For the first time in history, learners are positioned and willing to take charge of the learning process at the workplace—if only we would give them the right tools. Corporate leaders can take advantage of existing technologies (to capture inherent knowl
by Site Staff
December 28, 2005
For the first time in history, learners are positioned and willing to take charge of the learning process at the workplace—if only we would give them the right tools. Corporate leaders can take advantage of existing technologies (to capture inherent knowledge, blend it with vetted knowledge) and make it available a bit at a time, on demand, as required. The technologies are now on hand for the strategic and even visionary deployment of the knowledge assets of the enterprise.
One of the more exciting tools I have seen for capturing intrinsic knowledge was revealed during a consulting engagement at the world’s second-largest oil company, Petrolios de Venezuela (PDVSA), whose learning organization was blazing trails in areas where more developed countries had yet to venture.
The new tool was named “Orion,” after the astrological hunter. Orion would seek out knowledge workers at PDVSA and capture their inherent knowledge, and then publish that knowledge in the form of a learning object, meta-tagged with the name and e-mail address of the individual who contributed it.
Contrast that with a company in Brazil that hired a lot of engineers in the late 1970s and early 1980s during a big growth spurt. The engineers are all retiring now and walking out the door with most of the inherent knowledge of the company. This is not what is in the manuals. It is the applied knowledge that people use to get the job done, despite what is in the manuals.
The potential for “virtual expertise” in the workplace is at hand. It is now possible to connect people to one another in increasingly efficient ways. With knowledge developing faster than anyone can track it, the requirement is for the enterprise to capture its own collective knowledge, blend it with vetted knowledge nuggets and enhance its collective expertise on the fly. The technology that powers this new model of virtual competency already exists, but most organizations have yet to figure out how to use it to its full advantage.
Today’s knowledge worker must function in the workplace like the pilot of an aircraft that requires both a computer and a human being to operate it. A new way of thinking about earning learning is required, abandoning the academic model and substituting a real-time system that offers an integrated blend of human and digital content to provide knowledge workers with new skills and information on a daily basis.
Traditional courses and traditional delivery methods are making way for more robust and performance-related learning strategies: not degrees, but dynamic competencies; not just-in- case, but just-in-time; not mass product, but personalized spot knowledge. The new focus is on virtual expertise, which is provided when inherent knowledge in the enterprise is acquired, encoded and available on the same platform and within the same taxonomy as other learning objects, in real time.
The difference is profound. A clothing store with racks of suits (old model) may be compared to a shop with no “suits” at all, but many tailors and a huge inventory of cloth (new model). The suit doesn’t exist until the wearer presents himself. In the same way, the required knowledge solution doesn’t exist until the learner presents himself, and the solution is tailored for each individual on the spot.
Virtual capability is now recognized as a critical untapped asset, driving the creation of networks to identify, channel and integrate a company’s collective knowledge for those who need it, personalized bits at a time. The accent is on teasing the potential capability out of an enterprise’s knowledge workers and integrating that capability with vetted knowledge and information. It is about corporate agility and competitiveness. Upgrading technology without upgrading the underlying guiding strategy can be an empty investment. A new infrastructure becomes meaningful when the thinking behind such a move begins with corporate strategy.
A strategic business solution provides employees with the knowledge they need for that moment alone, one moment at a time. Expertise is not something that one has, but something that one uses—the result of a creative interface of individual knowledge and a supportive knowledge infrastructure.
For the learner, all learning is personal. A quality, sustainable solution will address that reality.
Jonathon Levy is senior learning strategist at Monitor Group and former vice president for online learning solutions at Harvard Business School Publishing. He can be reached at jlevy@clomedia.com.