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LinkedIn Guide for Knowledge Workers

I do a lot of presentations where one of the topics is how to use LinkedIn more effectively as part of your knowledge work. In most cases, I will ask for a show of hands:

How many of you have a LinkedIn Account? - Generally 50-70%.
How many of you actively use LinkedIn? – Generally down to 10%.
How many of you get really high value from LinkedIn? - Now down to 2-5%

I am continually surprised by this result (Getting Value from LinkedIn). I can't remember how I could get things done without LinkedIn. And I consider knowing how to effectively use LinkedIn to be a core Work Literacy.

I wanted to collect together some of the resources I've found that can help you get more out of LinkedIn.

And, don't forget to look at my LinkedIn Connection Approach Rethought. Consider whether it makes sense for you to introduce yourself and connect via LinkedIn.

Based on a comment I just received, if you only have time for one resource - visit:

LinkedIn for Finding Expertise

It shows the basics of what a lot of this is about.LinkedIn Basics

Leveraging LinkedIn

Profiles, Recommendations and Network Building

Using LinkedIn For Travel and Meetings

Groups on LinkedIn

5 ways to get more from your LinkedIn Groups
5 Tips for Creating, Promoting and Managing a LinkedIn Group
What are They Talking About? (LinkedIn e-Learning Groups) – These are some of the learning focused groups on LinkedIn.
Directory of Social Networks for Learning Professionals – Includes learning networks that are outside LinkedIn as well.
Learning Communities List – Also learning communities including some LinkedIn groups.

Other Resources

Long Tail Blogging is Dying?

Just read an article in the Guardian The long tail of blogging is dying (Found via Donald Clark).

But recently – over the past six months – a new trend: fewer blogs with links, and fewer with any contextual comment. Some weeks, apart from the splogs, there would be hardly anything. I didn't think we'd suddenly become dull.

He points to backup evidence of this from a NYT article and based on

Technorati's 2008 survey of the state of the blogosphere, which found that only 7.4m out of the 133m blogs it tracks had been updated in the past 120 days. As the New York Times put it, "that translates to 95% of blogs being essentially abandoned".

I don't doubt that a lot of blogs are started and abandoned. People change their focus. Lives get busy. Blogging definitely takes work.

I have a limited view of blogging, but I do get to see quite a bit because of Browse My Stuff.

What about eLearning blogs?

Because of eLearning Learning, I track eLearning blogs closely.

When I go back and look at: More eLearning Bloggers – many of the new bloggers stopped blogging soon after. They had the experience and then stopped. This somewhat supports the Technorati numbers.

While there are these abandoned blogs, overall I believe there's been a nice growth of eLearning blogs from a wider variety of sources over the past few years.

When I first started blogging in 2006, it seemed like all the bloggers were exactly the same people who spoke at conferences. Now, there are more practitioner blogs . And there are more good quality vendor blogs. I remember asking Product Vendor Blogs - Where are They? Now I find quite a few on eLearning Learning. And the analysts have joined in (Brandon Hall and Bersin have blogs).

I'm sure that this will continue to change, but I would question the notion that long tail blogging is dying.

Possible Reasons for the Guardian Drop Off

Over the past three years, I've certainly noticed that while I read (actually skim dive skim) through a lot of blogs, I find I spend less and less time on mainstream publications. They simply are too general in most cases. I used to read the Guardian all the time. Now, I only saw this article because of Donald Clark's mention.

I do think that some of the limited kinds of blog posts that are essentially – here's an interesting article – has moved to twitter or other status updates. It's not worth a blog post if that's all you are going to say.

And, honestly, I'd much rather engage in a discussion with a blogger than with a mainstream publication that will never engage back.

Twitter Not a Good Substitute

I personally don't think that Twitter is a good replacement for blogging as learning tool. It's great for quick sharing. And quick, limited conversations. Deeper discussion requires blogging.

You can find a lot more thoughts around blogging via my post:

Top Ten Reasons To Blog and Top Ten Not to Blog

When Do Learning Games Make Business Sense?

T+D Blog - Serious Gaming in the Workplace asks the question:

Is serious gaming being taken seriously in your workplace?

It is time to change the perception of "gaming" among CEOs and other corporate executives. It is a valuable learning tool that is taking too long to become a mainstream part of everyday learning.

However, I've been wondering for long time about when the added costs of building games really pays off. Last year in Training Method Trends I showed some data from the eLearning Guild that had games and simulations decreasing as a modality. My guess is that right now with pressure on training budgets, there's significant pressure on spending on games.

The Upside Learning (disclosure) white paper Do You Need Games In Your eLearning Mix? (see also their great blog post - Top 100 Learning Game Resources) of course comes out and tells us that different kinds of games make sense based on different learning needs and that there's a place for them.

I concur that there's pretty significant backing that game-based learning results in better learning transfer rates.

But transfer does not equal ROI. I've done some initial search for back-up that the added cost of developing learning games is worth the cost, and I've really not come up with much of anything. There are some great anecdotal examples, but the real question is up-front:

When is it worth the added cost to turn a learning experience into a game? And how do we know that going in?

The justification is often a bit hard. There's an emotional response among some buyers that games equals waste. But even beyond overcoming that challenge, I see it as a bit hard to go from additional transfer angle. Couldn't we get transfer using another approach at a lower total cost? Are we trying to justify in additional seat time that learners would spend if it wasn't a game? Is it true that seat time is less for the same transfer for games?

This relates to the question of the Business of Learning. I'm not sure that by creating games you really are going to be able to sell enough additional product or create enough added value that it justifies the additional expenditure.