This is a response to the Learning Circuits Big Question of the Month for June (#LCBQ) - How do we break down organizational walls when it comes to learning?  Here are 9 ideas for breaking down organizational walls:

1. Align Learning to Business Priorities

If you’re working on items that are not important to the goals of the company, you will not (and should not) make any progress. Are your learning initiatives aligned to the priorities of the company?  If not, try creating a Learning Steering Committee. This should be the first thing you do if something similar to this is not already in place.

2. Use Business Language

If you’re not speaking the same language as your customers and partners, walls won’t come down – they’ll stay up or go up when they see you coming.  Learn about your business.  Talk to people in product development, sales, operations, distribution.  Do you know:

• Your most profitable products or services?
• How your company makes money?
• How your company is performing this QTR, year?
• How your customers view your company?
• If you are growing, shrinking?
• Who are your top competitors?

3. Create Small Wins

Find a small project or initiative that involves more than 1 department or area. Don’t worry if it’s not the most important initiative (I’m not suggesting wasting your time on frivolous projects). Just get something started that partners are willing to open up and learn. This helps build confidence and can be leveraged for bigger initiatives with more meaningful impacts.

4. Start a Book Club

Try starting a reading club that involves more than 1 business area or department. This gets people from other areas to discuss important topics and learning together. Schedule for lunchtime so people can attend, bring their lunch and relax. These conversations might lead to other important learning and business conversations outside of the book club. Try to enlist a senior leader to lead a discussion.

5. Keep a Sense of Humor

Take your business and learning seriously, but not yourself.  Work is stressful and many times co-workers have competing priorities.  Try to acknowledge the “we’re all in this together” mind set. You can work on serious issues and have fun too.

6. Don’t Push Your Learning Agenda

If you work for a company, people are not learning for the sake of learning.  So, don’t make it about learning.  Make it about helping people achieve their business goals.  See where there are cross departmental opportunities.  How can you help?

7. Talk Over Coffee

Sit down and have a conversation over coffee (or your beverage of choice).  Sometimes a 5-10 minute conversation can bring better results than multiple meetings. People are more open minded and are in a better place to make things happen. This doesn’t have to be scheduled.  Ask your partner “want to go grab a coffee”? Use what feels right for you and your organizational norms.

8. Don’t Make it All or Nothing

We all know that learning is just 1 of the many components that contribute to performance. If you have an opportunity to better the organization and it is not 100% learning, don’t just push it away.  Own the learning components and help your partners find solutions for the other components.

9. Publicly Thank Partners for Their Support

Do you have a partner or customer that that goes above and beyond for learning?  Have a “learning appreciation” event where you acknowledge people for their continued commitment to learning.  Find a senior leader who will help lead and publically appreciate their efforts.

Want to attend a conference but don’t have the money or are unable to travel? Try attending using the backchannel.

What is the Backchannel?
It’s an online conversation that takes place at the same time of a live conference session or any other event (e.g., presentation, webinar, learning event, etc).  It’s an electronic version of the side conversation taking place during the event.

How Do These Conversations Become Electronic?
People attending the live event share:

• Thoughts (e.g., observations, agreements, disagreements, additional context)
• Related photos of the event
• Resources mentioned in the presentation

These items are shared through a microblogging tool, like Twitter. People use their mobile phones, iPads, laptops or any other device that has Twitter and Internet access to publish.

There Are Millions of Conversations on Twitter, How Do I Find & View These Conversations?
One of the ways to collect and organize tweets for an event or topic is by using hashtags. It’s a tag or short identifier that groups all the conversations using that tag into an organized stream.  People at the conference use this tag on their tweet so that it is grouped with the other tweets using the tag.  Here’s an example:

How Do I Know What the hashtag is for the Event?
Hashtags usually follow a “short acronym followed by year” format, but not always.  Here are a few variations of recent conference hashtags:

• ASTD 2011 International Conference & Exposition – #ASTD2011
• Learning Technologies – #lt11UK
• Learning Solutions – #LS2011
• Training Conference 2011 – #Training2011

Here are a few ways you could find the hashtag:

• Using Twitter, search for the conference name and see if there is a # symbol within the tweet (like in the image above)
• Send a tweet asking if anyone knows the hashtag for the conference
• Look on the official conference website (see list of suggestions below)
• I’ve noticed more hashtags listed as social media becomes more popular

Where Can I Find Conferences to Follow?
Here are some conferences that might be of interest to follow.  You can also look for presentation or webinars.  Many of these events have a channel that you can follow:

eLearning Guild Conferences
CLO Symposiums
Elliot Masie events
CSTD
ASTD Conferences
eLearning Conferences Worldwide
World of Learning Events
Learning Technologies
Teaching and Learning Conferences Worldwide

What Do I Need to View These Conversations?
You only need two things to view the conversations:

• Twitter account
• The hashtag for the conference or event

Is the Backchannel a Replacement for the Conference or Event?
No, this isn’t meant to replace the conference or event experience. If you’re not able to attend live, then this is a method for you to experience and learn from the secondary conversations. If you enjoyed a backchannel experience, make sure to return the favor the next time to attend a live conference or event.

Are There Any Summaries of the Backchannel Event?
Yes, David Kelly has great resources.  See his site for summaries.

