For the better part of this year, I have served as the “CLO in Residence” for the Corporate University Xchange; now it is time for me to step aside and hand the baton to the next “CLO in Residence.”   While I am excited about the journey I will soon begin, this parting is bittersweet.

I was deeply touched to have been asked to be the first “CLO in Residence.”  The folks on the Corporate University Xchange team, led by Alan and Sue Todd, have been great friends and colleagues over the years.    I have been the beneficiary of their many kindnesses as well as their contribution to the profession through research, Global Leadership Congresses and benchmarking.   I’ve led teams that aspired to be recognized by CorpU and we’ve been honored on several occasions; those will always be among the professional high points of my life.   I have so enjoyed writing the blog on the CorpU platform; I’ve had free reign to opine at will about the various aspects of talent management and human capital; highlighting great research from thought leaders wherever I found them as well as the contributions of the legends of our profession.  Thanks to the many of you who responded to posts and continued the dialogue.   And I’ve enjoyed hosting webinars – great panelists and topics; I always learned a great deal.

I will always be deeply grateful for the opportunity to have served in this capacity and, for a time, to have been part of the CorpU family; it has been a professional honor and a personal privilege.

Rebecca

As promised, my second book report on a book by someone I admire a great deal in the Human Capital space: Peter Cappelli.  Earlier this week, I wrote of The India Way. Now let’s look at an earlier book, published in 2008 but still timely, Talent on Demand, which was also published by Harvard Business Press.  In this book, Peter makes a compelling case for looking at talent in new and different ways.  Here’s a snapshot of the key concepts and “take-aways” in the book:

• The old approach to succession planning is no longer viable or practical and even though more than half of all US and European companies don’t engage in succession or workforce planning, you should;
• Competition for talent will always be a constant and high rates of employee turnover and disengagement mean a review of all talent management efforts;
• Every talent decision you make should be viewed through the lens of the return that is expected for that decision;
• Managing people by adopting some “supply chain” management practices can help to reduce the inherent uncertainty of succession and talent development;
• Weigh carefully the “build vs. buy” options knowing the daunting statistics of external hire success rates; and
• Manage your internal processes carefully so that there is a balance between a “pool” of candidates and a “sea” of extra players that becomes unwieldy.

I can’t do justice to the book in a few lines but you gain valuable insights from reading the book.  It’s a great read…I recommend it highly.   To learn more, visit http://www.wharton.upenn.edu/faculty/cappelli.cfm

Time for a book report…actually, two….. by someone I admire a great deal in the Human Capital space: Peter Cappelli.  In the first of two posts this week, my thoughts on The India Way, written by Peter along with Wharton colleagues Harbir Singh, Jitendra Singh and Michael Useem. Published earlier this year by Harvard Business Press, it’s a great read on the ways in which leadership happens in Indian companies and the insights that we can glean from a different approach.

Despite infrastructure challenges, strict rules and guidelines to be maneuvered and the challenges of multiple cultures and religions, India has become a force to be reckoned with in recent decades; Cappelli and his colleagues capture this unique approach to doing business.   Based on their research and their interviews with more than one hundred executives, The India Way is a “must read” for leadership development professionals in particular.

Read more »

As promised in my last post, here are the highlights of Corp U’s 2010 study, Creating A Social Learning Environment , authored by Lynn Lehman, on creating a social learning environment (SLE).   As indicated by CorpU’s Learning Technology Landscape graphic, many tools and platforms exist for traditional learning and for social collaboration but fewer exists to specifically support social learning.   To help navigate the landscape, Corporate University Xchange is actively involved in helping learning leaders with an executive council dedicated to the topic, webinars and on-going research.   This report, provides a 30,000-foot view of the topic – how to design, develop and pilot a social learning platform.   It advocates these key elements of a strategy to insure that the organization adopts the use of social media to drive collaboration, innovation, engagement, productivity and business results:

• Define the business requirements
• Evaluate, select and pilot a technology solution
• Check the readiness of the L&D team to execute social learning programs
• Drive an effective change campaign to communicate the benefits

Best practices indicate that creating a social learning environment is a seven-step process, not necessarily dissimilar to the rapid e-Learning model (RELAD):
Read more »

Last week, Corporate University Xchange offered a great webinar on social learning, “The Shifting Role of the CLO: From Learning Provider to Learning Enabler,” part of their on-going  work in this space.  There’s a body of research, an executive council dedicated to this topic and, if you haven’t read Lynn Lehman’s blog postings on this topic ( http://blogs.corpu.com/author/lynn-lehman/ ), you’re missing a rich resource.

