Last week I had an opportunity to work with Michelle Ockers who had travelled down from Sydney for work. We caught up at the co-working space at the NAB Village to go through some final editing to four of the modules of the Work, Connect and Learn Program.
Michelle and I pondering over module activities.
The Work, Connect and Learn Program is a social learning guided program that enables participants to build a community of practice and broaden their internal networks through knowledge sharing, social networking behaviours and working out loud all using the enterprise tools and platforms within CCA. The intent is to enable people to be comfortable with using the tools – and their mobile and cloud options on devices to enable them to see applications through experimentation, practice and trial within their own work.
At work, we come across problems, we sit and reflect about them, we ask others for assistance, support or help. We find ways to solve them. In this program, I wanted the same process translated but rather than teach them “SharePoint 2013 101” or “How to SharePoint Document Libraries”, I had to create the program around various functions so that participants would need to use, try and experiment with the various functionality but for the purposes of solving a problem, broadening their network and learning with their peers in a safe online environment. I also figured that as engineers and maintenance people, they would like to tinker and give things a go to try out some things so I was expecting to learn a thing or two more too! (Bonus, if I’m learning too, it helps me).
What struck me most about my relationship with Michelle through this project is that we met online, through Twitter. I met her briefly in person for 30 minutes or so, at a National Australian Institute of Training Development (AITD) Conference and again through the analysis phase of the Work, Connect and Learn Program. The rest of the time, it’s been through various social media, Lync, SMS or email but it made me realise that the face-to-face meetings only amplified our working relationship – enabled us to immediately get to the heart of what needed to be done, summarise next steps and then spend time socialising.
Throughout my work with CCA, I’ve been on a learning journey too. I even mentioned to Michelle that she didn’t realise just “what fun I was having creating these blended learning modules, integrating the tools into the development of the program and anticipating the start of the program in February”. It feels like we’ve both been on a journey of discovery learning how we can use CCA tools, platforms and devices to help a maintenance and engineering community to use them to solve problems and issues with each other for their own organisation. I still feel we have just “scratched the surface” when it comes to these social tools but we’re making a start to show others on how to use them for their own work contexts.
I like to think that it’s like driving a car. You teach the mechanics and the road rules, you guide them while on the road, they practice in their own time and there’s an assessment (yes, we will have a module based around them teaching us how they’ve used social and mobile tools to solve a CCA team problem). Then, when you’re satisfied, you hand them over the keys for them to create their own routes, adventures and road maps – where, “employees see companies as vehicles to achieve their personal goals and dreams”. Some of them may choose to drive that car every day, others would choose to go adventure driving on dusty dirt tracks to see how the car would handle it while others would prefer to drive the car on Sundays- the only difference is that they all know how to drive a car and why then need it.
If you would like to know more about how a Work, Connect and Learn Program may be customised and personalised for your organisation, please contact me.
Thanks for posting about the Work, Connect and Learn program Helen. Only 3 weeks until we start delivering the webinars. Like you, I’ve enjoyed the flow of our working relationship. I tend to reach for whatever communication method seems most effective at the time and have appreciated the flexibility that your willingness to use a range of tools afforded us. I recall saying to you at one stage that I wish text messages and emails had a like button so I could quickly acknowledge a message without having to reply.
Another aspect of our relationship which is worth noting is that although I had only met you in person for 30 minutes before engaging you on this project, I felt I knew you well in professional sense. The open, detailed way you blog about your work gave me a good sense of how you would approach this project, and what experience you would bring to it. For example, I knew you would spend time on analysis, meeting the people that this community is intended to add value for, and understanding their world. I knew that I could trust my reputation in my organisation to you. This helped us to hit the ground running when we commenced analysis.
It has also been nice to have some extra company in the SharePoint newsfeed – it has been a bit lonely in there at times. Although this is about to change when we support our people to start working out loud!
My learning curve has been high during this time. I’ve learned more about social learning, about end use of SharePoint 2013 and Lync, and about how to set things up in SharePoint. Most importantly I have become way more resourceful. I turn to Google and YouTube first for help figuring out what my tools can do and how to use them rather than asking IT or complaining about the lack of “training”. I put this down to your role modelling – thank you.
Thank you for your kind words, always appreciated! I feel the same way too. It’s been a wonderful learning curve working with a new group of people (committed, proactive and also a tad curious themselves). I feel as if not only have I worked with someone in my PLN, but now, you have opened a whole new network to me, in an industry I haven’t worked in, with people who come from a different background to what I’m used to and who will challenge my own thinking and question me too (which in turns, leads to more discussion, inquiry, debate, discussion, new and innovative ideas – and that to me is the exciting thing.
Great to catch up on progress of this project – have really enjoyed reading both your posts on how this is / has been going. Fascinating. Really inspiring, and especially to hear how the experience has deepened your working and personal relationship. I always knew you two would do great things together!!!
Thanks for this Tanya, I appreciate the comment. Yes, it’s been great to go through this with Michelle and have a commentary through it. The journey has just begun really but I’m glad to have captured most of it so it does show that it’s not as simple as ‘tacking on social’ to a learning program. It’s a whole process and you also have to think about what performance you want to see changed and how you’re going to measure it by changes in behaviour – so it’s very much a cultural as well.