I find myself in the center of an intellectual tempest. The traditional ‘learning’ folks are trying to sort out how to revolutionize the industry by augmenting their formal learning strategies to incorporate social media, social learning, social networking and the like. It’s a good thing to witness, but slow as molasses in some circles. The Human Resources and Organizational Development folks are mulling over their competencies, values, leadership development programs, amongst other elements trying to embed flatter, more connected ways of working. Also good to see, but at times I see these folks in other companies plodding along without involvement of the Learning side of the house, or the technology outfits. The technology groups (be it IT, Systems Analysts, ERP groups, etc.) are busy trying
learnerprise Archive
According to ‘us’ (that is, the collective intelligence of the planet via Wikipedia), we define Tabula Rasa as: Tabula rasa (Latin: blank slate) is the epistemological thesis that individuals are born without built-in mental content and that their knowledge comes from experience and perception. Let’s take that argument and apply it to the organization. When we typically arrive onsite to start our new job, we’re devoid of specific organizational knowledge. (granted, we’re hired with some sort of specific acumen, bear with me on the argument) Some of that organizational knowledge can be described in several ways, including but not limited to: Policies / Processes / Practices Org History / Current Vibe Cultural Stories / Urban Myths Past Wins / Losses Players / Networks Do’s /
Learnerprise is the combination of Enterprise 2.0 and Learning 2.0 concepts. The use of emergent social software platforms as well as formal and informal competence exchange processes, between companies, partners and employees, to improve both productivity and business results. We’re all in charge of our careers, whether we’re employed by an organization, or employed by ourselves, so I occasionally visit bookmarked employment sites to review potential roles. Some of those searches involve Chief Learning Officer titles and at this point in time, I still believe some change is needed to augment the new intent of the 2010 CLO. To me, the CLO needs to be renamed. No longer should the term learning be the only adjective used to describe this new 2.0 function; it needs to be representative
In the title of this post, I’m paying homage to Dr. Don Morgenson, professor emeritus of psychology at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. Recently, Dr. Morgenson wrote an opinion piece in The Globe and Mail entitled “Open Spaces, Open Minds”. In it, he cringes at the uprising of physical fences in our neighbourhoods and as a general consequence, the closing off of our minds, our ideas, our innovation, our future. NIMBY now takes physical form, with most backyards today inaccessible. Clearly, some of this territoriality results from fear – of thieves, burglars and more, but the symbolic aspects of these changes may indicate not merely closing off properties but as (John) Updike suggests, a closing of minds. I could not help but think
- 1
- 2