The Happy Curmudgeon

In Part I of this series we looked at the first part of Tony Bingham’s post on “Learning Socially” and pointed out that so far in the article, nothing the President of ASTD mentioned is relevant or telling regarding the need or movement towards “social learning. Let’s look further at Bingham’s article to see if there is any substance or valid data in it. We’ll continue with an attempt to deal with what has to be one of the silliest fad terms to hit the training world — informal learning.

Bingham says:

In the May 2009 issue of this magazine, Josh Bersin of Bersin and Associates said it well: “It’s not informal learning taking over everything; it’s a modernization of the learning function.”

Rough estimates indicate that 80 percent of learning is informal and 20 percent is formal.

On the surface of it the remarks above are rather benign. And, sadly many trainers reading this excerpt will nod in approval, because they either lack the inclination or knowledge about learning to see how absolutely superficial this remark is. First, Bingham offers no data to support anything, but again relies on a biased expert (Bersin) to buttress the value of “informal learning”. Certainly Bersin is a credible individual, but why should I, as let’s say, a CEO of a major company, invest any money into something based on Bersin’s opinion? I’m not going to.

Second, Bingham uses an oft used techniques for establishing credibility when little exists or should be afforded — the use of meaningless numbers. Note there is no source for the estimate of 80% vs 20%, but that’s not the real problem. The real problem is there is no definition offered of what constitutes informal versus formal learning. There is no operational definition, and without operational definitions and research, these numbers mean nothing. Any fool can make up a set of numbers and repeat them and have them repeated until people believe. It’s shoddy. It should be an embarrassment for ASTD.

Third, I’ve mentioned elsewhere that the term “informal learning” is redundant and akin to the term “informal breathing” Both breathing and learning occur ALL the time for awake, conscious people who are not…well, dead. It’s an effort to coin a term that is both ill defined, and can be marketed with buzz. We don’t need it.

Bingham continues by quoting yet another “expert”

One of the things that has happened is that we have focused so much on the 10 percent [formal learning] that we abdicated the 70 percent [informal learning]. If the learning organization doesn’t get into that 70 percent and use social media, they’re going to get left behind. They’re going to become irrelevant because people are going to be able to post and share knowledge with one another without the learning function. It’s a call to action for learning to become really involved in social media in order to facilitate and enable informal learning. And that’s a really exciting place for the learning profession to be because what you are capturing, then, is the performance of an organization.”

Anyone notice how the numbers just changed. First it’s 20/80% but now it’s 10/70% ? Notice how the expert’s numbers actually only add up to %80 ? Maybe it’s picky. Maybe there’s some sense behind these numbers. Maybe it’s carelessness. Or sloppiness? Or, likely there’s a number of things going on. One likely idea is that Bingham has already made his decisions about social learning and informal learning, and then goes out to find numbers or people who will confirm it. That the numbers don’t even add up seems to have been overlooked here.

One problem with trying to critique an article like this is that the author (and this is typical of the field) simply doesn’t define social learning, so any criticism can be diverted after the fact by simply shifting the definition.

But here’s the thing. We all know that we learn things all the the time. When you hit a snag at work, and need to accomplish something fast, you don’t sign up for a course (presumably that’s formal learning). You open a manual if its handy. You go down the hall to Joe, who is really good at “these kinds of things”, and ask him. Or, if it’s not urgent you may do another task, and then, at the water cooler, ask someone. Or maybe ask your boss if she’s around. All of that, presumably is “informal learning”.

The power of these ways of “learning” is that they are immediate, and you can interact, for the most part, with people who have a shared context (your workplace, these kinds of tasks, you and your skills).

What Bingham does now is confuse social learning with informal learning. In fact, the use of the misnamed social learning (e.g twitter, facebook, youtube) is intimately coupled in Bingham’s mind with informal learning and they are completely different things. Informal learning is powerful, immediate, instant, and as needed. Social learning platforms may be so, but realistically are NOT so. And, they don’t add any advantage to other forms of electronic interaction such as email or listservers. Yet, it’s all jumbled together.

Step back. Even assuming you use and enjoy the social learning platforms such as twitter, linkedin, facebook and Youtube, is that where you go when you have a problem that needs to be solved NOW!? No, you go for live, in person help with someone who understands your job. Now, if you are absolutely stuck you might go online. But then you will likely have to wait until someone who has the answer is actually online, monitors his social network, notices your plea for help, decides to take time out to give you an answer…. It’s simply not efficient, and it’s not practical.

To equate social learning with informal learning is foolish wrong, and intellectually weak.

In Part III of this critique we’ll continue on. Stay tuned. But here is a last thought to consider.

If the training department takes on and controls informal learning, doesn’t that make it informal?

(Since Bingham isn’t telling us his definitions, hard to tell. Good to consider.)