Last week I had the pleasure of presenting a somewhat loose and rapid-fire version of our workshop on developing a social learning strategy as part of 2010 edition of the Irish Learning Showcase.  The Showcase is a recurring mini-conference and networking opportunity co-sponsored by the Irish Learning Alliance (a consortium of Ireland-based learning industry providers) and Enterprise Ireland.  These groups invite a mix of practitioner organizations (corporate, government, and education) who are either already current clients of Irish learning companies or who are key prospects.  The event is a chance for relationship building between these companies and the Irish providers, as well as both a source of personal network building and professional development for all participants.

Last week’s event was a great success.  The line-up was impressive.  Jay Cross (Internet Time Group), Jane Hart (c4lpt), Sally Ann Moore, Don Taylor (Learning Technologies UK), Charles Jennings, Larry Israelite (Liberty Mutual), and Dave DeFilippo (BNY Mellon Asset Management) were all on hand to present.  The discussions were lively and thought provoking, the company was engaging, and (its Ireland after all) the evenings were as stimulating as the days – everything you would want out of such a gathering.  And, of course, our Irish hosts were warm and generous in their hospitality.

In honor of the event, I want to focus this edition of Friday Reflects on a discussion that started on the first day of the event with regards to the corporate adoption of social media for learning.

Here is the scene:  The presenter at the time was the head of a consultancy that assists companies in the Benelux with social media policy definition, process improvement and marketing. His topic was the adoption of social media for learning in Belgian corporations.  He shared research data collected from training managers at approximately thirty companies.

Essentially his findings were that none of the companies used social media for learning; many did not allow its use at all.  When pressed, he said he was not aware of a single success case for using social media at any Belgian company, part of this study or not.  He concluded it was the Belgian culture.  These companies were conservative and unlikely to be early adopters.

Ok, these days it struck me as a tad unusual that NONE of these companies were doing anything in this area, but I was at least willing to consider the possibility.  However, something seemed wrong though about how the data was being presented.   Digging deeper, it turns out the study only asked training managers if they were using consumer social media tools for learning.

Now, first, to any of you out there who either work at a Belgian company or know someone that does, if you could comment here with a corporate social media success story, I would greatly appreciate it.  I suspect there are quite a few.

That said, what I really want to take umbrage with in this case is the whole perspective of the research question.

My issue is – when the topic is use of social media for corporate learning – why do we care at all if corporations are allowing or enabling their employees to use consumer social media?  It is irrelevant.  Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Digg, Wikipedia – all are terrific examples of their respective social media types; all are extraordinarily powerful and useful tools; but they are apples compared to enterprise social software oranges.  Organizations have a wealth of enterprise focused and appropriate tools to choose from, thank you very much.  Companies are not likely to use Facebook, they ARE using Newsgator or Saba or Sharepoint or one of many others.  They likely won’t use Twitter internally; they ARE using Yammer.  You get the idea.

There is a great deal of fear out there right now preventing the corporate adoption of enterprise social software.  Some of the reasons for that fear are real.  To be honest, I would not hold it against a company for choosing to restrict the use of Facebook or YouTube within the corporate setting.  There are examples of employees posting comments to Facebook or videos to YouTube that have caused at least some amount of heartburn for their companies. 

But most of what companies say they fear is really just confusion.  The first and best thing we as an industry can do to help our companies navigate these fears is to differentiate enterprise social software from consumer social media.  Consumer social media may get all of the press; and it may be driving innovation in these technologies.  And it may be how employees of all ages and at all levels in the organization are becoming acquainted with the possibilities.  But, consumer social media is not where the magic of Enterprise 2.0 is happening.

Don’t get me wrong.  There are definite challenges to using enterprise social software for corporate learning.  Legal risks from discoverable data (risks that already existed before social media, mind you) must be mitigated.  New disciplines and skills sets must be added to your team.  New technologies to implement and to master might be necessary.  You will almost certainly need to strengthen your organizational learning culture in order to maximize collaboration and knowledge sharing.  These are all real mountains to climb, but they are climbable.  There already hundreds if not thousands of success cases out there to prove it.  Many are in our library.

Would it be nice if these corporations trusted their employees to use consumer social media wisely?  Yes, I think so.  Companies should trust their employees, and manage to exceptions.  As Jay Cross put it last week: “If they are doing their job – or, even better, if they are able to do their job better, and they spend time in Facebook, so be it.”  But when it comes to the consumer tools, that’s all “nice-to-have.”  Bringing the power of enterprise social software in support of business collaboration and social learning is quickly becoming a fundamental requirement for success in today’s global economy.  There is a difference.

BTW – here is a cool piece of marketing from the folks at Saba that demonstrates the full value of enterprise social software. 

Comments below…

Happy Friday.

David