I have spent a lot of time this week discussing the evolving corporate learning challenges presented by Web 2.0 and the growing influence of social networking. There is wisdom in the “crowd”. Many of us, however, fear the “crowd”. If memory serves me, the corporate “we” also feared fax machines, email, and the internet, all within the last 20 years. The “crowd” is now ever-present in this Web 2.0 universe. Thought leaders are not running for the exits or erecting fences, rather they are embracing the opportunity to harness the wisdom of the “crowd”. Mzinga has now successfully published the first truly crowd-authored book. - a book authored by thousands, and assembled in a cohesive final copy.

Dell, Intel, and Ace Hardware, to name a few, have taken to the community to share, to teach, to author, to design and to improve. Web 2.0 is now Learning 2.0. Intel has published two year results indicating over 5,000 authors of new learning content.

However, the prevailing corporate attitude still remains pessimistic and guarded. “What will the say?”; “Who will see it?”; “How will we control what they say?”; “What if they say something wrong?”. On the surface, valid concerns. The reality is that social networking, workplace informal communities, airing dirty laundry… it is all happening anyway. The innovators are finding a way to learn, adapt and leverage.

Running in parallel to the new Web 2.0 communities we are faced with the reality of Generational Differences in the workplace. Increasingly, the Gen Y’s are making up a significant proportion of the workplace. They are driving this change in how students now learn.

I suggest a learning strategy that involves the historically popular blended components - classroom, job aids, eLearning modules, job shadowing, etc…. and of course - let’s always be thinking about business metrics. This next generation of learning leadership will consider the wisdom of the “crowd” and their mobile device capabilities to ensure optimum results. Be careful about too much resistance in the short term. It is happening all around you.

RB

1,800 courses online in 11 months. All in a days work.

In February 2007, MIT went on the record and said that 1,800 courses at the university would be online by 2008. This was a truly remarkable statement considering the amount of knowledge and clout inherent in MIT’s curriculum.

While the push began in 2001, as an Open CourseWare Programme, the premise was that this information was best served free (with obvious provisions against commercial re-use).

Now, in April 2008, more than 1,800 courses are online and available for download - the entire MIT course database. Everything from student work to lecture notes.

Welcome to a time when learning should, and will be, democratized.

MindMuze is coming. Very soon.

In the meantime, thanks for visiting!

Update: Did we mention the “very soon” part? Please excuse this blogger’s excitement.

Here is an excerpt from a recent SearchSecurity.com article that we found interesting…

If 2006 began the trend of researchers launching ‘month-of’ flaw disclosure projects, 2007 was the year such projects ceased amid a rising wave of criticism among those who thought it was more about ego than better security

“Software vendors are notorious for taking months or years to produce a security patch,” said Metasploit Framework creator H.D. Moore, whose Month of Browser Bugs in July exposed 31 browser holes, most affecting Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. “The ‘Month-of’ projects put pressure on the vendor to address an issue in a reasonable amount of time. In my experience, nothing produces a patch faster than a published exploit.”

LMH, the researcher behind the Month of Kernel and Month of Apple bugs, said, “It’s better to have someone disclosing your security flaws than having them known by the bad guys, only. This pushes the vendor to change its procedures and policies for vulnerability handling and disclosure. And that’s where users benefit.”

But with the Month of Apple Bugs now underway, some security bloggers are criticizing the disclosure projects as something designed more for press attention than better security.

That’s not to say the critics don’t find some value in what the researchers are doing.

The Security Curve blog, for example, takes on the issue of press attention while still finding value in exposing Apple’s security holes.

The full article is here.