1. Copyright © 2007 Sun Microsystems, Inc. All rights reserved. The Increasing Speed of Change Charles Beckham CTO - Sun Learning Services April 30, 2007

2. 2 Agenda Considerations The Changing “Landscape” Training versus Learning New World The Platform

3. 3 The U.S. Department of Labor estimates that today's learner will have 10-14 jobs... by age 38. According to the U.S Department of Labor.... 1 out of 4 workers today is working for a company for whom they have been employed less than 1 year. More than 1 out of 2 are working for a company for whom they have worked for less than 5 years. According to former Secretary of Education Richard Riley.... The top 10 jobs that will be in demand in 2010 didn't exist in 2004. We are currently preparing students for jobs that don't yet exist......using technologies that haven't yet been invented... Did You Know? (Karl Fisch, "Shift Happens." Available: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHWTLA8WecI)

4. 4 Did You Know? There are over 2.7 billion searches performed on Google each month. To whom were these questions addressed B.G. (before Google)? The number of text messages sent and received every day exceeds the population of the planet. More than 3,000 new books are published......daily. (Karl Fisch, "Shift Happens." Available: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHWTLA8WecI)

5. 5 It is estimated that 1.5 exabytes (1.5 X 10 [18] ) of unique new information will be generated worldwide this year. That's estimated to be more than in the previous 5,000 years. The amount of new information is doubling every 2 years. It is predicted to double every 72 hours by 2010. Consider... (Karl Fisch, "Shift Happens." Available: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHWTLA8WecI)

6. 6 Predictions... Predictions are that by 2013 a supercomputer will be built that exceeds the computation capability of the human brain. By 2033, when 1st-graders will be just 23 years old and beginning their (first) careers... it only will take a $1,000 computer to exceed the capabilities of the human brain. And while technical predictions farther out than 15 years are hard to make.... predictions are that by 2049 a $1,000 computer will exceed the computational capabilities of the human race. (Karl Fisch, "Shift Happens." Available: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHWTLA8WecI)

7. 7 What does it all mean?...shift happens! We need to prepare!

8. 8 PUSH/PULL Learning Training is something pushed on you. Learning is something pulled into. “I love to learn...but I hate to train” Our employees will thrive when given the freedom to decide how they want to learn. (Jay Cross, "Informal Learning" Available: http://internettime.com/

9. 9 The Old World PUSH Training Rigid Program Mandated Formal Read-Only (Jay Cross, "Informal Learning" Available: http://internettime.com/)

10. 10 The New World Performance Support Tools Classroom Training Libraries/ Knowledge Bases Communities Blogs/Wikis/Tagging Experts/Coaches/ e-Coaches Learner Online Learning PULL Learning Flexible Platform Self-Service Informal Read/Writ e

11. 11 Users gain more control over their learning and destiny. The Network Effect

12. 12 Characteristics of “The Platform” Freeform: Only minimal upfront structure Zero Training/Simple: Any barrier to use means that automatically fewer people will use the application Software as a Service: Online software, with its functionality and information available on any computer, home or work, anywhere in the world Easily Changed: If a user can’t easily make the necessary change to the structure or the behavior of a system, he or she must have an expert Unintended Uses: Preconceived notions about how an IT system will be used can cut it off from the most valuable uses down the road. Social: Enabling just-in-time, freeform collaboration is the key, and so is capturing and publishing the results to be reused and leveraged afterwards by others. Wikis combined with enterprise search do all this automatically for example.

13. 13 Specifics on “The Platform” S earch Users must be able to find the knowledge they are looking for L inks Let the intranet be built by a large group rather than a small one. A uthoring Blogs, Wikis, etc....the knowledge platform shifts from being the creation of a few to being the constantly updated, interlinked work of many T ags Outsource the work of knowledge categorizations to users by letting them attach tags - simple, one-word descriptions. E xtension Use computers to take tagging one step further by automating some of the work of categorization and pattern matching S ignals Use technology to signal the users when new content of interest appears..RSS...ATOM...etc (Andrew MacAfee, "Enterprise 2.0" Available: http://sloanreview.mit.edu/smr/

14. 14 Search S earch – Users must be able to find the knowledge they are looking for. Intranet layouts and navigation aids can help but... Users are increasingly bypassing these in favor of keyword searches: One or a combination of the words used to find matching web assets. Popularized during the early days of search engine development. Modern search engines have methods for determining which words in a search string are important and are ought to be treated as keywords. Is it easier to find information on your Intranet or Internet?

15. 15 Links L inks – Let the internet be built by a large group rather than a small one. Links are an excellent guide to what is important and provides structure to online content. The “best” pages are the ones most frequently linked to..Google is worth Billions by tweaking their search algorithm to account for this. Works best with dense link structure that changes over time and reflects the opinion of many people Contrast the Intranet versus Internet Power to the people to build links Links

16. 16 Links Authoring – Blogs, Wikis, etc....the knowledge platform shifts from being the creation of a few to being the constantly updated, interlinked work of many All employees have something to contribute and most want to have: Authoring Blogs and Wikis are ways to provide for authorship and to elicit contributions easily Knowledge Insight Experience A Comment A Fact AN Edit A link...etc Blogs - let people author individually, content is cumulative Wikis - Wikis enable group authorship, content is iterative

17. 17 Tags – Outsource the work of knowledge categorizations to users by letting them attach tags - simple, one-word descriptions. The second thing users want most after search is better “categorization of content” Many sites outsource the categorization to users: Flickr for Photos Technorati for blogs del.ico.us for website bookmarks This categorization system is called “folksonomy” - a categorization system developed over time by folks. Opposite of the upfront expert developed categorization scheme Actual vs Planned Makes information more visible to fellow employees Tags

18. 18 Extension - Use computers to take tagging one step further by automating some of the work of categorization and pattern matching. Take tagging one step further...use machines Automate the work of tagging and pattern matching Amazon “recommendations” are an example of the use of extensions on the web. Let's go even further... Lets provide a thumbs up or thumbs down or rating service. Over time we can learn what you find most interesting and important. We can then recommend choices to you based on your past behavior. Extension

19. 19 Signals - Use technology to signal the users when new content of interest appears: RSS, ATOM, etc. Even with all the things I mentioned users can still feel overwhelmed. So much new content is added it can seem like a full time job to maintain it. Users need to be notified in some way when new content is posted. Remember... no more push, we need pull....email alerts just overload us... RSS – Really Simple Syndication: Generates a short notice every time new content is added Aggregators (Outlook, Thunderbird) periodically queries sites of interest Eliminates the need for constant surfing to check for changes Signals

20. 20 Demo

21. 21 Questions?

22. Copyright © 2007 Sun Microsystems, Inc. All rights reserved. Sun Learning Services