It was a pleasure to serve as the host for three reasons: it’s a topic of great interest to me, the participants on the call were truly engaged and I got to work with the expert panel of leading practitioners who use social media technologies (and some that are not so new) to address contemporary business challenges in ways that improve collaboration and drive innovation.  The panelists were Krys Moskal-Amdurer, VP People Development at Pearson; Irada Sadykhova, Sr. Director of Engineering Leadership and Organization Effectiveness at Microsoft; and Brad Samargya, Corporate SVP/Chief Learning Officer for CA, Inc.

In this wide-ranging discussion, these CLOs talked about what they are doing at their respective companies, successes and “lessons learned” in social learning.  Participants shared via poll questions, chat boxes, off-line questions…it was a busy hour!   It’s a hot topic…here are the two reasons why I think we must embrace social media in the workplace to drive productivity, engagement and business results. Read more »

As a follow-up to yesterday’s great Corporate University Xchange webinar, The Shifting Role of the CLO, From Learning Provider to Learning Enabler, here are suggested resources from the Corporate University Xchange and other professional sources (many do require membership) to learn more about social learning:

• Corporate University Xchange:(2010) Creating a Social Learning Environment Checklist A companion to the the CorpU report, Creating a Social Learning Environment: A High-Level Overview of the Steps to Designing, Developing, and Piloting a Social Learning Platform, this checklist provides the steps and sub-steps necessary to create a social learning environment (SLE).
• (2010) Using Social Learning to Launch the Verizon Wireless DROID In this archived webinar, the Verizon Wireless Learning Organization tells how they created a social learning environment, built around a single-purpose device blog, to connect their corporate-wide employees to read, watch, listen, and learn about the new Smartphone, dubbed DROID. The DROID Blog launched with over 400,000 views in the first two months, surpassing initial expectations.
• (2010) Using Microsoft SharePoint for Learning: A Snapshot of Current Practice This quantitative research study found that while a majority of companies (about 70%) own Microsoft SharePoint, only 30% of those respondents claimed that they utilize SharePoint to support learning programs. Learn how SharePoint is being used to enable learning support at no additional expense to create asynchronous classrooms, support instructor led training, and connect Communities of Practice. Read more »

This Thursday, September 16^th (11:00AM – 12:00PM EDT) I’ll be moderating a terrific panel on the ways in which the role of the Chief Learning Officer has evolved over time.  There are so many changes in the workplace that the CLO has had to address as part of his or her service to the organization, most recently social media technologies that are being morphed and applied to contemporary business challenges in ways that improve collaboration and drive innovation.  Joining me for this webinar are: Read more »

Dr. Marc J. Rosenberg is a management consultant, writer, speaker, educator, and leading figure in the world of training, organizational learning, e-learning, knowledge management and performance improvement.  Marc’s thirty-plus years of expertise extends across all of the emerging fields of e-learning strategy, knowledge management, performance support technologies, change management, as well as instructional design, performance improvement and evaluation.  He is also focusing on the future of the field, including “learning 2.0″ and “web 2.0″ strategies.

Dr. Rosenberg is the author of two books, E-Learning: Strategies for Delivering Knowledge in the Digital Age (McGraw-Hill), and Beyond E-Learning: Approaches and Technologies to Enhance Organizational Knowledge, Learning and Performance (Pfeiffer).  His column, Marc My Words, appears monthly in the eLearning Guild’s Learning Solutions online magazine.

A highly regarded thought leader and much-sought-after presenter, Dr. Rosenberg has spoken at The White House, keynoted at numerous professional and business conferences, and has debated e-learning at the world famous Oxford Union in England.  He has authored more than 50 articles and book chapters, and is a frequently quoted expert in major business and trade publications.  He is a past president of the International Society for Performance Improvement (ISPI); a founding editorial board member of Performance Improvement Quarterly; co-editor of ISPI’s Performance Technology: Success Stories, and a contributing author to the Handbook of Human Performance Technology, as well as the American Society for Training and Development’s (ASTD) Handbook for Workplace Learning Professionals (2008), Models for Human Performance Improvement, and the 2002 ASTD E-Learning Handbook.  Dr. Rosenberg serves on the advisory board for The eLearning Guild, and is the subject matter expert and lead facilitator for ASTD’s “Managing Organizational Knowledge” certificate program.

Dr. Rosenberg holds a Ph.D. in instructional design, plus degrees in communications and marketing, as well as the Certified Performance Technologist (CPT) designation from ISPI.  He is also an elected member of his local community’s Board of Education.  More information is available at www.marcrosenberg.com.

