Presenting the Value of Social Media for Learning

I've received various forms of the same question from different people over the past few years. The basic question is:

How do I communicate the value of social media as a learning tool to my organization?

Which provides us this month's big question:

Presenting the Value of Social Media for Learning?

Let me provide some flavor for this question straight from someone who asked me about this:

My coworkers are Baby Boomers and Traditionals. When I mention blogs or any social networking they "poo-poo" me and say our workers should not use those tools because it will make them inefficient and not do their jobs. When I have presented the idea of how we can use discussion threads on our environment to discuss topics and make comments outside the classroom, many of my co-workers said it can't be done. They either haven't opened their mind to the idea or really care. In essence, if it is not classroom, they are really not interested in it.

My question is how do I get my coworkers to even consider the capabilities of these tools when it really does not interest them.

So some of the questions this raises in my mind:

1. How do you communicate about the potential here to other learning professionals? to knowledge workers? to management?
   
2. How do you communicate the value to an audience who doesn't have experience with social media?

How to Respond:

Option 1 - Put your thoughts in a comment below.

Option 2 -

Step 1 - Post in your blog (please link to this post).
Step 2 - Put a comment in this blog with an HTML ready link that I can simply copy and paste (an HTML anchor tag). I will only copy and past, thus, I would also recommend you include your NAME immediately before your link. So, it should look like:

Tony Karrer - e-Learning 2.0

or you could also include your blog name with something like:

Tony Karrer - e-Learning 2.0 : eLearningTechnology

Responses So Far (also see Comments):

• GoodPractice Blog: Making the case for social media
• Jeff Goldman - My Response to the Big Question
• UK Centre for Legal Education: Digital Directions
• Paul Angileri - How To Make The Case For Social Media?
• Kapp Notes: Selling Social Media for Learning: ASTD Big Question
• How to show value? Show value.
• Geetha Krishnan: The Value of Social Media for Learning
• Internet Time Blog
• Jane Hart - here's a list of 100+ ways to use social media for learning - http://c4lpt.co.uk/handbook/examples.html
• RK Prasad - Custom Training and eLearning Blog
• Arunima Majumdar - Learning Through Social Networks
• Clive Shepherd
  
• Ken Allan - Lead By Example
• wander@will blog: Social Media Acceptance
• Clark Quinn's Learnlets - Promoting Social Media
• Gina Minks: Adventures in Corporate Education
• Karyn Romeis - What has been the impact of the use of social media on my professional practice as a corporate learning professional?
• Claudia Escribano: You Never Know Until You Try
• Tony Karrer - Selling Learning Communities