MindLeaders: Fueling the Learning Revolution

Why Are We Compelled to Compare Classrooms and E-Learning?

It’s the inevitable thing that happens if you’ve been in the business of providing e-learning for more than five minutes. At some point someone will turn to you and say, “But it’s not the same as being in a classroom.” Not to state the obvious, but “well, duh.”

The interesting thing here is the implication of classroom training being the gold standard. And that’s the real issue. Because most of us have gone through the public school system, the classroom experience is the one we are most familiar with. But familiarity hardly makes for an inherently superior learning experience.

Like all forms of training, the classroom experience has its strengths and weaknesses. Expecting e-learning to be a classroom experience is like expecting an apple to magically transform into an orange. On the other hand, dismissing e-learning as somehow subpar because it is not a classroom is poor logic. After all, you wouldn’t say that you can’t learn anything from a book or a hands-on experience simply because it didn’t happen in a classroom. As with a classroom, books and experiences simply have different strengths that lend themselves to particular kinds of learners and learning. That’s all.

So why are we compelled to compare? Well, comparisons do help bring a new thing into the range of most people’s experience. Yet e-learning is hardly brand new, and still the comparisons continue. Would it not be more productive to simply understand the things that e-learning does really well and capitalize on them when appropriate? Things like learning at one’s own pace, the ability to quickly review a presented point, being able to search through content to easily find something, and the ability to immediately check learning and get feedback. All things that the classroom setting does relatively poorly.

What do you think? Is the classroom the gold standard in training? Are all the comparisons productive? Or is it simply better to pick the medium (or blend of mediums) that works best for the situation and move on?

From Web 2.0 to Enterprise 2.0?

Jakob Nielsen recently released a report on the progress and impact of social networking tools on corporate intranets. Social networking isn’t a passing fad or a trend that can be ignored. As the pervasiveness of social networking tools grows, more people expect to be able to communicate with their friends, co-workers, companies, and customers in this way. For organizations, it means letting go of controlling every communication (which they really don’t anyway) and moving to Enterprise 2.0. For those that do, there are some benefits, including:

·        Breaking down communication barriers

·        Allowing workers to more easily collaborate to solve business problems

·        Engage workers who expect innovation and to share ideas at work

·        Capture and preserve information which is exchanged informally between co-workers (informal learning, anyone?)

·        Self policing communities

Most companies aren’t very far along with Enterprise 2.0. Efforts are largely being driven by grassroots efforts of front-line employees. Senior management, often as not, is a barrier since the perception is that these are “tools that teenagers use.” When considering Enterprise 2.0 tools, there are some best practices to keep in mind:

·        Choose tools that have capabilities to help solve specific business problems (rather than integrating whatever is “hot” on the web)

·        Integrate social tools into the main intranet to avoid double work and having the same content in two places

·        Know and allow the participation inequality that is part of most online communities. The lurkers will benefit from the content as much as those posting it.

·        Ban anonymity

·        Take a thoughtful and staged approach, consulting with employees when needed

You can read Nielsen’s full summary here and also access a link to purchase the complete case study. Where is your company on the Enterprise 2.0 scale?

Knowledge Workers and a Culture of Learning

Why do some organizations have a culture of learning and others don’t? As with most things, it boils down to the day to day choices that make up a group’s culture. And many of those choices have little to do with the company’s learning program. Like the way managers treat their employees and how employees view their company. Those views can make a big difference in attitude, engagement, performance, and learning culture.

Most of today’s workers are knowledge workers. So here’s the question. Does your organization treat them like knowledge workers? Is it ok for them to learn and teach on the job? Do managers set clear objectives and then allow workers to manage themselves in achieving those objectives? Is quality of work at least as important as quantity of output? Are workers regarded as an asset or an expense?

As you might guess, the more questions you answer "yes" to, the more likely it is that a culture of learning exists or is easy to facilitiate. As for those answering "no" to most of the questions, well I'm assuming that a culture of learning is the least of many problems.

Many of these questions correlate to Peter Drucker’s six principles of managing knowledge worker productivity, but productivity is the least of the gains. Treating knowledge workers like knowledge workers, with respect and regard for their ideas fosters a lot more than productivity. It fosters collaboration, engagement, and innovation. And yes, even a culture of learning.

How does your organization rate? Do you see a correlation between appropriate management of knowledge workers and a learning culture?

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.