Twitter takes off at British Airways

Citation

(2012), "Twitter takes off at British Airways", Industrial and Commercial Training, Vol. 44 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/ict.2012.03744aaa.004

Twitter takes off at British Airways

Article Type: Notes and news From: Industrial and Commercial Training, Volume 44, Issue 1

Line Communications used Twitter to facilitate a social-media debate at a British Airways internal event celebrating Campaign for Learning’s Learning at Work day.

The event took place at BA’s Waterside head office, near London’s Heathrow Airport, where employees were encouraged to attend interactive seminars, learn new skills and see what learning suppliers had to offer.

As a long-term supplier to British Airways, Line was on hand to see if BA employees felt social media could have a positive impact on their learning at work. Participants were asked questions and then encouraged to document their responses on Twitter. As the session unfolded, incoming tweets appeared on a TV screen in live word clouds revealing trends and themes. The more frequently a word was used, the larger its font size would appear on the screen.

Responses to the question, “Have you ever used social media to learn something?” varied. One person tweeted: “I’ve never learnt anything from social media, just forums. Knowledge sharing could be useful.” Other responses were more positive, including one that said: “Following interesting people or companies on Twitter/Facebook, as well as using wikis and forums, can be very beneficial to learning.”

The low cost and ease of following industry experts to gain knowledge, as well as the sharing aspects of social media, resonated well with many of the participants.

Knowledge sharing seemed to be the common theme when the employees tweeted their responses to the question: “How can social media have an impact on learning at BA?”

The word cloud highlighted key words such as communication, relevant, sharing, information and help, which all point towards a positive way in which social media could be harnessed in the workplace. “Social media will drive the future of work in the next five years,” wrote one employee.

Line’s sales and marketing director, Steve Ash, said: “Informal learning has always been a hugely important part of the way people learn in the workplace. Introducing social media to support informal learning in a workplace context often causes issues at both the organizational and individual levels. The results we received from the BA event are representative of the concerns and enthusiasms at both of these levels.”