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departments, workshops, and classrooms. Most people in training programs learn only a little ofthe right stuff, are fuzzy about how to apply what theyve learned, and never address who are theright people to know.

People learn to build the right network of associates and the right level of expertise throughinformal, sometimes even accidental, learning that flies beneath the corporate radar. Becauseorganizations are oblivious to informal learning, they fail to invest in it. As a result, theirexecution is less than it might be.

Lets look at what informal learning is and what to do to leverage it.

"The best learning happens in real life with real problems and real people and not in classrooms."Charles Handy

Learning is social

Most of what we learn, we learn from other people -- parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles,brothers, sisters, playmates, cousins, Little Leaguers, Scouts, school chums, roommates,

teammates, classmates, study groups, coaches, bosses, mentors, colleagues, gossips, co-workers,neighbors, and, eventually, our children. Sometimes we even learn from teachers.

At work we learn more in the break room than in the classroom. We discover how to do our jobsthrough informal learning -- observing others, asking the person in the next cubicle, calling thehelp desk, trial-and-error, and simply working with people in the know. Formal learning -classes and workshops and online events - is the source of only 10% to 20% of what we learn atwork.

Informal learning is effective because it is personal. The individual calls the shots. The learner isresponsible. Its real. How different from formal learning, which is imposed by someone else.How many learners believe the subject matter of classes and workshops is the right stuff?How many feel the corporation really has their best interests at heart? Given todays job mobility,

workers who delegate responsibility for learning to their employers will become perpetualnovices.

In spit of this, corporations, non-profits, and government invest most of their budgets in formallearning, when its apparent that most learning is informal. This stands common sense on its

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head. Its the 20/80 rule: Invest your resources where theyll do the least good.

When Ive pointed this out in presentations at conferences, members of the audience ask whatthey can do to improve informal learning. After all, they already have discussion boards andvirtual classrooms and videoconference gear. I tell them they need to go beyond dumbtechnology. Linking me to a chat session is the equivalent of showing me the way to the library.Everything I need is in there, but its up to me to find it.

[Todays teenager] wants to socialize instead of communicate," Tammy Savage, group manager of Microsoft's

NetGen division, said in a recent interview. "They want to do things together and get things done--and they

really want to meet new people. They have a way of vouching for each other as friends, figuring out who to

trust and not trust." [1]

Achieving the proper balance

Neither investing in only formal training and education nor placing all your bets on informallearning is a good strategy. Extremism is rarely the answer to questions of human development.What you are after is the best mix of formal and informal means.

Achieving balance requires a scale of measurement. The metrics of our scale are theorganizations core objectives:

Reducing time-to-performanceKeeping the promises made to our customersImproving service and processesUnderstanding the organizations mission and valuesInnovating in the face of change

Optimizing the human value chain [2]

Knowing enough to work smarter, not harderReplenishing the organizations intellectual capital

Creating value for all stakeholdersIn the past, corporate America relied on training and indoctrination to meet these objectives. Thisworked better in yesterdays command-and-control hierarchies than in todays laissez-faireorganizations. Now its often more effective to take control by giving control, by letting theinvisible hand self-organize worker learning. The organization establishes the goals and givesthe workers flexibility in how to meet them.

An organization named CapitalWorks [3] surveyed hundreds of knowledge workers about howthey really learned to do their jobs.

Workers reported that informal learning was three times more important in becomingproficient on the job than company-provided training.

Workers learn as much during breaks and lunch as during on- and off-site meetings.

Most workers report that they often need to work around formal procedures and processesto get their jobs done.

Most workers developed many of their skills by modeling the behavior of co-workers.

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Approximately 70% of respondents want more interactions with co-workers when theirwork changes.

Combining the results of CapitalWorks formal and informal learning surveys, heres howpeople report becoming proficient in their work.

Tell me why

Isnt this amazing? What on earth has led us to a situation where corporations overwhelminglyinvest in formal training but workers overwhelmingly learn informally?

