Business Situation
BT recognized the need to make a significant amount of targeted and effective investments in learning and development programs that would enable appropriate re-skilling and up-skilling. As part of its broader initiatives to support this workforce transformation, BT wanted to unlock the potential of the learning and development that takes place in the everyday work environment, outside of a traditional classroom setting with Web 2.0 technology.

Solution
BT was very interested in the ‘Podcasting Kit for SharePoint’ solution that runs on Microsoft Office SharePoint Server, because it leveraged existing technologies and investments, aligned with the knowledge management and collaboration strategies, and addressed the key challenges and aims expressed by the Learning Council.

The Podcasting Kit was renamed for use in BT as ‘Dare2Share’. The technology allows BT people to learn from each other by rapidly capturing and spreading learning throughout the organization in the form of podcasts, discussion threads, blogs, RSS feeds and other traditional knowledge assets (documents, courses and portals).

Results
Participants in the Dare2Share proof of concept project were very supportive of the solution and, on a scale of 10, they rated its relevance as a technology and approach at 8.8.

Together, BT and Accenture/Avanade won the World of Learning Awards ‘e-Learning Solution of the Year 2008’ award for the Dare2Share program, with the judge commenting: “The solution stood out as demonstrating e-learning in its widest and most general sense, by capturing and spreading learning throughout the organization. It also exhibited a clear response to a current demand for learning delivery, giving people what they wanted when they wanted it, and a resulting strong cost saving to the business”.

With the help of Accenture and Avanade, BT is proving that learning is key driver of high performance and an enabler of business transformation.