Support from social can come from structured sources “I’ll go out to my specialised community of practice for help” as well as unstructured sources “I’ll go out to everyone and anyone in the network”. The point is that social is real time, it’s in context and that context is work. Social is enabling the democratisation of learning and knowledge by putting the means for content creation and sharing in the hands of employees. Social also facilitates the open identification and sharing of problems that need solving. Problems that may otherwise lay dormant or create ongoing organisational inefficiencies and costs until discovered. Performance support creates a mind set in the individual of self sufficiency when it comes to problem solving and decision making. When a problem is encountered that hinders immediate performance of a task, in a performance support world people will feel free to access all means including social to find solutions. Social provides access to the collective knowledge and expertise of an organisation and a solution is more likely.

I’m incredible excited about the convergence of these models.