In his new book, Clusters of Creativity [4], Rob Koepp writes The dot-com craze was oftenseen in humanist terms -- a force democratizing information, building online communities,

increasing opportunities for entrepreneurs. Yet dot-com mania's article of faith was that thetechnologies of the Internet essentially made human beings irrelevant. People becameabstractions, recognized only as hits, clicks and eyeballs that propped up the preposterous marketvalues of e-commerce plays.

Real people are complex, integrated beings. Each is whole, unto him or herself. Body, mind,intention and emotion are inseparably bound. Situating our brains in our heads oversimplifies thesituation; our brains are distributed throughout our bodies. Nerves, eyes, and receptors are all

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part of the way we think. And emotion? Its inextricably linked to the other mental and bodilyfunctions. The amygdala shapes the internal movie we call our time-delayed reality withemotion before we become aware.

Adapting to ones environment involves much more than exposure to content. It is a whole-bodyexperience. You cannot learn while someone is stomping your toes. You wont pay attentionunless other people are involved.

Other factors work to obscure the importance of informal learning:

Learning implies school. School is chock full of formal learning -- courses, classes, andgrades that obscure the fact that most learning at school is either self-directed or informal.Vendors dont make money from informal learning. Hence, its not promoted atconferences, in magazines, and through sales calls.The rapid pace of technological innovation and economic change almost guarantees thatformal learning will be dated.One aspect of informal learning that makes it so powerful also makes the informal processforgettable: it often comes in small pieces.Whos in charge of informal learning? Most of the time, its the individual worker.Another reason informal falls off the corporate radar.Most informal learning takes place in the shadow organization, oft described as the way

things really work, as opposed to the boxes on the organization chart and their clearlydelineated budgets.

Ottersurfs Clark Quinn [5] notes that corporations invest in formal learning because its the onemeans they know and know how to handle. Theyre still in the industrial model. Corporatelearning lags the knowledge age and its associated technology. Sadly, this is a low priority withmost CEOs.

"We learn by conversing with ourselves, with others, and with the world around us.

Laurie Thomas & Sheila Harrie-Augstein

How workers learn now

Think about a go-getter knowledge worker learns something new. [6] The Training Departmenthas been downsized. Even if it were at full strength, its unlikely Training would have much tooffer on a new topic. So the worker checks Google or SlashDot or other resources on the web tosee whos got books or articles or blogs or case studies on her topic. In my case, Id probablycheck the OReilly site since I maintain a virtual bookshelf there that gives me access to scads oftechnical books.

After the worker gets a sketchy framework of whats to be learned, its time to dive in. Try

things. Build on knowledge of similar subjects. Ask people in the office whove been there.Check with the technical equivalent of the jailhouse lawyer. The goal is not to master a subjectarea or pass a test; its to find out enough to dive into trial-and-error or to get the immediate jobdone. The worker doesnt take off for a weeklong workshop; more likely, he picks up bits andpieces day-by-day for months.

This is self-directed learning, and thats yet another reason it escapes notice.No one is responsible for toting up the learning every worker is engaged in. Iwouldnt be surprised if informal learning always outweighs formal learning

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in impact. Wonderful book title:All Learning is Self-Directed. [7]

At the beginning of this section, I said we were looking over the shoulder of ago-getter learner. Today, were in transition. Many learners are notself-directed; they are waiting for directions. Its time to tell them that the ruleshave changed. Its in their self interest to convert from training pawns to

proactive learning opportunists.

Treat people as if they were what they ought to be and you help them become what they are capable of

becoming.

Goethe

The New World

The world is moving a lot faster than when yourfather was a boy. In those days, a small

intellectual elite identified what people shouldknow. It didnt change. Teachers taught it. Theassumption was that you werent going to need tolearn much after graduation. Folk wisdom, alongwith some psychologists, held that you couldntteach an old dog new tricks or an old workermuch of anything. The ability of humans to learnwas presumed to decay over time.

