Don’t Get Left Behind by Social Learning

Community is the key. By organizing employees in something as continuous and efficient as an online community, learning leaders are able to streamline discussion, which makes the content more engaging. “People come in [to Planet Blue] and ask questions and do career chat and learn more about career development at Intel,” Anderson said.

But while Anderson insists that social media is best used only as a supplement to more traditional learning platforms — classroom, e-learning — others think the medium is taking over completely.

“This is replacing all other traditional forms of classroom and e-learning programs,” Gronstedt said. “Traditional e-learning is based on a one-way broadcast medium that just doesn’t have room in today’s learning organization. As far as the need to bring people together and do things like role playing and interacting with each other, there are these wonderful virtual worlds.”

Yet there are still limitations. For instance, measuring the true impact social media has had on learning and development within organizations remains cloudy. “It’s still kind of unclear to me where we want to have success measures,” Anderson said. “It’s a different kind of engagement. If somebody asked me, ‘Can you track the number of people in your [online] community?’ Sure I can. ‘Can you track the percentage that’s been engaged regularly?’” Measuring that is not as easy.

Still, corporations and learning departments are embracing the concept. At its conception, Planet Blue had only about 150 users. Now, according to Anderson, nearly 400 have joined. Once videos are integrated into the platform, Anderson said, more are bound to follow.

But what about those still turned off by social media as a learning tool, worried that the medium would distract and negatively influence productivity?

“There’re in for a rude awakening,” Gronstedt said. “This is not just a cute little supplement for what they’re doing … This is in fact how learning is done in organizations and they need to get with it or they will become completely obsolete.”