In my last blog I discussed the increasing conflict between the long established listen and learn styles of presenting and the ever increasing use of mobile devices by participants during talks. In the first part of my blog I looked at how listeners can ensure these devices don’t disrupt their learning experience. This week we come to the bit everybody has been waiting for. How can presenters ensure they get the most engagement out of those people tapping away on iPhones, iPads and a range of other devices?

Here are my top tips!

• Don’t be put off: Everyone has their own way of learning – don’t take people’s engagement with these devices as a sign of not listening to what you’re saying.
• Recognise and embrace the existence of these tools: Even if you would rather that people didn’t tweet during your talk, the chances are that they will! Rather than seeing this as an inconvenience, use it to get an idea of how your content was received and how you could improve in the future. Providing an official #hashtag will allow you to keep track of what was said. Have you ever wished that there were more questions at the end of your talk? Why not use your #hashtag to respond to comments and queries?

• Make your information available: Many people take lots of notes and don’t participate in discussions during talks because they are afraid of missing things. If you can direct people to an area where they can download hard copies of slides and case studies you remove this concern, leaving them free to participate.
• Structure your talks with these devices in mind: Nobody has really been trained yet in how to deal with the inclusion of these devices in their talks, so innovate! If you feel there is a 5 or 10 minute period where you need 100% attention, try saying something like “For the next 10 minutes we need devices down”. However, you should use this sparingly and explain why it’s necessary. 

• Be as engaging as possible: I admit, I’ve fiddled with my iPhone in some talks not to collate information, but simply because I found the speaker boring! The art of being a good presenter could fill a whole new article, but I will share one great technique I was taught at Reuters; ask one question to the audience for every 3 bullet points on your slide. This stops their attention slipping and can take the presentation in interesting new directions. If you keep your listeners on their toes they are less likely to become immersed in Twitter and more likely to be engaged in what you want to talk about.

Interestingly the future might have presenters using features like Siri (a new set of voice activated functions on iPhone 4s) to give "shout outs" from the speaker. A certain word or phrase could trigger a response from the device instructing it to interact with other devices in the room without the presenter having to do anything other than carry on talking.  I would add as I have been working rather than queuing to get the new iPhone (as well as being stuck on a 2 year contract) this is pure speculation but I think it illustrates the point that that there is a lot of scope to further innovate in this area. QR codes also have great potential to encourage participation in talks via mobile devices. For example the polltogo tool uses QR codes to let presenters ask a question and poll their audience for answers, ratings and comments further enhancing engagement and giving valuable feedback.

If you have any tips or examples on clever ways to incorporate mobile devices and resources like Twitter into presentations I would be interested in hearing about them – please use the comment feature below this blog to share your thoughts so that we can also get input from the community at large. In the meantime, I’m off to play angry birds and check out the app store …

After weeks of sharing, discussing and deliberating, earlier this week we announced the winners of our ‘Shoot to Share’ experiment.

The quality of the videos was fantastic, and everyone has their favourite. The number of views alone shows just how valuable our video library is – despite its ‘social learning on a shoestring’ nature. But, as every L&D professional knows, true evaluation relies on more than just stats. We spoke to colleagues, customers, friends and associates to find out what they thought and which videos they found most useful or valuable.

So, without further ado, here are our top three video contributors with a little bit about why we loved what they had to say.

• In third place: Craig Taylor, Urenco

Despite Craig’s role as a learning technologist, his video is actually about combining on-screen activity with real-world tasks away from the computer. We asked Craig what his favourite e-learning interaction is and why. He earned his first brownie point by considering his answer from the perspective of a learner as well as a designer – putting yourself in the learner’s shoes is one of our ID mantras. Craig went on to explain that, for him, the best interactions are those that encourage learners to get up and do something to put the e-learning into context or into practice. Free-text responses need a bit of clever thinking in terms of constructive evaluation and feedback, but we’re big advocates of blended learning and so Craig’s preference for thinking beyond the confines of the computer when designing a self-paced e-learning course gets a thumbs-up from us!

• In second place: Jack Beaman, Fusion Universal

Fusion Universal certainly made a big impact at Learning Technologies, what with their bright pink stand and their exciting new social learning platform – so who better to provide a succinct summary of what’s important about social learning? Jack hits the nail on the head when he recommends transferring practices from our home lives into our work lives. If we need to find something out at home, we don’t book ourselves onto a course or seek out an expert; we turn to Google, YouTube, or whoever happens to be in the room at the time. This, for Jack, is exactly what social learning in the workplace is all about: capturing knowledge across the organisation, and sharing it as widely as possible. We wholeheartedly agree with Jack’s top three tips for doing this effectively: make it short, instantly accessible, and searchable. We couldn’t have said it better ourselves, Jack!

