Delicious: Sometime You Don't Want to Tweet It Out

And the winner is...Delicious 2012!

Like many users, I am on Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook, and Linkedin all day long. In that time, I read many well-written and intriguing articles. My usual response to my article lust is to "Share, Retweet, Share, Retweet, Repin!!!" (Say that ten times fast).
Lately, I have realized that when I find an article, I am not looking for a social response. What I really want is a way to save the information as a resource in usable, searchable folders, so when I have a specific question, I have a library of information at my fingertips--all in one place, no matter where the original information was found. I know I could use Pinterest to do this, but I really feel that Pinterest's value is in design and visuals, not in article collection. When I thought of my ideal tool I came up with some prerequisites: 

• Easy. I want a button in my toolbar. (no copy, paste, save as pdf--I could do that on my computer, but it's too time consuming) 
• It must live in "the cloud" so I have access to it everywhere
• I wanted to bundle the topics for later access

After a bit of research, I was down to a few different options. Pinboard (a ten dollar one-time fee for this service which calls itself "social bookmarking for introverts"), Evernote which I am already using to take text-based notes, or Delicious which I used in good ole 2005. 
Since I am a fan of using tools I already have, I tried Evernote. It worked well to give me a basic screenshot of my desired article or the url, but I just felt there was something better out there. Since Pinboard was a fee-based service, I decided to visit my old friend, Delicious, and man, it has evolved since 2005!
With some easy set up (much like Pinterest), I now had a "Save on Delicious" button in my browser. I quickly created a couple of "stacks" and added an article. When I went back to the link, I could see an image, the linkable url, and a long summary. 
Perfect. 
Apparently, finding the right tool for the job sometimes means revisiting a website from the past...

Need to Know (Now!) Basis

This post isn't anything new. If you are a learning professional, what I am writing is something that you've been experiencing for quite some time. I decided to write this post because some organizations haven't yet moved in the "learning on demand" direction. For some, training is still very traditional, and social learning is synonymous with playing around on Facebook all day. Whatever assumptions there are, it is very apparent that employees are using a user centric model to access information at the time they need it. Knowing this and embracing it are two different concepts. 

Ask yourself: 

• Does your organization allow employees to use Youtube to surf for helpful videos? 
• Are training Webinars uploaded and easily findable? 
• To create a portal for social learning, are you using Ning or another social networking platform to connect employees?
• Has management decided to use Salesforce or Sugar CRM to provide an accessible communication platform to monitor customers, sales needs, or budgets?

Face-to-face learning will never completely go out of style, but a lot of time and money can be saved if employees have access to the information they need at the time they need it. 

My Favorite Free Training Tools

A lot of organizations would like to have a training program or at least a collection of training resources. Sometimes that means being open to new technology, even if it means that the information lives in "The Cloud." Here is a list of great free resources that can be used to create free or low cost training:

• If you ever wanted to demonstrate how to use specific software, or a website, Screencast-O-Matic is a great tool. Film a video of your computer screen--even add narration; download it, then upload it to Youtube, or another service.
• You want to use Web-ex for the Cisco name, but it's too expensive. You can use Anymeeting for conferencing.
• You would love to use a Learning Management System to create designated coursework, but once again, it's too expensive. Check out Moodle instead.
• Animation and gaming is hot, but it can also be really expensive. Go Animate is great for simple animations, or Xtranormal is more in depth, but can be used to make animated movies. Although it's not my thing, you can also use Sploder to create free basic games.
• Last but not least, online quizes are a great way to learn as well. One of my favorite resources is ProProfs. You can even insert video content as one of the questions.