The Bamboo Project Blog

Two More Great Ideas for Employee Learning Week From Acronym

Couldn't resist these after they showed up in my reader, both because they're great ideas and because they support some of what I discussed in Monday's post on becoming a learner. Both are from Acronym (what a great name for this blog that supports associations):

First, in this post from Lisa Junker, is the advice to give an award for mistakes. She points to how the Wharton School is handing out two awards for its Flat World contest--one for best idea and one for greatest insights from a mistake. I wish that more organizations rewarded that kind of thinking. Can you imagine how great it would be to have employees competing for prizes based on learning the most from where they screwed up?

Then comes a guest post from Andy Steggles with his advice on how to support blogging within your organization (which you'll recall I STRONGLY encourage).  Andy is Chief Information Officer for the Risk Insurance and Management Society and has what I considered to be some surprisingly open ideas about blogging and the kinds of permissions and supports that should be in place. Surprising because a lot of CIOs are wary of 2.0 and because of his association, which seems like it might be risk-averse to begin with. Although I'm obviously stereotyping here.

Good stuff. Now back to report-writing.

UPDATE--Apologies to Andy--apparently in my haste to put this post I spelled his last name "Reggles," rather than "Steggles." I've now made the change above, but wanted to publicly acknowledge both my gaffe and Andy's kindness in pointing it out to me. As I told him, this is what happens when I try to put up fast posts. Although I'm still not sure how/why I made the mistake. Oh well. . .

Also, in comments Lisa pointed me to another article by Andy on how associations are using Web 2.0. More good stuff.

Employee Learning Week: E-Learning in Small Organizations

This is the last of my posts celebrating Employee Learning Week. Before I dive into it, I want to first thank my three guest bloggers who not only shared some great content, they also saved me from having to write three posts! They were:

• Brynn Grumstrop Slate

• Robin Reagler

• Christine Martell

I also want to call your attention to a great resource that I'll be adding to the post I wrote earlier this week on Seeing Yourself as a Learner--It's a self-paced tutorial on the 7 1/2 Habits of Highly Effective Learners created by Lori Reed of the Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County. Good stuff.

So, that out of the way, here's a look at E-Learning in Small Organizations.

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Although it tends to be larger organizations that spend the most time looking at and using e-learning strategies, elearning is something that would greatly benefit small organizations too. In fact, in some ways I think that elearning actually offers MORE opportunities for small organizations because they are often the most strapped for time and can't afford to lose work time to send people to all-day classroom events.

This abstract on Challenges and Strategies for Sustaining E-learning in Small Organizations offers some interesting insight into why smaller organizations have been slow to adopt e-learning and what they can do to overcome these challenges.  Some key points. . .

Why Have Small Organizations Been Slow to Adopt E-learning?
According to the authors, the e-learning adoption curve for smaller organizations has been slow for four reasons:

• Challenges with managers who are often operating in crisis management mode with little time to think ahead about employee development. Informal training (peer coaching, on-the-job experiences, etc.) is usually the norm, although these are generally not part of any structured, planned learning experience. Managers often have their own preferences and ideas about training, which usually do not include using e-learning as a strategy. I suspect that this is because it's usually Baby Boomers who are running the show and many of them don't have the same level of comfort with e-learning that digital natives (Gen X and Y) do.

• Lack of infrastructure. Many small organizations do not have equipment, staff or time to focus on e-learning.

• Difficulties in justifying e-learning, particularly in terms of developing the ROI, which may be very different for smaller organizations.

• Lack of understanding about training needs. Most small organizations do not have the staff or the know-how to get a true understanding of their need for training and there is often no internal champion (such as a training director) who can help them make those decisions.

Overcoming the Challenges
The authors suggest three ingredients for successful e-learning in small organizations:

• Combine e-learning and learning culture with the strategic goals of the organization
• Develop a web savvy staff
• Hire, maintain or train a good training professional

They also suggest a few strategies:

• Using e-learning strategies to serve multiple purposes to get the most bang for your buck

• Using technology tools to manage information and create employee networks of knowledge.

• Capturing niche skills (specialized skills and knowledge) using tools such as video, audio, etc. to create e-learning activities--for example, interviewing key staff about how to perform particular aspects of their jobs and then creating podcasts for others to listen to.

• Capturing process info with video, audio, etc, to be re-purposed for e-learning. This covers things like videotaping a particular procedure and then putting it online for staff to utilize.

