MindLeaders: Fueling the Learning Revolution

Pictures from Mindleaders International Users Conference 2007

We now have pictures online from the Mindleaders International Users Conference! Please drop on by if you'd like to browse the photos from the festivities.

What's more important: Baby Boomer retirement or the arrival of Generation Next?

I'm back from Learning 2007, which was a great opportunity to really dig into the latest and greatest thinking in the organizational training field. There are a lot of topics I could post about, but here's one popular theme that was a new thought to me: is the impending retirement of the Baby Boomers really that scary of a prospect?

I was surprised at the number of people who were less concerned about this. Don Tapscott, one of the keynote speakers, pointed out that the Generation Next that's arriving in the workforce now is even bigger than the Baby Boomer generation (I checked that out in the Census Bureau, and it seems to be bigger by about 15 million people.) The retirement of the Baby Boomers won't mean a reduction in workforce with all those newcomers arriving, just a challenge to make sure your leadership succession is in place.

The much bigger topic on everyone's lips was the arrival of Generation Next, especially the impact that their use of technology, social networking, and other Web 2.0 applications will have on the workplace and on workplace training. It's bringing about a radical shift in not just our training needs, but how that training is presented and applied.

The contrast between these two topics was interesting. I've talked about both with many people before, but it was interesting to see where they're falling on training departments' priority lists: retirement/succession planning is a minor concern, but the new generation of both people and tools are creating some earthquakes.

What's your biggest generational concern?

What would agile instructional design look like?

Harold Jarche has posted a very interesting blog post stating that instructional design needs to get more agile. In other words, that it needs to go through a similar revolution that programming has with its agile software development movement: a move away from a set cascade of steps to a system that is producing quickly and constantly changing, with lots of opportunities for feedback and input that changes the requirements of the project.

This got me thinking about what agile instructional design - and, highly related, agile learning programs - would look like. I can think of a few things this would involve:

• Learning modules are highly adaptable and easily changed.
• Learning materials and programs are not produced once and then "done" - they are produced with the expectation of updates and new versions to be produced.
• Good ol' feedback, feedback, feedback. Useful for ROI, performance measurement, and now also useful for knowing what direction those training programs are going in next. There is never too much input from the learners and the from the organization stakeholders.

Those are the top three things that come to my mind. What do you think that agile instruction design and agile learning programs would look like?

MindLeaders is on the YouTubes

The trailers/teaser videos for the MindLeaders Training & Development Toolbox are now on the MindLeaders YouTube channel. I particularly recommend the ROI of Learning Programs video, just because of what happens to my boss (Philip Payne, the director of marketing) at the end of it. Just goes to show what can happen when you volunteer to "help in any way I can."

The other Toolbox teaser trailers are:

• Best Practices for Managers
• Best Practices for Students
• Fixing a Struggling Learning Program
• Great Titles
• Incorporating Employee Development into Performance Reviews
• Integrating Your Learning Program
• Marketing Your Learning Program
• ROI of Learning Programs
• Selling Your Managers on Employee Development

These videos are intended to be (sometimes silly) small appetite-whetters that administrators can pass around to stir interest in their training programs or in the MindLeaders courses or Toolbox in general. Feel free to poke around, and please let us know what you think!

ASTD's BEST Award Winners

ASTD has announced the 2007 BEST awards, their recognition of companies with outstanding employee learning programs. Huge congratulations to all of the winners for their outstanding commitment to their people. Of the 42 winners this year, 5 are MindLeaders clients - we're psyched to be part of 10% of these winning programs.

What does it take to have make your organization's learning program one of the BEST? According to ASTD, the defining areas are:

• Alignment
• C-level involvement
• Efficiency
• Effectiveness
• Innovation
• Investment in learning
• Learning opportunities for employees
• Measurement of the effectiveness of learning
• Success with nontraining solutions to business needs

The most interesting thing to me about this list is that two of them (so it must be twice as important!) focus beyond the training program. They center on aligning the training with the organization's goals and on offering business needs solutions to things like organizational development or talent management. These are keystones that we've been preaching at MindLeaders for the past year or more: that training programs are so integrated with the organization's needs and strategies that none of them will function strongly without the other two.

What stands out to you on this list?

Learning 2.0: The Learners Are Taking Over

My presentation at the 2007 MindLeaders International Users Conference was Learning 2.0: The Learners Are Taking Over. I talked with a lot of folks who were very excited about the topic, and I wanted to share the handout here on the blog for anyone who would like a copy. The handout is just a rundown of the most important points of the presentation: That web 2.0 and the social phenomenon that goes with it is bringing information to people in the time, manner, and format they want, and with the chance to deeply interact with it. Learners who come to our organizations' doorsteps will be expecting those same things from their company and their learning programs.

The handout also suggests some places to start getting familiar with web 2.0 technologies and a couple of tips for wading into using some of the 2.0 tools within an organization/learning program for the first time.

Any thoughts, suggestions, and comments are welcome!

Conference Sessions, Networking, and the Rat Pack

The 2007 MindLeaders International Users Conference is now in the history books! The energy and excitement at the conference blew me away; thanks to everyone attending for showing so much enthusiasm in the conference sessions and at every opportunity to network with us at MindLeaders and with each other. (Including performing kick lines and getting kisses from the Rat Pack at the awards dinner!)

We have a ton of follow-up information to share with you and will be updating the IUC web site with pictures, PDFs, and everything else we can put together to stay in touch and keep this enthusiasm going.

And for everyone who missed the excitement this year, we hope you'll be able to join us for the next conference. We're already making plans to make the next one even more informative and inspiring!

More resources to help training administrators build their learning programs

We love to talk with trainers about their biggest challenges and the things that could put rocket fuel into their training programs' gas tanks. And we hear some common themes: that trainers have a hard time getting buy-in from managers and executives. That they want to make learning part of the corporate culture, but aren't sure exactly how they're going to do that. That they'd like to have more information and tools at their fingertips to help them do more with their training programs in less time.

We've just released a pair of products to help: the Training and Development Toolbox and the Resource Center.

The Training and Development Toolbox is a set of 18 video segments of tips and best practices to address topics like building and marketing learning programs, calculating ROI, selling managers on employee development, and fixing a struggling learning program. Each video also features a treasury of downloadable tools that trainers can use in their own organizations, including checklists, PowerPoint presentations, and quick reference sheets.

The Resource Center is the home for the Toolbox and even more resources for maximizing your training program - over 130 items total, including product walkthroughs, technical support FAQs, information to give to students, and promotional tools.

We're proud new parents over here! Check out our PDFs about the Resource Center and Training and Development Toolbox for more information.

• Resource Center
• Training and Development Toolbox
• Resource Center fact sheet
• Training and Development Toolbox fact sheet

If you're a MindLeaders training administrator, log into your MindLeaders account and click the new "Resource Center" tab to start exploring these new tools.

And please, keep telling us what you think!