Social learning is not just about talking

Meet Rebecca.

In a speech bubble  A while ago we started a community of practice on capability development, but energy and participation rates are dropping.

Robin (or just someone else): Images a comic stripWhat does the CoP do?

Rebecca: Images a comic strip We have monthly lunch and learn sessions where one of the members gives a talk

I'm often asked what’s the best way to sustain interest in a community of practice (CoP). Often you’ll find that the focus of a CoP is merely on sharing. This is a one-dimensional approach that doesn't engage participants in the long term.

One of my takeaways from the 2016 Melbourne Learning Cafe Unconference was that the way we use social learning at work is different to the way we use social media in our personal life. When we think about social media and social learning at work we often focus on sharing because this is what works in our personal life. For me the major difference with social learning at work is that it needs to be focused on building, making and creating. These approaches are more tangible than just sharing. Wenger gives a good example of a CoP activities, “where windshield wiper engineers at an auto manufacturer make a concerted effort to collect and document the tricks and lessons they learn into a knowledge base.”The activities he describes are focused on building a knowledge base that is often called a ‘book of knowledge’.

People don't always feel like they have the time for ‘talking’. If the focus of social learning is on building, making and creating something such as a knowledge base, guide or framework, the value proposition for social learning is stronger. This is not to say that approaches such as working out loud are not powerful knowledge sharing and creation techniques. A social learning experience might start off with sharing activities and then move into these more mature approaches over time.   

Some examples of what a community could build  

• Tools. These could be planning tools, templates or new processes.

• Guides. These are generally simple ‘how to’ documents.  

• Book of knowledge. A book of knowledge is a collection of a group’s wisdom. It might include tips and tricks, processes and know-how. Building these is often a great way to document and share expertise.  

• Playbooks. Playbooks are common in sales, but the term is becoming used more widely. They define the processes and the actions that need to be taken at each stage of a process, and become the central repository for documents and templates.

The enabling technologies for this type of collaborative work are wikis and other collaborative document authoring tools, including SharePoint/Office 365. Yammer has a collaborative page editor too. Some LMSs, such as Totara, have wikis and a flexible feature that allows for the co-creation of databases. We’re working on adding a wiki feature to Glasshouse too.