Start the Discussion: Return On Learning Equation

In an earlier post Why Return on Learning is the better metric to use to justify elearning in the organization 
I stated that I would try and develop a ROL calculation so people could use it within their organization to justify using the free social media platforms for elearning purposes. The difficulty in conceptualizing and creating a new ROL calculation is that a good part of the benefits are hard to quantify, unlike in a ROI type equation. That said, here is my attempt and I would appreciate your feedback and thoughts.
Let's list a few potential inputs for the ROL equation:

• Retention and Achievement (thanks Richard)
• Higher employee satisfaction
• Productivity 
• Profitability 
• Engagement
• Innovation

Retention, profitability and innovation are inputs that can potentially be quantified while the others are more ambiguous. I think the above attributes are more desirable than a traditional ROI calculation because you can use these to measure employee development and company growth over time. A firm can track retention rates, profitability and even innovation. These items are more important for the growth of a company than a measure of an investment. Investment in people and a learning culture are much different than calculating the return on a capital investment. This point is key in understanding why a ROL type calculation is important to develop and use to track and employee development.
Before I go further, I would appreciate some insight into the inputs as well as any thing I should add.

Chirp of the day: Should you "friend" people you manage and/or work with?

A recent story, Norton warns teachers not to ‘friend’ students, made me think about the perils and benefits of "friending" people at work. Anyone have some good and/or bad stories about "friending" a coworker?

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From HBR: The Four Capacities Every Great Leader Needs (And Very Few Have)
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Chirp of the day: Gartner Identifies Social Communications and Collaboration as a Top 10 Strategic Technologies for 2011

Social Communications and Collaboration.  Social media can be divided into: (1) Social networking —social profile management products, such as MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn and Friendster as well as social networking analysis (SNA) technologies that employ algorithms to understand and utilize human relationships for the discovery of people and expertise. (2) Social collaboration —technologies, such as wikis, blogs, instant messaging, collaborative office, and crowdsourcing. (3) Social publishing —technologies that assist communities in pooling individual content into a usable and community accessible content repository such as YouTube and flickr. (4) Social feedback - gaining feedback and opinion from the community on specific items as witnessed on YouTube, flickr, Digg, Del.icio.us, and Amazon.  Gartner predicts that by 2016, social technologies will be integrated with most business applications. Companies should bring together their social CRM, internal communications and collaboration, and public social site initiatives into a coordinated strategy.
http://bit.ly/dkfuIm

Why Return on Learning is the better metric to use to justify elearning in the organization

Return on Learning (ROL) is a better metric to use when trying to determine the benefits of investing in elearning programs for your organization. Most firms look at Return on Investment (ROI) as the key metric but I believe this is a faulty gauge as it does not focus on what should be important: are your employees learning and do you have a learning culture to drive success?

ROL is more important as it allows an organization to focus on allowing their employees to learn how and when they can. That is why using social media  is so powerful as it eliminates the focus on the bottom line and places the emphasis where it should be: on the learning. ROI provides a static snapshot of the investment, while ROL looks at the totality of the return on promoting learning in an organization over time. ROL is a continuum whose benefits are seen in higher employee satisfaction, productivity and profitability (see here for details).

The skeptics will say that to justify an e-learning program, the CEO/CFO will demand to see the return on the investment. Again, the focus is on the bottom line and shortsighted as e-learning translates more powerfully to the top line over time, something that is harder to calculate but no less powerful.

The use of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, blogs, etc. are so powerful because they are spaces that employees can leverage on their own time and for things that help them. These platforms are informal learning in its most powerful form as it promotes learning from others and facilitates "leader" as teacher (with the leader being the subject matter expert not the person who happens to have a C in their title).

The interesting question is what should the formula for ROL be so you can use it in your organization to justify the use of social media for learning. Over the next few weeks I will try and develop a formula for ROL and would love to hear your input on what you think should be included in the calculation.

Chirp of the day: A Guide to Transforming Organizations Through Social Media

 I guess we are not the only ones recognizing the power of social media in the enterprise.http://bit.ly/bVCaRF

Chirp of the Day: Advice from Peter Drucker

The Daily Drucker for October 14: Continuous Learning in Decision Making http://bit.ly/9C6IFq 

 

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Chirp of the day: Knowledge@Wharton is a great site for business related topics.Knowledge@Wharton

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Chirp of the day: Red, Jackson, Gen Y & Loyalty http://bit.ly/bWMl5h

Why social media is the future of learning in the enterprise

Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Youtube, LinkedIn, Ning, Digg, etc. Besides the obvious, what do all these services have in common? These types of platforms are the future of learning in the enterprise and firms need to understand the power of these sites and integrate them into their employees lives to develop a true learning culture.

