Clive Shepherd provides a helpful summary within his blog of the latest research from the elearning guild on 'Learning 2.0 - Learning in a Web 2.0 World'
Clive highlights that: "It is the belief of the authors that younger workers will demand it, and that organisations who adopt it will do better when it comes to attracting and retaining talent."
I'm also struck by the following bullets from the Key Findings of the report:
- Only 28.1% of members report that their organizations are preparing workers on using Web 2.0 approaches for learning and work.
- Among members working in organizations with 10,000 or more workers, 10.8% cannot access LinkedIn, 26.2% cannot access Gmail, 35.0% cannot access YouTube, and 39.2% cannot access either Facebook or MySpace.
I don't think we should be surprised by this data, but it also shows the magnitude of the challenge to move from uptake by individual early adopters to embedding this as the norm for the majority of the workforce, especially in large organisations.
Given that I'd hope that the majority of business leaders value networking & informal learning (as levers that have made them successful in a pre-Web 2.0 world) - I feel we need to challenge ourselves to do more to help them understand that the new technologies are first & foremost just tools to help their workforce network and learn more efficiently & effectively.