Time is speeding up. In agrarian days, time didn'tmatter so long as you got up around sunrise andturned in at sunset. Railroads had to keepschedules -- and require people to agree on the

time. (Before railroads, time zones wereunnecessary--and often arbitrary.) Militarycoordination and air travel require even greaterprecision. These days, two minutes to receive amessage from the other side of the world feelsagonizingly slow. When I studied physics incollege, we never talked about nanoseconds.

Now new discoveries and information gush outthrough our televisions, mail, the net, telephones,and friends at a staggering rate. A four-yeardegree in engineering will be obsolete in fouryears. Computer literacy skipped a generation,

by-passing parents whose children now showthem how to use the Internet, program their cellphones, and set the clock on the VCR. A goodcollege education is no longer a lifetime mealticket. If a worker cant learn things throughformal channels, shell take matters into her own

hands. Workers have taken responsibility for their own learning.

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"Brand You. People direct their learning toimprove their marketability. Learning is no longermemorizing what the teacher deems important;the teacher is almost certainly behind the times.Rather, learning is a matter of asking the rightquestions as well as answering them. Bydefinition, this is a collaborative,

community-based approach, for its others whohelp us define what is relevant.

To thrive in thisenvironment, everyone must become student andfaculty andpublisher andinstructional designer.

What does it take to play all these new roles? Ted

Kahn [8] has identified seven skills thatcommunity-building, knowledge designers mustknow:

Know-who (social networking skills, locatingthe key people and communities wherecompetencies, knowledge, and practice reside --and who can add the greatest value to one'slearning and work)

Know-what/Know "what-not" (facts, information, concepts;how to customize and filter out information, distinguish junk andglitz from real substance, ignore unwanted and unneededinformation and interactions)Know "What-if...?" (simulation, modeling, alternative futuresprojection)Know-how (creative skills, social practices, tacitknowing-as-doing, experience)

Know-where (where to seek and find the best information andresources one needs in different learning and work situations)Know-when (process and project management skills, bothself-management and collaborative group processes)Know-why...and Care-why (reflection and organizationalknowing about one's participation and roles in differentcommunities; being ecologically and socially proactive in caring forone's world, for others, and the environment)

The 3 Rs are nearly obsolete. Reading? I skim or speed readinstead of the word-by-word reading school teaches.Rithmetic? Okay, its handy to be able to divide by 7 to

calculate tips, but Im rarely far from a calculator. Writing? Ididnt learn to write until I got out of college.

It is a well-worn clich that it is not just what you know, but who you know that

matters for success. Yet despite this accepted wisdom, most people think of

networking as an activity that occurs over cocktails or by virtue of exchanging

business cards at trade conferences. Rarely do we see managers systematically assess

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informal networks within their organizations even though they represent critical

individual and organizational assets.

IBM white paper by Rob Cross

Kahns know-who, know-what, know-how, etc., are themeta-skills todays learners need to master.

Find a connection

Thirty years ago an electronic calculator was a novelty that cost $100or more.

Now everyone has at least one calculator, some of us have dozens,and theyve become so cheap that its easier to get a new one thanbuy batteries when the original cells run out of juice. The calculatormakes it a waste of time to learn long division, how to multiply withlogarithms, and how to use a circular slide rule unless youre amathematician or perhaps a teacher.

Back in the old days, it sometimes made sense to memorizeformulas, mnemonics, the exact date of events, and so forth. At onetime in my life, I could recite the books of the Old and NewTestaments, the Kings and Queens of England, and every machinelanguage instruction for the NCR 390 computer. Of course I forgotall that long ago. No matter. Im never far from the Internet, and itsmemory of these things is better than mine ever was.

In a connected world, it makes no more sense to memorize lists thanto learn long division or the kings of England. When I have a goodconnection to the net or to a human expert who has the answer Im

looking for, thats often just as good as carrying that answer aroundin my head. Granted, I need a foundation such as how to cut on thecalculator or how to get to Google, but after that I can usually getwhat I need without relying only on whats in my head.

