A friend of mine who teaches journalism at Harvard posted this video on Facebook the other day (a great testimony to the truths found in the video itself). I found it so compelling I wanted to share it with the rest of you.
My favorite line...
"If MySpace were a country... it would be the eight largest in the world."
If what's happening on the internet is any indication of the world to come, there is no doubt that our companies are falling way behind.
Early last week I noticed that KnowledgePlanet (now mzinga) had acquired Prospero, "a leader in customer community solutions" (i.e. social networking). Then I saw that Josh Bersin had blogged about it in a post on the future of the LMS market.
According to Josh, after increased integration with other talent management modules and improved learning on-demand functionality...
"...The next step will be social networking. Vendors which have jumped onto this include KnowledgePlanet (completely renamed to Mzinga and refocused the company on corporate social networking, while continuing its enterprise class LMS business), Saba (acquired Centra and offers blogs, wikis, and collaboration within the context of every learning program), Learn.com (built its own web conferencing system which is available in its platform), SumTotal (which just announced support for the iPhone), and almost every other LMS provider. In fact one of the potential risks to the LMS market is that you can now implement a Wiki so easily with tools like Customervision or Gaussian that collaborative learning can be implemented fairly easily without an LMS (although the tracking, registration, and administration features are still needed)."
Meanwhile, back in January I suggested that another social networking tool, Pringo, might become attractive prey to HR vendors looking to build out their social networking functionality.
While my shot-in-the-dark prediction hasn't come true, I believe the Mzinga/Prospero deal and Josh Bersin's examples both show that the idea is on target.
Where my perspective differs is in where I ultimately view the big opportunity. While social networking functionality is a nice-to-have for LMS's and can streamline and enhance the formal e-learning experience, collaborative/informal learning - the future of e-learning - isn't likely to happen within the confines of a LMS.
Josh recognizes this by pointing to Customervision and Gaussian, both tools that enable informal learning without providing any other LMS functionality. But what's missing is recognition of the huge opportunity for vendors that have focused heavily on the performance and succession management space - SuccessFactors, Softscape, Workstream, Authoria, now Taleo, as well as SAP, Oracle, Lawson, Nakisa, etc.
As homes for data on employees' competencies, skills, experiences, interests, etc. these systems hold great potential for streamlining the process of helping people identify subject matter experts, coaches and mentors, and like-minded individuals, which is the hard part of informal learning. Once you've given people the ability to find each other, giving them the ability to connect is relatively easy.
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