Viral Learning?

Viral Marketing is now widely accepted and successful. But making learning viral - even getting your head round what it means - seems a much greater challenge. It may also bring much deeper and pervasive benefits. Here's the basic argument:

• There is a knowledge revolution going on in which organisations may differentiate themselves by how their people learn.  
• Most organisations are responding to the challenge of the knowledge revolution by trying to plan, schedule and track as much learning activity as technology allows.
• Learning Management technology has widely promoted the view that most learning can be managed like physical resources, so focusses on visible learning or the logistics of learning.
• But only a small proportion of learning in an organisation can ever be made visible, to be planned, scheduled or tracked. (Jay Cross has given a full account of this here.)
• The challenge of the knowledge revolution isn't currently being met because organisations are using models derived from the pre-networked world (like elearning courses and so-called knowledge databases), and are failing to cultivate the greater proportion of learning
• Technology could help organisations by stimulating the spread of learning informally and organically.
  Technology could make a greater contribution by making organisational learning less manageable, less measurable and less visible, but more pervasive, more impactful and more cost-effective.

I'm starting with four key questions I want to answer:

• How can we design learning activities and content to be more uncontrollably spreadable?
• How can we create cultures of sharing and spreading learning?
• How can we construct the transport mechanisms to make learning spreadable?
• How do we prepare individuals and groups to receive learning content and activities?

Oh - and in case you're wondering where the strap line comes in ("Networked learning : Cross-cultural learning : Creativity & Innovation") here's my attempt at a rationale:

• I'm convinced that a significant proportion of networked learning will fairly soon be "viral" and...
• the network of networks we're working on - the internet - seemlessly crosses cultural boundaries, but the learning business is almost comletely unprepared for this and...
• the issues around cultivating effective learning and those around cultivating innovation and creativity are getting increasingly interwoven, and...
• these are the themes that I find most fascinating about my work so I thought I'd write about them.

© Copyright 2003 patrick dunn. Last update: 06/06/2003; 11:58:36.