Getting things done requires good connections, both the human kindand the Internet kind. You can think of the entire world as animmense interconnected, ever-changing network. Everything isconnected to everything else. Thriving in the parts of the net to whichwere directly connected is a function of the number, bandwidth andquality of our connections.

To optimize ones position in the global net, one can:

Rewire the internal connections (learn, innovate, revisualize)Improve the bandwidth (e.g., listen more carefully)Connect to other nodes (e.g., to other people or sources orcommunities)Disconnect from unproductive nodes (e.g., unlearning,improve signal-to-noise ratio by eliminating bad channels)Rewire the external connections (e.g., to filter, combine,

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merge, adopt new memes, etc)

Schooling confused us into thinking that learning was equivalent topouring content into our heads. Its more practical to think oflearning as optimizing our networks.

Learning consists of making good connections. We are each our ownsys admins.

Positive learners

Turning learners loose to decide what and how to learn and whatconnections to make is a new concept in corporate learning. Why?Because managers often start with the mindset that learners aredeficient, and the objective is to bring them up to par. Workers resentthese assumptions. Their goals are to be the best that they can be, notjust to get by.

Optimism works better than pessimism. Better to begin from positiveassumptions until proven wrong than to let negativity eliminateoptions before they have been tested.

Training, like psychology, is inherently pessimistic. Both fields arebuilt on a core belief that people are deficient or dysfunctional.

Psychologists spend most of their time studying the deranged. Thenthey generalize their findings of these fringe cases to normal people.Hence, the psychological literature is filled with neuroses,diagnostics, therapy, and cures, but precious little on making peoplewho are generally okay better.

Recently, a group of renegade psychologists founded the positivepsychology movement. Martin Seligman, former president of the

American Psychological Association and author ofLearnedOptimism andAuthentic Happiness [9], is their ringleader.Seligman studies happy people instead of nut cases. He offersprescriptions to make healthy people better. I am personally happiersince reading him.

Most training looks at people as though they were missingsomething. The consequences of assuming the role of training is tofix whats broken rather than make whats already good better areenormous and disastrous.

Largely ineffective negative reinforcement (correct whatswrong, take the test, do this or else) instead of the positiveUnmotivated learners (Who wants to accept that they areinadequate?)Learner disengagement, unrewarded curiosity, spurnedcreativity (Because the faculty implies My way or thehighway.)Training (we do it to you) instead of learning (co-creation ofknowledge)Disregard for creating new knowledge (for the trainer knows

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it all.) from the learningFocus on fixing the individual rather than optimizing the team(because the individual trainee will submit to being fixed butthe organization is reluctant to join in group therapy)

Similarly, David Cooperrider [10] is helping inspire organizationssuch as GTE and the U.S. Navy by building on their positive aspectsthrough illustrative stories. He and his associates have found that

focusing on problem solving stifles innovation by keeping anorganization from going beyond the solution to the problem.

Exchanging the concept of learning as medicine to cure deficienciesfor the view of learning as growth experience is not somethingpeople accomplish one at a time. Shifts in organizational values andculture require a change management approach, with its stages ofanger, denial, bargaining, and acceptance.

Knowledge Creation

Taken from the negative perspective, the learners relationship to

others is generally more take than give. The learner goes online whenstuck for an answer; that solves his or her individual problem.

If we look at learners positively, we see that their learning createsnew knowledge. Learners can give more than they take by sharingwhat they learned and how they learned it with others. At a bareminimum, the first ones to go down a new path could leavebreadcrumbs for others to follow by recording their finding in anFAQ. Better still, new conceptualizations, metaphors, and storiesco-created with learners could make the journey more effective andenjoyable for those who come later.