• In first place (drum roll please…): Matt Brewer, Chubb Insurance

Lots of people are able to talk about the things that are wrong with compliance e-learning but struggle to provide tips for how to do it right. Matt is not one of these people! Instead, he makes great use of his 88 seconds to tackle the question of what we can do to make compliance training more effective. What we love about Matt’s video is that he doesn’t just throw out the true-but-tired adjectives (‘practical’, ‘interesting’, ‘realistic’) – instead, he provides some concrete ideas that you can go away and try for yourself. We’re big fans of these top tips from Matt: identify the desired outcomes and select the content accordingly, rather than just chucking everything in; explain why as well as what – provide links to background information or real-life supporting evidence on the topic; and show the consequences of non-compliance, not just for the company, but for individuals. We urge you to keep Matt’s tips in mind when designing your next compliance course – he knows his stuff!

Matt is now the proud new owner of a Flip video camera (the same equipment we used to film all our contributors) – no doubt this fabulous prize will come in handy at family gatherings, but we hope Matt will also use it at work to start developing his own ‘shoot to share’ culture. Congrats Matt, and let us know how you get on!

So, there you have it. Thanks to everyone who contributed to our video library, and to everyone who shared and provided feedback on the clips. If you haven’t yet seen these videos, they and the rest of the library can still be watched on our YouTube channel. Whether you’re looking for tips on making the most of social media, want to find out exactly what a QR code is, or need some ideas for evaluating your e-learning, there’s a video for you!

So we shot and we shared. At Learning Technologies 2011, we ran an experiment in social learning by inviting people to be filmed answering one of six questions about our industry, such as how were they using social media in learning and what did they think was the best use of mobile technology. We shared these short videos by uploading them, after some simple editing, to our YouTube channel.

The lure was the promise of a Flip Minio camera, the type we used in shooting, and the prize will go to the most valued contribution. So please visit our channel and pass on the links of your favourite videos to colleagues and friends. Vote with your mouse! I’ll wait here until you get back.

What was the outcome of our experiment? We were delighted to upload a valuable collection of ideas and suggestions that forms a resource for everyone. What we wanted to show was that producing such a resource can be achieved at very low cost. And from that point of view, this experiment was an unqualified success.

This in part gives us an answer to the question: how do we get started with social learning? Our answer: just get started! The technology we used is cheap to acquire and easy to use. As with the knowledge management projects of the past, we aspire to capture the know-how of individuals and teams that would not otherwise be shared throughout the organisation. We argue that there is a sense in which everyone is an expert in something useful: even a new starter has experience of the recruitment and on-boarding process and can share that information with others.

Unlike those old knowledge management projects, you’re not looking to fill shelves of ring binders before you can release something useful to your colleagues. It’s easy to start off with a small collection and let it grow over time. One caveat: be sure to make it searchable (or findable, as we like to say) and plan and implement your tagging carefully.

Video also interests us at Saffron because you can go a long way if you don’t allow yourself to be intimidated by questions of production values. How far can you take this? If you’re a fan of TED, you may have seen Salman Khan talking about the video library he created to educate his younger cousins that has grown into the Khan Academy, whose resources are now being used by schools in California. One teacher has remarked that they now set the video ‘lectures’ as homework and work through the exercises (which they used to set as homework) in class, turning the experience of education upside down.

For all that Khan’s presentation gets a ringing endorsement from Bill Gates at the end, I don’t want to get carried away by this. As another teacher has remarked, they never ‘lectured’ in the classroom to a passive audience, anyway, but instead conducted a conversational session with their students. But there’s surely a point to be made in Khan’s favour about the power of technology (and cheap and easy video technology in particular) to transform the way we think about and practise learning.

So, let me encourage you to shoot and share for yourselves. If you’re looking to get started with social learning, here’s how: aim to grow a library of videos of your colleagues, sharing know-how with their peers.

PS If you’re not a follower of TED, I’d really recommend checking it out: a steady and varied stream of interesting and entertaining presentations and performances, from Naomi Klein talking about our society’s addiction to risk to Jake Shimabukuro playing Bohemian Rhapsody on a Hawaiian ukulele.

Being one of the newest members of the team here at Saffron Interactive, I’ve had to get to grips with the concept of e-learning. In the last few months I’ve come to understand what the company is about and the passion behind it. But it wasn’t until the other day that I understood just how much e-learning has to offer and how it is part of our everyday lives.

For me, this realisation came when I tried to delete our Saffron group page on Facebook (it isn’t as straight forward as you’d think!). Being a social network, there was no customer services desk I could speak with and no number I could call – so it was straight to workflow learning and I returned to my trusty advisor, YouTube.

