Learning Circuits Blog facilitator Jay Cross recently asked readers about their informal learning practices. Here's what respondents had to say.

Many of us dedicate a lot of time implementing e-learning to help our colleagues learn. Are we eating our own dog food? Or, more politely, do we eat our own cooking?

Marc Rosenberg, Allison Rossett, and Bill Horton have taught me a lot about e-learning. I’ve read their books, attended their presentations, and kept up with their articles. In the closing session at ASTD TechKnowledge 2004 in Orlando, Lance Dublin asked Marc, Allison, and Bill how they learn about our ever-changing field. Marc’s most important source of information is email from friends and colleagues. Allison relies on listservs and mailing lists. Bill is wary of starry-eyed evangelists, so he likes to try things out on his own machines.

Think about it. How do you learn what’s happening? What sources do you trust? What’s important to you? Conferences? Books? Articles? Email? Colleagues? Blogs?

Recently, I asked readers of the Learning Circuits Blog how they keep up with what's going on in e-learning. Here’s how readers rated the importance of various sources of information about learning and e-learning.

It’s important to note that only eighteen people participated in the survey. Granted, that’s a small sample, but the results are sufficiently clear-cut to suggest that they’re reliable. But how representative are these findings? When you take an online survey, it’s hardly a surprise to attract people who value gathering information online. For example, we wouldn’t have found as many people who hated conferences if we had waited to conduct the survey at ASTD International Conference & Exposition 2004 in San Diego. Therefore, it stands to reason that people who read the LC Blog value blogs more than conferences and magazines as important information sources.

Here’s a closer look at some of their comments about specific information sources.

Most of the respondents said that they place a higher value on information from individuals: friends, fellow bloggers, authors, and people who send them email or that they meet at conference. As a group, they didn’t put much stock in information from organizations: suppliers, magazines, and conference sessions. Note: E-learning courses and mentors/bosses ranked low in part because half of the respondents marked them as “Not Applicable.”

What’s even more interesting but not surprising is that with the exception of books, the most important sources are all free. For example, Saba, Docent, SmartForce, NetG, Click2Learn, DigitalThink, IBM, and dozens of other suppliers have poured plenty of money into teaching buyers about how to be informed e-learning consumers. But it appears that suppliers can’t buy credibility. Advice to suppliers from poll participants: Read and live The Cluetrain Manifesto, and talk with customers and prospects in a tone they will understand and appreciate. Start a useful blog of your own, but don’t let the sales department write it! Spend fewer resources on hype and more on developing research and white papers.

Not to toot our own horn (but why not?), Learning Circuits, which carries little in the way of advertising, is ranked higher than magazines such as Training, T+D, and e-learning, which are chock full of ads. And for the most part, because it’s online, Learning Circuits is able to distribute information faster than print publications.

In addition, the survey asked about the importance of some specific blogs, including Stephen Downes’s OLDaily, e-learningpost, Internet Time Blog, and elearnspace. This question led to an apples-and-oranges comparison about individual blogs compared to all magazines as a category. Three-quarters of the respondents seemed to value blogs as information sources. They stated that blog are responsive and capsulate reviews and opinions that save the readers time. Stephen Downes’s OLDaily received the most praise for cogent pointers and balanced opinions. Several people noted that e-learningpost is particularly good. Ed Tech, elearnspace, and Kairosnews were also mentioned.

With regards to printed sources, there was little agreement beyond recognizing that there’s no single source. Whitepapers, T+D, e-learning, Fast Company, Wired, Harvard Business Review, and O’Reilly technical books were mentioned. Other recommended books were

Conferences in general took a beating. Indeed, one respondent exclaimed, “I hate conferences. All of them.” However, Training Directors Forum and TechLearn were praised for being less “vendor-like.” Online Educa in Berlin was praised for being small yet able to cover the important fields.

Bottom line
How can those involved in e-learning stay up to speed? Poll participants recommend the following:

Most importantly, develop a network of people you trust, and share information with them.