Some interesting info here, with a few good examples of how small organizations have used these strategies. Ultimately it seems it's about getting small organizations to move out of reactive mode into pro-active planning mode and to think ahead about how they can strategically build the skills of staff using e-learning tools and strategies, many of which require much less of an investment of time and dollars. Definitely worth a read.

Low Cost ELearning
Obviously cost is a factor when it comes to elearning in small organizations, so I wanted to share a few good resources on how to do some elearning on the cheap. I should add that encouraging the development of Personal Learning Environments may give the biggest bang for the buck. Also, check out this post from Glenn Ross on some things that the American Cancer Society is doing with e-learning, in part because more and more staff will have had experience with elearning tools and expect them to be used as part of professional development.

• Exploring Personal Learning Environments

• Here's How to Save Time and Money Building Your Next Elearning Course

• The Complete Guide: 7 Ways to Learn Something New on the Net

• Free Camtasia for Screencasting

What other resources would you suggest to support elearning in small organizations? And do you think this is something they should even by worrying about or is it just for the big dogs?

UPDATE--Tom Kuhlmann has added a great post on 5 simple ways to get started with elearning--another nice resource.

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Employee Learning Week: Christine Martell on Informal Learning Through Blogging

Today's post in my week-long series in support of ASTD Employee Learning Week is guest blogged by Christine Martell of VisualsSpeak. Christine is one of the few blog pals who I've also had the pleasure of meeting in the "real world," as she describes in her post.

In addition to being a very busy business woman, Christine is also a major driving force behind Blog Cascadia for her local ASTD chapter and and is  co-host of PodCascadia, a regular series of training/learning-related podcasts that I highly recommend.  _____________________________________________________________________________________

I met Michele through this blog. She has told part of the story, describing how we recently did a conference session together. Today I want to talk about another aspect of how we have learned from each other through our blogs.

I had been blogging for a couple of months when I first commented on this blog. I had tried commenting on a few others, but the bloggers didn’t really respond, maybe a thank you in the comment string. Michele not only responded in the comments, but she emailed me. She offered additional suggestions, and added to let her know how things went. It was the first time I learned that blogging could be a conversation. I have had websites for over 10 years, so my thinking was geared to a reality where you put things onto the internet and hardly ever knew who was attached to all those visitors that showed up in your stats every day.

When Michele put out a call for people to do the 31days to a better blog challenge with her, I responded. I originally started my blog to teach people about how to use the VisualsSpeak ImageSet, which is a visual tool created by my company. I thought the challenge would be a great way to not only learn how to blog better, but to meet other bloggers to learn from.

While the group connected around making our individual blogs better, we also started reading each others blogs. Through this process, I started to learn a lot about things I didn’t know before, but more importantly probably wouldn’t have sought out:

• Al Upton and the Minilegends, this is a class of 8 and 9 year olds in Australia. They created stories where you could interact and choose a variety of pathways using something called Voice Threads.

• Cammy Bean has an e-learning blog, and I have discovered a lot of other blogs through her links. She has also helped me see that not everything that is being said about young women and their relationship to games and technology is true across the board.

• Tim Davies  has taught me about Youth Participation, how blogs can be created on Drupal, and how useful one page overviews of web tools can be.

• Eklavya was our blogger from India. Not only did he bring a different cultural perspective, but he also brought stories about the people of his country which he mixed in with lots of great tips about Wordpress.

• Kate Foy showed me how engaging a heartfelt video message can be, as well as lots of tips and tricks for Macintosh and surviving conferences.

• Sue Hickton , the infamous Evil Sue, with analysis of organizational functioning and swimming with sharks.

• Alex Miller who showed us in a very short screencast how effective they can be, which also sparked the great Google Reader versus Netvibes debate.

• Frances McLean showed us all how to remain balanced and sane by creating the visible check.

• Kate Quinn scoped out the iPod Touch, and kept me up on the cool new Mac toys.

• Sue Waters Is it even possible to describe what one learns from Sue Waters? Using podcasts, wikis, every tool under the sun, mobile devices including things I’ve never heard of. Not to mention repeated attempts to help me “get” Twitter and Facebook. And her seemingly endless links to interesting learning professionals across the planet.

• Paul Watford showed us how much adding new blood to a project in the last week can keep the troops moving forward.

• Laura Whitehead continues to remind me of the importance of web accessibility, but also teaches me about the tools available and how to use them. Now I just have to utilize more of them.

