Tag Galaxy on 'learning'

Taggalaxy.de gives you a very nice 'planet' of flickr photographs that correspond with a certain tag. This is the visual equivalent of 'learning'. I see a lot of people in there, and that's the essence.

the smart cut: reading Training Industry Inc ezine

Clips from reading this month's edition of Training Industry magazine:

- Ed Cohen reflects on the current crisis in the editorial as "One thing history tells us is that the parachute will open... this economic cycle will come to an end." The article is entitled "weather this storm, prepare for the next". I don't agree with his notion that this is like any other crisis our young industry faced, this one could be much deeper. But I do like his idea of "the perfect storm" building up. When the economic thing, together with the demographic thing, the new leadership for a changing environment thing and others all happen simultaneously and all simultaneously impact learning. It is in contrast with Clive Shepherd who thinks the only crisis is the economic one to worry about right now and that thinking of new generations of learners at this time is like rearranging the desk chairs on the Titanic. One more point of interest is the quote "Companies that treat their people well, even during difficult times, will be the long term winners." I agree, don't just stop learning flat, not even for one quarter. Cut it smart, not alltogether, you will cut in your own future, not your own fat.

- Doug Harward lists 7 concrete ideas for impacting the bottom line : leverage internal resources, reduce administration, reduce travel for training, consolidate vendors, reduca your vendor's cost, rationalize portfolios and convert learning courses into learning content. Let me turn this useful list into 7 questions:

• Can you involve your internal talent for what you do best?
• Are you generating lots of reports noone reads?
• Are travel costs bigger than the training costs itself?
• Do you have a lot of vendors that each have a small piece of the training cake?
• Can you renegotiate with your vendors?
• How does a particular course impact the corporate mission?
• Are you leveraging the wealth of information on your intranet besides what is locked in your LMS?

- There is a very good article on informal learning. Take the 'perfect storm' as an opportunity to push more into a blessed, supported and sustained informal approach to learning on the workplace.

the smart cut : why do we need click here click there application training?

Why do we still make such an amount of e-learning that is nothing more than 'click here, click there' application training? That is sooooo last century.

When productivity tools like office applications were on the rise and getting employee productivity to new heights, it was a very natural thing to have book shelves full of 'how to work with application X'. I guess it's because that was the way we learned back then: thorough, step by step, building knowledge that would last a lifetime because things never changed. But these applications kept on changing every year, books were reprinted and reprinted, and e-learning took off with one of its killer applications: application simulations. The camtasias and other tools of this world specialised in making 'click here, click there' training got big. They even got into 'application cloning' for training purposes (like Datango or Assima).

Now we see the rise of social software that will bring the next productivity kick, moving productivity from the individual to the group. Did you notice the total absense of traditional learning for these tools? There are no shelves at my book store full of books on how to use Facebook, write an article on Wikipedia, twitter or blog or how to use Yahoo Messenger or Skype. We have gotten used to working with applications without needing the details. It's like getting directions in a building: we are just told where to go, and we find our way. Nobody at the reception desk will explain how to take the elevator, open a door or such things. We kind of collectively figured out that a button with 'cancel' will cancel the transaction, please stop teaching us that already! We have figured out how to interact with an application and get what we want. And applications have learned to ignore the engineering design and go for somewhat usability. That helps too. Finding your way around a web site or application is a basic skill. Acquiring that skill should have been done years ago and if you are not on that waggon, it's too late for businesses to spend money on that. Go back to school, or have the government take that up.

I would say: it's time to cut most of that 'click here, click there' training. If I would ask you what you learned in the end you would say 'I learned to click a button'. Kudoos, you're an A student. What we need is to know what the application is capable off, how it fits in what needs to be done (process, task, whatever), the 10 basic things to get us started, who we can ask for help if not the person next to us and especially what it will change in our work lives (and by the way, for the better.)

Allow me to suggest an alternative to application training. Did you ever hear of Jing? It's made by TechSmith, the creators of CamTasia. It is a very easy stripped down version that allows end-users to take a snapshot of an area of their screen and annotate it, or to make a small video recording of their application. Try it out, a child can do it. I imagine a 'learntube' site in your corporation where you host channels like "How to ... with SAP", "How to ... with Lotus Domino". The learning department makes the first 10 movies with basic tasks and posts them. All others are uploaded by users. It's rated by the community and the best rated will be on top. It's searchable. It's a community tool for and by the community, out of the formal learning loop. And it wouldn't cost a great deal. Makes sense? Stupid? Let me know...

the smart cut: CLO magazine article 'the outlook is not getting any better'

Chief Learning Officer published an article on the economic downturn with the title 'The Outlook's Not Getting Any Better'. Yes, companies continue to announce massive layoffs. Here are some sentences of the article I found worth quoting:

- 70 percent of HR professionals feel budget cuts across entire organizations are likely

- Typically, training is one of the first items to be cut, but Cohen believes organizations should avoid that route....In the case of budget cuts, learning and development organizations need to be prepared. To avoid haphazard cutting, organizations should look to see they can tighten their belts.“You really need to think about what the costs are associated with training,” Cohen said. “You try to find ways to continue learning but minimize other structural costs that go along with it. If it’s possible, shorten the length of training. Where you might have purchased a three-day course [before], think about purchasing a one-day course. ... But my hope for organizations is that they find a way to continue the learning, but reduce the cost associated with that learning.”

- Learning becomes even more critical when an organization is cutting back on raises or bonuses, as these are ways to retain employees. ... An employee will remember [that the] organization tried to give [them] as much as they could, instead of cutting as much as they could.

Key point to remember for smart cutting: 1. It will happen, so please prepare. 2. Don't stop the learning as a whole, but cut its cost via all possible ways 3. You can use learning to retain the people you want to keep, especially at year end when folks think over their next moves...

