a) provide tools

b) support effective tool use (evangelizing, nurturing, observing)

c) support self- and other-learning skills

I think there *is* a role for someone to look at what’s produced and potentially redesign for clarity, and also see where a course could help, but that’s a role for transfer from informal to performance support or formal. As I said, I like the notion of Steve’s playground: we put up a mix of different things, and our only responsibility is to have them play fair and safely, not to dictate what they play on and when.

From the Cynefin framework, I think it’s a case of Probe-Sense-Respond, looking for emergent patterns.

And as for work/life, I’ll quote Harold Jarche: work is learning, and learning is work. Life? As part of your trusting folks, I reckon they’ll be doing informal learning at work, and you just want to make sure they’ve got good tools.

There seem to be other advantage to mediating and supporting a space in between the more pure forms of self-directed learning and the more formal forms of facilitated / programmed information and learning support. Let’s say I spend a lot of time digging, exploring, and internalizing new perspectives and skills. Without a mediated space (and precedent) to share and diffuse this acquisition in my distributed professional network it will stay with me.

To me the mediated informal space is for propagation. Simply supporting the space and encouraging participation is potentially motivation for folks to continue learning on their own, and in their own way. There is also plenty of value to the origin / source that is able to share in their professional environment.

@Neil – I’m with you – most (perhaps all) of my informal learning *occurs* on the life side. But there is a cycle where I drive the growth and the interests on both sides of work and home as well as the span in between. I have trouble completely compartmentalizing and segregating life / work, informal / formal. And I don’t think we should try so hard to do so, particularly if our job is fueled by our passion. There may be *pure* informal and this very well could be something that cannot be facilitated. But I DO believe that there is something in between pure informal and pure formal and THIS space very well CAN, and in most cases SHOULD, be supported (NOT CONTROLLED.)

The term ‘informal’ was coined by a few of us, written about by Jay Cross and held the thought that if you learned by informally by ‘falling over’ something you found or asked another for and what you found or received helped you in some way and you both remembered it or acted upon it, then it was learning, informal learning. (sorry long sentence, Word would be underlining it in green)

I went down the route of developing an EPSS tool to assist in the delivery of informal snippets that had been left for the user to fall over intentionally http://www.trainer1.com/Rapid_Application_Support.html but to try to formalise it? Surely this then just becomes formal learning again. Something planned for you to do at a particular time and in a particular way. And you have been led by the hand to it…

Clark, to consider creating an infrastructure to support the user is great and I fully stand behind this idea as we should be attempting to make any learning easy to fall over, but to design it to a point where we are actually trying to direct the user to use the systems in the way we wish, not their own way, they will not use it in the the same way as if they had found it and worked it out for themselves. We all use blogs, twitter and facebook differently, but all get what we need from them.

There are a couple of issues I have. First we don’t give the staff enough credit for what they are able to work out and get on with by themselves. Always trying to lead them by the hand and do it ‘our way. Secondly I think we are relying too much on systems for systems sake…

Last thought http://lasher.co.uk I blogged yesterday an interesting idea of work life balance, informal learning is for me on the life side and not the work side. Maybe I have all wrong today? I will get off the soapbox!

Neil

I think there are ways to provide access outside the firewall (as some orgs do it) that don’t compromise the intranet. You do want to still have an intranet, I think, but blocking access to the internet seems to me to be a bit like giving someone an assembly task and then tying their hands. Particularly what Tony Karrer calls ‘concept workers’, and I think that’s more and more folks, or should be. You want to enable smart work, not stifle it!