Learnscape Sandbox
Curriculum-free, interactive, self-service learning is the way of the future, but it’s a future most training departments are not quite ready to adopt.
Most of us agree on where we’re headed: to ecologies where work and learning are one and the same, where people help one another build competency and master new crafts, where members of self-sustaining communities of professionals participate because they take pride in maintaining their standards and doing a great job, and where everyone strives to be all she can be. Open, participative, bottom-up, networked, flexible, responsive: that’s what we’re after.
If only it were that simple. Learning professionals are already over-burdened. Budgets are tight. The economy is a shambles. Management demands cost-effective, rapid-impact solutions. And they want them up and running tomorrow.
Pulling this off requires choosing among a myriad of new technologies, coordinating with IT, cobbling together social networking tools, CYA with legal, monitoring social network performance, and answering demands for new approaches, all the while doing the old job with fewer resources and more demands.
Knowledgable builders
Jane Hart, Harold Jarche, Clark Quinn, and Jay Cross have been helping CLOs and learning managers deal with these issues, but talk alone doesn’t solve anything.
This is like blogging, where you’ve got to try it in order to understand it. We thought about how to accelerate prototyping and experimentation.
Over the last month, we have assembled an online environment to support a team a dozen to 150 people working and learning together. Our suite of low-cost, proven web software provides online space for conversation and collaboration, personal and professional profiles, following group activities in real time (online and/or by mobile phone), sharing insights and developments, building and retaining collective intelligence, scheduling and conducting meetings, monitoring subscriptions to industry and community news, tracking competitive information, collaborative writing, and more. It operates “in the cloud” and is ready to activate the day after you contact us.
We call our community-building activity Leanring Sandbox. Learnscape Sandbox is a safe, fast way to experiment with implementing the most powerful instrumental of informal learning and innovation: simple conversation.
Work + learning = Learnscape
Learnscapes are platforms where knowledge workers collaborate, solve problems, converse, share ideas, brainstorm, learn, bond, talk, explain, communicate, conceptualize, tell stories, help one another, teach, serve customers, clue in partners, keep up to date, meet, flirt, shout, forge partnerships, build communities, and distribute information. Learnscapes are where and how modern work is performed.
Your organization already has a learnscape. That's not the issue. The point is to enable it to work well...
When to use Learning Sandbox
Learning Sandbox is a starter kit: a series of online meeting places and community touchpoints, coupled with advice from world-class experts on learning and collaboration. We expect corporations to use it to:
- Add self-service, networked, informal learning
- Experiment with online learning communities
- Build collaborative team
- Prototype community learning environment
- Keep Gen Y new hires enthused
- Run unofficial beta proofs of concept
- Add social dimension to online groups
- Keep everyone on same page
- Make key documents more findable
- Add channel for instant learning
Advice on implementation comes from learning professionals, not software geeks. Jane knows social networking tools as well as anyone in the industry; Harold has his finger on the pulse of bottom-up learning and open source approaches; Clark is a passionate advocate of cognitive design, applying what we know about how people think to the design of systems. Jay is the thought leader in informal learning and the convergence of work and learning online.
What's included
The primary value of Learnscape Sandbox is the advice and help that comes with it, not the web services that come with it. Learnscape Sandbox comes with two days advice on topics like these:
- Personal guidance on establishing and prospering with an online community
- Help identifying and articulating purpose and outcomes
- Setting up a Sandbox with your branding and functions
- Help desk during deployment
- Six-week evaluation report
INATT: It’s not about the technology. Nonetheless, technology is everywhere. You receive a Sandbox. This is a private online community tailored to the needs of your group and generally skinned to reflect your brand. A Sandbox accommodates 12-150 people. We work with you to determine which of these functions to include in your Sandbox:
- Member profiles
- Calendar of events
- Chat room
- River of industry news
- Discussion forum
- Member blogs
- Ability to share photos, videos, essays
- Legal notice upon sign-up
- Examples of successful collaboration
- FAQs and wikis
- Microblogging
- Mobile updates
- Feed aggregator
- Advice on building community
We provide additional services when you need them a la carte:
- Additional advice and help beyond the bundled two days
- Onsite change management, workshops, management presentations
- Mentoring, coaching, advice (online)
- Monitoring participation and performance
- Setting up links and special features
- Ongoing implementation advice
- Support for internal marketing
- Evaluation (beyond six-week report)
Fees
Learnscape Sandbox is in beta. Fees are in flux. Currently a one-year license for Learnscape Sandbox is $5,000. Your next two Sandboxes, with one-day of advice, are $3,000 each. Subsequent Sandboxes are $1,000 each. We encourage clients to use the Sandbox to gain experience before they go it on their own. For those who refuse to be weaned, renewal are available for 50% of first-year fees.
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