Think of a domain, say, chip designers. Or voice-recognition

experts. Or international risk managers. They may be from one largeorganization or from a number of organizations. They come togetherto solve problems, to improve the quality of their decisions, and totry out new ideas. Longer term, their participation helps theirorganizations by improving their ability to foresee technologicaldevelopments and market opportunities, to forge knowledge-basedalliances, to benchmark against the rest of the industry, to gainauthority with clients, to increase the retention of talent, and to build

the capacity to develop new strategic options. [11]

These organizational advantages supplement the individual benefitsof membership in the community, such things as help with

challenges, access to expertise, self-confidence, a sense of belonging,and the fun of being with colleagues. In an increasingly turbulent andshifting organization, ones anchor in a professional group providesa network for keeping up with new developments, a means ofdeveloping professional reputation, increased marketability, and astrong sense of professional identity.

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To create intellectual capital it can use, a company needs to fosterteamwork, communities of practice, and other social forms of learning.

Intellectual Capitalby Tom Stewart

In sum, communities are much more than a way to make up for

knowledge deficiencies of some individuals. They are the means bywhich organizations create and disseminate new knowledge and bestpractices. They are how an organization stays at the forefront ofknowledge.

Focusing on Core Knowledge

In his marvelous book, Living on the Fault Line, Geoffrey Mooremakes a strong case that the path to greater shareholder value isfocusing on core activities and outsourcing everything else. You dowhats most rewarding.

It follows that the most valuable thing for people to learn is theirorganizations proprietary, core knowledge.

Organizational wealth is created around skills and talents that are proprietary

and scarce. To manage and develop human capital, companies must recognize

unsentimentally that people with these talents are assets to invest in. Others

are costs to be minimized.

Tom Stewart, Intellectual Capital

eLearning vendors look at another set of economics. For them,generic courseware is more profitable, for you can sell the samething to a lot of people. So they typically end up producingsame-size-fits-all generic programs rather than the proprietaryprograms that organizations need.

The perpetual dilemma isthat we want instruction1:1 from master toapprentice or customprograms tailored to ourprecise needs. Neither ofthese is economically

viable.

Collaborationcontextualizes content.Local experts add thelayer of understanding that converts the generic to the specific, fromeveryones organization to our organization. For example, in-housenetwork might upgrade a course on managing networks to a course

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on running our network.

How to Create and Expand CoreKnowledge

Generic programs do not focus on internal issues: thats what makesthem generic. Work groups always focus on internal issues: thatstheir raison dtre.

While the automated systems approach has its place, we believe that these and

other weaknesses prevent the method from supporting scalable solutions to

human-interaction intensive learning. However, we are not advocating a return

to the one teacher for every student. The dualism of teacher-supports-students

or automated-system-supports-students is a false dichotomy. There is another

option -- students-support-each-other.

David Wiley, in Online self-organizing social systems: The decentralized futureof online learning

First-generationeLearning hadblending allwrong.Implementersthought theimportant thingwas to mixonline and F2F.The old handsknew that allalong. Theblending thatcounts is the mixture of generic and proprietary. Whip up packagedgeneric content with informal proprietary information and sip thefroth of how we do things here.

The hunger for proprietary knowledge does not stop at the firewall.Consider Cisco, a company with a staggering thirst for new-productinformation and detail. Several years ago, they rolled out an onlinelearning program for their field sales and support employees. The

next year they implemented a similar program, absent someemployee-only information, for partners like IBM, KPMG, andAccenture. This year theyre opening the connection to customers.

Intention

Marcia Connor throws another variable into the mix: intentionality.[12] The self-directed learner we talked about in the section above

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was guided by intent. She intended to learn something new and wentafter it. Not all learning is intentional. We learn things by accident,too.

Often we learn the most when were looking for something else. Achange in environment sparks new concepts for me. On a recent tripto Paris, ah-has seemed to pop into my consciousness almostcontinuously. If Ive got a thorny problem to solve, I tell myself the

boys in the backroom of my brain will work on it as I sleep, andmost of the time I magically awake the next morning with an answer.

