Evolution and the art of relevance

I was having a conversation about relevence the other day, and the better part of me pointed out that for our generation, we have done nothing but be relevant in our time. Moving through every stage of digital and beyond, or to be even simpler (for the benefit of those that followed) heck we even lived without mobile phones.

If I put this into context of my corporate L&D journey, it's a significant shift in education and workplace learning. One that hasn't just adopted technology but a generation that successfully bridged the gap between digital and analogue (albeit how many of you still say you tape a programme on your SKY telly box?) L&D have been pioneers of continuous development, not just learning how to use it, but unskilling and reskilling to continually evolve. In school I used overly thumbed copies of books and scribbled notes in jotters, my kids got iPads. In corporate I started writing content on acetate sheets before PowerPoint was a thing. Learning life in my early career was a largely static landscape where information was scarce (and fingers were covered in ink from editing training for overhead projectors) Then came the internet, mainstream personal computing and not forgetting inventing "learning in the flow of work" as we learned how to use email, use the web and access essential tools for knowledge work. This laid the ground work for the subsequent digital education and training.

To stay in the game, L&D had to be ahead of the curve to remain relevant. We were drivers of digital learning adoption, championing the LMS and other e-learning platforms and toolkits in recognition that the speed of business required scalable digital alternatives to costly and time consuming classroom training, looking for ways to blend the approach and cut time to competence.

Today, at this time. L&D is at it again, as technology evolves from digital delivery to intelligent learning systems. Having mastered the "how" (technology of delivery) we are now focusing on the "what" and "when" (personalised and on-demand).

So lessons from this old Gen X'r. When people talk about L&D getting a seat at the table as a more strategic player, or old timers remaining relevant, look at the career/function arc in the last 25+ years.  It's been opening the doors and letting people into the meeting room, demonstrating that continuous improvement and upskilling is essential. It's driving the corporate investment into AI powered tools that offer personal pathways, feedback on demand and adaptive content. Moving away from one size fits all.

As organisations are looking to relevance in their marketplace for customers, they could do well to take lessons from Generation L&D where unlearning and relearning is the Imperative. The willingness of L&D to personally reinvent is a powerful example for all areas of the corporate landscape. If there is a key insight that can be taken for business it's that despite what they may think. L&D isn't just there to serve the consumers of learning. They are crucial change agents, who not only understand the full spectrum of learning from it's rigid pre-digital past to the flexible, AI driven future, but they possess the institutional knowledge and digital fluency to guide organisations through the phases of technological disruption. Their deep understanding of educational transformation is critical to maintaining a competitive, adaptable workforce.

This rant has been brought to you by too much coffee and the touchy topic of relevance.

P.S.....if you'd like to see NoteBook LM's new video feature take on this click here 

Let the Chickens Run the roost.

Panic in the Chicken Coop yesterday

I set a challenge on LinkedIn earlier. In a desire to pick up the pen and write (okay type) a new blog post I asked for a topic that anyone would like That Learning Dude to give some treatment to. It shouldn't have surprised me that one of the responders would stretch it a little .........and stretch he did........but the killer touch was still to come.......pick a movie I said...........he picked Chicken Run.......CHICKEN RUN !!!!!  I thought he was a mate......Okay so I have often said that you can make a connection between any two things regardless of source but Chicken Run with the thoughts around dynamic role profiles and L&D !!! stretching to say the least...............then I thought as i do........sit down at the back Brown !!!! There will be no running about headless today.

So the challenge was actually quite interesting, What if there was no such thing as a traditional role profile but just a bunch of skills and knowledge. Would an adaptive learning approach truly benefit a flexible approach to work........I think the term that was used was having free range staff........free range....FREE RANGE !!!! I get it now.......hey....that starts the ball rolling :-)

Okay.....time to set the scene. The traditional career path has in some respects been dwindling for a number of years and more often than not the one company career is a thing of the past. Not to say it doesn't happen but ambitions and desire to succeed does not always come quick enough for some and the next role is often seen elsewhere. In part when we dig deeper we find opportunity is restricted by role profiles which are very static and inflexible with development focused on improving performance rather than teaching new skills.

So how can we change the way we work or approach careers to better serve the business needs through learning and development?..............We can start with the coop.

