Has Google Killed the Learning Org?
The answer to this provocative question, according to John Peters and Kate Snowden of Emerald Group Publishing, is “no, but. . .” Organizations still have a role to play as centres of learning but their role of “controlling and specifying a learning environment” is on its last legs.
Peters and Snowden write that the democratisation of information, from Google and blogs to wikis and YouTube, is an “irresistible tide.” On a personal level, we can easily call up information on any subject, “and can add our own voice, usually unmoderated, to the discussion, or start a brand-new discussion of our own.” In the organizational world, a company can buy an online collection of management research and own a library of research similar to that found in a business school.
So in this information-saturated environment, what can organizations add of learning value? The authors suggest two things: action learning and critical thinking. Action learning is essentially “learning by doing” and then reflecting on successes and failures, either with the support of other learners or a coach. Critical thinking is a particularly vital skill these days because it enables people to be more discerning about the information they consume.
“Both of these, the latter especially, will help both individuals and organizations gain more from the increasing democratisation of information, and from the increasing informality of learning.”
Video killed the radio star, but has Google killed the learning organization?, by John Peters and Kate Snowden; The Learning Organization (Vol. 15 No. 6, 2008 pp. 449-453)
Email me for a copy of this paper: Alan [at] AlanMorantz.com
photo credit: swortman53
If you visit http://wave.google.com/ you will see Google’s latest vision. From the same programmers who brought you Google Maps, now comes their latest invention, “Google Wave”.
Think of it as email, blogging, real time translator, and much more. It’s entire purpose is to allow collaboration and group thinking. What better way to have a learning organization than one that thinks together? And best of all, it is open source, meaning anyone can take it, use it as their own, suggest changes, and offer code to Google. One might consider open source a form of action learning, in the sense of posting bugs or failures, and then the group fixing it. Virtual action learning? Maybe, but none the less, Google Wave.