Learning 2.0: How blogs, rss and the networked information economy are going to change everything about how you work
Friday, December 9th, 2005“Teaching
People How to Learn”
Although you may not yet realize it, we are on the verge of a huge
change in how we manage learning and information. This is the focus of our work now at the Otter Group. We have been
working on a number of very interesting projects that involve a wholly
new approach to designing and producing learning programs. We have learned a
lot. In light of one of the key principles of what we are calling
Learning 2.0: Learners become teachers, it is time for us to start to teach.
We like to think of Learning 2.0 as a new “system” for learning that is
built on web services interoperating through open standards and
application programming interfaces.
The tools are rapidly
advancing and they will continue to radically improve over the coming year as
Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo start to battle it out for control of the
new world of aggregation and information management. Microsoft has
signaled this shift in the language it has chosen for its new operating
system: Vista. While “Windows” looked inward and down into the personal
hard drive, Vista looks up and out into the wide world of information
on the horizon (and beyond…). Google is moving the other direction
with its new Google desktop program, which links the wide world back to
the desktop. They are both moving towards the same idea of the desktop
becoming a center for managing aggregation, information sharing, and
connections with other people and information.
Blogs and blogging
were the beginning of our journey into this new world. And they
represent a new paradigm for what we believe will be the software and
communications model on which the networked information economy runs.
Blogs are the beginning of giving form to enormous information flows we
now need to manage. Blogs and the “publish/subscribe architecture” on
which they are built, offer things that will be critical to work:
convenience, ease of use, a common format and language, information
aggregation and filtering, and persistence and searchability.
A desktop aggregator is another tool. It's what you might call “Tivo” for your desktop.
Our Learning 2.0 services will help you reorganize your electronic
learning into a cheaper, better, faster, system. A typical project includes:
Setting up aggregators for your employees that are
populated with channels for learning.
Then, using weblogs, podcasts, and persistent search we will help you
develop new ways to produce content for these channels:
Our Learning Directors will help you manage these new learning networks
so that you achieve your objectives.
Please contact us for further information about how you can transform
learning in your organization.
To read further, please take a look at “The Path to Learning 2.0”
(link)
He was looking into developing a “traditional” web site that would
In 2006, the Otter Group will implement our first full-fledged learning 2.0 model for high potential employees at Merrill Lynch. Designed to foster innovation at Merrill, the program will link faculty, executives, and participants through a network of weblogs. 
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