Case 4. Learning through connecting with and creating knowledge
Many companies are focusing learning and development on enabling people to connect and allowing them to share knowledge. Large organisations have relatively mature knowledge management programs, so a significant amount of knowledge is already aggregated and available social media tools allow collaborative generation of knowledge through interacting with peers. For example:
Xerox[4] uses a wiki to allow employees collaboratively to build the company’s technology strategy. Traditionally, the top management devised and broadcast the vision and high level strategy. Xerox’s chief technology officer, Sophie Vandebroek, decided to open the process up to all researchers in the R&D group. Vandebroek says: “We will share more content and knowledge across all our areas of expertise, including everything from material science to the latest document services and solutions”. Collaborative development of strategy requires sharing of ideas and expertise across subject boundaries. By developing a strategy document across different disciplinary teams, people learn about different disciplines within the context of the given task.
How does collective learning take place – The starting point for learning is making connections – with other people and with knowledge resources located within the collective knowledge. Connecting is the starting point. Learning occurs when people try to make sense of and use the knowledge they find. As a by-produce they create new knowledge that feeds back into the ‘collective knowledge’.