Faster than a speeding blog post.
More powerful than a retweeted tweet
Able to leap small Internet Service Providers in a single bound.

Look! Anywhere in Cyberspace!
It’s a message. It’s a meeting. It’s VMman!

Yes, it’s VMman – Virtual Manager – strange visitor from another generation who came to Earth with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal f2f managers. VMman – who can change the course of mighty projects, bend program budgets with his virtual hands, and who, disguised as a mild mannered manager for a great multinational corporation, fights the never ending battle for better collaboration, communication and education to enable the American Way.

I recently finished a project that the client called “Mission Critical”. The program taught ‘analog’ managers how to be great virtual managers.

It was important because today all managers are managing virtual teams regardless of the location of the chair upon which they sit. Some do it far more effectively than others.

The older ‘analog’ managers were unwillingly thrust into the role of virtual manager. They were definitely virtual immigrants when it came to using the virtual tools at hand. For example, I heard things like “Hi! I’m calling to make sure you received my email message”.

And if you think there’s nothing wrong with that then you are an analog manager.

The ones known as the Digital Natives, the Gen X, Y and Z folks,  took to being Virtual Managers like ducks to digital water. They were the ones knew their message got to you. Since many of the Senior Managers are analog, it was incumbent upon them to learn how to be all digital all the time. That was the program we created.

I think we got closer than anyone else. I heard of one analog manager who got it and was sending pictures and emails of her trip to a factory that was being built in another country. One analog manager started a Project Blog. I even received a txt from a very senior manager that was all upper case since he was “…HAVING TOO HARD A TIME READING THE SMALL PRINT.”

I guess even in cyberspace size matters.

… then you need to watch this every day until you have memorized the content. Forget Learning 3.0, I am always amazed at how many people are in the business of transferring knowledge to adults who do not even know the basics, the very foundation, upon which they should be standing.

Let alone being able to spell Andragogy … So please watch and learn. Maybe then you’ll be better able to help other adults learn …

You’re in a conference room filled with your team…

Suddenly they start to disappear, one by one until they are all gone … gone to the four corners of the world … in different places and time zones … they’ve been zapped by the Virtual Vortex and it’s now you’re job to manage them …

Where do you begin? … How do you communicate and keep in touch, educate and collaborate when there’s no one there?  … how can you make a team out of people who are spread out all over the place? …

You need to learn to use the Power of the Virtual Management …it’s far greater than you ever imagined, and perhaps even better than being there, like the good old days when everyone on your team was there … only there’s no ‘there’ anymore … it’s now everywhere.

(Please HELP! I’ve been looking for a GREAT representative image that captures Learning 3.0 and becomes iconic for the next wave of learning experiences … I’m hoping that you can help me find one. Thanks)

I usually ignore the labels…

Lately I’m beginning to see that they serve  a purpose. They delineate the evolutionary stages of our profession. They also coincide with the evolution of technology that to date has brought us to Social Media and Social Networking.

Let me take a crack at defining the ones I’ve heard so far.

Learning 1.0: The emphasis was on the blending of the Industrial Economy learning methods (Kirkpatrick, Gagne et al.) that were essentially non-scientific observations with  the newly emerging computer tools such as elearning on disc. We were still the Gatekeepers of Knowledge (or at least we thought we were). Programs were developed from theories and intuition and “training” was basically a craft. Students were students, the classroom was the default environment, and you were a meaning taker (sponge) as Ruth Clark so aptly called it.

We were beginning to be enamored with technology for learning and attended conference called “TechLearn”. We could finally put the teacher in the box.

Learning 2.0: The emphasis was on the tools and technology that had rapidly evolved and could now deliver learning programs to more people anytime and anywhere. We still acted like the Gatekeepers, and we learned a lot about the new (and newer) technology and tools (Authorware software programs, LMS, Virtual Instruction, et al.) to put the teacher (us) in the box. We delivered training on CD’s, over slow computers, creatively and artfully blended technology and people.  We were still in the bookish mindset, creating what were referred to as “page turners” on screen.

Programs were still based on a best guess, supported by assessments, pre-existing theories and/or committee agreements about what the people needed to learn. Period.

Learning 3.0: The latest evolution that places the emphasis back on people and takes us out of the role of Gatekeeper. Blame it on the newest technology that puts the learner in the driver’s seat. Now ‘the people’ decided what they need to learn and, guess what, if we cannot come up with it then they will go wherever they need to learn what they want to know and know how to do. If we stay in the Learning 1.0 or 2.0 mode we’re toast, we have become irrelevant.

Our job is to take the role of Enabler, Mentor, Tutor etc. We can no longer manage knowledge. All we can hope to do is manage the environment in which knowledge can be “…created, discovered, captured, shared, distilled, validated, transferred, adopted, adapted and applied.” [Chris Collison and Geoff Parcell, “Learning to Fly” January 2005, Capstone]. Scientific research into how the brain works and how we really learn, has replaced sociological and psychological observation that generated the theories about learning.

