Recently I spoke with Corinne Cort,  who served as the director of global learning for a leading-edge telecommunications company. She shared with me the following social learning example. The wireless manufacturer was growing rapidly. As a result, they were hiring software and hardware engineers at an incredible pace. The organization’s formal learning programs could hardly [...]

Recently, I’ve been rethinking how organizations approach learning programs. Historically, organizations designed learning initiatives from the top down. They identified a need and assigned resources to create training that fit a business objective–onboarding, new product training, soft-skills development. These training programs often form the backbone of an organization. Some of them are developed internally while [...]

In New York, Improv Everywhere creates urban-based improvisational events that transform everyday experiences into the unexpected. They’ve done some amazing theatrical work with freezes in Grand Central Terminal and wedding receptions. Imagines dozens of people walking through the train station and suddenly coming to a halt as living statues. However, let’s look at one of [...]

Today, Elinor Ostrom was named one of the recipients of the Nobel Prize in Economics. In my office, I have a 1/4 shelf of her books and journal articles. I first discovered her work in 2008, and I was absolutely amazed. Her work blends theory and real-world analysis. She’s not just a theoretician, she’s actively [...]