It reasons to stand that if an organization wants to truly build a connected and collaborative culture (moving from command and control to cultivate and coordinate as
Malone has taught us) the CIO and CLO need to become strategic partners.
I don't necessarily care where the
CLO reports into per se, but I do suggest these two individuals seek out a union not dissimilar to John and Yoko.
Why?
- Training is an event thinking lends itself to classic ID and a classroom/eLearning model only - CIO doesn't really care about this
- Learning is a connected, collaborative and thus continuous process is the merging of formal learning with informal/social learning with all social computing applications - CIO is definitely interested in the latter and the CLO is immersed in the former
- CLO wants to ensure people are smart ... CIO wants to ensure people are connected and able to do their jobs efficiently and effectively
- Employees don't care where content, SME's or knowledge resides in the organization - they just want to consume or contribute to it quickly and efficiently (and both the CLO and CIO are critical stakeholders in this type of scenario)
I would make the case that the CLO and CIO offices might actually merge one day. We'll still need a CIO, don't get me wrong, but the CLO might become the CCLO (Chief Collaboration and Learning Officer) and ensure the human element remains prevalent as these concepts merge. Perhaps the CCLO reports into the CIO.
Cross and Quinn call it a
Chief Meta Learning Officer, but I'm not 100% comfortable with that term, as I don't think anyone knows what it means. (their concepts - yes - 100% agree)
Regardless, the formal-informal-social learning paradigm quest begins with the CLO reaching out to the CIO and stating "let's be the new Band of Brothers".