Intranet-Based Education Conference Report

On January 28-30, 1998, IQPC hosted a conference on Intranet-Based Learning in the scenic French Quarter of New Orleans. This conference offered a great deal of valuable information from people who have integrated the Intranet into corporate education and performance support in diverse and creative ways. IQPC, together with conference partners Corporate Performance Resources and BDM International, put together an excellent program.

Learning not Training

The conference speakers made it clear that today the emphasis should be on learning, not training, in planning and developing educational initiatives in a corporate context. For example, Tony O'Driscoll of Nortel Technology quoted Peter Senge:"Learning is a much more complicated phenomenon than can ever be limited to a classroom. In organizational learning efforts, the confusion of learning and training is fatal."

Senge's concept of the Learning Organization was feautred extensively in the conference presentations. For example, Robert Kelley, Director of Strategic Technology at BDM International, commented, "We're not only concerned with the learning needs of individuals, but the learning needs of organizations." And Tony O'Driscoll presented a model of organizational metamorphosis (see below) that outlines changes in the dominant organizational structures across the agrarian age, the industrial age, and the information age, where the learning organization is a cornerstone.

Jerry Neese, Training Programs Manager at Sun Microsystems, explained that we are moving into a new paradigm for framing corporate education that features the following themes:

Moving from Teacher-centered instruction to Learner-centered learning.

From a Single discipline focus on one body of information to an Interdisciplinary approach relating various bodies of information.

From an emphasis on problems and drills to build a knowledge base toward an emphasis on authentic learning problems that build critical thinking and problem solving skills.

From the Individual being the primary locus of learning to collaborating and learning groups.

From Learning Classrooms to Learning Communities, based not on Geography or Time but by Interest and/or Skill.

From having learning occur during a Prescribed Time Period to Continual Learning.

Many speakers emphasized that learning should be viewed as a strategic tool, so that enhanced learning is synergistic with other business goals. David Owens, the Vice President for Worldwide Professional Development at Unisys explained that our conceptualization should be to increase profitable revenue growth by accelerating learning to improve performance and productivity. Within this framework, corporate education is conceived more broadly than has been the case previously, in a way that is more integrated with other priorities such as performance improvement, efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and adapting to transitions in the marketplace and in the nature of jobs. Kathryn Kidd, Manager of the Performance Consulting Group at the Williams Companies, explained that at her company, they have developed a system of scorecards to document savings from investments in education in areas where savings claims are made. So the scorecards show the benefit of investment in education, such as the new Intranet-based system that has been implemented.

Related to this, Neese points out, "Whole new careers are opening up but people must accept a change in paradigm." Retraining is a critical consideration, including the process of motivating people to buy into retraining, retooling, and upgrading their skills.

Jerry Neese suggested that corporate training professionals are now "creating a playing field where people can learn" --- using a toolbox that includes but is not limited to, the Intranet. It is no longer enough to create content: there must be an environment (i.e., a playing field) where people can interact not only with content, but with tools such as search engines, databases, information filters and pattern recognition tools, administrative tools, decision support tools, job aids, etc., as well as on-the-job practice, problem-solving, and learning for situations that cannot be predicted.

Robert Kelley, Director of Strategic Technology at BDM International explained that web-based learning environments are changing rapidly as a result of both:

The need to leverage human assets and information assets within an organization.

The capability of technology to significantly augment and enhance the performance of individuals and organizations.

Kelly pointed out that Intranet technologies are synonymous with a whole range of other technologies that have converged in cyberspace.These converging technologies provide a powerful panoply of resources for supporting education and performance support. These converging technologies include:

Multimedia, video, voice, image, text

Database technology

Object-oriented programming

Internetworking technologies

Knowledge-based reasoning, coaching, advice

Adaptive pattern recognition and programming.

Kelley emphasized that there must be a complementary social architecture --- technology by itself is not sufficient. And training alone isn't sufficient --- therefore we need to build a mechanism for networking, for bootstrapping on each other's experience and wisdom.

Intellectual Capital

Another theme highlighlighted at this conference was the concept of intellectual capital. David Owens of Unisys commented, "It's not what you own that counts, it's what you know." Owens presented the following model to explain how intellectual capital fits in to corporate assets:

Jerry Neese pointed out that consulting companies have only ever had intellectual capital. Intellectual captial assets have been give short shrift in the past because these are intangible assets, not readily subject to measurement. But new technological tools are making it possible to access and assess these intangible assets in a variety of ways.

Thomas Brailsford, Business Research Manager at Hallmark, pointed out that 80% of intellectual capital resides in your people and they go home at night. Brailsford discussed how his company is using the Intranet to capture some of that intellectual capital so that it does not reside exclusively in the minds of employees. In particular, Hallmark is concerned with capturing the expert knowledge of employees who will be retiring soon. Stories provide a focal point for this program since stories capture tacit knowledge. The goals of this initiative are to make knowledge creation and knowledge leverage easier. Knowledge leveraging means making specific knowledge known by a few available to many within the company.

Hallmark set out to capture "expert content" in a systematic way using the following strategies:

Storytelling tools

Job-relevant exercises

Peer-to-peer conversations

Brailsford reported that Hallmark adopted a new paradigm for knowledge leadership: A circle of influence. This circle feautres three components that flow into each other seamlessly and continuously in an infinite loop:

People (Creating knowledge)
Knowledge products
Tacit knowledge capture

Process (Sharing knowledge): nothing has value until it moves.
Connectivity - emailForums
Research university, speakers
Intranet - Voice of the Marketplace
Explicit knowledge - data, information, research abstracts, published reports. The hard stuff.
Implicit knowledge - Experience, "Know How". The soft stuff. The soft stuff is the hard stuff!

Purpose (Using knowledge)
Knowledge for growth & creativity
Knowledge to uderstand how people work together
Applied knowledge becomes a competetive advantage

Knowledge leverage has the following beneficial effects:

• Common goals throughout the organization
• Shared "expert content" results in higher performing organization
• Common language
• Knowledge Communities promote team aspect
• Applied Knowledge becomes a competitive advantage

Selecting a Delivery System

Several speakers emphasized that it is essential not to preselect the delivery medium. The Intranet may not be the solution or it may not be the whole solution. For example, it may be valuable to combine Intranet-based delivery with CD ROM-based delivery. Another consideration is to decide on the best technology for each stage of education delivery. Jerry Neese pointed out that getting people trained faster is cost efficient.