If you have never watched Chicken Run the long and short of it is that there is a business that is seeking to improve profits. The egg business is not the cracking income generator it once was. A lot of this could be down to the fact the the business is run like a prison camp, restrictions are placed on the very freedom that the chickens desire and each chicken is responsible for some very challenging targets........wait is this the plot or real life?.............The role that the chickens play is under great threat and the owners of the coop have set their sights on a new direction, that of automation and Chicken Pies...no... it's no yolk !

The only chance the chickens have for survival is to escape and seek new challenges and fulfilment elsewhere but there is one sticking point, they can't just fly over the fence, for one...they can't fly and two.......nobody has ever taught them how to do it........all the training if it ever existed has pointed toward one thing.....laying eggs......the role profile says so....chickens must lay eggs....and the more they lay the higher the target goes and a dip in morale occurs.

Now teaching a chicken to get over a fence presents a challenge, it has never been done before and they can't fly so they have to come up with a plan and one night the unofficial leader of the chickens (Ginger) is amazed to see Rocky (a Rhode Island Red rooster if you must know) fly over the fence albeit before crash landing and breaking his wing, around the same time she finds a flyer with Rocky soaring over the skies and offers to hide him from the evil owners as long as he teaches them to fly. he reluctantly agrees because he knows the truth behind his skills but goes ahead and starts to teach the chickens some (pretty useless) exercises in preparation for the big escape. As the story goes on, it becomes one less of individual characters and one of collaboration and innovation as the team combine to sabotage the Chicken Pie machine, thwart the factory owners chicken pie enterprise and escape to freedom in a makeshift plane..........yes they build a plane.....what's so unusual about that?

Okay.....so that's Chicken Run.....but where does it stand alongside the original question? Well...... If we start of the thought around the lack of traditional role. More with less, that's what they say and the only truly way to have that is with an increase in "skills"flexibility and this can be gained through some sort of rapid knowledge intervention. There is no longer the requirement to read war and peace before taking on a task. All you need is bite size chunks of information to give you enough to start the task and the rest you can learn on the job as you go, gathering data, learning from mistakes running your role in an agile way. This flexible approach provides a new level to an organisation, one that is adaptive and responsive to business needs. Deploying the resource to meet demands. This approach will result in true collaboration between individuals. Given the pace of the workplace these days we need to come up with ways in learning and development to create our own Matrix chair, capable of deploying rapid interventions as and when required. All this should be done in a way that recognises that technology is no longer a thing, but a behaviour.

In the case of the chickens they needed a solution and Rocky brought a different dimension, sure he couldn't fly but his experience and knowledge of the other side of the fence helped them to see that there was a way out. Adding this to the skills of others they escaped in that plane ( big slingshot) to open their own chicken sanctuary, free to roam the range.

You will never look at an egg again in the same way :-)

That Learning Dude

@LearningXDude

Dirk the Daring taught us more than you think.....or did he?

'

It's 1983 and an Orwellian future is only a matter of months away from where big brother would be watching.....but instead it is us that is watching...videos....lots of videos, probably a rental every couple of days and I am in the video store in my home town.

As a spotty teenager I was there for one thing and one thing alone........nope....not what you are thinking, I am not interested in the videos behind the counter in brown paper, or the display cases and ex rental for sale bin.

I am interested in the big gun......a laser disc....one encased in a cabinet of joy and the one they call. Dragons Lair. Oh yeah did I deposit a coin or two in that thing !! Dragons Lair was created by ex Disney Animator Don Bluth and revolved around the central character of Dirk The Daring and his quest to save the princess from a badass dragon. It didn't matter that it took ages to load between scenes, or how frustrating it was getting off that falling disc at the wrong level but this was just a beautiful piece of storytelling which let you learn from your mistakes and master the right moves to progress......okay it was fairly simple stuff....left, left....up...right...jump......but it was fun and engaging yet still click = next.

