ROI through communites of practice

My colleague John prompted me to include this as a post to my blog. As part of my research for Assignment 2 and work on the wiki it got me thinking about training and ROI from a business perspective. Having recently been involved in budget cuts at work it is often the training budget which is the first to go… So how do we as trainers or learning professionals convince the corporates that training cuts are a short term strategy (particularly in an era of skills shortage, buoyant labour market and employee mobility).  

One solution is to look at investment in human capital as a sound investment strategy that has measurable business outcomes.  Another solution is to redefine learning and training initiatives and set up communities of practice within organisations.

(COP – a group whose members regularly engage in sharing and learning based on their common interests). 

An article by Lesser and Storck 2001  discusses some links to business outcomes and organisational performance which could be used in justifying the worth of establishing communities of practice as learning vehicles within organisations. Lesser and Storck (2001) argue that the “social capital resident in communities of practice leads to behavioural changes that result in greater knowledge sharing which has a positive influence on business performance’ (p833).

Business often look for ROI and increases in productivity from training and learning initiatives. In addition the loss of product knowledge and social capital which an employee takes when they leave an organisation costs organisations thousands of dollars as does the cost of training a new employee and bringing them up to speed.

So a justification could be that the knowledge that has been captured in perpetuity within this global virtual space during e-learning activities remains the property of the organisation and a resource which new employees can access and get quickly up to speed with an organisations goals, practices and networks.

This study looked at seven local and global organisations which had implemented communities of practice with the following key outcomes:

- maintaining and developing an organisations long term memory
- sharing knowledge outside traditional organisation hierarchical boundaries and within and across departments
- enriched learning opportunities for individual members of the community
- higher motivation to apply what people have learned
- decreasing the learning curve for new employees
- responding more rapidly to customer needs and inquiries through improved knowledge
- reducing rework and preventing “reinvention of the wheel”
- generation of new ideas for products and services  (Lessor and Storck 2001)

Content is King (and trust must be Queen)

For those of us in the corporate sphere who are having their social networking options shut down by overzealous IT professional and firewalls – an article by Paul Pedruzzi   “Why Social Networks don’t work for businesses” stress the importance of trust and content within social networks to make them functional and identifies organisational issues and barriers which impact on the usefulness of social networking sites within the work context.  I like this quote….

“Once you have the people you trust, all you need is content”.

In observing our online communities, I suspect that for an online community to function effectively it will require these two elements – trust and content.  Trust comes from the relationships between community members which are built up over time and from people having shared values and interests. In addition, Web gurus will always tell us that content is king, and this is also true for online communities. For example if there is no relevant content on the site or useful dialogue in the way of learning conversations within the community, the community will not flourish and will become of less relevance to community members.  Conversely, a content rich and stimulating environment which supports learning conversations and engages community members has more chance of succeeding.  The community I am observing has been established online for nearly ten years – they must be doing something right. I have been observing that trust is an integral part of why members join, participate and continue to follow the advice and recommendations of fellow community members. 

  Gapingvoid.com

The Zen of Blogging – was Budda a social learning theorist?

In my pursuit to learn all things Zen about blogging – my work colleague and Digital Manager Tim, gave me a link to a great blog called  copyblogger by Brian Clark.  It covers the importance of copywriting skills for making great blogs.

 In the post  Zen and the Art of Remarkable Blogging, Brian Clark lists the four noble truths of blogging.  I like truth four with its application to learning with a social constructionist bent:

“Zen encourages practitioners to learn from teachers and other students to better understand how to attain truth through direct experience. The blogging community offers a similar environment, but the final breakthrough will always occur in your own mind and be the result of your own actions. You’ve got to accept responsibility for your own success.”

OK I am still waiting on the success bit…but sure that will come in time…. patience my  dear grasshopper.

Testing the authenticity of a travel blog

Came accross an article in the International Herald Tribune Frequent Traveller: Testing Travel Blogs with Caution  (by Roger Collis Sept 2006) which warned travellers to:

“Beware of bogus blogs is the watchword for travelers seeking unbiased information. There is something seductive about the immediacy of the personal blog, a community of fellow travelers sharing that authentic feeling, until you detect the powers behind it ”. 

Caught my interest due to my previous posts and investigations into the world of “flogging”.  Collis lists a proliferation of travel blogs which under the surface may not entirely be what they seem.    

