I’ve been facilitating the Big Question on ASTD’s Learning Circuit’s blog since sometime in 2006. Last month’s big question was Instruction in a Information Snacking Culture? The question was all about how we consume and work with information:
People seem to be spending less time going through information in depth and less willing to spend time on information. We seem to be snacking on information, not consuming it in big chunks.
In Stop Reading - Skim Dive Skim and that seems to be how people consume blog posts much more these days. I've also noticed a trend towards more twitter mentions of blog posts, but less deep commenting behavior much less thoughtful blog responses.
One of the comments was really telling:
Reading this blog has been an example of snacking for me.
I am very interested in the post and thoughts it provokes and read down the comments (skimmed) but when it came to links to other blogs I did not use them.
And since many of the responses provided (in comments and via blog posts) suggested that snacking is just fine, it seems hypocritical to say - “Well that kind of defeats a key purpose of the Big Question.” But it does (and I am). The point is for us to have an exchange of ideas around a topic. But if no one reads the responses or exchanges ideas, then what’s the point?
I personally still feel like I get value. If there are some meaningful responses to this month’s question Open Content in Workplace Learning?, I will likely learn a lot. Please still do respond to it. And if you don’t know about Open Content – take this as an opportunity to learn.
Still I have to wonder if we need to revisit the approach and value proposition. Maybe we need to look at other ways of doing this?
Thoughts, suggestions?