We can put ourselves in places where learning accidentsare more likely to happen. Again, in my own case, I learnfrom participation in professional groups. The eLearningForum conducts a monthly educational meeting. Whatactivity do participants value most highly? Networking.Why? Because they rapidly find out whats going on in amatter of minutes. They get precisely what they ask for.Compared to most means of learning, this is fun.

Individual learning evolves

For at least twenty years, instructional designers have talked aboutmatching the delivery mode of learning to the style of the individuallearner. A visual learner would see lots of pictures and diagrams, averbal learner would hear and read lots of words, and a kinestheticlearner could take frequent reinforcing exercise breaks.Unfortunately, no one has successfully produced a program in thisparallel structure because:

It costs too much to develop separate programs for eachlearning style

Every learner uses a mix of learning styles, not just oneJudging from Howard Gardners work on multipleintelligences, we might have to accommodate a dozen styles,not just threeIts more relevant to match the delivery mode to the content(e.g. dont teach bowling from a textbook)Designers usually only look at the formal component oflearningWe have not decided when to match skills and when to opposethem

Perhaps more importantly, how people learn varies as

they master a subject and what they already know. Anovice needs familiarity with the basics and conceptualunderstanding. An apprentice needs foundation skills andpractice. A seasoned professional needs to keep up withchanges in his or her discipline. A master needs recognizewhen its time to innovate and be open to inspirations.Everyone needs to keep up to date with changes.

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People love to learn but hate to betaught

Ask net-savvy younger workers how they would like to learn newskills, and they bring up the features they enjoy in other services:

Smart technology that learns about me and makesrecommendations, like AmazonPersistent reputations, as at eBay, so you know who yourecollaborating withFlexible delivery options, as with the bank offering access byATM, the Web, phone, or human tellers give me instruction,an FAQ, a subject-matter expertLet me choose whether my instruction is push or pullGive me a way to find out how our company does things, notjust generic lessonsAdapt to the learners pace, as the Porsche Boxster learns yourdriving styleA single, simple, all-in-one interface, like that provided by

Google for searchCommunity of kindred spirits, like SlashDot, The WeLL, andMetaFilterAbility to share information and comments, as with my blogShow me what others are interested in, as with pointers fromBlogDex

At one time, functions like these would have beenimpossible or at least prohibitively costly to contemplate.The interoperability made possible by Web servicesstandards, both .NET and J2EE, changes the game.Additional services can be bolted on to existing

infrastructure.

Looking back to Geoffrey Moores concept that coreactivities create greater shareholder value than context,many of these informal learning add-ons will probably beprovided by third party specialist firms.

Whats the best way to invest in informallearning?

Informal learning has always played a larger role than most people

imagined, but its becoming increasingly important as workers takeresponsibility for their own destinies. Formal learning consists ofinstruction and events imposed by others. When a worker chooseshis path to learning independent of others, by definition, thatsinformal.

Several years ago the late Peter Henschel, then director of theInstitute for Research on Learning, raised the important question on

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this. If three-quarters of learning in corporations is informal, can we

afford to leave it to chance? [13]

If you agree that the answer to Peters question is no,here are three suggestions for organizations seeking toboost results by focusing on informal learning:

1. Streamline the informal learning process2. Help workers learn to improve how they learn

3. Create a supportive learning culture

Streamline the informal learning process

Supplement self-directed learning with mentors andexperts

Make them available online 24x7

Treat learners as customers

Provide time for learning on the job

Create useful, peer-ranked FAQs and knowledgebases

Provide places for workers to congregate and learn

Build networks, blogs, wikis, and knowledgebases tofacilitate discovery

Keep the knowledgebases current

Use smart tech to make it easier to collaborate andnetwork

Help workers learn how to improve their learning skills

Explicitly teach workers how to learn

Support opportunities for meta-learning [14]

Inventory ways others have learned subjects

Enlist learning coaches to encourage reflection

Calculate life-time value of a learning customer

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Explain the know-who, know-how framework

