gram consulting » social media

Everyday Experience is Not Enough

Tom Gram — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 20:13:19 +0000

A core tenet of informal and social learning is that we learn through experience. It’s the elephant in the 70-20-10 room. It’s often used as an admonishment to formal learning. Advocates of the most laissez-faire approaches informal learning suggest that given the right tools (social anyone?) employees will do just fine without all the interference by the learning department, thank you very much.

No one in their right mind would argue that experience is not a powerful teacher, or that our most valuable learning occurs while working. But it’s pretty broad generalization don’t you think? Some experiences must be more valuable than others for achieving learning and performance goals. And if so, what makes those experiences more valuable and how do we know them when we see them? Or, from the perspective of the learning professional, how can we help create the right experiences to help people develop their skills? These seem to be important questions if we are to get beyond loose approaches to informal learning…

…Please visit my new blog Performance X Design to read the remainder of this post and others.

Note: The Gram Consulting blog has been discontinued. I post blog introductions here to encourage former Gram Consulting readers to visit the new blog. All the Gram Consulting content, plus a bunch of new posts are on the new blog. Please come on over…

Mapping Informal and Formal Learning Strategies to Real Work

Tom Gram — Thu, 05 May 2011 15:51:21 +0000

During the Q&A at a recent conference session on Social Learning a retail industry attendee asked: “I have to train 300 store level associates in new product knowledge in the next three months. Is social learning really what I want?” What would your answer be?

I advocate informal and social learning vehicles when appropriate and get as excited about their uses as you likely do, but it’s not a panacea for all our learning woes. The current zeal around social learning solutions can distract from real performance needs (we’ve been distracted before). Social learning gets positioned as the enlightened and “correct” solution for the modern workplace. Formal learning is old, tired, and reluctantly tolerated for the vestiges of the traditional, mechanistic workplace.

But, set aside your biases one way or the other for the moment and simply think of the roles and functions you support in your organization. It will vary by industry of course, but your list is going to be some subset of the following:

..Please visit my new blog Performance X Design to read the remainder of this post and others.

Making Informal Learning Assets Work

Tom Gram — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 17:23:15 +0000

Seeking ways to leverage new social media environments, learning departments are discovering ways to sneak a little formal learning through the informal learning back door. Some of our clients for example, are looking to load up their social learning environments with small bits of learning content related to business goals. The notion being that these informal learning assets will live or die on the strength of their connection to employee performance need. Informal learning assets (or perhaps more accurately formal learning assets designed for informal consumption) are small segments of learning media such as videos, podcasts, documents, animations, short interactive pieces, images, performance guides, job aids, process descriptions, anything with a learning intention that can be posted to a social media environment. They can be created by anyone, from learning designers, to managers and employees and team members…

…Please visit my new blog Performance X Design to read the remainder of this post and others.

The 30 Second MBA

Tom Gram — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 21:18:31 +0000

I came across this interesting resource recently–The 30 second MBA.

It’s a venture of Fast Company Magazine. Leaders and entrepreneurs from a variety of industries are asked to describe their approach to various leadership problems and topics in 30 seconds or less (ticking clock and all). The site describes their mission like this:….

…Please visit my new blog Performance X Design to read the remainder of this post and others.

Note: The Gram Consulting blog has been discontinued. I post blog introductions here to encourage former Gram Consulting readers to visit the new blog. All the Gram Consulting content, plus a bunch of new ones are on the new blog. Please come on over…

Evaluating Training and Learning Circa 2011

Tom Gram — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 20:56:08 +0000

In a recent article in CLO magazine, Dan Pontefract questioned the value of traditional training evaluation, the Kirkpatrick approach in particular (article re-posted here). The article raised the ire of the Kirkpatrick organization and Dan responded in a follow-up post . Others had observations on the post (see Don Clark and Harold Jarche.) I’ve been involved in many evaluation efforts over the years, both useful and ill-advised, and have some thoughts to share.

I’ll paraphrase Dan and (Wendy) Kirkpatrick to summarize the positions (probably incorrectly but this debate happens so often I’ll use Dan and Christy more as archetypal voices for both sides of the argument)…..

Please visit my new blog Performance X Design to read the remainder of this post and others.

Note: The Gram Consulting blog has been discontinued…I post blog introductions here to encourage Gram Consulting readers to visit the new blog. Please come on over…

An Idea List: Using Web 2.0 for Management Development

Tom Gram — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 01:53:17 +0000

At the session I described in my last post, table groups did a short brainstorming session on how web 2.0 tools could be used in a Management Community of Practice to facilitate learning. Each table recorded their ideas and left them for me. I promised the group I would post them here. So here you are folks.

Communities of practice are dynamic social structures that require both initial design and ongoing cultivation so they can emerge and grow. However, through a series of steps, learning professionals and community members can design a community environment, foster the formalization of the community, and plan activities to help grow and sustain the community. But ultimately, the members of the community will define and sustain it over time.

Here are most of the activities listed from the session. Some are slightly edited for consistency or to merge with similar items to create a single list.

Please visit my new blog Performance X Design to see the list.