How many groups do you belong to on LinkedIn (please join ChirpLearning's group)? How many times do you review information on LinkedIn and gather information that you can use in your everyday life? LinkedIn has become an invaluable tool for me as I am able to research firms, read timely and relevant information in groups that I joined because they were relevant to me, and network with people from different areas of the business world. LinkedIn has become almost as important to me as email.

How about Facebook? While I tend to use it more for my personal life, I have seen the power of how useful information can direct people to a corporate site. You are able to find what is important to you and filter out as much noise as need be. How many times do you go to another site based on a post on Facebook versus using Google search? Why should this power be blocked and discouraged in the corporate world?

Youtube? Just a place for music videos or inane clips? My son is trying to learn the guitar and he will go to Youtube to find beginning guitar lessons to help him learn how to play. You can also watch all kinds of lectures by world renowned experts. And again, at your pace and for subjects that interest, or perplex, you.

These sites are where people are learning, both informally and formally for both their personal and professional enjoyment. These sites are the future of corporate learning, especially as they become even more ingrained in our everyday lives. I have a challenge for you: search out an interesting group on LinkedIn or find a useful video on YouTube and send it out to your team, manager or business colleagues. Use a site like Bit.ly to track the click thru's to see how powerful this method can be and realize the future of corporate learning.

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Chirp of the day: Creating a culture of employee engagement http://bit.ly/bC3EVp

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Different uses for ChirpLearning

Communicating/Sharing with team members

Communicating/Sharing with other people that face similar dilemmas

Communicate successes to common problems

Conducting Informal Training/Education

Mentor others

Social Groups: Ask for particular subgroups to be setup on our Linkedin group: http://linkd.in/9rvwUx 

What other things can you think of for utilizing the different ChirpLearning platforms?
FaceBook: http://on.fb.me/cTgTDr
Twitter: ChirpLearning
LinkedIn: http://linkd.in/9rvwUx
Youtube: In development
Website: In development

Chirp of the Day: When picturing them naked doesn't work

A good site for presentation and public speaking skills.
http://bit.ly/bCbD8D

Is the customer always right?

South End chef boots whiny patron.Spotty service sets off ‘nightmare’ diner. 

http://bit.ly/dgXAQf

Have you ever had to deal with an unruly customer or actually refused someone's business? Please share.

Chirp of the Day

Chirp of the Day: Poor Time Management and Gossip Top the List of
Workplace Pet Peeves http://bit.ly/cV8yUN
What are some of yours?

Chirp of the Day

How do you give negative feedback and still make sure it is still constructive?

Interesting article on giving feedback: Do You Make These 19 Common Mistakes When Giving Constructive Feedback? http://bit.ly/aDu3cT

Youtube advice on giving constructive criticism:http://bit.ly/bjGlbP

What is a "Chirp?"

Start Chirping!

What do we mean by ChirpLearning, or more specifically a “chirp?” A chirp is a quick burst of sound or information. Think of a bird outside that chirps. What happens? Another bird chirps back and then another. Maybe a bird fly’s off. These chirps set off a series of actions telling the animals that they need to respond in some way. They are communicating and learning. Quickly.
Traditional learning within an organization involves finding some free time from your busy day to log into a cumbersome LMS, find the material you need to review, complete the course, take a test, sign off that you completed it to earn credit and then, somehow, take that 40 minutes of information and turn it into something useful in your everyday job. Is this how we should be learning? Is this the most efficient use of our time? What is the return to your organization and your employees? If you are in charge of learning at your firm, what is the rate of utilization? I bet it is not very high.
Think about the last time you learned something useful for your job. Was it from a test or were you in the hall talking to a colleague or in a meeting where someone came up with a new and creative solution to a problem? This is how we learn and apply.
So this is the mission of ChirpLearning. Utilize the most popular (and free) social media platforms, places that your people are already using, to provide a place they can informally interact with others from across the world to learn and share new ideas and get their problems solved immediately. So start chirping.

Why pay for expensive systems and materials in today's web 2.0 world?

Why pay for costly materials, systems and software and travel when there is so much available for free. Here is some from MIT’s the Sloan School.
http://bit.ly/bHhDBl

Interesting article given the mission of ChirpLearning

Can social networking provide a practical way to help prepare new managers for their duties? Considering the rapid growth of social networking adoption among younger workers, this is a question well worth asking.
http://bit.ly/bqVxj3

ChirpLearning: A social way for professionals to learn from each other

Share, Learn, Apply.
ChirpLearning is a way for professionals to utilize social media to communicate and learn from other each other on a variety of business related topics. Our mission is to utilize the broad reach of social media to promote and foster informal learning.
Members can post questions, provide links to articles, mentor others and other topics to promote learning within the enterprise.
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