Learning the 80%

When I was named Staff Training and Development Coordinator for my library the only training I received was a folder which held a couple of hotel reservations. I found out fairly quickly that am responsible for learning the things I need to know to do my job. Ultimately, I’ve learned on my own most of what I know. Trainers may sometimes refer to this as The Other 80% or your Work Literacy. The lovely irony here is that as a proponent of personal learning I could essentially theorize myself out of a job. Still, professional development plans and competencies are not enough, we all need time to learn on our own.

Part of my personal learning process is to review the skills I’ve learned, so I’ve given thought to what daily skills I use to help me get my job done and how I learned them. The step also helps me set my future goals as a responsible learner.

Here’s an outline of my five most useful skills achieved through informal learning:

• Accessing: I first discovered I needed to learn Microsoft Access when I had to create an inventory system as Hardware Specialist for the library. I balked, but as Training Coordinator, learning relationship database management has been invaluable. I use it every day for tracking employee learning and sending out evaluation reminders, reporting data to the managers. I poured through all of Microsoft’s tutorials, but found the most help by searching for what I wanted to accomplish to see how others did it before me. While we may move to a packaged learning management system, I’ll still use Access for my general database needs.
• Listening: If the news is important, it will find me, but only If I’m really listening. I’ve learned to retrieve information in bulk with Google Reader, using filters and searching to narrow down what’s important. I learned to tame my inbox with rules and prioritize what I need to hear.
• Authoring: For work on our staff Intranet and creating HTML pages for computer classes I spent a lot of time over at W3Schools playing with their TryIt Editor. Both the HTML and CSS sections were invaluable, I still use the site as reference today.
• Visualizing: Pouring through Adobe’s Photoshop and Premier Elements help files provided good just-in-time training when I needed to create images or video to help communicate something visually.  I took quite a few free online tutorials in Photoshop when I first started with it, and continue to watch for new techniques in graphic design.
• Presenting: Sure, I started out with PowerPoint presentations full of text and bullet points just like everyone else, but then I started watching how the best and brightest were presenting. Technical training is it’s own specialty, and much trial and error as gone into learning to produce quick HowTo’s for our library staff. I think I’ve tried every free screencasting service there is, with varying degrees of success. Fortunately developers often make screencasts of how to use that particular screencasting product. I’m currently using the Procaster plugin from Livestream because I can create a live session, with chat, for staff in our outlying branches while still creating an archive. Social learning has helped me fine tune these skills: By following other library trainers I’ve learned not only how to teach, but what I should be teaching.

We all have work skills we’ve taught ourselves, what are your yours?

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