Getting back to Michele, beyond the content of the 31 Days challenge, I learned quite a bit about her philosophy around workplace learning, informal learning, personal learning environments, as well as her integration of blogs and wikis as tools for non-profits. So, when I had an opportunity to do a conference presentation I not only knew she had the knowledge base, but that we had enough philosophical alignment to come together in a fairly short time to create content.

I was already doing two presentations at the conference plus I was exhibiting. My business partner often attends conferences with me to help with these things, but I saw the opportunity to use Michele instead, which would cover many of her expenses.

Here is the part I found pretty amazing, she was able to work in my booth and assist me in my sessions without any formal training. She had learned enough from reading my blog  how I ran my sessions and what I said about my products. She even knew it would be easier if I used a digital recorder, so she brought hers. She was able to anticipate my needs and back me up each step of the way. That has not always been my experience at these types of events.

So just through reading each others blogs we not only formed the personal relationship and trust that allowed us to work together, but we have learned about the content of what we each bring so we were able to successfully work together for three days face to face.

What kinds of informal learning do you get out of reading other’s blogs?

Employee Learning Week Continues: Robin Reagler on the Art of Learning

Continuing with my series of posts in support of ASTD's Employee Learning Week, here's a guest post from regular reader/commenter Robin Reagler on a different kind of professional development experience she arranged for her last staff retreat.

Robin is Executive Director of Writers in the Schools (WITS) in Houston, where she and her staff engage children in the power of writing. You can check out the WITs Blog here to read some of the wonderful work produced by WITs participants. Also check out Robin's great personal blogs, The Other Mother and Big Window.
 

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(A version of this was originally published in the WITS newsletter, A New Leaf.)

Glass is magic. I hadn’t given it much thought until recently, but it’s true.

We had the annual WITS staff retreat last week. This year we threw Myers-Briggs and other assessment tools into the wind and decided to try our collective hands at something new to all of us—glass fusion.

Our friends at the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft arranged the workshop for us. Artist Gene Hester led our session.

Glass fusion is an art form in which you use heat to connect various types of glass. It differs from stained glass in that there is no leading to separate the individual panes.

Gene taught us six different techniques, and we created a new project using each one of them. My favorite part was melting glass threads over an open flame. The glass pieces resembled pixie sticks. Ten seconds in the fire, and the brittle stick was suddenly liquid. I loved the process of twisting and twirling and bending the molten glass. I really lost track of time and place while I was working.

There is nothing as amazing as the creative process, and I loved watching what my colleagues were making. You could see each of our temperaments in our art.  I think I learned something new about each of us.  The Office Manager worked exclusively in straight lines.  Her geometry was flawless.  The Program Coordinator combined colors as though he were a fashion designer.  One piece was more luminous than the next.  My projects centered on those twisted curlicues I got obsessed with.  I was a bit of a pyromaniac that morning.  It was fun.

We also made a group project together by combining remnants and leftovers from our individual work.  This was a great moment, and I wish I had left more time for it.

By the end of our session, we had made dozens of art objects. Then we carried them to the kiln to be fired. When we picked them up the next day, all the pieces looked different. I didn’t even recognize one of my own glass tiles. It’s the fire that makes the magic happen.

Everyone agreed that this was the best staff retreat we’d ever had.  What did we learn? 

• We learned more about one another—and that’s impressive, given that several of us have been working together 5-10 years. 
• We worked together on a team project that existed outside of our normal comfort zone.    Glass fusion equaled the playing field.  No one had experience or expertise.
• It was inspiring—to   create so many cool things in three hours and also to see how talented   each member of our team truly is. 

Prior to our craft workshop, we watched a Dale Chihuly interview, a segment of Inspirations, the Michael Apted documentary about how artists get their ideas. Chihuly is possibly the best known artist working in glass blowing at this time, and his work can be seen in art museums, botanical gardens, and in hotels such as the Bellagio in Las Vegas.

It was fabulous to watch the team of glass blowers creating these large rainbowesque glass globes in their studio. As they finished each piece and slid it into the kiln, they paused a moment to cheer!  Then they immediately began the next piece. In the interview, Chihuly says, “If I had to work alone, I don’t think I’d be an artist.”

