I've been a keen reader of Seth Godin's perspectives on marketing (and everything) for a while now. But this morning one of his books caught my eye as I went to sit at my desk - Permission Marketing. It's strange how the mind works, I saw the title and I thought "mmm, that's how to get traction for informal learning in the workplace".
If you're not following my train of thought yet, let me explain! Seth's main point in the book is that what he terms 'interruption marketing' (think TV ads, newspaper ads, billboards etc) are all designed to get your attention via interrupting what you are doing - and he reckons that this type of marketing is doomed because of the information overload that we all suffer from everyday - the 'interruptive message' gets swamped by the deluge of information washing over us each day. From this position, Seth coined the term 'Permission Marketing' to describe a way forward for marketing messages in an world of information overload.
So, to informal learning! I've followed many discussions on blogs, webinars and twitter asking to promote a greater use of informal learning in workplaces. It's a good point! Right now there are increased cost pressures on businesses everywhere (especially L&D departments) As a result of this and the increasing profile of alternative learning technologies, there has been a renewed focus on whether informal learning can be leveraged to fill the gaps left by a lessening reliance on workshop and classroom-based learning.
In some places I've seen people discuss whether the answer is to put some structure around the informal learning that occurs in workplaces, thus allowing informal learning to be more effectively promoted in workplaces. This however runs the risk of removing the 'in' from informal, leaving us with just another type of formal learning. It isn't surprising that businesses think in this way as most businesses are built around structure, processes and systems. But, in the case of informal learning, structure is not the answer.
Let's look at how to promote informal learning in another way, let's call it Permission Learning (built around the same principles as Permission Marketing).
The ideal informal learning scenario is that workers have given their express permission for knowledge and skills updates/videos/etc to appear via links in their inbox. The worst scenario is when learning videos/information emails just appear unexpectedly and without permission, think spam!
So, how would you like workers to view your learning/knowledge content? As spam? Obviously not, this would just mean that the content is effectively binned, along with your investment. Instead, you should aim for workers to eagerly click on any links that are sent to them because they look forward to them, they see value in it!
Remember, this is still informal learning. You are not making anyone do this, learners/workers want to!
So, let's review the 5 levels of permission (from Seth Godin) as they might apply to informal learning.
- Intravenous
- Points
- Personal relationships
- Brand trust
- Situation
1. Intravenous
This is the highest level of permission. This describes a situation where the worker has given explicit permission for the business to provide them with the elearning/videos/webinars/etc that the business believes the worker might need and be interested in. Ideally this should be based both upon the current role the worker is performing but should also be referenced against what they have previously shown interests in. (ie give people what they want) This is the ideal situation BUT carries with it a great responsibility. If the business sends the wrong, or irrelevant, knowledge to the worker, the worker can immediately withdraw their permission. (and then engage in negative Word of Mouth marketing)
2. Points
The next level down on the permission scale is 'Points'. This is fairly straightforward to understand, reward the worker for each 'piece' of learning they undertake. The rewards could be anything, money, extra leave, or extra entries into a business-wide lottery for a grand prize! OK, this is less informal, but still the decision lies with the worker whether they use the learning resources or not.
3. Personal relationships
This is where an individual manager may encourage their team to participate and engage with the learning resources that are available. Personal relationships are good, but they take time to develop and are not transferable across the business. OK, if your business is of a certain size you could have one person whose role is to build such relationships and encourage workers' participation with learning initiatives. The upside of using personal relationships to promote an informal learning environment is that if there is a high level of trust, you are able to more strongly promote learning.
4. Brand Trust
You could use this concept if you created a 'learning brand' within the business. The idea is that trust is built up in the brand through performance. The trust is then leveraged to promote further learning. Such an idea may work as long as the learning opportunities provided continue to meet the workers' expectations of the brand. (don't be tempted to use Brand Trust to 'spam' the worker with other messages) Once broken such brands are significantly weakened.
5. Situation
This level of permission is the lowest (other than spam). It describes a situation where a worker needs to know something NOW in order to complete the task they are working on. In such situations they will seek the knowledge. There is a potential upside to this level of permission. If a worker's learning need is met by your online/informal learning tools, the worker will be more inclined to keep using informal learning channels for other knowledge/skills purposes. BUT, if the worker tries to find what they need informally, but your systems/knowledge prevent them from gaining this knowledge, they will NOT be inclined to do so again. As far as I'm concerned this appears to be the method used in most businesses, a sort of 'build it and they will come approach. The problem is that many businesses only use this approach then throw their hands up in the air and proclaim that informal learning cannot help their businesses!
(6. Finally there is spam. But we all know what we do with spam don't we!)
I hope this has got you thinking! I believe that there is real potential in looking at informal learning in this way, perhaps informal learning could become 'Permission Learning!'
