After posting my 4 Meta Skills for Learning Professionals in response to Tony’s July “Big Question,” he commented: I like your meta skills, but … was hoping that you would provide insight into the core skills and knowledge around communities and networks that learning professionals should have? It is hard to let some Tony Karrer disappointment persist. Nancy - I was super excited when I saw that you had posted on the topic.

In a Learning 2.0 world, where learning and performance solutions take on a wider variety of forms and where churn happens at a much more rapid pace, what new skills and knowledge are required for learning professionals? So I want to focus in on three “meta” skills that may be a little harder to quantify, but which I feel are at the root of most of the other skills already mentioned. This month’s “Big Question” from Tony Karrer jolted me out of my sun-gardening-induced blogging lethargy to reply to this question:

This series on Skills for Learning Professionals and Knowledge Workers ( Part 1 , Part 2 , Part 3 ) have spiked the old hit-meeter and shown up on Tweets all week. Today Michele Martin posted an important amplification to  the “Four Meta Skills” from Part 1 . In it she says that scanning, filtering, connecting and sense-making are critical skills.  It is fascinating to see what strikes a cord. There have been many thoughtful and insightful comments and the other blog posts responding to Tony K’s Big Question have been fabulous. (I

I’m long-winded on the topic of new skills for knowledge workers and learning professionals, even if I don’t quite understand what a learning professional is. When Tony Karrer asks for 5 and 60 minute learnings on what new skills do learning professional need, clearly I’m falling well past the 60 minute mark. As I noted in  Part 2 , these are It has become clear. Here is part 3.

The question is probably more about your tendencies and your preferences, and maybe your thinking, learning, and communication styles. Here's what I think I'm getting at: Having a strong capacity for abstract thinking is a key consulting skill. It's the skill the designer uses to create something better than the user could have asked for, and it's the skill that enables the consultant to understand the challenge the client needs solved and find a I feel compelled to add a disclaimer: Long-winded philosophical rant ahead! I

skills, prompted by my friend Brad Ovenell-Carter’s blog post on figuring out how young is too young , The discussion on Brad’s blog has been about critical skills in reading, learning how to read content that is user produced on the web.  Tags: Learning Collaboratio I was thinking the other day about how to teach kids in school Web 2.0 Now my kids, don’t go to school, but they work actively in non-technological settings with collaboration. 

I’d like to re-frame and talk about the skills we should be cultivating and the technology we MUST demand. Plus, I guess this is a natural follow on to this week’s rants on Skills for Learning Professionals and Knowledge Workers ( Part 1 , part 2 , part 3 ). Alan also mentioned Jonathan Finkelstein’s Learning in Real Time (book and web site) and Jon’s mad skills .  Alan Levine wrote a deliciously provocative post on last month that I’ve been meaning to comment upon, Five Ways to Run a Deadly Online Seminar . When I read it, my

Great list of tips for online community leaders, designers, facilitators. ...Tags: Tags: online_facilitation online_community community_manager

Engaged Learning Home Profile Speaking / Training Podcast E-mail Comment Del.icio.us Digg Reddit Technorati Furl Changing Skills for the Learning Facilitator Aug 5, 2008 Learning 2.0 , collaboration THIS POST asks, “Do you need to be a subject matter expert to run subject-based community?”  8221;  If I were to change it slightly, “Do you need to be a trainer or SME to be a Learning Facilitator in the social learning world?”  8221;  Then I got thinking, what are the skills of this Learning Facilitator? 

BLOG Natural Learning S ince the learning, if we hope to make the world a better place. education) system, and allowing learning to occur more naturally. learning really occurs that we have picked up from our own years in the school the recent Unschooling conference conference call that Jerry Michalski