I read a blog post quoting Jack Stack, CEO of SRC Holdings, where he says “…it’s on the floor, where training and work are merged – that’s where you get the creativity and the innovation.” This is a powerful insight about the way high performing organizations get their people engaged in consistent creation of value – make the workplace a “learning workplace” by providing them with the tools to acquire and share knowledge with their peers, managers, executives and customers.
I’ve been in the software business for a long time and the idea of constant learning and upgrading of skills, of searching for new ways to do business and sharing it with colleagues, is well ingrained. But in the past couple of years, I’ve seen a real upsurge in interest among our largest customers in creating an environment for their people to consume, create, and share knowledge with their co-workers. Abetted by social software, video, and other collaboration tools, this seems to be a long-lasting trend that will change the way training and learning are viewed in the enterprise.
Agree? Disagree? Is this something new? Or something old that is accelerating because of new tools?