The Virtual Water Cooler Reflect for a moment on how you acquire knowledge at work. Where does the bulk of your knowledge come from? When does the bulk of your learning happen? Did everything you now know concerning your job come from a formal course, or did the majority of your knowledge come through informal channels? Unless this is your first day on the job and you've been in an all-day New Hire Orientation class, I bet you came to the conclusion that most of your learning happened informally in social exchanges with other people: e-mails, phone conversations, and face-to-face meetings around the proverbial water cooler. The vast majority of knowledge in an organization is not encapsulated in formal courses, or even in informal knowledge documents such as presentations or memos. Most knowledge resides in the heads of your colleagues and coworkers. In fact, when we speak of someone being "experienced," what we are really saying is they are knowledgeable about something. Learning Management Systems (LMS) and Learning Content Management Systems (LCMS) provide tremendous efficiencies to organizations, primarily in creating, deploying, tracking, and managing formal learning events. But to capture the informal and engaging impromptu conversations, you need collaboration technologies such as Aspen's Collaboration Center Module and Virtual Classroom (VCS). These tools are designed to extend the reach and power of informal learning and knowledge transfer that already exist wherever people work and interact together. Collaboration technology is, in effect, a Web-based metaphor of your office water cooler that can extend across your enterprise and extend through time. Informal learning requires two prerequisites. First is identifying an expert in the area you are interested in learning about. Next is holding some kind of guided exchange or conversation with that expert so you can acquire the knowledge. In a local environment, we do this sort of thing all the time. We select appropriate experts either from our own personal collection of social contacts, or through networking with colleagues. Then we meet, call or email the expert in hopes of arranging a conversation. This approach works beautifully in small, geographically contained work environments but does not scale very well for geographically extended enterprises or across multiple time zones. Additionally, experts might agree to provide information on an informal basis the first or second time they are called upon, but by the fourth or fifth time, it starts to get a little old and their level of cooperation understandably starts to wane. This is where collaboration technology comes in. This type of technology allows employees to: Find appropriate experts (i.e., associated with specific topics or knowledge areas) wherever they are in the extended enterprise. Engage in a conversation with the selected expert (through threaded e-mail discussion groups or instant messaging) even if they are separated by time zone and distance. "Virtually meet" with colleagues and experts even if participants are geographically separated. There are additional benefits beyond the "extended water cooler reach." Collaboration technology also allows users to:   Search through and review questions and topics others may have already asked, thus saving the expert from answering the same query over and over. Form "communities of interest" that can have ongoing discussion/interaction about a specific area or topic. Post documents and files associated with a topic. Work together in a virtual environment in which one or more presenters can share slide presentations, videos, documents and desktop applications. These informal sessions can be recorded, edited, and provided as learning experiences to future knowledge seekers.   In summary, collaboration technology is a powerful tool that allows you to "reach out and touch" a designated expert no matter where they are and reap the benefits of their expertise -- like holding a conversation at the world's largest water cooler.   -- Ken Joseph    Director, Aspen Business Consulting

Top of Page     The Aspen Collaboration Center The Aspen Collaboration Center enhances your ability to capture the tacit knowledge of your employees through threaded discussions and access to expert communities. Ever have trouble finding a person with the right knowledge? You can identify company experts in a collaboration center so that employees can easily find the right people with the right information. Want to document feedback or better identify best practices? The Collaboration Center enables the creation of discussion areas designed to collect that information. Since interactions are captured in the system, others can later access conversations to gather the specific information they need. Also, the Aspen Collaboration Center allows you to use information more effectively. For instance, imagine your product support team creates a collaboration center for product feedback. Employees can submit questions and issues about the company's latest products that the team might use to develop customer tools (like FAQ documents) or to plan for product improvements. Or, consider the sales manager who wants to improve sales by leveraging the best practices of her sales people. She has her staff submit their best practices into a collaboration center, uses those suggestions to create standards for the group, and then continues to use that knowledge to document recommended practices for new sales people. The Aspen Collaboration Center helps you to make knowledge a tangible asset, increase your company's productivity and have a healthy return on your investment in learning technology. Learn more about Aspen Collaboration Center at http://home.click2learn.com/en/aspen/aspen_coll.asp    Top of Page   Create a Vibrant Learning Community To master Aspen Collaboration Center, you can participate in the Click2learn virtual course, "Creating Vibrant Learning Communities with the Collaboration Center." This is a three-hour, two-part course designed to teach you how to participate in, create, and manage learning communities through the use of collaboration centers and instant messaging. You also will learn to build valuable content into your environment through peer article discussions, expert Q&A, and logged instant messaging conversations. The next training session will be on June 26, 9 AM to 3:30 PM (Eastern Time). To register, please call 425-637-1513, or send an email to michele.pearcy@click2learn.com.

Top of Page     Customers Advise Click2learn at ASTD Click2learn recently sponsored the 2003 American Society of Training and Development (ASTD) International Conference and Expo (ICE) held this year in San Diego, California. This is the premier event for training and development professionals around the world, with approximately 7000 attendees this year, and hundreds of exhibits showcasing the latest innovations in improving corporate knowledge, skills and productivity. As the leader in our industry, we were on hand to personally reconnect with current customers, court potential customers, and generally outshine the competition. You can learn more about the show and the ASTD organization at http://www.astd.org Click2learn made an impressive showing. Here are a few highlights:   Customer Advisory Council: We kicked off the week with a meeting of the Customer Advisory Council. We brought this group of our largest enterprise customers together to discuss and offer input on key issues and experiences ranging from learning best practices to product features and functionalities to future technology strategies. This gave our customers a forum to interact with each other and to give us valuable feedback on our products and service offerings so that we can move forward with our customers' needs in focus. Customer Advisory Council members include industry leaders such as Standard & Poor's, AT&T, Microsoft, Medco Health, DDI, Albertson's, New Horizons, Symantec, Fidelity, Citigroup, Cendant, Level 3 Communications, Century 21, Wyeth and others.     Best Booth Award: If you're not familiar with the Click2learn booth, imagine an 800 square foot area with video monitors and demo workstations throughout the area, and a theater for presentations and demos -- one of the largest exhibits at the show. As it turns out, ASTD volunteers thought pretty highly of it too. Based on criteria including visual branding, booth accessibility, helpfulness and expertise of booth staff, etc., volunteers voted the Click2learn booth "Best Island Booth" (free-standing booth).      Top of Page   ToolBook Tip: Finding Advanced ToolBook Information Wondering how to speed up the performance of your ToolBook Web content? Or maybe you need to know how to use ToolBook's Action Editor to send data to a server-side database management system. There's a resource right at your fingertips that you can always turn to. Simply search for these topics and more using the ToolBook Knowledge base found in ToolBook Support at our Web site. To learn more, go to http://home.click2learn.com/en/toolbook_support/index.asp    Top of Page