Fly on 10 years and I am working as a video games buyer for HMV, shipping games for the next generation (oh and they were) of consoles such as the Sega CD and the 3DO.......oh yeah next generation retro heaven.. The latter being the brainchild of EA Games founder Trip Hawkins. The concept was great for this system, it was really about opening up development to designers but while some titles were highly regarded it had its fair share of dead ducks because most of them were effectively just interactive movies with the same kind of game play used in Dragons Lair which as I had come to realise was pretty awful and so did the consumer as the console and its titles bit the dust.

The main reason behind this was that while the technology made it possible to create the experience it was badly produced and actually a good example of how video should not be used. If they had spent half as much time on the game play rather than trying to recreate a Hollywood epic then perhaps it would have evolved.....but it didn't and soon video was confined to rare appearances in special editions do trivial pursuit (p.s. Unless you are really, really......REALLY into Lord of The Rings never buy that version) and yay it came to pass that gaming and video didn't have any where to go......Dragons Lair is holed up in a garage somewhere and anyone with a 3DO etc is just waiting for Antiques roadshow in 2093 to bring it out of retirement..

So why am I on this subject, as fascinating as it is.......no it is !!

Well the other month at Learning Technologies I was all excited to see the next big thing but have to admit I walked away a little disheartened...again. You see for all the leaps and bounds that video and games have come on over the years what is still  missing is the experience that something like dragons lair gave you. It was connecting memory to action, it was feeling accomplished. So many companies are looking at video again and now games as a way of adding something else to learning but is it enough?

Games and gamification are adding something new, but .....and it is an opinion........but.....the first few examples I have seen just talk to the compliance hand and say "hey......want to add something exciting to your compliance training?.....want to make it more interactive?" Eh.....No I don't. I want Risk functions and the Regulators to wake up and admit to everything we have ever known  about mandatory training in that it adds nothing. At best a tick in the box at worst every reason that everyone has ever used that says eLearning is boring, dull, click, next and does nothing but numb minds........wooooo controversial??? Nope not really. 

Games do present a massive opportunity in learning but within the workflow. What if.....a game never ended. What if we created a manager second life which grows in line with a managers own personal development? What if a talent development programme had a game which tracked success, set challenges and awarded points as well as linking with a global network, pitting yourself against other leaders in other countries? Strategy games for directors, virtual contact centres set up in a call of duty type environment.....? Okay scratch that last one.....that's only when they ask you three simple "market research" questions about how many windows and doors you have in your house!!! 

Okay....so I am borderline ranting now....so I will get back to the point.......we need to stop thinking about games as an additional dimension to learning....that is why those interactive movie games never worked. You can't bolt a game engine on the side of a compliance module and think it makes a blind bit of difference. You have to build a game...that is all, do it well and people will learn from without being blatant about it.

Now who wants to build that leadership game?

That learning Dude

@LearningXDude

Fire walk with me......no Garmin allowed.

           

We got in the car and entered the destination to Gaynor our man hating Garmin sat Nav. I say man hating but I think really it just hates me. We have never got on. She never takes me the way I think she should go and shouts at me if I take a wrong turn. We both know where we want to be at the start and yet in most cases have a different route albeit I end up taking her way.

So we start the car and off we go. It was only a matter of a couple of miles that I suspected she was somewhat misguided and heading in the opposite way to where we should be going and yet despite this we kept switching left and right under her command or by now as I am calling her..... "that bitch" and yet still we stayed true to her course. Under these directions we kept on the same route for several miles, and despite being so sure we were heading to the wrong destination we continued waiting till the last moment to decide to change route.

We arrived at the right location about 30 minutes later after starting over again and it wasn't for about another 4 hours that this giant metaphor unfolded.

        

Two further journeys took place that night. One was a mere one step and the other about 6 steps. Each one presented itself with fear of not being able to compete the journey and each one without the help of anyone else, okay....so Gaynor had become Brian and he gave some instructions about where we wanted to be but only one person could complete the journey, only one person had the vision and route in mind and only one person could say this is the way to go.

Both journeys were very different. 

With the first journey you can get a real sense of the pain it can take to make small leaps of faith. There can be a lot of pressure to step forward, even a single small step can present itself with a big challenge but getting past that first step has great reward and you can shatter fear.