Where Can I Learn More?
There are many methods for using the backchannel as a participant or speaker.  This post is focused on using the backchannel to follow and participate in conferences or webinars. Jane Hart has a good overview with many resources for Using the Twitter backchannel at an event

What About You?

• Have you participated in the backchannel of a conference or webinar?  What did you like/dislike about the experience?
• Have you live tweeted an event?  Did using the backchannel provide you with a better experience at the event?
• Have you presented at an event where there was a backchannel?  Was this helpful or disruptive to the presentation?

This is part of my 50 quotes series: 50 Quotes About Knowledge, 50 Quotes About Learning, 50 Quotes About Failure

“Spoon feeding in the long run teaches us nothing but the shape of the spoon” ~ E. M. Forster

“The secret of teaching is to appear to have known all your life what you learned this afternoon.” ~ Anonymous

“We can teach from our experience, but we cannot teach experience.” ~ Sasha Azevedo

“A teacher is one who makes himself progressively unnecessary.” ~ Thomas Carruthers

“I like a teacher who gives you something to take home to think about besides homework.”  ~Lily Tomlin as Edith Ann

“To teach is to learn twice over.”~ Joseph Joubert

“It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.~ Albert Einstein

“A teacher affects eternity: he can never tell where his influence stops.” ~ Henry Adams

“The teacher who is indeed wise does not bid you to enter the house of his wisdom but rather leads you to the threshold of your mind.”  ~Kahlil Gibran

“The art of teaching is the art of assisting discovery. ~ Mark van Doren

“I’m m not a teacher but an awakener.” ~ Robert Frost

“Don’t try to fix the students, fix ourselves first. The good teacher makes the poor student good and the good student superior.” ~ Marva Collins

When our students fail, we, as teachers, too, have failed.” ~ Marva Collins

“There are three things to remember when teaching: know your stuff; know whom you are stuffing; and then stuff them elegantly.” ~ Lola May

“The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.” ~ William Arthur Ward

“The average teacher explains complexity; the gifted teacher reveals simplicity.” ~ Robert Brault

“A good teacher is like a candle – it consumes itself to light the way for others.” ~ Author Unknown

“A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.” ~ Henry Brooks Adams

“Be not angry that you cannot make others as you wish them to be, since youcannot make yourself as you wish to be.” ~ Thomas A. Kempis

“The true aim of every one who aspires to be a teacher should be, not to impart his own opinions,but to kindle minds.” ~ F. W. Robertson

“The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be ignited.” ~ Plutarch

“To know how to suggest is the great art of teaching.” ~Henri Frederic Amiel

“You can pay people to teach, But you can’t pay them to care.” ~ Marva Collins

“A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.” ~ Henry Brooks Adams

“He who dares to teach must never cease to learn.” ~ Richard Henry Dann

“You cannot teach a crab to walk straight.” ~ Aristophenes

“I never teach my pupils. I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn.”  ~ Albert Einstein

“Ideal teachers are those who use themselves as bridges over which they invite their students to cross, then having facilitated their crossing, joyfully collapse, encouraging them to create bridges of their own.”  ~ Nikos Kazantzakis

“Sometimes one man with courage is a majority.”  ~ Andrew Jackson

“Thought flows in terms of stories – stories about events, stories about people, and stories about intentions and achievements. The best teachers are the best story tellers. We learn in the form of stories.” ~ Frank Smith

“Good teaching is more a giving of right questions than a giving of right answers.” ~ Josef Albers

“To teach is to learn twice.” ~ Joseph Joubert

“Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils.” ~ Louis Hector Berlioz

“Teachers who inspire know that teaching is like cultivating a garden, and those who would have nothing to do with thorns must never attempt to gather flowers.” ~ Author Unknown

“Ye great teachers: listen to what you say!” ~ Goethe

“Teaching should be full of ideas instead of stuffed with facts.” ~ Author Unknown

“A man should first direct himself in the way he should go. Only then should he instruct others.” ~ Buddha

“The teacher who is indeed wise does not bid you to enter the house of his wisdom but rather leads you to the threshold of your mind.” ~ Kahlil Gibran

“Treat people as if they were what they ought to be and you help them become what they are capable of becoming.” ~ Goethe

“The best teachers teach from the heart, not from the book.” ~ Author Unknown

“A teacher who is attempting to teach without inspiring the pupil with a desire to learn is hammering on cold iron.” ~ Horace Mann

“Give me a fish and I eat for a day.  Teach me to fish and I eat for a lifetime.” ~ Chinese Proverb

“The teachers who get “burned out” are not the ones who are constantly learning, which can be exhilarating, but those who feel they must stay in control and ahead of the students at all times.” ~ Frank Smith

“Be an opener of doors for such as come after thee.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The true teacher defends his pupils against his own personal influence.” ~ Amos Bronson Alcott

“Teachers should guide without dictating, and participate without dominating.” ~ C.B. Neblette

“For every person who wants to teach there are approximately thirty people who don’t want to learn much.” ~ W.C. Stellar

“The most important knowledge teachers need to do good work is a knowledge of how students are experiencing learning and perceiving their teacher’s actions.”  ~ Steven Brookfield

“You can’t direct the wind but you can adjust the sails.” ~ Anonymous

“Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.” ~ Albert Einstein