Note: The Gram Consulting blog has been discontinued…I post blog introductions here to encourage Gram Consulting readers to subscribe to the new blog. Please come on over…

Leadership Development in a Learning 2.0 World

Tom Gram — Mon, 31 May 2010 17:53:37 +0000

Last week I presented a session titled Leadership Development in a Learning 2.0 World at the CSTD 2010 National Symposium. Here is the description of the session from the conference program:

Leadership Development in a Learning 2.0 World

Developing effective leaders and managers is an increasingly important task for the learning function. Leadership development has been slow to adopt eLearning strategies but recent developments in web 2.0 technologies, along with changing perspectives on workplace learning are changing that. The social learning drivers behind learning 2.0 are a natural fit for the learning needs of managers and leaders and provide the learning function with an opportunity for real innovation in leadership development practices. This session will provide an overview of the key concepts, strategies and tools to help transform leadership development practices for the emerging learning 2.0 world.

Learning Outcomes:

Contrast current leadership development practices with learning 2.0 driven practices
Describe benefits of learning 2.0 for transforming leadership and management development
Describe a model of leadership development driven by learning 2.0 principles
Envision a future Leadership Development program for your organization on a by a learning 2.0 foundation
Define strategies for integrating learning 2.0 concepts into current leadership development programs

To read the full post and view the conference presentation please visit Performance X Design.

e-Learning: What’s Hot and What’s Not

Tom Gram — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 04:51:44 +0000

It’s been a challenge to get back to the blog as I have been finishing Gram Consulting work, closing out the business and transitioning into a new full time position. Things are starting to settle down and I now hope to get back to posting more regularly. Thanks for the well wishes and inquiries from regular readers since I started the blog. Onward…

e-Learning: What’s hot, what’s not

I received a request from a colleague last week who is helping a company put together a learning strategy, part of which will focus on e-learning. Her question was this:

what’s hot and what’s not in e-learning these days ?

I gave it a bit of thought and came up with the following lists. I would love to hear your additions or deletions from the list (as would my colleague).

Please visit Performance X Design to read the full article….

Moving on…but the blog stays.

Tom Gram — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 18:12:15 +0000

You’ll notice I’ve stripped my web site down to only the blog entries this week. This is because I’ve decided to take a full time position and close out Gram Consulting as a business. I have enjoyed my work over the last few years with clients and associates, so the decision was not an easy one. I hope to work with many of them again in the future.

The new position however, offers broader opportunity and challenge, including working for an industry leader in corporate learning and development and a great team of people. My new role is Vice President, Leadership and Business Solutions with Nexient Learning Inc. I ‘ll be managing the consulting, design and development of custom e-learning and performance improvement projects as well as a portfolio of excellent leadership and business skills development programs.

I’m planning to keep the blog alive. In the next few weeks I plan to move it to a new home and adjust the format and branding a bit. It will cover similar ground, so if you like what you’ve read so far, I hope you follow the new blog after the transition. I’ll be bringing all the existing posts to the new site. In the meantime I’ll likely post a few more items to this location.

I’ve truly enjoyed your comments both through the blog and personal connections. The blog has enjoyed a steady increase in readership since I started a little less than a year ago. Thank you for that. I’ve enjoyed the conversation. I hope we can keep it going.

Cheers,

Tom

Web 2.0 Helping to Generate Measurable Business Value

Tom Gram — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 15:18:23 +0000

In an earlier post (For Web 2.0 What’s in the Workflow is What Gets Used), I refered to some ongoing research McKinsey&Company is doing in web 2.0 adoption in the workplace– how and where it is being used and the impact it is having on business.

The research is based an an annual survey of 1700 companies from across the globe in a range of industries and functional areas and has been ongoing now for about three years running. The Mckinsey Quarterly recently summarized results in an interactive visual chart and as a full article in the McKinsey Quarterly titled How companies are benefiting from Web 2.0: McKinsey Global Survey Results (The article is free but you have to join the free membership to see it in full).

The following chart from the interactive feature summarizes how web 2.0 technologies are being used for some internal purposes including managing knowledge and training. Internal blogs and wikis are being used significantly for Managing Knowledge. For Training uses the highest categories are Podcasts and Video Sharing (unfortunately the most presentation oriented technologies of the bunch). Social Networking is being used extensively for fostering collaboration and identifying and recruiting talent.

Click to access the McKinsey interactive chart

If you go to the interactive feature be sure to listen to the “about this research” audio snippet. It provides a brief summary of the research and findings across three years. Some conclusions McKinsey draws:

an increasing number companies are adopting web 2.0 technologies
more companies will start to use them for wider purposes including customers, internal employees and suppliers
uses will continue to evolve and get better at deriving business value

the striking result is that 2/3 of the companies are deriving measurable business value.

McKinsey summarizes:

“This year’s survey turned up strong evidence that these advantages are translating into measurable business gains. When we asked respondents about the business benefits their companies have gained as a result of using Web 2.0 technologies, they most often report greater ability to share ideas; improved access to knowledge experts; and reduced costs of communications, travel, and operations. Many respondents also say Web 2.0 tools have decreased the time to market for products and have had the effect of improving employee satisfaction”.