The Second Wave, Where Learning Is Better
That day the only learning that had to be disseminated to the asso-
ciates in the store was “Open the box so that customers can see that
it contains a computer, monitor, and printer.” These small, incre-
mental bursts of knowledge, skills, or procedures are often the most
crucial interventions. We can’t just focus on large best practices or
on formal e-learning courses and training programs. Operational
lessons will often be found in the tweaks and improvements, in the
smaller chunks. These must be delivered electronically and as part
of an ongoing connection between the worker and multiple sources
of knowledge. We also can’t overwhelm the workforce with too
many bursts of knowledge. There are only so many blasts from
headquarters that the workforce will accept with gratitude. After
that point, employee reception weakens and passivity grows.
Increasing Speed to LearningThere are key innovations that organizations are making in build-
ing learning networks that increase the speed to learning. They
come in two arenas: knowledge and learning authoring and knowl-
edge and learning connections.
Fast to Author
In the old days (five or ten years ago), the authoring of content
often took weeks or months. One manufacturing company planned
on fourteen months from the point of determining what learning
was to be authored and when it actually reached learners. The
company had fifty-seven quality control steps in the authoring
process, and often thirty or forty people would touch the learning
content along the way. That just won’t do when the speed of busi-
ness is marked by quarters and when the speed of change is often
measured in days or hours.
Organizations are creating faster and more informal ways of
authoring content. The challenge is to bring content to workers
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