         

With the second journey we upped the steps.......and the heat......by a few hundred degrees no less but now under the belief that it's not the journey that is the challenge but the fact it's you that starts it and with that we could easily stroll across the fire.....and stroll we did, one by one and Noah style two by two :-)

                              

So what of the original journey? Well I may not like to admit it but Gaynor set us up  for all that was to follow that night. You see, life is all about direction and she merely wanted to prove the point. A lot of what travels around with us just now is all about who is going to get you where you want to be. You have many different opinions that are given to you. In most cases a lot of people give direction in good faith and while you might get to the right place in the end it will not be without twists and turns that are outwith your control. If you truly believe you are going the wrong way, don't wait too long and don't be afraid to turn around. The more you do this the less you rely on others, the more you do it you will realise that that first step is short and any pain associated is only temporary. 

It pains me to say it but Gaynor did me a favour........albeit at the cost of her job. Next time I will use my own map, go find yours.

@ThatLearningDude

That first day of school feeling

Yay it comes to pass that after 6 or so weeks of terrorising parents, grandparents, shoppers and pool attendants alike that my kids returned to school and nursery from the summer break. Whilst both were cool calm and collected on Tuesday night the stark reality of returning or starting school can be daunting and reacted to in different ways, fear, terror and apprehension are nothing new to parents. Thing 1 was up at 5:30am !!!!! proclaiming that he was so excited to be getting back and seeing all his friends and looking forward to meeting his new teacher. Thing 2 was starting a different session at nursery and had no idea which group, colour, animal or teacher would be waiting but like any other 3 year old cared not a jot for it because hey....there would be paint, sand and toast....what else is required? 

Worth noting that neither child came home after having their head flushed down a toilet, which is good but seems strange as it always happened to me???

Starting a new job is equally as daunting  but the right mindset and preparation should take away some of the fear.......just some of it :-)

So sit back and relax as That Learning Dude takes you through some advice to make joining your new place as comfortable as possible......................P.S. if you have some time, stick on the kettle, I may prattle a bit.

Say hello and let the world know you're here !!

Okay so I am not for one minute suggesting that you burst into song and announce your arrival like an extra in the sound of music (although if you do let me know and I'll grab some popcorn and front row seats) but saying hello costs nothing. Who is in your team / your peer group and how will what you do impact on them? Make a point of understanding them and what they do. Soak up information on your first day, hopefully you will get introduced to everyone but sometimes the world moves so fast it is not always possibly so take some initiative.

Find a buddy.

A lot of organisations these days understand the benefit of having some form of buddy system in place for new joiners. In most cases this person will be the seasoned pro, the grizzled performer (not to be confused with the person dribbling in the corner). This well traveled friend will know the place back to front. They can help you with an understanding of the culture, things to avoid on the canteen menu and in some cases help you with the politics or do's and don'ts. The kind of person that if you had to ask how to turn on your laptop using the big red power button that says press here to turn on, wouldn't bat an eyelid or check through the recruitment pack to see who hired you.

Great Expectations.

Read great expectations, this masterpiece by Charle

Find out what is expected of you? How will you fit in the team / organisation and what role will you perform. Where can you add value? Who will you connect with in the business. In some cases these expectations may be set out in your induction programme but it is vital you start the process as you mean to go on. Be it 30, 60, or 90 days set your self tasks and challenges to align with these expectations.......great huh?

Canteen and break etiquette 

Depending on where you work, a vital part of the culture will inevitably be linked to food and drink. Scope out (maybe ask your buddy) what happens in the event of a tea run. I'll admit it, That Learning Dude knows how the process works in his office but rarely does a tea run, I'm ashamed to say it as much as I'm not. Reason being it can be terribly territorial and vary from office to region to country (although I recommend South Korea, certainly when I worked there we drank coffee and ate cookies on a bi-hourly basis ). A gentle ask for "who would like a cuppa?" can result in a flood of responses from hot water to hot water with milk to cappuccino, latte and my personal favourite....just a tea with a dash of milk ! Joking aside the critical part is understanding things like how often are the fridges cleared out, why does Liam label his milk touch this and I will find you and I will kill you as well as any kitty or rota operated in the team. Canteens can be smaller than you expect for hundreds of staff, think about what the busy times are and if popping down for two mins to get a bottle of water at high noon is a the best plan

Knowledge is power. 

