About the Book :: Table of Contents :: Excerpt :: Contributors
The New Social Learning: A Guide to Transforming Organizations Through Social Media
Tony Bingham and Marcia Conner
Paperback: 240 pages
Publisher: ASTD & Berrett-Koehler; September 2010
ISBN: 1605097020 (pbk) – Available now from Amazon.com.
Most business books on social media have focused exclusively on using it as a marketing tool. Many employers see it as simply a workplace distraction. But social media has the potential to revolutionize workplace learning. People have always learned best from one another—social media enables this to happen unrestricted by physical location and in all kinds of extraordinarily creative ways. The New Social Learning is the most authoritative guide available to leveraging these powerful new technologies.
Tony Bingham and Marcia Conner explain why social media is the ideal solution to some of the most pressing educational challenges organizations face today, such as a widely dispersed workforce and striking differences in learning styles, particularly across genera-tions. They definitively answer common objections to using social media as a training tool and show how to win over even the most resistant employees. Then, using examples from a wide range of organizations—including Deloitte & Touche, IBM, TELUS, and even the CIA—Bingham and Conner help readers sort through the dizzying array of technological options available and decide when and how to use each one to achieve key strategic goals.
Social media technologies—everything from 140-character “microsharing” messages to media-rich online communities to complete virtual environments and more—enable people to connect, collaborate, and innovate on levels never before dreamed of. They make learning dramatically more dynamic, stimulating, enjoyable, and effective. This book helps organizations create a contemporary learning strategy that is as timely as it is transformative.
Tony Bingham is President and Chief Executive Officer of the American Society for Training & Development (ASTD), the world’s largest professional association dedicated to the training and development field. ASTD is focused on helping members lead talent management, build their business skills, understand the impact of social media on informal learning, close skills gaps, and connect their work to the strategic priorities of business.
Marcia L. Conner is Managing director of Ageless Learner, a think-tank and advisory service practice, and a fellow of the Batten Institute, Darden Graduate School of Business Administration, University of Virginia. She is the author of Learn More Now: 10 Simple Steps to Learning Better, Smarter, and Faster.
Reviews
“You will find this book to be a practical guide to implementing social learning in your organization.”
Marcia Conner is an internationally recognized advisor to the world's largest organizations reinventing themselves and their workforce for the future.
