CorpU Weekly Digest: Social Learning (2012-May-14)

Topics: Social Learning

Here are this past week's headlines in social learning: 

• (1) Social learning, technology, and organizational politics: Enterprise 2.0 and the connection between experimentation, collaboration, and innovation ; 
• (2) Why Social Learning Analytics? ; 
• Books: Making Sense of Change Management: A Complete Guide to the Models, Tools and Techniques of Organizational Change and Restoring Trust in Organizations and Leaders: Enduring Challenges and Emerging Answers ; 
• Webinars ; 
• Conferences

 Social learning, technology, and organizational politics: Enterprise 2.0 and the connection between experimentation, collaboration, and innovation.
In this extended riff by Roberta Gogos, the implications of social learning in enterprise 2.0 are explored. As she sees it, the democratic workplace environment thrives on accountability, transparency, choice and the decentralization of power. And the result of this is that people are empowered so that their full potential is unlocked to contribute to the organization in an effective and meaningful way through peer-to-peer collaboration. Bureaucracy often serves to hide innovative ideas and creativity whereas a transparent, democratic company is much more innovative and that translates to the bottom line – democratic companies can adjust to market changes, they have higher productivity and efficiency, and lower absenteeism – obviously making a better strategic model for a company. So, what are the implications for the learning in the workplace? With transparency comes conversation – and with conversation comes a more engaged organization. Effective workplace learning requires this engagement and Enterprise 2.0 and Social Business are founded on organizational democracy. Under traditional command & control management neither can thrive, and organizational change cannot take place. And organizational learning is fundamental change. Read Roberta Gogos' posting "The Democratic Workplace"

 Why Social Learning Analytics?
A research paper authored by Rebecca Ferguson of The Open University (and presented two weeks ago at the 2012 Learning Analytics and Knowledge conference in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada) proposes that Social Learning Analytics (SLA) can be usefully thought of as a subset of learning analytics approaches. SLA focuses on how learners build knowledge together in their cultural and social settings. In the context of online social learning, it takes into account both formal and informal educational environments, including networks and communities. The paper introduces the broad rationale for SLA by reviewing some of the key drivers that make social learning so important today. Five forms of SLA are identified, including those which are inherently social, and others which have social dimensions. Social learning analytics includes: 1) social network analytics; 2) discourse analytics; 3) content analytics; 4) disposition analytics; and 5) context analytics. Read Rebecca Ferguson's blog posting "Social Learning Analytics: Five Approaches"

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 The Business of Learning: New Major Products, Mergers, Acquisitions, and Partnerships

No major news in mergers, acquisitions, or product releases.

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 Books To Read

Making Sense of Change Management, 3rd Ed, offers a solid overview of change management: it combines a practitioner's guide and broad overview of change management not just at the organizational and individual levels, but at the team level and how leaders are responsible for preparing the way for change and making sure that it persists. Divided into three parts, the first does a decent job of distilling the last few decades worth of academic research in the areas to offer some practical insights about learning and the process of change from the perspectives of behavioral, cognitive, psychodynamic, and humanist psychology focusing on personality and concepts of self and others. This section on theory then offers some insight on team dynamics, the differing models of organizational change, the roles of leaders and change agents. The second part focuses on the four major applications of change in organizations: restructuring, mergers & acquisitions, cultural change, and IT-based process change, and the third part is an extended excursus on emerging areas from the academy dealing with the complexity behind change and leading change in uncertain times. The text offers insights into the many frameworks, models and ways of approaching change and helps the reader apply the right approach to each unique situation. This completely revised and updated edition includes additional case studies and new chapters on change agents and managing change when companies must cut costs. Buy now

The sinking public trust in contemporary institutions is a multifaceted phenomenon with political, sociological, economic, and psychological antecedents and consequences. Restoring Trust in Organizations and Leaders is the first volume to adopt the multidisciplinary approach required to understand this decline and to propose and assess remedies. Editors Roderick M. Kramer and Todd L. Pittinsky have assembled contributions from leading psychologists, sociologists, economists, and organizational theorists. In response to such blows to public confidence as the scandals in the Roman Catholic Church, numerous corporate accounting frauds, widespread retirement insecurity, the inadequacy of many school systems, and the failure of politicians in the United States and Europe to come to grips with the economic crisis, Restoring Trust offers a compelling and mind-opening mix of theory, examples, and practical prescription for the critical social problem of restoring public trust in organizations, institutions, and their leaders. Buy Now

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 Webinars 

Measuring the Impact of Training, Performance and Turnover
Date: Tuesday, May 15, 2012, 2:00 pm ET
Presenter: Jeff Higgins Register now

Social Learning Revolution
Date: Wednesday, May 16, 2012, 4:00am ET
Presenter: Jane Hart Register now

Techtonic Shift in HR technology
Date: June 5 and 6, 2012
Presenter: Jason Averbook (Knowledge Infusion) and Naomi Bloom (Bloom and Wallace) Register now

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 Conferences

Corporate University Xchange's Global Leadership Congress
Date:  May 15-17, 2012
Location: Philadelphia, PA, USA Register now 

Social Recruiting Strategies Conference
Date: May 22-25, 2012
Location: Chicago, IL, USA Register now

National Institute on the Assessment of Adult Learning
Date: June 6-8, 2012
Location: Atlantic City, NJ, USA Register now

2012 International Conference on Knowledge and Education Technology
Date: June 7-8, 2012
Location: Paris, France Register now

Leading Across Generations: Workforce Challenges and Opportunities
Date: June 13-15, 2012
Location: Berlin, Germany Register now

The Talent Management Summit
Date: June 14, 2012
Location: London, UK Register now

Gamification Summit
Date: June 19-21, 2012
Location: San Francisco, CA, USA Register now

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