Read more »

Dr. Marc J. Rosenberg is a management consultant, writer, speaker, educator, and leading figure in the world of training, organizational learning, e-learning, knowledge management and performance improvement.  Marc’s thirty-plus years of expertise extends across all of the emerging fields of e-learning strategy, knowledge management, performance support technologies, change management, as well as instructional design, performance improvement and evaluation.  He is also focusing on the future of the field, including “learning 2.0″ and “web 2.0″ strategies.

Dr. Rosenberg is the author of two books, E-Learning: Strategies for Delivering Knowledge in the Digital Age (McGraw-Hill), and Beyond E-Learning: Approaches and Technologies to Enhance Organizational Knowledge, Learning and Performance (Pfeiffer).  His column, Marc My Words, appears monthly in the eLearning Guild’s Learning Solutions online magazine.

A highly regarded thought leader and much-sought-after presenter, Dr. Rosenberg has spoken at The White House, keynoted at numerous professional and business conferences, and has debated e-learning at the world famous Oxford Union in England.  He has authored more than 50 articles and book chapters, and is a frequently quoted expert in major business and trade publications.  He is a past president of the International Society for Performance Improvement (ISPI); a founding editorial board member of Performance Improvement Quarterly; co-editor of ISPI’s Performance Technology: Success Stories, and a contributing author to the Handbook of Human Performance Technology, as well as the American Society for Training and Development’s (ASTD) Handbook for Workplace Learning Professionals (2008), Models for Human Performance Improvement, and the 2002 ASTD E-Learning Handbook.  Dr. Rosenberg serves on the advisory board for The eLearning Guild, and is the subject matter expert and lead facilitator for ASTD’s “Managing Organizational Knowledge” certificate program.

Read more »

CorpU 12 Dimensions of Learning Excellence and Innovation Framework

Corporate University Xchange, a private membership of senior learning and talent executives, was founded in 1997.  Members pay an annual fee in exchange for access to cutting-edge research, practitioner-tested tools, and facilitated peer-to-peer networking.  Their “12 Dimensions of Learning Excellence and Innovation Framework” draws upon more than ten years of data from more than 800 companies, as well as over 12 years of research into what actually drives learning excellence. The Corporate University Xchange has identified some of the most important characteristics of these successful learning organizations and these 12 operational skill sets collectively enable learning functions to align, organize, measure, and execute.  Each year, The Corporate University Xchange issues its benchmarking report and this year’s, the 10^th Annual Learning Excellence and Innovation Benchmarking Study, provides not only timely updates to the robust database but also highlights key past actions of top performing companies and also articulates future trends.   This year’s study has interesting findings that serve as guideposts for its member companies.   More than 150 companies responded to over 100 questions; the study, in partnership with Harvard Business School Publishing, was conducted from November 2009 and February 2010.

In these three posts, I will be highlighting the key findings in these areas:  Learning Structure and Governance; Learning Brand and Technology Architecture.  To learn more about membership or the report, visit them at  http://www.corpu.com

Highlights re: Building and Expanding the Learning and Technology Architecture

When asked about the current state of infrastructure used to manage learning and talent activities at their organizations, survey responses indicate that there are no clear “best practices” for selection or implementation.  The variety of approaches were the result of differing corporate needs, structures, budgets and legacy systems.   What the survey responses do provide is a glimpse into the current state:

1. There is no single infrastructure design or process that can be said to be “best practice.”
2. Very few organizations (5-10%) built their own enterprise-wide, proprietary learning and talent system; the vast majority of systems are non-proprietary and non-integrated.
3. Many “expert” organizations (those scoring in the highest 20% of all respondents) have not yet determined a need for systems beyond the LMS.
4. More “expert” organizations work with external technology partners.

When asked about the most effective approach to adding new technologies to the learning technology infrastructure, learning leaders cited multiple approaches without a clear consensus.  “Expert” companies test technologies through technology pilots; indeed, the majority of learning leaders prefer to have a dedicated person or team research and then recommend technologies.  The majority of respondents also indicated that they are actively searching for ways to leverage existing technologies within their companies (ex: Microsoft’s SharePoint) thus avoiding the need to invest learning budget dollars.

Certainly, as infrastructure ages and technology continues to advance, investments in learning and talent infrastructure will need to be made.   Perhaps in the next annual survey, respondents will indicate a willingness to make the leaps of faith in technology that can continue to support learning cultures.