Social Learning Starts with Online CoPs

By Brandon Williams, Consultant, The Educe Group

If you build it, will they really come? Drive the adoption of enterprise-wide social learning technology by creating thriving online communities of practice.

What Is a Community of Practice?

By definition, a community of practice (CoP) is a group of individuals with a common area of responsibility, or similar interests, who are bound together by a collective desire to grow by sharing ideas and best practices. A CoP is different from a project team, department, or discussion group within an company in that it’s created for the continuous pursuit of an evolving topic rather than a single, time-bound occurrence (i.e., members represent a range of expertise and change roles as specific needs arise). Furthermore, the CoP only will exist as long as each constituent part feels there’s something to be gained from continual interaction.

“Social Learning”

Think back to the first week on the job (if you’re currently self-employed, perhaps you can think to a prior position with a larger organizations). Would you say you got more out of your compliance training, onboarding presentation, and benefits review, or would you say interaction with coworkers was more useful? For many, there is a stark contrast between taking a training course and interacting with people around them who have been through similar experiences; by asking questions about coworkers’ shared experiences or the company’s systems and processes, new employees are able to more quickly assimilate into the company’s infrastructure and begin making useful contributions. Formal training will always have its place, but it simply can’t meet the needs of a lean workforce that requires faster feedback to operate as efficiently as possible.

Where Are We?

While learning professionals have discussed the power of informal learning for years, too few organizations have been able to translate this oft-occurring, widespread developmental phenomenon to an online training experience that can be shared and engaged by the entire enterprise. Furthermore, collaborative technology has become second nature to many, and subject matter experts (SMEs) from all walks of life are increasingly more available to others in similar roles and occupations. Harnessing the power of the discussions these individuals already are having will be a key consideration for all human capital management professionals.

Taking Communities of Practice Online

Two key characteristics of online CoPs set them apart from all other traditional methods of group collaboration. Unlike apprenticeships, brown bag lunches, or other informal methods of collaboration where information can be lost unless individuals take it upon themselves to spread knowledge, online exchanges allow you to capture, tag, and categorize information to easily search for later use. Secondly, this information can be accessed from anywhere around the world at any time.

Defining Success

Any group within an organization can interact with the rest of the organization by creating and sharing a document, establishing a workspace, posting on a discussion board, or writing and promoting a blog, but what are the qualities of successful online CoPs? Generally speaking, participants must find it valuable, regardless of the technology. Specifically, a successful online CoP will

1. Save time and reduce rework through extensive tagging and search capabilities.
2. Shorten the learning curve for new employees by organizing both human and purely digital resources in a single location.
3. Lessen dependence both on geography and standard work hours by allowing access to experts in any location at any time of day or night.

Driving Adoption

Here are a few points to consider when planning the implementation and rollout of your system (whatever it may be).

• Once you’ve come to understand your organizational readiness and capabilities, you can determine if you have existing structures to leverage in the pursuit of establishing your online CoP. If you must first work to generate buy-in, you may consider couching ideas in terms of existing infrastructure.
• Once you’ve chosen a vehicle or invested in a platform, identify whether or not you can leverage existing data. You’ll find it much easier to drive employees to your system initially by seeding it with a library of quick tips, documents, or other training resources that can’t be accessed in any other system.
• While you’re working through the steps, it’s best to use a phased approach. When new technology is implemented, less is more for your end users. Rolling out too many features simultaneously can be overwhelming.
• Nurture all users by contributing useful resources and encouraging feedback; individuals quickly will rise out of the general user population as content creators, which will only increase adoption as others find their way. Of course, you may need to monitor and moderate activity depending on the organizational culture. In some environments, users will step up as useful contributors, and the community will moderate itself. Other environments may require more purposeful cultivation by the learning organization (you’ll find many systems even allow users to flag content as outdated or inappropriate for moderators to address).
• Now that you’ve defined success, put a system in place, and encouraged end-user adoption, you’ll want to make sure to conduct periodic assessments. Use your system to find out what works, what doesn’t and where users are finding the greatest pains; this feedback loop is essential, as you’re empowering the end-user and each of their CoPs. Not only are they able to learn and grow together, but they’re also in control of the vehicle they use to learn and grow each day.

Brandon Williams is a consultant for The Educe Group, a consulting services firm that implements and manages the technologies that enable an organization’s people to learn, collaborate, achieve, and be rewarded in the workplace. Founded in 2003 and headquartered in Bethesda, MD, with consultants across the U.S., The Educe Group provides consulting services related to technology strategy, vendor selection, software implementation, managed solutions, and Web-based content development. For more information, visit http://www.educegroup.com.