The smart cut - go open source (or even open content)

You probably have a lot of expensive licensed software you use for learning. An LMS for administration and e-learning delivery, authoring tools, collaboration tools, social software, ...

Open source software is not something just for the home or geeks. It can have its place in the corporation as well. Sure, only the license is free and you will need to work out the sustainability, support and other issues via a community. But for the most popular open source softwares there are companies who provide services like installation, customization, maintenance, hosting or support for you.

The most popular open source LMS (learning management system) no doubt is Moodle. It comes with a lot of modules the community has made, in multiple languages and has a thriving community and business around it. It started mainly of in schools, but has corporate attention now too, albeit currently a lot for test servers or departemental learning servers. There are others: Dokeos in Belgium, ILIAS in Germany (scorm certified even!), Atutor in Canada, ... But maybe the one with the biggest corporate endorsement behind it is Sakai, a Java based open source LMS.

You'll find a lot of open source software for learning on the web or even on this blog. Just have a fair look at what open source software can mean for your smart cut.
Some more I recently discovered:
- http://pachyderm.nmc.org/: Pachyderm is for web-based authoring of multimedia presentations.
- http://www.salasaga.org/ : Salasaga is an open source authoring tool for making application simulations e-learning.

Oh, and there is even open content too! MIT started to put its content openly on the web. (See MITOpencourseware) Why can't industries not do that? Do all car manufacturers need their own modules on basic engine stuff? Do all banks need their own version of how to calculate the value of options? But maybe I'm dreaming now...

The smart cut: Check.point article on learning in a tightening economy

Checkpoint learning today published an article entitled 'Technology enabled Learning in a Tightening Economy'. Here are some cuts I made from the article:

"For such a young industry as ours, we’ve had more than our fair share of ups and downs. But this time, we may be able to defend ourselves." : true, for a young industry we had our swings, but hey, that's what it means to be in business today. Things are more volatile and prone to go to extremes than ever before. It's a new given. Don't know who showed it at Online Educa, but the number of days the stock market grows or shrinks more than 4% has gone through the roof the last years.

"If we can demonstrate that the value delivered by learning technologies can navigate an organisation through troubled times, we may have less to fear than ever before. The problem is that when it comes to the value we create and the benefits we deliver, our industry has on the whole failed to present a unified, clear, and above all business-driven case." : all too much true. And ROI is not necessarily the best way to prove your value. Just prove if with real evidence, not hippie talk. There was an interesting talk about evidence of learning on Learning 2008 by Doug Lynch.

But the reason I am mentioning the article here is their view on the 2 agendas that go on at the same time:

"The efficiency agenda" – use technology to deal with similar learning challenges as previously, but cut cost and time
"The effectiveness agenda" – use technology to add value in a way only new technologies can; to address learning and performance challenges in new ways

And then they go on with a nice table with examples of both. But hey, you can read for yourself. Key point for the smart cut: work both on efficiency and effectiveness.

The smart cut - calling the learning field to think about it

Hello fellow learning professional!

It's all around us: in the newspaper I read about car and steel plants that stop production for a few months. My bank is still there, but others are not. Germany and other leading economies are officially in recession. So what will 2009 bring for learning? It's the economy, stupid!

In the last weeks I had the privilege to hear many people talk about their views on the impact of this crisis. Some are in denial, think it will not happen to them, think they'll sweat it out, think they are untouchable as Iceland. Some predict the end of the capitalist industrial age. Some don't know. Here are a few of the mixed messages:

- I read in a poll amongst Belgian employees they still expect a raise next year, crisis or no crisis.
- Jay Cross says: First off, be aware that the magnitude of the financial meltdown is almost beyond comprehension. ... We are witnessing the final meltdown of the industrial economy.As in other tough economic times, training budgets will be cut. That’s a given. But I can foresee training departments being eliminated almost entirely. And I fully expect a third of more of the corporations in our audience today will be re-engineered, chopped up, overtaken, and dismembered beyond recognition by this time next year.
- Clive Shepherd agrees: In this situation, for learning and development professionals to be fussing too much about the needs of a new generation of learners would be like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. First let's deal with the iceberg.
- Most learning chiefs don't expect their budget to get cut.
- Lucy Kellaway predicts the year of the CFO in the Economist. The financial manager will gain influence over all others, and many CEOs might be replaced by people with a financial background. The war on talent will not be the key topic of 2009.

So there seems to be a crisis arriving, but we are unsure on how long it will take and how deep the impact will be and if we need to act. But understand this: HR and learning departments will be asked to cut. History has its way of showing that.

So I would say DON'T do anything of the following: deny, hide, berry your head in the sand, wait until the storm is over, fear, wait for the ax to fall, do business as usual, ...

I would recommend the learning industry to take the ax in its own hand, and cut smart. Because that is our duty: to make sure we don't blindly cut but do it smart. Actually, with the 'opportunity' of this crisis, and the demographic shift, and our understanding on how adults really learn most (no, it's not through formal classroom training), and advances in collaborative technology this is a great moment to cut learning right.

This is a call to all people involved in learning to help think about the smart cut.
I know you are all busy, but any ideas?

the smart cut

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Masie survey on how employees learn

The Masie Consortium did a survey on how employees learn. You can read some findings here:

http://www.masieweb.com/voicesurvey


Some of the points I remember are:
- People like the fact they have multiple options on what, how and when they learn. There used to be only a class. Now there is also tutoring, e-learning, social networks, the internet, etc.
- But people also get the feeling that with more options, they actually get less time for learning.
Looks like corporate learning is shifting to 'more freedom but in your own time'.