ePerformance

I just listened to Clark Quinn's presentation at ASTD LA (eLearning Strategy Presentation)
which is available online. Clark and I have discussed before the challenges with naming in our world and I was happy to see that he adopted the terminology of eLearning -> ePerformance.

I've talked about ePerformance before in EPSS and ePerformance as well as in a series of articles in Learning Circuits:

• ePerformance Essentials
• ePerformance at Work: Self-Service Action and Development Planning
• ePerformance at Work: eFollowUp

Clark's take on ePerformance looks to have a similar definition. I like the way he stepped through the transition from thinking in terms of courses to thinking about broader uses of technology to support performance. His terminology around elements of what goes into ePerformance is a bit different than what I discussed in the learning circuits articles. The concepts are fairly similar.

One of the end points on Clark's map is what he calls a Performance Ecosystem that he talks through at minute 54 in the talk.



I'm not sure if this is top-down or bottom-up or both kind of adoption. I look forward to continued conversation around the topic of ePerformance. Then he gets into discussion (1:02) around the gist of ePerformance - it's "not about training/learning, it's about empowering performance." He mentions:

Just in time
Just what's needed
Meta-Learning
Informal Learning
Problem solving, creativity, innovation, wisdom

Good stuff Clark.

What to Say When a Colleagues' Family Member Dies

This is fairly off topic for this blog, but this is something that's come up several times recently for me, and I've struggled with it each time. This morning I received a note from a colleague to tell me that their mother died last night and that they couldn't do our scheduled call. I'm always at a loss as to what to say ...

I honestly sat in front of the email this morning trying to figure out what I should be saying. And I rewrote the email a bunch of times. I never felt the words in the email were the right words.

I'm generally okay with saying something about being sorry for their loss (and I truly am). If I know them well enough to know whether they are religious, I will sometimes say that they are in my family's prayers (and they truly are). I wish there was a non-religious way to say the same thing, but I don't know the equivalent.

But those one or two sentences seem inappropriately short given the magnitude of the situation. Maybe it's good to be short? Still it feels hollow.

And I struggled even more with whether to say and what to say about the work / scheduled call. Do you mention anything about it? I wanted to say that our discussions could hold until ???? But it seems wrong to even include that message in the same note. It felt like a rounding error on the important part of the message.

And if you do say something about holding, what's the end of that sentence?

Until you get back? <- Not quite right. It could hold longer if they need it.

Until things return to normal? <- Ouch. No. That's definitely not right.

Until ???

I'm sure that many other people face this same issue. I would appreciate any suggestions, especially sample emails / wording that you would or have used in this kind of situation.

Design for Search

Interesting post by Donald Clark that points to a BCC article -Web users 'getting more selfish'. The article is a bit over the top in terms of headline, but it's main point is:

people are becoming much less patient when they go online. Instead of dawdling on websites many users want simply to reach a site quickly, complete a task and leave.

Hardly selfish really. Most of our activity is looking up information, so the most common use case is search, evaluate, keep, organize. We don't want fluff.

Other tidbits:

Success rates measuring whether people achieve what they set out to do online are now about 75%. In 1999 this figure stood at 60%.

Web users were also getting very frustrated with all the extras, such as widgets and applications, being added to sites to make them more friendly.

In 2004, about 40% of people visited a homepage and then drilled down to where they wanted to go and 60% use a deep link that took them directly to a page or destination inside a site. In 2008, said Dr Nielsen, only 25% of people travel via a homepage. The rest search and get straight there.

I don't think any of this is much of a surprise.

And, by the way, I believe that Donald Clark does a remarkable job of providing links to interesting articles. I would put him up with Stephen Downes in terms of a valuable aggregator. I truly look forward to both of their links each day. If you've not subscribed, you really should.

Online Tutoring - Rapid Growth - New Models

Saw a post that cited predictions about the rapid growth of online tutoring:

Worldwide market for online tutoring is estimated to be in the region of $12 billion.

This is something I've been seeing more of, especially in the high school and college markets where tutoring has been more common. Online models allow for better matching of students to tutors and more cost effective models. One interesting model is social homework help provided by Cramster. It allows students to get help on specific textbook problems and to ask questions that are answered by experts.

I've not heard as much about this in corporate settings. Is coaching following this pattern? Moving online? Finding lower cost options?

Blogging Advice - It's Good for You

Just saw this article - Blogging -- It's Good for You. I've added that link to one of the most bookmarked pages on this site: Top Ten Reasons To Blog and Top Ten Not to Blog

Thanks to Donald Clark for pointing to this.

Reminder that Blogging and Social Networking Boosts Your Social Life.

Are we sure we don't want Mandatory Blogging?

Corporate Social Bookmarking Tools

I was just asked on twitter about using social bookmarking tools that work behind the firewall. I thought I had blogged about this before, but I'm not finding the post.

Here are the social bookmarking tools that I commonly cite in presentations:

• BEA Pathways
• Cogenz
• Connectbeam
• del.irio.us - perl based, very similar to del.icio.us
• IBM Lotus Connections
• Scuttle – Open Source
• WSSsearch - SharePoint add-on

Any others? Good comparisons of these?

I originally included: Jive Software - because I thought they had it, but it appears they don't.

Corporate Policies on Web 2.0

One of the barriers commonly cited during my presentations around eLearning 2.0 (use of Web 2.0 / social media for work and learning) is that organizations often have not established their policies or guidelines around the use of these tools. Unfortunately, companies sticking their head in the sand doesn't do any good. Employees are using these things in some way. Companies need a policy. And most corporate guidelines out there around social media are fairly similar. They generally make each employee personally responsible, they need to abide by existing corporate rules, obey copyright and other IP rules, keep secrets and act appropriately.

I think IBM's policy is a pretty good starting point: IBM Social Computing Guidelines

Updated 6/2/2009.

Other company policies or discussions of guidelines I've seen around blogging, social media, web 2.0:

• United States Airforce (PDF)
• United States Navy (PDF)
• Feedster Corporate Blogging Policy
• Thomas Nelson Blogging Guidelines
• Plaxo Public Internet Communication Policy
• Hill & Knowlton Blogging policies and guidelines
• Yahoo Employee Blog Guidelines
• BBC Blog Guidelines
• Sun's Policy on Public Discourse
• Groove
• What Should Your Corporate Policy Be On Blogs?
• Social Media Policy Musts
• Opera
• Harvard Law School
• GM
  
• IOC Olympic Athletes Blogging Policy (PDF)
• Cisco
• Dell
• Intel
• Gartner
• About.com Samples
• Enterprise: List of 40 Social Media Staff Guidelines

However, I'm not really sure how many organizations have these kinds of policies and who in most organizations establishes them.

If you have good articles, posts, etc. on how to get these established in your organization or stats on how common it is among different kinds of organizations, please point me to them.

In some ways, the question we face is -

If our organization doesn't have an existing policy, is that a fundamental roadblock to using certain kinds of Web 2.0 tools as part of our eLearning 2.0 solutions?

Is it worth our time to try to push for getting a policy established?