MindLeaders: Fueling the Learning Revolution

ASTD 2009 Thoughts and Themes

The American Society for Training & Development's annual conference wrapped up last week in Washington, DC. As always, it was a crazy-busy time of talking to attendees at the MindLeaders booth in the Expo and attending some sessions to hear some latest and greatest thoughts on the industry. I had a great time!

Now, with some recovery time under my belt, a few thoughts have begun to settle to the top in my brain. For those of you went or would just like to pretend you did:

Just in case you weren't sure: The economy is still down
The attendance and expo floor testified that the economy is still hitting us all hard. I don't know what the attendance numbers were compared to years past, but the crowd felt a good bit lighter. Sessions still had good attendance, and the people that made it had extra motivation to be there, so the overall effect was kind of a "conference concentrate" - just add water!

Sadly, there were obviously some expo businesses that pulled out, too, as evidenced by the booth-sized "lounges" that dotted the expo floor. From the silver-lining club: it was nice to have some extra chairs to rest tired feet.

Recovery? Any time now, please.

This year's hot topic: Baby boomer retirement
Every year at the MindLeaders booth, there seems to be one phrase that makes people stop in their tracks and want to talk more. Every year, it's a different phrase. This year's phrase was "Baby Boomer retirement." We've all known the retirement wave has been coming for some time, but it must really be at our doorsteps now.

And to pass along the resources I was handing out like crazy to the people who were focused on this, check out the MindLeaders Leadership Roadmap and our new "Leadership in Crisis" white paper for some of our best thinking about ways to build up the next wave of leaders and manage that succession pipeline.

Is there a technology divide among trainers?
This is another topic I've seen the roots of for a few years now, but this was the conference that some people (mostly my techie-lovin' friends and contacts) really started talking about it: are we starting to see a serious technology divide in the training industry?

At one end of the spectrum, we have people who enthusiastically embrace and adopt each new technological advance that comes along: social media, virtual environments, Web 2.0, online classrooms, you name it, they'll try it. At the other end remains a sizeable and adamant contingent who rely on classrooms and manuals to do their teaching and view technological advances with suspicion and/or outright disdain.

Personally, probably obviously, I tend toward that techie-lovin' side of the spectrum. MindLeaders as a company, even though we're all about pioneering new ways to bring technology into training, does a lot of careful study to make sure that the technology we're using is stuff that is readily-accessible for our clients and can bring proven value, an excellent middle ground to strive for.

There will always be a spectrum of positions to this question, but this was the first year that I started to worry about that steadfastly non-techie group, especially because ASTD itself seems to only be tentatively addressing this issue. Are we risking the industry being branded with a "luddite" label and being left behind?

All three of these themes aren't fully-baked, but I wanted to throw the lot out to hopefully stir some deep-thinkin'. What were your impressions from the conference, or if you didn't go, what have you seen from your own vantage point?

New study on learning budgets and technologies

The MASIE Center has released a "Learning Resources Barometer," a survey of learning professionals about their budgets and how they're using them that will be updated periodically.

The results are scary and interesting. Scary part first: 62% of training budgets are being cut back. 36% of learning departments have been trimmed. The economic crunch is crunching us just like everybody else.

The most interesting part are the questions about how the training resources are being used. The biggest jumps (51% for both) are in e-learning (personal huzzah) and virtual/webinar training. The two next biggest winners in this economy are social learning (30% of organizations increasing) and the related user-generated content (29% increasing).

Knowing MASIE Center events, I'm guessing that these results are from the instant-polls at a recent learning conference. This is an excellent application of those in-event polling programs, but I'm wondering whether the results are affected by the self-selecting nature of the audience.

The immediate effect I can think of is that if (I don't know the actual poll source) this is from a learning conference, these participants would be from companies that may be spending a little more on training than the norm, if the companies are footing the bills to send these attendees.

Which is a depressing thought given the results about how many budgets are being cut, and could skew the 2.0/online/social learning results higher than the training world as a whole.

What's your feeling - do these results reflect what you're seeing on the streets?

New CompTIA Certifications

CompTIA is a busy bee! CompTIA's certifications are some of our most popular courses, especially A+, their certification for computer maintenenace and support.

CompTIA is in the midst of a lot of overhauling that's keeping our courseware team very busy. Here's the latest information on the CompTIA certification updates:

Security+	Update (SY0-201) released 10/14/08. The old test, SY0-101, will be available through 7/31/09.
Network+	2009 edition (N10-004) released 1/9/09. The old test, N10-003, will also be available through 7/31/09.
A+	Update scheduled for Q3, more details will be coming.

Our courseware developers are hard at work on all three of these updated tests. If you have any CompTIA-certified people in your organization, you might want to make sure they have the word about the brewing changes.

