Fifty-one of you have answered our Climate Scan. (Most people answer the 21 questions in three minutes or less.) We’ll keep it open for another week, so if you intend to participate, this would be a good time to do so.
Preliminary results suggest most survey participants could benefit substantially from free-range learning techniques.
For the four topics below, the blue type is the question from the Climate Scan. The graph shows the responses. My interpretation is in red.
Letting people know what their collegues know and how to reach them is Knowledge Management 101.
I’m amazed that four out of five companies aren’t employing internet technologies in-house. Pssst: People already know how to use a browser, search, etc.
Most participants do not reflect on their major successes and mistakes. The only thing worse than learning from experience is not learning from experience.
Three-quarters of the group doesn’t think they’re learning fast enough to keep up.
5 comments ↓
Mr. Cross - Sunday - 1/8/06
Fifty-one responses seems pretty lame for learning concepts as important as yours!
Have CLO magazine subscribers been asked to respond? How about an invite to HR-types at eLists such as:
Actlist -Australia, action-research related (eMail, I don’t have their URL)
CTI, URL
HR.com, Canadian site, URL
Human Performance, URL
Knowledge Work / K. Mgmnt, URL
Training Partners, primarily small business, low activity, URL
trdev, URL
… and I’m sure there are many other HR-related list servs.
Also, make a pitch to (a New York Times Co.) to promote your survey.
Point is, if “informal / free-range” learning are as important as they obviously are (as a “learning tsunami”) a LOT more people should be thinking about the action points raised in your assessment (even though the instrument suffers from a lack of true Likert-scale attributes that would make the data MUCH stronger and more capable of statistical presentation and analysis).
Trust this will help – and let me know when you’re ready to do the next survey so we can discuss Likert-scale design and improved analytical capabilities.
Best - Dick Webster
Richard S. Webster, Ph.D., CEG, PIM —Principal, Abintra Performance Learning LLC
Worthington OH tel 614-433-7144 eMail
* Ideas ARE the start of it all–for learning, creativity, innovation, constructive change and continual improvement.
** “Heads up” – “Change is not required, survival is not mandatory” – Dr. W. Edwards Deming, quality guru, 1900-1993.
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-30-
Dick,
I agree that fifty responses is a paltry sample. However, in this case it works fine, for this wasn’t meant to be a comprehensivel survey.
This was just a warm-up to refine the questions. My next steps will be to revise the questions and broaden the sample. I’m interested in cross-cultural comparisons and individual organizations. I want to be in a position to compare a deep sample of one organization to a profile of its peers.
The four areas in the post seemed so clear-cut as to serve as catalysts for people to think about how their own organizations stack up.
Thanks for writing.
jay
Hi Jay!
Regardless of sample size (this isn’t science, is it?), the results are interesting because you’d expect respondants from an Informal Learning blog to be ahead of the curve. Well, maybe they are, but their organizations generally aren’t. This shouldn’t come as a surprise. The path of the change agent can be lonely. ;-)
Regards, - Stan
I have my own consultancy, but looked at the questions in terms of some of my clients and also my last corporate job.
Am I too skeptical with regard to the in-house directory? Where does someone’s ‘area of expertise’ come from: self-identification? If so, how (other than the traditional internal grapevine) do I distinguish people who claim capabilities they don’t actually possess — at least not beyond the legend-in-my-own-mind stage? The larger the organization (say, over 250 people) the more critical that becomes.
The second statement is, “we use blogs, wikis, and/or project-blogs…” but your interpration of the results is, “People already know how to use a browser, search, etc.” I realize you’re an advocate, but the question does not cover internet technologies like, well, using browsers, or search, or even internal instant messaging. Again, most of my experience is with large organizations, where you’d be better off calling something a “project log” pr “project diary” rather than a blog or a wiki.
Just as a side note, why doesn’t the comment feature include ‘internet technology’ like “let me preview my comment before I post?”
[You could argue that's not really 'internet technology,' just a feature -- and that's fine, because the focus should be on what gets done, not on what enables it.]
Dave
Dave, to your first question, yes, you’re too skeptical. Large organizations (e.g. IBM, Accenture) have set up online expertise location systems. There’s not much reward for making false claims: you’d look like a doofus when someone calls to tap into your non-existent expertise. Besides, even such general information as past assignments is a lot more userful than having nothing at all.
As to my statement that “People already know how to use a browser,” yes that’s over the top. I stand corrected. Some people don’t even know how to cut on a computer, much less deal with the internet. However, I dare say that a lot more folks know how to use a browser than a CRM screen or a knowledge management database.
Regarding an ability to preview of comments here, I think it would be a useful featutre. {I’m still a novice with WordPress.) This may be related to the fact that I moderate comments, to avoid blog spammers.
Thanks for writing.
jay
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