What made you join? Find out as much as you can about your organisation to help you in your role. It could be that you are joining a business that is diversified across multiple channels for example a retailer owning a bank (what are the odds?) and however diverse their portfolio is they will share common purposes and goals. Understanding how it fits together and the history and origins of the company can help you to understand the culture more effectively, after all a tin of beans and a credit card may not appear to have synergy but they are both products, created, marketed and sold using similar processes (as long as you don't confuse them and try to pay for something with the beans......although I sold my cow to a bloke once for some, mum wasn't happy).

You will be bombarded with info

Information overload, can't live with it but being fair can't live without it. You should fully prepare for this arming yourself with whatever you need to remember as much information as possible and start to get yourself into a routine for how things will work going forward. Getting into sync early with how to structure your day can only benefit you in the long term

Network off and online if you wish

Just as you announce your arrival in the office it is also important to consider how else you can network and collaborate together with colleagues. What is the social scene? Being part of a community is vital to the success of any organisation and it could help you to settle in a new location more effectively. Do people go for a run at lunchtime, is there a volunteering programme, how can you sign up for charity events and what is the social media policy? You should never join or connect just for the sake of it, make sure it fits with who you are and not just who you think others would want you to be.  If you are required to build an external network with suppliers find out what ways people do this. It could be that you have to update profiles on Linked In and Twitter etc or create new profiles to reflect your role. All of this should be done in conjunction with social media and other reflective policies operated in the business.

So there you have it, That Learning Dudes whizz around the new workplace. It's not really rocket science.....unless you are joining NASA and then technically it is. Be yourself, it's why they hired you. In some ways it is still a little like school, college or university. There will be challenges, some pitfalls, laughs and in some cases tears........mostly when you find the fridge has been cleared out but most of all the fact you are reading this means that more than likely you made it through those institutions and survived. 

Thanks for reading.....P.S Give me your lunch money or you're getting it.

That Learning Dude @LearningXDude

Are we really like the Walking Dead?

I had a dream the other night....an old school sheriff in a sleepy town woke up from a coma into a post apocalyptic world and found a world overrun by zombies.....at least I think they were zombies.....well.....when I say zombies what I really saw was that everyone wandered around, heads down with faces in a plethora of smartphones, tablets and kindles. This group of biters were oblivious to anything and everyone....well unless you you managed to bump into one and they devoured you.....wait, that wasn't right.....eh....ooh...I know !! I know !! now I remember, they devoured your bandwidth and fed off free wi-fi. In amongst this story our sheriff journeys along collecting a band of survivors who face a series of dilemmas as they battle this dangerous epidemic of the modern world, yes......the zombie overlords of the ministry of education !!!

So lets go back to earlier that day ....as with most ideas and thoughts that bubble up on my head, I am on the train. and like any other day I am reading my newspaper.........(just like the terribly social people of yesteryear in the picture) and an article that makes me think is all about the shadow education minister saying children need to be taught attentiveness skills to help combat the influence of social media. Children "need to learn the ability to concentrate for sustained periods, especially in today's world" was the exact quote that caught my eye........especially the part about today's world. What exactly is he meaning by today's world? If you look at that picture again, this was the world of today back then. A time without mobile's, emails, laptops, tablets and so on and so forth. To them, yesterdays world presented challenges with the age of automation, refrigeration and conversation. Simpler times.....perhaps...but do our children face anything different?

Now I might add at this point that while reading my newspaper, I checked Facebook, Twitter and oh yeah......quickly jotted some notes down on Blogger.....a multi- tasking skill of the digital age that I have taught myself over the years.

Now, back to the original quote about today's children. "Concentrate for sustained periods", especially in today's world. I don't deny or oppose the idea that there is a need to shift some educational goals but once again the soft and easy target is Mobile and Social Media. The point that seems to be missed although blatantly obvious to everyone else is that today's world has evolved.....and us with it. So what is it that the ministers and shadow ministers don't see?

A comment I heard the other week made things very clear to me, there is a need to teach kids analogue just like we had to learn digital. It is therefore critical in my opinion is that we have to approach it in a manner that is appealing to youngsters. Education has to be in touch with how they like to learn. To target social media and mobile technology as the problem is hardly going to stop them from putting the tech down and picking up a book but you could use it?

