social Media to Social Business: The social learning as missing link
I am often puzzled by the way organizations and agencies tackle social media, as if conversational marketing and Enterprise 2.0 were living in separate worlds,...
The Real Secret to Social Learning Success
For years training and development departments have struggled to compile the data they need to show value to their organizations. However, we will find ourselves...
Site sponsored by
White Papers
- 1
- 2
Site selected by