If you’ve never been on YouTube before, you’d be amazed at the amount of things that you can find on there. It holds the answers to a huge range of things; things you didn’t even realise could have a ‘how to’. Once I’d found YouTube on Google, within seconds I had a piece of media talking me through the stages, step by step, of ‘how to delete a groups page on Facebook’ until finally I had done it. Now that’s ‘just in time’ learning!

I don’t know how many of you are like me, but I know I can’t stand it when I can’t find the answer to something (especially when I’m under pressure). It’s encouraging to know that, when the going gets tough, there’s a whole host of knowledge resting at your fingertips, just one click away.

We at Saffron believe in what I like to call a social learning point of view, an informal way of learning. It’s the type of learning that gives you a sense of achievement and allows you to know that you made it happen. Anything that makes you feel this way is bound to stick and to me there’s no better way of learning than that.

Last week I gave a seminar with my colleague Jennifer at Learning Technologies 2010 on the subject of social learning. We were pleasantly surprised to see a large audience spilling over into the aisles and (bar a few microphone issues) our presentation seemed to go down well. The theme of Saffron’s stand at the event was also social learning and, despite the lack of smoothies this year, attracted a lot of attention. All in all, over the two days I spent a lot of time thinking and talking about the topic.

So, social learning: is it just the latest buzzword or is it something that’s worth taking seriously?

A few months ago I was pretty firmly in the ‘all talk, no action’ camp. And I still think that a lot has been said and not nearly so much done. But when I found out that social learning was our theme for 2010 I thought I’d better give it a bit more of a chance! Jennifer and I challenged ourselves with turning a few ‘traditional’ learning blends into social learning strategies. We picked a variety of recipes from the Blended Learning Cookbook (call centre training, language learning and compliance training), put our heads together for an hour over a coffee and surprised ourselves with what we came up with. You can see the results of our brainstorming here.

What I’ve learnt while preparing for the seminar and speaking to visitors to the Saffron exhibition stand is that most people are already persuaded of the benefits of social learning and are now looking for practical tips for implementing it as part of their L&D strategy. My top three recommendations are:

• Start small. Our Cookbook examples are designed to show what a well developed social learning strategy might look like, but don’t try to run before you can walk. And don’t think you have to make big investments to see a return – start by using what’s out there (follow Saffron’s lead by setting up a Facebook page, Twitter account or YouTube channel, for example) and maximising any wikis and forums you’ve already got.
• Shout about it. Many a well designed forum has ended up languishing in a dusty corner of the company intranet because nobody actually knew about it. Let people know what you’re doing, why they should use it and how they should use it. And then keep telling them – find innovative ways to point them towards it (viral emails might be one way) and nurture it until it becomes so embedded in business as usual that it sustains itself.
• Remember the blend. It’s probably unrealistic to ‘go social’ for all your training solutions and it won’t always be appropriate. But social learning can really add value if it’s used in the right way as part of the right blend.

Over the past few months, then, I’ve been convinced of the potential of social media to add value to workplace learning – but what do the rest of you think? Would our new social learning recipes do the job? Have you already started adding social media to your training blend? Is social learning just a fad, or is it here to stay?

We’ve all heard stories of or witnessed the powers of social media, so why not create your own success stories by embracing these technologies and embedding them in your learning strategy? Often, the problem is how to get buy in from the business. So here are Saffron’s top five tips for taking the first steps towards winning support in your organisation:

1. Build a solid, measurable plan

Ask yourself what your learning and development goals and objectives are for engaging in social media. This will give you ammunition for building the case in the first place.

2. Do your research and put it to the test

There are so many social media apps out there so decide what features you’re looking to utilise and seek ‘business friendly’ alternatives to these. Then, once you’ve found out all you need to know, why not try it yourself? Write a blog, post on a wiki… start with the simple things.

3. Choose your words carefully

There are still reservations surrounding social media, so try to stick to more familiar terms. For instance, instead of ‘social networking’, consider replacing it with ‘online forum’. Also, present social media in the context of building capabilities, collaborating and exchanging knowledge within your organisation - this will be far more persuasive!

4. Blitz the stigma

Social media apps are worthy tools for enhancing learning – it’s not all fun, fun, fun. Yes, people use them for dating and socialising but they can also be applied for embedding and retaining learning more effectively, consequently shifting the learning culture in your organisation.

5. Educate the decision makers

Show them how social networks can be used in business and learning, and iron out any myths and misconceptions. Explain your plans to create a community of practice and develop members’ capabilities through sharing knowledge.

Download:

How to gain buy in for learning with social media