Learning 3.0 is another BIG change. And it comes too soon, way too soon for many in our industry. They have made a name for themselves during the previous phases. Can they change and evolve?

Meaning takers now become meaning makers. Collaboration is the essential key to learning. Learning and Social Media and Social Networking are all mashing up. Having a group working together to learn with and from one another is the quest. And it is a quest.

We need to drop all the stuff we learned during the previous phases. We need to adopt new roles as Mentors and Guide and even Entertainers and Storytellers.

All the stuff about informal and blended and everything else that’s “teacher-centric” or “content-centric” needs to be abandoned. It all needs to be focused as “Learner-centric”. And that means Wiki, Web Portals, Connecting people in the class … and anything else that does the following:

• Builds that learning experience upon the solid foundation of science and the most current scientific research about the ways the brain learns, remembers, forgets, adopts and adapts. We need to learn to enable rather than disable the learning process with which we are all endowed from birth
• Creates and delivers a compelling way of transferring the knowledge, transforming it into a learning experience
• Be emotional, entertaining, full of stories, anecdotes, and anything else that touches the hearts and minds of the people experiencing the program. Put an end to death by PowerPoint
• Takes full advantage of all the technology tools&toys we have now and will have in the future and uses them really well. This means well trained Virtual Instructors / Mentors / Guides who really know what their about.
• Connects the people before, during and after that learning experience so they can learn from one another and continue to learn from one another

Okay, so you heard it here first. What do you think about Learning 3.0?

By: Dan Heath & Chip Heath

How one team transformed a training binder into must-see TV.

WORLD’S SLEAZIEST BOSS BearingPoint’s ethics videos deftly mimic The Office’s mockumentary style, even starring a Michael Scott-esque leader.

Russ Berland’s first assignment at BearingPoint was a doozy. He was asked to redesign the company’s ethics-and-compliance training program. If simply reading the phrase “compliance training” sapped a little of your will to live, perhaps you can empathize with Berland.

Most companies — including yours, probably — have an ethics program, and often the “program” looks uncannily like a three-ring binder. It may be sitting on your bookshelf right now, between What Color Is Your Parachute? and the 2003 Metro Area phone book. It’s filled with mimeographed, knuckle-rapping prose, just like the code of conduct Berland inherited, which, he said, appeared to have been repurposed from a law firm.

Yet compliance training was critical at BearingPoint, a management and technology consulting firm, because the company’s employees often spent more time on client sites than at home. So Berland, the chief compliance officer, had to influence the behavior of employees who were scattered across the country, operating in organizational cultures very different from BearingPoint’s. (BearingPoint filed for bankruptcy earlier this year, due to an excessive debt burden unrelated to an ethics issue.)

Berland and his colleagues began to interview some of the company’s associates, asking them about real-world “gray areas”: What situations make you feel squishy? What have you seen happen in the field that gave you pause? Soon, they’d uncovered stories of ethical quandaries and anxious situations and strained relationships. It was exactly the sort of drama that was absent from the three-ring binder.

Then came their epiphany: Let’s bring this drama to life. They hatched the idea to film a fictional series, modeled on The Office, that would highlight the activities of a single IT consulting engagement team. The team would work for a fictional company called Aggrieva, which was designed to be the evil doppelgänger of BearingPoint. (Motto: “Aggrieva says yes when everyone else says no.”)

Berland hired filmmaker Marc Havener to direct the series, and they shot an entire season of 10 short episodes in a weekend. The episodes deal with touchy areas such as bosses hitting on subordinates, teams misrepresenting their expertise, and managers trying to pass along inappropriate expenses to the client. In other words, comedy gold.

Here’s a scene where Kevin, the lovably oily boss, has proposed throwing a grandiose surprise party for Ricardo, a client, as a way to curry favor. Vanessa, a levelheaded analyst on Kevin’s team, objects:

VANESSA: Sir, how are we going to pay for this?

KEVIN: We’ll just work it into the bill somewhere.

VANESSA: We can’t bill a client for a birthday party.

KEVIN: [Exasperated] Okay, you know what? Fine. I tried. You know what, Vanessa? I want you to look Ricardo in the face and tell him that we don’t care enough to throw a party for him.

VANESSA: Wasn’t this party supposed to be a surprise? Why do I have to tell Ricardo that the party is off if he never even knew about it in the first place?

KEVIN: Well, now it’s “Surprise! There’s no party!” Tell him that.

The episodes were an immediate sensation. The emails poured in: “This is the best training I’ve ever had.” “I think that episode was based on my team.” “I’m cackling like a madman,” and so forth. Soon, the characters and situations became part of the company’s vocabulary. Many employees admitted to Berland that they had “worked for a Kevin.”

New episodes debuted each Monday, but employees were so ravenous for the next episode that they started tracking them down on the company’s staging server where the videos were posted on the preceding Friday. Thousands of employees watched the videos before they were released.

Note: When your company’s employees are madly searching for your compliance videos, you’ve done something right.