Sounding a different note, there’s a scene near the end of the film in which Chihuly, alone, stands on a bridge over a quiet pond. He throws the glass spheres into the water, one by one, and watches them float away.  The globes gleam in the quiet light. Suddenly the whole world is art.

Photo via cool skatcat  

Imagining a Path: Employee Learning for Young Professionals

As part of my series supporting ASTD's Employee Learning Week, here's a guest post from Brynn Grumstrup Slate, Manager of Communications and Programs for the National Association of Women Business Owners, who shares some of her favorite learning activities.

Brynn tells me that her most valuable professional development experience has been her involvement with the American Society of Association Executives. She says, "Serving on this committee has been especially helpful in making real connections and deepening my knowledge." And when I asked her about what motivated her to continue with her professional development, she told me that she's a natural learner, but that also "I find that it pays off by helping me do my job better, show my ambition to my bosses and establish new relationships with colleagues and peers."

Brynn isn't currently blogging, but after reading this post, don't you think she should start? Be sure to leave a note in comments or you can email Brynn directly. You can also join her on Facebook in the Young Professionals Group. And thanks, Brynn, for heeding my call for guest bloggers this week!

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Soon after landing a job in association management a year and a half ago, I started taking advantage of my employer’s generous professional development policy. Even as an entry-level staff member, I’ve found it easy to learn more about the field and gain new skills that have helped me advance. Even if I end up steering my career in another direction, these opportunities are valuable because they help me better imagine possible future paths. 

Through professional development, I have built on abilities that improve my daily work, met other professionals who have the potential to be valuable connections, and progressed my understanding of my own talents, preferences, goals, and values. 

Some ways that I’ve developed professionally and personally include: 

Workshops and seminars. These learning opportunities guide me in finding out more about a particular concept or honing an emerging skill. I like in-person sessions for the stimulating discussion and information exchange. Online seminars are great because I don’t have to leave the office. 

Formal courses. Longer courses let me go more in depth on an issue or job area. Although they require homework, the extra effort pays off. I can demonstrate deeper knowledge to my bosses and feel more comfortable jumping in with new projects after completing a course. 

Networking sessions. When I take a few hours after work to meet other people in my industry I don’t see an immediate pay off, but I never know which person I talk to will be able to help me with a future problem or supply a valuable connection. 

Committees and volunteer opportunities. Volunteering to serve on the Young Professionals Committee of the American Society of Association Executives (ASAE) is a rewarding experience that I expect will bring long-term benefits. I spend a few hours each month participating in discussions during meetings and helping plan projects. In the process, I make lasting connections with other committee members and develop a deeper knowledge of the field and its unique issues. More than any other action, this commitment helps me feel the most in tune with both my current job and my future goals.

Cross-posted at Beyond the Glass Ceiling

Welcome to Employee Learning Week: Seeing Yourself as a Learner

All week I'm planning to do a series of posts (including some great guests posts) in support of ASTD's Employee Learning Week.

In today's post, I want to take a look at what I consider the backbone of professional development--seeing yourself as a learner.

Some Context--School Kills Learning
After 15+ years as a training professional, I've come to believe that school was the worst thing to ever happen to learning. It taught most of us to wait passively for someone to feed us pre-formatted, pre-filtered information that we could then regurgitate back in some pre-selected form. It made us believe that for learning to take place there must be a teacher, classroom, books, quizzes, papers and worksheets.  For many of us, it killed our curiosity and stripped us of our ability to learn on our own. It changed us from the learners we were at birth, into students who must rely on others.

This model of learning continues in many professional development settings because 1) many trainers were educated as teachers and 2) learners demand it--it's the only way they know how to "learn." I can tell you from personal experience that one of my greatest challenges as trainer has been when I try to move trainees out of that classroom comfort zone. It's what they expect and they don't like it if I violate those expectations.

But to be successful in a world where continuous learning is the norm, not the exception, we have to see ourselves as learners, not students. We have to feel the personal sense of empowerment that will guide us to say "I need to learn this and this is how I'm going to do that" without waiting for our bosses to tell us it's time to learn or for a class to be available for someone else to teach us. We have to take responsibility for our own learning. It's the only way to control our professional destinies.

How to Become a Learner
So how to go from student to learner?

• Start asking questions. As soon as we start talking, we start asking questions. If you've spent any time at all with a pre-schooler, you know what I'm talking about. Unfortunately, school seems to have been designed to teach us to STOP asking questions. We spend more time responding to teacher's questions, then we do formulating our own. But learning starts with a question--"why does this happen?" "why do things work this way?" Without questions, you will never get off the ground as a learner. So start asking "why" and "how".

