A Game-Changing Corporate Strategy: Transcending the University Model with eWorking

Jonathon LevyPresident and Chief Strategy Officer

LeveragePoint Innovations Inc.

KEYNOTE ADDRESSJune 9, 2010

“In times of rapid changethe edge comes to you”

Heads Up!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cL9Wu2kWwSY

A Sense of Where We are Right Now

The University ModelIn a challenging economy

• Undergoing scrutiny even for its traditional

purposes

• Never intended for corporate training

• The current economy provides a great

opportunity for rethinking where we are and

where we need to go

Professor Vedder likes to ask why 15 percent of mail carriers have bachelor’s degrees, according to a 1999 federal study. “Some of them could have bought a house for what they spent on their education,” he said.

There is an entirely new learning and knowledge model taking shape at the workplace, one that totally replaces the current paradigm. "Virtual expertise" is a critical asset, and companies are developing networks to identify, channel and integrate a company’s virtual collective knowledge to 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, making that virtual capability both manifest and indistinguishable from work activity. The end of the preceptor-driven learning model is at hand: corporate “universities” never really were that, and they will soon realize that their real mission is the exact opposite of the academic model and its trappings. A completely new model is appearing with knowledge workers in the center and all content, networks and supportive technology orbiting around them and among them. Real-time change management systems are replacing current learning and knowledge management systems to provide optimal corporate agility and responsiveness. The end game is integrating collective corporate wisdom with new learner-centric technologies to provide virtual expertise in real time.

Virtual expertise

Virtual collective knowledge

corporate “universities” never really were that

integrating that capability

Real-time change management systems

corporate “universities” never really were that

The enterprise knowledge ecosystem:different purpose, different goals

• Enterprise: – Success measured

by individual and organizational achievement

– Learner definition of success

– Supplier is evaluated

• Academic: – Success measured

by attendance, completion and test scores

– Supplier definition of success

– Learner is evaluated

Why are Corporate Universities called “Universities?”

Conclusion:Flap harder!

We need a gnomon- a point of reference

New technology, old methods:The Corporate University

• Created to fill the training needs of the company

• Modeled after the academic university

• A huge mistake!

• The corporation is not an academic institution

• Companies are now demanding accountability and ROI from their knowledge infrastructure.

Results for learning are now measured differentlyNo more academic metrics

33% gain in revenue per agent

200% increase in 401(k) enrollments

10X increase in market share

50% reduction in time to sales readiness

Learning Moments

Time

There has been rapid movementfrom content to context

• Information for the next ten minutes

• Simple, job-related (not discrete)

• Coaching/mentoring/community on-demand

• All learning is personal

• All learning is in context

• Heads up! (push me what I need to know)

• Just enough, embedded, integrated

• ...Now go away!

There has been rapid movementfrom learning to doing

Human Resources

Reduce costs

Increase skill

LMS

Integrate with HRIS

Online courses

IP-specific content

Course catalogue

Build it & they will come

Academic model

Intellectual capital

Reduce time to market

Increase productivity

The cloud

Integrate with everything

Real-time support

Smallest coherent chunk

Semantic media

Self-service in context

Knowledge ecosystem

There has been rapid movementfrom individual performance to firm performance

Joint Report: “Into the Future”The American Society for Training and Development (ASTD) and the (U.S.) National Governor’s Association

• “We all have a skills gap, all the time...”

• “New knowledge is created at a rate faster than workers can learn it…”

• “The skills gap is a ubiquitous characteristic of life in the future….”

What I need when I need it

“The illiterate of the 21st Century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.”

