Big Question: Where have all the leaders gone?

This month's Learning Circuits Big Question is essentially "Should learning professionals be leading the charge around new work literacies such as social media and informal learning?" You can read the whole of Tony Karrer's post here.

It's difficult to not agree with everything that's in Tony's post an my short answer would be: yes they should, and the good ones already are.

IT literacy should be a must now

I've often found it strange that some people take pride in the fact that they aren't IT literate. Some of these are just people who are pushing against innevitable change and who would have complained about having to withdraw cash froma hole-in-the-wall where there used to be a bank. Others, however, seem to see it as an irrelevance despite the fact that they are out of touch with the latest thinking in their field let alone the latest thinking on the corporate adoption of social media.

It's not necessary to use all the new online tools that are out there but it is necessary to know about them and understand them if for no other reason than it gives you options, and may improve personal and organisational performance.

But, it's not entirely their fault

And here we come to the nub of the issue. Most learning professionals can only do so much. There's a vacuum of leadership in the adoption of enterprise/web/learning 2.0 tools from learning professionals in senior positions and too many barriers put up by over-zealous HR and IT departments. Over 50% or organisations in the UK are still on Internet Explorer 6 and I've come across some that restrict javascript and all cookie. This makes using something like google docs or pbwiki as an experiment somewhat difficult for the poor, lonely learning professional.

Management needs to change too

All of these new tools, from blogs and wiki's through to social networking and RSS readers, require an enlightened management attitude. One where control gives way to the encouagement of innovation. There's a lot of noise about this new management approach - Gary Hamel and Julien Birkinshaw's Management Lab has made most of the major UK management publications - but I see little evidance of it in large organisations.

What's happened to the IT training?

A (good) while back there was a big push in organisations to make better and more efficient use of the 'new' office applications like Microsoft Word and Excel. These are still taking place but what's not happened is the addition of new courses on the new web 2.0 technologies. No course on how to use a discussion forum, no such thing as advanced social bookmarking, not any internal courses in large corporates on how to use search engines effectvely. I think we're due to see a big push from the grassroots for this kind of course - the problem is learning professionals aren't ready for it yet. Maybe it's best it grows organically. After all, one of the key failings of HR and learning professionals is failing to listen properly to the sharp end of the business while exploring their own pet projects. Mind you, at least training might prevent more events like these: Clive Shepherd: Now I've heard it all

UPDATE

Tony Karrer discussed my post in his response to the Big Question: Learning Professionals Leaders. It made me realise that I may not have been as clear as I could have been so I've posted a clarification below:

When I say a learning professional can only do so much, I'm meaning from the perspective of encouraging organisational uptake. I don't believe that a learning professional could call themselves as such without being aware of all the latest developments in learning methods /approaches. However, helping to develop new work literacies in the workplace requires support from leadership in key areas of the organisation.