Brandon Hall Excellence in Learning Awards are accepting entrants

Got a training program, ROI tracking system, or learning content that you're proud of? Want a fantastic way to show off to your managers and the rest of the world how awesome it is? Brandon Hall has announced the opening of their 2009 Excellence in Learning awards.

Awards are being given in the following categories:

• Best Custom Content
• Best Innovation in Learning Technology
• Best Integration of Learning and Talent Management
• Best Learning Game
• Best Learning Team
• Best Results of a Learning Program
• Best Use of Blended Learning
• Best Use of Games for Learning
• Best Use of Mobile Learning
• Best Use of Video for Learning
• Best Use of Virtual Worlds for Learning
• Best Use of Web 2.0 Tools for Learning

Entries can be submitted until March 6 (April 3 for the "Best Custom Content" category).

I'm a big believer in awards. Not for the hardware that collects dust, but because even applying for awards makes me take a fresh look at the measurable impact my projects have. And, of course, winning an award is gold for third-party confirmation of the worth of a program.

By all means, set aside a little time to take a look at the categories and think about submitting a training project you're working on!

How to Get Excellent Data on Learning Tool Usage

The eLearning Guild sent me a notice about a report that they've produced on the usage levels of various learning methods - instructor-led training, e-learning, mentoring, blogs, podcasts, you name it.

The report was really just a lot of screen shots of the tool that's constantly available on their web site, but it was the perfect reminder to me to do some diving into that tool. If, like me, you haven't visited in a while, or you've never been, check them out: http://www.elearningguild.com/360_reports/.

These reports give you real-time results on the surveys of all guild members about their learning tool usage. You can parse that data out by industry, company size, region, and more. It's an excellent way to take a look at how your company's training programs compare to the world at large or in your sector, to see how your blend of training compares with the recipes that others have come up with.

ASTD's 2008 BEST awards are open for application

ASTD (the American Society for Training & Development) has announced the opening of their 2008 BEST awards for the leading companies in applying workplace learning throughout their organization and to best support their workplace goals.

Fill out this award application is a great project. Even if you're not confident in winning (or in our case, not eligible because we're a learning provider, which I pout about a lot), the application is still very useful. It's a great way to step back and get a widescreen perspective on your organization's learning programs and their implementation, effectiveness, and support.

The BEST web site
The application
Tips for maximizing your submission
Our story about the 2007 BEST winners

Generation Y's impact on training at UPS

Fortune Magazine has published a fascinating article about UPS revamping its training program to better suit Generation Y. (Via Tom Werner at Brandon Hall. They also have a video introduction here.) Here is one of the best concrete examples so far of how the new arrivals in the workforce are having an impact - in UPS's case, first on skyrocketing dropouts and injury rates, then on the pilot program of a complete re-engineering of their training program to deal with these issues.

I worked with a guy in college who also worked at a UPS shipping facility, and he showed me the book full of zip codes that he had to memorize for the job. He was tested on it constantly. Turns out such rote book study doesn't fly so well these days. As we've been seeing for a while now, the NextGen is demanding to see and do it for themselves, and they want to instantly know their results. My favorite line of the article:

Because the young people they're trying to train aren't just Generation Y, they're Generation Why?

That's got to be one of the best one-line descriptions of NextGen that I've seen yet.

But here's the thing that struck me as I read about the new training program that UPS had put together for their workers, one that includes lots of examples along with their quizzes, instant feedback in hard data and video recordings, full-scale simulations and practice runs: that sounds like excellent training for everyone, regardless of generation.

The training innovations that Generation Y are demanding are good innovations that are resulting in better training. Maybe the real difference with Generation Y isn't about their training needs, but because they're demanding it rather than accepting the training that's given to them.

'Tis the Season for Industry Reports

In the past week or so, ASTD and Training Magazine have both published their 2007 industry reports. ASTD leads with the increasing use of technology they're seeing in training programs, and Training Magazine leads with a general increase in the amount of training spending their survey has found.

The amount spent on training per employee was very close in the two surveys: $1,202 according to Training Magazine, $1,040 according to ASTD. Both find 65-70% of that being spent on instructor-led training, about 20% on online training, and the rest on other methods.

Both surveys found that the top training expenses are on profession- or industry-specific programs. ASTD's second-highest spending was on business practices, the next in both surveys was for management and supervisory training.

Lots of great information in both surveys, and taken together, they help provide a very comprehensive look at training in the world around us today. Take a look - where does your company fall into the "average" ranges and where does it differ?

--ASTD's State of the Industry Report 2007
--Training Magazine's 2007 Industry Report

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?

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?