Create a supportive organizational culture

Conduct a Learning Culture Audit [15]

Add learning and teaching goals to job descriptions Monitor goal/performance maybe via mentor system

Consider all-in cost of turnover and of not growing your own

Support innovation (which requires making failure okay)

Encourage learning relationships

Support participation in professional Communities of Practice

This is a work in progress. Please send me your commentsand observations. I will post the final version of this whitepaper here. Jay

Appendix

Seven Principles of Learning

From extensive fieldwork, the Institute for Research on Learningdeveloped seven Principles of Learning that provide importantguideposts for organizations. These are not Tablets from Moses.They are evolving as a work in progress. However, it is already clearthat they have broad application in countless settings. Think of themin relation to your own experience.

Learning is fundamentally social. While learning is about the

process of acquiring knowledge, it actually encompasses a lotmore. Successful learning is often socially constructed and canrequire slight changes in ones identity, which make theprocess both challenging and powerful.

1.

Knowledge is integrated in the life of communities. When wedevelop and share values, perspectives, and ways of doingthings, we create a community of practice.

2.

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Learning is an act of participation. The motivation to learn isthe desire to participate in a community of practice, to becomeand remain a member. This is a key dynamic that helps explainthe power of apprenticeship and the attendant tools ofmentoring and peer coaching.

3.

Knowing depends on engagement in practice. We often glean

knowledge from observation of, and participation in, manydifferent situations and activities. The depth of our knowingdepends, in turn, on the depth of our engagement.

4.

Engagement is inseparable from empowerment. We perceiveour identities in terms of our ability to contribute and to affectthe life of communities in which we are or want to be a part.

5.

Failure to learn is often the result of exclusion fromparticipation. Learning requires access and the opportunity tocontribute.

6.

We are all natural lifelong learners. All of us, no exceptions.

Learning is a natural part of being human. We all learn whatenables us to participate in the communities of practice ofwhich we wish to be a part.

7.

Source: Institute for Research on Learning (now defunct), MenloPark, California, 1999.

Creating a Learning Culture

By Marcia L. Conner and James G. Clawson

The Batten Institute at the Darden Graduate Business School at theUniversity of Virginia hosted an invitation-only colloquium calledCreating a Learning Culture: Strategy, Technology, and Practice June26-28, 2002.

Conner and Clawsons article challenges managers to assess theirorganizations learning culture by rating their agreement withstatements such as:

People take at least some time to reflect on what has happenedand what may happen.

Performance reviews include and pay attention to what peoplehave learned.

Managers presume that energy comes in large part fromlearning and growing.

People at all levels ask questions and share stories aboutsuccesses, failures, and what they have learned.

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http://www.darden.edu/batten/clc/Articles/clc.pdf

Meta-Learning: Improving how onelearns

You do whats right for you. My personal practices include:

Daily reflectionBe mindful and alertTalking with your inner voiceMental feng-shui and Spring-cleaningThinking holistically, trips to the balconySetting learning goals and monitoring progressKeeping a journalSeeking process improvementsMaking and maintaining good connectionsRecognizing and shutting down bad connectionsHolding on to what's important, improving those memories

Continually asking, "Does this matter?"Discarding the negative, the inconsequential, the clutterSharing your learning insights with othersReinforcing concepts by teaching othersMaintaining an optimistic vision of the future Finding and spreading joy in learningRevere serendipityLook for miracles

Core beliefs of the Meta-Learning Lab

Everyone has the capacity to learn but most peoplecan do a much better job of it. Learning is a skill one

can improve. Learning how to learn is a key to its mastery.

Learning is the primary determinant of personal and professionalsuccess in our ever-changing knowledge age. People andorganizations that strive to succeed had better get good at it. Our goalis to help them.

The Meta-Learning Lab focuses on the process of learning - helpingindividuals learn how to learn and groups how to create optimallearning environments.

http://www.meta-learninglab.com

About the Author

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A veteran of the software industry and thetraining business, Jay Cross coined the term"eLearning" in 1997. He is CEO of eLearningForum, a 1500-member think tank andadvocacy group, and founder of InternetTime Group. The Group helps organizations

learn and perform on Internet time. Breathtakingly fast.

