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Ning! Harnessing the Power of Connected Learners to Grow the Employee Value

Proposition •What is Ning? What is the learning process I used to create the site?•Why did I select this tool?•What are the pros and cons of using Ning in a corporate environment?•What is the applicability of Ning to my consultancy business now and in the future?

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What is ?

Ning is an online platform for people to create their own social networks. Ning" is Chinese for "peace" (simplified Chinese: 宁 ; traditional Chinese: 寧 ; pinyin: níng). Ning started development in October 2004 and launched its platform publicly in October 2005 with a 100 million US dollars in capital from investors.

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What was my learning process?1. Joined Learning Town, a Ning site,

after getting an email invite

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What was my learning process?2. Participated in a Ning webinar and reviewed other sites

iPhone photo of webinar screen slide

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What was my learning process?3. Created a Ning site to support my October 9 university workshop

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The Top 10

What did I learn from the Ning webinar?

1. Start by inviting a small group of people you know (5-10)2. Add content- no one wants to see an empty page3. Modify your Welcome email via Language Editor4. Add a welcome Center text box5. Enable sharing and allow Facebook, Twitter and other

“Share” sites6. Get active on other Ning sites7. Can set to allow only members access8. Search Engine Optimization tips 9. Run a contest10. Consider creating fake member profiles to add “members”

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What did the 7 “Best Practice” sites reveal?•Use of a range of Word Press templates•Strong graphics•Daily rotating moderators•Photos linked to flickr•Aggregates videos from YouTube•Builds membership with request to sign up to access different pages

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The topic of this learning site is leadership. Currently under construction. Estimated completion date is next weekend! Then to testing with colleagues- Shell, Nexen Inc (Calgary) and one ASTD classmate.

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Why did I select this tool to grow my business?

•Flexible in the ways information is delivered•Allows for subgroups to self form•Provides means for geographically isolated individuals to “get out”•Cost efficient•Businesses tend to favor leadership training and this is a novel approach.•Appeals to food industry, banking, businesses with a heavy load of under 30s employees

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What are the pros and cons of using Ning in a business environment?

Pros Cons

Social Learning Tool exposing what others think outside of a particular business culture

Potential customer may be afraid of exposing value add knowledge to competitor

Meets differing learning styles

Traditional learners may resist

Uniqueness is attractive May turn some people off

Could create Ning series to support a range of different issues.

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What Ning aps did I select so far?

Ap Selected Description

Answers Answers allows members to easily ask questions and crowdsource answers with other members of this social network.

Opinion Ask your members a question and view their responses as a tag cloud or list.

Polldaddy Enables polls

Twitter feed Set for any topic

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What Ning aps did I select so far?

Ap Selected Description

Clackpoint ClackPoint (beta) provides live audio, video and text chat. Users can call in either directly from the web page, or by using a telephone and entering a PIN

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Issues to be DeterminedIssue Comment

Marketing or paid membership

Maise uses his as marketing tool

If membership, what cost?

Repays for time to update, add materials. How to charge- per head per month, per quarter etc.

Test it with Shell Oil and Nexen Inc. colleagues

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Additional Information

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What plan did I select for the university workshop?

•Blogs•Photos•Forums•Video embed

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What plan did I select for business?

•Blogs•Photos•Forums•Video embed•Chats•Events •Groups•Notes and pages•Facebook & Twitter integration•RSS feeds on Homepage•10 Ning aps, most allowed

Aha Moment- it’s the aps that will sell this!