Workplaces

Private Sector Workplaces
According to research by the U.S. Department of Labor, the vast majority of workplace learning occurs socially or informally. It is unlikely that informal learning will ever completely replace classroom training or other traditional learning formats. However given this information, it seems natural that training managers and learning technologists should seek out methods to support social and community learning settings within organizations. For the most part, blogs, wikis, user forums, and social media websites are looked upon as valid information sources in our everyday lives. However, they are not as readily used. In this essay we hope to explore the benefits of using wikis in the workplace as a way of sharing information and promoting learning and collaboration.

When investigating low-cost, easily configurable learning solutions that pose a minimal learning curve, informal social learning tools may be our best option. They are generally accepted, widely used, and will usually not have to overcome the cultural clash that many organizations face when deploying a new technical system. Additionally, as business goals and expectations remain firm in an economy where budgets continue to shrink, there are obvious advantages to promoting informal learning methods. First, like any business initiative, learning system or training implementations normally require an investment that is expected to yield some type of quantifiable return. Readily available tools such as blogs, wikis, and forums are inexpensive to use and generally require little to no cost to implement. Second, knowledge sharing and learning among peers is already happening to some degree in every organization. Employees will converse with each other on the value of a meeting or internal initiative, discuss best practices to complete a task at work, or provide technical assistance to a colleague in need. Providing tools or a common infrastructure for these exchanges to take place not only helps to expand knowledge shared among peers but also creates a repository for information to be retrieved, analyzed and searchable by managers and business stakeholders concerned with the bottom line.

Wiki entries generally begin with an encyclopedic level of content and are expanded on as new information becomes available or more knowledgeable resources contribute to the site. The beauty of a wiki is that it becomes a more valuable information asset as more people contribute and make edits to the page. Another major asset to wiki-writing, especially in a corporate environment, is the relationships that it can help to foster across not only accross members of one department, but if properly used they can encourage cross-departmental conversations and beyond. By promoting ownership of the content Wikis can become tools for advancing in individuals a sense of responsibility for keeping current promoting gregions. If multiple co-workers that may not work in the same realm of expertise or technical area edit a wiki page together, a working relationship begins to develop. No introductions are necessary and collaboration that would normally only take place through management-directed project work occurs quickly and naturally.
 * Creating and Building Knowledge**

According to Don Tapscott, co-author of //Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everythin//g, "Companies that build a wiki workplace get products to market faster by harnessing the innovation of many more people than traditional corporate structures allow. Employees can collaborate across organizational silos, work with more people, in more regions of the world, with less hassle and more enjoyment, than with earlier generations of workplace technology. The result is faster innovation, lower cost structures, greater agility, improved responsiveness to customers, and more authenticity and respect in the marketplace. "

Additionally, corporate wiki writing knocks down organizational hierarchy structures in information sharing that often cause bottlenecks in employee innovation. Workplace teams that are bound by rigid communication and approval processes often miss out on opportunities for intellectual property sharing and creative problem solving. As demonstrated by an example in Wikinomics where Goldcorp Mining opened up their confidential geological data to the public to enlist their help to find gold, problems are frequently solved by people that aren't necessarily associated to the problem. This example supports that the use of wikis and other social media are indeed an effective way means of sharing information and providing an outlet for creative problems solving take place. However, sometimes we might need to weigh in the benefits of getting people involved in a particular project. Although the results of collaboration, such as the one promoted by the owner of Goldcorp can be an overwhelming succes, sometimes collaboration can result in delayed desicions. It is important to know when its the right time to bring in collaborators into a particular project.

Although there is always the danger of certain private corporate information or communication leaking out onto a public site, more and more businesses are taking stock in the positive attributes of these tools. Management teams are adding value to their learning methods by placing the power of communication and knowledge development into the hands of their employees. Here are some examples of companies that have successfully incorporated the use of wikis into their learning methods and corporate culture. SAP, Sony Ericcson, Sun Microsystems and IBM use wikis as part of their internal developer and education networks. Other firms such as Pixar use wikis for client collaboration and managing production on large projects.
 * SAP -[| https://wiki.sdn.sap.com:443/wiki/display/WHP/Home]
 * Sun Microsystems - []
 * Sony Ericcson
 * Pixar
 * IBM

Wikis provide a number of ways that organizations can help to reinforce and sustain learning.
 * Central Location for Information**

First, wikis can be used in conjunction to formal training by providing an introduction to new learning content before formal classroom training takes place. Learners can be referred to a wiki for prerequisite content or basic information for common terms, processes, or theories that may be expanded upon during training. After formal training takes place, wikis can also be used to reinforce learning and expand employee knowledge of learning content by providing an outlet for employees to share examples of how their learning is being applied or new findings on a particular topic. Links and articles to resources related to new learning content can be posted and course participants as well as outside contributors with more advanced knowledge on a given topic can share ideas. Because wikis do not follow any hierarchical structure for information sharing, employees at all levels of expertise in all business units can be connected.

Second, training managers and learning technologist can derive important information about their employee's knowledge base and interests based on the contributions made to a wiki. Specific wiki pages or topics of interest that are regularly searched can show management where there may be corporate or technical communication breakdowns. Areas of content that may be lacking in an employee-developed wiki may also serve as an indicator of where training needs may be emerging. By reviewing and revisiting employee created content on a regular basis, technical and corporate managers can gain insight into areas where knowledge gaps and future training opportunities may exist. Additionally, wikis can be used as an archive of communications and learning progress.

The simplicity of use allow users to document step by step the status of a particular project and share the progress with both managers and employees. This is particularly important in a time when employees are expected to collaborate closely with peers situated in different geographical locations. **
 * Wikis as a Tool to Establish Workflows and Track Progress

Forums are also a means by which individuals with similar backgrounds can share information and work together across regions to find answers to common challenges. Online collaboration is essential in a corporate environment and forums are another effective method for providing a centralized location for information sharing. Unlike standard meetings that are normally facilitated by one individual, forums provide an environment where everyone can be an equal owner and contributor. They also provide a channel by which timely, relevant information can be shared and distributed among a wider audience than a standard team meeting among peers. ** One way of collaborating is that of a Blog or a Post. We are implementing a new function that would utilize SharePoint to do this for us. In our Security group of 30, we are now testing Blogs and Posts so that it would 'lessen' the burden of our email servers. This would also keep the discussions online, and make it searchable by the community, in case they want to revisit the tread in the future. We'll be adding tags, as well as archiving these discussions so that upper management can follow along, and perhaps implement this procedure onto other groups in the future. Discussions can vary from a technical question, to a simple recipe that someone would like to share with the group.
 * Creating a Forum and an area for Blogs/Posts

Another way of knowledge management is the creation of a WIKI through the use of SharePoint. This WIKI would be a central repository for questions or discussion points that a specific group may have. If you would like to have a To Do's, FAQs, Best Practices and so on, a WIKI would be a great place to host this type of information. Users can create a WIKI and those participating can eventually 'fine tune' this WIKI over a period of time. The WIKI can be search in the similar fashion as the Internet version of Wikipedia.org.
 * Creating an internal WIKI for Collaboration and Knowledge transfer (Through the use of SharePoint)**

Resources: laceThanks in part to younger workers, more companies are using social computing tools to aid collaboration and to foster innovation and growth By Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams

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