The Gig Economy is a thing. What I mean here is that there are an increasing number of companies using independent contractors instead of employees. And, there are complex and limiting constraints about how you can work with these folks. Most importantly, you can’t require them to take training! So, what can you do? In […]

In our increasing drive for data, we’re inclined to want to know more information from people. The move is to evidence-based decision-making. And, increasingly, we have tools that make it easy. Surveys are one powerful tool. You likely have a feedback capability built right into your LMS or if not, you can use a third-party […]

As do most articles in the L&D space, I frequently talk about what we should do. And, it occurred to me, that I could (and should) also talk about what we shouldn’t do. So here’s my list of things to avoid. There’s no claim that this list is comprehensive, but it is grounded in a […]

I’ve a personal mantra that you have to generate a lot of ideas to get a collection of good ones. It’s somewhat of a joke, as I like to believe I have lots of good ideas, but it’s also true. Since systematic creativity isn’t an oxymoron, there are practices we can use to increase the […]

Of late, I find a number of my posts are about taking down silly articles. And, I find that the claims are increasingly irritating. Now this probably isn’t new, I’m just more ‘sensitized’, but I see some recurrent themes, and I think it’s worth thinking about what they’re doing and what you should watch out […]

The buzzword of the year might be ‘learning experience’. We’re seeing the concept of LX, or learning experience design, rise from idiosyncratic to mainstream. People don’t just want learning events, they want experiences. It sounds good, but to paraphrase Gertrude Stein, is there any ‘there’ there? To put it another way, while learning is clearly […]

Introduction Dealing with customers successfully is a critical skill for an organization, yet developing these abilities is not a given. And for organizations that face high employee turnover, it’s even more challenging. How can you systematically develop and deliver great customer experience skills?  The principles behind human learning are still key. The nature of the […]

The environment for commerce is changing. Change is happening faster, and this impacts both expectations and ability. Customers expect that staff can provide answers ‘on demand’, and employees expect support in the moment. We’re moving learning to the workflow, and this has some important implications. Major factors include moving from learning beforehand to supporting in […]

From the perspective of Learning & Development, performance support and learning are very different things. One is to help succeed in the moment without learning, and the other is to achieve a new capability. But from our audience’s perspective, particularly in the flow of work or use, the distinction is less clear. They just want […]

“…today’s business schools are busy teaching and researching 20th century management principles and, in effect, leading the parade towards yesterday.” – Steve Denning I recently was asked to contribute to a survey on the ‘new leadership’ in business. Without going into too much detail on the source of the survey itself, as it's not relevant here, […]

In 1999, Pine & Gilmore released The Experience Economy. In it, they argued that our business models have gone from agricultural, to product, to service.  And they argued that the next transition was the ‘experience economy’. Here, people are focused on not one aspect of a product or service, so just the food at a […]

Among the many areas drawing interest of late is that of adaptive learning. Enabled by technology advances, we can now begin to change learning on the fly.  This can be a good thing, but it can also be used poorly, and can be a source of unnecessary confusion. The origin of adaptive learning really was […]

It’s easy, with all the buzz around new technologies, to get excited about the possibilities. We can imagine implementing machine learning, chatbots, Virtual and Augmented Reality, the list goes on. However, in the excitement of the potential new, we can’t forget the possible now. There are things that are of proven value, and yet aren’t […]

An important point of reflection for any field of endeavor, and members therein, is: where are we and where do we need to be?  The issue at stake is professionalism; what constitutes an appropriate basis for conducting ourselves as members of the L&D community?  It’s worth reflecting on what constitutes the necessary components of competent […]

As our news headlines trumpet questions about ethics in workplace behavior and government, it sparks reflection on our own industry. What are our responsibilities? What behaviors should we practice, or avoid? There are several stakeholders we have to keep in mind. First, there are our learners. They are in our hands and we need to […]

Modeling Decisions The world’s changing faster, and our ability to respond depends on our ability to adapt.  It’s become clear that what will make the difference for organizations will be the ability to make decisions quickly in the face of increasing ambiguity.  And I think the answer is mental models. My point is fairly simple: […]

At the recent Association for Educational Computing & Technology conference, Thomas Reeves addressed the topic of conation in his keynote. Conation is an idea that is relatively unknown, yet increasingly of interest. In short, it’s about one’s intention to act (and learn). And that makes all the difference. One of the persistent mistakes that we […]

In the early 80’s, I read an article calling for a cognitive engineering: designing systems that matched how our brains work. I was designing educational computer games at the time, and was struggling to find good guidance to choose between interface (and learning) alternatives. I realized that this was a field that really meshed with […]

At the dawn of the video recording age, a battle raged about the best standard to use: VHS or Betamax. In it, Sony came out with a better standard, but kept it to themselves.  Meanwhile, JVC’s VHS standard wasn’t quite as good, but they openly licensed it.  The outcome: VHS won. As Stephen Johnson tells […]

The skill sets of Learning & Development (L&D) are shifting. We’re seeing a rise in self-learning, with individuals searching for answers to meet needs in the workflow. We’re also seeing changes in learning needs faster than can be planned and prepared for (e.g. courses written for). And we’re seeing more ambiguous and unique situations. In […]

Artificial Intelligence (AI) – cognitive computing, machine learning, chatbots, etc – is hot. Everyone’s talking about it, whether hype (Watson does Dylan!), diligent consideration (where does AI fit in our strategy?), or ethical concerns (what about the jobs?). But some folks are already talking post-AI with a spin: it’s not about AI, it’s about IA. […]

Seven years ago, I was writing what was one of the first books on mLearning, Designing mLearning. I tried to abstract principles that were fundamental and would stand the test of time (and frankly think I succeeded), but given the dynamism of the mobile industry it’s time to explore just what has changed (and what hasn’t). […]

Of late, there's been a flurry of attention to the term 'microlearning'. You see it in magazine articles, conference talks, and of course vendor ads. And it has been portrayed as everything from the latest fad to the solution to all ills. The real task is to first separate the wheat from the chaff. Just […]

There are two obvious ways to be a revolutionary (Learning & Development) L&D manager: you’re hired to lead the change, or you decide to take on the charge internally.  This could either be that there really hasn’t been an L&D group (maybe just a training group), or there’s a pre-existing group.  Regardless, I think the […]