Practical steps for building your own Personal Learning Network

First, a personal story.

One of the things that have been transformational in my career is building a powerful engaged PLN.

I would like to say this was not something that was planned but that it organically came together from years of working with interesting people doing interesting things but it wasn't. I peddled traditional chalk and talk leadership training, sold SCORM libraries and more. I have done all the things we now as an industry complain that doesn't work ( I am still yet to be convinced its all useless but feel free to look at my previous post about what learning we should be building) but during those experiences, I found challenging people who would push my thinking in directions I wasn't expecting. But with back to back meetings, 100 dials a day to hit you don't get much time to reflect and grow so on I went getting on.

Now I will be the first to say I didn't do the peddling very well, I was more interested in the theory, the tech and the impact it can make than making money or selling stuff.

So, I had a conversation with myself that finished in a question.

How do I get from selling stuff to building it?

Well, I wasn't selling stuff so I didn't have much money, I have 3 kids and a lot of responsibilities so I didn't have much time, but I had a long commute and on that commute, I read everything I could about the theory, about the ideas, the thought leaders all the people talking the talk but I was missing how people walked the walk how to connect my newly learnt theory to the impact I wanted to make.

I could only get that from people who actually do it who put the rubber to the road and that's the thing I need to change my life and start making an impact. Well, I made that shift, I did the work, I applied it, learnt from mistakes, learnt some more and so on but throughout that, I have had a peer network to connect with and reflect with and it's more valuable than any book I have read or blog or explainer video because its people and good people are worth the earth so to start with I would like to thank those people.

RIGHT, so to the main EVENT.

So what is a PLN/personal learning network? Usually it would be a group of peers that share their knowledge with each other. Normally this would grow organically over time, think about the network you made at school or Uni when you had multiple classes with a small group or that first project you did at work where nobody knew what they were doing but you helped each other and learnt from it.

This can be set up formally inside companies but today we are going to talk about how you can build your own informal industry PLN using Twitter.

So, where to start,

Step 1

Draw up a list of subjects you wish to learn about, try to stay high level now as you don't want to create an echo chamber.

Mine are , learning theory, learning tech, analytics, SAAS sales, product management.

Step 2

For each of the subjects, Google thought leader in "__" (I would add the UK if you want to keep it country-specific) write these names down for later.

Then Google analyst for "__" again write these names/companies down for later.

BIG Tip

Use other search terms like leaders/best people to follow in "__" etc as each industry has its own

Step 3

Write any companies you know that do this well already, whether they are agencies or vendors or others write these down for later.

Step 4

If you don't have a Twitter account create one, if you do consider making one for this purpose, you will get people following you back automatically so it might be worth you segmenting your witty dittys from your PLN. This is going to be your primary way of "following" your PLN but also a key way to engage with them gain deeper understanding.

Step 5

Take your names and companies and start searching on twitter, don't follow everyone, when you find who you are looking for flick through their feed see if you like the sort of thing they share the. Click follow and move onto the next one.

It's likely you will be gatecrashing an already established informal network so don't worry too much about getting everyone.

BIG Tip

While doing so you may notice a theme of # (# is the way tweets are tagged with subjects) keep a look out for things like HR_Hour or other tags that don't correlate to a subject write them down for later.

All so simple so far right?

Right, the easy bit is done now, at best you will see a conversation between thought leaders collaborating discussing industry news etc. At worst you have just signed up to a feed full of people trying to sell you stuff.

So the next step is key.

Step 6

Follow who the thought leaders follow. This sounds odd, but this is where you will find the people who put the rubber to the road, you can identify whom these thought leaders follow and slowly but surely you will start to identify where the thoughts come from and who is applying them and talking about how to apply them.

Step 7

Follow the people/tags you identified earlier in step 2 & 3.

Step 8

Follow people who follow these people.

Step 9

Rinse, repeat till you have a feed of knowledge and interesting conversation.

Step 10

Unfollow the people you don't find useful.

Rules of engagement

Engage. A network has its fair share of leeches, it's ok to be a leech but it's better to be a contributor, start by asking questions, the odd meme and emoji, help people out, maybe start a # where you share your knowledge and expertise, remember if you want to ask the question there is likely many other people thinking the same thing so really asking that question is a public service like picking up a crisp packet in the park.

As with everything this is only as useful as the people in it.

You would not continue to use a training resource if it wasn't helpful so don't feel bad about unfollowing people who are not useful to you. By you sitting in their follow list and never engaging you aren't useful to them.

Be brutal with it but be wary of creating an echo chamber keep in the real people that take opposing opinions to you. By understanding their reservations or being challenged by them you will learn more than someone saying "you are amazing".

Play devils advocate with people you agree with, their explanation and justification will help you understand your own thoughts at a deeper level.

Ultimately your investment in this will pay back a million times over I am forever grateful to the amazing people I have in mine, feel free to take a look and follow these amazing people and businesses.

https://twitter.com/Adam_learning/following