The learning company
My Friday column this week in Expansión, Spain’s leading business daily, is called “The learning company” (pdf in Spanish), and looks at the growing phenomenon of corporate social networks, which has recently been bolstered by both Facebook and LinkedIn’s decisions to launch corporate versions of their services. I also authored a column on Forbes a few days ago on the same topic, entitled “The social company is already with us”.
As a result, pretty soon, companies will be divided into two categories: those that are able to use these kinds of tools to create and sustain innovative cultures, and those that simply sit back and allow other companies to come up with new ideas.
The aspect of all this that I find most interesting is content. Take the example of LinkedIn: after buying Pulse in early 2013, it has pursued a strategy that has taken it from being a simple data base of people, businesses and job offers to being a site where a growing number of users meet to find out what’s going on, and where they can find interesting articles about their sectors.
A lot of people who publish on LinkedIn say that their articles are widely read, and that they can easily go viral, thanks to the creation of an environment in which it is now perfectly normal to share content with colleagues and others in the same field.
It’s the same with Facebook: from simply letting us know what our friends are up to, it has developed into an archive where all kinds of content is to be found, much of it, admittedly, of no use whatsoever.
The important thing about corporate social networks isn’t going to be their role in keeping people in touch, which would not be a bad thing for a lot of companies, but the impact of widely circulated content. The existence of a network where it’s possible to easily find, comment, and share content will turn companies into learning machines where interesting articles will stimulate employees. If we are going to understand what is going on in our sector we need to read and keep up to speed with new developments, and that means more than just glancing through the paper each day or scanning over recent press cuttings about our company. The ability to share information is going to be a game changer for many companies, affecting all aspects of their activities, including labor relations.
Below the image, the text in full:
The learning company
Earlier this week, LinkedIn announced the launch of a tool that will allow employees within the same company to connect with each other, helping them to find and share information. For LinkedIn, which since the purchase of Pulse in March 2013 has moved from being a simple data base to a place to share information, this is a move that makes a lot of sense: giving company employees access to relevant information about their sector, allowing them to share and comment on it is an idea that could generate considerable value.
Also this week, Facebook announced the test launch of Facebook for Work, an application that allows companies to develop a corporate social network with similar characteristics and usability to its omnipresent social network. Leaving aside the question of whether companies want Facebook knowing what their employees are up to, the idea is similar to LinkedIn’s, and offers companies tools for sharing information internally.
This growing interest in sharing information within companies makes a lot of sense: to feed innovation, they need constant supplies of information, to acquire intelligence about their sector, to be aware of what is going on in their industry and others. Tools like Slack, Yammer, and others, have been trying to generate these kind of communication, learning, and inspiration environments: once tried, there’s no going back. And now LinkedIn and Facebook have joined the fray. Others will follow.
These new tools are going to change the way companies operate, and consuming, sharing, and commenting on information will become part of how we work. Organizational learning: coming to a screen near you soon.