Alvin Toffler, Future Shock, 1969

The eWorking solution

Smart Tools

Leveraging Intellectual Capital

Mashups of carbon and silicon

Always in Beta– real-time change management

Smart Tools eWorking with embedded performance support

• Example: the need in China– A forced move from pricing to value – A marketing infrastructure with little or no training or

experience in value management– A need to compete in a global economy in targeted

markets based on value, not price

• A solution: an eWorking SaaS suite– An array of online “Smart Tools” with a mashup of

embedded learning, performance tools, collaboration, and data on a single integrated platform

eWorking demo

Leveraging Intellectual Capital

Give me a lever and a place to stand and I will move the earth.Archimedes

Networks allow each individual to benefit from the collective knowledge of the entire enterprise

• Social networks for process capture and improvement

• Tacit knowledge capture and accessibility for performance support

• Ad hoc “communities” for spot knowledge• People, information and knowledge objects

coexist within a core taxonomy.

Activating Intellectual CapitalWhen a tree falls in the forest…

Intellectual Capital doesn’t even exist unless it can be:

• Identified

• Captured

• Targeted

• Redeployed

• Used strategically

• Measured

Mashup of Carbon and SiliconLeveraging and Networking Tacit Knowledge

• Leveraging (doing less but accomplishing more), and

• Networking (capturing and deploying the collective value of what we know)

• Redefining expertise (as a commodity to be used)

• Reducing time and space to zero– Learning and application coexist, reducing the time

between learning and doing to zero– Carbon and silicon coexist, reducing the space

between application and collaboration to zero

Always in Beta: real-time change managementThe unpredictable waves of change

Let THEM build it… and they will come Using social networks to refine methods iteratively

Always in BetaReal-time Change Management

• The GEM story– A global CPG company wanted to introduce a new

skill set for its marketing people.– Challenge: find the appropriate balance between

hierarchical knowledge and “open source” (collaborative, networked).

– Too much of the former and the resulting rigidity gets in the way of an adaptive solution; too much of the latter and there is chaos.

• See the full story at: http://bit.ly/alwaysinbeta

Using Expertise, not Owning itLike rental cars in China

• Increase of new licenses– Lots of drivers– Very few own cars– Not enough money to buy cars

• Rental cars are solving the problem– Just-in-time solution– Not everyone can own a car– But they can have access to one when needed

• A metaphor and a model for acquiring knowledge

Rental cars

• Increase of new business drivers– Lots of demand on managers– Not enough time for formal education – Difficult to predict learning needs

• Personalized performance support just-in-time solution– No one can have all knowledge all the time– But they can have access to the knowledge when

needed• Leapfrog!

– Academic model is replaced by a more powerful tool

Knowledge

Conclusion

• The eWorking solution is transformational, not marginal• eLearning is a milestone on the way to eWorking• Real-time change management systems are finding their

voice• A common vocabulary (ontology) is required to support

the convergence of embedded learning, performance tools, collaboration, and data on a single integrated platform

• This vocabulary will be spawned from a new conceptual model for the blending of previously disparate functions

• The Industrial Revolution increased productivity over cottage industries 5,000 times. This is more powerful.

• We are standing in a Gutenberg moment

A Gutenberg moment

Jonathon Levy (www.JonathonLevy.com) is a hands-on futurist and corporate learning expert. He is President and Chief Strategy Officer of LeveragePoint Innovations Inc., (www.LeveragePoint.com) where he provides vision and leadership in direct client service engagements, externally-oriented knowledge building and networking activities, and business development activities relating to Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 performance support systems .

At Monitor Group he provided guidance and vision for the creation of a new paradigm in online performance support called “eWorking.” That solution—designed to activate, embed and evolve business methods—has been deployed with great success by Monitor’s clients throughout the world.

Formerly the Vice President at Harvard Business School's Publishing Corporation, he helped to create the first profitable business for online learning in the soft skills market. Under his stewardship HBSP's online “performance support for busy executives,” a new model of online learning providing real time performance support for 2 million managers and executives worldwide, won an unprecedented nine industry awards in a single year.. He holds a patent for the integrated online platform, “System and Method for Network-Based Personalized Educational Environment.”

A resident of Austin, Texas, he has consulted to and advised corporations and universities on six continents and has presented nearly 100 keynote speeches and featured presentations at major conferences in the U.S., Europe, Asia and Latin America. An acknowledged thought leader in the field of learning and technology, he has published numerous articles in professional management and education journals.

BiographyJonathon Levy