Yesterday an email query from Clark Aldrich struck me as oddly impersonal, since Clark and I usually converse in real time. He asked, “What is the most important thing that needs to be said about educational simulations?”
Then I realized it was a question sent via LinkedIn. I don’t know how many of Clark’s contacts he asked but he has more than two hundred, so it could be quite a few.
What’s next? I thought. Using direct mail marketing techniques on one’s friends? And then I reconsidered. “Why not?” I decided to ask a question of my own.
Since I’m immersed in conceptualizing the Informal Learning 2.0 Fieldbook, I asked my LinkedIn contacts, “Workers, profits, technology. Make up your own question for the sequel to Informal Learning.” Eight people have responded. Three of them are people I would never have dreamed of asking such a question.
I pay next to no attention to LinkedIn but this question-your-contacts feature piqued my curiosity. It seems to be part of a LinkedIn strategy to get more Facebooky. There appears to be a competition among some members to answer the most questions. My site says I can ask ten questions a month, but I’m not going to use my quota: I’d rather not become a nuisance and pariah on LinkedIn.
Lisa Neal, editor of eLearning magazine, just inquired:
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Have you seen a movie, television show, or play or read a book that included e-learning? There are certainly many examples of media portrayal of education – Hairspray comes to mind, where detention was where people had fun, or the play Spring Awakening, where the teacher had rigid expectations for behavior.
Given the prevalence of e-learning, it seems like it should be in the media. But even computers, which are so important in many people’s lives, are typically in movies only as props or for product placement!
I appreciate any instances of where e-learning has been included or ideas for why it isn’t more often.
Great question, Lisa.
Unfortunately, I fear it will be followed by a few thousand others. This meme seems viral.
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Sorry, Jay. Didn’t mean to spam to you! Just as a word of process, I sent “push” email to about 100 of my contacts that I personally selected. It was the first time I used that feature, and I am not sure if I will again. Having said that, I do ask questions of listservs, but again, people sign up for those.
Jay, I think Clark and Lisa are just using technology in order to be more productive. Mining data from their links, as it were.
I, in order to be more productive, ignore 99% of the questions that come to me through LinkedIn, secure in the knowledge that inquirers (who have hundreds or thousands of LinkedIn connections) will never notice that I didn’t answer.
Having shared this with you, I am now going to go back to being productive.
Clark, you didn’t spam me. Nor did Lisa. Nor, I hope, did I when I followed your lead.
What I fear is a future when questions fly so fast and furious that they become more net cacophony.
I’m more sensitive than most. I haven’t visited my Facebook account in a long time. Like Bill, I’ve got plenty to do without responding to being poked.
Jay:
LinkedIn queries have become spam. Too bad, really. I ignore them with the same zeal I apply to refinance offers and online pharmacies.
I was thinking about this sort of thing, in part because I don’t yet find any value in Twitter. I suspect it’s because my current network is too small. And, just the other day, I saw a tweet from someone complaining that he had 1,000 followers. So it’s clear a network can be too large to be useful — like the folks who plow the exhibit aisles at real-life conferences, hoovering up every brochure and freebie.
(I didn’t see Jay as complaining about Clark, more as musing on where these questions could lead. )
[...] cases, that I should). And I haven’t really tried taking advantage of LinkedIn, like asking questions. On FaceBook I’ve been more open and experimental, but with no real payoff. And [...]
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