Location, Location, Learning

Geolocation websites such as Foursquare promise to bring real-world location to virtual connections, with developing implications for learning and development.

Published

May 12, 2010

Geolocation websites such as Foursquare promise to bring real-world location to virtual connections, with developing implications for learning and development.

Mike Prokopeak

Real estate agents say the source of a property’s value is its location, location, location. In the virtual world, physical location hasn’t mattered quite so much, as Facebook, Twitter and other social networking tools brought people from around the globe together. But a set of emerging location-based social networking tools may be positioned to change that, with the potential to help learning professionals refine what they do. Powered by the ubiquity of smart phones, location-based social networking sites are primed to experience dramatic growth this year. Twitter has added features that allow users to mark updates with a location, and Facebook is rumored to be readying a similar service on its increasingly powerful social networking site. But so far, the site that has captured the location trend is Foursquare, which recently signed up its millionth user since its launch just over a year ago. While sites such as Facebook have allowed users to extend their social networks, those relationships remain fairly shallow. Location-based services like Foursquare and its chief rivals, Gowalla and Brightkite, aim to change that by contextualizing and adding meaning to those virtual relationships. Using the GPS location in your mobile phone, Foursquare encourages you to “check in” to any location — bar, restaurant or coffee shop — and share that fact with your friends. By checking in to locations, you unlock badges that are displayed on your online profile. By checking in often enough at one place in the course of a week, you become that place’s “mayor.” The site also allows you to find friends nearby, add comments about locations and review others’ comments. Marketers are the first to see its potential. Pepsi, TV network Bravo and Starbucks are among the companies that have experimented with delivering deals to users. Last week, Advertising Age reported that McDonald’s plans to use Facebook’s soon-to-be-unveiled location feature to allow users to check in at its restaurants and feature a McDonald’s product in their status update. The implications for corporate learning have been slower to develop. Eric Andersen, a certified IT architect with IBM Global Services in Cambridge, Mass., began using Foursquare about a year ago. As part of IBM’s emerging technology and architecture practice, Andersen needs to have a broad understanding of evolving technology and be able to bring it to bear for customers. “One of the challenges is keeping up and understanding what’s going on in technology, and so one of the primary focuses around my use of Twitter and social media was using it as a way to meet people who are in similar areas and areas of technology that I’m interested in and then using it as a platform of learning,” he said. Foursquare became a virtual extension of his in-person networking in the Boston area, allowing him to meet others in the area with similar technology interests. “I met someone over Foursquare, then began to have conversations over Twitter and then I might actually find a time when we’re at the same place or close by, and [say,] ‘Let’s meet,’” he said. Location-based services can also augment conferences and in-person meetings, allowing those who have checked in to share tips, set up meetings and share content and information. Internally to the organization, the gaming aspects can be used to create competitions among employees to check in to the most offices or locations and share tips for traveling to sites. The real potential isn’t in the virtual connection, but in how it can bring employees together physically wherever they are, Andersen said. Location-based sites also can help workers find subject-matter experts nearby. It’s here that they hold the most promise. “Hooking in the location-based aspect is another interesting way of doing that — having not only who the [expert] is but physically where they are and what they’re doing in real time,” Andersen said. There are obvious privacy concerns inherent in having employees check in wherever they are, but those concerns are part of the larger ongoing debate about online privacy. Internally, a good set of social media guidelines will help. Despite those issues, location-based social networking sites hold promise for learning and development, even if it’s more potential than actual value right now. “There’s so much focus on the retail [and] business aspects that sometimes the social and the learning aspects of these location-based services aren’t often highlighted as much,” Andersen said. “Some of these other aspects are going to really be leveraged a lot more in the future.”