Online Learning Communities in the Nuclear Industry - Learning from our Experiences

One of the "hot topics" in the nuclear industry today is Human Performance. Basically it's all about identifying actions we do that can lead to errors (aka "error precursors"), and then trying to figure out how to prevent those actions from occurring, thus eliminating the errors (aka "events"). Certainly this is an excellent opportunity for sharing in an online community, and my company (as well as others) have internet or software-based programs that enable employees to share "lessons learned" from errors that did occur, in hopes that other employees will read them and not make the same mistake again.

This is a great idea, but it seems that even with "requiring" employees to look at lessons learned before starting a new project, it is far from being a true culture shift in how employees operate. I believe one of the problems is that the system holding these lessons learned needs to be more than a database holding information - it needs to be a community of people coming together to share issues and work toward preventing and solving problems in the future, but also as they arise. But how do you get pertinent information to the right people at the right time? Herein lies the problem.

How do you get already overworked employees to spend additional time sharing and researching information, simply because it is in the best interest of the company? How do you develop a system that is easily accessible to people of varying ages and computer literacy?