Jay helped SmartForce position itself as the eLearningCompany. He worked with Cisco e-Learning Partners tohelp them implement and market their initial web-basedcertification programs. Today he coaches corporateexecutives on getting the most from their investments ineLearning, collaboration, and visual learning. More than athousand people visit www.InternetTime.com every day toreceive Jays insights on eLearning. He is co-author of therecent book Implementing eLearning.

In previous lives, Jay sold mainframes the size of SUVs,designed the University of Phoenix's first business degreeprogram, and joined the Inc 500 for taking a trainingstart-up to prominence in less than three years.

Jay has spoken at Online Learning, Training, Online Educa,Image World, Instructional Systems Association, eLearningGuild , eLearning Forum, Learning Objects Symposium,ASTD International, Training Directors Forum, and otherevents. He delivered the inaugural keynote to the firstmeeting of the Online Banking Association. He is the

author of numerous articles and white papers oneLearning and business effectiveness. He is a foundingfellow of the Meta-Learning Lab.

Jay was born in Hope, Arkansas, (in the same room as BillClinton) and grew up in Virginia, France, Texas, RhodeIsland, and Germany. He lives with his wife Uta and twominiature longhaired dachshunds in the hills of Berkeley,California.

He is a graduate of Princeton University and Harvard

Business School, and has subsequently studiedinstructional design, systems analysis, programming,leadership, information architecture, decision-making,direct marketing, and design.

See the latest at www.internettime.com.

I love to bat around ideas. Get in touch. If you want to

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improve informal learning in your organization, give me acall.

[email protected] 1.510.528.3105

[1] The Browser revolution--10 years after, by Mike Yamamoto, CNETNews.com, April 14, 2003

[2] Human value chain is my shorthand for weighing the costs andcontributions of the workforce holistically, i.e. counting factors such asturnover, ramp-up time, recruiting, organizational savvy, workingrelationships, and corporate acculturation.

[3] The mission of CapitalWorks (www.capworks.com) is to optimize theperformance of human capital. We work with our clients to increasebusiness growth and value creation. We focus on aligning their strategicand organizational dynamics. We help our clients optimize the continuouslearning and know-how resident in their organizations. We work with

them to apply adaptive architectures --- both social and digital --- thatleverage their investments and improve their operating performance.

[4] Clusters of Creativity, Enduring Lessons on Innovation andEntrepreneurship from Silicon Valley and Europe's Silicon Fen by RobKoepp, John Wiley & Sons, 2003, ISBN 0471496049

[5] Clark Quinn, Ph. D., is a cognitive scientist and managing director ofOttersurf Labs, www.ottersurf.com.

[6] Thanks to Ted Kahn, Ph. D., for guiding my thinking on this. Ted is aformer associate of Institute for Research on Learning. He is CEO ofDesign Worlds for Learning and co-founder of Capital Works.

[7]All Learning is Self-Directedby Daniel R. Tobin, ISBN: 1562861336

[8] Designing Virtual Communities for Creativity and Learning by TedKahn, in Edutopia, The George Lucas Educational Foundation

[9] See Authentic Happiness, http://www.authentichappiness.org/

[10] See Appreciate Inquiry Commons,http://appreciativeinquiry.cwru.edu/

[11] Page 16, Cultivating Communities of Practice by Etienne Wenger,Richard McDermott, William M. Snyder, Harvard Business School Press,

2002, ISBN 1578513308

[12] Conner, M.L. "Informal Learning." Ageless Learner, 2002.http://agelesslearner.com/backg/informal.html

[13] See Seven Principles of Learning in the Appendix.

[14] See Core Beliefs of the Meta-Learning Lab in the Appendix.

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[15] See Creating a Learning Culture in the Appendix.

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