Plateau Systems Facilitates Informal On-The-Job Training with Social Learning

by TMT Editor

In Q4 of 2010, Plateau Systems introduced Plateau Talent Gateway, a new social learning and collaboration portal. This guest post features an excerpt from a Plateau business case, "Social Networking and Collaboration for the Workplace." The excerpt explores social learning and collaboration solutions in talent management and adds perspective from Jeff Kristick, Plateau’s SVP of Marketing, on how Plateau Talent Gateway is meeting these needs.

Excerpt from "Social Networking and Collaboration for the Workplace"
by Jeff Kristick, Senior Vice President of Marketing at Plateau Systems

Research shows that informal learning accounts for over 80 percent of the learning that takes place within organizations.  The increasing trend towards informal learning in the workplace is being fueled and facilitated by the myriad social networking and knowledge-sharing tools and technologies that have emerged over the past 18 months. Organizations are looking to harness the power of social networking to make learning more relevant, accessible, collaborative and ubiquitous within their organizations.

This is where social networking and collaboration software like Plateau Talent Gateway fits in. These types of tools and technologies pave the way for organizations to facilitate knowledge-sharing, collaboration, and learning activities that directly impact organizational initiatives and business results.

By breaking out of the traditional formal and informal learning silos -- and embracing the natural synergy that exists between these two areas -- you open your organization up to potentially greater results and benefits in both the formal and informal learning arenas. Those results can include more productive employees, shorter time to competency for new employees and partners, and more engaged employees. All of these results can have a direct impact on your business goals and objectives.

What social networking and collaboration tools provide you with is an easy way for you to connect your employees to each other, provide them with direct access to information and an environment for them to contribute to the content.  These types of tools can help you bridge the gaps between traditional or formal learning and less tangible, user-driven, informal learning.

WebJunction and OCLC: Putting Social Learning and Collaboration to Work

While the introduction of social networking and collaboration tools in learning environments is a (relatively speaking) new development, organizations are already using these tools to leverage informal learning. One example is WebJunction, a division of OCLC, a nonprofit library service and research organization. Library staff and organizations vocalized the need for a centralized community and their desire to find a way to bring together their fragmented library field and provide a venue that would allow them to engage in discussions, participate in groups, share content, and partake in collaborative learning development with each other.

To accomplish this, WebJunction launched an initiative to make it easier for librarians and staff to:

• Connect with friends and colleagues across the library community using social tools;
• Create custom content, conversations, and ad-hoc communities; 
• Learn relevant skills with flexible online courses and social and learning management tools

WebJunction built and deployed a revolutionary platform that integrates social tools, content management, formal learning (Plateau Learning Management System), customer management and virtual meeting spaces. If you’re interested in hearing directly from WebJunction on how they are using Plateau Talent Gateway’s social learning and collaboration tools for their community, listen to this archived presentation from TalentPalooza 2009 available here.

Extending Formal Learning and Capturing Informal Learning through Plateau Talent Gateway

When we introduced Plateau Talent Gateway in September, our goal was to help organizations maximize their talent management investments by extending formal learning and capturing the informal and just-in time we discuss above. Put simply, Plateau Talent Gateway combines the best of social networking portal and Web 2.0 tools, helping organizations facilitate the knowledge sharing, collaboration, and learning activities that directly impact organizational objectives. The solution is unique in that it combines a complete talent profile with social networking and portal tools, with a seamless and direct connection to the Plateau Talent Management Suite. 

You can view the full product overview online here, but the core benefits we call out there are worth restating here:

• Drive innovation from within -- by providing a venue for your employees to find experts, and share and connect on work-related topics, you facilitate knowledge sharing and ultimately innovation.
• Boost productivity and maximize internal resources -- the tools available through the Talent Gateway make sharing content and knowledge easy between peers at your organization, accelerating learning and in turn the productivity of your employees.
• Extend learning and development cost effectively -- through available features in the Talent Gateway, you are able to offer your internal employees an easy way to immediately discuss, share knowledge, conduct searches -- and much more, without having to book conference rooms, arrange for travel, or conduct multiple meetings.
• Cultivate external collaboration -- encourage engagement with and between customers, partners, coworkers, association members -- your entire extended network. Build communities, offer training, improve communication, solicit feedback -- all this and more using the tools within the Talent Gateway.

The use cases for social learning and collaboration solutions are wide-ranging. The whitepaper "Social Networking & Collaboration for the Workplace" (PDF) highlights three example scenarios:

1. Providing new product training to geographically dispersed sales staff
2. Providing training and information to the extended enterprise, including partners and resellers
3. Managing a geographically dispersed project team, where teams can be short-lived and dynamic

Combined with how organizations like WebJunction are using Plateau Talent Gateway to create communities and foster learning and collaboration, the opportunity for social networking and collaboration tools in talent management is abundant.

About Jeff Kristick, Senior Vice President, Marketing at Plateau Systems -- Jeff Kristick is responsible for worldwide marketing, including corporate communications, product marketing, demand generation, and events. Jeff joined Plateau in March 2008. Prior to joining Plateau, Jeff worked at TIBCO Software, where he was responsible for global product marketing, analyst relations, and sales enablement. He and his team successfully designed and launched a broad array of marketing programs, firmly positioning TIBCO as a leader in the business process management and service oriented architecture markets. Prior to TIBCO, Jeff held several product management positions at Siebel Systems for their Siebel Marketing product suite. Jeff received his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the U.S. Naval Academy, and his M.B.A. from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.