How cool would it be if we built elements of the curriculum online? How much more engaging could you make homework if you introduced gamification? and how about awarding badges as a reward for homework? These are things that are already out there, so cost implications aside why hasn't it happened? Let's be honest, like the zombies....the kids would bite.

One of the finest examples of how out of touch they may be is the talk of increasing the number of hours on the curriculum for Greek and Latin !! I agree, it is important to teach the classics and I still rate them amongst my favourite classes at secondary school but it must be relative and the opportunity to use technology would open the subject up to greater potential as well as engaging the yoof of today?

The classroom has changed, not the kids and are we really wanting to stop them using technology? Be it tablets of yesterday or tablets of today we need to provide the tools of engagement but out of touch politicians are not the only ones to get in on the act. I was reading another article which spoke of the link between ADHD and mobile/social use. It seems a 66% spike between 2000 & 2010 could but isn't attributed to a more people being diagnosed, could but isn't attributed to a greater number of kids being tested at parents request but like the other easy option they cite that the reason is probably linked to a generation being addicted to dopamine fuelled online activities such as emails, testing and social media! I always see this as a cheap and easy target  but what makes me smile in all of this is that the writer would probably not have the career they have today without the very thing they attack, given their huge Twitter following, frequent TED talks and other avenues of self promotion. There is one final thing before getting back on track, the recent neknomination furore. How simple was it for people to blame social media rather than the lack of alcohol awareness education?

Kids aren't zombies, although they do have an insatiable appetite to learn and in a way that they want and it's our job to feed them. If we always blame what they embrace then there will only ever be one outcome.

The task for the education ministry, is to concentrate on one thing.......how difficult can that be?

That Learning Dude @LearningXDude

Learning Technologies 2014 - Day Two - Neuroscience....makes you think !

'D

Okay, so given I woke up at 3:45am on the morning of Day One  at Learning Technologies I had hoped for a pleasant evenings sleep to provide me with plenty of energy for what Day Two had in store however, given the Copthorne Tara is located above the train tracks and the mini bar fridge (unopened boss) was encased in a cupboard that provided cavernous acoustics every time the fan switched on......about every 45 mins !!!! then I can assure you rested I was not. It was a welcomed sight though to see the coffee pots in the Olympia and I did stock up before heading in for the Day Two keynote speaker Beau Lotto provided a truly fascinating talk on perception, creativity and context :-) You can see a bit of what he talked about here on a previous TED talk. I wasn't sure initially what to think when he started the session with the words "anything interesting begins with doubt"  :-) but I really enjoyed this.

 So after some more coffee and the onset of a blast of energy, I headed downstairs to see what Sarah Bell (account director at City and Guilds Kineo) had to say about the work they had been doing for Compass Group. From the minute Kineo got together with City and Guilds I was curious what direction they would take, and idle curiosity led to a very pleasant surprise.

The Managed Qualification Service is a great piece of work which has great potential beyond its Compass journey. I loved the interface which looked fresh and engaging, food for thought indeed and something I do want to find more out about.

Next up was lunch......I know, you are beginning to wonder if I did anything else but this time it was with Brightwave together with Marks and Spencer. This was to look at their Heroes customer service blend which was designed to improve the knowledge in flowers as well as drinks and spirits.

Again, the interface was crisp and clean, a theme that was more than apparent among many of the platforms on offer over both days. The success of the programme is there for all to see and this is down to the blend it has on offer. I can see many opportunities to cross this over into areas in many sectors.

and yay it came to pass that time was pushing on and there was time for one last session before Gatwick was calling. So given this year I am looking to shoot some video for work i thought a trip to listen to Mark Copeman of 845tv . He give some pretty good tips for those starting out in video and this was followed up with a session by BP on the diversity programme they produced which is heavily video rich.

Video is certainly something I want to do more of this year but not in isolation and as a stand alone or replacement to workshops etc. I intend to integrate into all learning areas, pre, post and within our programmes. Much to do ands much to think about.....can't believe it took me a week to finish this....hey oh, off to watch some Winter Olympics. ......might be something else to write about in there :-)

@LearningXDude