Recently I finished reading a copy of the book from authors Tony Brigham and Marcia Connor entitled, The New Social Learning. For an avid and staunch user of social media tools like me, there might not be a heck of a lot of revelations in the book, but for the person just exploring or getting more familiar with these tools, it serves as a tremendous resource.

The book’s main theme centers around the notion of learning and how social media applications are bringing collaboration and useful tools to Internet users worldwide. It’s not just classrooms being impacted by the social web, but companies large and small. People can tap into their social networks for a host of information and deploy cloud-based tools that change completely the way businesses and organizations operate and even communicate. Users aren’t tethered to one computer and organizations are now afforded a collective intellect that’s only a few mouseclicks away, and people can work with one another from points all over the globe.

The book goes on to examine some of the criticisms non-adopters have expressed with regard to social media tools. Myths are dispelled and the read is rich with excellent examples of how the positive truly outweighs the negative when it comes to employees making use of the social web on work time. Rather than being a “waste of time’, ideas presented showed a real value, especially when employees were allowed to be a guiding voice for their company. Refreshingly absent from the book is a common fallacy that irks this blogger: the more followers you have, the better your reach. Instead, they reiterate time and again the importance of genuine conversation, help and support of your online community.

Finally, when users of the social web share with non-users the vast resources they encounter in a day, they’re often met with a glazed look of confusion. For people not familiar with using the social web as a learning or sharing space, the thought of this kind of activity can easily seem daunting.  The New Social Learning takes some of that worry away and gives readers some simple ways to get started along with common-sense guidelines to be proficient and get the most from the experience. For a person that is a very curious and knowledge-thirsty, but not yet familiar with how social media tools can help in both your business and learning endeavors, this is a great primer. You can also follow the title on Twitter.

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