So how do you check the authenticity of a blog?  

Collis goes on to say that

“The only way to check the authenticity of a blog is to measure it against what you already know of a place or to do more research yourself”.

Personally, I would go one step further and

1) Take a good look at the level of advertising on the blog – who is advertising – how much space is dedicated to advertising.

2) Investigate the owner, writers and contributors of the blog. Do a google search on their names and see if any commercial links become apparent.  

3) Be wary of travel blogs with direct links to online booking site or travel consultants. 

4) If the site has a moderated forum – check out who is doing the moderating and also the terms and conditions of joining the forum (what you can and can not post).

Be even more suspicious if you suddenly start receiving great holiday specials spammed to your email!

Which one are you? Social Networking Profiles…

OK it is UK based but always have to love the attempts for demographic/psychographic profiles………..marketing professionals will love it and can add the below to their expanding repertoire of target market labels.

Are you an ‘Alpha Socialiser” or an ‘Attention Seeker’? … Ofcom research identifies social networking profiles

 ”Types of social networkers

Alpha Socialisers – mostly male, under 25s, who use sites in intense short bursts to flirt, meet new people and be entertained.

Attention Seekers – mostly female, who crave attention and comments from others, often by posting photos and customising their profiles.

Followers – males and females of all ages who join sites to keep up with what their peers are doing.

Faithfuls – older males and females generally aged over 20, who typically use social networking sites to rekindle old friendships, often from school or university.

Functionals – mostly older males who tend to be single-minded in using sites for a particular purpose.

The qualitative research also suggests three distinct groups of people who do not use social networking sites:

• Concerned about safety – often older people and parents concerned about safety online, in particular making personal details available online.
• Technically inexperienced– often people over 30 years old who lack confidence in using the internet and computers.
• Intellectual rejecters – often older teens and young adults who have no interest in social networking sites and see them as a waste of time. “

When is a blog an ad?

Following on from my previous blog about the EU directive on flogging. I came across an interesting blog….http://www.globaltravelblog.com/

A very sophisticated blog with RSS feeds, podcasts, videos, tag clouds, categories and very well managed content (possibly too well managed when you read some of the posts).  The posts and members are currently dominated by Flight Centre consultants with email links back to a Flight Centre.

In my quest to understand Web 2.0 and the implications for the travel industry and how word of mouth is spread about destinations and products I found this site quite intriguing.

My first thought……is this a community of practice I should be  a part of?

It looks a lot better than the Travelzine (the site I have chosen to study) and definitely has a comparatively improved technological framework.  I was keen to find out more about this site so I clicked on the “about us” section and yes it definitely belongs to a commercial operator perhaps on the biggest in Australia …Flight Centre. 

The Flight Centre Group Product Ads which exclusively dominate the site should have given it away plus if you read the conditions - you will see some interesting conditions of advertising which the owners of the site have clearly decided does not apply to them.

Look the site is a clever use of Web 2.0 and is a great way for Flight Centre to engage with their customers and build customer loyalty.  I am however suspect at the efforts to profile the site as a global travel blog when it really is one big advertisement for Flight Centre and the community primarily consists of travel agents of the company. 

Happy that I have chosen my community the Travelzine.   I go back to my previous blog where trust is a key element in Web 2.0 and that people will trust their community when taking recommendations for products and services.

I suspect Advertising blogs will face the fate of TV advertising, similar to the power of the remote control, Net users have the power to selectively filter out the “ads” with the click of the mouse.

Three Tags for Me

 View from my window at home – Gold Coast Hinterland

Tourism - being in the tourism industry for nearly 20 years means I find it hard to separate myself from the inherant nature of the job. I look at things through the eyes of a tourist – I love to travel and have made a career combining work and travel.

Gold Coast – The pic above shows the view from my deck at home – what is there not to love about the Gold Coast. Surrounded by rainforest and waterfalls I am lucky to call this home.

Newbie - This whole experience is new. This is my first blog and I have not studied since 1993 so feeling a bit rusty. I am looking forward to learning from others through our shared online community

First Postings of a virgin blogger

Diaries of a nervous blogger… 

OK its not that bad really…time to step through the looking glass to the other side.

Keep posted as I discover:

 a) How to use and navigate this site

b) How to blog

c) Hopefully contribute to experience of E-Learning 1 – write something meaningful and pass the subject

 Any advice welcome

DM