• Get comfortable with making mistakes. Learning is about making mistakes. It's about trying something, finding out what does and doesn't work and then moving on. Kids don't worry about mistakes (until we teach them to)--they just forge ahead. But as adults, we believe that we must be perfect, especially in the professional arena. I think it's fear of mistakes that holds many of us back from being better learners.

• Start a blog. Just about every blogger I know has indicated that one of the greatest benefits of blogging has been a giant leap forward in their own personal learning. It doesn't have to be fancy. Something simple will do. But just do it. You can start with these resources on blogging and professional development.

• Engage in some personal learning experiments. Beth Kanter is my personal role model when it comes to learning as laboratory. She is always playing around with different tools and ideas and then writing about them on her blog. Sue Waters is another one who works this way. (See, you really need to start a blog).

• Reflect on what you do. Most people are great in taking action. But the problem is real learning only occurs when we also reflect on what took place. We have to take the time to think about what happened and what we want to take from that experience. It's one of the most valuable things I've learned about learning. Here are 5 tips to get you started on your own reflective practices. (Another reason to start a blog, by the way.)

• Connect to others. One of the many advantages of the read/write web for me is the exponential opportunities for learning through connections with others online. By reading and commenting on other blogs, joining email forums and listservs and social networking, I've connected to a world-wide community of people who are constantly learning and sharing. Entering into this connected world has turbo-charged my learning in ways I only dimly imagined a few years ago.

And here are a few other resources to explore:

• The Psychology and Skills of Personal Learning Environments--In this post, I explored some of the skills I see as being necessary for self-directed learning, building off of a presentation by Stephen Downes.

• 21 Steps to Becoming a Better Learner--An excellent series from lawyer/trainer Anastasia Pryanikova, who's gotten to Step 15 so far.

• 7 1/2 Habits of Highly Effective Learners--A self-paced tutorial from Lori Reed at the Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County.

• The Self-Directed Student Toolbox. With 100 online resources, you're sure to find a few things here to get you going.

Here's the reality--at least to me. We can talk all day about professional development, but until we see ourselves as active learners, none of it matters. We can't develop--professionally or personally--until we take responsibility for our learning and start to move things forward for ourselves.

Photo via Aaron Schmidt

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Let's Celebrate ASTD Employee Learning Week--Guest Posts and Other Thoughts

Regular readers know that I'm a bit of a fanatic about employee learning and development. I see it as something that individuals need to be doing for themselves. I also see nurturing employee learning as a critical competitive strategy for any organization.

That's why I'm excited that next week, December 3-7, the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD) is sponsoring Employee Learning Week. I plan to recognize and support that here at The Bamboo Project and if you're interested, I'd love your help.

Be A Guest Author
All week I want to feature posts that highlight employee learning. I have some of my own thoughts and resources, but I'd also like to hear from you. So if you're interested, I'd love to have some guest authors. You can write about what you do to support your own professional learning and development. Or you can write about something your organization does to support employee development. I'm open to just about any topic on the subject, as long as it's something that will show either individuals or their organizations how they can support and improve opportunities for ongoing learning. And I'm particularly interested in innovative ideas for learning.

If you want to participate, please send me an email telling me that you want to write a guest post and the topic you want to write on. Also let me know when you think you can write it--are you going to have it ready for Monday? Tuesday? Friday? Just let me know so I can plan accordingly. Then when you have the post done, send it on to me. I'll post it on the site with full credit to you, of course. If you have any related posts you want to share, throw those in too and I'll be sure to link back to them so you can get a little more bang for your buck.

What If I Don't Have My Own Blog?
If you aren't currently blogging--that's OK. You can still guest blog. Just email me your post and any contact info you'd like included and I'll take it from there. This might be a perfect opportunity for you to "practice blog"!

Can I Participate Without Guest Blogging?
Even if you don't want to guest blog, I think it would be great if we could get a community of bloggers talking about professional development on their own blogs. So many of us have found that blogging has added tremendously to our own personal learning. Let's use the medium to share ideas and practices in recognition of Employee Learning Week.

If you do decide to post on your own blog in support of Employee Learning Week, let me know. I'm happy to do a Round-Up Post at the end of the week that shares everyone's ideas.

Don't forget to email me if you want to guest post!