You’re Out of Your Mind!

Jay Cross, chair of the Internet Time Alliance in Berkeley, kicked off a meeting of the Chief Learning Officer Executive Network at Symantec in Mountain View, CA where he presented on Working Smarter in the Enterprise. His valuable study gives us insight into how  we learn and work, how we used to work and where we are heading in today’s enterprise. To read highlights from his presentation, click HERE.

Fact: In 1986, 75% of the knowledge that a worker needed was stored in their heads.By 2006, that number was estimated to be 9%. The needed information is no longer in the worker’s mind but it is “out there” in the minds of others.

Cross asserts that we are moving away from the Information Age and into the Conceptual Age, which “involves gaining experience, learning, developing new thoughts and new ideas, and even developing new lines of business.” He further explains that “In this new era of work, the potential value that a worker can create is 200 times greater than average, because they no longer have physical limits.”

Additionally, he writes, “Research in many countries has found that 80% of the learning required for workers to do their jobs was acquired by watching someone else do the work and other informal means.”

This all leads us back to informal learning, meaning that you learn most of what you need to do you job, on the job. Since we already know that workers spend an average of nine hours per week searching for information, the time for streamlining the informal learning process is yesterday. If you haven’t already, try Bloomfire’s free trial for two weeks and put your minds together to see what the social learning revolution can do you for you and your team.

It’s ok to be out of your mind as long as you have access to everyone else’s!

Delightfully,

The Bloomfire Mind-MeshTeam